Power the U.S. With Solar Panels!

An idiot view.

Generation costs zero
Delivery costs zero
Collector maintenance is road maintenance

BUT

Speaking of cost...
Let's go back to Texas where the cost of a few hours of heat this past winter was thousands of dollars.

OH
And the air pollution
Water pollution
Ecological damage from mining fuels

What's the cost there?

An idiot view.

A true view.

Collector maintenance is road maintenance

Not sure what you mean.

Speaking of cost...
Let's go back to Texas where the cost of a few hours of heat this past winter was thousands of dollars.


Or England this year.

1631913633494.png


OH
And the air pollution
Water pollution
Ecological damage from mining fuels


I agree, mining for solar panel manufacturing is very dirty.
 
Well then, the Russians paid what they should have paid for it. Unfortunately it ended up costing them FAR more than many nuclear plant would have cost them. So much that they needed international help and financing to try and just contain the damage to some degree. As far as completely fixing the disaster, that is beyond the ability of humanity to do.


I am an Environmental Engineer. PE. I had a 30 year career in the field.

After retiring in 2003 and taking a couple of years off I did a little college teaching and also some consulting.

One of my consulting jobs was help with a nuclear power plant NRC permit application for an expansion at a Texas facility.

The plant wanted to permit a new reactor. This was during the final year of Bush's administration and he was opening it up.

The section I had to write was on alternative energy sources. The NRC permitting process has all kinds of silly ass requirements in it and one was to see if there was an alternative to putting in the nuclear power plant. There were four of us working on the 250 page section. I was in charge of the team.

We looked at NG, coal, thermo, hydro, oil, wind and solar.

NG, Oil and coal were the only ones capable of putting out the same amount of energy. There were no thermo or hydro alternatives available.

Wind and solar were a complete bust. We would have to essentially cover the entire county with either those stupid windmills or the even more stupid solar panels. We did all the engineering calculations and the wind and solar only worked under idea conditions (wind blowing, sun out) and at a cost greater than the new nuclear reactor.

Wind and solar are terrible technologies for high energy generations. Only idiots would suggest them.

The only reason we have wind farms and solar fields is because of filthy ass government subsidies, grants and requirements. They are terrible engineering economics.
 
FRANKFURT, Jan 4 (Reuters) - Germany saw its electricity export surplus shrink by 46.2% in 2020 to 18.9 terawatt hours (TWh), raising the prospect that its dependency on neighbours could rise in future as it switches off more coal and nuclear power stations, official data showed.

Power exports by Europe’s biggest economy, which shares borders with nine countries, fell 11.6% to 52.5 TWh last year compared with 59.4 TWh in 2019, the energy regulator, called the Bundesnetzagentur, said in a publication on Saturday.

Meanwhile, electricity imports into Germany in 2020 increased by 38.8% to 33.6 TWh, compared with 24.2 TWh in the prior year.


Thanks for the info. Sounds like they need more solar panels. Which no doubt they are in the process of adding. Next, with business acting like it tends to do, they are probably exporting electricity to countries who are willing to pay more and importing some from countries that aren't charging as much for it. They need to stop all that crap.
 
Germany is the most expensive. In the world.

Stop parroting that crap already. If Germany's electricity is the most expensive in the world, there must be a reason for it. And solar panels aren't it. I will tell you of another country with a bit larger of a population and fewer natural resources than Germany. Japan. And especially after the Fukushima disaster taking out one of their nuclear plants, you would think that their electricity would be the most expensive in the world.
 
Solar and wind are good but don't forget about hydro-electricity. Excess solar and wind energy can be used to pump water back up to reservoirs above the hydro-electric plant for storage until there is need for its release to generate more electricity.

Such a system is demonstrated here: Types of Hydropower Plants (see 3rd graphic)

Yeah. Except human caused global warming is drying up the lakes out west.
 
I am an Environmental Engineer. PE. I had a 30 year career in the field.

After retiring in 2003 and taking a couple of years off I did a little college teaching and also some consulting.

One of my consulting jobs was help with a nuclear power plant NRC permit application for an expansion at a Texas facility.

The plant wanted to permit a new reactor. This was during the final year of Bush's administration and he was opening it up.

The section I had to write was on alternative energy sources. The NRC permitting process has all kinds of silly ass requirements in it and one was to see if there was an alternative to putting in the nuclear power plant. There were four of us working on the 250 page section. I was in charge of the team.

We looked at NG, coal, thermo, hydro, oil, wind and solar.

NG, Oil and coal were the only ones capable of putting out the same amount of energy. There were no thermo or hydro alternatives available.

Wind and solar were a complete bust. We would have to essentially cover the entire county with either those stupid windmills or the even more stupid solar panels. We did all the engineering calculations and the wind and solar only worked under idea conditions (wind blowing, sun out) and at a cost greater than the new nuclear reactor.

