Wind and Solar vs Coal, Gasoline, Nuclear

[liveforphysics]

I knock 20 to 30% off the "nameplate" rating, and my grid tie customers tell me on an annual basis that works out correctly. I have over a dozen installs out there and nobody is complaining about less then predicted output.

The warm fuzzy feeling of knowing you are producing 100% (or more, in my case) of your electrical energy is, priceless, payback be damned! That's free heat, refrigeration, cooking and laundry loads, running the well pump and irrigating, all free, for the rest of my life, plus the previous 10. I never bothered to do the math on payback when i went grid on my "new" property, after 28 years off grid I knew I wanted to do it, and could care less how it pencils out.

Winning!

I'm exploring moving into a Tesla Model S or X pulling a tiny home with a solar roof and at least one solar panel covered wall, if it doesn't make more sense to simply use them as the skin for the whole tiny home, and bond 8in thick urethane foam insulation panels or whatever to the backs of them to make them stiff enough to handle wind. Each surface face on it's own MPPT so it doesn't matter if the shaded side is only outputting 50w or whatever while the sunny side or roof is doing 2kW or whatever. For traveling you use the Tesla superchargers and power the house off the Tesla's pack from its DC-DC converter or whatever other method is simple and safe. When parked the tiny home is always dumping its surplus energy back into the Tesla pack if it's not already full.

 

[speedmd]

These are 80 cents a (claimed) watt. https://www.gogreensolar.com/products/sunspark-260w-solar-panel-assembled-in-the-usa

I travel through Syracuse NY an bunch during the winter months and rarely do I see any sun there that time of year. Rare its not snowing. Summers look nice there, but reasonably certain the winter months will be a challenge to keep snow off the array unless the angle is pretty steep. Don't you get some 200 inches a year?

 

[Hillhater]

I knock 20 to 30% off the "nameplate" rating, and my grid tie customers tell me on an annual basis that works out correctly. I have over a dozen installs out there and nobody is complaining about less then predicted output. ....

now i KNOW we have to have a communication problem here !
..CPG, you are a experienced guy in this area , and i for one respect your knowledge on this, so i know you cannot be saying that a 285W ("Nameplate") panel will produce an average of approx 200W X 24 hours = 4800Wh in a day ?..even with dual axis tracking , 100% clear sky, etc.
At very best , in ideal conditions it can only function in daylight hours, so its immediately at least 50% down on its "nameplate" capacity, and in normal real use that has been shown to be actually 20 -25% "Capacity Factor" as the industry like to call it.
so that 285W panel can be expected to produce around 1,700 Wh on a good day.
Technically , i believe the industry folk refer to "nameplate" capacity as "Wp" ..indicating Peak values.

...Does anyone have a long term useful energy source that isn't solar?

I assume you also mean non Fossil based, ? but sure... Hydro, Wind, Geothermal, Nuclear, Tidal, Wave, etc etc..
but they all have their "pros and Cons"
Most have a large cost penalty over Fossil fuels along with other issues.
Also, most have an "intermittent" nature which means they are inconsistent and unreliable, and as such need an unspecific amount of storage to support them.
Solar is only taking the lead because it currently appears relatively cheap to install ..compared to other renewable's.. ... UNTIL you start to factor in those easily overlooked details, such as 25% CF, inconsistency, Storage needs, operational life expectancy, etc.
Certainly, home roof/pole mounted solar makes a lot of sense in suitable areas ( not all though), but again , only because utility supply costs are so high that its justified.
I can get a grid tied 5.5kW (20 panel) system , fully installed by certified professionals for Au$3,400 (US$2,600)
and with utility supply at $0.26 kWh the payback is quick...
a 14kWh powerwall 2 could be added for an extra $12k , to provide total off grid supply, but that is not so quick to recover cost.
But this is not an option for every one in the world.
..and it certainly doesnt work for heavy industry either ..or most city dwellers.

 

[sendler2112]

I can get a grid tied 5.5kW (20 panel) system , fully installed by certified professionals for Au$3,400 (US$2,600)

You sure about that price? It costs me $8,900 just for the parts of a 5.2 kW grid tie system with Enphase micro inverters
.
https://www.wholesalesolar.com/1890310/wholesale-solar/complete-systems/5.2-kw-grid-tied-solar-system-with-enphase-m250-microinverters-and-20x-astronergy-260-panels
.
.
.
or $7,153 for the cheapest 5kW series system with optimizers.
.
https://www.wholesalesolar.com/1891505/wholesale-solar/complete-systems/4.96-kw-grid-tied-solar-system-with-solaredge-and-16x-astronergy-310-panels
.
This is just for the parts with no installation and at a mail order price. Local pricing is nearly double these figures.

