The worst case is an unbalanced grid that leads to blackouts and/or disruptions. Not that we waste energy.
As the old gas plants don't magically cease to exist after N years, while this is technically correct it's about as important as pointing out the non-zero risk of a supervolcano blocking out 80% of sunlight worldwide for a decade.
Also depends on where you live.
Energy consumption is always strictly limited by energy supply.
> And other sources that we do intend to shut down.
"We" "intend" many things, but if there's a danger of blackouts or brownouts, we find ways to keep power plants running longer because (despite appearances) the people in charge mostly aren't idiots, and the few exceptions (in this context, Texas) provide ample evidence to everyone else.
> Also depends on where you live.
Unless you mean the imminent danger of airstrikes to Ukrainian, Gazan, etc. power stations, that sentence fragment is too vague to communicate anything. And if you do, sure, but that's still an issue for literally all possible power plants given no structures are safe in war zones.
Anyway, I'm comforted to know that the magic hand of the market will solve this problem in the most efficient way and with a proper focus on the climate, as it always has.
Li-Ion production rates have also been growing exponentially since at least 2010[0].
> Especially not compared to solar and wind which of course have huge storage implications.
Not so: the absolute worst case for renewables is wasting some of their output when they produce more than needed and using the existing dispatchable power plants when they don't produce enough. This can be transitioned gradually or quickly as more storage comes online.
[0] possibly even longer, but the infographics I've found are annoyingly limited to 2010-${production date} at best, so here's one ending in 2020: https://www.freeingenergy.com/facts/learning-lithium-ion-bat...
And this figure for 2023 is nearly 3.5 times that figure for 2020: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1419540/global-lithium-i...