If by 'battery' s/he means any means of storing energy until it's needed, then of course 'batteries' will win. S/he seems to be thinking of electrochemical batteries ... going by some of the assertions ... but never spells that out.

There are many ways to store energy that can be more overall efficient (no hint of their existence in his piece) and would be considerably cheaper. How 'transmission vs. storage' is 'controversial' escapes me. Perhaps for the circles s/he travels in, and is selling to, it is.

I was going to comment on a story yesterday about "How the Grid Isn't Ready" that I got a weird vibe from it. It felt like it was part of a weird marketing push, but I didn't exactly know what it was pushing.

Seems like the author feels the same way:

> There remains, even in 2023, a substantial fraction of the “future of energy” hivemind who are still convinced that the solution to all our problems is to build more transmission capacity, conveniently obstructed by the lack (so far) of the Act of Congress required to swiftly and forcibly appropriate the millions of acres necessary to string them across the country. NIMBYs, right!

Transmission still works in some places, but over-built renewables and batteries are key.