The climate change consensus extends beyond climate scientists

[oil pan 4]

Hydroelectric power, as in not solar.
We already know hydroelectric power is almost free.
It's also just about the only power source that can lower your electricity rates.

[NeilBlanchard]

Florida will be building the biggest solar battery installation in the world - replacing TWO gas fired plants.

https://arstechnica.com/information-...wered-battery/

Why would they do that, I wonder?

[oil pan 4]

They have other people's money to do it with.
Let's say they do it and tesla builds the battery for $100 per kwh.
Each megawatt hour is going to cost $100,000.
A typical combined cycle gas turbine power plant could be 400 mega watts.
So for every 40 million dollars in battery you buy it can replace 1 hour of plant operations. But you should probably buy at least 50 million dollars of battery so you don't run it from 100% to dead, if that happens all the time the battery will only last a few years.

Plus it says those natural gas power plants were built in the 1970s and had reached the end of their life. So they weren't even combined cycle.
Bet that $90,000,000 battery will have to be replaced at least twice in 50 years.
At least the solar panels should still have some capacity left after 50 years.

[freebeard]

Originally Posted by oil pan 4

We already know hydroelectric power is almost free.

I enjoy the low rates in the PNW, but I was raised on Woody Guthrie songs like Roll On Columbia

At Bonneville now there are ships in the locks
The waters have risen and cleared all the rocks
Shiploads of plenty will steam past the docks
So roll on, Columbia, roll on
And on up the river is Grand Coulee Dam
The mightiest thing ever built by a man
To run the great factories and water the land
So roll on, Columbia, roll on

OTOH, the construction of China's Three Gorges dam had massive environmental impact

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_...nmental_impact

The cultural artifacts submerged were similar to the Aswan dam in Egypt

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aswan_Dam

edit:
The President, in a speech to the NRCC, talked about Bald Eagles flying into wind mills.

[oil pan 4]

Also to get 900Mwh out of that batt will need to be charged with at leat 1Gwh.
I think they should have just bought and installed $90,000,000 worth of panels. If they have the realestate that won't demolish the panels when the next hurricane hits.

Eagles don't usually fly into wind turbines, most of the time it's buzzards.
I would worry more about the blade than the stupid bird.
You could have a turkey sized bird flying into a wing tip going 200 mph.

[redpoint5]

Yeah, bird populations recover from losses, but the blades aren't going to fix themselves.

[oil pan 4]

Those blades are several tons of fiberglass and resin, cost $100,000 or more and cost about that much to install.

[freebeard]

All because they don't make indoor windmills.

Energy Through Wind Power By R. BUCKMINSTER FULLERJAN. 17, 1974

Wind power is in a class by itself as the greatest terrestrial medium for harvesting, harnessing and conserving solar energy. The water and air waves circulating around our planet are unsurpassed energy accumulators whose captured energy may be used to generate electrical, pneumatic and hydraulic power systems.

Windmills produce power from the sun ‐ generated differentials of heat, which are the source of all wind, with far greater efficiency than do attempts to focus and store direct solar radiation. But the most comprehensive consideration regarding wind power is not technological. Rather it is an appreciation that wind ‘power is by far the most efficient way to recapture solar power.
[snip]
This rotation of the earth brings about myriad of high‐low atmospheric differentials and world‐around semi‐vacuumized drafts, which produce the terrestrial turbulence we speak of as the weather.

The combined two billion cubic miles of continual atmospheric kinetics converts the solar energy into wind power. Wind power is sun power at its greatest, by better than 99 to 1.

https://www.nytimes.com/1974/01/17/a...ind-power.html


https://i.pinimg.com/236x/d1/ed/da/d...c483de13bd.jpg

[Hersbird]

I was thinking today what the total possible hydro power there was if every drop of water re-entering the ocean was harnessed on it's way back. I found an article that figured an amazing more than double the worlds total current energy needs, 25 TW. Of course that is impossible in reality but an Idaho National Engineering Lab study of all potential US sites showed it could provide 40% (.17 TW) of the USA's current electricity needs if developed, up from the 7% it runs now. Most of the time a water reservoir is considered by most around it a positive. Riverfront property is normally valued less than lake front property and you end up with many more miles of shoreline than what was just the river. It also helps control flooding (assuming not flooding caused by a failed dam LOL).

Realistically I think capturing moving water energy in a mass scale would be less obtrusive and provide a better return on an investment than having a windmill on every acre. The same 'do the math' page on wind thinks 1.2 TWs the most energy possible from covering the US in turbines. Even covering 10% with millions and millions of windmills to get the same .17 TW the 130,000 new dams could create seems like a nightmare.

Solar on the other hand would only require .5% of the land of the US to produce 1 TW.

250 nuclear plants the size of Palo Verde would also make 1 TW.

So what makes the most sense to me? All of the above!

https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2011/12/h...gy-can-we-get/

[sendler]

Originally Posted by Hersbird

Solar on the other hand would only require .5% of the land of the US to produce 1 TW.

250 nuclear plants the size of Palo Verde would also make 1 TW.

So what makes the most sense to me? All of the above!

https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2011/12/h...gy-can-we-get/

Grid scale solar farms require about 5 W/ sq meter in good locations to include all associated electronics, panel spacing, roads, substations, ect, 1 TW of solar requires 200,000 sq km. 2.6% of the total land area of the continental USA. Probably not quite enough good area due to mountains ect. in the entire state of Arizona.
.
Less than perfect locations in the snowy/ rainy North will average about half of that on an annual basis and near zero for many days at a time in the Winter. But if we could make the panels and racking last for 100 years at a time, and make the expendable electronic components in the inverter easy to swap out. And convert all heat, agriculture, mining, industry, transportation, to electric, it will be much better than nothing. And much easier to maintain by hand than 100 meter tall wind turbines which start to wear out every 15 years.
.
The lowest carbon electric regions all have mostly hydro or nuclear.
.
https://www.electricitymap.org/?page...rue&wind=false
.