[ncmncm]

"Plus fossil fuels" is, again, a markedly temporary situation. Numerous storage methods are still vying for which will end up cheapest. Batteries look like they will end up the most expensive, but easiest to field. Underground and underwater compressed air are being proved out. A GW-scale liquified-air system is coming online in UK. We will need efficient electrolytic H2 and NH3 processes anyway, and both are good for both storage and fuel.

So, burning LNG continues for a while because the equipment is already in place, and nobody wants to invest immediately in what might not end up the cheapest storage, or anyway is not yet nearly so cheap as it will shortly be when volume balloons.

Underground compressed air is compatible with existing LNG turbines. Liquified-air storage has useful side products. Fuel you will make anyway is a good storage medium too.

[Manuel_D]

Global battery production remains in the low hundreds of gigawatt hours annually. And only a small fraction of that is going to grid storage, in the single-digit gigawatt hours. Global electricity consumption is 60 TWh per day and continuing to rise. Alternatives like compressed air, hydrogen, thermal batteries, etc. still remain in the prototyping phase. Whether or not they prove to be viable is totally unknown.

We are going to be in this markedly temporary situation until we experience a miraculous breakthrough in energy storage that yields several orders-of-magnitude improvement. Breakthrough technology that's 10-20 years away often stays 10-20 years away for a lot longer than that.

[ncmncm]

Since we will not need to rely on batteries for utility energy storage, battery production capacity is no impediment to renewable grid storage buildout.

There are plenty of known viable storage methods, which you oddly omit all of except compressed air. There are no impediments to their implementation beyond simply scaling up; no new materials science, no new physics or chemistry, or industrial process barriers need to be solved. It is just not clear which will end up cheapest in each use environment.

Other, less mature technologies, e.g. electrically synthesizing ammonia and hydrogen efficiently, need to be developed anyway, and once developed, will also be incidentally useful for storage. Their independent industrial demand will drive fast improvement, so they may come to displace the others.

[Manuel_D]

There absolutely are impediments to implementation. Producing hydrogen efficiently through electrolysis demands very effective electrodes which we are still trying to develop, for example. We only know that these solutions ar hypothetically possible, not that they are viable. Let alone viable at scale. Let alone cheaper than existing options.

Until one of those storage methods actually becomes viable at scale, rather than in laboratories, we'll be burning fossil fuels.

[ncmncm]

You pivot again to hydrogen, which is not among the cheap, currently-viable alternatives being scaled.

[Manuel_D]

My point is that we've already been doing this: exploring various storage mechanisms and pivoting to ones that are more viable, to use your terminology. And so far two forms of storage have proven viable: pumped hydroelectricity and electrochemical storage (AKA batteries). Neither are available at the scale required. The market reveals what actually is viable. If these solutions you allude to are viable, then we should see people offering to build this storage at competitive prices

Will some technological breakthrough not only make these alternatives viable, but superior to existing storage by multiple orders of magnitude? Maybe, but a massive leap like that is not something we can depend on happening.

[ncmncm]

Again: No technological breakthrough of any kind is needed to make viable the alternatives I cited. (This must be why you repeatedly try to divert attention from those alternatives.) All that is needed is scaling up already thoroughly-understood engineering.

A GW-scale liquified air plant is now under construction in UK, after 100% successful pilot projects. Numerous underground compressed-air projects are running, successfully. Neither depends on even a single breakthrough.

Pumped hydro works, but only in certain places. Batteries work, but are expensive and compete with other uses. Alternatives cheaper than batteries are being fielded today. Until they are ready for full-scale use, NG generation is temporarily adequate. Its temporary use in no way invalidates wind-and-solar, backed by storage of a form to be determined, as a primary long-term energy source.

Multiple orders of magnitude is absolutely the norm for scale-up of mature technology, newly useful, like the examples cited. Pretending otherwise is disingenuous. Who do you imagine you are fooling?