Posted on 05/10/2023 4:01:43 AM PDT by grundle
In the real world a wind farm’s output often drops below 10 per cent of its rated “capacity” for days at a time. Solar power disappears completely every night and drops by 50 per cent or more during cloudy days. “Capacity” being a largely meaningless figure for a wind or solar plant, about 3000 megawatts (MW) of wind and solar capacity is needed to replace a 1000 MW conventional power station in terms of energy over time: and in fact, as we shall see, the conventional power station or something very like it will still be needed frequently once the wind and solar are online.
The governments of countries with a considerable amount of wind and solar generation have developed an expectation that they can simply continue to build more until net zero is achieved. The reality is that many of them have kept the lights on only by using existing fossil fired stations as backup for periods of low wind and sun. This brings with it a new operating regime where stations that were designed to operate continuously have to follow unpredictable fluctuations in wind and solar power. As a result operating and maintenance costs have increased and many stations have had to be shut down.
In fact it's already common to see efficient combined-cycle gas turbines replaced by open-cycle ones because they can be throttled up and down easily to back up the rapidly changing output of wind and solar farms. But open-cycle gas turbines burn about twice as much gas as combined cycle gas turbines. Switching to high-emissions machinery as part of an effort to reduce emissions is, frankly, madness!
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
But what will we use to charge our overly expensive electric cars?
Unfortunately Bobby Kennedy seems to be all bought in on wind and solar being our energy solution.
He’s the FNC of political candidates this season.
The controlled opposition.
He tells you what you already know and that’s it.
Huge mystery behind this one...
What tics me off is the RV industry is buying into the solar scam. We are looking at new travel trailers, and the dealer we are currently working with has mostly 12v refrigerators.
Typically, an RV frig is gas (propane) and 120 house current with possibly 12v as an option. This gives the RV’er several options to keep the food cool/frozen.
The sales pitch is that the solar panels on the travel trailer give more than enough power to keep the fridge going on 12v. I countered by saying the places we go, national forests and many national parks do not have 120v electrical hookups. I said on a cloudy day our food would spoil. He had little to say. We had a fridge once with 12v capability, and the battery was good for only 4 hours.
Anyone stupid enough to buy an RV with a 12v only fridge deserves spoiled food.
We learned all this in the 70’s....
it will be a lawn ornament
you will be on the bus
With all that solar installed, we have a problem with too much electricity during the middle of the day, with peaks not helped at all!
That messes up the standard base level generators like coal and nuclear. They take a long time to start so they cannot help with the peaks only. So peaks are in huge degree covered by the gas plants! With more solar, more gas is needed!
Don’t forget they are also greased with fossil products so they CAN turn.
If the RV is in the shade even part of the day, you’ve cut your solar cell power by that amount too. Shade, so the RV is cooler, sunlight so the refrigerator runs half the time?
“Anyone stupid enough to buy an RV with a 12v only fridge deserves spoiled food.”
We have an RV with a 12 volt refrigerator. Not a problem for us because when on the road our Suburban’s generator keeps up with the refrigerator, and we always camp where there’s 110 volt power.
The refrigerator cools very well.
For you RV’ers I’ll tell you that we have a Hensley Hitch and while it’s a nuisance to hook up, there’s no such thing as sway.
Solar has a big winter problem in much of the country.
The best proof that Biden is a really stupid man is his continued insistence on 100% fossil fuel phaseout.
Bill Gates has invested in nuclear for a reason - he knows solar and wind have big limitations.
“too much electricity during the middle of the day”
That electricity could be used to charge up EVs.
Sounds a lot like the circumstances around Solyndra...
“Anyone stupid enough to buy an RV with a 12v only fridge deserves spoiled food.”
Or will need to run a generator for a few hours a day, plus spend (at least) a few thousand more on batteries.
You can go to weather.gov and get wind forecasts.
So could AOC, but she would get very upset.
Btt!
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