If i had a remote alaskan town of 1000 residents, how much power would I need to generate to run the whole town. Would a diesel generator work?
How much power do they consume? How big is your diesel generator? A big enough diesel generator might as well be a power plant. A town full of Alaskan natives aren't going to use as much power as say, a town full of Americans.
You need kilowatts, not kilowatt hours. The amount of power you need varies depending on who turns on what at any given time, and especially on what kind of equipment you are using in the mine. Mines can use huge amounts of electric power. Assuming you are talking about a fairly small mine, you are probably looking at something around 500 kilowatts peak demand. This would require a small power plant. You may be able to get a diesel generator this size, but it would be more efficient to use several smaller generators. This would allow you to shut down some generators to vary the output to meet the varying demand.
A mine can take a *LOT* of power. If it were just the people, and they were not used to electrity, maybe a MegaWatt would be enough, for a while at least. Since you would be burning diesel to make the electricity, price would be high. You might want to get firm contracts that somebody would buy all you generate.
