>The need for "baseload", "storage", or "the sun doesn't always shine and the wind doesn't always blow" are red herrings. They are not relevant.
They aren't red herrings they are poor excuses when used as a reason to not to expand renewable but they aren't without their merit.
We need to improve energy storage considerably to be able to push renewables to be actually a major part of the electric grid.
A a major part is a very important definition here because they need to be dependable, it's nice when you have a headlines that Denmark has reached 90% of it's energy production with wind for period X but we also need to put it into perspective that it was only a few hours in a single day on a specific year.
Solar and wind are being constantly improved it's true but we also need massive improvements in energy storage as well as to renew our interests in better and safer nuclear reactors to actually drive out Fossil Fuel completely and have an abundance of energy that could be used to improve everything around it.
Our energy goals shouldn't be aimed at something comparable to fossil fuel we should find ways to produce 10 times what we produce now in a cheap, reliable and environmentally sound fashion.
If we have an abundance of electricity many other things can improve, we can stop sucking out out underground water and make desalination cheap for everyone, we can grow more crops faster reducing the amount of food, we can produce more at lower costs.
Energy is a much larger bottleneck than people assume, especially to developing countries, better energy production, better grids mean that everyone in Africa can get a water purified, an AC and a fridge, it also means that we can start treating the sewage which is a problem now in many parts of Africa where NGO's gave them a water pump and forgot that they also need plumbing and septic treatment facilities.
So while you might claim that solar and wind are here in a massive way, we haven't even touched the tip of the iceberg as far as energy production goes and where we should be. And sadly too many people in the environmental lobbies want to cut down on energy production rather than to increase it 10 fold.