Electric Propulsion Reality Check

time2roll wrote:
I understand it is lower cost to build and operate a solar farm than it is to feed coal to a power plant. Never mind the cost to build that coal power plant. Building a coal plant would be a pure waste of money. The idea with solar is that the energy is free from that big fusion reactor in the sky.

I read Los Angeles just contracted for under 2 cents a kWh for a solar purchase agreement. With the contract includes overnight energy from batteries at 1.4 cents per kWh. Coal is doomed. Natural gas is on edge for emergencies. Nukes will be retired as soon as solar can be built. Cost just keeps dropping.

From what I gather all new residential construction in California must include solar starting 2020. I think coal will hang around for another decade or two but even 15 years ago no one thought coal would be down to 20 percent of the grid supply by 2020. Right now it’s dropping about 1 percent per year in both the US and Canada. Canada is already down to 9 percent and the US is just passing thru 20 percent. Times are changing. Canada will completely phase out coal by 2030.

The average commuter needs about 8 kw per day. Pretty easy to generate that on a roof.