On battery cost you are looking at about $250 per kwh plus all the infrastructure to manage it. Australia currently uses about 600 gwh of electrical energy per day, so that equates to $150 billion per day of storage for the batteries alone. How long would the batteries last? Maybe 15 years?

I suspect that getting Australia's entire energy supply from nuclear would be less than the cost of the batteries for an erratic energy disaster.

From the ISP ( http://aemo.com.au/energy-systems/major-publications/integrated-system-plan-isp/2022-integrated-system-plan-isp ):

"Approximately 46 GW/640 GWh of dispatchable storage capacity, 7 GW of existing dispatchable hydro, and 10 GW of gas-fired generation is needed by 2050 to efficiently operate and firm VRE. By 2050, the most likely Step Change scenario would call for over 60 GW of firming capacity to be in place to respond to a dispatch signal."

Focusing on energy, the NEM presently consumes about 550 GWh/day (see https://www.aer.gov.au/.../annual-electricity-consumption... ). This would be expected to reach, say, 640GWh/day by 2050 just to meet a population increase and the present level of electrification (i.e. excluding EVs). The 640GWh of rechargeable storage touted is a drop in the ocean towards any inter-seasonal reliability. Even for intra-week variation it is wanting. (No doubt, 100% charge-storage-discharge efficiency is presumed even to get to that number).

We are seeking to electrify everything that moves, so why bother with this pathway that doesn't deliver zero-emissions by 2050, nor include the costs of inefficiencies, decommissioning, recycling and regular replacement of intermittents infrastructure?

For 320 billion we'll have 1 day of storage on the NEM (if we don't charge EV's), deep intermittent renewables penetration, and gas. That's far from a zero-emissions system, unless you really believe that level of storage is even remotely sufficient to span shortages from intermittents. You'd have to be a total dreamer not to see that we will be running a fossil-fueled system, no less than Germany, which has reverted to burning coal due to its gas shortage.

There's a belief that we'll all be running our home and EV from the EV battery. By 2050, IMO, we'll be getting around in driverless EV taxis and won't own cars. Whatever, distributed power seems like a great way to dissocialise the cost and distribution of electricity as it currently exists. The wealthy will always be OK, they're early adopters of batteries even before they make economic sense, but I'm not convinced that everyone else will be

640 gwh battery storage would be about a quarter of what would be needed, and no mention of how much erratic energy would be needed either. I guess it would be a hard sell if the battery backup was going to cost a trillion dollars, then everything else on top of that. Even at 12 billion dollars per gw, nuclear power could be provided for less than half the cost of a battery and last five times as long.

I am using renewable energy as I write. Not solar as it is raining, but but a nice fire with waste wood I have collected. Guess what? The greenie nutjobs want to ban my fire! Instead they want me to freeze with their erratic energy fantasy, supposedly warmed by the thought that I am saving the planet. Well it doesn't warm me at all!

Luciferase you did the same as all the proponents of renewables and
batteries do, you did not explain where and when you would get the
power to recharge the b$%%^^y things !
I can tell you, you need another complete set of renewables to
recharge the batteries !
Unless, the next day is overcast and windless then you need two more sets of batteries and renewables.

In other words as we have been saying adinfinitum it doesn't work !
Why cannot our betters see that ?

Bazz- Lefties keep pushing the same line- standard Communist propaganda tactics- hoping to distort reality- I think that shortly issues will show up as they start to replace battery packs- and resale values drop.

But this may not be about the environment at all- but about the Communists getting power.

Wealthy people often consider a car as a consumable replacing every five years- assuming that they will be able to sell it for north of $10k- I think they'll discover a different economics- then hopefully they'll see the Communist game.

Labor has form in making wild aspirational promises that are either contradictory or impossible to deliver.
- 43% emissions reduction by 2030,
- Lower electricity prices
- Stable power network
These are mutually exclusive pick one.