Renewables Will Overtake Coal by Early 2025, Energy Agency Says (nytimes.com) 217
Elena Shao reports via the New York Times: Worldwide, growth in renewable power capacity is set to double by 2027, adding as much renewable power in the next five years as it did in the past two decades, the International Energy Agency said Tuesday. Renewables are posed to overtake coal as the largest source of electricity generation by early 2025, the report found, a pattern driven in large part by the global energy crisis linked to the war in Ukraine. "This is a clear example of how the current energy crisis can be a historic turning point toward a cleaner and more secure energy system," said Fatih Birol, the I.E.A. executive director, in a news release.
The expansion of renewable power in the next five years will happen much faster than what the agency forecast just a year ago in its last annual report, said Heymi Bahar, a senior analyst at the I.E.A. and one of the lead authors of the report. The report revised last year's forecast of renewable growth upward by 30 percent after the introduction of new policies by some of the world's largest emitters, like the European Union, the United States and China. While there has been a wartime resurgence in fossil fuel consumption as European countries have scrambled to replace gas from Russia after its invasion of Ukraine in February, the effects are likely to be short-lived, the agency said. [...]
Instead, over the next five years, the global energy crisis is expected to accelerate renewable energy growth as countries embrace low-emissions technology in response to soaring fossil fuel prices, including wind turbines, solar panels, nuclear power plants, hydrogen fuels, electric vehicles and electric heat pumps. Heating and cooling buildings with renewable power is one of the sectors that needs to see larger improvement, the report said. The United States passed the Inflation Reduction Act this year, a landmark climate and tax law that, among many investments to reduce planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions, made an "unforeseen" expansion in long-term tax credits for solar and wind projects extending through 2032, Mr. Bahar said. Previously, these tax credits had been revised a few years at a time. Extending the credits until 2032 provides better certainty for investors, which is important in the energy industry, Mr. Bahar said. China alone is forecast to install almost half of the new global renewable power capacity over the next five years, based on targets set in the country's new five-year plan. Even still, the country is accelerating coal mining and production at coal-burning power plants.
The expansion of renewable power in the next five years will happen much faster than what the agency forecast just a year ago in its last annual report, said Heymi Bahar, a senior analyst at the I.E.A. and one of the lead authors of the report. The report revised last year's forecast of renewable growth upward by 30 percent after the introduction of new policies by some of the world's largest emitters, like the European Union, the United States and China. While there has been a wartime resurgence in fossil fuel consumption as European countries have scrambled to replace gas from Russia after its invasion of Ukraine in February, the effects are likely to be short-lived, the agency said. [...]
Instead, over the next five years, the global energy crisis is expected to accelerate renewable energy growth as countries embrace low-emissions technology in response to soaring fossil fuel prices, including wind turbines, solar panels, nuclear power plants, hydrogen fuels, electric vehicles and electric heat pumps. Heating and cooling buildings with renewable power is one of the sectors that needs to see larger improvement, the report said. The United States passed the Inflation Reduction Act this year, a landmark climate and tax law that, among many investments to reduce planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions, made an "unforeseen" expansion in long-term tax credits for solar and wind projects extending through 2032, Mr. Bahar said. Previously, these tax credits had been revised a few years at a time. Extending the credits until 2032 provides better certainty for investors, which is important in the energy industry, Mr. Bahar said. China alone is forecast to install almost half of the new global renewable power capacity over the next five years, based on targets set in the country's new five-year plan. Even still, the country is accelerating coal mining and production at coal-burning power plants.
Profit and ecology align (Score:5, Interesting)
Renewable energy may be better for the planet, but it is also (now) the cheapest form of energy available. So when a power company buys renewable generation, they are making money, and at the same time doing something good for the economy.
It's much easier to tell someone "if you do X, you will save money" than "if you do X, you are helping ecology" But easier still if doing X accomplishes both at once!
Renewables are not dependable: the sun sets at night, clouds could get in the way of sunlight, the wind could die down. But this can be mitigated by building a lot of renewables, and by building grid-scale battery systems. Both are being done now.
