Energy 103-Solar vs Nuclear

In Energy 102, I talked about Solar Energy. Since that post "the nation's largest solar farm was opened for business in FL http://bit.ly/2VyrHX.

Muskegon's Newkirk Electric solar farm generates 27 MegaWatts electric (MWe); it is located on 180 acres of treeless land so the solar panels can receive and convert the suns energy to electricity during the cloudless, daylight hours. During the night or on days that are overcast, the solar farm does not generate electricity. At times like those, customers must be provided with electricity generated from the B. C. Cobb coal-fired power plant. The 27 MWe is estimated to provide electricity to 3,000 homes when it is actually producing electricity. The B. C. Cobb coal-fired plant generates 500 MWe.

In comparison, Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant in MD http://www.constellation.com/portal/site/constellation/menuitem.0275303d670d51908d84ff10025166a0/ generates 1,135 MWe. I estimated that Calvert Cliffs NPP is located on ~260 acres using Google Earth and observed that much of the power plants land is wooded. The actual area of the facility might be larger, but that would simply mean that the total wooded area of the facility is even bigger. Calvert Cliffs NPP generates power 24-hrs/day, 7 days/week. Every few years one of the two units is shut-down for maintenance, but the other unit continues to produce electricity. This is typical of nuclear power plants throughout the world.

The bottom-line is that solar farms are typically smaller than conventional power plants, they do not generate electricity at night or when it is cloudy so must be supplemented by conventional power, they occupy a lot of land mass from which trees and structures are removed so as not to block the sun, they shade the ground around the solar panels and prevent the sun from providing normal light exposure to plants and animals that inhabit solar farm's ecosystem, and the cost to the consumer is generally higher per unit than for conventional power plants.