Howard_T

Senator Schumer Misses the Full Picture on A-Power's Joint Texas Wind Farm

How much of West Texas wind power do I get in the northeast US for my share of the cost? The answer is a big, fat zero, because you just can't transmit significant amounts of power that far. Here in New England, except in coastal areas, and even there not a 100% guarantee, the wind is unreliable. The same goes for solar, especially in the short days and long nights of winter when electricity usage is highest. In this part of the US we're stuck with burning fossil fuels until we get more nuclear power. I could go on and on about how the anti-nuke groups use unfounded fears to promote their agenda. I could go on and on about how Harry Reid ripped off the US for funding of the construction of the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste site, then when it was about to be put to use, he had it stopped. Those of you who promote the so-called green energy sources, please look at reality. If you want to reduce the burning of fossil fuels, please consider nuclear as a viable option. Do not crush a part of the US under the weight of subsidies for cheap power elsewhere while killing our businesses and citizens with the cost of cap-and-trade. Look at the big picture, and think everything through to its logical conclusion, including all of the unforeseen consequences in your analysis.

Four Problems Facing Solar Power Companies

On top of the reasons posited in the article, solar power also has the problems any business faces: where do I put the production facility and how do I get the product to the consumer?

To produce commercially viable amounts of power, solar needs to have a very large array located somewhere that the sun shines nearly all the time. In other words, we are talking about the desert southwest. I'm not too sure that the same environmentalists who are urging the replacement of carbon-based energy will be too thrilled at having several hundred square miles of fragile desert environment destroyed. Assuming that this problem can be overcome, you now have to transmit this power to where it will be used. Here in the northeast, this would mean around 2,000+ miles of transmission line. How do you overcome the line losses? Do you build periodic substations to boost the voltage? If you are to depend on energy storage in a "smart grid" infrastructure, it hasn't yet been looked at from an engineering economics viewpoint, and perhaps the means to store the energy don't even exist in a practical sense. Allie, you may be correct that solar is inevitable, but it has a very long way to go before it is a proven and reliable technology on a nationwide, mass-market scale.