Wind Power Eclipses Both Coal, Nuclear In the US (npr.org) 87
An anonymous reader quotes a report from NPR: On March 29, wind turbines produced more electricity than coal and nuclear, the U.S. Energy Information Administration, an agency that collects energy statistics for the government, says. In the past, wind-powered electricity has gone beyond coal and nuclear on separate days, but this was the first time wind surpassed both on the same day. Natural gas is still the largest source of electricity generation in the country.
The EIA notes that in the spring and fall months, nuclear and coal generators reduce their output because demand tends to be lower, which could contribute to why wind turbines produced more electricity that day. But wind taking the No. 2 spot may be short-lived. The agency says electricity generation from wind on a monthly basis has been lower than natural gas, coal and nuclear generation. According to EIA projections, wind is not expected to surpass any other method in any month of 2022 or 2023.
The EIA notes that in the spring and fall months, nuclear and coal generators reduce their output because demand tends to be lower, which could contribute to why wind turbines produced more electricity that day. But wind taking the No. 2 spot may be short-lived. The agency says electricity generation from wind on a monthly basis has been lower than natural gas, coal and nuclear generation. According to EIA projections, wind is not expected to surpass any other method in any month of 2022 or 2023.
Texas LTW (Score:1)
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And the wind nearly blew my trees over that day (Score:2)
Yep. And the wind storm that week nearly blew my trees out of the ground - one was quite noticeably leaning.
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Got curious and looked it up. The largest cattle station in Australia is 2,428,113 hectares, or about 9375 square miles, about the size of New Hampshire.
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I might be more willing to thank Texas if any of that wind-generated electricity could escape the state and be used by anyone else in the country. But, Texas being Texas, they've got their own isolated grid that can't export much power. So instead of "thanks", it's more like "you're doing some good, Texas, way over there in your own little corner."
On the flip side, Texas' insularity also means they can't impo
Well now (Score:5, Informative)
I recall reading somewhere else that wind turbine generated power rose above 20% of the total that very windy day, whereas it typically generates between 9 & 10% of nationwide power. Still, a significant amount.
Environmental factors aside, no matter what your predisposition is regarding renewable power generation, please remember that fossil fuels are a finite reserve. We may as well be working on their replacement.
Re: Well now (Score:2)
Any way the wind blows (Score:1, Flamebait)
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Or just do your laundry on windy days. You know, the same way civilization has been doing it for thousands of years.
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Or just do your laundry on windy days. You know, the same way civilization has been doing it for thousands of years.
Because people who live in a 30 story building in the middle of a city can put their laundry out on the line.
Re:Any way the wind blows (Score:5, Informative)
Wind is good if it blows when you want it.
Geographic distribution is the solution.
When one area is becalmed, the winds are even stronger elsewhere.
Storage is next challenge to optimize.
Not really. The wind blows 24/7, so it is not like solar.
When power is plentiful, lower the price, and EVs will start charging. When demand outstrips supply, raise the price, and discretionary users will cut their consumption.
Plus recycling those huge blades.
The blades are made of fiberglass, which is not worth recycling. They take up negligible space in landfills. All the turbine blades in the world are less than one week of disposable diapers.
As an objection to wind turbines, "recycling the blades" is even more ridiculous than "kills birds".
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I understood that those blades are made of materials, which are very difficult to recycle, relatively light in weight and really strong. As in, strong enough for supporting a roof-line inside a building.
The blades suffer when exposed to weather, but if one or more of the blades would be used as support beam inside large buildings, they will last a very long time in their new function.
Around 2018 or perhaps even 2017 there was a vague BBC TV show featuring a woman in her 50's and an architect, in his 40's or
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The blades are made for "weather" :P
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When power is plentiful, lower the price, and EVs will start charging. When demand outstrips supply, raise the price, and discretionary users will cut their consumption.
It looks like you're talking about smart grids.
They're not a bad idea in principle, but they are pretty tricky. You're essentially building a large, distributed control system coupled with a financial market. When the price goes up, you don't want all the car chargers simultaneously shedding load within the space of a couple of seconds, for
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synchronous condensers provide the spinning mass for solar and wind.
https://www.pv-magazine.com/20... [pv-magazine.com]
The other option is grid forming inverters.
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Yep! I'm not saying it isn't doable, just that capital investment is needed. Essentially as much mass in new synchronous machines is needed as exists in the old ones, give or take. At the moment renewables are small rough that they can rely on existing power generation (and stability problems result of the fraction gets too high), so ultimately these will need to be budgeted in. It's going to raise the prices a bit, but still eminently worth going for renewables.
With smart grids you'll likely need even more
Re: Replacement Cost (Score:2)
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Do you eat chicken?
I apologize in advance if you're Vegan. [sorrychicken.com]
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Combined cycle gas plants alone are lower carbon than wind and solar coupled with fossil fueled peaking plants.
Citation?
However, the only effective means of replacing fossil fuels is nuclear, unless your goal is to kill most of the population and regress civilization hundreds of years.
Citation?
The energy return on investment of wind and solar are not high enough to support a standard of living that anyone in the modern world will find acceptable.
Citation?
