Awesome!!!
What was the death-toll? Species threatened?
How much long-term environmental damage was done?
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Possibly a few dozen worms were squished, and many blades of grass flattened. Oh, the huge manatee!
The long term damage is that a coal-fired or nuclear power plant somewhere ruined the planet a bit more. 
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These thoughts comfort me whenever I begin to question the necessity of disasters like Deep Water Horizon
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Donât forget that all those multi-ton spinning blades on tens of thousands of wind generators are having a gyroscopic effect, slowing down the planet.
The apologists for Big Common Sense never mention this.
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And that solar panels weaken the strength of the Sun to shine anywhere else.
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More rather sequestering elements that could be used elsewhere and that have limited availability (CIGS, I am looking at YOU).
And I want to see how a solar plant could power an aluminium smelter. Similar for newer electrowinning technologies for extracting metals from ores.
Reactors will be needed for those. Possibly colocating the smelting plant with the power plant.
Do aluminium smelters normally generate their own power, or do they normally use power from the electrical grid (which in large parts of North America means hydro power)? If the latter, then whatâs the difference?
Sure, a given solar or wind farm is subject to local weather. But over a large area, different wind and solar farms tied to a big electrical grid like we have today, the power is reliable.
And thatâs without adding other sources. Wisconsin recently made a hydro deal with Manitoba. When the wind is blowing theyâll sell excess electricity from their wind farms to Manitoba. Manitoba cuts back on the water flowing through its hydro dams, storing more energy upstream. When the wind slows down in Wisconsin, Manitoba will open the dams and let power flow the other way.
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You need 110 or 220 to run American appliances, and Canadian power only comes in metric.
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Go ask a bird.
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Usually the latter. But they tend to be located close to large enough power sources.
I wouldnât be so certain. For renewables you need a beefed up grid and quite some backup sources able to start up fast.
I for one prefer something more predictable. Solar and wind are okay as augmenting sources but I still like the reactors more.
Just so. Thatâs why thereâs a bunch of 'em in Quebec - lots of hydro power. Thereâs no reason not use wind/solar for other uses.
Again, itâs individual solar or wind farms that are unpredictable, subject to local weather. But over a large area, different wind and solar farms and hydro dams tied to a big electrical grid like we have today, the power is predictable.
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Until you overstrain the grid. Then it will cascade down like a house of cards like it did many times before.
And� The same applies no matter what your power source.
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Except that not that often. Renewables tend to be difficult to predict and then overstrain the grid.
https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/loops-and-cracks-excess-german-power-strains-europes-grids-0
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/534266/hawaiis-solar-push-strains-the-grid/
âŚand moreâŚ
From your first link:
Electricity in the German-Austrian market is traded at a uniform price. At times of high wind power production in the north of Germany, the zoneâs electricity price is pushed right down. As a result, power stations in southern Germany are being switched off, as their running costs mean they cannot turn a profit.
At the same time, demand picks up as domestic industrial consumers and importers from abroad take advantage of the cheap power. This means huge amounts of electricity should flow from north to south.
Too much cheap power. The horror.
The problem with it isnât even something that you need new technology or equipment to fix. Just a policy change on when to take power stations off line.
As for the second link, youâre not talking about a large energy grid with many solar and wind farms spread over a wide area. Youâre taking about an island. One (1) cloud cuts power. For islands and remote, unconnected towns, petroleum is going to be needed for a long time.
Even then the story describes a solution being put in place. A solution with added benefits:
After Anahola comes online, Rockwell expects Kauai to see days when clear skies result in solar generation beyond what KIUCâs grid can carry. Instead of throwing away the excess, McDowall says, KIUC could use the Anahola battery storage system to absorb it and then release that power after the sun goes down.
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Well, if you donât manage the power grid, it doesnât sound so bad.
Only few kinds of power plants can be taken on and off with a flick of a switch. Many need some time to come online. Then there is the strain on the equipment, as frequent thermal cycling wears the materials rather badly.
Larger areas have the grid strain issue.
Batteries have rather lousy energy storage density.
Iâd rather go for hydrogen, in a cascade of electrolyzers/fuel cells, which would concentrate deuterium as a byproduct. This, together with lithium-bred tritium, can be used as a fusion fuel.
Meanwhile, go aggressively for molten salt thorium reactors. The molten fluorides are rather hard on most of the alloys, leach quite some of the alloying elements, but the problem is solvable. Such reactors should be pretty safe, and wonât require so much spare reactivity (and therefore enrichment) as the neutron poisons (notably xenon that itself absorbs as much neutrons as all the other fission products together) can be removed from the circulating melt.
The problem is that theyâre being taken offline when energy is cheap. Again, just donât be so quick to offline. Itâs a policy change.
They do with ANY power source.
TV pickup for example:
Well, when the popular soap Eastenders comes to an end five times a week, the grid has to deal with around 1.75 million kettles requiring power at the same time. Thatâs an additional 3 gigawatts of power for the roughly 3-5 minutes it takes each kettle to boil. So big is the surge that backup power stations have to go on standby across the country, and thereâs even additional power made available in France just in case the UK grid canât cope.
Excess power from solar & wind - leading other generators to be taken offline - is a new twist, but not much different a problem. Like the TV Pickup problem, they need to put policies in place to handle it. Like not shutting off generators.
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Except that you need to maintain load on the generators. Load them too light, and they speed up and wonât keep in phase. (This is actually similar to a nice SCADA based attack on physical infrastructure; disconnect the generator for a short while, let it speed up out of phase, connect it back; the mismatch will cause a major current spike and a mechanical shock. Repeat until damage occurs. If you are fast enough, you can switch the thing off and on without the protective systems noticing.)
(Actually, the rest of the grid will keep them synchronized, but then the whole grid can show tendency to drift up with frequency.)
A lot can go wrong if you screw up with the grid load/supply.
Not in principle. Yes in scale.
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