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Power United States

Amid Pandemic, US Renewable Power Sources Have Topped Coal For 40 Days (reuters.com) 165

Posted by BeauHD from the supply-and-demand dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Electricity generated by renewable sources like solar, wind and hydro has exceeded coal-fired power in the United States for a record 40 straight days, according to a report based on U.S. government data released on Monday. The boost for renewables is due to a seasonal increase in low-cost solar and hydro power generation, alongside an overall slump in electricity demand caused by coronavirus-related stay-at-home orders, according to the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis. Coal tends to be the first power source to be cut by utilities when demand falls because subsidized renewable sources are cheaper to operate and often backed by state clean-energy mandates.

Every day between March 25 and May 3, solar, wind and hydro plants together produced more electricity than the nation's coal-fired plants -- accounting for about a fifth of the grid's power, IEEFA said. The longest back-to-back stretch previously was nine days in 2019. In total in 2019, renewables beat coal on just 38 days, IEEFA said. IEEFA added it is possible that renewable energy in the United States could exceed coal on an annual basis for the first time this year, a year earlier than it initially forecast, if the power consumption trends caused by the health crisis continue. The report says overall U.S. electricity consumption is projected to fall 3% this year, with coal-fired power demand falling 20%. Meanwhile, EIA forecasts renewable energy generation will grow 11% because it is dispatched by grid operators whenever it is available because of its low operating cost.
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Amid Pandemic, US Renewable Power Sources Have Topped Coal For 40 Days More

Amid Pandemic, US Renewable Power Sources Have Topped Coal For 40 Days

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  • Great (Score:4, Interesting)

    by rossdee ( 243626 ) on Tuesday May 05, 2020 @11:42PM (#60026934)

    That's great!

    Now does anyone know how much less CO2 we have produced due to the reduction of travel by air and by car?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      12.3 metric giga-assloads. No wait that's methane.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by pakar ( 813627 )

      We might have reduced amount of CO2 released for the past few month's..

      Problem is that we are living on borrowed money and goods. When we do open up again there will be much less money available for large-scale environmental projects by governments, and a lot less money for companies to switch over to more environmentally friendly processes.

      This hole covid-19 will result in a HUGE step back in our fights against pollution and climate change, and there is not much we can do about it except to open up as soon

      • Well, this depends on how weak governments are.

        Populations can now see that there is a direct correlation between transport use and local pollution. I expect the car industry will struggle to survive this apart from EV manufactures.

        Well, people can also see that governments can borrow loads of money in desperate times. If governments were serious about tackling climate change then the money could easily be found as shown by the coronavirus borrowing.

        A good way of getting out of a global recession is to inve

        • I expect the car industry will struggle to survive this apart from EV manufactures.

          You may not have noticed gas is cheap and plentiful and probably will be for a while yet.

  • To me it seems kind of odd that overall electricity use would be down with so many people staying at home.

    If a bunch of people go into work, you are just powering the one building they are working from, whereas if a lot of people are home that would seem to increase home electricity use across the board...

    I guess the businesses closed must have been drawing quite a bit more power even than the combination of all the individuals that worked there running separate dwellings more, it just surprised me it would

    • Re:Why would electricity demand be down? (Score:5, Informative)

      by DontBeAMoran ( 4843879 ) on Tuesday May 05, 2020 @11:49PM (#60026956)

      Manufacturing industries, you know the kind who needs people to be at work to run, are closed. Wether or not people are home, they're usually heated/climatised, the fridge still runs (better go and catch it), these days home lights are LEDs, etc. Even a few hundred homes having TVs and such running is no match in power consumption compared to a lumber mill or a foundry for example.

    • The industrial and commercial sector use way more electricity than home use. The sectors as you may be aware of have been shutdown.

    • manufacturing has heavy duty machines and places like oil refineries can use as much electricity as a small city

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AvitarX ( 172628 )
      I work at a print shop which isn't particularly heavy industry.

      We're sort of open (20-40% staff depending the day, 10-40% business),our electric savings far more than covers the bills of everyone that works here even with 50% extra. Probable would cover everyone's bills at home all day running AC even (but it's not AC temperature yet and some people are coming in).

  • it's still in the low 30's (F) in the night, despite it being May. I have usually turned off my heat weeks ago.

      I'm burning natural gas as fast as I can to keep myself from freezing to death.

  • I like to see the numbers. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by clovis ( 4684 ) on Wednesday May 06, 2020 @12:13AM (#60026994)

    Here are the actual numbers from eia.gov.
    https://www.eia.gov/beta/elect... [eia.gov]

    Look at the "U.S.electricity generation by energy source" chart. You can click the gear and adjust the number of days shown.
    It's interesting how natural gas and solar track daily demand and complement daily demand
    Wind, on the other hand produces a lot, but varies wildly and doesn't track time of day at all.

