Nickodell
Donation Time
Yes, and the biggest peak is when people all get home and start switching on all the electrical devices that were off or at low settings during the day - air conditioning, ranges, TVs and calculators, lights, heat, etc. Just the time when the cars would be added to the load.
Another reason why windmills could not supply much of our electrical needs for the forseeable future - the grid system is not able to route appreciably more current from the remote sites where they would have to be built (offshore, hilltops, deserted plains, etc.) because that's not where the main trunk lines run.
There is also a lot of confusion and misapprehension that the national grid system is really national, i.e. able to shunt great gobs of power from region to region at the press of a button. It is a lot more localized than people think. Remember the two big blackouts - we didn't start getting extra energy from, say, Colorado or Alberta, with the lights quickly coming on like the backup generator in an office building. Nothing much happened until the local power authorities traced and rectified the problem and brought their own utilities back on stream bit by bit.
Another reason why windmills could not supply much of our electrical needs for the forseeable future - the grid system is not able to route appreciably more current from the remote sites where they would have to be built (offshore, hilltops, deserted plains, etc.) because that's not where the main trunk lines run.
There is also a lot of confusion and misapprehension that the national grid system is really national, i.e. able to shunt great gobs of power from region to region at the press of a button. It is a lot more localized than people think. Remember the two big blackouts - we didn't start getting extra energy from, say, Colorado or Alberta, with the lights quickly coming on like the backup generator in an office building. Nothing much happened until the local power authorities traced and rectified the problem and brought their own utilities back on stream bit by bit.