The US Added More New Energy Capacity From Wind Than Any Other Source Last Year (cnbc.com) 153
Last year, 42% of new electricity generation capacity in the U.S. came from land-based wind energy -- more than from any other source -- according to numbers in a series of reports from the Department of Energy (DOE) this week. By contrast, solar amounted to only 38% of new capacity last year. CNBC reports: While both capacity and electricity generation from wind can vary regionally, land-based wind is now a strong, intermittent energy source across the U.S. According to research by DOE's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, a record 16,836 megawatts of new utility-scale land-based wind power capacity was added to U.S. energy infrastructure in 2020, representing about $24.6 billion of investment in new wind power. Last year, the DOE noted, wind energy was able to provide more than half of in-state electricity generation and sales in a few states. Iowa led the pack with wind power providing 57% of its in-state electricity generation. However, Iowa has a lot of wind turbines, and not a very big population.
The growth of land-based wind energy in the U.S. last year was driven partly by production tax credits that are poised for a phaseout, encouraging development before that event horizon. Wind technology improvements also helped encourage land-based wind development. Compared to older wind turbines, the latest models feature taller towers with longer blades that can produce more energy by reaching into higher winds. In addition to land-based wind farms, myriad off-shore wind developments are underway domestically. But last year, off-shore wind farms still weren't operational across most of the U.S. The DOE's 2021 Offshore Wind Market Report instead focuses on the "pipeline" of offshore initiatives. In 2020, the offshore pipeline "grew to a potential generating capacity of 35,324 megawatts (MW)," a 24% increase from the prior year, that report says.
The growth of land-based wind energy in the U.S. last year was driven partly by production tax credits that are poised for a phaseout, encouraging development before that event horizon. Wind technology improvements also helped encourage land-based wind development. Compared to older wind turbines, the latest models feature taller towers with longer blades that can produce more energy by reaching into higher winds. In addition to land-based wind farms, myriad off-shore wind developments are underway domestically. But last year, off-shore wind farms still weren't operational across most of the U.S. The DOE's 2021 Offshore Wind Market Report instead focuses on the "pipeline" of offshore initiatives. In 2020, the offshore pipeline "grew to a potential generating capacity of 35,324 megawatts (MW)," a 24% increase from the prior year, that report says.
Fantastic - but where is the dividend? (Score:3, Insightful)
As more and more generation swings across to those sources, the cost-per-unit to the providers drops. So why is it OK for the providers to just take fatter and fatter profit margins?
A common response to this challenge is to point out that solar panels and wind turbines don't appear by magic and that they cost money to build and run. Which is true, but which is also misdirection at best and outright specious at worst.
Renewables by definition don't incur costs for the fuel on an on-going basis. And for the cost of one fossil-fuel-powered generating station, it should be possible to build several good-sized factories capable of churning out either solar panels or wind turbines.
This is starting to smell a lot like wholesale market abuse.
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how come the prices we are charged for electricity continue to rise at an alarming rate?
After adjusting for inflation, electricity prices have been flat for more than a decade.
US Average Retail Electricity Price [statista.com]
Re:Fantastic - but where is the dividend? (Score:5, Insightful)
With more and more of our electricity generation coming from renewable sources, how come the prices we are charged for electricity continue to rise at an alarming rate?
Are they? US electricity prices are still extremely low compared to other developed countries.
Part of this is that you are not paying for "externalities", that is the damage caused by carbon emissions.
If there was a sensible carbon tax, then the benefits of nuclear and renewables would be reflected somewhat in your energy bills.
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US electricity prices are still extremely low compared to other developed countries.
True, but it does vary regionally. California is increasing very rapidly, and a lot of that has to do with the wildfire issues... but the costs associated with integrating batteries and a host of other measures they are taking are certainly also driving up costs. In truth the wholesale price isn't capturing the costs of the massive amount of subsidies that flow into the industry. Renewables/batteries have been very visible recipients, but nuclear and fossil plants also get subsidized either directly or i
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offs are there really people this dense, to this day?
Just sign on as oil-company-shill and be honest about your sole purpose
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There is no "damage caused by carbon emissions".
Hilarious. So I guess we don't need any taxes at all, as government should just print money to pay for everything, eh? :-) Money is all the same.
No more harm increasing the money supply than increasing the CO2 supply?
