Now, reporters don’t usually write their own headlines, but this is just out there:
Here is the longer piece. The headline makes it appear that all 600,000 residents of Las Vegas are getting solar power. Of course, you have to read the fine print that tells us only all municipal facilities are using renewable energy. That’s a pretty significant difference.
But the real elfin magic being played here is this: even if the solar farms we are talking about produced enough gross electricity to match the electricity demands of the entire city, it is not at all the case that the city would be “powered entirely by green energy.”
How?
It must get tiring to have to move that energy elf around every day. When will the kids be old enough to learn the truth of the magic?
From my (limited) understanding, it takes days to shut down or start up a power plant. So the backups are truly running the whole time. I still have much more hope in solar being a reasonable energy source compared to wind though.
However, I can’t take anyone seriously that talks about this huge “energy problem” when they almost never suggest nuclear. It’s almost like this movement, “backed by scientific consensus”, isn’t based on science at all!
By the way, here’s a headline from the New York Times in 1984. Take from it what you will.
“A NEW COAL-BURNING PLANT OFFERS A GLIMPSE OF A NONNUCLEAR FUTURE”
http://www.nytimes.com/1984/11/05/nyregion/a-new-coal-burning-plant-offers-a-glimpse-of-a-nonnuclear-future.html