The end state of the grid is not a fifth solar backed by spinning generation, but twice the demand in solar with days of storage behind it.

Added to korrents 7 Sept 2026 · How quotes work · Something wrong? Tell us

Where this collides

• In tension with

  Europe cannot meet its energy needs from renewables alone and will need nuclear power, solar power from deserts elsewhere, or both.

  MacKay said Europe cannot live on its own renewables and needs nuclear, desert solar, or both. Handmer expects the end state to be roughly 200% solar generation with hours to weeks of battery storage and no spinning backup at all. Fifteen years and two cost curves separate them, and the thing MacKay held constant — that storage would stay expensive — is exactly what Handmer says changed.

Shared subject first, then similar wording. They may agree or disagree.

• Battery storage is becoming the defining transformative energy technology of the second half of the 2020s, as solar and wind were of the first half. BMBill McKibben13 Aug 2026solarenergybatteries
• Cheap clean energy has broken the old trade-off between raising living standards and cutting environmental harm. CHCasey Handmer11 Oct 2023solarenergybatteries
• Fusion and solar are the two energy sources worth betting on, and solar's limiting problem is batteries and transmission. DHDemis Hassabis23 Jul 2025solarenergybatteries
• Solar power has, broadly speaking, won the energy technology race because good, cheap batteries now make it reliable. NSNoah Smith3 Sept 2026solarenergybatteries
• A data centre powered by solar and batteries alone needs an array so oversized that the design is not worth building. AVAustin Vernon18 Apr 2024solarbatteries

On the map

Open the map on its own page