Michel Jullian wrote:
There may be no wind power in Georgia, but your electricity network
may be interconnected with other networks far away where there is
wind power, that's the nicety of these networks (makes up for their ugliness).
States with significant wind resources are thousands of miles away,
and you cannot transmit electricity that far. Georgia has no
significant renewable energy resources.
It is a shame you cannot transmit electricity 2000 miles because if
you could, we could establish a massive solar thermal plant in a 100
square mile area of the Southwest desert, and generate all the
electricity we now consume. Or we could do the same trick with wind
farms in North Dakota. Alas, it is impossible. Someday high
temperature superconducting wires or hydrogen pipelines may allow
electricity to be transmitted across the continent.
Now would potential US wind power be enough to recharge all US
automobiles at some time or other of the night do you think?
Potential US wind power could supply more energy than you get from
burning the entire flow of oil from the Middle East. It could easily
supply all of the energy consumed by everyone in North America. For
that matter, so would a 200 square mile area of the desert. One
hundred to replace all electricity, another 100 to replace all other
sources of energy.
Renewable energy such as solar and wind could easily meet all of our
needs indefinitely, if only we had the technology to harness it.
However, it would be thousands of times more expensive than cold
fusion. (As are present day fossil fuel and uranium fission.) If we
develop wind and solar power for the next 500 years, the price will
fall until it is far cheaper than today's energy, but it will never
fall to anything like the level that cold fusion could reach. Look at
the 25 kW solar generator here:
http://www.stirlingenergy.com/imagesdet.asp?type=allsolar&imageID=11
This prototype costs hundreds of thousands of bucks, but look at the
materials and the size of the gadget. You can imagine that after 50
years of manufacturing millions of these things the cost falls to,
say, $5,000. It is no bigger or more complicated than a small
automobile. That would be $200/kW, for with zero fuel cost, compared
to $6,000/kW for nuclear plants (where the fuel costs practically
nothing), or $2,000/kW for wind (where the fuel costs absolutely
nothing). In other words, in 50 years these things could easily
produce electricity far cheaper than it is today.
Now think of a 25 kW cold fusion generator. After 50 years of intense
development, you can imagine one the size of today's 25 kW portable
generators that costs $1,000, or maybe even $500. It would have no
moving parts and it would last for 30 years, or maybe 50 years. (As
far as I know, thermoelectric devices in a pristine, sealed
environment cannot degrade much.) The gadget would not need an
electric power grid. It would work 24 hours a day, unlike the
Stirling Energy 25 kW generator. It would also serve as a space
heater in a cogenerator configuration. Over the life of the machine
the heavy water fuel it consumes would cost a few dollars. Clearly,
that would reduce the cost of energy far below the levels you could
achieve with the Stirling generator. The only thing remotely
comparable would be 25 kW hydroelectric generator on your own
property 50 feet from your house, in a climate where the stream never
freezes or dries up. Even that would call for much higher maintenance
costs, and much more expensive generating equipment which would have
to be replaced more often.
- Jed