 

[Hillhater]

$3400 was a quote i had a month or so ago.
a few weeks before it was actually $2990 !
But Today the equivalent deal is this ..6kW for Au$3990..(US$3000 ?) ..fully installed including inverters, 10 yr warranty etc.
http://www.dollarsolar.com.au/residential/6-kw-solar-system.
So prices are slowly increasing ? and the deals change almost daily.
These guys have quoted Au$6900 for a 10kW , 42 panel system..installed etc !
http://aussiehybridsolar.com.au/solar-power-systems
The Price is distorted by subsidies (paid to the retailer/installer) under the Australian Renewable Energy Credit scheme.
..Much the same as Commercial operators profit from !
Info here..
https://www.solaraccreditation.com.au/consumers/purchasing-your-solar-pv-system/government-schemes/renewable-energy-certificates.html

 

[sendler2112]

The Price is distorted by subsidies (paid to the retailer/installer) under the Australian Renewable Energy Credit scheme.
..Much the same as Commercial operators profit from !
Info here..
https://www.solaraccreditation.com.au/consumers/purchasing-your-solar-pv-system/government-schemes/renewable-energy-certificates.html

Ahh. That explains it. I have a total of 55% off right now but nowhere to put panels. And the installers are gouging on the installation fee.

 

[craneplaneguy]

Oops, I screwed up explaining how to guesstimate solar output, you first multiply how many watts you have total, THEN multiply that by the number of hours per day (on an averaged out annual basis) you can expect full output, charts for this on the web, in my area it's 5 to 6 hours per day, depending on how optimistic or pessimistic you want to be) Then you knock off 20 to 30% of that resulting figure. So yeah, big difference!

I knock 20 to 30% off the "nameplate" rating, and my grid tie customers tell me on an annual basis that works out correctly. I have over a dozen installs out there and nobody is complaining about less then predicted output. ....

now i KNOW we have to have a communication problem here !
..CPG, you are a experienced guy in this area , and i for one respect your knowledge on this, so i know you cannot be saying that a 285W ("Nameplate") panel will produce an average of approx 200W X 24 hours = 4800Wh in a day ?..even with dual axis tracking , 100% clear sky, etc.
At very best , in ideal conditions it can only function in daylight hours, so its immediately at least 50% down on its "nameplate" capacity, and in normal real use that has been shown to be actually 20 -25% "Capacity Factor" as the industry like to call it.
so that 285W panel can be expected to produce around 1,700 Wh on a good day.
Technically , i believe the industry folk refer to "nameplate" capacity as "Wp" ..indicating Peak values.

...Does anyone have a long term useful energy source that isn't solar?

I assume you also mean non Fossil based, ? but sure... Hydro, Wind, Geothermal, Nuclear, Tidal, Wave, etc etc..
but they all have their "pros and Cons"
Most have a large cost penalty over Fossil fuels along with other issues.
Also, most have an "intermittent" nature which means they are inconsistent and unreliable, and as such need an unspecific amount of storage to support them.
Solar is only taking the lead because it currently appears relatively cheap to install ..compared to other renewable's.. ... UNTIL you start to factor in those easily overlooked details, such as 25% CF, inconsistency, Storage needs, operational life expectancy, etc.
Certainly, home roof/pole mounted solar makes a lot of sense in suitable areas ( not all though), but again , only because utility supply costs are so high that its justified.
I can get a grid tied 5.5kW (20 panel) system , fully installed by certified professionals for Au$3,400 (US$2,600)
and with utility supply at $0.26 kWh the payback is quick...
a 14kWh powerwall 2 could be added for an extra $12k , to provide total off grid supply, but that is not so quick to recover cost.
But this is not an option for every one in the world.
..and it certainly doesnt work for heavy industry either ..or most city dwellers.

 

[sendler2112]

Oops, I screwed up explaining how to guesstimate solar output, you first multiply how many watts you have total, THEN multiply that by the number of hours per day (on an averaged out annual basis) you can expect full output, charts for this on the web, in my area it's 5 to 6 hours per day, depending on how optimistic or pessimistic you want to be) Then you knock off 20 to 30% of that resulting figure. So yeah, big difference!

So 33% and then 30% less than that. For 23% of the nameplate capacity of the panels. Would still be way high where I live.

