There are a few excuses favoured by the anti-renewables brigade whenever the topic of clean energy is raised:
What about the jobs in fossil fuels?
What about the impact it will have on the economy and the Australian consumer?
What happens when the sun goes out and it isn’t windy?
All could be properly dissected in an article of their own, but the latter question is of particular interest to me as, despite being phrased like a question you’d hear in a Year 4 science class, it’s not entirely unfounded.
Maximum renewable energy production typically occurs between 11am and 4pm, diminishing just as demand begins to peak between 4pm and 8pm. This incongruence can be offset through storing energy; the question is how? Enhancing storage capacity is particularly sensible given that energy companies already curtail renewables to avoid excess production. As…