Ah, honest mistake, lithium (not rare earths) is the metal that the US doesn't have a sufficient stockpile of. The rest of the point should still stand though, essentially having an energy grid that can react to supply shocks.

And lithium isn't needed for solar either. Lithium is used in one variety of storage, but there are thousands of different battery chemistries, and many different non-battery energy storage technologies. The "it can't do it" argument needs to show that they ALL fail, alone or in combination. That's a very tall order, especially when some storage technologies use cheap materials like steel and rocks.