 

[sendler2112]

Actually I guess i messed that up. It would be 21-25% and then 30% off from that for 14.6 - 17.5% of the panel nameplate capacity. Which is probably about right for most roof top installations. Upstate NY is being professionally quoted at 13% of the nameplate.

 

[TheBeastie]

Hey all.
I have to tell you that i have just experienced something new....a ban from posting comments on a tech news.site !
Those journalist on the Reneweconomy site do not want to hear any facts or discussion that is not totally alligned to their version of things.
They are 110%? convinced that more solar, and wind generation is the only way to solve SAs power issues and bring down prices. The Aurora project is seen as a brilliant solution etc etc
Any serious questioning or presentation of cotrary facts is met with derision, insults, abusive name calling, Troll accusations, etc etc.....and then a complete ban, with no explanation !
Ah well, it was not a place i liked anyway .

Yeah I got banned from reneweconomy.com.au
http://reneweconomy.com.au/james-hansens-generation-iv-nuclear-fallacies-and-fantasies-70309/#comment-3498427794

I had actually pretty much given up posting on Reneweconomy because my posts constantly disappeared, but they didn't disappear right away, normally after about 12 hours or so.. If there was one thing they really seemed to hate it was real world average power generation data from the EIA.gov etc.
I did have a system where I would copy/paste my post into my private "Google Keep" and then wait for my post on reneweconomy to disappear and after about 4 days knowing that the discussion had largely moved on just post it again and it would normally stay.

I decided to post on the recent article about Nuclear on Reneweconomy because there was a massive amount of comments so I thought I would join in.
When my post disappeared again after about 12 hours I decided to repost the next day and decided to include a claim that my posts get deleted. http://reneweconomy.com.au/james-hansens-generation-iv-nuclear-fallacies-and-fantasies-70309/#comment-3497011595

The moderator jumped in and said I deleted my own post so I decided to look in my Google Chrome history and clicked on the exact point of where it should have been and it comes up and said its "marked as spam", but its baloney because why would a anti-spam system take 12-24 hours to decide my message was spam because I was constantly checking my posts hours after initially posting them and they always stayed it wouldn't be until the next day they would be gone, there is no anti-spam system in the world that could be that slow or stupid.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a6202cb1e7885679444d527d5238446ccde1cd54b0c578aed3c309f2ee7ac7a9.jpg

After I said this to the moderator I got banned.
Considering you claimed you have looked and said "I" deleted it maybe I should be wondering if it's you that's marking them as spam and making them invisible? This has happened on this particular website so many times now and it never happens other websites that use Disqus.
He responded with this pretty short and weird/tempered "your banned" reply, considering this is the only time I have ever brought up the issue of my posts on Reneweconomy disappearing one way or the other. "But i'm tired of your pathetic accusations, so your banned."


I constantly have my comment posts on GetUPs Facebook page "disappear" as well and I can confirm some are fully deleted.
I am convinced these kinds of organizations are just deceitful creeps out to make money at the cost of everyone else, with kick backs and all sorts of dodgy deals, in my opinion. When you can announce a very expensive mass bird wildlife barbequing power-station thats likely to generate 1% of the power of a mid-sized 1960 coal power-station and the crowds cheer it on you know theres big bucks to be made out of the madness, as calculated/discussed here https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=89002&p=1312409#p1312409
When Tasmania ran out of water to run its hydro and on top lost its undersea power cable from Victoria there was no way to pretend they were selling renewable power to mainland Australia. Tasmania was just running on a large bank of diesel engines to get its way through, then on top you have SA frequently using 10 times as much fossil fuel for its self than its wind power https://endless-sphere.com/forums/download/file.php?id=220578 there is no where else to run..
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-03-30/hydro-tasmanian-revises-falling-dam-levels/7284020
So back then I realized that Getups "Powershop" where they promise you can buy 100% renewable electricity etc is just baloney, when I started undermining them on Facebook I basically looked as evil as Hitler, the icing on the cake is that I have a relative that's a strong Getup supporter and even donates money to them. Its all just evil.
This just came out a week ago.
GetUp! pockets $2m with a ‘dirty’ deal (secondary link try loading via incognito tab to pierce paywall)
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/mining-energy/getup-pockets-2-million-with-a-dirty-deal-on-power-prices/news-story/5a76065bddfae60107b7c0a113a73392

GetUp! claims to have helped 20,000 members switch from Australia’s “dirtiest” electricity retailers to green energy by referring them to a rival company, des­pite the rival admitting it has no idea where its power comes from.

