Yes.

Solar only works year-round in the tropics and subtropics. In the temperate midlatitudes, you get a big drop off in winter so either you overbuild solar capacity to compensate and curtail hard during peak summer insolation (shitty economics, won’t fly) or you build out wind and rely on that when seasonal solar output is low.

But if you do that, wind and solar eat each other’s lunch in the summer, which is more bad economics and puts a hard upper limit on the level of investment likely available for wind capacity.

Let’s say somehow you get it built though. If you rely on wind in the winter then it must be backed up against multi-day, regional / national scale lulls – which do occur, irrespective of what some maintain. LiION batteries are okay for smoothing transient variability – up to a few hours – but emphatically not for the thousands of GWh necessary to substantially take over from a regional / national scale wind fleet for days. The only way of doing that is very large scale PHES, which will be extremely expensive and take decades to build (hence the pushback against the ‘70% with no storage’ crap).

But constantly people witter about ‘cheap storage’ – heedlessly glossing over the fact they’ve confused very short term battery storage with the multi-day backup necessary to powering a developed economy with a very large W&S component in its energy mix.

You said it was going to be extremely difficult. That to claim otherwise was “knowing nothing”.

It will be extremely difficult, and to peddle the idea that it will be a piece of cake isn’t just ignorant, it’s dangerous.

Jacobson and Delucci have published numerous peer-reviewed studies showing that we can do better than 80%, we can do 100% on a slightly longer time-frame. 100% not deep enough decarbonization for you?

Everybody is wrong except BBD, is that it?

You’ve already tripped over yourself horribly on this. Why on earth are you doubling down? Try reading the sources you cite instead of shouting and flapping your arms.

I pointed you to Jenkins and Thernstrom as it is a literature review – in other words it brings together multiple published sources all of which contradict your nonsense claim. Do you not understand that you cannot build to 70% or 80% renewables without scaling storage as you go? Try reading the literature. So this rubbish you keep repeating about “we can do better than 80%, we can do 100% on a slightly longer time-frame” is totally beside the point. Which was that your claim of 70% renewables without storage is bollocks. Something you have yet to admit and walk back.

FFS, do some reading, starting with the sources you yourself are throwing around. From J&S17 (op cit):

The “100% wind, water, solar” scenario for the U.S. described in Jacobson, Delucchi, Bazouin, et al. (2015) and Jacobson, Delucchi, Cameron, et al. (2015) also envisions total energy storage with a power capacity that is two and a half times the current U.S. installed generating capacity, with a collective capability to store more than seven weeks worth of total U.S. electricity consumption. This is in addition to substantial power-to-hydrogen production and the capacity to store enough hydrogen to meet another 5-6 weeks’ of current U.S. electricity demand.

That storage capacity is cumulative. It is not all added at once when renewables exceed 70% of the energy mix.

What is it with people on the internet? Spout bollocks, won’t read, won’t accept it when their bollocks is shown to be bollocks, won’t STFU and learn…

Jacobson’s 2015 paper relies on increasing the maximum output of hydroelectric facilities by a factor of 16, without installing any new plants, and without increasing the nameplate capacity.

When this was pointed out by Clack and Caldeira, Jacobson sued them and the journal PNAS, claiming they ignored his explanations(authors thought he was lying after the fact) since withdrawn. You are then left with Jacobson’s followup that uses more solar storage. I’m not sure if anyone has taken a deep look at that one yet, but I suspect it has similar problems.

All of what I said.”

They are talking about 80% of energy, not 70%.

And just what did you say?

You said it was going to be extremely difficult. That to claim otherwise was “knowing nothing”.

The NREL study *you* just quoted says 80% by 2050 is achievable 24/7 with existing technology. 80% by 2050 not “deep decarbonization” to you?

Jacobson and Delucci have published numerous peer-reviewed studies showing that we can do better than 80%, we can do 100% on a slightly longer time-frame. 100% not deep enough decarbonization for you?

Everybody is wrong except BBD, is that it?

Or are you now dropping that point and arguing something else?”

Read it again. The second reference is not talking about supplying only 70% of our energy needs, it is talking about supplying more. There is nothing self-contradictory here.

As for your previous point about costs. That $1.5 trillion for FF’s is * per year*. Year in and year out. The question then, is how much would a brand new shiny 100% Re system cost the U.S.?

And the answer, incredibly (Twenty years of debate and you would think this would be the first question people asked, right?) , is we do not know for sure. Jacobsen and Delucci published a paper saying to 100% electrify California would cost $1.0 trillion dollars. California uses 1/6th of all American energy.

It will likely cost more than $6 trillion to 100% electrify the U.S., because California gets a LOT of sun. Let’s be conservative – let’s say it will take $10.0 trillion. That’s 6.66 years of current fossil fuel expenditures. That will buy a system where most of the components will last many decades. Wind turbines appear to have a 60 year lifespan. PV panels appear to have degradation rates that lead to 100+ years of useful life. They could be optimized for much longer lifespans.

At least one recent study showed that we would be saving $25 trillion by 2050 alone if we went 100% RE. And that, IIRC, doesn’t even consider medical savings, or the reduced costs of mitigation and adaptation.

One study of adaptation costs put the world-wide bill, merely until year 2100 at $1240.0 trillion. That is 1.24 Quadrillion bucks.

So, yeah, going RE is going to save us a ****ton of money.

Sheesh. You’re original claim was
“Multiple studies have shown that we could achieve 70% RE even without storage. ”
That second evidence you posted says storage in the link itself.
Perhaps you should try reading thru Jacobson’s before claiming it has no storage.

Or are you now dropping that point and arguing something else?

And you are pulling out excerpts that do nothing to contradict the various studies central claims nor to contradict my assertion of 70% Re without need of storage.

Nope. NREL is explicit about the need for storage. I quoted. Please, read.

All of what I said.

You are out of step with consensus.

Nope.

See previous comments and links.

And you are pulling out excerpts that do nothing to contradict the various studies central claims nor to contradict my assertion of 70% Re without need of storage. Good grief, you are trying to argue that J&D are scaling for 2018 demand in 2050? Absurd.

Right now there are 100 cities getting 70% of their electricity from RE without storage. German and Dutch grid operators doing the same. Studies have been done which say this could be done on a large scale.

But we don’t need to go without, since the cost of storage is falling about the same slope as the cost per watt of wind and solar. Every day that goes by, deep decarbonization becomes an easier and even cheaper proposition.

You are way too light on argument, and way too heavy on pompous insult. As ever. You are out of step with consensus. And such a thoroughly unpleasant character I daresay this blog must be one of your last allowable sanctuaries for posting.