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If Amtrak carried 120 million passengers

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If an electric utility can get a portion of its industrial and commercial customers to agree to interruptible contracts, it can get by with less than a megawatt of back-up generation for every megawatt of installed wind or solar generation. However, our company did not have many interruptible contract takers; they need the juice for a variety of on-going processes. Having a megawatt of reserve for every megawatt of wind or solar power does not mean that one can simply mothball it and start it leisurely to cover for a sudden drop in wind generation. The back-up plants have to be staffed, albeit it often with a minimum staff, to maintain the equipment and be prepared to run when called upon.  For example, the turbine has to turn slowly to prevent shaft warp. As far as I know, all major electric utilities have some spinning reserve, which is used in case a fossil or nuclear unit trips, but in most instances addition back-up capability is required to cover for wind and solar. The hard fact of the matter is that these sources of generation are not yet reliable enough for prime time. If one believes that people would be happy to have their juice cut off for a couple of days, I suggest they study the reaction of the victims of Sandy in New York and New Jersey this past week or so.
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