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Old 10-15-2008, 02:17 AM   #119 (permalink)
jamesqf
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Quote:
Originally Posted by NeilBlanchard View Post
Back on topic: why wouldn't we use as much renewable energy as possible?
I don't think we're arguing about that. We're arguing about the technical details of how much "possible" is likely to be.

The basic problem is that most renewables produce power when they want to, which is not necessarily when people want to use that power. So if you're going to use mostly those renewables, you either have to build a lot of excess capacity, and/or you have to have some way to store the energy until it's needed. Building excess capacity costs money. So does building energy storage, and in addition the inevitable losses mean you waste 15-30% (for pumped storage) or more of the generated energy.

What it boils down to is that neither the engineering nor the economics of a largely-renewable grid are as simple as it seems you'd like to think. The problems just don't scale linearly. Small amounts of intermittent generation are easily handled, large amounts are difficult.
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