By comparison, we need 6 to 7 orders of magnitude increase in our existing hydro and battery storage capacity to decarbonize through renewables. And an infinity order of magnitude increase in electrolysis storage, because we don't have any such storage at all. It's not that they haven't been built out. They haven't been built, full stop.
I don't need to make storage tech look any worse than it is. How much electrolysis storage capacity do we have, worldwide? Zero. I think you're the one engaging in wishful thinking, treating these totally unproven systems as certain when nobody has ever operated a grid storage electrolysis facility.
If someone told you they have plans for a supersonic passenger jet that will be even cheaper than normal airliners, would you believe them? If they actually had working planes, and they were actually able to build and operate a batch of a few dozen planes more cheaply than typical airlines then yes. But if they only had one plane, and little operational experience I wouldn't. And if all they had were plans on paper, I certainly would not - this is the stage that storage mechanisms other than hydro and batteries are in.
Pretending that "breakthroughs" will be needed to field storage must be your last hope, but building out storage is just construction. You will continue to be disappointed.
Come back to me when electrolysis storage systems are actually built, and we can examine the actual costs of storage the same way we examine the costs of nuclear: by looking at the bill after the plant has been built. If you really are so confident in their efficacy, then this should be no problem.
Pumped hydro has always worked at scale.
You keep repeating that storage is not built out. We know. Before it can have been built out, it will need building out. But nukes are also not built out. Which can get done faster?
You just really wish storage tech was harder than it is because you need that for nukes not to look like the obviously bad investment they have proven, by "most of a century" of experience, to be.