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Comment by snake_doc

4 months ago

China added ~90GW of utility solar per year in last 2 years. There's ~400-500GW solar+wind under construction there.

It is possible, just may be not in the U.S.

Note: given renewables can't provide base load, capacity factor is 10-30% (lower for solar, higher for wind), so actual energy generation will vary...

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snake_doc

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kelnos  4 months ago

> It is possible

Sure, GP was clearly talking about the US, specifically.

> just may be not in the U.S.

Absolutely 100% not possible in the US. And even if we could do it, I'm not convinced it would be prudent.

  • tim333  4 months ago

    If you really had to you'd probably run turbines off natural gas but it's not a good idea environmentally.

locallost  4 months ago

I am a huge proponent of renewables, but you cannot compare their capacity in GW with other energy sources because their output is variable and not always maximal. To realistically get 100GW in solar you would need at least 500GW of panels.

On the other hand, I think we will not actually need 100GW of new installations because capacity can be acquired by reducing current usage by making it more efficient. The term negawatt comes to mind. A lot of people are still in the stone age when it comes to this even though it was demonstrated quite effectively by reduced gas use in the US after the oil crisis in the 70s. Which basically recovered to the pre crisis levels only recently.

High gas prices caused people to use less and favor efficiency. The same thing will happen with electricity and we'll get more capacity. Let the market work.