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There is damage when we produce so much CO2 that it screws up the natural equilibrium. The fact that we cut billions of trees every year doesn't help.
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There is no "damage caused by carbon emissions". Plants need CO2 to live and make oxygen and food for us.
There is no difference between the CO2 coming from the use of "fossil fuels" or when you exhale, it gets recycled by plants.
Turns out that there is a difference, which is that we are burning fossil carbon far faster than plants can recycle it.
(... and we're cutting down the forests that do much of the recycling.)
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Wind and solar do not work autonomously, there's infrastructure upkeep and personnel to consider as well. Those need to be factored in before one can determine if companies are making untoward profits.
Re:Fantastic - but where is the dividend? (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Running surveys to find remaining reserves of oil and gas
2. Constructing off-shore oil rigs to retrieve it
3. Laying pipelines or having tankers collect the crude from the mine head
4. Transporting the crude oil to a refinery, or piping the gas on-shore
5. Designing, building, operating and maintaining a refinery
6. Transporting the energy to the point where it is going to be used to generate electricity
7. Maintaining the turbines of the electrical generating stations
8. All of which require far more infrastructure and personnel than solar panel or wind turbine manufacture and maintenance.
These are recurring, on-going costs. Stop the fossil fuel supply: no more electricity. On the other hand:-
1. Build solar panel
2. Transport solar panel to deployment site
3. Deploy and connect solar panel
4. Occasionally clean panel (of i.e. dust, dirt, bird lime)
Are the generating companies really going to argue that these are cost-equivalent activities?
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You forgot: Spending years arguing with NIMBYs who read on the Internet that wind turbines and solar panels will suck out their soul and then force them to drive an efficient car.
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They also get really pissed off when those efficient electric cars whoosh by their big noisy mussel cars, and pickups on the road.
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big noisy mussel cars
what shellfishness...
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Spending years arguing with NIMBYs who read on the Internet that wind turbines and solar panels will suck out their soul and then force them to drive an efficient car.
Perhaps the NIMBYs will STFU now that they have to evacuate their houses for two weeks every year due to fires/hurricanes/flooding.
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*citation needed.
Re: Fantastic - but where is the dividend? (Score:2)
The other component on utility bills are the taxes and fees that various taxing authorities levy. Those can be quite substantial. I am expecting that tax authorities will start to directly tax individual energy production in the near future (i.e. a homeowner with sola
Re: Fantastic - but where is the dividend? (Score:2)
Land is cheap for the US government, especially for solar. They have more than enough desert for solar, the biggest cost would be bulldozing the treehuggers (or cactuslovers I guess).
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Remember a few months back when the ocean was on fire? Or when BP spilt all that oil?
The true cost is very hard to compute.
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This is economics. You sell your stock of widgets at the highest price possible, not at your production cost plus some fixed margin. Suppose the market price is $11 and the normal profit is $1, but you can produce for $9. You sell your widgets for $11 and take *two* dollars profit. Eventually the entry of low cost producers may drive the market price down, but it doesn't necessarily happen overnight.
The advantages you cite, and the fact that certain kinds of renewable plants are much quicker to bring on
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Oil, Coal, Nuclear, and Natural Gas do not work autonomously either. They also require a great deal of fuel to be mined and provided.
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With more and more of our electricity generation coming from renewable sources, how come the prices we are charged for electricity continue to rise at an alarming rate?
Ask your government why essential utilities are considered for profit enterprises. Also nuclear certainly isn't getting any cheaper https://www.wsj.com/articles/v... [wsj.com]
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With more and more of our electricity generation coming from renewable sources, how come the prices we are charged for electricity continue to rise at an alarming rate?
Because price has nothing to do with the environment (if it did your electricity would be far more expensive than it is), and because America has let its infrastructure rot for years and now need someone to pay for a bit of a spitshine.
So why is it OK for the providers to just take fatter and fatter profit margins?
[Citation Required]. Maybe show us your working where energy providers are somehow making huge amounts of money. While researching your answer I hope you realise your premise is completely off base.
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Renewables by definition don't incur costs for the fuel on an on-going basis.
This is not an accurate statement. Wind turbines require upkeep. Solar installations, biomass, and geothermal also require upkeep. This is how you end up with more people needing to work in the renewable field than those who work in non-renewable energy production.
