Study Shows Renewables Are Kicking Natural Gas To the Curb (cleantechnica.com) 267
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CleanTechnica: After analyzing the most recent data from two of America's largest electricity markets -- ERCOT in Texas and PJM in the Northeast -- the Rocky Mountain Institute has come to a startling conclusion. Renewables are muscling in on natural gas as the preferred choice for new electricity generation. In fact, according to RMI, what happened to coal is now happening to gas. What is needed, the organization argues, is a move away from the monopoly markets that have been the norm in the utility industry for more than 100 years and toward more open competition. Because when renewables compete head to head with thermal generation, they win hands down 95% of the time.
The data doesn't lie. RMI looked at the interconnection queues for both ERCOT and PJM and found over the past two years there has been a dramatic shift away from building new gas fired generating plants and toward more renewable energy projects. Interconnection queues track new generation projects proposed to be added to regional grid. That information provides a leading indicator of market trends for new power plants. Not all projects in these queues are ultimately built, but the mix of resources in the queue represents the investments the market is prioritizing, according to RMI. [...] RMI finds that since 2018, the queue for clean energy projects has more than doubled while the queue for gas projects has been cut in half. In all, more than $30 billion worth of gas projects have been canceled or abandoned. Currently, the capacity of wind, solar, and storage projects slated for construction in ERCOT and PJM is ten times greater than for new gas projects. "Though COVID-19 may be contributing to some recent decline in planned gas additions, it's not the only driver," says RMI. "The trend has been building for years and investors more broadly are now waking up to the implications. For example, just five years ago in ERCOT, the interconnection queue contained an even split between proposed gas and renewables generation capacity. However, gas capacity in the queue started falling steadily in 2015, well before the COVID-19 pandemic and associated economic downturn. Meanwhile, renewable energy and storage projects in the queue have continued to grow even during the pandemic."
"Therefore, it is likely that a more fundamental driver is at play -- raw economics, driven by the continually falling costs of clean energy and the associated risks of investment in new gas-fired capacity."
The data doesn't lie. RMI looked at the interconnection queues for both ERCOT and PJM and found over the past two years there has been a dramatic shift away from building new gas fired generating plants and toward more renewable energy projects. Interconnection queues track new generation projects proposed to be added to regional grid. That information provides a leading indicator of market trends for new power plants. Not all projects in these queues are ultimately built, but the mix of resources in the queue represents the investments the market is prioritizing, according to RMI. [...] RMI finds that since 2018, the queue for clean energy projects has more than doubled while the queue for gas projects has been cut in half. In all, more than $30 billion worth of gas projects have been canceled or abandoned. Currently, the capacity of wind, solar, and storage projects slated for construction in ERCOT and PJM is ten times greater than for new gas projects. "Though COVID-19 may be contributing to some recent decline in planned gas additions, it's not the only driver," says RMI. "The trend has been building for years and investors more broadly are now waking up to the implications. For example, just five years ago in ERCOT, the interconnection queue contained an even split between proposed gas and renewables generation capacity. However, gas capacity in the queue started falling steadily in 2015, well before the COVID-19 pandemic and associated economic downturn. Meanwhile, renewable energy and storage projects in the queue have continued to grow even during the pandemic."
"Therefore, it is likely that a more fundamental driver is at play -- raw economics, driven by the continually falling costs of clean energy and the associated risks of investment in new gas-fired capacity."
What? (Score:5, Informative)
The data doesn't lie.
Surely you mean The data don't lie?
Re:What? (Score:5, Funny)
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Data is a mass noun, like water. Water doesn't lie.
Re:What? (Score:5, Funny)
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OK, I sense sarcasm, but, according to etymonline [etymonline.com] the Old English past tense of "go" was "eode" and the past tense forms of "wend" were "wende" & "wended", though "went" was a variant developed after 1200. By the 1500s "went" was normally used as a past tense for "go" and "wended" had been established as the preferred past tense for "wend".
Enh. (Score:2, Interesting)
I have solar panels in my back yard, to power a detached workshop that I couldn't run power to. (The only path ran perpendicular to a water pipe, and local rules prevented crossing it.) It works ok. I'm familiar with the technology and know how to manage it.
