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Renewable Energy Production Surpasses Nuclear In the US
mdsolar writes "Renewable energy production has surpassed nuclear energy production in the U.S. according to the latest issue of Monthly Energy Review (PDF) published by the Energy Information Administration. ... During the first three months of 2011, energy produced from renewable energy sources (biomass/biofuels, geothermal, solar, hydro, wind) generated 2.245 quadrillion Btus of energy equating to 11.73 percent of U.S. energy production. During this same time period, renewable energy production surpassed nuclear energy power by 5.65 percent. In total, energy produced from renewables is 77.15 percent of that from domestic crude oil production."
It also requires a massive amount of salt. Sodium thiosulfate, one of the favored salts for thermal energy storage due to low cost, practical melting point, high heat of fusion, and low toxicity, takes over one ton to store the energy required by the average household for one day. You can reuse it each day, of course, but that's still a buttload of salt for just one city.
My sister opened a computer store in Hawaii. She sells C shells by the seashore.
Note that they are also lumping in ethanol, which has already been shown to require more fossil fuel to produce that it can replace (or close to it, depending on the way it's calculated. And ethanol is 10% of all the fuel in all the cars, and is heavily supported by subsidies, so it's not only inefficient, but can't even pay for itself.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia