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That was my first thought too. At $1/W, 17MW of solar power would be $17mm + supporting infrastructure and that would be very expensive for solar at that scale.
by driverdan 8y ago
That was my first thought too. At $1/W, 17MW of solar power would be $17mm + supporting infrastructure and that would be very expensive for solar at that scale. I don't know what coal plants typically cost but this seems an order of magnitude too high.
- nicoburns 8y agoTrue, although to be fair I imagine it harder to build a power station in Alaska. And solar isn't going to be a great solution either!
- merpnderp 8y agoAlaska gets quite a bit less sun than the rest of the US and would need maybe 2x over-provision. And no idea what people will do for electricity the other 20 hours a day where solar panels are either useless or nearly useless. Also, cloudy days.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- driverdan 8y agoI wasn't trying to say solar was a good solution in this situation. I was giving a cost comparison to highlight how high this seems to be.