So I sought to take advantage of the local power company's offer of government subsidized solar power. The tech came out to the place, surveyed it, and said I didn't qualify.
I'd have to chop down... lessee... one, two, three... six mature trees on my
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Besides the trees provided shade, which reduced the aircon costs in the summer.
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Trees are okay... until they destroy your house in a storm. Happened to my neighbor 10 years ago and just a barely avoided it at my house 7 years ago- $12,000 tho + ripped out my electricity which had to be put back in up to code ($3600).
Healthy trees too. Just a worse than average storm after rain softened the ground. And it can kill people too.
I wouldn't want a tree close enough to shade my house. I'd rather put in extra blowin insulation in the attic. $3k of extra insulation is much more noticable- p
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Yep there is a reason why insurance companies ask if you have any trees near your property and the jack up your premiums because of them.
Re: Enh. (Score:2)
Re:Enh. (Score:5, Insightful)
I think you are confusing a trend and overall costs vs. your unique use case.
Obvious for solar, its not going to be the best case for EVERY single person (especially without some concessions like placement, height, etc..).. If your house is in the middle of a shady glen, then yeah, chances are solar (as it right now) is not your best bet.. but it doesn't really matter because as the primary power producers invest, you would still take advantage of solar, just on someone else's "land".
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This is what happens when people like the ones now running Slashdot turn lots of things into an "us vs. them" contest, just to push our primitive part of our brain buttons and get more mouse clicks.
Why cannot natural gas and renewables co-exist? Why does natural gas need to be "kicked to the curb"? The whole premise of this article title is so immature.
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This is one of the unfortunate side-effects of renewables.
It's very situational. Live in some place with poor sunlight, no subsidy for you because you're just generating inefficient power. Want a wind turbine, got to make sure piles of regulations are followed.
Like I'm not saying don't, but the ideal thing in most of the US and Canada is to consider Geothermal first, even though it's expensive, it's also perpetually going to run and costs nothing since you can have a complete closed loop for it, much like a
Re:Enh. (Score:5, Interesting)
So much dancing around with numbers, so much trouble, so much effort to squeeze a few more joules from unicorn farts and pet political projects...sigh
Just go nuclear and stop bull-shitting everyone. Burning fossil fuels for energy should be outlawed...
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You can have nuclear if you are willing to pay for it. And I mean really pay for it, none of this free unlimited insurance bullshit.
Personally I don't see the point and am already on a renewable only energy tariff. I'm confident the lights will stay on and happy to save money with renewable energy.
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Offshore wind has been massively successful in the UK, for the reasons you mention (birds, NIMBYs). Hasn't been combined with solar or tidal except insofar as the whole grid is connected.
Re:Enh. (Score:5, Interesting)
What needs to happen is a combined Solar-Wind farm model with a storage system where the solar runs during the day, and the wind runs during the night (and less likely to chop up birds).
I know you see a lot of birds during the day... but for significant portions of the year (including right now) there are far, FAR more of them moving around at night. With some modern weather radars, you can even see the amazingly dense echoes of them as they begin their flights at dusk.
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Wind is actually one of the least deadly forms of electricity production for birds. Nuclear can sometimes get close, it depends where the fuel is from and what's done with it when it becomes waste, but fossil fuels certainly can't.
Also both are a tiny fraction of the number of birds murdered by domestic housecats.
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For an individual home owners, it's not as vital that you get your own local electricity generation. It might be nice if you can, but no one should beat themselves up for this. Not being able to install your own solar should be treated like not being able to install your own wind turbine, both need special conditions and suitable space. Since we're not all going to be able to live on an acre of land (4000 sq meter), we pool resources, create utilities, let them manage the complexity for us.
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Yes, in fact trees are the original renewables.
Re:Enh. (Score:5, Insightful)
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An inconvenient factoid is that thanks to mechanized farming, we now use less farmland in North America and Europe than in the 19th century, with the result that tree cover has increased enormously - the trees grew up like weeds on the old Soviet era farms: ...
Surely that is a good thing for the environment. Trees are a very good way of sequestering atmospheric carbon, and tree root systems are good to prevent flooding and leaching of nutrients out of the soil.