Grid-scale batteries used to be impractical. With lithium-ion battery cells they are now practical. Other technologies (flow batteries or liquid metal batteries or something else) could be even cheaper, but we already know it can be done even if we only use lithium-iron batteries. And while solar power and wind power make it more challenging to keep the grid stable, batteries stabilize the grid (and do it very well [cleantechnica.com]). As expensive as grid-scale batteries are, they are worth it for the power companies, because "peaker" plant power is so expensive; if a battery holds up the grid and the power company doesn't have to pay for peaker power, the battery pays for itself pretty fast. And if the wind is good when nobody needs any, but the power company can store the excess power in a battery, that's almost like getting power for free. In any event that helps the battery pay for itself.
The best thing about renewables is that you don't need trains or ships or pipelines to bring you fuel; it's also nice that there are no toxic coal ashes to carry away, and nobody will complain about your pollution. No matter what decisions are made by the US President or by Vladimir Putin, you can predict your fuel costs: zero, every day of every year.
All the above is why Tony Seba has been saying for years that renewables will disrupt everything else. Some people think we still need coal or nuclear or something for base load, but Tony Seba and his think tank ("RethinkX") believe that by overbuilding production (it's cheap, remember) and by building two to four days' worth of large batteries, the whole country could run on renewable power only. And, if we do overbuild generation enough to get by on unfavorable days, we will have a huge surplus of nearly-free electricity on favorable days. He predicted that for California or Texas the extra power would be available 93% of days.
I have wondered if the nearly-free power on sunny days could be used to run a factory that turns carbon dioxide into jet fuel. I don't know enough about this to even guess whether it would be economical. But if the main obstacle is that it would take a lot of power... see the part above about "nearly-free" extra power.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsnkPLkf1ao [youtube.com]
Re: (Score:2)
If we can get battery technology within an order of magnitude of fuels for energy density by volume, this will solve many problems. Not just worrying about base load, but would also be able to replace IC engines on virtually everything with electric motors. If an IC engine is needed, its primary function would be to provide power to a battery bank, as opposed to directly being part of a drivetrain, greatly simplifying what engineering is needed, and allowing for engine types like turbine engines to be use
Re: (Score:2)
If we can get battery technology
Cheaper.
That's all it has to get. It doesn't have to get more advanced, or more energy dense, or have more buzzwords on the side of the box - batteries just have to get cheaper.
Re: (Score:2)
If we can get battery technology
Cheaper.
That's all it has to get. It doesn't have to get more advanced, or more energy dense, or have more buzzwords on the side of the box - batteries just have to get cheaper.
This isn't all that difficult. And despite people thinking that the battery technology must be one of the Lithium subtypes, there are a lot of cheap alternatives.
For years, I have been suggesting nickle-iron batteries. Long lived rechargeables, incredibly tough.
We aren't going to use them in portable operations, though some subway systems use them. And their energy density isn't great, plus the self discharge rates aren't super. Sounds like a loser at first.
But you simply right-size the battery impl
Re: (Score:2)
He's specifically talking about engines. Batteries are okay for cars now, but it would be nice if they were lighter. They're currently out of the question for most aircraft.
Re: (Score:2)
I have wondered if the nearly-free power on sunny days could be used to run a factory that turns carbon dioxide into jet fuel.
Synhelion [synhelion.com] claims to do exactly this.
Re:Profit and ecology align (Score:5, Informative)
Renewables are not dependable: the sun sets at night, clouds could get in the way of sunlight, the wind could die down.
"Dependable" isn't the right word. Sunset is highly predictable. The weather is also highly predictable in the near term, including clouds that can be seen on satellite imagery. Grid operators are already making heavy use of weather forecasts to plan demand shaping, and to anticipate issues like nuclear plants being forced to idle due to high temperatures.
Grid scale batteries are really for smoothing the output of large wind farms, and meeting very short term demands that would otherwise cause instability. Note that the instability issue isn't due to renewables - those batteries are typically installed where energy is supplied by coal, gas, and nuclear.
