Deploying the (American) grid required by 2050 by solar and wind would take 140 years to build.

The wet dreams of solar and wind advocates are nothing less than delusional hallucination.

Repost Oscar L. Martin, LinkedIn

Deploying the (American) grid required by 2050 by solar and wind would take 140 years to build. But that is not the only problem.

The wet dreams of solar and wind advocates are nothing less than delusional hallucination. The diagram below by Mother Jones (https://lnkd.in/gFVFSK_D) shows visually how the roadmap to net zero using intermittent renewables is a fantasy.

The problem of the massive land requirements, or the need for a backup grid to keep the lights on are still unsolved problems. But even without those issues, in the best scenario, it would take solar and wind 140 years to clean the American power grid.

A group of Princeton University academics released a report that estimated that, to reach net zero targets, the U.S. will need to increase its transmission capacity by 3.2 times its existing infrastructure by 2050. A more optimistic analysis by the pro-renewables National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) suggested that the U.S. could reach 90% renewable electricity with 'only' a twofold increase in its existing 240,000 miles of high-voltage power lines. Based on data from The C Three Group | Yes Energy, which tracks the growth of energy infrastructure, the U.S. high-voltage transmission system grew by about 1,700 miles per year between 2008 and 2021.

At this rate, it would take about 44 years to achieve the 2035 goals and about 140 years to reach the National Renewable Energy Laboratory requirements for 2050. And this is under the optimistic scenario.

Note that the additional land taken only by the new power lines required by solar and wind would be larger than the state of Pennsylvania, add the land required by new solar fields and wind blades imported from China.

Wind and solar have already exploited the easy opportunities where they did not need new power lines. The renewables industry is now facing the reality that future deployments will not be as fast and economical as before.

This challenges the assumption that wind and solar can reduce emissions faster than other clean technologies such as nuclear that do not depend on the slow, costly, and environmentally disruptive construction of long new power lines. Just replace coal plants with plug-in nuclear reactors, no need for additional power lines.