In comparison to a run of the mill 1,000-megawatt coal/NG plant:
Solar power plant: Each run-of-the-mill 1,000-megawatt photovoltaic plant will require about 60 square miles of panes alone. In other words, the largest industrial structure ever built.
Biomass: Biomass: growing the amount of cellulose required to shift US electricity production to biomass would require farming... an area the size of 10 Iowas or 562,720 sq mi. which is either most of Alaska or California, New Mexico, and Texas.
Wind: the wind equivalent of a typical utility plant would require 300 square miles of turbines plus costly transmission lines from the wind-scoured fields of, say, North Dakota.
None of the power from wind or solar is on demand, and cannot be stored - except possibly in extremely expensive and massive batteries ...
In other words, those “alternatives” are not very efficient sources of energy.
Thanks for the explanation.