It's likely that grids with a lot of renewables won't need huge batteries. We have already seen some European systems running almost entirely on renewable energy for significant periods of time, without issue. Between demand shaping and distributed storage like Vehicle 2 Grid, I don't think "whole country UPS" type batteries will ever be needed.
Re: (Score:3)
Renewables are not dependable: the sun sets at night, clouds could get in the way of sunlight, the wind could die down.
"Dependable" isn't the right word. Sunset is highly predictable. The weather is also highly predictable in the near term, including clouds that can be seen on satellite imagery.
Just to note - there are places where the wind does not stop. The Allegheny escarpment is one. We have wind farms up there providing base load now.
Grid operators are already making heavy use of weather forecasts to plan demand shaping, and to anticipate issues like nuclear plants being forced to idle due to high temperatures.
Boy do we ever use forecasts. Even before this renewable "thing" happened
Grid scale batteries are really for smoothing the output of large wind farms, and meeting very short term demands that would otherwise cause instability. Note that the instability issue isn't due to renewables - those batteries are typically installed where energy is supplied by coal, gas, and nuclear.
It's likely that grids with a lot of renewables won't need huge batteries. We have already seen some European systems running almost entirely on renewable energy for significant periods of time, without issue. Between demand shaping and distributed storage like Vehicle 2 Grid, I don't think "whole country UPS" type batteries will ever be needed.
There is an elephant in the room for the anti-renewable crowd, energy storage is not new. the Huntorf CAES Plant uses nuclear energy to compress air in a cavern overnight, for use the next day. Hydraulic energy storage is old hat by now. https://www.energy.gov/eere/wa... [energy.gov]
Why would this be
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, fuel costs are zero. Of course, generators aren't free, and they'll need maintenance.
And some way to deal with the less-than-ideal situations like, oh, it's been cloudy for a week....
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, fuel costs are zero. Of course, generators aren't free, and they'll need maintenance.
And some way to deal with the less-than-ideal situations like, oh, it's been cloudy for a week....
Like modes that have been available and in use on many plants. Hydraulic storage, compressed air storage, molten salt.
It's interesting that it somehow becomes impossible to use batteries to do this. A strange thing, but yes - if it is somehow impossible for batteries to store energy, these present day uses could maybe work on solar or wind generation. What I don't get is why intelligent people believe that energy storage doesn't exist. And that it won't work with non-legacy power generation.
Re: (Score:2)
It's interesting that it somehow becomes impossible to use batteries to do this. A strange thing, but yes - if it is somehow impossible for batteries to store energy, these present day uses could maybe work on solar or wind generation. What I don't get is why intelligent people believe that energy storage doesn't exist. And that it won't work with non-legacy power generation.
It's not that it doesn't work. It's that it isn't cost effective. You can't store enough of it cheap enough without spending more than is economically feasible.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Grid scale batteries will *never* happen on a large scale. Sure, it is possible, and can be demonstrated, is practical and it works quite well! But there is simply not enough rare materials on earth to build a gazillion batteries to hold an entire continent power grid up for 28 hours straight. Not in the mines we know right now at least, so it's not years away, it's decades away at best, if possible at all. Remember the grid of tomorrow will need to be 5x s big as the grid today, if you want all cars and tr
Re: (Score:2)
...build a gazillion batteries to hold an entire continent power grid up for 28 hours straight.
This is a rediculous requirement.
28 hours of *total contintenal* battery power? Absolutely not required, unless we're somehow worried about a scenario where the wind doesn't blow, and the sun is eclipsed, and there's no water flowing down power dams, more than a day straight across the entirety of the continent. In which case, by my estimation, problems with available electricity will be rather low on the list, as the Vogon fleet blocking the sun will be clearing us away for their hyperspace bypass anywa
Re: (Score:2)
Sorry, I meant 18 hours, not 28. That said, you pinpoint scenarios where it could be needed to draw on the batteries for 28 hours straight, even if not at full load. Pictures two days without wind. 18hours at full load on the batteries. Next day, let it be cloudy, only the solar part of the grid load comes in, so it's not enough for the grid demands. Hence, no recharge for the batteries which are still drawn upon, even if lightly. Then comes night again. 18h at full load on the batteries.