I thought the big problem was trees being cut down to make way for agricultural land, in Brazil for example.
I do not think it is mechanised farming that would reduce agricultural land use. I thought it was due to new crop varieties, and various fertiliser inputs. Some of this productivity gain may be eroded
Across the street from where I worked (Score:4, Informative)
A decommissioned coal plant (it had been shut down for 10+ years) was replaced by a NG generating plant.
I think they're still cleaning up coal trailing contamination to this day.
In a place without that much sun, NG makes a lot of sense, if it's being burned "clean". Cheap and "clean" as opposed to coal plants....
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In a place without that much sun, NG makes a lot of sense, if it's being burned "clean". Cheap and "clean" as opposed to coal plants....
What about wind?
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In a place without that much sun, NG makes a lot of sense, if it's being burned "clean". Cheap and "clean" as opposed to coal plants....
What about wind?
Very small footprint for site, the NG generators took up a corner of the property which was blocked for wind in about 3 directions. The sad part was that they tore down 3 of the stacks for the coal plant, which were pretty cool looking.
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Wind is great on a windy day... The problem is there are lots of days where it isn't windy.
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Re:Across the street from where I worked (Score:4, Informative)
might also be too cold for windmills. even carbon fiber gets brittle is it gets cold enough. And then there is also the prospect of ice build up on the blades, etc.
There are a lot of inhabited locations on Earth that are not suited for solar or wind. Humanity needs to consider all possible energy sources that are carbon neutral, and that actually would include NG if it is generated from biomass instead of the ground.well.
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The UK just announced it will massively expand offshore wind by 2030. Our government is full of liars but you never know. Anyway most of them will be in the North Sea, an extremely harsh environment. We have the technology to deal with it though. Salt water, freezing temperatures, big waves, high winds.
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So how come aircraft is using more and more CFRP despite them flying at altitudes where the temperature is way lower?
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Not really, the data from the generators say otherwise.
The UK at least has cool data showing how much power is generated by each type of system. Updated in near real time too.
https://energynumbers.info/gbg... [energynumbers.info]
Pretty good today, at 12:46pm, we have 3.5GW from solar, 7.7GW from wind, and 13.7 gas. Of course solar will drop to nothing later tonight, and the wind may hold up. Last week though, wind was showing 1.5GW
And that's the problem - wind and solar are so unrelaibale that you cannot build a grid off them.
Re:Across the street from where I worked (Score:5, Interesting)
It's a boondoggle where I am. The dominant power company has been building wind turbines in my state. 90% of the time I see them they're idle. The few times I've see any turning about 1/3 are still idle; I suspect the winters are a bit more than they're really designed to handle.
That doesn't sound very surprising. They probably have advanced turbines that are being used only for electricity peaks. One of the advantages of Wind Turbines is that you can just instantly stop taking power from them or quickly start them up again. You can even keep them spinning so that you have a reserve of power that can support the stability of the grid as needed.
The problem is that, for example during the early evening, with a nice temperature, there's no need for heating or even air conditioning, nobody is really using any electricity at all. Then it gets cooler and they turn on heating and then they all start cooking their food and the usage ramps up to many times what it was earlier. This means there are huge peaks and troughs in the use of electricity.
It's the flexibility of wind power, which makes it much more valuable than coal or nuclear plants which tend to have to keep running at a constant rate. Maybe your area has too much nuclear power right now, and so, until it gets retired, the wind turbines spend most of their time idle, but if they weren't present, when the load exceeded the supply from your nuclear power plant the entire grid would fail with a loss of frequency. At that time, the wind turbines will be stepping in and literally saving your entire local electricity supply. The price they can get for peak electricity is much higher than the normal prices too so this is probably quite profitable.
Huge waste of money and resources.
As you've seen, it's probably a completely sensible thing, however if you could build, for example, a hydrogen production plant locally which is able to switch on and off as needed maybe you could negotiate to get some very cheap electricity from the wind turbines when they aren't dealing with the limitations of the local nuclear and coal supplies?
