To be clear though, there are plenty of places on this planet where that wouldn't be an issue at all and neither would dust....
That's why common sense would dictate that as a species it would be an intelligent move for us to combine all of these energy producing methods.... I just don't understand why people from either side seem to feel as if we've got to find that one thing and stick with only it.... I don't get why it can't be a combination of things depending on where you live and what options there are...
Just like if you live in Iceland you get most of your energy from using the superheated water that's normally very deep inside the Earth, but happens to not be in Iceland.... Clearly that wouldn't work in other places, so once again, common sense would dictate that you use what works best in your geography..... some places that might be a combination of wind and solar, some places that might be nuclear, and in some places coal may very well be the best option they have.....
Solar is still not great if only for the materials needed and the vast amount of land required. And there's also the (current) issue of no nighttime production. We'd either have to produce through more conventional means at night or find a way to produce more during the day and store it.
And there's the decreased efficiency when the panels are dirty but I imagine that can be easily fixed with automatic water sprayers.
Solar works OK 4-7 hours per day, in the right climate and latitude bands. But it costs more to store and retrieve a kWh of electricity from a battery than it does to generate it from natural gas, nuclear, or hydro. So you need 100% backup or vast quantities of wind and vast capability to transfer wind power across continents or vast quantities of expensive batteries (you will always need 100% backup)
As of right now, 06:35 local time, CA is getting less than 23% of its grid power from renewables. Yet this summer, there were many hours each day when renewables supplied well over 50%. Which means if renewables are more than doubled, then there will be many hours where capacity will have to be severely curtailed, and the fossil fuel "backups" will be forced to chase even steeper demand curves. This is when the grid breaks.
To be clear though, there are plenty of places on this planet where that wouldn't be an issue at all and neither would dust....
That's why common sense would dictate that as a species it would be an intelligent move for us to combine all of these energy producing methods.... I just don't understand why people from either side seem to feel as if we've got to find that one thing and stick with only it.... I don't get why it can't be a combination of things depending on where you live and what options there are...
Just like if you live in Iceland you get most of your energy from using the superheated water that's normally very deep inside the Earth, but happens to not be in Iceland.... Clearly that wouldn't work in other places, so once again, common sense would dictate that you use what works best in your geography..... some places that might be a combination of wind and solar, some places that might be nuclear, and in some places coal may very well be the best option they have.....
Solar is still not great if only for the materials needed and the vast amount of land required. And there's also the (current) issue of no nighttime production. We'd either have to produce through more conventional means at night or find a way to produce more during the day and store it.
And there's the decreased efficiency when the panels are dirty but I imagine that can be easily fixed with automatic water sprayers.
Solar works OK 4-7 hours per day, in the right climate and latitude bands. But it costs more to store and retrieve a kWh of electricity from a battery than it does to generate it from natural gas, nuclear, or hydro. So you need 100% backup or vast quantities of wind and vast capability to transfer wind power across continents or vast quantities of expensive batteries (you will always need 100% backup)
As of right now, 06:35 local time, CA is getting less than 23% of its grid power from renewables. Yet this summer, there were many hours each day when renewables supplied well over 50%. Which means if renewables are more than doubled, then there will be many hours where capacity will have to be severely curtailed, and the fossil fuel "backups" will be forced to chase even steeper demand curves. This is when the grid breaks.
http://www.caiso.com/TodaysOutlook/Pages/supply.aspx
And how much water will that use in a desert?
Heehee. Another strike against solar I guess. Just use nuclear if we actually "care about the environment."
Not sure if you're being sarcastic but other than hydroelectric, nuclear really is our best option.
They can even burn off the waste from old nuclear power production in modern plants.
The only issue is when they build one on the shoreline of a tsunami zone or commies control it. Build one in a stable environment and its fine.