Ken Nelson

More juice please!

Coal electric plants burn coal to make steam to turn turbines to make electricity.

But what if you used solar to make steam and fed it into the same system?  The result is a converted coal plant that costs 1/2 of what a new solar plant would have cost because you don’t have to buy the turbines and it is already connected to the grid. Plus at night you can fire up the coal part.

Slick. And I like it, sort of.  But it has one big drawback.

At the cost of 1/2 a coal plant, I lose a full coal plant, and get back a full solar plant. So in other words, it costs money and it adds NO NEW ELECTRICITY to the grid.

Recall from my previous post that more energy is a GOOD THING.

The net effect of this is same energy, more money. That isn’t what I want. I want MORE ENERGY, LESS MONEY.

Got that geeky guys?

Now if there is a coal plant that is at its end of life, or that has a costly source of coal and you can save money doing this, fine. But since I’m a skeptic about C02 and the climate, costing me more money to solve a non-problem impresses me little.

Turn your geeky brains on to something that makes MORE juice.