Green is the new red.
Texas and California can tell you about that......although California would probly lie about it
In a similar math problem it was determined to meet the USA power needs tge entire West of the USA would have to covered in solar panels.
Most of the population gets their information from mainstream media journalists. Most of the journalist class is innumerate. So we shouldn’t find it surprising people are so clueless about how terrible Green New Deal energy policy really is.
Reality / math = science
And science isn’t any progressive’s strong suit.
Don’t you know that math is racist?
* Surely the author meant "over the course of an hour because they multiply that number by 24 to arrive at the 840 GWH figure for the average daily usage. There was no reason to multiply by 24 if the 35 GW is the average for a day...Or what did I miss?
How quaint. You appear to be under the mistaken belief that facts, logic, and clear thinking matters to these morons.
Good article. A mix of renewables and natural gas makes sense, and is a much cheaper way to generate power than nukes or coal, but we are far away from being able to run a grid on just renewables.
Do people want really, REALLY “green” power? Or is it just a talking point?
We could drill down, maybe a few hundred feet near a seismatically active area, where magma is relatively close to the surface, or really deep, several miles, until again there are molten lava beds. Then tap into the heat to run geothermal power plants, at virtually no cost for fuel, no pollution, and little danger of a radioactive escape. This is already a “China syndrome” that shall never penetrate any deeper than it already is.
This probably calls for a much higher level of engineering than is now applied to either solar or wind power generation, but it has the advantage of running 24/7/365, with only very rare downtime, to replace casings and piping that succumbed to the extreme heat.
And it can be applied virtually anywhere on the surface of the earth, if only the access is drilled deep enough. Plus, long transmission lines from distant sites of the power generation to the point of consumption could be vastly reduced or eliminated altogether.
But until then, there are thorium-fueled molten salt reactors, which use atomic fission as their power source.
If we ever get over superstitious dread of all things nuclear. Thorium-fueled plants have few if any of the huge disadvantages of uranium-fueled light water reactors.
https://www.powermag.com/a-thorium-molten-salt-reactor-when-and-where-you-need-it/
Solar-powered Apple iPhones would also be an alternative.
What percentage is being used by illegal aliens?
I’d venture they weren’t using as much energy in their home countries.
California is going to be the New Nigeria when it comes to power distribution.
That means government centers and wealthy zip codes get the electricity, and everybody else gets occasional scraps.
Thorium Nuclear Power Plants as your base supply.
Add Hydro as a peak supplement.
Use Natural Gas as an emergency backup when a system goes down or needs maintenance.
If someone wants wind and/or solar to live off the grid, more power to them. (did you see that pun?)
The operative phrase is "spinning reserve." In order for your grid to remain stable, you need a "mirror" of sorts. You need 80-90% of your "renewable" capacity in conventional power plants, and that 80-90% must be in a condition known as "spinning reserve," from which it can kick in and go online instantaneously when the renewable source craps out.
The newer coal-fired generating stations are very nearly zero emissions but in the process of making them so clean they also were made unsuitable/unable to operate in spinning reserve. And nuclear plants only have two speeds: off and WFO. So there's no point having one in spinning reserve because it costs the same whether it's online or not.
The insanity is that they've always known it wasn't possible to build a stable grid purely off "renewables," that that plan was always going to necessitate a "ghost" power system capable of producing >3/4ths of the "primary"/renewable system's maximal output, and that that spinning reserve/ghost/back-up system would cost exactly as much to build and only slightly less to operate than as if it were online full-time.
And you're wasting all this money on a mirror of back-up power plants entirely so you can beat your chest and brag that your primary power sources run on "renewables."
Except for the ghost/back-up system, which is all that makes the "renewable" generating stations a functioning component in a stable power grid.
I greatly appreciate the author’s deep dive into the facts, logic, and math of this situation. I believe it doesn’t even require the use of any of those mental resources to know this Greenie wet dream doesn’t even pass either the smell test or common sense.
The true answer was established when America had a higher level of math and scientific genius:splitting of the atom/harnessing the given energy.
Let them learn the hard way if they won’t listen to reason or can’t read. This really isn’t that hard to understand. This scenario is for California, the Sunshine state. What will it take in other places where the sun doesn’t shine nearly as much? Where I live is one of those places & we have a large solar array here for a small community. I have never heard a peep out of anyone as to whether this thing is even online,if it is meeting any needs,who is on it, it’s available output, etc., etc. Is it supposed to be a deep dark secret? If so, that would certainly be only because it’s not meeting the needs.
——this is an exercise in arithmetic-—
But, but........ Arithmetic is math. girls and black men can’t do math. It ‘s therefore fake news.
That’s the left wing view propounded by the media
Cultural analysis