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I have not got the engineering maths to hand, but I believe turbine shaft power is proportional to the cube of windspeed. This means a gentle breeze is pretty useless, whereas you might get some power out of a brisk breeze. And when in gale conditions, where does the power go? I believe this is understood by the professionals. I am not one of those.
Below a some level, dependent on the design of the turbine, you will get very low power. Once you go above those levels, the blades on the turbine have motors which control the angle they are placed at. At a certain angle they take absolutely no power from the wind at all and the blade simply keeps spinning on it's own, slowed only by friction. When this happens then the power just goes off in the wind as it arrived, almost unchanged apart from the static resistance of the turbine structure.
As far as gal
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What the fuck kind of idiot engineers and finance teams does that power company employ? Why wouldn't they run the numbers to confirm idle times, capacity, etc *before* investing in those projects? I'm suspicious of this, given the effort that goes into making every power project viable as a business case.
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What the fuck kind of idiot engineers and finance teams does that power company employ? Why wouldn't they run the numbers to confirm idle times, capacity, etc *before* investing in those projects? I'm suspicious of this, given the effort that goes into making every power project viable as a business case.
Utilities don't pick the types of power plants they build/use. Regulators do and they are appointed by elected officials. This is a measure of political will, not of market forces. Certainly professional engineers have nothing to do with this process.
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This bears no resemblance whatsoever to the truth, and lots of resemblance to an unfounded grievance. This is a regulated market with huge lobbying: regulators, power companies, governments and others all vie for influence over what happens. But for damn sure no power company is forced to invest dollars in new power plants that it doesn't want to. It can always choose not to build them.
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Welcome to the free market.
At least in the US, most of the wind farms need to bid hourly on the spot market to sell their electricity. They employ regional scale meteorologists to downsample the large-scale meteorological models, and use that information to predict how much wind energy will hit their farms.
Then they have to bid on how much electricity they're going to produce at what price, win that bid, and start producing. If they have too much electricity they have to put the brakes on, and if they don't
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Natural gas replacing coal is a good interim solution, because we still need on-demand power generation, and NG is considerably cleaner than coal, in terms of pollutants like oxides of sulfur, heavy metals, and so on.
The alternatives to power generation based on fossil fuels, such as renewables and nuclear, do not meet all the requirements for a national power system. Wind and solar are intermittent sources; useful when they are there, but you can't add supply on demand. Nuclear is strictly baseline stuff.
Solar everywhere (Score:5, Informative)
Why aren't we using solar panels everywhere? It doesn't make sense not to do solar everywhere. In a decade all cars will be electric anyway. It can't be stopped, the Chinese will stamp out cheap electric cars if Nissan, VW, or Tesla doesn't. Because of the drivetrain, the internals of electric cars are a lot less complicated and easier to manufacture than internal combustion engine driven car, and and they can be assembled with far less human intervention .. and they last much longer -- no oil change BS required .. the only thing is brake service. Don't take my word for it .. ask anyone who owns an electric car. Maybe 2030, definitely by 2035 we'll have new cars that are 250 mile range, with million mile longevity batteries (motors are already at that mark), and bunch of advanced accident avoidance features for $15,000. Come back in the year 2030 or 2035 and check this comment.
Re:Solar everywhere (Score:4, Insightful)
Not pads or rotors, just brake fluid, as required. Nissan requires this every 18 months (bullshit requirement). Tesla tests the fluid and only replaces if necessary.
Regenerative braking means much less use of friction brakes.
Re:Solar everywhere (Score:5, Interesting)
There is nothing bullshit about it.
The usual brake fluid is hygroscopic. It means that after a while you have water in your brake fluid and if you have to brake hard, it will boil and since steam is compressible, you'll suddenly lose braking power.
For electric cars mineral oil braking fluids, like in old Citroens, makes more sense - it stays good for many years.
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Re:Solar everywhere (Score:5, Insightful)
Ideally, over parking lots. You get cheap electricity and no more butt burns when you get in the car in the summer.
Re:Solar everywhere (Score:5, Interesting)
A large local shopping center has recently done exactly that, shady car parks, and a nice earner, the whole center basically powers itself. We do have an ideal climate here in SA for solar. It’s amazing how many businesses are jumping on board with solar around here.
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Where's SA ? South Africa? Southern Antarctica? South America?
