Is Large-Scale Renewable Energy Feasible Right Now?

My old friend Peter Buzzard writes:

The current technology of Wind and Solar tends to provide power when and where it is needed the least. The transmission of power from wind and solar farms to population centers is extremely expensive, and superconducting transmission lines are still a future dream, so the answer lies elsewhere…

Thanks, Peter. I appreciate your comments, but I respectfully disagree. I favor the build-out of the grid with high voltage DC to conduct power from solar thermal farms with molten salt energy storage in the southwestern desert to the east and west coasts. While you are correct that this will not be inexpensive, in my estimation, it’s a program we should embrace immediately. When the total cost of burning fossil fuels is considered (including national security, healthcare, long-term environmental damage, etc.) it’s the deal of the century. And it carries with it the considerable benefit of putting people to work on a project that will solve one of mankind’s thorniest problems now and forever.

Solar thermal is safe, scaleable, reliable, affordable, environmentally sensible, and easily protected from attack, as it can be distributed across the vastness of the desert (criteria all of which need to be met before we can take any renewables technology seriously).

So what about wind, geothermal, and hydrokinetics? I think they all hold considerable promise, though I can’t see how they can compete effectively with solar thermal when all the considerations named above are fully thought through.