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Solar produces something like 90% of all the power it will generate in just 4 hours per day. Wind is intermittent and hard to predict. I live in one of the bigg
by merpnderp 7y ago
Solar produces something like 90% of all the power it will generate in just 4 hours per day. Wind is intermittent and hard to predict. I live in one of the biggest per capita wind power states in the US, and on some days the nat-gas/coal plants are taking almost the entire load. If we relied only upon renewables, we'd either have people dying due to the brownouts or dying because they can't afford electricity.
- ajross 7y ago> If we relied only upon renewables Strawman. No one is talking about "relying only" on wind/solar. The point is that if you have $100M to spend on power and infrastructure, and have the choice of one medium scale reactor that will come online around 2027 or about 4x that capacity in coastal wind that can be operational next year (and yes, the price delta really is about that big), and you actually care about climate and not an argument on HN, you build out the cheaper option because at the end of the day that's going to make a bigger difference. If at the end of the process we're trying to decomission the last 10% of legacy gas plants and need carbon-free options for peaking and buffering, sure, we can talk about building some expensive reactors.