Wanna guess?

I work with solar panels. I lay them out. I calculate their energy-generating potential. I investigate the most cutting-edge, high-efficiency, triple-junction, forget-how-much-it-costs stuff out there. I figure out how to point them and control them and calculate how to store every joule of energy those little stinkers put out.

Then I come home at night and blog about thorium and work on my nuclear engineering degree.

I see many energy sources working together in the future — and I see that diversified system as advantageous on many levels. So, I’m just not interested in the debate that you’re trying to have with me here. There are plenty of other people who are, though, and I’m sure you can find them elsewhere.

Besides, there are plenty of more interesting discussions that we could have, anyway. How should the grid be built out and modernized? What’s the role of architecture in energy systems? What type of electric transport makes the most sense? Etc.

I’m still wondering why solar and wind have been anointed “green” anyway? They’re not stopping coal and won’t be stopping coal anytime soon.

Mankind used solar and wind for millennia. Due to their diffuse and intermittent nature they required vast capital expenditures versus the energy derived. Mankind moved to a more dense source of energy (fossil fuel) at the first opportunity.

We’re waiting for water to flow uphill if we expect mankind to go backwards from less-capital-intensive to more-capital-intensive in the form of wind and solar. All that will happen is that activities that require reliable and dense forms of energy will migrate from our country to those places where those energy sources are available.

Energy density matters. Because energy density scales directly to capital cost. Solar and wind have wretched energy density. Fossil fuels have excellent energy density. Nuclear fuel has staggering energy density (a million times more than fossil). Nuclear fuel has both energy density and no CO2 emissions. So which one should we pick?