alt Hacker NewsStoring a month of energy use doesn't make any sense when it comes to renewable grids. Since you don't have to mine/extract and transport an inventory, far far less storage is required.
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Which just emphasises the point -- density and thus land use isn't really a major concern
You could store an entire years worth of energy (not just electricity) for a fairly dense country like the UK and still have 95% of the country left for other usage.
Doesn't that depend on the sources of energy though? Pretty much constant short and mid term supply like geothermal, hydro, tides, etc vs unpredictable or variable in the short term like wind and solar.
As a society relying on solar, I'd want to have more of a buffer than one that relies on hydro.
you don't want industry going down coz there has been bad weather for few days in a row. And other alternative is burning gas.
If we want to get out of fossils, we will have to store for longer. Or built a ton of atomics
A month is probably excessive, but there are large regions of the world where its not uncommon for both solar and wind power to be running at <5% for multiple weeks in a row.