That's 36hours of f
Re: (Score:3)
...hold an entire continent power grid up...
Happens several times every year in most parts of the world. No doomsday needed.
I think this is where we differ.
Locally? Sure. One US state; one European country, or a couple of such, near each other. I'll totally agree here; happens regularly, particularly with smaller geographies. Again, the wider grid should help.
But *Continent wide*? That's the entire US, Canada, and Mexico, for mainland North America; or every country in Europe, simultaneously; or Russia, China, India, and a host of others for Asia, all having the same zero-wind, low-sun scenario. Far, far more likely that t
Re: (Score:2)
Happens all the time in Europe. Deal with it.
Re: Profit and ecology align (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, 0.0000000 everywhere never. Not what I was talking about. Trouble with reading comprehension ?
Re: (Score:2)
to hold an entire continent power grid up for (18) hours straight.
Pictures two days without wind.
His reading comprehension is just fine.
Re: (Score:2)
A whole continent without wind for 2 days...Sure thing
Happens all the time in Europe
Seems a pretty clear that my reading comprehension is fine.
Re: (Score:2)
Solar is highly consistent. Every day, the sun comes up and shines; and, across the continent, large fractions of land receive direct open sunlight. Even in areas clouded on a particular day, solar still provides some fraction of the nominal load. Overbuilding resolves capacity requirements, and planning for overnight darkess is predictable.
Just how much overbuilding is required? How many multiples of best case required nameplate is needed to reliably meet demand from intermittent sources with low capacity factors (e.g. solar)? What is the cost of this relative to alternatives like nuclear?
All of that, *and* reducing greenhouse gas emissions, while producing power at cheaper total cost.
I certainly agree electrons from wind and solar are very cheap yet this is only to produce energy when and in quantities that are convenient to produce rather than when demanded. It is important not to confuse LCOE and VALCOE. Low LCOE does NOT imply low
Re: (Score:2)
The more intermittents we have, the more expensive nukes will get.
Because you will need to use them less and less. Most of the time they will be a sunk cost sitting idle. They would need even more massive subsidies than they already get.
This is a circular argument. The question at hand is what energy mix is the most cost effective economically and environmentally. If you just deploy massive intermittent renewables of course the cost of all means of production is going to be far worse than it would otherwise be.
A looming problem will be that demand in the winter will be substantially higher due to electrification of heating when solar irradiance is at its lowest.
VALCOE is worse for nuclear compared to solar and onshore wind in just about every region with offshore wind being more expensive in most. Not sure why you baited and switched with coal. Coal remains cheaper using VALCOE, but you specifically mentioned nuclear... It's an older report, renewables have only gotten cheaper and nuclear more expensive sine then anyway.
I didn't say shit about coal and my VALCOE commentary was about a future with
Re: (Score:2)
This is a rediculous requirement.
28 hours of *total contintenal* battery power? Absolutely not required, unless we're somehow worried about a scenario where the wind doesn't blow, and the sun is eclipsed, and there's no water flowing down power dams, more than a day straight across the entirety of the continent. .
It's actually more plausible than you think, and happens every decade or so. Not a total windless eclipse of course, but polar vortex events can cover the majority of a continent. They naturally happen in winter, the time of lowest solar incidence, and can stall winds over vast areas. They last days, and could last weeks theoretically. And they cause severe spikes in load on the grid simultaneously. The cherry on top is they're predicted to become more common as the climate warms.
The situation you get
Re: Profit and ecology align (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Grid scale batteries will *never* happen on a large scale. Sure, it is possible, and can be demonstrated, is practical and it works quite well! But there is simply not enough rare materials on earth to build a gazillion batteries to hold an entire continent power grid up for 28 hours straight. Not in the mines we know right now at least, so it's not years away, it's decades away at best, if possible at all.
