Can Wind and Solar Replace America’s Coal Plants?

American energy consumption is the biggest & most controllable factor of our energy crisis.

U.S. = consumes 1/4 of the world’s oil
The U.S. Military spends huge amounts of American taxpayers money on a global assault aimed at controlling energy sources for future domination militarily and economically. Foreign oil dependence can be solved, but must first start with legislation to tax gasoline heavily to fund alternatives. Most importantly the U.S. government must set high MPG standards! Peace

Wind, Solar and Geothermal can only supplement not replace Coal and Oil. You can make Coal more clean and more efficient. Not to mention there is still an abundant source of Coal.

I agree with Joe Lucas.

wow the end comment is great by the coal power guy. where does google go. where it’s cheap because of coal. We need to base-load with nuclear which doesn’t produce co2 when it produces energy.

I like the “Google Plan”. I have an EV that I have charged from solar and wind energy. Now if 250,000,000 U.S. car owners would do the same, we as a nation would save 500,000,000 gals. of gasoline each day, without increasing emissions due to increased coal fired electric generation. The gasoline savings equates to $730 Billion per year!! My plan is to first replace as much gasoline as we can with solar and wind. And then try to replace inexpensive coal fired electricity.

And we have the technology to make sure that nothing goes wrong with our new energy resources. It is more likely that something happens with our current energy sources than to renewable sources.

If only a little more importance was put in researching this new technology we could get rid of antediluvian sources of energy, which are nothing more than a way for wealthy people to get even wealthier, and advance as a civilization to a better future.

The problem is still the constantly-growing population. Even if properly reused, the Earth hasn’t an infinite amount of energy sources nor any other resources. Pollution, global warming and poverty would be much less problematic if some people stopped having children they can’t feed nor give a real education. What’s the point in having more population, after all?

YES is the answer & we know that for sure.

It’s that same old, don’t get em thinking on the personal power level, portability & so on, because we gotta keep sellin’ them the grid. After all, joe public musn’t realize that the grid itself [what we need to keep selling them on] has it’s primary function of use for big energy hogs!
Think military=filthy fuel needs and so on.
Oh my gosh, the people [citizens] are finding out about all of this in greater numbers with each passing moment. Heh.

You’re not crazy, just oversimplifying.

The energy playing field does not allow even competition as some sectors receive disproportionate government assistance.

The technology isn’t easy, MANY are desperately working on it. Cheap clean power is something that CAN save the world.

The US political system is arguably incapable of untangling itself from the awful systemic rut it’s stuck in – doesn’t help that the 2 party system is a farce and conventional economic theory needs a re-write.

No. Wind and solar have a hopelessly low power density; the amount of usable power that can be gotten from these sources is strictly limited by the laws of thermodynamics. We want HIGHER density sources of power, not LOWER density power. If wind and solar were sufficient to provide the energy modern civilization requires, why would we have bothered digging the coal out of the ground in the first place?

Nuclear power is the only way to go.

of course it can… without a doubt… if you replaced some farm fields that aint puling their wait… just put a solar panel field on it and it will supply free energy for years and it will pull its wait

if only we could turn the energy invested into advocacy and debates into electricity