ShackledNation
Libertarian
Well that changes the argument. It would take the same amount of time to build a solar power plant as a coal plant. Maybe even less time. But now you are saying it would take a longer time to replace all fossil fuel energy production with solar power than to just build more fossil power. Of course it would, but nobody was every saying anything contrary to that.Sure, a lot. But no longer than it would take to build a new coal power plant, or store excess energy produced by coal, etc. Your point was that solar energy is a problem because electricity is hard to store. I showed you examples of technology that demonstrates solar energy can in fact be stored. In response, you change the subject to costs, changing the line of argument.Electricity is hard to store, very true. But you are incorrect that solar energy cannot be stored. There have been several recent innovations in this respect. Here is just one example.Solar energy produced during the day can be stored for use at night. Nuclear, coal, and other power plants can just as equally be blown up, so that is not in any way a drawback of solar power.Solar is great, during the day. It can ADD to a nation's power grid, but it cannot (yet) replace other means of energy production. This idea looks good on paper, but has massive vulnerabilities. No need to blow anything up, just cut the power line, and one cyclone would at least put it out of production if not totally destroy it.
Wind is even less reliable. Now if we could put some windmills up in the jet stream...
In fact, if solar panels were installed on all buildings, power generation would be more spread out and thus more secure.
Unfortunately, that is not true. Electricity is notoriously hard to store. That is why the power plants have to be careful to only produce as much power as is needed at the moment. Solar energy will have to be stored as something other than electricity.
Solar Thermophotovoltaic Cells Can Generate Electricity at Night ENGINEERING.com
Here is another example of storing energy.
Pumped-storage hydroelectricity - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia
It is difficult, but with a power grid it is very possible.
And how much will it cost, and how long will it take to bring those to maturity so they can replace fossil fuels? Answer to both, a lot.
I disagree. The whole point to my argument is that it will take far more than today's solar technology to replace fossil fuel energy production. We're headed in a good direction, and in the future, solar may well play a significant role, but the dream of solar powering the world isn't going to happen in our lifetimes, unless someone can figure out how to get massive panels into space where the sun doesn't set, and get the electricity back to earth. Now, as to storing electricity produced by coal, we don't. We just don't burn the coal unless extra power is needed. That's called capacity, and why you hear about power plants running at less then 100%. They need to be able to take units offline for maintenance, for example, without disrupting power production.
The argument is not "end fossil fuels now and instantly use solar power." The argument is that solar power is a viable energy source, and producing more solar power will allow us to gradually consume less fossil fuels. It is transitional, not instant.
As to the argument we do not store electricity produced by coal: that is not true. Power grid storage stores energy from the grid regardless of whether it was produced by the sun or by coal. This article by the Department of Energy goes into some detail about U.S. energy storage:
http://energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2013/12/f5/Grid Energy Storage December 2013.pdf
"At present, the U.S. has about 24.6GW (approx. 2.3% of total electric production capacity) of grid storage, 95% of which is pumped storage hydro. Europe and Japan have notably higher fractions of grid storage." The report makes the argument that the U.S. would have a more efficient power grid with more energy storage. Keep in mind that energy storage does not segregate where the energy comes from before it is stored.
Also in the report:
"Until the mid-1980s energy storage was viewed by the electric utilities as a means to time shift energy produced by coal and nuclear units during off-peak hours to displace energy that would be produced from other more expensive fuels during on-peak periods."
Energy storage didn't arise because of solar power, it arose because at times there was a surplus of energy (nobody can predict with 100% certainty how much energy will be used at a given time) and that surplus would go wasted if not stored.