Keep in mind that we are not constrained to rare earth batteries. There are many options, some which use really common materials, like the nickle-iron battery. We probably shouldn't use things like Lithium batteries for large scale storage anyhow.
I am not saying renewables are bad, but I'm saying they will *not* replace coal+oil+gas. Not a chance.
So when it becomes too expensive due to rarity, we just fold up the tents and expire? What's your plan for then, or are you an abiotic unlimited production believer?
Unless the coal oil and gas are abiotically generated, it will become too rare and expensive to
Re: (Score:2)
it will become too rare and expensive to carry civilization's energy and transport needs.
It will indeed. Oil, gas and coal are way too dense to be replaced by fuzzy sources like sun and wind. Like, ever. Nuclear can help to some extent, with the advantage of being a steady source of power. But in the end, it'll be *very* hard to compensate for the loss of fossil fuels (hint: we won't)
We should prepare for a contraction of the economy. No government on earth is ready for that as our "modern" societies have been built on the premise that the economy is indefinitely going to grow. And contraction
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Where did you get the idea that batteries need to be able to "hold an entire continent power grid up for 28 hours straight"?
Toxicity - why not talk about how toxic fossil fuels etc are? A lot of things contain toxins or are created using toxic processes. Toxic output from coal [ucsusa.org]
Don't forget that oil, gas and coal are all in finite quantities and will eventually run out.
You might not need batterie
Re: Profit and ecology align (Score:2)
It's close to cheap enough vis a vis fuel prices of coal power with gas/battery backup that it's economic to use it to safe fuel.
It's not cheap enough to overprovision by 10x (with solar also needing overnight storage) to actually remove the need for the coal power plants outright.
Massive overprovisioning or seasonal storage is the only way to replace coal/nuclear outright. Only hydrogen can do seasonal storage.
Re: Profit and ecology align (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Renewables are not dependable: the sun sets at night, clouds could get in the way of sunlight, the wind could die down. But this can be mitigated by building a lot of renewables, and by building grid-scale battery systems. Both are being done now.
The problem with building a lot of renewables is it costs a lot of money and has a lot of environmental impact for increasingly diminishing returns. Batteries can only buffer out short term demand. There is no additional economically feasible role given state of current technology.
Presently this is not a problem in most of the world with shallow mix of intermittent renewables. That will inevitably change dramatically as share of intermittent renewables increase and must be considered as part of holistic
Re: (Score:3)
In California, a few hours of battery storage is all that's needed, from about 4-9pm [nytimes.com]. This is when people are arriving home and turning on their power-hungry air conditioners, and PV generation is quickly dropping, and the evening wind hasn't picked up yet.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Tony Seba and his think tank ("RethinkX") believe that by overbuilding production (it's cheap, remember) and by building two to four days' worth of large batteries, the whole country could run on renewable power only. And, if we do overbuild generation enough to get by on unfavorable days, we will have a huge surplus of nearly-free electricity on favorable days.
But wind and freestanding solar have a large land footprint per unit of energy produced. This 'overbuilding' you cavalierly advocate means paving over huge swatches of the sacred Environment with turbines and collectors.
A few years ago I hiked the Wainwright, a trail running across Cumbria and Yorkshire in the northern UK. Every village on my route was in the middle of a NIMBY battle over its own set of set of a few wind turbines. In Yorkshire we passed near an enormous old coal plant that had been proudly
Re: Profit and ecology align (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Wrong on almost all the important issues.
Wind or solar are not the cheapest form of power generation. By the time you add in backup, storage and transmission and constraint payments wind and solar are several times the cost of gas or coal. The backup by the way will not be batteries. See later.
There are no grid scale battery systems for backup. There are large battery installations for smoothing. Give a source for this claim. Give an example of where one is installed, and say how many hours of demand i
Re: Profit and ecology align (Score:2)
Re: Profit and ecology align (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Any necessary energy-intensive product could serve this purpose - it doesn't even have to be an energy storage medium like jet fuel. Steel, aluminum, cement - these consume vast amounts of energy to produce. So if, say, aluminum production could be done intermittently without ballooning the cost (this would probably require making it automated) you could do a lot of load shaping
Re: (Score:2)
Correction - current TRENDY renewables are intermittent.
