Willis Eschenbach

I see that Zhou Bai-Den, our "President", wants carbon-free electricity by 2035. He plans to tax it into existence ... but here's reality:

2020 US fossil electricity use: 2,432 Terawatthours

Increased carbon-free gigawatts generation needed inc. peaks and downtime: 555 GW

Months to 2035: 160

hmmm ...

So we'd only need to do feasibility studies, identify sites, get permits, excavate, manufacture, install, test, and bring online 3 or more one-gigawatt nuclear power plants each and every month until 2035.

Build 3 nukes a month. Starting today. Until 2035.

Riiiight ...

Now, you can add expensive, intermittent, unreliable wind and solar to nuclear ... but you still need to have nukes for when the wind don't blow and the sun don't shine.

You prefer wind? For wind, you'd need no less than 1.5 MILLION one-megawatt wind turbines ...

So you'd have to do feasibility studies, identify sites, get permits, clear of all trees and brush, excavate, manufacture, install, test, and bring online 326 one-megawatt wind turbines EACH AND EVERY DAY UNTIL 2035.

Get real. That's gibbering madness.

How about solar?

Grid-scale solar provides the 24/7 equivalent of 8.3 watts per square meter of ground. We'll need 66,850 square km. of solar farms. That's three times the size of New Jersey.

So you'd have to do feasibility studies, identify sites, get permits, clear-cut all brush and trees, manufacture, install, test, and bring online 100 sq km (39 sq mi) of solar farm EACH AND EVERY WEEK UNTIL 2035.

Again, that's cloud-cuckoo-land ...

Simple math. Don't leave home without it.

w.

Here's an analysis of the plans to accomplish the impossible. They boil down to:

Tax cheap reliable energy and subsidize expensive unreliable energy.

Grrrr ...

https://www.csis.org/analysis/next-decade-us-power-sector-decarbonization?fbclid=IwAR2MoiCLfp38dh0zcB9jN7xxGj06jeec4OG0LzsWSx3WT_W13Sk0QxOUv74

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 08:27 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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