And pumped hydro isn't a panacea either.

https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2011/11/pump-up-the-storage/

That's nonsense.

https://model.energy/

Would the people who built this cross a river which used to have an average depth of 5 feet in 2011 with a medival knight suit on?

If yes, they should do that. If no, they should take the website down and stop misleading people.

The argument you are trying to make there completely fails to defend the claim that storage need to be 15x cheaper for renewables to compete with nuclear.

And where do you build that hydro? I hear some people suggesting Europe using the valleys in Sweden and Norway. Imagine the EU electricity grid at the mercy of one of Putin’s submarines. The rest of Europe doesn’t have many valleys left to flood.

All you really need for pumped hydro is a hill. It's cheaper if there is a natural basin up there, but you can build sides of you need to.

Luckily Putin would never capture a nuclear plant.

He needs to pass through NATO forces and successfully prove the nuclear deterence wrong before you need to start worrying about that.

Didn't he already capture Zaporizhzhia?

That isn't on NATO territory. (Alack and alas.)

But yeah, neither are the Swedish river valleys (so far).