Wind and solar are terrible technologies for high energy generations. Only idiots would suggest them.

The only reason we have wind farms and solar fields is because of filthy ass government subsidies, grants and requirements. They are terrible engineering economics.

There's hardly anything worse than an educated idiot. I will show you a map of the U.S. with a square in yellow showing the total area required in the U.S. to power it. Probably with more power than it needs. Both day and night with stored excess energy. Though there is FAR more useless desert in the U.S. than the yellow square on the map shows. Also, there is enough paved roads in the U.S. to cover the state of West Virginia in pavement. What if most of our highways and freeways had solar panels over them. Do I even need to go into solar panels on people's roofs, over parking lots, over car ports, etc?

Solar to power the U.S..png
 
There's hardly anything worse than an educated idiot. I will show you a map of the U.S. with a square in yellow showing the total area required in the U.S. to power it. Probably with more power than it needs. Both day and night with stored excess energy. Though there is FAR more useless desert in the U.S. than the yellow square on the map shows. Also, there is enough paved roads in the U.S. to cover the state of West Virginia in pavement. What if most of our highways and freeways had solar panels over them. Do I even need to go into solar panels on people's roofs, over parking lots, over car ports, etc?

View attachment 540691

That map is bullshit and any Engineer will laugh their ass off with it. You are a fucking idiot.

The Engineering calculations we did took a whole Texas county to produce as much solar energy as one auxiliary Nuclear power reactor and that was only under ideal conditions, like the sun being out that day.

By the way Moon Bat. Texas counties are enormous.

Go come up with something real. Like how ineffective solar power really is under actual field conditions.
 
That map is bullshit and any Engineer will laugh their ass off with it. You are a fucking idiot.

The Engineering calculations we did took a whole Texas county to produce as much solar energy as one auxiliary Nuclear power reactor and that was only under ideal conditions, like the sun being out that day.

By the way Moon Bat. Texas counties are enormous.

Go come up with something real. Like how ineffective solar power really is under actual field conditions.

The people who came up with that map are WAY smarter than you. It may bruise your ego, but deal with it. Also, that square is about 140 miles per side. Elon Musk thinks it could be done with a square 100 miles per side. Being an accomplished engineer, I would take his word on the matter over yours.
 
The people who came up with that map are WAY smarter than you. It may bruise your ego, but deal with it. Also, that square is about 140 miles per side. Elon Musk thinks it could be done with a square 100 miles per side. Being an accomplished engineer, I would take his word on the matter over yours.


Show me the technical inputs to that stupid chart.

You know there is only a narrow band in the sunbelt of the Southwest where solar becomes even close to being competitive with fossil fuels. Show me where that chart becomes relevant to the other 99% of the rest of the US.

Solar is not even close to being cost effective in Florida for power generation and we are known as the Sunshine State. Hell boy, this is the forth cloudy day in a row today and this is the middle of summer for us. Ohio, Illinois, Maine, Pennsylvania, forget it. Look at the pictures of the destroyed solar farms in Louisiana after the storm a couple of weeks ago.

Shitty technology and you stupid uneducated Moon Bats don't know your ass from a hole in the ground about things like this. Your copy and paste map is pathetic.

I occasionally teach a class in Environmental Science. You should really sign up for it so that you will learn something about the real world and won't be such a dumbass when you post your silly Environmental Wacko bullshit.
 
Stop parroting that crap already. If Germany's electricity is the most expensive in the world, there must be a reason for it. And solar panels aren't it. I will tell you of another country with a bit larger of a population and fewer natural resources than Germany. Japan. And especially after the Fukushima disaster taking out one of their nuclear plants, you would think that their electricity would be the most expensive in the world.

Stop parroting that crap already. If Germany's electricity is the most expensive in the world, there must be a reason for it.

No kidding. All the stupid green energy. And shutting down their nukes.

Fucking idiots.
 
Since we have only about 30 years of oil and gas, but about 400 years of coal, we are going to end up using coal, regardless of it being the most dirty.
 
Why do you feel that?

Why do you feel that?
I just looked it up again, and it looks like most oil suppliers have more like 70 years worth of gas and oil.
And for some reason, they listed Venezuela as having 370 years worth and Canada as 170 years?
So it is possible they are considering the difficulty in extraction of these heavy tar sand sites.
But this is ignoring the fact we are growing oil/gas consumption geometrically, and oil will be becoming increasingly difficult to extract.

What is interesting is they list the US as only having 10 years worth left.
I guess all that fracking was not such a good idea?
 
I just looked it up again, and it looks like most oil suppliers have more like 70 years worth of gas and oil.
And for some reason, they listed Venezuela as having 370 years worth and Canada as 170 years?
So it is possible they are considering the difficulty in extraction of these heavy tar sand sites.
But this is ignoring the fact we are growing oil/gas consumption geometrically, and oil will be becoming increasingly difficult to extract.

