dpb wrote:

Pete C. wrote:
dpb wrote:
Pete C. wrote:
Jim Yanik wrote:
...
how do you supply power when the sun goes down,if there are no batteries to
store the excess power generated by the solar panels?
Wind generators typically go quiet at night,too.
BTW, I just looked at the Gray County (KS) wind farm production data.
Since initial startup mid-2001 thru mid-2007, they have averaged only
40% capacity factor w/ a high month of less than 60% and several months
of only 20%. That implies from 2.5X to 5X the required generation even
to get the output which still would be awfully expensive to have such
excess installed capacity. Wind has some benefits, but it can't replace
baseload generation in large quantites w/o very high excess capacity at
other times. This facility is in W KS, one of the highest wind energy
potential areas in the US.

I've driven past some relatively huge wind turbine farms in west TX and
they sure didn't seem to be anywhere near full production either. Wind
certainly isn't the answer by itself, but it can certainly contribute to
the total.

The (continental) US spans a few time zones so that gives some spread,
It's still dark where it's dark when it's dark and those folks need
lights when it's dark, not while the sun's shining...

I understand what you think you would be doing there, but while haven't
done actual calculations, one problem is that you're adding even more
requirements for transmission during those dark times or still require
other generation facilities.

No single solution, a lot of different sources need to be adding power
to the grid in a lot of different places. If we can get better storage
technology than current batteries that will solve a lot of problems,
including EV range or lack thereof.

and hydro and tidal should go a long way towards filling in the night.
Add in locally viable items like biomass in big farm / ranch areas,
geothermal in the few areas where that works, some storage such as
pumped hydro and CAS to store surplus production during peak times ...
Certainly hydro, tidal and pumped storage have very limited geographical
constraints. I don't recognize "CAS".

Hydro and tidal generation are geographically limited, but a have a lot
of energy available and should be significant contributors to the total.
CAS is compressed air storage, same basic idea as pumped hydro storage,
compress air with off peak excess and run back through a turbine on
peak.

There are very few significant hydro locations undeveloped in the US.
OK, I know of CAS now that you remind me -- it's small potatoes kind of
solution.

Wind is a "fill-in" but I don't see it ever being practical as a
large-scale replacement as it is simply too costly to build the required
alternate source since it isn't reliable (enough).

The fundamental answer to electrical generation is nuclear.

Nuke is certainly the short term solution. Hopefully in the few decades
of breathing room nukes would provide storage technology would improve
enough to solve the problem of the intermittent nature of most RE
sources.