There is a very popular old school renewable that has been with us over a 100 years, and it's good for the the grid in multiple ways - it can be a "black start" power source, it can handle base loads, and it c
Re: Profit and ecology align (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I have wondered if the nearly-free power on sunny days could be used to run a factory that turns carbon dioxide into jet fuel. I don't know enough about this to even guess whether it would be economical. But if the main obstacle is that it would take a lot of power... see the part above about "nearly-free" extra power.
I was thinking more along the lines of using excess power for either electrolysis to produce hydrogen fuel, desalinization for areas that need it, or to run large-scale polymerization plants. I think there have been some pilots of polymerization - they've just been too expensive due to energy requirements. Basically the goal is to shovel landfill in, and have the organic stuff (including plastics) end up as hydrocarbons, and leave the metals behind. The hydrocarbons can then be refined back into whatever de
There's places in the world where coal... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: There's places in the world where coal... (Score:2)
Re: There's places in the world where coal... (Score:2)
Re: There's places in the world where coal... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
coal has been falling as a percentage of the energy mix, from over 80% in 2007 to 64% in 2018.
In 2007, China generated 3500 TWh of electrical energy.
In 2018, China generated 7500 TWh of electrical energy.
3500 * 80% = 2800 TWh from coal in 2007
7500 * 64% = 4800 TWh from coal in 2018
Re: There's places in the world where coal... (Score:2)
Re: There's places in the world where coal... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Strange, all that coal and they still produce less CO2 than Americans...
Probably just someone trolling but this needs to be addressed since some idiot modded it up.
https://climate.selectra.com/e... [selectra.com]
As you can clearly see, China produces over twice as much carbon as the United States. An this is just carbon. China is also the leading source of plastics in the ocean.
Re: There's places in the world where coal... (Score:2)
Poland (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Off the Grid (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Off the Grid (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Of course not. It's all the solar panels fault.
Re:Off the Grid (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Sounds like you would have been better off getting a wind turbine for that installation. Didn't you do your basic research before spending all that money?
In any event, your edge case is not relevant to grid scale renewables at all.
Re: (Score:2)
Sounds like you would have been better off getting a wind turbine for that installation. Didn't you do your basic research before spending all that money?
Wind is best at scale. There is much more wind more often the higher you go above the ground. For small installations unless you are in a particularly windy area you'll see better return putting that money into PV and batteries or better still conservation which is by far typically best ROI for off-grid installations.
In any event, your edge case is not relevant to grid scale renewables at all.
Any thoughts on why it wouldn't be at all relevant? There are only so many parameters in a grid dominated by intermittent renewables. Your primary levers to meet demand are storage, transmi
Re: (Score:2)
The huge differences between a single dwelling with solar and a grid are:
- The grid has a mix of sources, the dwelling has one.
- The grid can move energy around, the dwelling cannot.
- The grid can control demand to a far greater extent without causing discomfort.
- Renewables on the grid are widely dispersed i.e. experiencing different weather conditions.
Re: (Score:2)
... but we'll keep burning coal anyway.... (Score:2)
Do you want to be dependent on China? (Score:2)
A high percentage of the gear(solar panels, wind turbines or batteries) that generates the green energy comes from China.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Do you want to be dependent on China? (Score:2)
Re: Do you want to be dependent on China? (Score:2)
Hydrogen isn't an energy source, but a battery (Score:2)
You can't find free Hydrogen lying around on Earth, you need to put energy into something to make it. The Hydrogen is the storage of the energy. The energy source was something else, possibly burning coal, but nuclear, solar, and wind also work.
Hydrogen can be extremely useful, and may be a good choice for airplane fuel, but it's not an energy source, it's a chemical battery.
Re: (Score:2)
Conflation (Score:2)
Are they talking about capacity or actual use?
California already has excess solar capacity during summer days. But it can't use it.
Europe has plenty of wind capacity, but it can't use it because no wind.
