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by ben_w 1304 days ago
> How do they deal with variability of all these renewables?

Page 4 of their linked policy primer has two options: https://www.rethinkx.com/s/Germany-SWB-Primer.pdf

3340 GWh or 6221 GWh storage.

> Where is all that storage going to come from?

Why do you think that's a useful question? Policy proposals like this are at the level of encouraging people to make fast-tracks for investments and passing planning permission for the factories to build the batteries and the mines to get their feedstocks; governments aren't generally even in the business of directly building the power stations themselves.

> Only realistic path is nuclear, but it'll take longer than 2035.

Not enough fissile fuel[0] for everyone to do that at western usage levels. And if you're talking that long, you can reasonably build out a global power grid, switching people from mining coal to mining metals, and the cost of making a grid of that scale is about the same (at current metal prices) as we currently spend per year on fossil fuels, give or take a factor of two.

[0] or at least, accessible fissile fuel; if you want to filter the oceans you get all the lithium you could want (and more other goodies like phosphate) as well as the uranium.