I've done some research into the realities of our country's energy generation mainly because I was considering joining a company who will be mining for the minerals that go into solar panels. It was a very lucrative offer but I needed to establish whether the solar power industry has a legitimate and realistic long term future. I had to do a lot of digging around, searching and talking to people and this is what I discovered - wind and solar will never, ever be a viable and legitimate energy source and here's why…
Let's look at the percentage each power source provides us with electricity. First is coal at 52%, next is nuclear at 19%, next is gas and fuel oil at 18%, then hydro at 6%, and finally wind at 1% and solar at .1%. It looks like a tremendous opportunity for growth in solar and wind industries. But there are more concerning facts to consider.
There is what's called the capacity factor of a power plant. The capacity factor is basically the amount of time the power plant is actually producing electricity. The average capacity factor for solar power is 15-20% and for wind is 25-35%. This means a solar power plant is producing electricity 15-20% of the time and a wind farm is producing electricity 25-35% of the time. A solar plant can only produce when the sun is shining and a wind farm can only produce when the wind is blowing. Where does electricity come from the 65-85% of the time a solar or wind plant is not producing? It comes from a rapid-start power plant that would need to pick up the load to keep the grid stable. These plants can be coal, nuclear, or most commonly, natural gas. So the more wind and solar we build, the more natural gas plants need to be built. What sense does it make to rely on energy sources that can, at the very best, produce electricity only 35% of the time??
Coal, nuclear and natural gas all have capacity factors of 95% where the 5 % down time is usually for scheduled maintenance and refueling. These plants don't need the backup support that solar and wind need.
Power plants need to be built close to the population centers they are serving. To build them in sunny and windy remote locations like Eastern Montana, Wyoming, Nevada, and New Mexico would require massive transmission lines to the large population centers significantly increasing the cost of the electricity. Not to mention the people in these states not wanting their beautiful open spaces dominated and covered with transmission lines, solar panels and wind turbines. So realistically, solar and wind farms need to be near their population centers where, in most cases, the sun shines and wind blows less than average which negatively affects their capacity factor and requires more backup. And as I mentioned before, the more wind and solar that's built, the more rapid-start natural gas plants need to be built to «support» the 65-85% down time.
There is also the capital and operating costs of each source of power to consider. Capital costs are those onetime set up and construction costs of a plant after which there will be the operating costs which are those costs related directly to operating a plant. These costs are measured in kilowatts per hour (kWh). A solar plant's capital cost is 17.12 cents per kWh and its operating cost is 1 cent per kWh. A wind farm's capital cost is 2.45 cents per kWh, operating cost is 1 cent per kWh. A coal plant's capital cost is .9 cents per kWh, operating cost 1 cent per kWh. A nuclear plant's capital cost is .9 cents per kWh, operating cost 1.4 cents per kWh. A natural gas plant's capital cost is .42 cents kWh, and operating cost .5 cents per kWh. As you can clearly see, solar and wind have significantly higher capital costs than coal, nuclear and gas. With solar and wind contributing only 1.1% of our energy production right now, a lot of very expensive construction would be neccessary to build up to the levels of the fossil fuels. Of course, subsidies will bring those costs down but subsidies come from us taxpayers so we pay for it one way or the other either through higher taxes or higher energy prices. With Obama spending us into oblivion, I can't see him being able to increase taxes even more without running into serious opposition.
In conclusion, I decided to stick with the fossil fuel industry. It is the only realistic way to produce the electricity we need to run our country. There is no way solar and wind can replace coal, nuclear and gas. They are extremely inefficient, unstable, costly, and take up a significant footprint of land compared to coal, nuclear and gas. If our country decides to move backwards and give up our comfortable way of life, sure it might work but I doubt that will ever happen.