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Re:Solar everywhere (Score:5, Interesting)
I take it you've never seen an open-cut coal mine, or had a nearby coal-fired power station spew layers of coal ash all over your washing.
PV panels are pretty good by comparison, and can be more or less invisible [tesla.com].
Nuclear is next (Score:3, Insightful)
Fusion will become viable sooner then expected. Many of the problems with fusion can be addressed with advances in engineering and materials, with better superconducting magnets being the obvious example. Supercomputing will also be important because better simulation will lead to better design at lower development cost.
A mix of renewable energy and fusion for the base load is the long term solution. Advocating for fission is akin to trying to bring back horses for most transportation and ignoring what to do with the horse shit.
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I hope you're right about fusion. I still think fission, with all the latest safety advances, is better than all the other currently existing types of energy but people are too scared of it. It would be much cheaper to build than the others if the red tape and lack of scale didn't make it super expensive.
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You'd have a better rant if you didn't say that stupid stuff about thorium being "untested."
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Untested here means "unproven as a going commercial concern". If you know of a thorium plant that's a going commercial concern (ie the economics stack up), post a link.
No, words mean what the words mean here.
That's external to you. Nobody cares what it means internally, inside your head.
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"Fusion will become viable sooner then expected."
What do you think solar is? A fusion reactor that is 93 million miles away.
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Fusion will become viable sooner then expected.
Yes, it will become viable sooner than it is expected, then it will become expected.
It's already too late for fusion to become viable sooner than expected, because it was expected decades ago.
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^ this is same sort of substanceless, math-disregarding cheerleading that leads to stupid ideas like UBI "we'll just pay everyone enough to live on, then everyone will be happy!"
Renewable power cannot handle surge loads, and is environmentally dependent. Not a lot of solar generation in Minnesota winter with a sun angle of 22 degrees and 2/3 of the days with no sun at all.
No geothermal.
Wind is a terrible base load provider, although it can be a decent supplemental generator.
Fusion DOESN'T EXIST. "it's abou
Is not NG a byproduct of mining for oil? (Score:2)
I'm sure there are ways of breaking down oil into NG but I thought NG was plentiful enough naturally. Before being used in homes it was vented into the atmosphere without burning. So isn't it a bad thing if what is going to be released anyway isn't used? From what I understand burning NG is way better for the environment that just letting it escape into the atmosphere.... unless of course it's being artificially generated. Anyone know?
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Every oil well is licensed by that nation's regulatory body. It's unheard-of for a regulator to allow bulk release of the natural gas directly to the atmosphere. (If nothing else, it would be a fire and explosion hazard.)
Different reservoirs have different mixtures of stuff in the product, where "stuff" is mostly oil, natural gas, carbon dioxide, hydrogen sulfide, water, and sand particles.
It's uncommon for regulators to allow the gas to be simply burned on location, unless there's only a small amount o
Why? As usual, hidden in the story (Score:5, Interesting)
There's exactly one state where both wind and solar are actually economical in US even without subsidies. The area where high solar intensity and constant wind without dust particulates exist. Texas. Which is why that's the one state in US where both wind and solar are unsubsidised and growing. This was known for a long time, there's nothing "startling" about this.
Everywhere else in US, that doesn't exist. Which is why everywhere else, natgas remains the king, except where forbidden by state law. In that place, there are blackouts.
What they "discovered" is their own sampling bias.
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The reason there aint no subsidies in Texas (Score:2)
... is because it is Texas. None of that en-vir-on-mental bullshit in the lone star state.
It just happens to be economical there as well. But with a bit of a subsidy it would be huge.
What is needed is a tax on carbon emmissions. Then let the economics decide the best approaches.
But that ain't never going to happen in Texas.
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Are there any states where it's actually economic for fossil and nuclear to exist without subsidies? Seems unlikely if renewables can't, given that renewables are at worst comparable on cost and usually cheaper.
At the heights they build turbines these days there is near constant wind in many places, and even more so off shore. With a bit of geographic distribution it's a solved problem.
Any evidence of blackouts due to lack of natural gas plants? Seems a bit far fetched.
