Too bad NOT everyone lives in GERMANY.

We have three major grids and each of them is very large. We are building connections between the grids, but to date I’m not aware that not having a “three grid” connection has caused any problems. The only shortcoming might be moving wind from the Texas ERCOT grid northward, but that transmission has been built.

There is little need to move Midwest wind energy to the West Coast or Southern California solar to New England.

We’re currently building transmission to bring Wyoming wind to the West Coast. All that is needed is a relatively short HVDC line to connect Wyoming wind to the Pacific and Intermountain Interties.

North Dakota wind, we probably don’t need it (except in ND). Our population is mostly along the coasts, and as you can see on the wind/transmission map you posted, our best wind is east of the East Coast, not in ND. And the transmission distance is less.

The center of the US is largely empty of large population centers. Europe is settled differently. One size does not fit all.

e.g.

http://www.unr.edu/energy/power-grid/

Here are two links to diagrams of the respective European and US high voltage power grids.

http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://www.geni.org/globalenergy/library/national_energy_grid/europe/graphics/euro_trans.GIF&imgrefurl=http://www.geni.org/globalenergy/library/national_energy_grid/europe/europeannationalelectricitygrid.shtml&h=607&w=598&sz=126&tbnid=kYg5e-nT7j-uHM:&tbnh=85&tbnw=84&prev=/search%3Fq%3DEuropean%2Belectricity%2Bgrid%26tbm%3Disch%26tbo%3Du&zoom=1&q=European+electricity+grid&usg=__yBvrvCufEt7kUQVXl_KScZOEkoU=&docid=QV6TmDZnNUTQ5M&sa=X&ei=nmXGUfKWCaqa0AWqqYHwBQ&ved=0CEgQ9QEwAw&dur=597

and

http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2010/ph240/sherer1/images/f2big.jpg

From the diagrams, Europe is better positioned to move power from regions of excess production to areas of deficit.

I do not know the cost of rectifying the situation, or the amount of wind or solar currently being curtailed, however there is a situation where the US has huge wind power potential in areas far removed from high capacity grid lines and cannot effectively develop these resources until there is a grid connection. e.g in North Dakota.

http://www.publicnewsservice.org/index.php?/content/article/31008-1

Give us some facts, some data, identify where the inefficiencies are.

How much wind is being curtailed by year? At what cost?

How much would it cost to rectify the situation?

And what’s the source of your knowledge?

wrong solar power create massive waste problems if you care to look at the facts you find solar panel production are the biggest environmental waste hazard around, china has stated that PV cause the biggest waste issue in the country.

German households pay the highest prices in Europe for electricity because they pick up much of the cost of subsidising cleaner energy production of rooftop solar. German has seen an C02 levels rise.

Carbon foot print of solar power is more then 50% given that it depends on coal energy. We have not see the levels of Co2 fall.

And check out where the very best wind sites are found. The Red and Blue. We haven’t tapped any of them yet.

TVA is running a HVDC line to Oklahoma to move electricity to their grid. Recently Alabama and another SE state (Georgia?) started purchasing from OK.

I would imagine that Texas will get into the game as time goes along. And then there is some most excellent off-shore wind along the Atlantic coast.

Take a look at this wind (and transmission) map. All that good pink stuff along the SE Atlantic coast and northern Gulf coast. That’s as good a resource as the areas where Texas and Oklahoma are generating lots of electricity.

Once we get our offshore wind industry kicked into gear these are resources waiting to be tapped. And we’ve already got the ability to move a lot of power around.

And having transmission in place is major. I suspect that the hard lifting of route and real estate are largely established. Capacity on existing lines can be raised by moving to higher voltages.

Coal median 1,001 grams

Nuclear median 12 grams (4 to 110 gram range)
Wind energy 11 grams (3 to 45 gram range)
Amorphous silicon solar 20 grams
Cadmium-telluride solar 14 grams
Copper indium gallium diselenide solar 26 grams
CSP trough solar 26 grams
CSP tower solar 38 grams

11 grams is 1.1% of coal’s carbon footprint
38 grams is 3.8% of coal’s carbon footprint
110 grams is 11% of coal’s carbon footprint

http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2012/05/study-compares-energy-sources-from-cradle-to-grave

Anything that produces 5% or less CO2 than coal should be, IMO, treated as “good enough” The decision should be based on cost, time to bring on line, and “external problems/dangers”.

The big problem as I see it is that there’s still no good energy storage solution at hand, but as we go onwards with technology, and as demand grows, some very good solutions will surface.

Renewables just can’t be stopped and they will hopefully break the iron hand that the fossil fuel industry is trying so desperately to maintain.

We end up with 17.7 kWh of the original 100 kWh serving a useful purpose.

That, my friend, is pretty danged inefficient.

(More accurately 3.14 kWh energy is used to refine a gallon of gas and there are 36.6 kWh energy in a gallon of gas.)

—

Now, I just can’t see any logic behind stopping support for wind generation since it is becoming our cheapest way to bring new capacity on line. Solar is great and we need to support it as well. But the wind blows more hours of the year than the Sun shines which means that wind brings us very significant storage savings.

We need to quit wasting $ on wind and spend those sums to continue to make solar cheaper. Solar is a much better fit for what we need here in the US.

about energy storage there creating more steel during summer day’s when energy is abundant is also a way of storing energy. we need these kind of creative solutions to solve the energy problems.