More on Renewable Energy Infographics
I’m working on another in our series of renewable energy infographics, to present the basic concepts in a way that’s immediately understandable for newcomers to the subject. My current project is writing up “The Pros and Cons of Renewables.” The main point: all forms of energy, clean or dirty, come with a certain financial and ecological cost.
One of the main challenges associated with the migration to “new energy” is infrastructure, as unfortunately, renewable resources tend to exist far from our population centers, which requires an expensive build-out of our electrical grid. This article on Hydrokinetics in Alaska is a case in point. They have 350,000 miles of roaring rivers and tides that are incredible. Southern California, whose population is 40 times that of Alaska, is as hungry for those resources as a bear, fresh out of hibernation, fishing for a salmon.
Another example of lack of infrastructure was the debate last spring in Oregon where the Bonnyville Power Administration was proposing to shutdown windfarms as the mountain snow pack melted off and hydroelectric dams produced more power as a result. Here are two types of green energy competing for grid capacity. Too much green power? Only because they didn’t have the capacity to export the power to someplace like California.
We need infrastructure to ship power from the suburbs where solar on the roofs of houses and buildings can be shipped into the city where there is not enough solar roof space to meet their requirements. Basically the cities will have to buy their power from the suburbs and rural areas.
We need infrastructure to ship wind and solar power from the midwest to both coasts.
We need infrastructure to ship power from one end of the country to the other to take advantage of varying weather conditions throughout the country.