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I recall reading, on Slashdot no less, that having large amounts of wind power on the grid would destabilise it and cause blackouts.
Re:They also killed more eagles than anything else (Score:5, Insightful)
Petal, if you're disgusted by the deaths of eagles and small birds caused by wind, you're going to want to sit down in a gigantic special swooning throne with a calming cup of tea to hand and a special fanning servant to soothe your fevered brow when you find out what harms coal and gas extraction and burning have caused to animals and birds.
If you've really managed to cause yourself to believe that wind is more harmful than fossil fuels, perhaps it's time to reacquaint yourself with the concept of the sniff test.
Re:Yes, so what????? (Score:4, Insightful)
Coal/oil power plants are bad also, which is why you should go solar or nuclear
Solar is twice the price of wind, and nuclear is four times the price. So for each $ invested, only a half or a quarter as much coal/gas is taken offline.
Why would you assume I would want more coal and gas plants?
Wind is the most effective alternative. Opposing it means supporting the continued consumption of coal and gas.
Yes, wind turbines kill birds, but the number is negligible. It is FUD spread by the fossil fuel industry -- the same organizations that once claimed a hiking trail and a four-lane highway had comparable impacts on a forest.
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The panels are installed in rows on low racks, two panels per rack side by side. Total height at back of a panel is about seven feet. The rows are about eight feet apart.
No room for cultivating crops. The space between rows has to remain clear to allow access for maintenance and cleaning. Putting the panels close together saves land costs, transmission losses and uses less wiring.
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Your article doesn't say that. Do you have source for that claim?
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136 over TEN YEARS ain't shit.
Cats cause way more bird kills than all the windmills in the world combined.
Google "birds killed by cats each year" and you'll see this:
approximately 2.4 billion birds
Predation by domestic cats is the number-one direct, human-caused threat to birds in the United States and Canada. In the United States alone, outdoor cats kill approximately 2.4 billion birds every year. Although this number may seem unbelievable, it represents the combined impact of tens of millions of outdoor c
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We're ending up with wind, tidal, geothermal and solar. After that, we're going to kill stuff to get what we want - snowy owls, snail darters, salmon, birds - because wind, tidal, geothermal and solar put together are still decades off from even hoping to fill our energy needs.
In short,
Re: They also killed more eagles than anything els (Score:2)
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I wish articles would stop mixing up And and Or. (Score:5, Informative)
Wind turbines produced more electricity than either coal or nuclear. They did not produce more than "coal and nuclear."
Re:I wish articles would stop mixing up And and Or (Score:4, Funny)
"wind"=01110111 01101001 01101110 01100100
"coal"=01100011 01101111 01100001 01101100
"nuclear"=01101110 01110101 01100011 01101100 01100101 01100001 01110010
"coal" AND "nuclear" (assuming we align to the right)=01100000 01100101 01100001 01100000
That looks like "wind" is actually greater than "coal" AND "nuclear"
MOD PARENT UP (Score:2)
Oh well played!
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"On March 29, wind turbines produced more electricity than coal and nuclear" Wind turbines produced more electricity than either coal or nuclear. They did not produce more than "coal and nuclear."
So did wind turbines produce more electricity than coal, or did they produce more electricity than nuclear?
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air (Score:3)
No more pleasant breezes! Just stagnate warm air. Enjoy!
Re: air (Score:2)
Re:air (Score:4, Funny)
They slow the air down, and too many wind towers removes all inertial energy from the air.
There are two solutions:
1. Since trees also slow down the wind, require anyone installing a wind turbine to cut down a tree to compensate.
2. Improve math and science education, so people are no longer stupid enough to believe this is a problem.
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Windmills too close together end up having much less usable wind energy. In the Netherlands that was found out the hard way, back in the 1600's.
Granted, those were windmills with large blades that were pretty close to the ground. Once you go up 150 to 200 meter windmills do rob less energy from each other, but still more than enough
Wind flows like water and causes a wake when hitting an object. The shape and size of that wake differs per object and if you build another windmill withing that wake, both wind
Betz: Still going at least 1/3 without-mill speed (Score:3)
They slow the air down, and too many wind towers removes all inertial energy from the air.
The power comes from spreading out the wind stream an reducing its momentum. But the momentum comes from the air moving over the blade surfaces. Take too much momentum out and you reduce the amount of air, and momentum to harvest, that goes through the blades, and you get LESS power as you take more. Take it all and you get no power at all. So they don't.
It's like the Laffer Curve for tax collection versus tax rate
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They slow the air down, and too many wind towers removes all inertial energy from the air. No more pleasant breezes! Just stagnate warm air. Enjoy!
And even worse, solar panels remove photons from the sky, so eventually as more solar panels are installed our days will get darker and darker until there is no more light! Stop the madness!
As much as I like nuclear (Score:3)
But, for the cost of decommissioning a single nuclear plant, we could probably buy a landfill plot somewhere, and pay for the shipping of every single worn out windmill for disposal, for the next century. And have enough money left over to buy a bunch of battery storage.
Yes, yes, I know, nuclear is baseload power. God, I really like nuclear. We will NEED nuclear of some sort in the far future. But, for now, wind and solar are starting to eat nuclear’s lunch.
