The best backup electrical supply will likely originate from the sun and be stored for later use. There’s only a couple of other known sources today, like geo-thermal, and lunar (tidal,) and possibly the inertia from earth’s rotation, that’s about it.
Since light from the sun takes 7 minutes to reach earth and knowing how our government works, they are probably sending a satellite to space to detect if the sun explodes. That will give them a few minutes prior notice to start up emergency power generators 
#Lavarock… First they will have to find a way for the explosion detector’s telemetry to outperform the speed of light. Otherwise they will arrive simultaneously, with no warning. And, given the vectors involved, (the satellite’s position not being a straight line-of-sight) and the device’s switching lag time, the signal will certainly arrive too late… 
Hydro? Nuclear? Large, future batteries?
He’s probably still living under the mass delusion that modern nuclear power is dangerous.
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Hydro is powered by the sun through precipitation. Nuclear fission is a reasonable solution that I overlooked. Batteries are not a source of electricity, they are simply a storage for electricity from an originating energy source. Thinking of batteries as a source of electricity is like thinking of a gas tank as the source for the gasoline it contains.
I think nuclear fission is probably a relatively short-term solution (50 yrs or so) and will eventually give way to nuclear fusion as safer and more reliable energy source.
I was responding to the various power backups for non-sun days. Large home batteries are on the market now and new technologies will enhance that potential.
Nuclear power plants have their drawbacks, I can recall at least three problems with them in my lifetime, not including the current threat of a nuclear plant disaster in Ukraine right now.
But, despite the drawbacks of nuclear fission as a power source for electrical production, I feel it is still a viable choice for the next 50 years or so. Hopefully by then we’ll have figured out the nuclear fusion puzzle and put it to use producing electrical power.
I agree, batteries are a time-shifting device for electrical consumption, similar to a DVR’s use in the consumption of video entertainment.
All of those problems were either based on technology designed in the 1950s (Chernobyl), or caused by human overreaction (Fukushima). Nuclear power plants designed even in the last 40 years have never had any meltdown. In current generation plants, some of which consume waste from older reactors, a meltdown isn’t even possible.
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While I don’t disagree with your general position on the safety on modern nuclear power plants, the problem remains that stuff happens, people make mistakes and things go wrong, and at the worst possible moment.
And when things go wrong, as they always do when humans are involved, the mess left to clean up can present very big problems. Sometimes those problems are measured in hundreds of years…
Hydro power comes from dams on rivers, not from the sun and percipitation.
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And how do you suppose the water got behind those dams?
Did someone haul it up there in water trucks?
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I will give you that the water cycle is required, wherein precipitation creates runoff that fills rivers, but that is not how the electricity is generated. It is the energy created by the water running downhill that creates it. You might equally credit the various mountain building processes as being the cause of hydropower.
The power to lift the water to an elevation above the water-powered turbines which turn the generators is powered by the heat which is generated in our sun. The water is heated by the sun which causes it to vaporize, rise in the atmosphere, and fall as rain which travels to the dam creating a pressure differential between the water turbine blades and the lower pressure behind them. The heat of the sun is the motive force.
It is similar to a coal-fired furnace heating a steam boiler in that the the heat is the powering source and the pressure difference between the inside and the outside of the boiler provides motive force for useful work. That useful work can be obtained by using a steam engine to drive an electrical generator.
The creation of the mountain is no more a function of the power required to generate the electricity than is the use of the steam boiler and the pipes to route the steam pressure to the steam engine powering the generator. It is part of a machine. A machine is simply a device used to convert energy to useful work.
BTW… Coal’s energy is simply stored energy which originated from the sun. It is contained in the carbon within the coal. The carbon would not be there but for the sun’s radiant energy creating it through the process of photosynthesis which pulls the carbon from CO2 in the atmosphere and creates organic material from it. When you burn the coal it releases the carbon back into the atmosphere creating our current spate of global warming.
Did you really think that explaining the water cycle was going to teach the reader something new or advance the discussion?
