A Nov. 13 letter shows a profound ignorance of basic science in claiming that wind (or other renewable energy) cannot be stored when on the grid. I have battery backups for my computer that store power from the grid in the event of an outage. This alone proves the letter writer wrong on this point.
Basic science shows that energy can have its form changed. Electrical to heat, mechanical to electrical, chemical to mechanical, and all variations.
We can take excess generated power and convert it to heat (as steam, molten salts or other thermal mass), chemical energy (fuel cells or batteries or chemical fuel), kinetic energy (via flywheels), potential energy (pumping water uphill or compressing a gas) and then convert it back when generated power is low. This smoothes out the fluctuations from wind and solar and can provide reasonably stable power.
While current costs of these solutions is somewhat high, technology improvements are dropping these costs. Technologies like pumping water up a hill can also be used to create fish farms and other sustainable agriculture from the stored water.
In general, to all letter writers: You may have valid concerns and reasons for not wanting some kind of change, but please do not base your reasoning on bad science, bad statistics or studies and/or ignorance. This just harms us all and prevents rational discussions to resolve differences of opinions.
Andrew Smookler
Paia
