Biden Plans Wind Farms Along Entire U.S. Coastline

[hunter]

29. I've been watching technological developments in renewable energy...

... since I was a radical young anti-nuclear activist in the later 'seventies and early 'eighties.

Well, the technology is here now and it's been found wanting.

At this moment only 24% of my electricity is coming from fossil fuels. Locally, it might even be less. There's so much solar installed in my neighborhood we may be exporting electricity on a sunny day. (The utilities seem to limit fossil fuel use to a 15% minimum, keeping a certain number of gas plants spinning in case of wind outages or transmission line failures.)

I can park under solar panels at the local supermarket, about a third of my neighbors have solar panels on their roofs, and the schools all have very large solar arrays.

But the stability of the grid is entirely dependent on natural gas. A megawatt rated wind or solar installation has to be backed up with a megawatt of gas capacity. More storage increases the cost of the power, but it doesn't decrease the possibility of outages in a linear way. It might even increase the risk of outages as storage systems reach the end of their capacity and drop offline.

The problem is the same at any scale, from a small off-grid cabin with solar panels and batteries, to a regional electric grid. Most of these systems are backed up by fossil fuels.

And we're not even talking about the high density energy systems required to feed and comfortably shelter eight billion people.

An economy powered entirely by "renewable energy" would look nothing like the economy many affluent people now enjoy. But that's not what made me change my mind about nuclear power. Rather, I no longer believe renewable energy can support the current human population. If we don't quit fossil fuels billions of people will suffer and die. If we do quit fossil fuels for renewable energy, billions of people will still suffer and die. I'm not worried about the rich guy driving the Tesla with the solar panels on his roof and the power wall in his garage, I'm worried about the family that has no access to clean water or nutritious food.

Our fossil fueled civilization has driven itself into a ditch. Nuclear power is the only existing technology powerful enough to displace fossil fuels entirely while maintaining the industrial capacity most of us depend upon for food, clean water, and safe shelter.