I know a few people in my area that make a lot of money to climb up and maintain wind turbines. At the same time, cost per megawatt for wind and solar is ridiculously low by comparison to non-renewable sources. The upfront costs are the worst,
Because people building wind farms aren't stupid (Score:2)
Suppose you want to build a wind farm.
The manufacturer of the turbines says they'll last about 25 years (5 year warranty).
Based on that, you can either:
A) Use your savings to put up one wind turbine, which provides power to a few houses when the wind is right
B) Borrow $50 million from the bank (or via bonds) for 20 years and build a big wind farm
97% of the wind capacity is option B. Large wind farms, built with borrowed money. Money that gets paid back on monthly payments for the next 20 years.
In 20 years,
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> In 20 years, when the loans/bonds are laid off, the cost would decrease.
Wind turbines pay for themselves in about 7 years [researchgate.net]. Tax incentives are just icing on the cake.
So, after 20 years, assuming no changes in electricity prices (which will likely go up) or cost to install new turbines (which will likely go down), you'd have paid off the cost of your wind farm and mad enough money to replace it... and build a second or third one just like it.
If you're not a dummy, wind power has fantastic rate of return [renewablesfirst.co.uk]
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Let me summarize what's in your link, for any other readers:
According to sales literature from Renewables First (a company selling wind turbines), if real estate were free and maintenance cost zero, and you assume that electricity prices will keep going up, you could plan on recouping the you spent buying the turbine itself in 5-9 years.
If I ever get free real estate on top of a hill overlooking LA, I'll look into some turbines.
Close. Only $350 billion off (Score:2)
Last year, the US taxpayers (government) paid $345 billion in interest. That's a lot lower than it will be in the next few years, but not quite negative. It sure WOULD be great if that were a negative number instead!
Rates ARE low right now, though. The current rate on a ten year Treasury (a ten year loan to the government) is 1.35%. That's cheap, indeed, but not negative.
The definition is exactly the opposite (Score:2)
> Renewables by definition don't incur costs for the fuel on an on-going basis.
You might want to look up the definition of renewable.
It actually means it DOES continue on an ongoing basis.
For example, biodiesel is a renewable fuel BECAUSE you can continue to produce it on an ongoing basis.
A non-renewable fuel, such as oil, is one that you can NOT keep making. It's one that we have a certain amount of, as opposed to one that's made on an ongoing basis.
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In terms of economics, the price of power is something that really needs to be regulated and managed, because the supply vs demand really means we can charge a lot more for power before people will stop buying the power. Because they really rely so much of their lives on electrical power.
This month I used 746 kWh of power. My bill was under $150 for this month, and it was a hot month for me at my location, and I used more power than normal. My state actually regulates the price of power, So that bill pric
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Plenty of other people would change their behavior though!
If the difference was several $100 between cooling your house to 78f vs 72f a month more people would 'put up with the heat'. A lot of work from home jobs are also not time dependand, people could 'go third shift' sleep when its hot and work when its comfortable.
The regulation of electricity prices make carbon foot print higher.
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Why would renewable energy be any cheaper? Indeed using fossil fuels can be pretty cheap in comparison.
Renewable energy sources are good for the environment - there's not connection to them being any cheaper.
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Why would renewable energy be any cheaper? Indeed using fossil fuels can be pretty cheap in comparison.
Fossil fuels have to be dug up from underground (or undersea) using heavy machinery; renewables do not.
Fossil fuels have to be transported (by ship, pipeline, or truck) cross-country to the location where they will be used, burning more fossil fuels in the process; renewables do not.
Fossil fuels cause global warming which is expensive to mitigate or adapt to; renewables do not .
Fossil fuels cause air pollution which drives up medical costs and damages infrastructure; renewables do not.
For these reasons, whe
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With more and more of our electricity generation coming from renewable sources, how come the prices we are charged for electricity continue to rise at an alarming rate?
As more and more generation swings across to those sources, the cost-per-unit to the providers drops. So why is it OK for the providers to just take fatter and fatter profit margins?
A common response to this challenge is to point out that solar panels and wind turbines don't appear by magic and that they cost money to build and run. Which is true, but which is also misdirection at best and outright specious at worst.
Renewables by definition don't incur costs for the fuel on an on-going basis. And for the cost of one fossil-fuel-powered generating station, it should be possible to build several good-sized factories capable of churning out either solar panels or wind turbines.
This is starting to smell a lot like wholesale market abuse.
