So it’s real simple. We automate the production and and streamline the installation of solar and wind turbines. The math says we can produce 100% of all energy needs this way, at least in countries with large geographic areas and a temperate desert biome, like the United States.
So that keeps the electric grid energized during the day and on windy nights. What about on calm nights and cloudy, calm days? Well, for immediate buffering, you mass produce…in a really big factory…lithium ion batteries. There are other grid scale battery technologies being researched, but currently this is the least expensive.
That stores enough power for the next few hours. You don’t try to store more than that, batteries suck.
So what now? How do you handle the tail end of the demand : supply curve, where demand exceeds supply? Part of the solution would be time of use power pricing, though unfortunately this is very abusable. Prices for energy could go up and down with how much wind and solar is produced at a given instant.
The other part of the solution is of course natural gas backup generators. Generators designed for peaking loads - so all piston engines. Modular, mass produced somewhere cheap kind of deals.
Well, that’s no good. That’s not 100% renewable, the methane is coming from the ground and adding CO2 to the atmosphere.
So the last piece is you over-install the solar by a lot. (easy to do if you can paint glass with the right compounds). And you use the excess production to electrolyze water. Only at peak times, during the day, the extra energy not being used by the grid or to charge batteries, it’s going into industrial scale electrolyzers. The hydrogen is stored compressed temporarily, then combined with CO2 to produce methane for long term storage, since hydrogen tends to leak out of any tank.
You use the resulting methane as a long term energy buffer. It’s more expensive than natural gas is today, but not after the carbon taxes (the producer gets a carbon credit equaling the tax since they get the CO2 to make the methane from the atmosphere). And high performance vehicles and large ships use the liquid methane as a fuel source.
Obviously, all the rest of the cars are electric, airliners and rockets use liquid methane, and biodiesel is used in small quantities for range extending engines, legacy aircraft, etc. (since it is easier to store than methane)
Maybe to some of you this is obvious, but this is the first time I’ve realized that an end to end, 100% renewable solution does exist.