[ben_w]

> Electrified highways solve the issue for Trucks.

In principle sure[0], but the devil is in the details with anything like this. You could also solve the intermittency of PV with a planet scale HVDC grid, much cheaper than batteries, but doing so would need a long time just to mine the metal ores out of the ground (someone asked me to do the math, and I did, it’s hiding somewhere in my comment history).

[0] of course Tom Scott did a video about this, in some ways he is the vlogger equivalent of xkcd: https://youtu.be/_3P_S7pL7Yg

[Retric]

The general solution to intermediacy is excess production. If you assume EV’s win, the batteries needed for that dwarf what you need for a Wind/PV/hydro grid.

[ben_w]

Sure, albeit with the exception of a few polar settlements. (IIRC, small thought those are, the required reduction in emissions is such that we do still need to care about them in aggregate).

Indeed, I expect the battery market to grow as fast as the factories can keep up, and for some fossil mining workers to switch to other minerals important for renewable power (not all of them, because we don’t burn the stuff when we’re done so demand ought to be lower when the energy transition is complete).

But the point remains that the details do matter. This stuff may, like code, even remain experimental until it’s obsolete.