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“The dramatic ramp up in solar resulted in the dramatic realization that a diverse, decentralized system can provide the same critical features that we think about with a baseload highly centralized system,” said Kammen. “Not tomorrow, but in the time frame that we need it, it’s absolutely there.”….

Ball summarized: ”So the argument is that rather than having yesterday’s no-carbon technology, which is a very centralized big generation technology, you think the world now has tomorrow’s no-carbon technology, which looks like a ballet of lots of different sources ready to go.”

In addition to batteries, compressed air storage is cost competitive, Kammen said, and flywheel storage can deliver power in sub-milliseconds. And in time, electric cars, buses and other vehicles will be used as a storage resource, he said. That’s a strategy China is pursuing and that Kammen has suggested the rest of the world consider, not in the next five years, but a bit later as these technologies develop and proliferate.

Meanwhile, small modular nuclear reactors won’t be ready in time to meet the grid’s needs, he said, and conventional reactors are too expensive.

“If you want to bet on a robust-basic-research to an applied-research-deployment category,” Kammen said, “that far favors the storage revolution than it does the nuclear revolution.”…… Silicon Valley Energy Summit , Forbes 5 June 16