The activist group was paid more than $2 million in exchange for referring members to online retailer Powershop, promoting it as “backed by a 100 per cent ­renewable energy company”.

This is where these so called environmentalist politcal groups really can be categorized https://youtu.be/OwqIy8Ikv-c?t=3m19s

Because of the awesome power of "accurate and informative" renewable Facebook memes from GetUP etc https://www.facebook.com/GetUpAustralia/videos/10154646716916455/ , Victoria is expected to have blackouts this summer due to the Hazelwood shutdown after the Vic government trippled the royality tax on feeding the power-station its coal.
Frankly I would rather prefer to see a farmer have an "accident" with a large tractor and just push over the Heywood interconnector state grid power-lines to South Australia so that Victoria can have its remaining coal-power to its self, logically it would shave about 45% off the spot price for sure, saving millions.
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/energy-market-operator-warns-of-summer-blackouts-on-the-rise-in-victoria/news-story/5d7611dede8bc3a6caeb66e9664883ce
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/risk-of-blackouts-in-victoria-on-the-rise-this-summer-report-warns-20170905-gybool.html
Now there is talk about demands the Victorian government buy the Hazelwood power-station and reopen it http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/call-for-state-government-to-purchase-hazelwood-power-station/news-story/49e5a6468033da84a3b2a80cb9cde793

It would be great if South Australia pull a miracle and get their new Solar Thermal Tower built before this summer starts and provide that expected 1% extra average power.
Youtubes recommended "next video" gave me this one talking about much killing their desert solar farms are doing to endangered species like the desert tortoise.
https://youtu.be/A--1eRAcQd0?t=3m28s

[youtube]A--1eRAcQd0[/youtube]

 

[Hillhater]

..... It would be 21-25% and then 30% off from that for 14.6 - 17.5% of the panel nameplate capacity. Which is probably about right for most roof top installations. Upstate NY is being professionally quoted at 13% of the nameplate.

I have no problem with these "CF" output ratings for PV, you simply factor it in to the system design and financial case.
BUT..i have a big problem with those parties that deliberately present "nameplate" ratings in system reports, news releases, media presentations, and even official comparisons to other generation technologies ( power and financial data). That is plain , deliberate deception.
Anyone who has any doubts about the variability of PV solar output can take a look at the hour by hour data from the 102mW (nameplate) Nyngan farm in NSW....for a 12 month period !
...warning ..800+ pages of data !
https://www.agl.com.au/-/media/DLS/About-AGL/Documents/How-We-Source-Energy/Solar-Environment/Nyngan-Solar-Plant/SolarMonthlyReportJan16ToDec16-Nyngan-(002).pdf?la=en
For those of you not following the Australian situation , renewable vs fossil power generation has become the hot topic of the month in all media , and government/parliamentary debates since there is no viable strategy for maintaining a "base load" generation capacity into the future as older fossil fueled generators are progressively shut down. We have 13% renewables (inc Hydro, wind, and solar) , but no nukes and no one willing to invest in new coal generators ..which currently provide 80% of base load.
Our next government will likely be elected /decided on this issue...if there isnt a major spill over this before.

 

[sendler2112]

..... It would be 21-25% and then 30% off from that for 14.6 - 17.5% of the panel nameplate capacity. Which is probably about right for most roof top installations. Upstate NY is being professionally quoted at 13% of the nameplate.

I have no problem with these "CF" output ratings for PV, you simply factor it in to the system design and financial case.
BUT..i have a big problem with those parties that deliberately present "nameplate" ratings in system reports, news releases, media presentations, and even official comparisons to other generation technologies ( power and financial data). That is plain , deliberate deception.

Fortunately there are a few of us now that have taken the time to study the published facts objectively to find the truth. Let's all spread the word so that general public can start forming informed opinions regarding our energy future. As renewables go past 20% of the supply and try to do more than just cover the afternoon peak, storage becomes the big issue. It is several times the cost of the generation methods.

 

[craneplaneguy]

I just got through changing out the jets in my micro hydro turbine, about a 5 minute job, if that. Plus I had to mess around a bit with the intake 147' (vertical) uphill in order to persuade a few random streams of water to go over my HydroScreen collection box. This time of year as the snowmelt is about gone up above, the flow of the stream drops off and I need to readjust things. None of it is any big chore, and I am still producing over 450 watts, from the earlier in the year high of 850 watts (into the grid, after conversion losses) and should until early winter, when I shut it down as it isn't freeze proof. But, meanwhile, the solar arrays keep doing their thing without any need to do anything, they are idiot proof!

