Another reframing that may be useful is energy security/redundancy.

If you have a cheap source of solar panels and batteries, the only downside to installing them all over the country is up-front cost (which pays itself off quickly). The upside you gain is a substantially more robust, less centralized power grid that can continue to operate if something happens to impede your supply of fossil fuels or part of the grid gets cut off.

Looking at how things have played out elsewhere in the world the past few years, that's powerful.

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nradov an hour ago | parent [-]

Where is this mythical cheap source of batteries? I mean you can go on Alibaba and order cheap 18650 cells in limited quantities but there's an enormous difference between doing that and having enough reliable battery power to keep a nationwide grid supplying a modern industrial economy through several days of bad weather.

	▲	adgjlsfhk1 13 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		The Alibaba rate is still ~20% margin (not including shipping costs which decrease as order size increases) over the wholesale rate. As a consumer you don't have the ability to buy batteries wholesale (similar to how you can't go purchase a combined cycle natural gas plant on Amazon)
	▲	adriand 23 minutes ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		> Where is this mythical cheap source of batteries? They’re made out of rocks. Yes, you have to take steps to acquire and refine the materials, then turn them into batteries. However, the process for doing that is not mysterious.