Here in Arizona, and as a homeowner, and ICE-vehicle driver, I haven't noticed significant changes in my energy costs. Can you provide some data to back up your assertions?
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With more and more of our electricity generation coming from renewable sources, how come the prices we are charged for electricity continue to rise at an alarming rate?
You are assuming 1) your local energy industry is governed entirely by supply and demand models. In many places, there is only one provider and they can set whatever prices they want. 2) If your local provider does not rely on wind, why would prices come down?
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Capitalism doesn't reward companies with a monopoly on their markets for cut prices when their costs go down. It rewards them for increasing their profit margin. Costs go down? Increase the price anyway and blame it on inflation, cost of living increases, etc.
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With more and more of our electricity generation coming from renewable sources, how come the prices we are charged for electricity continue to rise at an alarming rate?.
Citation needed.
Actually you don't have one because this is that most basic fallacy - "argument by making stuff up".
I would prefer it if this chart used constant dollars [statista.com] and also focused on the last 15 years when large scale deployment of solar and wind actually occurred, but if you have the intelligence to use an inflation calculator [usinflatio...ulator.com] you will see that the price in 2005, when inflated to 2020, is very slightly more than the actual rate today (10.79 inflated vs 10.66 cents per KWH)!
Yeah, in the real, not mad
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With more and more of our electricity generation coming from renewable sources, how come the prices we are charged for electricity continue to rise at an alarming rate?
The article is about the percentage of new electrical capacity produced by wind. The fraction of total generation that's provided by wind is only about 8.5%. So, wind power is not the reason your electricity price is high, since 91.5% of your electricity is from sources other than wind.
...
The dividend is zero net emissions,
Right.
like the USA agreed to at the most recent presidential election.
Uh, not sure where you got that. No.
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It makes little sense to allow a company with a record of pipeline spills to lay down a new one across FARMING country.
Re: Biden did something right? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Not necessarily. If they did this pipeline 50 years ago, then it would probably be better off. However currently our use of energy is changing, and we are not so sure where our energy sources are going to be from and where they are going. Having a pipeline is a piece of infrastructure that we are going to need to manage and maintain for the next 50-100 years, which means there is going to be a long term use of trucks and whatnot to make sure it is fixed and running, also if our demand for oil drops, Say
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Not necessarily. If they did this pipeline 50 years ago, then it would probably be better off.
We will be burning oil for the next 50 years. I'm quite sure of that. Any new airplane burns kerosene or gasoline. Any new cargo ship burns fuel oil. Most all of these new vehicles built today will still be running in 30 years, and it's going to take 20 years for some new technology to come along to replace them. Even then the replacement will likely be synthesized hydrocarbons and we will need the pipelines to move those fuels.
As it is now BEVs and PHEVs make up maybe 5% of commuter cars, and larger v
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For a value of "permanent" that's about a human lifetime or greater it very well might. Just because fertilizer is made from it doesn't mean that it is fertilizer.
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Your body need Iron and Carbon to survive. Let me stab you with a steel knife, as an act of kindness.
The utility of a material, isn't from the raw ingredient alone, but how you implement it.
“Capacity” (Score:4, Insightful)
Capacity means that is the amount it can potentially generate if ideal conditions were happening 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Well, guess what, ideal conditions do not really occur that often. In other words, the number is BS false. Fakery. Still a good step I suppose, cannot argue that part but maybe they ought to be less misleading. Though I think solar is a bit more reliable.
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It's not BS fakery, it's the capacity. Sometimes it will put out that, but it will never put out more.
Yes you do also need the capacity factor. The only ones I know off hand are the ones I looked up because I was on holiday near them recently. They were in the high 40s for capacity factor.
Re:“Capacity” (Score:5, Informative)
But the U.S. west coast mostly just drops off, reaching over a km deep just a few km offshore. The best spot for offshore wind in the U.S. is just under Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts - where the coastline runs nearly directly East-West. The U.S. East coast has a large continental shelf where depths are only about 200m, and that area gives the winds a long stretch of uninterrupted ocean to pick up speed. Unfortunately that's the offshore wind project the rich folks on Martha's Vineyard keep blocking.
