billvon said:
a wiser solution would be to rely on a range of renewable technologies. .
https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=20112
So for NY state 33 GW average electrical consumption summer and 24 GW winter we need 100GW of wind operating at 25% to get us through the winter weeks of Zero sun and another 60GW of solar PV when it will work at 25% in the summer for the increased consumption and decreased wind.
.
We have adequate wind. On shore at the East end of Lake Erie and the Tug Hill Platue East of Lake Ontario and near shore off of Long Island.
.
We can then use Lake Erie as hydro storage to fill in demand via Niagara Falls when we need it.
.
How much land does this take? Modern Turbines at 30% are about 1 Watt/ meter^2.
.
http://www.energyadvocate.com/fw84.htm
.
100,000 km^2. Which is a square that is 182 km on a side for each of the three wind areas
.
How much money?
.
The biggest (cheapest) turbines are somewhere around $1.50/ Watt.
.
$150 Billion
.
Solar farms are still way over $2/ Watt installed in my area. And another 400km^2 land for the panels.
So another $120 Billion for the solar pv.
How do we do this. Private development of wind and solar has very few takers in NY even with 55% combined rebates and a $0.03 feed in tariff.