Study: wind and solar can power most of the United States

[Rhiannon12866]

Wind, solar, and storage could meet 90–100% of America’s electricity needs

In order to combat climate change, we need to rapidly move from fossil fuel energy to clean, renewable energy. The two energy sources I am most interested in are wind and solar power; however, there are other sources that have great potential.

Some people doubt how much wind and solar can supply to a country’s electricity grid. This is a particularly challenging question to answer in part because both solar power and wind power fluctuate in both space and time. We all know solar panels work well during the day, when the sun shines – they don’t work so well at night. And wind turbines only send electrons when the wind is blowing.

Fortunately, these two sources of energy fluctuate in ways that complement each other. For instance, solar power generation is highest in the summer and lowest in the winter. Wind power is greatest in the spring and fall. Wind turbines work at night when solar panels are dormant. So, can these complementing variations help balance out the power that the two technologies can provide?

This question was addressed in a very recent paper published in the journal Energy and Environmental Science. The author list included Dr. Ken Caldeira, who is extremely well known for his years of work in environmental science and energy.

The authors analyzed 36 years of hourly weather data (1980–2015) in the US. They calculated the available wind and solar power over this time period and also included the electrical demand in the US and its variation throughout the year.


More: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2018/mar/26/study-wind-and-solar-can-power-most-of-the-united-states



Wind turbines and solar panels. Photograph: Alamy

[Sophia4]

1. Just watched the movie, Racing Extinction.

It's excellent, very moving.

This movie should encourage many people to move away from eating beef and using fossil fuels like gasoline, coal and natural gas.

I strongly recommend watching the movie. It's Racing Extinction -- to be sure everyone knows the title.

Moving photos and film of wonderful sea animals and a plea to stop their slaughter.

[Rhiannon12866]

2. Thank you so much for the recommendation!

Working to slow down climate change, cleaning up the damage we've already done and saving the creatures we have left has to be a national priority - and it's essential that we resume our global leadership on these urgent issues!

[progressoid]

3. However...

from the abstract:

However, to reliably meet 100% of total annual electricity demand, seasonal cycles and unpredictable weather events require several weeks’ worth of energy storage and/or the installation of much more capacity of solar and wind power than is routinely necessary to meet peak demand. To obtain ?80% reliability, solar-heavy wind/solar generation mixes require sufficient energy storage to overcome the daily solar cycle, whereas wind-heavy wind/solar generation mixes require continental-scale transmission to exploit the geographic diversity of wind. Policy and planning aimed at providing a reliable electricity supply must therefore rigorously consider constraints associated with the geophysical variability of the solar and wind resource—even over continental scales.

[Rhiannon12866]

4. Well, it said up front that 100% might be an unreachable goal

But this study does provide hope that we could be doing a whole lot better than we are now - and that's a goal worth exploring.

[BigmanPigman]

7. That sounds like something Elon Musk would be

good at exploring.

[Hulk]

5. You simply wouldn't believe what Germany us doing with solar...

I was there five year ago, and again two years ago. Unbelievable what those people are doing with solar. There are hot water units on many homes, and unbelievable numbers of rooftops in factories and businesses with hundreds of square meters of solar panels generating electricity to resell to the utility companies. There are FIELDS of solar panels across the country. It's unbelievable!! It's as though we had begun to see a solar surge back in the early 80's when Carter was President...but we totally got taken in by the fossil fuel cartels. We are fook'd in place.

Meanwhile, Germany races forward. A footnote: They are motivated by getting off natural gas dependency from Russia...but still....UNBELIEVABLE!!

[Rhiannon12866]

6. I believe it!

With Trump at the helm, and his ridiculous appointments and deliberate war on progress, as we've seen stated before on DU, Germany - and Angela Merkel - is becoming the world's most effective leader. We need to join forces and learn from them, but as long as Trump, with his friends in the fossil fuel industry and reactionary advocacy for coal, we're going to continue slipping further and further behind - to our detriment.

[Sophia4]

8. I lived in Germany for a couple of years, and I would like to add that it is not a

really sunny country. So if Germany can do well with a lot of solar energy, the US with our deserts and dry areas can do far better.

Southern California, Arizona, New Mexico and much of Texas could be pretty much energy independent if we switched to solar and more electricity.

We have to find a less expensive way to make solar panels.

A college in Los Angeles has installed solar panels on one of its hillsides. Here is the article on their project. There is a good video at the website at the link, but I don't know how to display it here.

Oxy’s $6.8-million, 1-megawatt ground-mounted solar array is one of the largest of its kind in Los Angeles. It generates approximately 12 percent of the College's annual electrical usage and save an estimated $250,000 a year. We believe it’s one of the largest arrays in the country on a small college campus.

What makes it unique is that two-thirds of the array's 4,886 panels are installed on a southwest-facing campus hillside. With panels mounted just 2-3 feet above the ground, the low-profile array hugs the topography of the slope.

Art faculty collaborated with a local design firm to create a curving design based on a mathematical expression known as a hysteresis loop (produced when an alternating magnetic field is applied to ferromagnetic material).

. . . .

Led by physics professor Daniel Snowden-Ifft, who proposed the idea, the lengthy process of bringing the project to fruition combined a creative approach to design with extensive community outreach. In partnership with panel manufacturer SunPower, Oxy offered a discount on home solar installations to neighbors in the surrounding communities of Eagle Rock, Highland Park, and Mt. Washington.

https://www.oxy.edu/life-oxy/sustainability/solar-array

[NNadir]

10. Here's what they're "doing with solar."

Ancient German Forest Can Be Cut Down for Coal Mine, Court Rules

They're putting lipstick on their coal pig.

[NNadir]

9. This must be the 10,000th such "study" I've seen in the last 50 years.

Right now, after 50 years and thousands of similar "studies" wind and solar energy, after soaking trillions of dollars out of the world economy, this on a planet where over a billion people lack even basic sanitary supplies, don't produce 10 of the 576 exajoules that humanity was consuming annually as of 2016.

Results speak infinitely louder than an endless series of idiotic "studies" claiming that what hasn't worked and isn't working will work for some future generation.

It is merely an attempt to screw all future generations by asking them to clean up the toxic mess this quixotic enterprise, the so called "renewable energy" scam, will leave for them.

This is a moral disgrace.

Anyone with an ounce of sense who lived through the 1970's, the 1980's, the 1990's, the 2000's and the current decade who takes this horseshit seriously is not paying attention.

We are now at 410 ppm of carbon dioxide. In this century the fastest growing source of energy on this planet was coal which is now providing 60 more exajoules of energy than it didi in 2000.

The reason that this is true is because so many people lied to themselves, telling themselves what they wanted to hear rather than what they needed to hear.

If so called "renewable energy" could have worked, it would have worked.

This "study" is a crime against human decency at this point, and only a scientifically illiterate journalist could take it seriously.