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Old 06-12-2019, 01:24 PM   #5991 (permalink)
aerohead
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3-TW

Quote:
Originally Posted by sendler View Post
900-GW average production for the USA would be a good start and would get us close if we had a perfect electrification of everything to go with it. But you stated that we needed "900-GW capacity" of rebuildables when in fact if we want to average 900-GW of power, then we actually need 3-TW of nameplate capacity built out.
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This is constantly misstated in the media and leads to misrepresenting the progress of the transition and the pricing by a factor of 3 (by a factor of 6 for solar in my area).
I agree in spirit,with the caveat that,only if present technology was frozen,both at the supply side,and load side,and we all agreed that presently,we were looking at a capacity factor of 30%,we'd need,I'm thinking,like you, 3.0-TW of installed capacity,to make it to 0.9-TW of load.
Wysession felt that there would be ongoing technological evolution,with increased efficiencies (load avoidance) and increased efficiencies of conversion efficiency (demand side),as well as capacity factor (like we see the GE's 63% offshore deepwater wind).
Had we built passive solar since 1973,we could throw over $49-billion a year at renewables and never see it in the pocketbook.That's 33.7-GW/year without an extra penny.By 2026,wind alone would exceed the entire electric load for 2014.By 2043 we'd be at over 1-TW.Doing nothing else.And with no improvements.
I feel like the best and the brightest are going to attack the problem from every conceivable direction.We've thrown hundreds of billions of tax dollars at fossil-fuel and nuclear power R&D already.Nobody squealed.Perhaps we wouldn't notice some more,towards renewables.

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