    • And nuclear just powers right along, too! I'd love to have a lot more nuclear, and use the excess (when we have it) for desalination. That would take a tremendous strain off of CA, FL, AZ, LA, and many other States, and could even provide power and fresh water to pipe into the corn belt and remove pressure on those aquifers.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Maxo-Texas ( 864189 )

        The problem with nuclear is when that when time to decommission the plant rolls around, the executives and shareholders are all gone with the money and then the decommissioning price which is 2 orders of magnitude higher than promised are dumped on the children of the people who got under priced power since the amount escrowed doesn't even remotely come close to the cost.

        Private insurance companies will *NOT* re-insure decommissioning costs.

        https://www.omaha.com/money/op... [omaha.com]

        "Omaha Public Power District ratep

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by dargaud ( 518470 )
          Well, the solution to that is simple, no ? Just force them to put aside more than enough money. Leftovers can be used for other things. It's just political. At least it's an industry with a possible cleanup, unless the coal/gas industry which dumps all the CO2 in the atmosphere and sea and scant hope of removal.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by dgatwood ( 11270 )

            I'm still unclear why they can't just build a new plant right next to it, and then *not* decommission the old plant. Is it so important to recycle the metal that it's worth the risk? A reactor with no fuel isn't exactly going to melt down or anything.

            I mean, in a few hundred years, they'll run out of space, but given that they would be removing any fissionable material when they shut them down anyway, by the time they're out of space, the oldest reactors shouldn't still be glowing meaningfully, so they co

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by dargaud ( 518470 )
              In most places that's the idea. Also concentrate the radioactive scories to a few cubic meters and put them deep underground, preferably in a subduction zone, or in a stable layer, or transmute them in a neutron field, or even better recycle them in a sur-regenerator. But the way it's done now (because of all the opposition from various 'green' groups) is that they're kept in a pool next to current plants and it's very risky to do that as Fukushima has shown: if the power for the pumps providing water to th

    • Re:I like to see the numbers. (Score:5, Informative)

      by Solandri ( 704621 ) on Wednesday May 06, 2020 @02:20AM (#60027254)
      Renewables are run flat-out because their energy is basically free (the construction costs are a sunk cost [investopedia.com]). Nuclear is run flat-out because it's slow to throttle down (the residual fission byproducts continue to decay after you stop fissioning uranium).

      That leaves coal and gas to throttle up and down to make total generation match \demand. So when demand drops substantially (like now with the virus shutdowns), it's primarily fossil fuel planes which decrease their generation in response. Gas throttles up and down more quickly, so it's used primarily to match demand, while coal is used more like base load. (Hydro is also used to match demand since it can almost instantly be throttled up or down. But the total amount of hydro you can generate in a year has to match the amount of rainfall in order to keep the same amount of water behind the dam, so its annual generation doesn't really track demand.)

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        Hydro can simply pump water back up when excess cheap energy is available. They do that in the UK.

        I remember maybe a decade ago someone posted a comment about how thanks to all the environmentalists electricity was going to become intermittent, only available when the wind blew or the sun shone. In actual fact we are headed towards having vast amounts of cheap, clean energy because of the excess capacity we build to cover local intermittency.

        Stuff like desalination will become economically viable. In the UK

        • It's possible but not simple, cheap or energy efficient. It's better to let hydro be hydro naturally. Damming off areas and artificial lakes as the UK does is equally bad for the environment. The US has plenty of areas where you simply divert some of the water stream to power a turbine without destroying nature around it.

          • It's possible but not simple, cheap or energy efficient.

            It's both simple and energy efficient. The main problem is you need to have lots of excess power available at the dam. It's a great "battery" for things like wind but only if you have surplus energy.

            Cost takes more context. Until a location has lots of surplus energy, it's not cost effective. Of course, people don't currently build things like wind turbines in locations that will generate lots of surplus energy. It is a cost effective battery,

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by _merlin ( 160982 )

        Shutting down a reactor quickly can also cause xenon poisoning, which prevents you from starting it again for several days.

  • A Coal bailout in the near future

  • Just more proof that the damage to the environment is corporations, not people. Shut down the corps, and the same people, responsible for themselves, and not their billionaire masters, manage to generate a smaller footprint. Corporations are the root of all evil. The shutdowns have proved that.
    • So, what you're really saying is you want to downgrade your own personal life to a subsistence level, when the vast majority of products and services you take for granted no longer exist due to no corporations to provide them? Okay.
      You can get started on that right away. Yank your Internet connection out of the wall, and the power plug for your computer(s). Also turn off your smartphone and forget it exists. Next, get rid of your refrigerator/freezer and replace it with an icebox (literally an icebox; you

    • Wrong, this isn't a sustainable condition and the economy and infrastructure are falling into ruin as people are going into poverty. Get a clue.

