Wind and Solar Can Power Most of the United States, Says Study (theguardian.com)

An anonymous reader writes: The Guardian reports of a recent paper, published in the journal Energy and Environmental Science, that helps explain how wind and solar energy can power most of the United States: "The authors analyzed 36 years of hourly weather data (1980-2015) in the U.S. They calculated the available wind and solar power over this time period and also included the electrical demand in the U.S. and its variation throughout the year. With this information, the researchers considered two scenarios. In scenario 1, they imagined wind and solar installations that would be sufficient to supply 100% of the U.S. electrical needs. In the second scenario, the installations would be over-designed; capable of providing 150% of the total U.S. electrical need. But the authors recognize that just because a solar panel or a wind turbine can provide all our energy, it doesn't mean that will happen in reality. It goes back to the prior discussion that sometimes the wind just doesn't blow, and sometimes the sun isn't shining. With these two scenarios, the authors then considered different mixes of power, from all solar to all wind. They also included the effect of aggregation area, that is, what sized regions are used to generate power. Is your power coming from wind and solar in your neighborhood, your city, your state or your region?

The authors found that with 100% power capacity and no mechanism to store energy, a wind-heavy portfolio is best (about 75% wind, 25% solar) and using large aggregate regions is optimal. It is possible to supply about 75-80% of U.S. electrical needs. If the system were designed with excess capacity (the 150% case), the U.S. could meet about 90% of its needs with wind and solar power. The authors modified their study to allow up to 12 hours of US energy storage. They then found that the 100% capacity system fared even better (about 90% of the country's energy) and the optimal balance was now more solar (approximately 70% solar and 30% wind). For the over-capacity system, the authors found that virtually all the country's power needs could be met with wind, solar, and storage."

Comments

Na na na, I can't hear you...

[Frosty Piss]

Na na na... I can't hear you, na na na, Dead birds, na na na...

But seriously, the manufacture of solar collectors is not exactly environmentally friendly...

Re:Na na na, I can't hear you...

[LynnwoodRooster]

On the other hand, if you're talking about concentrating solar thermal plants (like the ones described in this story) there are no hazardous materials involved in their manufacture, which is definitely environmentally friendly.

And, once they are manufactured, there are no emissions when they make electricity.

Ahh, yes the clean solar thermal plants like Ivanpah which consume tens of billions of BTUs per month from its natural gas generators required to get it running each day!

Re:Everything is possible!

[BeauHD (Sr. Editor)]

The ozone hole kills hundreds of thousands of people every year. Climate change kills millions. If somebody else DOESN'T pay for it, who will?

Think about it for a little while. The answer is obvious.

{]=x=Beau=x=[}

I'll see it when I believe it.

[Jodka]

Here is a counter-argument to that kind of stuff:

Matt Ridley quoted at Coyote Blog here:

Even put together, wind and photovoltaic solar are supplying less than 1 per cent of global energy demand. From the International Energy Agency’s 2016 Key Renewables Trends, we can see that wind provided 0.46 per cent of global energy consumption in 2014, and solar and tide combined provided 0.35 per cent. Remember this is total energy, not just electricity, which is less than a fifth of all final energy, the rest being the solid, gaseous, and liquid fuels that do the heavy lifting for heat, transport and industry....

Meanwhile, world energy demand has been growing at about 2 per cent a year for nearly 40 years. Between 2013 and 2014, again using International Energy Agency data, it grew by just under 2,000 terawatt-hours.

If wind turbines were to supply all of that growth but no more, how many would need to be built each year? The answer is nearly 350,000, since a two-megawatt turbine can produce about 0.005 terawatt-hours per annum. That’s one-and-a-half times as many as have been built in the world since governments started pouring consumer funds into this so-called industry in the early 2000s.

At a density of, very roughly, 50 acres per megawatt, typical for wind farms, that many turbines would require a land area greater than the British Isles, including Ireland. Every year. If we kept this up for 50 years, we would have covered every square mile of a land area the size of Russia with wind farms. Remember, this would be just to fulfil the new demand for energy, not to displace the vast existing supply of energy from fossil fuels, which currently supply 80 per cent of global energy needs.

follow the link, it only gets better:

Their trick is to hide behind the statement that close to 14 per cent of the world’s energy is renewable, with the implication that this is wind and solar. In fact the vast majority — three quarters — is biomass (mainly wood), and a very large part of that is ‘traditional biomass’; sticks and logs and dung burned by the poor in their homes to cook with. Those people need that energy, but they pay a big price in health problems caused by smoke inhalation.

Re: I'll see it when I believe it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Every time some dumbass like you calls someone a "denier" it only makes me think of you as the "faithful". As in religious nutter who believes dumbass shit like santa and AGW and the Easter bunny solely based on some faux authority figure spewing shit for you to suck up.

Do you know what thermal plants do to birds

[SuperKendall]

On the other hand, if you're talking about concentrating solar thermal plants (like the ones described in this story) there are no hazardous materials involved in their manufacture, which is definitely environmentally friendly.

You are a fucking monster.

And, once they are manufactured, there are no emissions when they make electricity.

You are discounting how much carbon living screaming birds on fire generate.

Re:12 hours of storage is not feasible

[BlueStrat]

It's just a matter of willpower.

No, it's a matter of who is going to pay the incredibly high costs. Increasing the cost of energy only goes so far before you start killing off large sections of the poorest that won't be able to afford the costs. It increases the cost of food, medicine, housing, and nearly everything else. The poor are least able to to absorb the additional costs.It will also shutter many businesses or cause them to move offshore to another location with lower energy costs putting more people out of a job and so neither the unemployed nor the absent businesses will be paying US taxes.

Every solar/wind strategy that's been proposed relies on steeply increasing the cost of energy to users to both pay for the infrastructure and simultaneously reduce demand.

Increasing energy costs means people will die who would not otherwise. How many needless deaths per renewable-terrawatt is acceptable? 100? 1,000? 1,000,000?

Critical thinking about the unintended consequences seems to be mostly absent in the fanatical zeal to "green" energy.

Strat

Re:use less energy

[Rakarra]

Eating less meat, or at least fewer cows, would absolutely be a step in the right direction. The amount of land, water, feed, and of course, energy used to raise a cow for meat is pound-for-pound an order of magnitude more costly than almost anything else.

If our population keeps growing and getting more dense, the traditional way of raising cows is going to be extremely expensive.