Except we need to ban also the gas peaker, and suddenly calculations might show that a) storage isn't as easy b) a lot of locations might need overbuilding on ratio of 10x IF there was good storage c) that gas peaker is going to run quite a lot otherwise
We pull 700 million tonnes of oil out of the ground every year. The resources required to build a clean energy infrastructure is significantly less than that.
> have a massive footprint,
Powering the US with solar requires a smaller footprint than footprint of parking lots in the US. Wind is even less because while a wind farm is massive, it doesn't prevent the land from being used for other things.
> and just don't scale with on-demand needs during bad weather.
Hitting 99% renewables is straight forward. You get above 90% if each solar plant is overbuilt enough to handle a cloudy day and has enough batteries to handle a single day/night cycle. This isn't expensive, it only roughly doubles the cost of your plant.[1] Interconnect a bunch of those plants along with some wind will get you the next 9%. Then use a gas peaker for the last 1%.
1: https://www.energy-storage.news/developer-8minute-says-more-...