Solar capacity factor for the continental U.S. is about 0.145. Ranging from about 0.1 in the northern states, to 0.19 in the desert southwest. Most of the solar buildout is likely in this region. You can enter your zip code into the PWatts site [nrel.gov] to see what it is for your neighborhood. Just type in any numbers - the summary page at the end lists capacity factor each month. (Concentrated solar, which uses mirrors to concentrate sunlight, for some reason uses the surface area of the receiver rather than the mirrors to calculate capacity factor. So you'll see higher capacity factors for it. Rest assured that nothing can cause the sun to shine more than about 750 W/m^2 at sea level during noon on a sunny day.)
Hydro, gas, and coal are about 0.5. But that's mostly because they're shut off when demand decreases. (In hydro's case, its annual generation is limited by annual rainfall.)
Nuclear is around 0.9. It's quick to ramp up, but very slow to ramp down (fission products continue decaying and releasing heat, even if you've halted any additional uranium from fissioning). So they typically run nuclear plants at full power year round, taking them offline only for maintenance.
So 1 MW of nuclear capacity = 1.8 MW of hydro, coal, or gas capacity = 3.6 MW of onshore wind capacity = 4.7 MW of PV solar capacity in the desert SW = 9 MW of PV solar solar capacity in northern states.
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Thanks for summarizing all of this. I think this is why the headline is definitely misleading/fakery. Capacity is capacity, sure, but then bundling all the sources together is pointless. Sure renewables might be 45% of installed capacity, but like 10% of actual generation which is what actually matters.
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It looks like you are off by half. The US actually generates 20% of its electricity from renewable sources.
In 2020, renewable energy sources accounted for about 12% of total U.S. energy consumption and about 20% of electricity generation.
https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs... [eia.gov]
This also makes it look like a lot of renewable power is being wasted but the energy consumption figure includes more than just electrical energy (at least I hope this is why the figures look strange at first glance).
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There is another huge cost to small renewables. The power grid is designed around generating plants that are about a gigawatt in size for baseload, with peaking plants scattered around where extra-heavy loads occur at generally predictable times of day. Small renewables at utility scale would require a new grid that can not only adjust for the constantly shifting places where wind and sun come from hour by hour, but it must be able to, through a new generation of smart meters, turn heavy end-user loads on a
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To put small renewables on the grid, utilities willhave to go to a new generation of smart meters
They can do that, but it's not their only option, or even their most likely one.
More likely they will just add lots of energy storage (using whatever technology proves most economical, there are dozens of contenders in various stages of development) and use that to provide base load as needed, with traditional power sources used only rarely as emergency backup.
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In the UK we have found that nuclear is not integrating well as our grid gets more renewables. It used to be that you got paid at night to use electricity from nuclear plants that couldn't stop producing power, but of course the operators were not happy about that and either reduced their output or just decommissioned them early.
Nuclear's inability to ramp down quickly has made it even more unattractive. That's one of the reasons why the government had to guarantee high prices for any energy it generates, a
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In the UK we have found that nuclear is not integrating well as our grid gets more renewables. It used to be that you got paid at night to use electricity from nuclear plants that couldn't stop producing power, but of course the operators were not happy about that and either reduced their output or just decommissioned them early.
Nuclear power was sold to The People of this planet as "too cheap to meter", and as soon as it actually gets "too cheap to meter" they shut it off to make sure it never actually gets "too cheap to meter". It's a clear example of bait and switch on the part of the entire industry, and the entire industry should be "jailed" for fraud (by simply shutting it down completely.)
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I suppose to be fair the only reason pricing was going negative was because there was a large amount of wind power available on top of the nuclear, not because nuclear actually managed to become affordable.
Wind can easily feather the blades to reduce output if there is too much wind energy, but why bother when you can force energy prices so low it destroys your competitors? Wind also has the advantage that people on renewable only tariffs often use more energy at night than the average, e.g. for storage hea
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Onshore wind capacity factor is about 0.25. Offshore wind can get to about 0.4, skewed high by the most consistent areas (off Scotland and Spain which can get over 0.65). But it's highly dependent on geography.
I was within viewing distance of a couple of North Sea offshore farms, Greater Gabbard and the London Array, both in their 40s.
Re:“Capacity” (Score:5, Insightful)
When you add up nameplate capacity across lots of sources that cannot possibly peak at the same time, that is fakery. That is the case for both wind and solar. A more relevant set of numbers are: expected aggregate peak output at any time, expected output during (same-grid) peak demand, and minimum output during peak demand.
