PEOPLE WILL DO ANYTHING TO SAVE THE WORLD...

Well Done ?

http://watch.bnn.ca/squeezeplay/february-2010/squeezeplay-february-17-2010/#clip267647

Q: How many solar panels and wind turbines would it take to replace the one coal plant that energizes Boulder?   
A: I can't easily find the figures for Boulder, but the population is about 100,000. You can figure on 1.3 kW per capita for year-round power  consumption  (for all home uses, street lights, commercial establishments, factories.), so that's about 130 MW.
You can get year-round average power of 5 kW per acre for GOOD wind farms, so it would require wind turbines spread out over 26,,000 acres (about 41 square miles). (The amount of acreage is independent of the size of the wind turbines.) Of course, if you did that without the REAL power on the grid, most of the time you'd get nothing or very low power, ant at times you'd get 400 MW (which you wouldn't be able to use, and you can't store it).
In principle, you could get that much energy from solar cells spread out---edge-to-edge---over something like 2.5 square miles.
All the research in the world cannot make the sun shine at night.
Q: My very un-educated, un-scientific brain kind of envisioned such.
Could we could do a visual showing all that lovely "green space" in the forward thinking intellectual community of the People's Republic of Boulder, packed with turbines, solar panels and all things that accompany...and use PRB as the poster child illustration of the amazing inability for the forward-thinking to think forward.
A: The land area of boulder is about 10 square miles. Where can the Boulderites find 41 square miles for their heissbeliebte wind turbines?
http://watch.bnn.ca/squeezeplay/february-2010/squeezeplay-february-17-2010/#clip267647
Q: What an excellent synopsis. Thank YOU!
The blond reminded me of oh-so-many fancy dancers I once had the misfortune of knowing...and now deliberately shy from.
A: The professor is bang on, and the businessman is best described as a parasite or opportunist. As a businessman, he sees profit but totally ignores that the profit comes at the expense of taxpayers.
Answers provided by:
Howard Hayden
The Energy Advocate
http://www.energyadvocate.com/
corkhayden@comcast.net
"People will do anything to save the world ... except take a course in science."   Howard Hayden