From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of LizR
On 1 March 2014 04:59, <[email protected]> wrote:
It does. You cannot fake electricity. You cannot fake electric current. If
you are depending on solar power for 20% of your electricity supply, and the
rest for coal, because coal is reliable on a 7 x 24 basis, you can only rely
on solar for a slim fraction of electricity. You haven't solved the problem
in a technical manner, all one is doing is employing solar for a fraction of
total electricity consumption, to make ones self "feel" better. This is not
engineering, it is ideology- a faith movement to make one "feel" better,
without providing clean power to power one's civilization. How long must we
wait for miracle power sources, if the shadow of Climate Change is
overwhelming us all? It is politics and not health, and not engineering that
is driving this issue, right?
I don't see what you're saying here. Indeed, you appear to be contradicting
yourself. If solar provides 20% of your power, it provides 20% of your
power. There is nothing faith based about that, assuming it's a fact (e.g.
about 70% of New Zealand's power is provided by hydro, on average - that's
not faith, or a miracle, or a conspiracy, it's just a fact).
If solar can provide X% of your power, on average, then that means only
100-X% has to rely on fossil fuels. Hence you can reduce your fossil fuel
usage by that amount, and provide that much more of a distance between
civilisation and any future effects of pollution, climate change, and
resource depletion.
Sorry, what don't you understand here?
Another thing he does not understand is the concept of marginal value.
If renewables contributed say one third of the power mix the marginal impact
would be very large. It would mean aging, dirty coal fired plants could be
retired more quickly than they could be absent this contribution. They would
provide a resilience and stability to the grid - by lessening the exposure
to interruptions in the supply o fuels from distant regions. Localized roof
top solar especially will also lessen the load that the grid needs to carry.
the grid, in the US and other industrialized nations is already pretty much
at full capacity and it is very hard to increase this capacity. Rooftop
solar provides grid stability services (an important value, ask anyone who
lived through the great blackout of 2003 when NYC went dark); it does so by
offloading demand from the grid by being able to supply a portion of that
demand straight from the rooftop.
Solar power also coincides with peak demand - it maps very nicely onto it.
Some are making much about the need for 24 hours of power a day - but they
neglect to mention that in fact there is very little demand for electric
power in the wee hours of the morn - in fact this is a huge current and
on-going problem, and at night wind power in Europe is on occasion even
driving the spot wholesale price for electricity into negative territory..
Electric producers have to pay to put the power onto the grid. So much for
the "argument" of this vital necessity that solar power be able to continue
to be able to generate power - to supply the "voracious appetite" for
electricity prevailing during the wee morning hours. Chris
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