I think we really need a lot of different energy sources, pretty hard to argue about the 24/7 ability of a big commercial plant of any kind, they allow my utility to supply my credited power back to me during the winter months. So even those my credits were generated with renewables, this winter my juice will largely be coming from Wyoming coal, with a bit of hydro as the utility runs their hydro year round. Then again, my summertime contribution to their system in some small way means less coal is needed then. I don't see coal going away anytime soon, we have too much of it.

 

[sendler2112]

Hydro resources must ALL! be utilized. They are incredibly energy intensive to build so we need to utilize our current fossil fuel energy wealth to get as many in place as possible. The environment will have to make room for us on this since hydro is the densest and steadiest clean power available.
.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_hydroelectric_power_stations
.

 

[sendler2112]

As an example, the Three Gorges and the Itaipu dams each make more energy in a year than 12 nuclear plants.
.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Gorges_Dam
.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Itaipu_Dam
.

 

[liveforphysics]

But without a rock solid baseload grid none of that works.

I know your quote above was many posts back, but I think it's often seen as a real obstacle in many folks realities making it worth addressing.

Today we have a power delivery service to each house, either a buried trench line of cabling or aerial cabling leading to some junction box with a meter and/or disconnect. Often somewhere near that disconnect is a big grey sheet metal box filled with breakers inside it.

This is what we live with today and it seems acceptable for most applications needs with power pretty well, with the difference mainly being that when you scale up for industrial power delivery, it often requires a large pad-mount transformer box/room to be located somewhere on sight.

When people build houses in a matured power infrastructure society (if we get there), they will also have a few boxes in the house somewhere like we do today, perhaps at first 10x larger than the box volume we use today, but soon enough it will be the same or smaller than today's 1900s era power distribution technology. Inside the box are a grid of micro-inverters that snap into the DC input backbone spine like todays breaker boxes, but each is an MPPT for the solar, and using parallel layout synchronous rectification stages on the front-ends of each inverter so it can pass-through to the batteries if they need charging and your inverter output load leaves them with surplus current available in the active rectification front end. This is what replaces the breaker box and circuit breakers, and the box where todays utility input meter and disconnect are today will be a cooler sized box or whatever, maybe buried under your lawn if you have no space and need a ton of energy storage or whatever.

In your extreme low average solar irradiance energy location with lots of snow, you may need to have many hundreds of kWh buried under your lawn or if it's packaged thin like Tesla packs, then perhaps bolted to the ceiling of your garage or something.

No argument that at todays prices that setup may be outside you're willing to spend and have a terrible ROI today VS a simple cheap grid-tied inverter.

Do realize that 2kW continuous DC fed AC inverters exist in cigarette pack sizes today (googles littlebox challenge winner using hybrid SiC-GaNfets). Do realize energy density and cycle life and $/Wh will never again be worse than it is today for batteries and energy storage.

Burning coal/oil/gas isn't going to become meaningfully better provided it still involves the coal changing from its higher chemical potential energy form to lower chemical potential energy form, as this involves taking Oxygen out of the life support system supply still even with perfect output carbon sequestration into stable geopolymers or whatever.

The beauty of solar is that the sun still shines there, if you choose to make some of it into electricity that eventually all is perfected added back as heat to the closed system, it's still no more heat/energy change to the system than if the sun just fell on the ground.

Anytime you're burning something, even just wood that grew decades ago, you're still creating an exothermic reaction in a closed loop system to release that stored solar energy in the woods biomass. When you leverage millions of years of stored solar energy to release in your closed loop system over a period of hundreds of years, to me it feels as silly as if we were sharing the tiny 10ft spacecapsule together at hopeless distances from help, and I start chiseling up chunks of the coal floor and lighting them and telling you about how helpful this will be for our spacecapsule experience.

 

[spinningmagnets]

A penny costs more than a penny to make. So...why do we still have pennies?

the purpose of a penny is not to make a profit, or even to break even. That penny that costs 1.5 cents to make might be part of thousands of transactions before it is worn enough to be melted and re-struck.

My point is this. We have a somewhat centralized grid for each region. Hoover Dam makes electricity that is sent to Las Vegas, San Diego and Los Angeles. Next to it is the Page-Arizona coal burning plant (which I picked-up fly-ash from in an 18-wheeler many time). After 9/11, a new bridge was built a 1/4 mile away so no truck-bombs could drive over Hoover Dam, and security at the coal burner was beefed up. If there was a multi-point attack on those generating stations, or the tall high-voltage towers that transport the electricity to those cities?...anyone without some other means of generating electricity will be out of luck.

