3 ms·
Not to mention a MW of wind is not equivalent to a MW of nuke. If you want wind you need a substantial overbuild that is geographically diverse and the necessar
by idiotsecant 4y ago
Not to mention a MW of wind is not equivalent to a MW of nuke. If you want wind you need a substantial overbuild that is geographically diverse and the necessary transmission to support that, which will cost as much as the generation itself, or you need storage which again costs as much as the generation itself. I am all for wind power, but only when we realistically consider the real world engineering constraints involved.
- ncmncm 4y agoAlways "mentioned", always irrelevant. Obviously if you will rely on wind or solar for baseline, you will need to build out storage. And, equally obviously, you don't waste money building out storage you don't yet have capacity to charge up. It is a trivial observation that adds no light.
- idiotsecant 4y agoYou might consider it a trivial observation, but the economic and physical implications are not trivial. They still cost money, and the physics still don't work if you don't consider them. Any discussion of the cost or viability of a generation source must include the cost and viability of augmenting the weaknesses of that source to address these deficiencies. Anything else is wishful thinking at best and magical thinking at worst.
- ncmncm 4y agoThe physics of practical storage have been fully understood and well internalized in civil engineering for centuries: E = Fx. All that remains unclear is which forms will turn out to be cheapest at the time when they need to be built. What is known now is that costs are falling even faster than did solar and wind, and are already of similar order.