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Is Storage Necessary For Renewable Energy?
mdsolar writes Physicist and energy expert Amory Lovins, chief scientist at The Rocky Mountain Institute, recently released a video in which he claims that renewable energy can meet all of our energy needs without the need for a fossil fuel or nuclear baseload generation. There's nothing unusual about that — many people have made that claim — but he also suggests that this can be done without a lot of grid-level storage. Instead, Lovins describes a "choreography" between supply and demand, using predictive computer models models to anticipate production and consumption, and intelligent routing to deliver power where it's needed. This "energy dance," combined with advances in energy efficiency, will allow us to meet all of our energy needs without sacrificing reliability.
He's a physicist. He was just imagining the electrical grid as a perfect sphere on an infinite frictionless plane.
More wisdom from the Rocky Mountain Institute. Call yourself a scientist or an expert, call your tribe an institute, and someone will follow.
You are likely right. Electrifying transportation in the US gives us about half a day of average power consumption in used battery storage. So, while we probably don't need that much storage it may be considered so inexpensive that we'll use it all. To me, that means some awesome really big power draws, like a space catapult, will be easy to run.