There has recently been a spike in the discussion of renewable dependence. This is entirely possible, however, it comes at an enormous cost. Renewable energies are, first, very expensive and second, aren’t very reliable – this is where the huge cost has an impact.

To create a nation that efficiently runs off renewable energies, a base line infrastructure must first be established. Consumers must pay an additional fee along with the amount paid for the electricity they use. This fee goes towards new wind farms and solar arrays (typically placed in remote locations) as well as the additional power lines needed to transfer this energy from these remote locations to their homes. They will also need to pay for the emergency backup system idling in the background, ready to back up the power grid at a moment’s notice when the sun stops shining or the wind stops blowing.

The only sufficient option that can respond fast enough are natural gas fired turbines (jet engines). These turbines are much more realistic to use as back up; unlike its coal and nuclear predecessors, which take hours and hours to kick on (making them unrealistic to use as an emergency power supply),  natural gas fired turbines can go online in as little as 10-30 minutes. However, bringing these new, large amounts of gas onto the existing natural gas infrastructure is also problematic as it would be too great a strain for the existing pipelines to handle. Also, the large consumption of natural gas from the pipelines coming on at a moment’s notice would drastically drain the pipelines of gas inventory, decreasing pipeline pressure and withholding gas from other consumers who use the gas to heat their homes or run industrial processes.

This means that in addition to the natural gas-fired turbines, consumers must pay for natural gas pipelines and ideally natural gas storage fields. Xcel energy out of Denver has already built additional pipelines and gas storage to back up their wind turbines as well as replace the outdated dirty coal plants supplying energy to the area.

There are significant steps needed to transition our energy supply from fossil fuels to a majority of renewable energy, but it is in our grasp. All it needs is investment money and a group of smart innovators working in the background to keep everything running smoothly.