OPINION:
It’s hard to believe that so many climate heavy hitters, some of whom are professors, share the delusion that wind- and solar-power generation can replace 100 percent of coal and natural-gas generation by 2050. (“Stanford professor’s defamation lawsuit puts chill in atmosphere of climate scientists,” Web, Dec. 6). Instead of exchanging argumentative papers and suing each other, both sides involved in this fight should just do the math. It tells us that there are three reasons why “100 in ’50” is a delusion, and that wind and solar won’t get us there. In short, we don’t have enough time, money or land.
U.S. electricity demand is today almost 500,000 megawatts. Coal and natural gas each deliver about one-third of U.S. electricity and can generate full-time, for a total of about 300,000 MW. Total wind and solar generation is growing, but today deliver only about 30,000 MW. Wind and solar only deliver about half the time each day, on good days.
The first step needed to replace fossil-fuel generation is to match the 300,000 MW of U.S. full-time coal and gas generation with 300,000 MW of part-time wind and solar. The second step is to invent and use utility-scale energy storage. The third step is to increase wind and solar generation to more than 600,000 MW to serve demand and store energy to be withdrawn later to provide full-time power. To provide for bad days when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow, wind and solar generation must more than double to store enough extra energy to meet demand for several bad days.
To have enough money, utilities, taxpayers and ratepayers must come up with at least 20 times the funding it took to get wind and solar to where they are today. Invention and deployment of storage will also be expensive. Neither expanded generation nor storage invention will come quickly. To have enough land, the same factor of at least 20 must be applied to existing wind and solar land use. Still more land area will be needed for storage.
GEORGE F. STEEG
Potomac Falls, Va.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.