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Originally Posted by sendler
Sorry. Not trying to be negative. Just pragmatic. That solution map you keep posting is typical greenwashing fluff. This percent. That percent. Blah,blah. There is no substance on that sight. No cost. No land use. No resource depletion. Our energy consumption is immense. Electricity is only 1/4 of it. .46 TW continuous electrical average for the USA. Mix it up any way you want. 2000 more 600MW solar farms. 1/2 and 1/2 wind. Whatever. Trying to store 10 TWh just to make it through the night without a blackout. Store it anyway you want. The scale is immense. That is 10,000 BigF'nBatteries. Just for the USA. Just for electrical. Just for 1 day. Use hydro if you can find it. Or gravity rail. Whatever. The scale is still immense. Please wake up people.
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For some reason, engineers are the people that seem to grasp the scale of our dilemma in replacing fossil fuels.
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MacKay wrote a very objective book on the feasability of solar and wind plus storage ever replacing our total energy.
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Please read if you really want to know about the abilities of new energy.
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http://www.withouthotair.com/cft.pdf
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Tom Murphy do the math is also important to read.
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https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/post-index/
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And...
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The objection to the constant quoting of nameplate capacity is because it is also an intentional greenwashing by the trade magazines to promote new energy. When in fact the newest "600MW" solar farm that costs blah blah per kW on feed in tarrif supported bid, really only makes 30% of that. And rooftop in NY does 1/2 of that.
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Wind is the same. The best onshore wind farms do 25%. |
The costs are there - look harder.
We cannot continue with fossil fuels. They are finite, and the costs are effectively infinite.
Renewable energy is growing faster than anything else. It is cheaper than anything else. It gets cheaper and cleaner over time.
The sooner / quicker we switch to renewable energy, the more we save - money and the earth.