Posted on 04/01/2016 8:04:15 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
Using 4% interest rates (typical corporate bond), solar cost is $0.057 (5.7 cents) per kilowatt hour more than the natty plant.
It’s a ridiculous comparison. The solar plant has a huge footprint, no one is allowing new pumped storage to be built, no one wants power lines in rural areas where solar must be sited.
Natural gas costs (real cheap now), solar is free, but solar collectors need cleaning by the acre, must stand up to storms, and will be down during extended cloudy periods.
Electricity must be reliable. Green energy is not reliable and is of limited value as an electricity source.
Dated an Ivy league MBA woman who adamantly insisted that the reason we weren’t exclusively using solar power was because of big business republicans and we weren’t trying hard enough.
The relationship did not last long because she could not tell a watt from a tw@t.
Don’t forget, many PV fields generate tremendously dirty power, when inverting the DC power to AC. It’s much easier to generate clean High Voltage from rotating generators.
Additionally, the more distributed we become on generation facilities, the more complex the overcurrent protection and coordination becomes. We’ll see more power outages from difficult to analyze faults over the next 10 years from all the larger DC applications being added to the grid.
A pumped storage unit is being built in Montana
“http://www.gordonbuttepumpedstorage.com/";
The cynic in me expects someone to stock it with fish and have it shut down. Other than that scenario, it will be interesting to follow.
Seriously? You think the panels pictured pose a threat to birds?
And get rid of ISIS.
I think the perfect solution to our electrical generation problem is to have the prisoners in all jails, prisons and those in welfare lines crank WW-II “Gibson Girl” generators all day long to power the grid.
That will give them something constructive to do and we will benefit from their punishments. What a deal!
I’m just interested - do you know the O&M for each? The feedstock for the gas? The land size for the solar?
Hey, what’s a few fried birds if you are making the correct political statement?
Indeed.
I am seeing a Hillary Fan ....
I know the feeling.
Keep us posted!
They have already documented such.. As the birds fly over the solar farm they get burnt to a crisp!!!
Molten metal battery:
Operative word “MAY”
Not from the type here. These are passive solar panels. You are thinking of the mirror type fields that direct beams to a tower.
here is something from the California Mojave Desert Solar farm..
https://weather.com/science/news/solar-plants-birds-20140818
Yes. Exactly what I told you. Using mirrors to reflect the sun to towers. That will fry birds.
Not the passive panels we were discussing in this thread.
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