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I think it will advance the discussion. Here’s how:
The more people understand how the world around them works the better off their lives will be. And the better their lives become, the better it is for all of us.
Understanding how energy works and where it comes from is increasingly important in our world today. Everyone will be called upon to make decisions that will, in the end, make a big difference.
There is a critical difference between producing carbon dioxide from stuff laying around on the ground and digging up stuff that’s been buried for millions of years and burning it producing carbon dioxide, it is an important concept to understand. Every responsible citizen needs to understand those kinds of things. Our Constitution was written with that thought in the forefront of all of it’s signatories’ thoughts as they produced and ratified that document.
Besides that, It gives me the opportunity to fact-check my own thinking in the process… 
One concern with solar is that the panels are made of various materials which must be recycled upon end of 30 years or so. Newer panels might last much longer but will probably need to be recycled.
So the cost to build, install, periodically clean, de-install and recycle should be noted. I think this is at least a good alternative for the near term.
I have heard (but have no knowledge) that windmills may have issues recycling the blades. There are concerns here in Hawaii that our windmills cause risk to our many protected birds due to the blades. Some windmills are now being constructed elsewhere offshore on platforms.
We have/had a geothermal plant but it has taken offline when lava was within yards of the boreholes. There are also religious concerns about using geothermal here. (This geothermal power plant provides about 30% of electricity demand on the Big Island (Puna) of Hawaii.)
I have not yet heard issues, but know that some places are investigating using one of other naturally occurring sources to produce electricity ( Because Hawaii has a highly consistent wave energy resource, the Office of Naval Research is monitoring an experimental wave energy buoy off Kaneohe Marine Corps Base. Hawaiian Electric has helped with the transmission connection to the electric grid.).
Ocean wave energy may be a better source to generate SOME of the power we need.
" Hawaii became the first state to commit to obtaining 100% of its electricity from renewables when Governor David Ige signed HB 623, mandating the state’s utilities reach that resource mix by 2045. The law, effective July 1, sets 30% by 2020, 40% by 2030, and 70% by 2040 interim targets."
And then, what could our islands do to produe energy?
" Recent analysis from Stanford engineering professor Mark Z. Jacobson finds Hawaii can economically meet 100% of its energy needs with 14% residential rooftop PV, 9.7% PV power plants, 7% concentrating solar power plants, 12% onshore wind, 16% offshore wind, 9% commercial and government rooftop PV, 1% wave energy, 30% geothermal, 0.3% hydroelectric, and 1% tidal energy.
Jacobson calculates the transition would create 8,239 construction 40-year duration jobs and 4,239 such operations jobs. It would also save $1.6 billion per year, or 1% of state GDP, in avoided mortality and illness costs. The footprint would be 0.21% of Hawaii’s land and spacing would require another 0.82% of Hawaii’s land. It would reduce today’s $0.303 per kWh electricity rate to $0.119 per kWh."
(The above two quotes from UtilityDive.com 100% renewables by 2045 is now the law in Hawaii | Utility Dive)
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Great post, thanks, but religious concerns? What am I missing?
Hawaiians believe that the islands and volcanoes are created by the deity Madam Pele. Thus tapping into lava might be the same as going into a church and taking pews for firewood.
Some pay homage to her with hula and offering at the volcano. Although some feel this is a myth, many religious deities cannot be proven. Many of the Hawaiian beliefs control life in the islands and things are pretty good here.
Ancient Hawaiians used to have what you would consider game wardens, telling who and where people could fish and what they could catch. It was law that during a certain time of the year, neighboring communities would not fight. That was during the period when they had to gather crops. A truce was in effect because they knew they would die without food stores.
There are many interesting things about the islands in a book called “Ancient Hawaiian Civilization”. It is not dry reading, rather each chapter is a talk given to school children by an expert. They included how the plant and animals go to the islands, hoe astronomy allowed them to travel, medicinal plants, customs, etc. Religion played a big part in their lives (until the explorers and then the missionaries came).