Worth looking at the losses in the network for a bit of research – it is a major factor too.
If we could have a lossless system, we could power ourselves off geothermal, wind and solar with no need for burning stuff!
When you look at proposals like Coopers Gap Wind Farm, and the potential in them, it makes you wonder why we even bother with coal fired power!
Something I am a big advocate for is the need to become less reliant on centralised infrastructure – simplified to be, power sources for areas of settlement (not reliant on one massive power station!!!).
Did you like the cartoon ‘Doug’, You have a very easy on the eye style, much like that Saturday morning timewaster. Loving the inkwork, keep up the good fight.
Also – most enterprises need to make money to exist. many farmers/landowners/state forests could make a reasonable cottage income using their land as a rpower source. for dairys it would offset effluent and carbon costrs.
Last week, Germany saw a swing of wind power production of 10 GW within 48 hours. And there was no storm, which can easily shut down way more capacity in 24 hours. The geographical spread helps a lot to make wind power reliable 80% of the time, but that’s not nearly reliable enough to make it remotely “baseload-ready”.
What is being done by having windmills that run balance those that do not is creating redundancy. This comes at a cost of building more windmills. The question is: how many more? If a windmill can generate 2kW, but due to low winds only generates 1kW, we have to build a second windmill at a similar location just to get a steady 2kW.
A second point is that although you don’t need coal plants, you do need generators. That’s hardly a big difference. A better solution would be battery storage, but they have their own problems especially with disposal.
Comments (5)
Hey Stu,
Worth looking at the losses in the network for a bit of research – it is a major factor too.
If we could have a lossless system, we could power ourselves off geothermal, wind and solar with no need for burning stuff!
When you look at proposals like Coopers Gap Wind Farm, and the potential in them, it makes you wonder why we even bother with coal fired power!
Something I am a big advocate for is the need to become less reliant on centralised infrastructure – simplified to be, power sources for areas of settlement (not reliant on one massive power station!!!).
Fascinating stuff for sure…
Matt
I am planning on making my next (or second-next) cartoon on matters relating to energy loss Matt. Thanks for the comments as always.
Did you like the cartoon ‘Doug’, You have a very easy on the eye style, much like that Saturday morning timewaster. Loving the inkwork, keep up the good fight.
Also – most enterprises need to make money to exist. many farmers/landowners/state forests could make a reasonable cottage income using their land as a rpower source. for dairys it would offset effluent and carbon costrs.
Last week, Germany saw a swing of wind power production of 10 GW within 48 hours. And there was no storm, which can easily shut down way more capacity in 24 hours. The geographical spread helps a lot to make wind power reliable 80% of the time, but that’s not nearly reliable enough to make it remotely “baseload-ready”.
What is being done by having windmills that run balance those that do not is creating redundancy. This comes at a cost of building more windmills. The question is: how many more? If a windmill can generate 2kW, but due to low winds only generates 1kW, we have to build a second windmill at a similar location just to get a steady 2kW.
A second point is that although you don’t need coal plants, you do need generators. That’s hardly a big difference. A better solution would be battery storage, but they have their own problems especially with disposal.
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