too much wind power

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: too much wind power

I would appreciate some literature covering this topic specifically, if anyone can offer it.

Here is one such report. Google around for EPRI, DOE, smart grid, peak shaving, load leveling, and you can find many studies.

Unfortunately, c1ue has his main points correct. This is all early-stage stuff based upon rational, almost by definition.

I suspect that the analyses look quantitative at the top level but are just tabulating a host of low-level guesses, assumptions and approximations.

It's fun to talk about as an arm chair philosopher, but the true costs, true benefits, and actual implimentations are all just arm waving.

[Starving Steve]

Re: too much wind power

The best solution to the peak-demand problem is the simplest solution: build a nuclear power plant or two or three, at sites where supply is short of meeting future peak-demand. Once again, go the easiest route: build big; go nuclear, rather than build 10,000 x 1megawatt windmills and hope for wind at just the right times.

One nuclear power plant can supply an urban area the size of Minneapolis-St.Paul with power, as the nuclear power plant at Monticello, Minnesota proves. So, imagine what two or three such plants could do for an urban population the size of the Los Angeles Basin.

No need for anyone to turn-off air-conditioning. No need for anyone to cook dinner at 3AM. No need for anyone to worry about the best time to charge their electric car. No need for anyone to take a cut in their standard-of-living.

Bigger is almost always better. Bigger power plants have scale economies, too.... No need for smart grids, nor new inventions, nor faith in miracles, nor markets, nor anything.... The only need is for the leadership in Washington to stop playing politics with energy and to start to make the nuclear renaissance happen, now.