Posted on 08/07/2022 6:40:37 AM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
I think they just don’t like it being forced on people. If you choose solar, then great.
Try getting and industrial sized pump storage facility permitted in this political climate. Also not a good situation in western states right now. I live near one of the largest pump storage facilities in the country, but it was built before “green marxism”.
I’ve always wondered if underground storage for pressurized air might not be a workable way of storing energy. If the storage space were very large, say the size of a depleted gas field, the pressure need not be that high.
That I agree with. I was only correcting a silly statement.
I don’t hate solar, I’m an ALL of the above kind of gut. What I hate is our tax dollars used to gaslight the population in to accepting very destructive technologies as the panacea to “global climate change all the while ignoring the deep structural deficiencies in out national power production. It’s a fools errand to focus on these technologies while ignoring the basic facts. By the time we wake up we will be in a situation like Germany. Micro scale solar wind and hydro are wonderful technologies. But they can’t satisfy mass demand. I could go on but I’m not that ambitious. I’ve been involved in alternative energy and energy conservation since the ‘70s.
Well said.
I have seen it proposed. The number of sites are also limited, probably more so than for pumped-water.
The question was if a proven technology exists.
We have multiple technologies that could solve our energy needs, but our governments want to choose only specific solutions. Typically, it seems those are the most impractical and expensive solutions.
The Sun always shines on TV.
Aha!
;)
IMHO a better song than that other one.
Worse, the greenies won’t let you build any pumped storage reservoirs and plants anywhere.
Yep, ENERGY STORAGE is the elephant in the living room, and the article doesn’t even mention the need for it...interesting.
To get full utilization of the solar arrays, 30 days of battery storage (720 hours) is required. That cost of that is through the roof (close to $1M per house in Texas, using PowerWall prices).
Pumped storage is cute but does work where everything is is set up to support it (namely the geography), but requires THOUSANDS of these facilities to store 30 days worth of energy:
The above is the largest of its type in the country and it is HUGE. Good luck getting the Left to allow more of these types, much less hundreds or thousands more.
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The CHEAPEST option for a government hell-bent on ‘renewables’ is to do what Germany appears be to be doing, which is BRUTE FORCE. Basically, if solar panels are only able to put out 10% of their rated power during cloudy/foggy days (which is about worst case for them), then deploy 10 TIMES the amount that would otherwise be necessary if sufficient backup (or storage) were available. Doing so means you can generate 100% of required power every day (during the daytime), regardless of conditions, and would only need storage/backup power at night.
For a typical house in Texas that might average 3 kilowatts during the summer, that would mean 30 kilowatts of panels, or about 100 panels (1500 sq ft) with 2-axis pointing, or about, or about 150 panels (2250 sq-ft) if fixed. That would be nearly 1/6 acre of panels with 33% panel coverage...roughly the size of a cookie-cutter lot. That’s a lot of land to tie up and one could only imagine the size and number of these farms that would be needed for our cities.
So, doable, with a lot of panels and if Germany is at the point where they cannot accept all the power produced by their panels on certain days, then their heading in that direction. The problem with the above is that you use maybe 10% of the power you produce from the panels on good days...the rest has to be tossed away, as we’re seeing here...and storage is still required, but much less than an optimized solar system with reliable backup power.
Thorium salt reactor was run for ~18 months at Oakridge back in the late 60s, IIRC. China scarfed up copies of all the designs and data (public domain, don’cha know) and either already have theirs online or it’s coming online within a year, again, IIRC.
That's the only feature that makes the addition beneficial to us.
Not yet, it’s on the list for later this year, perhaps. A Tesla Wall costs about 18K in our area, and would run things for 6-8 hours at best. Then too, they are rated for only ten years. While I appreciate the advantage of being independent of the grid, the cost/benefit makes me hesitate.
Sounds like the warehouse owner should buy some batteries and store the energy for use at night.
Yup - 25 KW on the roof and 81 KwH in the basement, now I can heat my pool when the libs turn off the power cuz green whee.
Run time depends on battery sizing and use rate.
We won't be running A/C or Flat Screens in emergency, and have 2 wood burning fireplaces for winter.
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