1. “Solar and wind only work when the sun shines or the wind blows, and can’t provide reliable power.” Respected authors have shown that clean renewable energy can in fact provide reliable power, possibly with small amounts of backup power, through interconnecting grids. Jacobson and Delucchi1 evaluated several long- term energy systems according to environmental and other criteria, and found wind, water (hydroelectric) and solar systems (WWS) to be superior to nuclear, fossil-fuel, and biofuel systems. They proposed to address the hourly and seasonal variability of WWS power by interconnecting geographically disperse renewable energy sources to smooth out loads, using hydroelectric power to fill in gaps in supply. Also, these sources can store energy for later use. Concentrating solar thermal power plants (CSP), for example, can efficiently store energy... more
Concentrating solar thermal power (CSP) is sometimes called the "other" solar power because most people are only familiar with the kind of solar power that they see on rooftops and other places (called "photovoltaic"). The big difference is photovoltaic solar panels convert light directly into electricity, while CSP collects (and concentrates) the heat of the sun, which is then used to generate electricity, usually using the same kinds of steam turbines found in traditional fossil fuel plants (except without burning fossil fuels). You may wonder why we’d want to use a technology that does not convert sunlight directly to electricity. Here are some of the reasons: It is very expensive to store electricity energy directly, at present, but it is relatively inexpensive to store heat, which is captured by CSP installations, and can be used to generate electricity when... more