Vermont Tiger

Recharge of the Light Brigade?

by Art Woolf

Green Mountain Power is anticipating there will be at least a few Vermonters who will be buying electric cars and will need to charge them up while not at home.  The company

says it plans to install three solar-powered charging stations for hybrid-electric cars in Chittenden, Washington and Addison counties in 2011.

One simple question I have is, what happens if someone wants to charge their electric car from one of these stations at night?  That's not a snide question, but rather it gets to the heart of why solar (and wind, for that matter) are problematic as sources of electricity.

The answer is that there has to be either some way of storing the solar-generated electricity for night time use or GMP needs a back-up source of supply.  Either of those make solar electricity more expensive than the stated cost, which usually just includes the capital cost of the solar panels themselves (which are expensive enough in their own right). 

When we buy electricity, we are not just buying electrons; we're buying the ability to have those electrons at our beck and call whenever we want them.  On that quality dimension, solar and wind are nowhere near as reliable as power generated from coal, natural gas, nuclear, hydro, biomass, or other sources.  

 

Happy Columbus Day

by Art Woolf

America was discovered accidentally by a great seaman who was looking for something else; when discovered it was not wanted; and most of the exploration for the next fifty years was done in the hope of getting through or around it. America was named after a man who discovered no part of the New World. History is like that, very chancy.

--Samuel Eliot Morrison

(h/t William Easterly)

weekend reading #6

    Art Woolf

   

Vol. #4

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    Art Woolf

   

Vol #3

weekend reading #4

    Art Woolf

   

Vol. #2

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    The best of Art Woolf:

   

Vol #1

weekend reading #2

    Which answers the question ...

weekend reading #1

    We expect that this will be a slow news weekend -- most of them are -- and since everyone has obligations that take precedence, from time to time, over work, we won't be putting up much new material for the next 2 days.  However, we seem to be attracting many new visitors lately, so we are going to post links to some earlier posts which we think get to the essence of what we are trying to do here.
    This one links the basic document with several commentaries and is probably the best place to start.