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Those things have been promised to be on the cusp of commercial viability for decades. Maybe they'll work one day. Meantime, wind and solar are growing massively, prices are falling dramatically, and we can have the scope to install lots more in the immediate future, so best to crack on with that decarbonisation right now.
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Agreed: we should research both wind and better nuclear, and we should crack on with deploying wind, solar and storage at scale. What we ought *not* to do is to listen to those siren voices telling us not to bother with researching and deploying wind, solar and storage because better nuclear is almost here.
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Obviously, there's a lot of directions one could go with your post. But let's pick up on the claim that you can't rely on wind and solar for any generation because the sun may not shine and the wind may not blow at any given moment.
The facts just don't bear this out. Take a look at the UK grid for the last year: https://grid.iamkate.com/ [iamkate.com]
There isn't a single day when wind/solar produces 0. The lowest we get is 3.56GW out of 28.6GW total on 19th July 2021 = 12.4%. The highest is 31st January, 13.52GW out of 3
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100% agree with this. We should be doing this at scale.
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Do you mean gWhours with those numbers?
Otherwise it is a bit meaningless, because a power plant that is on a huge gW peak for a few minutes does not tell us how much energy it is producing over a day.
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Go look at iamkate or any of the many other grid trackers and you will find the answer to your questions. That's why I put the link in.
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The link tells me nothing, perhaps you want to click into the various subsections to the point where your statement is?
In my opinion you are mixing up GW with GWh ... but up to you to figure.
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Nuclear reactors will last 80+ years, and even after the core loop is removed, there is no real need to tear down what is just a sturdy building.
Is there sufficient uranium ore of a sufficient quality for the next 80+ years to have a large fleet (bigger than today's by a significant margin as some advocate) that is still EROEI positive? Note that even if the EROEI is negative it doesn't mean that nuclear isn't useful as it can be 'always on', but by that point it is operating more like a battery if one assumes that the mining is covered by renewables. The environmental effects of mining (nuclear, or for materials for wind) needs to be managed carefu
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Do you want the windmills in your view?
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UK population is pretty happy to have them. 80% of the population is in favour of onshore wind, according to the latest gov't survey of opinion (the poll is done quarterly and has been conducted for years). Most people are happy with it in their neighbourhood too. I mean, lots of neighbourhoods have things that are just as big (electricity pylons) or bigger and uglier (smokestacks).
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Actually yes.
They symbolize progress.
Nuclear plants symbolize danger.
Coal plants symbolize pollution.
No idea what you want in your view though.
Heh. (Score:2)
Wind Power Eclipses Both Coal, Nuclear In the US
I hope it doesn't "eclipse" solar power.
Coal shortages are a large factor (Score:4, Interesting)
Anybody familiar with the power industry knows that right now power prices are extremely high, pushing $100/MWh in some markets. In what is traditionally a shoulder month. Why? Shortages. There are severe logistical issues in moving coal right now, combined with extremely high gas prices and a grid that simply isn't very reliable due to its wind resources in particular. MISO, in arguably the "easiest" part of the year to supply power, is running a negative reserve margin. They don't actually have enough reserve capacity to ensure reliability, and they know it.
But long story short, coal generation is running at a fraction of the capacity it *could* be running at, not for economic reasons but simply because there's extreme issues in physically getting the fuel to the plants. PJM is currently requiring coal inventory management updates to ensure smaller generators don't burn their whole fuel stock to make tons of money now, and cause blackouts in August. By the numbers most coal units would be running literally flat out 24/7 based on economics... which is insane. Wholesale power prices are up 200% year over year. Those coal plants aren't even designed to be able to replenish fuel that quickly, the old grid management techniques made that kind of crazy operation unneeded for the vast majority of the year. And on the other side wind typically benefits this time of year... the temperature changes in spring bring stronger winds, and thus output is higher and somewhat more consistent. It's not at all surprising that wind would have brief periods of high output.
I think a lot of experts are looking at the economics of this and going "well shit, if environmentalists are going to kill every new gas pipeline then it makes a lot of sense to run these coal units another 30 years." And they're right. That's a huge change from even a year ago, when I think the common wisdom would have been most coal units would be imploded or mothballed within a decade. The vulnerability in our power grid is being laid bare for anyone paying attention. Even places like NYISO are warning they might have to take significant "out of market action" to ensure reliability (in other words, give large wads of cash under the table to fossil generators to ensure they stay operational for reliability purposes). None of this was unforeseen, but the speed of it has surprised even insiders. People don't realize it yet but their power bills are about to reflect the cost recovery for these extremely high prices (a process that typically lags a quarter or two). The effect is going to be devastating for a lot of people. It's also going to call into question the entire wholesale market premise, because regions like the American Southeast that have resisted markets are likely to have radically lower power prices due to their vertical monopolies being able to keep most of their nuclear fleets operational for fuel diversity.
The lesson here: (Score:2)
Duh. (Score:2)
X eclipses Y and Z, after Y and Z are made illegal, and X is subsidized. In other news, dog bites man.
Green Energy (Score:2)