That's true today, but maybe not so true in the future. For example, I've read articles that describe working examples of taking solar thermal farms and trapping the heat in molten sand, which is later used to generate electricity.
Then there is this whole notion of baseload capacity that needs to be challenged. I do understand that solar and wind are not as reliable as nukes and coal from an always on perspective. However, there are rich possibilities. Consider that the Internet was created to provide an always on communications network in the case of several nodes going down to war time scenarios.
Why not do the same for our electricity grid, infrastructure, transportation, and storage? At any given time, there could be millions of storage mediums plugged in that could provide that baseload electricity capacity. Use those to load balance across your electrical network to provide supply for your consumers. It's simple in theory and works in a distributed manner just like the Internet, but it will be tough to implement, just like the Internet was, and it will take alot of time to get there, just like the Internet did. But the end result may be well worth it. |
