It can make more sense to build new renewable capacity than run old coal plants

Re:It can make more sense to build new renewable capacity th... by bjourne on Thursday November 07, 2019 @10:23PM (#21479742)

Do you know about the law of large numbers? Basically it says that in the long run "things even out." Suppose you flip a coin 100 times. It can happen that you only get one heads in those 100 flips, but would you worry about it?

In my city the electric scooter companies have carpet bombed the city centre with their vehicles. When I'm downtown can I be certain that one is available to take me from place A to B? I can't and in the worst case I'll have to walk a block to find one to ride on. Big deal.

The electricity grid works the same. It doesn't matter if one wind farm isn't producing because there are so many of them. As long as the total output from them is big enough. Think of it like a RAID system.

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Re:It can make more sense to build new renewable capacity th... by kortilla on Friday November 08, 2019 @03:53AM (#21480807)

So that rules out solar because... nighttime. So wind has to be the only reliable supply and you need to over build enough of it so a calm weather system in a region has no impact. The numbers stop looking good at that point.

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Re:It can make more sense to build new renewable capacity th... by Areading314 on Thursday November 07, 2019 @11:41PM (#21480015)

So if we build enough solar panels, there'll be some running at night?

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