Renewable energy... The ELEPHANT noone wants to talk about!
(media.greatawakening.win)
You're viewing a single comment thread. View all comments, or full comment thread.
Comments (38)
sorted by:
So, a while ago, Elon Musk echoed these exact same sentiments regarding our power systems. He made it blatantly clear that our grid couldn't handle his cars and that it would take an absurd overhaul to change that if current thinking continued.
So, instead, his suggestion was to break up our grid into 3 pieces: backbone, midway, and local (I don't remember what he named them, but those are the 3 ideas).
Backbone would be your BIG producers. You'd have something like a Nuclear plant or three in a region, or a coal plant if it fit the bill. The idea is to eliminate polluting production if possible, because everything helps. Why not breathe better? Etc.
Midway is slightly closer to home, maybe down to the county/city level. This would be things like solar farms, geothermal plants, hydroelectric, or other things that wouldn't fit on a roof but would be able to hide behind a block of trees. These provide the majority of local power as needed, and the locality relies on the Backbone when these need maintenance or fail.
Local is all the stuff that fits on your roof or in a lot in your neighborhood. Solar roofs, mini hydro, little wind turbines on skyscraper roofs, and whatever else you can cram in without ruining the general aesthetics of your local area. It doesn't need to make a lot of power, just help. The pennies will add up (and lower your power bill). You decide your level of involvement. The Midway and Backbone are there to carry you through if this fails.
Then, according to him, you have a modular and scalable power grid that everyone can run their electric cars on and decide how much they want to help it out.
Elon a few years ago proposed solar roofing built to the appearance of traditional roofing that would generate the power for the house and charge electric vehicles. With a battery big enough to get through low/no Sun times, the house and car could exist completely off the grid. I liked the idea at the time. I haven't heard how he's progressed with that lately.
Almost a year ago I seriously looked into installing a Tesla roof solar system including 2 Power Walls on my 2800 sq ft house IN FLORIDA. My purpose is to provide power should we lose power in a storm. After removing the "tax savings" mumbo jumbo from the cost of the system, the real cost was in the neighborhood of $65000. This is compared to the regular shingle roof at $18800. The associate from Tesla said it would NOT allow my home to be stand-alone. Meaning that if there were a period of no power on the grid, like in the aftermath of a major hurricane - it is Florida afterall - the system would NOT be operational. Why would I spend $65k for a solar system if it would NOT provide electricity during a major outage?? I installed a propane tank and a propane powered generator instead and will add on solar panels for supplemental power in the very near future.
Thanks for the info. I live in a lake effect area of Ohio. From November Through January for those three months we get almost no Sun with very few clear days. I think solar would be nearly useless during that time. It sounds like you came up with a good power strategy.