Reply #87: "If we were totally solar..."

[kristopher]

Since your persist in your fallacious depiction of how our power system functions, it is not possible to "(f)orget the operational profiles blather". You claim you don't understand what the operational profile of a power generator is; if that is true, then you are totally unprepared to evaluate what works and what doesn't.


You display this poor ability to understand when you cite "baseload" power as being an essential feature of power generation. It isn't. It is a by-product of the way we designed the grid around the best technologies of the bygone day, which were all large scale, centralized thermal generators with power distributed by a highly regulated monopoly. It is a product of marketing, cost-plus regulation of utilities and the drive for increased economic efficiency. There is no technological reason that such a centralized system cannot be replaced by a grid that operates on distributed generation from renewables sources - electricity is electricity.


That poor understanding of yours is also on display when you make silly arguments like "If we were totally solar, in the middle of the night there is no solar power". Since we are not TRYING to build a grid that totally solar, such speculative claptrap is easily recognized as the diversion that it is.