A Minor Problem For Sound Science of the Effect of Offshore Windfarms on Seabirds: There Isn't Any.

[hunter]

27. Your enthusiasm for solar and wind augmented gas power plants is clear.

I didn't say I'd get rid of solar or wind, I'm saying solar and wind augmented gas power plants are undesirable, most especially large solar and wind projects built on previously undisturbed landscapes. An example of an undesirable and environmentally destructive solar augmented gas power plant would be the Ivanpah Solar Facility.

The dead wind turbines littering the hills of California were likewise part of a solar and wind augmented gas power grid.

I'm not complaining about solar panels on my neighbor's roofs or over the parking lots of my local college. This post is probably solar powered at my end, thanks to neighbors and a sunny day.

Nevertheless, if everyone is using gas as their fallback fuel when the wind isn't blowing and the sun is not shining then catastrophic civilization-busting global warming is inevitable. When you do the math you can't neglect the billions of human beings who are not yet fully participating in the high energy global consumer economy.

The rate of gas use doesn't matter, it's only a matter of who we are abandoning to the storms, our children, or our grandchildren.

If you can figure out how to maintain a standard of living that's acceptable to you without fossil fuels, then do it. If you live in an off-the-grid solar house I guarantee you'll learn to loathe batteries and long stretches of cloudy weather. These problems don't go away at any scale. Throwing in some nimble gas power plants, or hydroelectric plants run in environmentally irresponsible ways, brings you right back to the original problem: a growing and ultimately unsustainable consumer economy, and increasing use of natural gas and environmentally destructive hydro projects.