Posted on 10/05/2019 7:44:01 AM PDT by libstripper
If we expect to create a prosperous future fueled by low-cost, clean energy, it’s time to recalibrate the way we think about renewables. That requires us to move beyond the once cutting-edge view that solar power is a key ingredient in lowering greenhouse gas emissions.
Ironically, a frequent target of environmentalists, Duke Energy, is showing us that’s not the case. In fact, Duke documents show the negative impact of deploying solar power on the electric grid.
(Excerpt) Read more at thefederalist.com ...
"Donald van der Vaart is a Senior Fellow at the John Locke Foundation and the former secretary of the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality."
You think that’s bad, wait until we get ‘sandy 0’s’ solar powered and wind powered airliners. Also known as carbon free aircraft. SMDH!
Double D’oh
Break out the hazmat suits.
Politicians do stupid things without understanding the science involved.
For example, solar power companies, in conjunction with banks, are selling their systems in higher latitude areas that predictably don’t get enough regular sunlight to make current solar technology pay for itself. Gateshead England for example.
Fury over the fading benefits of solar power as thousands complain (tr)
Corrections, insights welcome.
Just shitcan the mandates and let people get electricity from whatever is cheapest.
Solar or wind combined with an energy storage technology must be evaluated as a package deal; if, making a comparison of costs, or advantage/disadvantage with our legacy power generation.
Of course a generation system with units on spinning-hot standby, producing no power but burning fuel, will be less efficient.
Politicians also spend way too much of their time being wined and dined by special interest lobbyists and high donor hangers-on.
Politicians are there to represent us. The vast majority of their time should be concentrated on that.
That’s exactly right. Also, if less efficient gas or coal generation equipment has to be installed to accommodate the wind and solar, that also has to be part of the overall calculation. This issue has particularly become evident in areas where they have gradually got rid of the coal and replaced it with gas….. unfortunately, a lot of that gas is using open loop instead of combined cycle technology because they need it to be able to come on line in a hurry if the wind or solar suddenly stops. The difference in efficiency between open loop and combined cycle is about 20% in efficiency. What this means is that if only combined cycle technology was used, the increase in efficiency over open loop is so great that the wind and solar don’t really provide a contribution at all……
Here in Fairbanks Alaska, our Utility installed a “solar farm”, it is tiny all things considered. Official results are not out, and probably never will be. That “solar farm” doesn’t generate enough electricity for station service (the ability to power all the equipment within the farm). Barely breaking even during our summer months and will soon be a consumer of electricity.
We got some green-weenie board members who are complete idiots up here.
Solar power is not dense enough, only available 50% of the time max, requires acres and acres of space, and is rife with toxic chemicals during production and disposal....oh it is probably ok for powering a led bulb in the hen house but solar or wind can’t power modern societies....
In the Alaska, you’ve got six months of starlight, so useless solar panels, versus six months of 20 hour/day power.
Also, note that solar panels don’t like higher temperatures. So they may provide more power in Alaska than in the lower 48 when they are working.
I may have been in error about false expectations about solar power at higher latitudes.
Then there are scam artists that will sell Alaskans solar panels to power their refrigerators. =^O
As I mentioned, we’re pioneering solar power at this point in time.
Insights welcome.
I am not anti-green energy in any way really. However, it has to be cost effective and make sense.
The solar farm up here is also set at a fixed angle, and the panels do not rotate. I know that makes an impact. In the winter we get hoar frost, and that pretty much kills any little bit of power that might get produced from the panels.
"The solar farm up here is also set at a fixed angle, and the panels do not rotate."
I passed by a solar farm with rotating panels awhile back. Motors had stopped working. So less power but now less maintenance costs.
And they want to do away with conventional means of power production like coal-fueled, natural gas and nuclear at the same time.
The green Left is about big governments and mandates. Mandating these things does not mean they will work like the Left envisioned it in their green wet dreams.
Letting capitalism, free enterprise and invention and innovation direct the markets, is the best way to do the sustainable energy changeover. Nothing would be introduced to the competing markets unless the products worked efficiently and the costs are kept down. Some people go out and buy the latest innovations right away by most people wait until they are proven to work.
When the Green New Dealers and the socialist democRATS start mandating solar and wind, they break this cycle of competition needed to prove that products will accomplish what is promised.
Wind and solar are not ready for prime time yet. They may be used in small applications well enough (heating water for a home or powering and off the grid homestead), but to take the place of the current, efficient and cheap energy being used, they are not up to the job yet.
The best predictions are that wind and solar may provide 10 to 25% of the power needs of the country in 20-50 years is probably a good guess. But to expect them to power 100% of the country's needs in a few years without the technology being there yet or the government subsidies to keep them running, is not possible.
This is what's wrong when we have clueless politicians making illiterate decisions based on poor science and technology whilst relying on advice from ex-bartenders (AO-C) and 16 year old angry Swedish girls (Greta) for guidance.
The dumb, leading the blind, lead by the stupid.
Thanks Robert A Cook PE.
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