Renewable Energy Transformation is Now a Simple Choice
by
Roy Morrison
I build solar farms. It's now absolutely clear that a quick 100% renewable energy transformation is just a simple choice to move forward or not.
New York and California are pursuing aggressive renewable plans. But Hawaii leads the way. Hawaii has just undertaken the largest renewable procurement accompanied by a schedule when existing fossil fuel plants will be shut down by date certain in the next few years.
The combination of wind, solar, geothermal, tidal, water power and energy storage can quickly slash greenhouse gas emissions and then eliminate them from the energy sector.
Each state or region can quickly come up with its own ten year renewable transition plan.
Just considering solar energy alone, the total area of solar panels combined with storage to eliminate fossil fuels is trivial.
The whole U.S. could be powered by about a 110 mile square in the desert or 12,250 square miles with an additional square mile of storage. According to the U.S EIA, total 2018 electric generation was 4.178 trillion kWh of which 63% is generated by fossil fuels.
There are 640 acres per square mile. It takes about 3 acres of land per megawatt of solar capacity generating 1.6 million kilowatt hours a year. That's 213 megawatts solar per square mile, producing 341 million kilowatt hours of solar power yearly. 12,250 square miles in total for 4.2 trillion kWh.
In practice, we will do this easily state by state on roof tops, over highways, parking lots, and railroad tracks, over ponds, in back yards, in dual-cropping in farm pasture, on contaminated brownfields. This also means increasing efficiency to do much more with the energy we produce using LEDlights, air to air heat pumps, insulation, passive solar design.
In MA , total electric consumption is 52.5 billion kWh. That's 43,740 megawatts solar at MA solar generation rates of 1.2 million kWh per megawatt. That means a total of 205 square miles of solar panels, a 14.3 miles square.
Solar has zero fuel costs, zero emissions, rapidly dropping capital costs, low O&M expenses and produces sustainable jobs. In most places, all that's needed is distribution substation upgrades that electrical engineers can design quickly and build in a few months.
Solar, combined with storage including grid system storage at retired fossil fuel plants using batteries, capacitors, and flywheels will keep grid up and running24-7.
We don't need a carbon tax to do this. We need state mandates to act now.
It would help to have positive leadership in the White House. But there is no reason to wait. Each state needs to adopt 100% renewable plans with planned shut down dates for existing fossil fuel plants like Hawaii has done.
This can be supported by a Feed-in-Tariff for fixed and predictable longterm prices for solar energy and, if needed, an infrastructure bank and revenue bonds to facilitate finance. Utilities need a rate structure that rewards them for building and maintaining the renewable energy grid. They will sell more electricity in a renewably powered economy where economic growth leads to ecological improvement.
Solar is job creator, pollution destroyer. Building dual-cropping solar on poles in farmer's fields can help revitalize local agriculture and make farming economically stable for many generations. Solar on farms is a step toward sustainable agriculture and removing carbon from the atmosphere and sequestering it in rich soils.
Now is the time for each state to step up and embrace the renewable transformation. Make your renewable transformation and fossil fuel shut down plan now and start implementation.
Our lives and our children'sheath, well being and prosperity depend upon it happening.
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Roy Morrison builds solar farms http://renewablesunpower.com/.His next book is EEG (Ecological Economic Growth.
Factcheck
https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2019/07/19/hawaii-sets-draft-rules-for-windsolarstorage-procurement/
Hawaii sets draft rules for wind+solar+storage procurement
HawaiianElectric Companies has released its draft request for proposals to procure just over 2 terawatt-hours of renewable electricity, and just over 200 MW of capacity services, between the summer of 2022 and theend of 2025.
https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3
in2018, about 4,178 billion kilowatt hours (kWh) (or 4.18 trillion kWh)of electricity were generated at utility-scale electricity generation facilities in the UnitedStates.About 63% of these electricity generation was from fossil fuels (coal, natural gas, petroleum, and other gases).Mar1, 2019
https://www.eia.gov/electricity/state/massachusetts/
Total retail sales (megawatt hours)
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52,513,321
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https://www.inverse.com/article/34239-how-many-solar-panels-to-power-the-usa
“If you wanted to power the entire United States with solar panels, it would take a fairly small corner of Nevada or Texas or Utah; you only need about 100 miles by 100 miles of solar panels to power the entire united States,” Musk said at the event in Rhode Island.“The batteries you need to store the energy, so you have 24/7 power, is 1 mile by 1mile. One square-mile.”
It’s“a little square on the U.S. map, and then there’s a little pixel inside there, and that’s the size of the battery park that you need to support that. Real tiny.”