The intermittency is a huge problem. Grid scale batteries and/or pumped hydro are laughably inadequate for bridging the gap. Wind and solar energy is only cheap when they aren’t responsible for maintaining baseload capacity on the grid.
Simply consider the case of China. They install and export more solar PV than anyone else in the world, and they are aggressively building out wind as well. It is literally impossible to get a better price than China when it comes to renewable energy, yet for some reason the Chinese have decided to dump tens of billions of dollars into nuclear energy.
Those plans are to some degree a consequence of a conservative outlook when they were initially approved mixed with local politicians fearing a backlash in a cold winter if there is even a short period with a power shortage. This happened a couple of winters ago in some regions of China and is part of the reason for the coal power plant build spree they went on. Have a search for news on the coal power plant news in 2023. However, these plants turn out to not be really needed and are idle a lot and approvals are plummeting for new coal plants in 2024 already and I would expect to see the same for nuclear soon as renewables continue to prove their reliability and as battery storage continues to grow massively.
That said the growth in renewables will still take some years to make a big dent in coal in China so the nuclear power is welcome!
At some point we need to "tell" people to adjust. The "effectively infinite, at any time" tap of electricity that's subsidized and enabled by an all-encompassing government needs to stop.
We've been effectively spoiled with this capability, and we need to be weaned off quite abruptly. Just because we've been spoiled and expect the grid to give us on-demand energy in the middle of the night, doesn't mean we have to continue doing so.
Simply consider the case of China. They install and export more solar PV than anyone else in the world, and they are aggressively building out wind as well. It is literally impossible to get a better price than China when it comes to renewable energy, yet for some reason the Chinese have decided to dump tens of billions of dollars into nuclear energy.