      • Iggymanz, you get people drunk, or put them under enough pressure for a while, you find out what they're really like; the wing-nuts come out of the woodwork in droves.

      • Wrong, this isn't a sustainable condition and the economy and infrastructure are falling into ruin as people are going into poverty. Get a clue.

        Unsustainable only if you define "economy" along the lines of "number of gadgets produced", "GDP growth" or similar. And if you leave unemployed people without income, to starve in the streets while rich people sit in their mansions ordering their groceries + new big screen TV online.

        Let that go, and the current situation is a lot more sustainable than you might think. Farmers will keep planting crops, and those crops will keep growing. Once harvested, trucks bringing the pr

        • Let's face it: what types of activity are cut by the worldwide lockdowns?

          I'll bite.

          Dating.
          Partying.
          Casual sex.
          Need any more, virgin in moms basement?

          People going into poverty? Only if governments let 'em. As in: money. You know, that stuff that's created from thin air by central banks, and ultimately are just numbers in an accounting system. No reason that people should go without money to buy food (or pay rent etc) other than, you guessed it: politics.

          Every society that has tried this has failed very quickly. Every. Single. One. You see, those "numbers in an accounting system" are subject to the same supply, demand, and competition effects as every other commodity. You cannot find a single example where this isnt true. Not. A. Single. One.

          Infrastructure? Come on! Roads don't fall apart in a day, and repair crews are still @ work.

          If those that lost their jobs are not in poverty because money can simply be created in perpetuity, then there are no repair crews. Tha

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by dgatwood ( 11270 )

            People going into poverty? Only if governments let 'em. As in: money. You know, that stuff that's created from thin air by central banks, and ultimately are just numbers in an accounting system. No reason that people should go without money to buy food (or pay rent etc) other than, you guessed it: politics.

            Every society that has tried this has failed very quickly. Every. Single. One. You see, those "numbers in an accounting system" are subject to the same supply, demand, and competition effects as every other commodity. You cannot find a single example where this isnt true. Not. A. Single. One.

            Up to a point, though, devaluing currency and injecting more money at the bottom does work. The rich get poorer, and the poor get richer.

            Infrastructure? Come on! Roads don't fall apart in a day, and repair crews are still @ work.

            If those that lost their jobs are not in poverty because money can simply be created in perpetuity, then there are no repair crews. Thats not only a hard job, it is also a dangerous job. Nobody in their right mind would do it if it didnt give them a leg up. I sure as fuck know that you, Alwin Henseler, wouldn't. You wouldnt even last a day.

            First, only some repair crew jobs are hard, dangerous jobs. Second, those jobs involve human labor solely because it is cheaper. If people at the bottom had more money and were less motivated by a lack of money, that balance would tip, and those dangerous jobs would be replaced by remotely-controlled robots very quickly. So you would still have people working on those

        • People going into poverty? Only if governments let 'em. As in: money. You know, that stuff that's created from thin air by central banks, and ultimately are just numbers in an accounting system. No reason that people should go without money to buy food (or pay rent etc) other than, you guessed it: politics.

          I'm curious...where do you think food comes from? And do you think it'll still come along to fill your grocery store shelves if the people growing it stop? Because, after all, free money is waaaaay eas

          • I'm curious...where do you think food comes from?

            From this [cnhindustrial.com] and its brothers.

            And do you think it'll still come along to fill your grocery store shelves if the people growing it stop?

            Definitely. People will stop growing food. Machines will continue. See above. Look carefully at that picture. Notice the Case IH logo on the side, the conglomerate formerly known as Case and International Harvester. That's not some toy built as an exercise by some college students doing a class project. It's a product of one of the four largest manufacturers of farm equipment on the planet and its time is coming. The vast majority of farmland is owned by megacorporations,

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by dgatwood ( 11270 )

            People going into poverty? Only if governments let 'em. As in: money. You know, that stuff that's created from thin air by central banks, and ultimately are just numbers in an accounting system. No reason that people should go without money to buy food (or pay rent etc) other than, you guessed it: politics.

            I'm curious...where do you think food comes from? And do you think it'll still come along to fill your grocery store shelves if the people growing it stop? Because, after all, free money is waaaaay easier than getting up before dawn to work a farm....

            Ignoring the automation angle that others have already mentioned, a guarantee that you'll have enough money to survive without working doesn't eliminate the desire to have enough money to do better than just surviving. So the motivation to work doesn't go away entirely. I mean, teenagers have houses and food provided for them, and they still often go out and get jobs, even before they have any real skills to speak of. So your conclusion doesn't follow from the premise.

