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Relying on Renewables Alone Significantly Inflates the Cost of Overhauling Energy (technologyreview.com)
A growing number of US cities and states have proposed or even passed legislation that would require producing all electricity from renewable energy sources like solar and wind within a few decades. That might sound like a great idea. But a growing body of evidence shows it's not. From a report: It increasingly appears that insisting on 100 percent renewable sources -- and disdaining others that don't produce greenhouse gases, such as nuclear power and fossil-fuel plants with carbon-capture technology -- is wastefully expensive and needlessly difficult. In the latest piece of evidence, a study published in Energy & Environmental Science determined that solar and wind energy alone could reliably meet about 80 percent of recent US annual electricity demand, but massive investments in energy storage and transmission would be needed to avoid major blackouts. Pushing to meet 100 percent of demand with these resources would require building a huge number of additional wind and solar farms -- or expanding electricity storage to an extent that would be prohibitively expensive at current prices. Or some of both.
I was thinking exactly the same thing about the reference to carbon capture since it isn't a thing that has been done in any large scale way plus it costs money even if it works, when you add that cost to the cost of the fuel makes it something nobody will fund either.
Also leads me to believe that the study may not be all that credible since carbon capture and "clean coal" are how the fossil fuel industry is trying to delay renewables.... we'll have clean coal next year so why do you need those dangerous toxic solar panels that never generate more power than it takes to manufacture them and those bird murdering wind turbines !
Won't someone think of the birds !
I don't think nuclear is the way to go with current technology, it's 100% safe until it isn't ( how about a swim in Fukashima bay six years after the tsunami ? no ?). And I believe the conversion of the cost of building, fueling and decommissioning a large scale reactor is roughly "one metric crap ton" of solar panels and batteries, somebody should do the math on that as a distributed generation and storage system. I'm thinking it could provide a comparable number of houses with power and the fuel is stored 93 million miles away and there is already a system that protects us from most of it's radiation.
Unless there is a another Carrington Event... but that didn't hurt anyone.
But the average US household power consumption is a bit high and should be reduced or at least thought about since most Americans ( myself included ) don't even really think about power usage and mostly feel that is below us and for those "other countries".
I'm putting an off grid Tesla Powerwall and solar panels on my cabin because it costs less than attaching it to the grid ( which is only 500' away ) and I won't have to pay a power bill. I will need to replace the battery in about 20 years ( since it's not cycling constantly, it'll last a lot longer than the 10 years it's guaranteed for ) and by then the replacement will be a lot cheaper.
Also my payback for going solar is on day one.