"Yes, the problem of wind and solar is inconsistency, and by using it instead to generate something easier to store than electricity then makes sense." R5 #505
If you'll pardon a little Sunday afternoon soapbox action:
I believe the commercial power grid is a self-inflicted vulnerability,
and that a decentralized power model may be better suited to the new millennium.
As you know our commercial power grid is preposterously inefficient.
We use commercial power at ~120 VAC or ~240 VAC, BUT !
we transmit such commercial power over long distances by using transformers to boost the voltage as high as 765 kV.
Then we drop the voltage down in stages to the level we get at the wall outlet.
We could eliminate the inefficiency of cross-country transmission if an individual home generated its own electricity.
Major Problem:
storage capacity, buffering capability can be expensive. BUT !
As electric powered automobiles proliferate, homes have their own large storage battery.
It's not ideal as described here.
But it's the basis for beginning a commercial power decentralization transition. BUT !
As usual, the status quo is an entrenched constituency.
We have countrymen that are gainfully employed, investors that are $profiting from the current system. Dismantling it undermines them.
"I have to wonder if transporting fresh water off glaciers might be less expensive than desalination?
Greenland?" R5 #505
I've read proposals of busting off barge-sized chunks from accessible antarctic polar ice, and tugging it to places like Dubai
where the economics might justify it.