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DanArmak comments on Stupid Questions May 2015 - Less Wrong Discussion
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Cost. Wind/wave/solar energy is more expensive than fossil-fuel or nuclear energy to start with, and adding not-too-efficient storage mechanisms to even out the supply does not help it at all.
Really, the answer to most questions of this kind is "cost". It is the default and usually correct answer.
Doesn't the energy grid need good storage anyway, to even out differences between day and night?
If it were cheap enough, maybe, but at the moment the demand fluctuations are covered by power generating plants which come online in times of high demand (e.g. day) and shut off during low demand (e.g. night). Typically these plants burn natural gas.
Sufficiently cheap storage would be very useful, yes.
Actually, pumped storage hydro is used for the purposes than DanArmak describes; see my post elsewhere in this thread.