Fastest Growing Energy Job Market is Renewables

They aren't without the fossil fuel capacity to back them up. Energy is required 24/7/365. Why build energy sources that are not available full time ?? It makes no sense.

 

What has me most interested is ice batteries, which when combined with solar power creates a block of ice used to cool your home instead of a traditional refrigerant.

 

I hadn't heard of this, so I looked it up. Sounds very interesting. I have a bermed home in Colorado, without air conditioning. The berming keeps it nice and cool. I have renewable power, and run a surplus every month. Maybe I should buy one of these ice makers for additional cooling.

 

I haven't put in much research, but it's definitely a possibility. So many solutions out there it's almost like we live in a capitalist society.

 

Part of my huge complaint with the alternative energy crowd is that they are incredibly ADD. Folding in alternative as things reach the end of their operating life works because eventually it will be cheaper than building a new coal plant or whatever, but using what we have until then makes both financial and environmental sense. It takes a crap megaton of new carbon output to build something new and a crap ton more to dispose of what is old.

 

According to my Environmental Science 101 class that I just finished wind is the most efficient source of sustainable energy. j/s

 

When you live somewhere that the wind blows regularly. Some of us live nowhere near optimal conditions for wind or solar, so gas does us just peachy.

 

And even if wind levels are optimal, wind farms by definition need to be huge. Turning turbines takes a lot of kinetic energy

 

That's no problem. Farmers can cultivate land with wind turbines, and it gives them an additional source of income.

http://www.ucsusa.org/clean-energy/increase-renewable-energy/wind-power-agriculture#.Way4H8iGPIU

 

And they make a better wind break than a hedge or sunflowers.

 

So they can supplement conventional sources during the peak demand time. Solar is perfect for that. At least around here, peak demand is during daylight hours (afternoon), which is ideal for solar supplements.

 

And the capital investment to give a more expensive energy source 24/7/365 is "doubled". How does that make economic sense ??

 

We use less fuel in the NG plants, and get to a point where we don't have to increase NG plant size as much for peak times. Solar will soon be cheaper and require less maintenance per KWH than NG.

 

not withstanding something called a power grid, a commercial wind farm requires an avg wind speed of around 13 mph.

Here's a map of the planet all the yellowish green and darker (not blue) can sustain commerical wind turbines.

 

Why looky there at that blue streak down the eastern seaboard. Thanks for proving what I just said--Some of us live nowhere near optimal conditions for wind or solar, so gas does us just peachy.

 

That's not significant when compared to the costs with doubling the generating capacity to obtain the same output.

 

Wind turbines cannot be built on the eastern seaboard. It offends the Kennedy's.

 

Once solar is cheap enough, it will be a supplement during the peak times, which not coincidentally, in much of the sunbelt is when the A/C usage is highest. Of course solar (until batteries become robust and cheap enough) will not replace conventional in the near future, but solar can be a supplement.

 

Wind is only practical in certain locations. I know where I live it's very impractical. (I live at about 31 degrees North, which is in the Horse latitudes).

 

I didn't say they couldn't be built on the eastern seaboard. I said I do not live in an area that is optimal for solar and wind. That would be one of them blue spots on the east coast

 

Why do we need supplements when coal and nat gas are so plentiful, inexpensive, and produce electrical power 24/7/365 ?? What economic good is done by raising the price of electricity ??

 

Solar is soon going to be cheaper than the above. It's getting closer and closer every year.

 

I guess the fact that you don't have a gas plant in your backyard and are completely dependent on something called the power grid has escaped you when attempting to make your argument.

 

In it's present form solar will always be supplemental and will increase the overall price of electricity because of the redundancy of generating equipment.

 

Actually I have 3 gas power plants near me, so squirm harder. In addition my city owns two hydro plants although one is rather minor, I have two hydro plants an hour north of me as well.