Yhea, That's the (almost) perfect solution. 
http://www.pbmr.co.za/
Posted on 09/12/2009 7:12:42 PM PDT by Lorianne
Why small-scale, local power -- the microgrid -- could be the answer to our energy crisis. And why the big utilities are fighting it with all they've got. ___ In April 2007, a helicopter landed in a backyard in Johnson Valley, California, a desert hamlet of 440 residents on the outskirts of Joshua Tree National Park. "One of the neighbors went out and asked them what they were doing just a few hundred feet from his house," Jim Harvey, a local landowner, recalls. "They said, 'We're the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, and congratulations! You're the lucky lottery winners of a brand new power line that's going to come right through the middle of your town.' "
That power line is called Green Path North -- an 85-mile-long high-voltage transmission wire from Los Angeles through public and private lands, connecting the city to potential geothermal and solar-thermal resources, with the whole shebang to be owned by the LADWP and paid for over the next decade by ratepayers. The cost: up to $1 billion just for the transmission line, plus untold billions for the not-yet-planned power plants themselves. Some 2,000 acres of desert would be sacrificed for a project that would, if it ever gets built, carry about 800 megawatts of renewable electricity -- enough for 600,000 homes.
(Excerpt) Read more at fastcompany.com ...
Ping.
Quiet, clean, efficeint and safe.
Nuclear power is logical, therefore it will be ignored.
“Graceful degradation.” I like it, no more massive blackouts... It is so windy, and sunny, here I’ve seriously considered a combo wind/solar rig to take my home off the grid...
All that solar panel power won’t be very useful when peak power demand is at night. I guess they are going to charge batteries during the day, and run the city on battery back up all night...
Yhea, That's the (almost) perfect solution.
http://www.pbmr.co.za/
what “crisis”?
I think that is SOP for solar power generation.
Beats the stink out of coal.
You can scratch wind off your list. Any windmill worth putting up is probably banned, as they are in most urban areas. If they aren't, they soon will be as soon as a few people put them up. The noise will drive you nuts. And don't even consider putting one one of those smaller ones on your roof. The vibrations will transmit through the roof rafters down the wall studs to every nook and cranny in the house.
Local control. Faster. Less room for corruption.
But less chance for the big public utilities to control everything.
In my area some ecology minded people generate over 100% of their electricity. Don’t know if they have batteries.
House in article stores with batteries.
Small scale, local is conservatism, as I was taught it.
Yep. Well said.
Doesn’t make sense to me to piss off the utility when you will still need them for baseload.
See "solar thermal electric power plant". Problem already solved.
What crisis?
The one that’s gonna hit you once Cap-and-Trade is the law of the land.
And you'll never be able to produce enough power to "take your house off the grid". Well maybe if you have an awful lot of money to throw away, you might, but then kiss your freedom goodbye, because you'll be stuck watching over/ fixing and maintaining your system all your waking hrs of the day.
"somewhat" true.
Soft / Hard Coal, shall still be used, until the "grid"
is (political / economical) acceptable.
...it will be part, of the energy "mix"....Carbon tax be D@mned
In theory. I don't see any working plants powering towns and cities anywhere.
I resemble that statement! Ruy -Coal forge blacksmith and former coal fired power plant operator.
and yes, coal does stink but it also kills the ticks and chiggers. It's that high sulfur content that does it! ;-D
Happiness is a hot piece of steel and an anvil!
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