Re:Why? As usual, hidden in the story (Score:5, Informative)
>Are there any states where it's actually economic for fossil and nuclear to exist without subsidies?
Yes. Literally everywhere. There's a reason why developing countries that want to actually get a stable electric grid go for coal.
This isn't new or interesting. Read on what Paris Agreement payments from developed to developing countries are based on. Hint: It's to offset the additional costs of installing much more expensive, much less reliable sources of energy than coal.
Because if you don't care about CO2 emissions, coal is an undisputed king in most of the world. It's stable, it's easy to move, easy to store, doesn't spoil, it's highly energy dense and it's easily available across the planet. In other words, it's cheap to build burners for, cheap to buy, transport and store and cheap to burn. Reminder that while natgas is all but free in US right now because of shale revolution and excellent piping infrastructure, this doens't exist anywhere else. Everywhere else outside major supplier countries like Gulf states and Russia, natgas is still significantly more expensive than coal. And infrastructure needed to transport and store it is incredibly expensive and limited.
And that is why we agree to pay developing countries not to just install coal when they express their desire for having what developed world takes for granted: a stable, regionally scaled and nearly universally reliable electric grid. The base necessity for things like industry to exist.
And until people reach a reasonable amount of wealth, they don't care about CO2 or global warming. This is also well documented at this point. People need to hit certain income brackets before they start caring about "issues that might affect my children and their children". Before that point, "being able to get a job at a factory now that pays good money" takes precedence. This is largely culture-agnostic. And all the whining of rich far leftist children that never grew up about their original sin doesn't affect the fact that they're a tiny minority of people on this planet. And most people are still well below the threshold where they will start to care about AGW, which means that they will demand those coal plants where they can.
Nukes are a thing for wealthier countries. Because they require a stable country. An established one if you will. Because they're a half a century or more of an investment, and if your country goes through several government overthrows in that time on median, with each carrying a risk of access to fuel or technology needed to keep it running, that's not a good investment.
>At the heights they build turbines these days there is near constant wind in many places, and even more so off shore. With a bit of geographic distribution it's a solved problem.
And then you looked at global wind maps, and understood that you're an idiot. Wait, if you had any self awareness, you wouldn't be posting this nonsense for years on end. Nevermind.
>Any evidence of blackouts due to lack of natural gas plants? Seems a bit far fetched.
Basic physics as related to electricity are more than sufficient. The fact that you're not just claiming "impossible" any more as you did in the past is progress I suppose. I guess you got hammered with facts and experienced people explaining this in exhaustive detail in the previous cali blackout thread, that you're actually no longer of absolute opinion. A rarity, and a welcome one. I am encouraged by the fact that even someone as zealous as you with most opinions can still waver in your faith when overwhelming body of evidence is hammered down every post you make about it.
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Well how about China, for example? Built a load of coal plants and then mothballed them because renewables were so much cheaper they couldn't compete.
Having said that do you know of any country that doesn't subsidise fossil fuels? Hard to even do a fair comparison without that.
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There's exactly one state where both wind and solar are actually economical in US even without subsidies
False. Texas does provide subsidies in the form of incentives and tax rebates [energysage.com].
Which is why that's the one state in US where both wind and solar are unsubsidised and growing.
If they were unsubsidized, incentives and tax rebates wouldn't be needed.
Which is why everywhere else, natgas remains the king, except where forbidden by state law. In that place, there are blackouts.
Huh? What does this even mean?
Oh, Really? (Score:3)
"Because when renewables compete head to head with thermal generation, they win hands down 95% of the time."
If this were true, then most "renewables" wouldn't need the massive taxpayer subsidies that they get. Eliminate the subsidy on "renewables", and let the "market" decide.
Re:Oh, Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure as long as we remove the multi-trillion dollar subsidies for oil, coal, nuclear, and natural gas thru free on land and naval security, tax payer backed decommissioning costs (they keep the profits- your grandkids pay the bill), a full on naval fleet protecting tankers, 4,000 dead, countless others crippled protecting oil fields and so on. Hell the coal subsidies are complete embedded in uniquely favorable treatment for their industry in the tax code.
