@MattMastodon @BrianSmith950 @Ardubal @Pampa @AlexisFR @Wirrvogel @Sodis IMHO reusing ex-EV batteries as grid storage may be more important in the medium term though.

@Ardubal @MattMastodon @BrianSmith950 @Pampa @AlexisFR @Wirrvogel @Sodis Short term storage already exists. So does wind, solar, at considerable (though inadequate) scale, and cheap (bottlenecked mainly by grid connection). Dynamic demand exists to some degree and so do interconnectors.

Lithium batteries exist at reasonable scale in other countries, notably 2.5GW on California’s grid. There are active trials of V2G but IMHO reasons to doubt how big a contribution it will be. Reusing EV batteries as grid storage exists at a small scale.

Nuclear power plants take forever to build, in recent experience in the UK. Even National Grid doesn’t believe the government’s promised 24GW of nuclear will be done for 2050.

There are uncertainties whichever way you go. So we need several strategies. However, it’s worth pursuing iron-air batteries and possibly hydrogen as well as nuclear. But arguably they are only needed for the last few percent anyway. And I will *not* accept any attempt to slow down installation of renewables in favour of nuclear.

Decarbonisation, in terms of electricity in the UK, has been achieved through both nuclear and renewables. Fossil fuels are down to 40% of total units generated.

Figures for the last year in the UK:
Source GW Percent
Coal 0.32 1.1
Gas 11.30 38.3
Solar 1.38 4.7
Wind 8.82 29.9
Hydroelectric 0.34 1.2
Nuclear 4.44 15.0
Biomass 1.49 5.0

Unfortunately nuclear plants are closing rather rapidly, and it will be some time before replacements are online.

PS IIRC there are plausible sources saying that you only need renewables equal to ~3x plus short term storage. Both aspects of this are technically feasible and proven today. But obviously it means more rare earths etc. More nuclear, or more long term storage, or more interconnectors etc, reduce the cost.