Hey Cain or Faust

[Nephew Twiddleton]

I forget which one of you provided the link, only that you were both involved in the conversation, but one of you had a link that showed that the US could produce 4 times its power consumption with off shore wind turbines. Do either of you still have that link?

[Cain]

I think it was me.  The link is http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy10osti/49229.pdf

[Nephew Twiddleton]

I think it was me.  The link is http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy10osti/49229.pdf

Cheers, bookmarked.

[P3nT4gR4m]

If you want a case study in how a civilised nation might go about it have a look at scotland

[Nephew Twiddleton]

It's been bouncing around in the back of my head for a bit.

I was thinking the other day how Iceland is more or less 99% petroleum free, because of geothermal energy. And it was sparked again by reading earlier that they've developed magma enhanced geothermal. At least on paper.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

If you want a case study in how a civilised nation might go about it have a look at scotland

I was going to make a Scottish joke but came up with nothing. Well done. For the renewables, not the stumping, since that's not terribly difficult to do to me.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

OH! Wait! Civilized is debatable, not the least of which being your inability to use the letter z, adhering to the u after o if an r is involved rule, and deleting the e in whiskey and making it taste like bog water.

There.

It feels empty though.

[P3nT4gR4m]

You're really going to argue the toss about how to spell words in a language that was invented by those cocksuckers down south by telling me they (the ones who invented the language) got the spelling wrong?

I strongly suspect it was the barely literate outcasts we sent over to pillage the injuns that made the errors

[Faust]

Please bear in mind that you can never have more than 50% of the grid supply coming from wind. 4 times the consumption is peak production, not the baseline minimum required to keep the grid stable. It is as they say as changeable as the winds. That's not to say that excess production cant be used for something else, just not the general supply.

[P3nT4gR4m]

Pumped storage? We invented that, too, btw 

[Faust]

Pumped storage? We invented that, too, btw 

Pumped storage is good but the practicality of it means that for the stored energy to be worth it you basically need to flood a valley. I'm ok with this, but it's the reason the Spirit of Ireland project never went ahead, too many people to relocate and too much devastation to local wildlife.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

You're really going to argue the toss about how to spell words in a language that was invented by those cocksuckers down south by telling me they (the ones who invented the language) got the spelling wrong?

I strongly suspect it was the barely literate outcasts we sent over to pillage the injuns that made the errors

The language wasn't "invented", not really.

It's a dialect of German that a pack of jumped-up Frenchmen shat on from just before 1100 CE until very near the present day.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Pumped storage? We invented that, too, btw 

Pumped storage is good but the practicality of it means that for the stored energy to be worth it you basically need to flood a valley. I'm ok with this, but it's the reason the Spirit of Ireland project never went ahead, too many people to relocate and too much devastation to local wildlife.

And you can get THAT doing just what you're already doing.

[Faust]

Pumped storage? We invented that, too, btw 

Pumped storage is good but the practicality of it means that for the stored energy to be worth it you basically need to flood a valley. I'm ok with this, but it's the reason the Spirit of Ireland project never went ahead, too many people to relocate and too much devastation to local wildlife.

And you can get THAT doing just what you're already doing.

Well, if the dam lasts long enough, doesn't need much maintenance and the pump mechanism is wind and not fossil fuel the benefits to the environment are there, but destroying a valley to do so and the initial cost of establishing the reservoir means you don't really see any returns for close to a century, BUT after that point every year you're running is green.

[Left]

As regards storage of excess capacity:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/01/140106094557.htm

If we choose to manufacture methane as a way to store capacity, we already have an infrastructure to handle that output.
Admittedly a goodly bit gets lost in the hydrogen-to-methane process.