I'd love to drop subsidies for all of them. And to have escrows up front and clawbacks on savings and pensions afterwards for pollution and excess costs. Private insurance companies wont even consider insuring nuclear plant decomissioning costs because they are *always* high. And that doesn't included involuntary premiums on tax payers and rate payers decades after plant are built such as we saw in the midwest.
We really need to stop alternative energy companies from externalizing their costs- but we also need to stop subsidizing all the existing energy companies too.
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Fossil fuels also get an implicit free ride because they are not burdened with realistic costs when it comes to pollution, cleanup costs for extraction, and the long term costs after the resources have been used. There are abandoned t
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Up to 2015 or so, unsubsidised renewables were more expensive than fossil fuel plants. So they needed subsidies to compete.
But we've gotten better at making renewable power for a cheap price. Now, whether it's cheaper to build and operate a new renewable plant or a new fossil plant depends on the circumstances: Lots of sun/wind? Little sun/wind? Maximum output aligned with maximum demand for electricity or not?
Renewables are continuing to get cheaper in line with Wright's law (as you manufacture more o
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Nuclear has infinite subsidies. Literally unlimited free insurance, no maximum payout.
Just last week a court in Japan rules that victims of the Fukushima nuclear disaster were due even more compensation from the government than they had already received. Over 9 years later and they haven't even finished the litigation.
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Oh I'm all for making people responsible for fossil fuel pollution.
By the way wind turbines kill fewer birds per MWh than nuclear does. Those large plants and mining operations, plus all the transport, fuel manufacturing and waste handling really add up.
Backup capacity will run out eventually (Score:4, Interesting)
Renewables are coasting on existing infrastructure serving as backup without investment, but it will have to be replaced eventually.
Any country which buys the fairy tales and doesn't provide the appropriate incentives for that replacement will likely run into trouble. Private industry isn't going to gamble on arbitrage potential for decades to build it.
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Private industry?
Would you point me toward a single generating plant built since god was a pup that didn't have some kind of taxpayer support?
Re: Backup capacity will run out eventually (Score:2)
How many years before we start discussing... (Score:2)
Oh good. Stop the subsidies (Score:3)
Author of the Article undermines the point (Score:3)
The author in the article displays quite a tone that is not necessary.
"Orange Judas who occupies that office at present nominated Bernard McNamee — an avowed fossil fuel advocate who slobbers all over himself when Charles Koch waves dollars under his nose. "
One may agree or disagree with the president in office currently, but focusing not on disparaging monikers but on the data would be better appreciated.
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Certainly not the people driving diesel cars and trucks.
"The use of cobalt in desulphurisation reactions represents the highest tonnage of cobalt use in the catalyst sector.
All crude oils contain between 0.1% and 2.5% of sulphur dependant on their source of origin. Upon combustion, the sulphur from these crude oils is converted into SOx. SOx as well as contributing to global warming, can dissolve in rainwater creating acid rain. The sulphur moiety is also an occupational hazard for employees working in oil
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More importantly, why the fuck are AC posts back again? I was just getting used to the lack of swastikas.
(Posting as AC because I moderated already.)
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This is completely expected - any drop in supply will of course push prices up. This is balanced by increases in supply pushing prices down.
For context, the average annual wholesale price in NSW from 2017-2019 was $81-$88 per MW/h [aemo.com.au]. This dropped for 2020 to $72/MWh, and is projected to drop to low $60s by 2022, as the Liddell Taskforce report [energy.gov.au] states, as new (renewables [cleanenerg...cil.org.au]) generation comes online. When Liddell closes, the price is expected to jump back up to $75-$80/MWhr temporarily, then start dropping again a
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Included in those subsidies are the environmental costs associated with carbon but which are unaccounted for because the market cannot put a price on them. The alleged administration has also been removing environmental laws intended to put the environmental costs back into the equation.
The alleged president ran on bringing "coal back". It was only ever a campaign slogan for him to collect sucker votes, and like all the other zephyrs in his brain, quickly gone. It was not just a campaign slogan to the coal
Re:Big mistake in the long run (Score:4, Interesting)
We in South Australia have had no problems in the last 4 years since a storm took out our grid. We not only have enough wind and solar to power our state, we export it too some days. The big battery at Hornsdale is making great profits and more are in the pipeline.
