Climate Policy

[kandrathe]

That is an example of forcing a single solution. Hydro is viable, represents a fair percent of present generation capability, and is environmentally neutral. No need to replace it until the facilities become obsolete. Incorporating other sources (solar, wind, tide and wave, geothermal, etc.) spreads the load. There are many solutions, few of them that would work alone, but in combination they can be better than any one of them.

I should have been clearer. I was thinking about only the polluting, and CO2 emitting sources of electric generation. Good call. It would be nice to run the grid at 60% capacity and extend the life of the plants (and fuel), rather than nearer to 95% and risk brown outs. I would envision then that as renewable sources come on line, the nuclear power generation could be scaled back to act as fill in when solar generation is not optimal such as night time, and unpredictable weather. My concern here is that we know today how to build a safe 1000 MW nuclear generating plant (or at least Westinghouse does), but as of yet have not designed anything near that capacity with renewable energy sources.

The best design I've seen for a solar generating plant (50 MW) uses the sun to heat salt into molten form and stores it in that form in buried ceramic tanks, then uses the hot salt to power steam turbines when demand is higher. My second biggest beef with solar (1st beef is area needed) is that its peak generating time is high noon, when the grid is pretty much at its median consumption. Checking the power company's rates, peak rates apply from 8am to 11pm, and the biggest spike in power consumption is from 4pm to 7pm (if you go by hourly rates).