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Sometimes it will put out that, but it will never put out more.
This is kind of false. Actually any power plant can run at over 100% capacity at any given time (given the right conditions). If you are taking an average over time then no power plant will ever reach 100% capacity.
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The fakery is only in your interpretation. Capacity means capacity, anything else you read into the statement is doing what you accuse them of doing.
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I was curious about the same thing. 2020 is probably a year that should be isolated in datasets and looked at very carefully when it comes to any kind of trend analysis. You have the pandemic, and the massive political and monetary interventions related to have touched practically every aspect of life on this planet; even non-human life.
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2020 is probably a year that should be isolated in datasets
no
and looked at very carefully when it comes to any kind of trend analysis.
yes.
Isolating or excluding 2020 would be an example of denialism, pretending that the years leading up to 2020 didn't cause the events of 2020. The truth is that you can't understand the years prior to 2020 without taking 2020 into account. If we had been preparing better for events such as those which happened in 2020, those years prior would look different.
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isolation / calling out does not mean discarding it, just marking it as a likely an outlier.
And calling it universally denialism is also not right. There are plenty of subjects that were very much impacted by pandemic shutdowns etc that would have seen little impact from whatever preparation you speak of.
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"Capacity" (Score:2)
So when a fossil fuel power plant states its capacity but only runs at less than 100% capacity their capacity numbers are BS false as well?
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The most important thing is that there should be ZERO new natural gas plants (coal as well) and all of that potential investment money should be going into solar, wind, and the infrastructure (batteries, transmission lines) to support them.
Seems like the more you save, the more it costs (Score:3)
I used about 222KwH last month. More than a third the cost of the bill were things like "Supply".
I do need to get some more $.50 LED bulbs to replace the 20 year old CFL bulbs all over the basement. They do start up real slow in cold weather.
Makes sense. Fixed costs like supply dominate. (Score:2)
Re: Seems like the more you save, the more it cost (Score:2)
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Even most of my Cree lights have failed, I had like six of them and only one made it. They weren't spectacularly expensive, but they cost more than incandescents (and also more than fifty cents.)
Oddly the most long-lived light bulb I ever owned was a CFL. I actually had it in the range hood over the stove, and undervolted it many times by accidentally flipping the switch the wrong way, and it survived all the abuse including the thermal swings. And it wasn't a very expensive CFL either, I think it came out
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Welcome to externalities. You're learning the lesson that isn't being applied to power generation.
Power generators aren't being charged the cost of the environment as an externality.
You however are being charged the externality of supporting and maintaining your grid connection.
It sucks. But that's the way the cookie crumbles. Mind you that externality doesn't cost you more if you use less.
Great! (Score:4, Funny)
Now we can put those old stinky coal plants to good use mining Bitcoin.
That's not bad and way to go Iowa. (Score:2)
Crass summary (Score:2)
Wind 42%, solar 38%. The relatively small difference is not reflected in the story. Poor reporting
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Energy Transitions (Score:5, Interesting)
I've been thinking about the nature of the polarization many of these discussions about where our energy sources come from. I found key concepts in a book called "Overshoot" that put the polarization into perspective. I thought I'd share an idea that I found makes it easier to put all this stuff into perspective.
Putting aside the "what" and "where" of the energy source, considering "when" the energy was captured leads to the obvious fact that all our energy supplies are solar.
Our entire society is built upon using energy that was captured millions of years ago when drawn from coal or nuclear. It's still solar power even if it is nuclear because even those heavy elements were created from a star. This means our society is drawing on energy that was created in the past encapsulated in a concept called "Antique Energy".
Wind, geothermal, wave and solar energy are also Solar energy. The key difference is these energy sources are drawn from the present in the environment encapsulated in a concept called "Contemporary Energy".
To reframe the core concepts surrounding the discussions about the changes our energy supplies are making, the transition from Antique Energy to Contemporary Energy becomes a discussion about if we are adaptable and ingenious enough to do so. To me the technological challenges we face to make this transition are really exciting and interesting and the questions about "why" are simpler to answer leaving only an evaluation of "how".
My concern is being able to make the transition whilst it is still possible for us to use "Antique Energy". Any discussion about continued use of Antique Energy is avoiding the most unacknowledged fact that it remains an exhaustible resource and therefore is a limiting factor that threatens our society.
