We Don’t Need No Stinking Giant Mirrors

13 Replies to “We Don’t Need No Stinking Giant Mirrors”

1. It looks like ‘capacity’ is overstated by a factor of 2.6x, or ‘daily capacity’ doesn’t account for 12 hours of darkness, or these all face north.

   Is the Conserve Everything crowd going to notice solar panels are a waste of poly-carbonate (read:oil)?

   1. Actually diurnal variation is precisely what’s being measured here. That’s why the maximum capacity factor is much less than 50% even in summer with 16 hours of daylight. It’s why there is a huge drop-off in winter – 8 hour days plus snow cover. The actual reason for wind/solar has little to do with power generation and everything to do with trying to persuade the gullible that there are non-nuclear power options with no gaseous emissions.

      1. That brings up another issue of capacity for solar. Does it include the diminution of peak performance due to lattitude or rated electrical capacity?

         Scamsters all.

         1. To clarify, Alberta uses Maximum Continuous Rating (MCR) for installed capacity. From Wikipedia

            Maximum continuous rating (MCR) is defined as the maximum output (MW) that an electric power generating station is capable of producing continuously under normal conditions over a year.

            which doesn’t really help. Here are some numbers

            Installed capacity coal 1.381MW 2022 Generated per year (2022) 10.155GWh % 83.9
            Installed capacity wind 3.124MW 2022 Generated per year (2022) 7.345GWh % 26.8
            Installed capacity solar 1.234MW 2022 Generated per year (2022) 1.159GWh % 10.7

            I even suspect those numbers 26.8% for wind seems high, but it does suggest the MCR used in Alberta is the nameplate capacity, just like for wind with it’s GW of capacity, when working under ideal conditions.

         2. Latitude? As far as I know it does not take latitude into account. As you suggest, this implies that ALL solar capacity factor calculations are fraudulent. The issue of power generation loss for solar can be severe. for example, a day may seem to be bright and sunny. But there may be high losses for generation from ambient atmospheric haze from dust or water vapour. It only seems bright and sunny sometimes, because the human eye is remarkable in its ability to adjust to ambient light conditions by adjusting the iris in about four seconds. So it may seem bright but actually not.

            Second, over time, dust has a severe effect on solar panels. Even particles too minute to be visible will over time scratch the surface of the panel on a microscopic scale, reducing power generation by reflection or diffraction effects. So, whatever the capacity factor of a panel may be when new, it will be sharply reduced after a few years in service.

            And as you noted, the capacity factors for wind generation used by Alberta are far too high. The best wind regime in Canada is the Gaspe Peninsula in Quebec, where Hydro-Quebec installed a wind farm. It has never had capacity factors higher annually than 21%. Which is why they don’t talk about it. HQ only installed it to qualify for US renewable generation for electricity import requirements from NEPOOL and NYPA.

2. Allemaar a Colossal pile of Horseshit.

   As noted many times before AGW is just one plank in the multi faceted campaign to utterly destroy Western Hemisphere Civilization…

   We are the Carbon they wish to annihilate.

3. Hey geniuses. It’s intermittent power. It needs pairing with battery or natgas or hydro.

   Eff me you are stupid people.

   1. So it’s useless, then.

      Coal, nuclear, hydro and nat gas for generating electricity

      Oil for transport. We live in an energy utopia, unfortunately certain people do not want us to have energy abundance. Nor food abundance, it appears.

   2. Well that was easily solved Jen.

   3. Jenn

      1. There are not enough minerals for sufficient batteries so that we’d have a continuous supply of electricity.

      2. Mining is bad, so the gang greens won’t let us open many, if any, new mines.

      3. Natural gas as back up? Not acceptable to the gang greens, Trudeau, Biden, et al. It’s a carbon source!

      4. Where is the new source of hydro? Greens have opposed every new hydro-electric dam for the last 50 years.

      5. And before you reply “well conservation”, remember the 500,000 to 1,000,000 immigrants Justin and Jagmeet want to accept EVERY year, have to live somewhere. And presumably they’ll want to heat their homes, cook meals, and use electric light. Thus electricity demand is going to go up.

      PS. If you are really worried about warming the planet, please set your house thermostat to 5C in the wintertime. Heating your home (even with electricity) warms up the planet.

   4. It’s intermittent power. It needs pairing with battery or natgas or hydro.

      So how’s about we just take all the money being pissed away on “intermittent” power, batteries, etc., invest it in constant power, pocket the significant difference and wash our hands of the entire Gang Green clusterfukc?

4. Pathetic numbers.

   But governments seek to fix those pathetic numbers by building more wind and solar farms. That’s pathetic, too. If the solar averages out at 10% of nameplate capacity overall, doubling the capacity still results in 10% overall, which means spending twice as much to get a tiny bit more electricity.

   MPs and MLAs and utility board members should be required to pass a test in basic physics, including electricity, before they ever hold office. As it stands, they’re governing from ignorance.

5. I am always amazed at the stupidity.