Posted on 03/04/2019 4:52:18 PM PST by Hojczyk
The late January brownout in central Minnesota, during a time of Arctic cold, showed that reliance on “green” energy can be life-threatening. Xcel Energy instructed customers to turn thermostats down to 60 degrees and refrain from using hot water. Xcel went so far as to put some customers up in hotels.
Investigation of the brownout has been informative. The principal problem, given that Minnesota has invested massively in wind energy, was that the wind wasn’t blowing. But there was another problem, too, which came out in testimony before the state’s Public Utilities Commission by an Xcel official. My colleague Isaac Orr explains:
During their testimony, Xcel Energy representatives stated that the company’s solar panels only produced 8 to 10 percent of their potential output because of snow cover.
Everyone understands, I suppose, that solar panels can’t produce electricity at night–which, coincidentally, is when we need to turn lights on. It is less well recognized that in the North, solar panels are also more or less useless during the Winter. But, you may ask, can’t they be cleared off and thus made functional?
Xcel Energy posted a profit of $1.1 billion in 2017, and you’re telling me they can’t pay a high-schooler to scrape off their solar panels for a little extra cash? *** To me, the fact Xcel didn’t bother to clear the snow off their solar panels suggests they didn’t think it was worth it, from a cost/benefit standpoint.
I suspect that is exactly right. Utilities know that solar energy is a joke. So, why do they lobby for legislation requiring them to build ever more solar farms?
(Excerpt) Read more at powerlineblog.com ...
Solar is fine as part of an emergency backup system.
There is a lot less sunlight in the winter and the angle of the sun is different
Until they get batteries that will store huge amount of electricity there a waste of time..
There a waste of time compared to natural gas..
Idiots! Just use the 8 to 10 percent electricity to heat the solar panels and melt the snow cover. That'll solve the problem! /s
Exactly so, and the day will come when panels are cheap enough and efficient enough to be useful in many situations.
Since they are a “dairy state,” maybe they can figure out how to sequester cattle farts, call it “Cow Fracking,” to meet their energy needs. I recall years ago, Al Capp (creator of the Li’l Abner comic strip) came up with a car that ran by consuming air pollution. I guess he was “ahead of his time!”
Solar is fine when it’s functioning.
But this should remind us all, we will still need those evil fossil fuel power plants, and evil nuclear plants, for some time to come.
It’s fine to talk about solar, as it can help chip away at how much power is generated by fossil fuels and nuclear, if the enviro nazis want to have that discussion. But we will never in our lifetimes get away from fossil fuels entirely. Even though idiots such as Ocasio-Cortez think we will, scientific and engineering people say we won’t.
And the liberals always say they listen to scientists when it comes to global warming. Do they listen to the science people when they tell us it’s impossible to get away from the fossil fuels entirely????
Written by a liberal:
Why Renewables Can’t Save the Planet written by Michael Shellenberger
https://quillette.com/2019/02/27/why-renewables-cant-save-the-planet/
Excerpt:
...In fact, wind turbines are the most serious new threat to important bird species to emerge in decades. The rapidly spinning turbines act like an apex predator which big birds never evolved to deal with.
Solar farms have similarly large ecological impacts. Building a solar farm is a lot like building any other kind of farm. You have to clear the whole area of wildlife.
...Now that we know that renewables can’t save the planet, are we really going to stand by and let them destroy it?
It works. Its just not the be all end all that’s all.
I think solar can work for certain folks, living in certain places. I think some people are in better places to take the most advantage of it, and some, not so much.
Solar is great in regions that get very high insolation, like the desert southwest. Parts of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada and SoCal are areas that are nearly ideal for solar. Minnesota, not so ideal...
With a small array [below the minimum house usage], a grid tie inverter can help to minimize power taken from the grid on any given day.
Solar panels are so dirty to make, they cannot be made here in the US. They have to be made overseas where the pollution restrictions aren’t an issue.
Not only that, it takes more energy to make a solar panel than it will save in its lifetime.
They are such a boondoggle.
In essence that would be correct. In the winter the sun is much weaker the further north you go and there is generally more cloud cover.
Every generating source is evaluated and justified financially on the basis of nameplate capacity and availability factor. FReepers could be smarter than this blogger and educate themselves. All of this is very well researched and documented before the capital investment is made by the people who actually have skin in the game.
Renewable energy is a fools dream. Its only feasible where conventional power is too expensive to bring in, such as very remote areas.
Not to mention battery disposal issues.
Our lifetimes are short - and yet I’m amazed at what we’ve accomplished in my own mere 65 years. Sometimes it all seems like ‘magic’.
I believe that someday, we WILL obtain cheap, reliable energy from the Sun. As others have said, it needs a lot more study and development; but it’s the greatest - or at least at this point the most obvious - source of sheer energy available to this little blue planet.
I hope to live long enough to see honest, brilliant, and serious scientists and technologists - unhindered by politics, propaganda and greed - make big advancements in the possibilities of solar energy.
And yes - until it is really viable, we will need the old things; unless we want to deprive and murder millions of people from egotistical political and ideological motives.
It’s the battery storage that’s the problem. Batteries are big, heavy, very expensive and last maybe 8years with careful monitoring and recharging. Further, the solar hours in Minnesota during the winter is perhaps 2 to 2.5 hours of usable solar gain per day. That makes recharging the batteries a difficult thing to do without a backup generator powered by fossil fuels.
Then there’s the cost per kWhr. Solar vs fossil fuels. Solar cannot compete with fossil fuels.
Solar is good when you are so far out in the country that conventional means become impracticable and too expensive to install.
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