The Absurd GOP

[Dmitry1983]

There are places in the US where cloudy weather can last for weeks and even months.

And -

Price of batteries that can store energy for that long is too high.

[arewethereyet]

And -

Price of batteries that can store energy for that long is too high.

They put the windmills where there is wind.  The solar panels are best where there is a lot of sunshine.

Ain't rocket surgery.

[The Grand Nudger]

Wont ever happen.  Because somehow, for some reason, those poor southern countries that deserve to suffer will never change their circumstances

Combined GDP of developing countries is $44 trillion. They have money to pay for climate change.

Or they can say go fuck yourself, not pay for climate change, and consume their resources domestically rather than sell them to us.  What are we going to do about it?  

There are places in the US where cloudy weather can last for weeks and even months.

Places that stay cloudy, as in just too cloudy to make solar profitable for weeks and months are obviously, as arewethereyet already mentioned, maybe not the best places for relying exclusively on solar. I'd say no place is, we should never rely on a single source of energy anywhere - that's openly courting disaster.  OTOH, whatever is going on to create such a weather pattern is certainly going to benefit things like wind and hydro or tidal - possibly geo and other forms of thermoelectric. Then...there's the potential for moisture capture in such a scenario. I'm not seeing any downsides, personally, to windy and cloudy alot, not even for systems that incorporate some solar. Bonus, you'll have to manually clean the panels less.

Have you ever considered how much energy/work it takes to build a cloud?  Really cloudy places are super active, and the whole premise of alternative and sustainable energies is...basically...to skim off some of that work for our own needs/work. More than anything, imo, the problems we're going to have with alternatives aren't in finding one that works for a place. Those technological or engineering questions already have answers. It's in figuring out who's going to be building them and profiting from them. Here in my home state, for example..even though I'm neck deep in the sustainable infrastructure, I couldn't tell you who the go-to guys for solar are. If we have prominent LEED focused developers, I've never heard of them. I don't doubt that they exist, that there are guys out there trying to build that business...but, clearly, if we're going to make an energy transition we're going to need more of them, with more market visibility, with more resources and labor and financing. Here in the states, we don't even have enough crews and equipment hours to keep inventory rates at necessity levels. That's what's causing our current housing bubble. This is for conventional stick built houses premised on the current status quo - not the kinds of houses designed and built from the bottom up with energy efficiency and sustainable material availability in mind, using approriate technologies.

[Dmitry1983]

Price of batteries that can store energy for that long is too high.

They put the windmills where there is wind.  The solar panels are best where there is a lot of sunshine.

Ain't rocket surgery.

Wind is just as unreliable as solar.

[Dmitry1983]

Combined GDP of developing countries is $44 trillion. They have money to pay for climate change.

Or they can say go fuck yourself, not pay for climate change, and consume their resources domestically rather than sell them to us.  What are we going to do about it?  

America has a history of invading countries that hoard their resourses.

[arewethereyet]

They put the windmills where there is wind.  The solar panels are best where there is a lot of sunshine.

Ain't rocket surgery.

Wind is just as unreliable as solar.

There are places that have wind more often than others.  For instance, I lived inland in SC for many years and we were excited when there was a tiny breeze.  Near the coast there was probably more movement of the air.

Here in North Texas the wind blows nearly all the time.  What is considered a breeze here would be considered wind in the area of SC where I lived.  A road trip into Oklahoma led us to many, many wind farms.  Why, because the wind is almost always blowing just like here.

It would be stupid to put a windfarm in Lexington County, SC as the damn things would seize up from lack of movement.  Not only is solar a good option here but so is wind as is evidenced to the north and the west of us.

[The Grand Nudger]

Wont ever happen.  Because somehow, for some reason, those poor southern countries that deserve to suffer will never change their circumstances, and the rich northern countries will never find themselves short of the things they source...from places.  Places unknown and unknowable, I'm sure.  

Dipshits aside, that's going to be the truly difficult thing about addressing climate change.  Underdeveloped resource rich countries will not be simply talked out of using those resources for themselves.

Or they can say go fuck yourself, not pay for climate change, and consume their resources domestically rather than sell them to us.  What are we going to do about it?  

America has a history of invading countries that hoard their resourses.

We've found your somehow, it appears.  Jesus christ, don't tell when you're one of those lunatics that think the us just crashed iraq for the oil?

I'm not personally interested in robbing fuckers for barrels of oil, I'd prefer to do business and make money and breathe air and just, in general, keep on living.  Absurd GOP examples one through eleventy billion, and much more in cold hard usd.... right there.    

@arewethereyet
Here in these deep dark hills, if we stopped subsidizing the fossil fuel industry that tried to kill us all - sometimes more directly than just dumping shit in the atmosphere or burying it on our farms - and spent that money on valley repair and wetland development....wind, solar, and hydro would make us into a powerhouse energy exporter..we're not at all short on high transmission lines.... while skyrocketing our property values, soil productivity, and general health.  Thus lowering our subsidized healthcare costs....all while creating jobs to reduce the number of state dependents in the first place.

But the party of business™ and hatin on welfare...says no.  The fuck?

[Jackalope]

Your evidence?!?

You need 10 times more solar panels on a cloudy day for same power output

Bullshit.

Source: have a solar plant on my house. I can see the generation statistics for the last several years - at worst, I see a 50% reduction on cloudy days. Oh, and guess what? System designers account for this.

[The Architect Of Fate]

You need 10 times more solar panels on a cloudy day for same power output

Nonsense

[The Architect Of Fate]

Wind is just as unreliable as solar.

Considering Solar is very reliable yes it is just as reliable as Solar