The 30-year itch America’s nuclear industry struggles to get off the floor

[kristopher]

10. You say "this is basic science"?

No, what you are claiming isn't "basic science" it is "basic intuition". Review what you wrote in post 9 about how you are arriving at your model of how the system performs. It is based not on any integrative analysis or a comprehensive study of how the available renewable technologies actually perform, but is instead an extrapolation from individual generators - "a solar panel doesn't produce electricity at night" or "the wind doesn't always blow".

You are right at the individual level, but you are wrong at the systems level. To make this simple consider the fact that NO energy source operates 100% of the time. Generators are being turned on and off all the time. Now add in the fact that demand is right now fluctuating from minute to minute, hour to hour, day to day etc. We deal with this kind of variation in a renewable grid the same way we deal with it in a thermal grid - we build a system that accounts for these characteristics. And not only is this possible, but it will produce a grid that is actually MORE RELIABLE than the present thermal grid.

I'd suggest a book by Amory Lovins - "Reinventing Fire" when the whole thing is laid out very clearly. You have to buy the book, but a great deal of the content can be read at the website of the Rocky Mountain Institute:
http://www.rmi.org/ReinventingFire