When I lived in St George-Utah, the entire city was out of power for several days when a brushfire knocked out the transformer station for the town (we drove to Arizona and stayed at a hotel). So...we have terrorists, brushfires, earthquakes, tornadoes, and...hurricanes? What is the "smart" thing for us to do?

Decentralize all new power acquisition and distribution.

I now live in "tornado alley". I have seen countless images of the way a small tornado cuts a path through a town. One house will be completely taken, and the houses on either side have little damage. People out here have been buying solar panels from way before the prices came down and there was a decent ROI. They didn't spend money on solar to eventually save on their long-term electric bill...

they were early adopters of solar so they would have power when the grid is down.

 

[liveforphysics]

Nice perspective Spinning.

 

[Hillhater]

Luke, i respect your view, but it is one from an idealistic viewpoint.
In reality, not all locations have the sunny climate of CA..or Australia, so the solar solution is not universally practical for all.
Further, we ( well us in Australia at least) are in need of a solution NOW , using current tech and costs, as much of out base load power is close to its use by date and could be shut down early .
Domestic users are already rapidly gearing up with solar and some with batteries, but that is simply out of the question for much of the population due ti the realities of space, cost, regulation,etc...let alone the simple fact that there is a high proportion of renters who dont own the property.
But , the real issue is industry where a reliable 24hr supply is vital for process industries, and continuous operations.
Already, for security of supply, some large process industries have implimented plans to go with self generation .
But again Solar, Wind, battery, systems are not only impractical but also totally non viable financially. Thermal, (gas) is often the only option for existing industry locations.
Worse still, and this has already happened, the increased cost of power is forcing many industries to either shut down , or simply relocate to countries with cheaper energy....and that simply cripples the economy of the country.
There is no way anyone will be able to substitute the current base load fossil power sources in Australia with renewables on a timescale (<5 yr) to prevent large scale black outs.
We dont have enough Hydro potential, we have opted out of Nukes, so our solutions are limited to coal or gas (and we have major restrictions on gas development...fracking etc)
So in our REAL world situation here, we have a choice between keeping some fossil fueled capacity for until new solutions become practical, or distroying the economy of the Country.

 

[sendler2112]

People have such a hard time grasping that the energy footprint of society is much larger than the amount they see on their own personal electric bill. Residential electrical consumption in China and Russia was 15% of the total. In the USA it was 36%. Germany was 26%. Going to net zero at home in the USA means you are still relying on the grid for 2/3 of your consumption. In China you have only reduced your country's consumption by 15% by having a net zero home.
.
Everything around you is made from a little bit of raw material (harvested with massive amounts of energy), and massive amounts of energy. Please watch Nate Hagens.
.
https://youtu.be/YUSpsT6Oqrg
.

 

[sendler2112]

Quebec gets 99% of it's electricity from hydro. 40 GW.
.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydro-Qu%C3%A9bec
.

 

[wineboyrider]

And then there is Biomass! Burning for the future! http://www.renewableenergyworld.com...ass-generates-32-of-all-energy-in-sweden.html

 

[Hillhater]

And then there is Biomass! Burning for the future! http://www.renewableenergyworld.com...ass-generates-32-of-all-energy-in-sweden.html

Many countries already have some Biomass fueled generation, but if you work out the scale of growth needed to produce even a small proportion of the demand you will see its not practical for large scale use.
115TWh is equivalent to a small 13KVA generator plant.
And it has its environmental issues as well as technical limitations.

 

[liveforphysics]

Luke, i respect your view, but it is one from an idealistic viewpoint..

All the human activity that isn't sustainable has a single fate, to conclude.



As far the footprint being bigger than ones home, you're of course right and diet is a bigger factor than transportation. I will continue to enjoy a mostly local and always vegan diet, and using EVs for my transportation, and buying used when possible (I fly in airplanes that burn fuel still for now.)

The best we can do is to set the example with our own life choices.

 

[wineboyrider]

And then there is Biomass! Burning for the future! http://www.renewableenergyworld.com...ass-generates-32-of-all-energy-in-sweden.html

Many countries already have some Biomass fueled generation, but if you work out the scale of growth needed to produce even a small proportion of the demand you will see its not practical for large scale use.
115TWh is equivalent to a small 13KVA generator plant.
And it has its environmental issues as well as technical limitations.

All true Hillhater, but you still have to use the wood for something? I heat my house with old grapevine wood and oak pallets.