Contemporary Energy may lead to a less energetic society as we adapt and whilst the argument has been made that it means we will live in caves I'd point out that we are still hunters and gatherers for Coal, Oil and uranium reserves whilst we use Antique energy. To me use of Contemporary Energy shows we are willing to solve the problems that transmute those limiting factors from unsolvable resources issues into technological issues that human beings have demonstrated a constant ability to solve.
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Any discussion about continued use of Antique Energy is avoiding the most unacknowledged fact that it remains an exhaustible resource and therefore is a limiting factor that threatens our society.
There's no need for you to invent new terminology. We have sustainable and unsustainable sources, and that frankly will do. Fossil fuels are unsustainable both because we will run out of them and because when we burn them we perturb the system upon which we depend for life support. And frankly, the latter factor both far outweighs the former, and is coming to a head far sooner, to the point that it's really not even worth talking about what happens when we deplete them. If we actually managed to do that, we
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There's no need for you to invent new terminology.
I'd loved to take credit for that however it is the author of the book.
We have sustainable and unsustainable sources, and that frankly will do. Fossil fuels are unsustainable both because we will run out of them and because when we burn them we perturb the system upon which we depend for life support.
I agree that fossil fuels are unsustainable, I think the terms are important because there is an argument around what constitutes sustainable. You have not included nuclear in your rationale and many would argue that it is sustainable.
However there is no argument around "when" the energy was captured and that clear distinction leads to thoughts about energy density and a clearer definition of the processes required to extract the en
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Your discussion is an interesting thought exercise, but I do not believe that the available supply of antique energy is going to be the limiting factor. The external costs of burning fossil fuel are going to catch up with us before we exhaust the sources. We have been doing a great job of becoming more efficient and burning the fuel, at finding the fuel, at extracting the fuel. We know about vast deposits that remain untapped because they they are not cost efficient to access. But as we exhaust current fiel
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Your discussion is an interesting thought exercise, but I do not believe that the available supply of antique energy is going to be the limiting factor. The external costs of burning fossil fuel are going to catch up with us before we exhaust the sources.
Thank you. That externality is the limiting factor I was referring to.
The problem with our current extraction of "contemporary energy" is that it is not reliable. By that I mean we cannot access it completely on demand, as we can with antique energy.
I think you mean that it is intermittent and the technological challenge I was referring to is to bridge that "on-demand" gap or adapt ourselves.
By its very nature, antique energy is already stored energy. We do not have to do anything special to be able to access it when needed.
Indeed, so the premise here is where you direct your efforts. Do you direct them to better hunter gatherer technology locating coal, uranium and oil reserves that is obviously unsustainable or do you direct them to solving the energy storage challenges that make contemporary energy more viable?
Wind vs solar is not the point (Score:3)
The focus on wind vs solar seems unnecessary given that 42% ~ 38%. The important point is that 80% (42+38) of new power capacity was renewables. That's a lot! It's not surprising that power companies don't want to shut down existing power plants until end of life, but the fact the new power capacity is overwhelmingly coming from renewables is a promising sign. I didn't see it in the reports but does anyone know where hydro sits in added capacity?
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To sum up the comments... (Score:2)
Gist of article: Tax incentives are working & the USA is making headway on building wind turbine energy infrastructure which should reduce CO2 emissions.
Comments: "My electricity bill is too damn high! There's some gubbermint conspiracy!
This is not surprising... (Score:4, Insightful)
Many still haven't grasped this.
With the prices of today, Solar, Wind and 4 hours of energy storage is dirt cheap. You can build 3x of this at half the price of a single nuclear power plant, at half the time it takes to build said nuclear plant. And you can bring the new electricity source in gradually - For nuclear you take 10 years to build and flip the switch for 2 GW of capacity. For Wind & Solar you linearly add 0.6 GW capacity each year. And the solar/wind/energy storage solution will have better availability and uptime than the nuclear plant.
And here is the real kicker... By 2030, the cost of this system will be between 30-75% cheaper depending on which analyst you ask. So Solar, Wind and batteries are 1/6 the cost of Nuclear today, it will be between 1/10 to 1/25 the cost by 2030.
Re: This is not surprising... (Score:2)
The storage/overcapacity you need to solve a polar vortex or dunkelflaute without fossil fuel is the problem. A problem which needs to be solved in a little over a decade according to government plans, unless massive amounts of air-carbon capture come online.