Any major change of tech will have its ups and downs, California will no doubt solve irs problems soon enough.
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The reason why Australia can actually make solar power mostly work is largely the same reason why most of it is uninhabitable.
That's the unfortunate side effect of many high solar intensity areas.
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Habitability has rather more to do with levels of rainfall than solar intensity. SA has roughly similar solar irradiance to the Gulf states in the US (and similar latitudes), but gets under 10% of their rainfall, so it's mostly unpopulated desert.
Deserts are good places for PV farms as much for their cheap land as for their sunny days. Higher rainfall areas tend to be more arable, and thus more valuable as farmland - though the two can co-exist [oilprice.com].
Roof top solar is a feel good measure (Score:2)
It is profitable because you are not paying for the grid. But you still want the grid when it is dark or rainy. That is not sustainable.
(Only about a quarter of the cost of electricity is generation. The rest is Transmission, Distribution and overheads like solar subsidies.)
Large scale solar is much cheaper per megawatt.
The problem with both is storage.
The SA battery is NOT for storage. It is for very short term grid stabilization. A niche use case, for which one battery is enough.
Storage in SA might i
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No, not really. You see the problem with California, is that it's full of Californians. A large number of them are crazy. Just batshit insane.
Because they live in a mostly desert state, they have frequent droughts, and many of their trees die in these droughts. California's state government won't let lumber companies clear that dead fuel away, because...that would make sense. The state government also will not let landowners and companies do controlled burns, or clear away trees and underbrush that are too
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About 25% of California is desert, that's not a "mostly desert state".
Most of the fires in California are on federal lands, so you shouldn't blame the governor for those.
A lot of the fires are not in forests, but in brush lands.
Re:Big mistake in the long run (Score:4, Informative)
typical rightwing idiocy. the areas burning are primarily grass and scrub oak. and almost *all* of the forests where these trees are are controlled by the federal government, so go whine to daddy Trump and the ever useless Tom McClintock for why they aren't doing anything about it. Paradise wasn't a forest fire. It was a grass fire that turned into a city fire. and it's not just a "bait fish", it's salmon too. the dewatering of the San Joaquin below Friant Dam was criminal. not just a trickle, *nothing*.
and more idiocy about air conditioners. the most populace part of the state is LA and everybody has AC there. even Sacramento is hotter than the hinges of hell, so it's completely ridiculous to say they are unaware. And it's only San Francisco that really doesn't need AC, but given the last few years of smoke and baking hot temps, a lot of people are considering it because of... fucking climate change that you and the rest of your rightwing loonies deny. that is not a failure of the state government, that is a failure of the federal government. you know, the actual entity that can make and keep treaties?
god you guys are pathetic in your know-nothingism
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You're welcome to visit California some day, Akbar.
Or even, to learn about it remotely, via the intertubes.
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You're welcome to visit California some day, Akbar.
Or even, to learn about it remotely, via the intertubes.
Hopefully not on a day when they're having one of their famous rolling blackouts.
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Corporations comply if it is financially interesting to do so.
Renewables are getting financially more and more interesting every day the sun is shining, or the wind is blowing, or any other day regardless.
Re:That's great but what about.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Corporations comply if it is financially interesting to do so.
That's true to a large extent, but most corporations try to stick to doing what they know. When there's a wholesale technology change many corporations just fail. Look at the change from mainframes to PCs. The only company which really survived was IBM and even they are having problems. Other manufacturers such as Digital, Burroughs / Unisis, ICL, Siemens and even Hitachi and Fujitsu all ended up forced out of the business and, if they survived, into surrounding businesses such as consulting.
Exxon is likely to experience a major mid term fall and may even end up completely bankrupt. With news going out about their lack of interest in planning for the future it's going to be harder to attract good people and the bad people will have more difficultly leaving from there. They won't be able to transform to cover other areas and long term they either massively reduce or just collapse from the weight of their pre-existing investments.
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Well, that makes sense. Changing directions and trying something new is expensive in its own right. You have to turn the machine in another direction and spend time and effort to get everyone on board with the new course. That time and effort costs money. Firms minimise things that cost money.