On 12/27/20 21:56, Keith Medcalf wrote:
Me too. On top of that, diesel and gasoline are pretty reliable. Though some people may argue about "renewables" the fact is that it is all a matter of time-frame. Solar power, for example, is not renewable. Once it is all used up, it will not "renew" itself -- and this "using up" process is quite independent of our usage of it, as it happens. The time to depletion may be somewhat long, but it still has a time to depletion. Oil and Gas, however, is a "renewable" resource and as a mere physical and chemical process it is occurring at this very moment.
Well, the sun can't be "used up". You just have to wait 12hrs - 15hrs before you can see it again :-).
Seriously, though, solar != storage. You can have solar (power) without storage. It's not very useful when you have a grid outage, or on days with low irradiation, but for what it's worth, it will do its thing.
Renewables is not about lasting forever, but about lasting for as long as they can with minimal impact to the environment. Economically and/or physically.
Having spent some time on this, for me, it's about comfort, and quality of life. If you look at renewables as pure cost-benefit analysis (to the Economics majors, that's RoI), you'll be sorely disappointed.
Mark.
