In her video, Sabine Hossenfelder informs us that ‘dunkelflaute’ is the German term for when there is no wind and the sun is not shining.

There are a mind boggling number of new options for storing energy. These options go from new batteries, to gravity storage, to hydrogen and many more.

As Ms. Hossenfelder says, the problems with energy storage and the grid are that they add to the carbon footprint and are expensive (13:00) Ultra capacitors are $60,000 per kilowatt hours.

The main complaint about renewable energies is that some economies are not able to build the grid and storage that these technologies require. This is a considerable problem in a world where a billion people live without even access to clean water.

She also talks about the vast geological and environmental differences that we have in places around the world.

Kindly, she gives some broad estimates about the carbon footprints of renewables with energy storage compared with fossil fuel technologies. She has a great point that, even though energy storage has a high number, you only need them on rare days with long dunkelflaute.

• Wind is 30kg CO2/ mwh
• Solar is 65kg CO2/mwh
• Coal is 800kg CO2/mwh
• Natural gas is 500kg CO2/mwh

It should be noted that nuclear power is the clear winner; it does not produce much of any CO2.

There is a lot of information in the video, and on Just Have a Think’s channel. Have a look.