Unless you've been living under a rock, by now you've no doubt heard of Hillary Clinton's plan for five hundred million solar panels to be installed by the year 2020.What they want you to believe is that these panels will help the environment and make us less dependent on fossil fuels. In reality it's all a lie.
How is it a lie? There's a two word answer to that and the two words are: spinning reserve. Spinning reserve is extra power capacity that's readily available to make up for a sudden increase in demand. It is required by law to be available and without changing the law, the need for spinning reserve means that for every watt of electricity generated by a solar panel, there's a conventional oil, coal, gas, nuclear power plant still churning away in the background running just as it would be if it was generating the power itself, to supply that spinning reserve.
The best analogy is that it's like you buy an electric car to save the environment but since you don't trust the electric car you have a gas powered car follow you everywhere to be sure you have reliable transportation. You point to your electric car and say, "Look at me! I'm driving an electric car and saving the planet!" But since you're being followed everywhere by a gas powered car you're actually achieving nothing.
Both solar and wind power suffer from the same issue. They can't be relied upon 24/7 as a power source and there's no real world way to have spinning reserve with just them. There's been some talk of building massive lithium ion battery warehouses to store excess solar/wind power to use as spinning reserve, but it's impractical due to costs and design issues. Lithium ion battery design is one of those things that's 95% science/engineering and 5% voodoo. That's why companies like Boeing, Samsung, Sony and many others have had issues with their lithium ion batteries catching fire/exploding. A massive warehouse full of lithium ion batteries is a disaster just waiting to happen.
The only practical way to have spinning reserve at this time is with a conventional power plant. "Well fine, we'll just leave it sitting there idle until we need it then fire it up and get it rolling." I'm afraid that's not the way it works. Power plants create power by boiling massive quantities of water and turning it into steam that's then directed through turbines to generate power. They use coal, oil, natural gas, or the heat generated by nuclear fission to provide the energy necessary to boil the water and flash it to steam. Heating large quantities of water to the boiling point takes time, time that you don't have to go from completely idle to having it ready as spinning reserve. For a power plant to be used as spinning reserve, it has to be up and operating just as if it were generating the power being generated by the solar panels. That means that for Hillary Clinton's five hundred million solar panels there will be conventional power plants chugging away somewhere in the background burning as much fuel as if they were generating the power that the solar panels are generating.
"But that sounds like the five hundred million solar panels would be a complete waste?" And that's correct. In terms of the environmental impact and their efficiency as a component of the electrical grid, solar panels and wind mills are essentially nothing more than large, expensive lawn ornaments because of the need for spinning reserve. As long as we require spinning reserve, there's no point in using solar panels. Now, some homeowners and businesses can benefit from using solar panels. It can reduce their electricity costs, but as a component of the grid and in terms of environmental impact, there is no benefit. It is truly like we're driving an electric car but being followed everywhere by a gas guzzler.
"But we've spent billions, if not trillions on solar and wind power?" And every dime of it has been wasted. And our elected officials who have spent all that money know it's all wasted. They aren't stupid. Hillary Clinton knows that installing five hundred million solar panels will do nothing to improve the environment or reduce our use of fossil fuels. Conventional power plants will still be running just as if they were generating that power. So why is she promoting it? To show that she's doing something. The fact that the panels actually achieve nothing is immaterial. It's the illusion of doing something that counts to politicians.
The fact that their "doing something" achieves nothing and costs us billions/trillions is immaterial to them. It's all Monopoly money to them. They get to stand in front of a field of solar panels and say, "Look at me! I'm solving global warming!" In reality they're just wasting money. And the waste of money doesn't stop with the purchase/installation of these items. Once bought and installed, they need maintenance and replacement.
Well then, let's get rid of the laws requiring spinning reserve. That'll solve the problem. And that's great if you don't mind living with blackouts/brownouts for minutes or hours, but most people do mind it. They want power available 24/7 with little or no interruption. Ending spinning reserve will lead to routine brownouts/blackouts.
Is there a solution then? The only practical way to generate power on a reliable basis on a large scale without the use of fossil fuels is nuclear power. Nothing else does the job. Part of the problem with nuclear power is the plants tend to be far from populated areas where the power is needed. Much of the power generated is lost to resistance over the miles and miles of power lines needed to get the power from the plants to the public. I personally like the idea of small, natural gas fired power plants placed in neighborhoods and communities where the power is needed. Natural gas is readily available, can be burned relatively cleanly, and by putting power plants in each neighborhood and community you limit the energy lost in transit. I suspect you could put a neighborhood sized power plant inside a typical shipping container with little to no trouble. With each small power plant slightly over-sized, neighboring plants could make up for the loss of any one plant until it could be repaired/replaced. The spinning reserve would be built into those neighboring plants.
By putting small, efficient, gas powered power plants in each neighborhood we'd solve many of the problems we have now. We wouldn't need to spend billions making a "smart" grid. We'd make the most efficient use of the power generated with less loss to resistance over long power lines. It would limit the likelihood of widespread outages as each neighborhood would be independent. It would likely be the easiest, cheapest and most effective way to improve the current situation.
But what about all of those companies that are offering to put solar panels on my roof for little to no cost? Those companies are largely participating in what looks like a giant pyramid/Ponzi type scheme. When you start researching them you'll find that they're typically leasing the panels to you and you're paying rent to them. In some cases these companies then sell the leasing contract to another company to generate cash to buy more panels to lease to more homeowners and then they sell those leases and the pattern repeats. Finding a way these companies make money over the long term gets challenging. They largely depend on the federal government giving them subsidies which means our tax dollars are going to them. What happens when the government subsidies end? Those companies likely won't survive. Those solar panels and the accompanying equipment of theirs that you're renting then may have to be returned/repossessed and that could get messy.
Remember that if something sounds too good to be true, it typically is too good to be true. Solar power sounds too good to be true. It is. We're just paying a lot more to achieve nothing, while the politicians get to look like they're doing something.
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