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Another big advantage is that wind farms can be built extremely fast. They're basically made up of prefabricated parts that are assembled on site. You can put one up in a year.
Conventional nuclear plants take a decade to build; you're betting on what electricity prices will be in ten years. During that ten years your capital isn't making you a penny, so you have to discount your future profits by the time value of money.
Those small modular reactors may well make investing in nuclear more attractive -- not
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Those small modular reactors may well make investing in nuclear more attractive -- not because of their inherent safety,
which is a myth
"Myth" in the sense that they don't exist yet? Sure. "Myth" in the sense that such a thing is impossible? Seems a bit premature to draw conclusions before the first prototype has been built. The proposals look interesting.
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Exactly.
It's time to stop talking about new nuclear plants. They're not going to happen.
The reality is that the magical modular nuclear plant is a myth, and nuclear power is simply too expensive. Sure, a lot of that cost is regulatory, but nobody in their right mind wants to give up the regulations we do have on nuclear, and the reality is that we need more, because while nuclear plants are safe most of the time, the occasional problem is so incredibly catastrophic that it leaves huge areas of land uninha
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I don't consider myself anti-nuclear, but I agree that the supposed necessity of civilian nuclear power is overblown. I do want to mention a few things, though;
Nuclear power is a close second for the safest form of civilian power. Even if you include Chernobyl, the grim metric of human-life-per-GWh for nuclear is within a fraction of solar power - but only because that includes ground installations; rooftop solar is marginally worse.
So far, anyway.
I will also argue that the best use of nuclear fission techn
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The nuclear merchant thing has been tried; it's just not financially viable.
The other problem is that to make them compact, they use highly enriched uranium in marine power plants. That makes every nuclear cargo vessel a proliferation risk.
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> The nuclear merchant thing has been tried; it's just not financially viable.
It basically hasn't been tried since the 1970s. Given the necessity to get off of fossil fuels, the size of modern cargo ships and the demand for shipping, I think it's worth putting some government assistance into trying again. Skip building one nuclear sub and use it to build a half dozen nuclear cargo ships and support infrastructure for them. See how it goes.
> The other problem is that to make them compact, they use high
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Are you sure battery-powered ships are unable to do the journey though?
http://www.cleanfuture.co.in/2... [cleanfuture.co.in]
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> Are you sure battery-powered ships are unable to do the journey though?
"The battery technology is still insufficient for long distances, so the ship will only make short routes"
I mean... yeah? A container ship uses about 5.4 million kWh of energy per day at cruising speed, which is about 80 million kWh for a short cross-pacific trip (15 days). A Tesla "Megapack" is slightly smaller than a 20-foot ISO chipping container (1 TEU) and holds 3000 kWh, so you'd only need about 27,000 of those to make the tri
Tax credits - they don't want to miss out (Score:4, Insightful)
The grid pricing here led to the grid collapse due to a lack of peaking power. The grid must have peaking power. The rules 'assume' steam power plants where you'd get built in reserve capacity, but wind and solar don't have it. The pricing needs to reflect this reality, and require wind/solar generators to pay for peaking power to go with it. In practice that means Gas power plants (experimental battery systems also work, but with teething problems).
I've seen politicized comments about solar/wind causing the Texas winter grid collapse. That's deflection. Politician grid pricing market manipulation + 'green' pricing credits did, as they made it economically impossible to keep a historically 'normal' amount of idle capacity of peaking plants online. That's what nailed it, not the source of the power - the pricing scheme the politicians setup.
Not that hard to do (Score:2)
Wind mills are fast and easy to build.
Other sources of electricity like hydro, coal, gas, nuclear, etc. take years, if not decades, to come on line with all the permits, environmental impact reports, NIMBY lawsuits, etc. that keep commercial power plants from even being built in some cases.
bit of trivia, renewables, including wind and solar, account for only aprox 3% of the worlds electricity.
edit Re:Not that hard to do (Score:2)
bit of trivia, renewables, including wind and solar, account for only aprox 3% of the worlds electricity.
correction: I forgot to include hydro electric and some less common energy sources like hydro/geothermal as "renewables" so the actual number is closer to 10-11% of the worlds electricity.
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Actually I think TFS says that this occurred last year. When the Cheeto in Charge was stumbling at the helm. They must have snuck this past him when he was staring into the solar eclipse.