What is interesting is they list the US as only having 10 years worth left.
I guess all that fracking was not such a good idea?

I just looked it up again, and it looks like most oil suppliers have more like 70 years worth of gas and oil.

So you were lying, or ignorant?

And for some reason, they listed Venezuela as having 370 years worth and Canada as 170 years?

Because that's what they have? LOL!
Takes some real commie idiocy to fuck up 300+ years of reserves, right?

What is interesting is they list the US as only having 10 years worth left.


OK.

I guess all that fracking was not such a good idea?

Because fewer than 10 years would be better? LOL!
 
I just looked it up again, and it looks like most oil suppliers have more like 70 years worth of gas and oil.

So you were lying, or ignorant?

And for some reason, they listed Venezuela as having 370 years worth and Canada as 170 years?

Because that's what they have? LOL!
Takes some real commie idiocy to fuck up 300+ years of reserves, right?

What is interesting is they list the US as only having 10 years worth left.

OK.

I guess all that fracking was not such a good idea?

Because fewer than 10 years would be better? LOL!

Wrong.
When they say the US has 10 years worth left and Venezuela has 370, they are obviously projecting based on opinions.
And whether that opinion is 30 years or 70 years does not matter much or is much different.
The point is there is 10 times more coal than gas/oil, and gas/oil is going to get expensive soon, as it starts to run out.
If the US only has 10 years of gas/oil left, then obviously fracking to extract it all early, when the price was low, as stupid.
We should have imported gas and oil while the price was low, and save our gas and oil for when the price is at its maximum.
 
Wrong.
When they say the US has 10 years worth left and Venezuela has 370, they are obviously projecting based on opinions.
And whether that opinion is 30 years or 70 years does not matter much or is much different.
The point is there is 10 times more coal than gas/oil, and gas/oil is going to get expensive soon, as it starts to run out.
If the US only has 10 years of gas/oil left, then obviously fracking to extract it all early, when the price was low, as stupid.
We should have imported gas and oil while the price was low, and save our gas and oil for when the price is at its maximum.

When they say the US has 10 years worth left and Venezuela has 370, they are obviously projecting based on opinions.

They're projecting production versus reserves. Duh!

And whether that opinion is 30 years or 70 years does not matter much or is much different.

40 years more energy doesn't matter much? What an ignorant claim.
I guess that's what you're good at.

If the US only has 10 years of gas/oil left, then obviously fracking to extract it all early, when the price was low, as stupid.

Fracking it because we need it is only stupid in your "mind".
When it becomes more expensive, it will make economic sense to frack more difficult locations.

We should have imported gas and oil while the price was low, and save our gas and oil for when the price is at its maximum.

We should frack it when it makes economic sense. Which means idiots like you
won't be involved in the decision.
 
That map is bullshit and any Engineer will laugh their ass off with it. You are a fucking idiot.

The Engineering calculations we did took a whole Texas county to produce as much solar energy as one auxiliary Nuclear power reactor and that was only under ideal conditions, like the sun being out that day.

By the way Moon Bat. Texas counties are enormous.

Go come up with something real. Like how ineffective solar power really is under actual field conditions.
You are totally full of shit. Musk did the calculations with solar panels at 20%, and it would take only a square 100 X 100 miles. Of course, that is not what is going to happen. Another way is 1% of agricultural land would be equal to that. And parking lots are a very good place for a lot of solar.
1631981318562.png
 
When they say the US has 10 years worth left and Venezuela has 370, they are obviously projecting based on opinions.

They're projecting production versus reserves. Duh!

And whether that opinion is 30 years or 70 years does not matter much or is much different.

40 years more energy doesn't matter much? What an ignorant claim.
I guess that's what you're good at.

If the US only has 10 years of gas/oil left, then obviously fracking to extract it all early, when the price was low, as stupid.

Fracking it because we need it is only stupid in your "mind".
When it becomes more expensive, it will make economic sense to frack more difficult locations.

We should have imported gas and oil while the price was low, and save our gas and oil for when the price is at its maximum.

We should frack it when it makes economic sense. Which means idiots like you
won't be involved in the decision.
I don't care what is left, it is best left in the ground.
 
An idiot view.

A true view.

Collector maintenance is road maintenance

Not sure what you mean.

Speaking of cost...
Let's go back to Texas where the cost of a few hours of heat this past winter was thousands of dollars.


Or England this year.

View attachment 540629

OH
And the air pollution
Water pollution
Ecological damage from mining fuels


I agree, mining for solar panel manufacturing is very dirty.
Yes, they failed to winterize their generators, and Gas, Coal, and Nuclear plants failed. As did some wind turbines. However, in the Dakotas, which had much colder temperatures, for longer, the turbines did not fail. The failure here were the people in Texas that were to cheap to winterize their generating plants. And after the winter of 2011, it was not like they had no warning.
 

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