            Yes, with fear of impending death, i

        • Wrong and utterly ignorant. Farmers are slaughtering cattle and plowing under food they can't sell. Those corporations buy, package and distribute food. People won't be able to buy services to repair their houses or pay property taxes.

          You also seem ignorant of how money must be created in proportion to economy's size or their will collapse, it's why "stimulus" can't be done indefinitely.

          I must conclude you're a manlette living in Mom's basement, without a clue in the world how the world works.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by rlwinm ( 6158720 )
      Okay, Bernie.

  • Shhhhh! Don't tell Trump about this! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Rick Schumann ( 4662797 ) on Wednesday May 06, 2020 @01:08AM (#60027100) Journal
    If you do, he'll probably sign an Executive Order banning renewables entirely, as 'un-American' or something.
  • Yet nuclear and natural gas carried the load - by far. We need more nuclear power - and use the excess power to desalinate water.

  • Single sentence gave me hope (Score:5, Insightful)

    by gurps_npc ( 621217 ) on Wednesday May 06, 2020 @01:28AM (#60027152) Homepage

    This sentence "Coal tends to be the first power source to be cut by utilities when demand falls because subsidized renewable sources are cheaper to operate and often backed by state clean-energy mandates."

    I did not know that, and am heartened to here that we are doing SOMETHING right.

    • >>> "Coal tends to be the first power source to be cut by utilities when demand
      >>> falls because ***SUBSIDIZED RENEWABLE SOURCES ARE CHEAPER***

      Well... like... duhhhh... next is the government repealing the law of gravity.

      • Coal has massive subsidies including special accounting rules for treatment of their coal mining unmatched by any other industry.

        Oil has seen *trillions* in subsidies from the u.s. navy and u.s. army.

        And of course direct subsidies too.
        2007 article...

        https://www.taxpayer.net/energ... [taxpayer.net]
        "Since 1950, the federal government has provided the coal industry with more than $70 billion (in constant 2007 dollars) in tax breaks and subsidies. (See Sidebar)"

    • yeah coal isnt subsidized RIIIIGHT,

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by danskal ( 878841 )

        Exactly. All energy is subsidized, but *unsubsidized* renewables are now cheaper than subsidized coal (with some assumptions about the level of subsidization).

        • Exactly. All energy is subsidized, but *unsubsidized* renewables are now cheaper than subsidized coal (with some assumptions about the level of subsidization).

          Then what's the problem? Why haven't these unsubsidized renewable energy sources dominated the market already and driven the coal industry out?

          I know why. Because renewable energy is unreliable energy. Because renewable energy takes a lot of land, material, and labor. There just is not the industrial capacity to build enough solar PV cells to replace coal. There is not enough mining for the quartz needed to make all these PV cells.

          By the way these PV cells are made using coal. The process to make sili

          • coal mining is a very labor intensive job, unionized and high skilled. It's often the only decent paying job in large parts of a country. In America a handful of coal miners in Ohio decided the last presidential election.

            This is why the left is pushing the Green New Deal. We can't get off fossil fuel when people's livelihoods are dependent on it. And it's temping to subsidize it and ignore the externalized costs (e.g. black lung, respiratory disease from air pollution, etc, etc).

      • Re:Single sentence gave me hope (Score:4, Insightful)

        by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Wednesday May 06, 2020 @04:41AM (#60027470)

        yeah coal isnt subsidized RIIIIGHT,

        The point is even with subsidies coal can't compete.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Shotgun ( 30919 )

      The parts about subsidies and clean-energy mandates are red herrings. Neither have anything to do with why an operator would cut coal first. The subsidies and mandates affect installation. Once the installed done, letting the windmill spin or the solar panel bake in the sun is not only free, you'd have to pay to take action to stop them from producing. OTOH, for coal generation, you still have to buy the coal. Who would pay someone to put tarps over solar panels so they could pay to buy more coal?

  • We're also in the shoulder season when most of the country doesn't need air conditioning or heat.

  • until the blades on the windmills wear out. Which are plaStic, require the use of oil to replace them.

    Until you need to replace the solar panels and need to produce plexiglass which requires oil.

    Until you need to transport all the raw materials and need all the oil for lubrication. Until you have to ship the raw materials overseas, on ships that need oil, because batteries couldn't keep a large enough charge to cross an ocean.

    The funniest thing is that the biggest proponents of all this collapsing techn

  • Let me know when it tops natural gas

  • what about all those poor coal miners with black lung or silicosis and poor or no insurance coverage who want their children to know the joy of working in a mine and suffering a similar fate? Think of the children! Who will stand up for them?

    Shut down wind, solar, hydroelectric, and geothermal NOW!

  • How much of that renewable power was unusable because of overgeneration?

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