Search Results for: wind and solar

Why wind and solar will cause more blackouts

Preface. Clearly fossil fuel plants need to be replaced with energy storage — batteries, pumped hydro, or compressed air. Many hours of backup power will be needed since, unfortunately, over two-thirds of total wind power in the U.S. happens outside … Continue reading

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Wind and solar need natural gas to balance intermittent, variable, and seasonal power

Preface. The highest wind states are getting more and more dependent on natural gas to balance wind and solar as they live and die. Yet conventional natural gas in the U.S. has peaked (half of our national gas, and declining … Continue reading

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Wind and Solar diurnal and seasonal variations require energy storage

Preface. Currently energy storage is accomplished with the 67% of fossil fuels (natural gas and coal) used to generate electricity, especially natural gas which can kick in within microseconds to make up for failing wind, or run all the time … Continue reading

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German wind and solar integration

Schiermeier, Q. April 10, 2013. Renewable power: Germany’s energy gamble. An ambitious plan to slash greenhouse-gas emissions must clear some high technical and economic hurdles. Nature 496: 156–158 The rapid rise in wind and solar power has created a nightmare … Continue reading

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Wind and Solar Power Require MORE Fossil Fuels

Ralph Vartabedian. 9 Dec 2012.  Rise in renewable energy will require more use of fossil fuels. Los Angeles Times. As California attempts to reach the goal of producing one-third of its electricity from wind and solar sources by 2020, more … Continue reading

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Minerals essential for wind, solar, and high-tech, are anything but clean and green

This is a book review of Pitron’s “The rare metals war”.  To produce the metals and minerals to make a transition to wind, solar, nuclear and so on would be incredibly destructive and polluting. A fifth of China’s arable land … Continue reading

Posted in Battery - Utility Scale, Mining, Peak Critical Elements, Peak Rare Earth Elements, Peak Resources, Photovoltaic Solar, Recycle, Recycling, Wind | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Wind, solar, and natural gas are driving nuclear power out of business

Preface. I’m no fan of nuclear power because we may already be at peak uranium, there’s nowhere to store nuclear waste, and a spent nuclear pool fire could harm millions of people. But renewable wind and solar and natural gas … Continue reading

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Power density of biomass, wind, & solar take too much land to replace fossil fuels

Volumetric versus specific energy density for selected energy carriers. Source: Palmer, G. 2020. Energy storage & civilization: a systems approach. Springer. Preface. Vaclav Smil writes “The fact that wind, solar, and biomass have incredibly low energy density per square meter … Continue reading

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Wind, solar, and storage impact on the California grid

California Energy commission. June 2010. Research evaluation of wind generation, solar generation, and storage impact on the California Grid. 131 pages. Excerpts: This report analyzes the effect of increasing renewable energy generation on California’s electricity system and assesses and quantifies … Continue reading

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Not enough wind, solar, geothermal to replace fossil and nuclear power in the 11 western states of the WECC

California, Oregon, Utah, and Washington have already developed most (if not all) of their prime-quality in-state resources. You would think that the more wind and solar power is added over a wide area, the more fossil fuel power plants you … Continue reading

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