Re: Conflation (Score:3)
Define "Renewable" (Score:2)
You can bet "renewable" includes such gems as
Burning Biomass, waste or biofuels made from palm oil.
This is of course a false narrative and "Greenwash"
Im right.
Re: Define "Renewable" (Score:3)
every morning (Score:4, Informative)
Every morning a new sun pops up over the horizon. Seems pretty renewable to me.
Lets ask the experts
Solar Power will Eventually be the Crisis (Score:2)
Every morning a new sun pops up over the horizon. Seems pretty renewable to me.
Let's talk in a few billion years' time. When the sun starts to enter its red giant phase solar power is going to cause a global warming crisis that will dwarf today's concerns with coal.
Re: (Score:2)
And this is why I have two clocks on my wall, so twice as many people can tell what time it is.
Re:renewables? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah...that larger energy source might be depleted in a few billion years. Please try not to be so blatantly stupid.
Re: (Score:2)
The real kicker is that it doesn't make any difference if we use solar or not. The sun is going to emit that energy regardless. All collecting it does is create some additional shade underneath the panel, it doesn't cause the sun to consume more of its fuel.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah...that larger energy source might be depleted in a few billion years. Please try not to be so blatantly stupid.
Would add that when that larger energy source is depleted, Earth and humanity will have more pressing questions beyond whether or not I can charge my phone.
Re: (Score:2)
Your comments really remind me of my Part 1A chemistry lectures at Cambridge in 1992. The lecturer got really wound up about organic food not actually being organic because it wasn't all based on carbon chemistry, there were inorganic compounds too. I remember talking to my friends about it afterwards, and the bemusement we felt that a grown adult would use a lecture to pretend to refuse to concede to a bunch of really quite clever students that the word "organic", like lots of other English words, has more
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Within limits, of course. If you want to stretch the definition, natural gas is renewable: just wait 100 million years and new gas beds will form, and for free!
One of the open questions is what are the practical limits of any power source. We seem to be able to find new fossil fuel reserves faster than we use them, that's why proven reserves are higher now than 30 years ago. We seem to be at a limit for hydro, having dammed pretty much every river we're willing to dam (at least, in the US). Nuclear is defin
Re: (Score:2)
Less and machinery will be fossil based as time goes on
ditto
tip: transition takes time.
Re:renewables? (Score:5, Insightful)
There is no such thing.
This is the stupidest comment of the entire thread. And congratulations on a frist psot. Well done for hitting two goals in one post.
Energy taken from the atmosphere, harvested from incident radiation is renewed by the sun continuously. We are not extracting energy from the sun. It continues to fuse hydrogen at the same rate regardless of what we do. We do not deplete the sun by extracting the available energy for our own purposes.
Re: (Score:2)
There is no such thing.
This is the stupidest comment of the entire thread.
Trust me, it's going to get worse just as soon as the rest of the Trumpkins and the nuclear fan-club arrive.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Just get with the program
fossil fuels (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Solar, taking energy from the sun. is not replaced. Wind, takes energy form the sun, not replaced
Yes, technically both these power sources are ultimately using up hydrogen, as it gets converted to helium in the Sun. But an energy source is a renewable if it uses energy that would be expended anyway. A river running downhill expends the same amount of energy whether or not humans capture some of it in a dam. That is what makes hydro a renewable.
Re: (Score:3)
Wind turbines and solar can help with that, as hydro already does.
When there is a blackout, it's difficult to start the grid up again. You need at least one energy source to provide excitation current for the generators at coal, gas, and nuclear plants. Quite a lot of current, in fact.
Often hydro is used as it can often bootstrap itself with a small permanent magnet generator. Solar doesn't need excitation current at all. Wind turbines can use it, or they can have permanent magnet motors that don't. The lat
Re: (Score:2)
That's something I am concerned about too. It's important that governments help people get solar installed, otherwise it will be those who can least afford it facing the highest bills.
Re:Maybe! But I don't recall Blackouts! (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, blackouts never happened until the invention of solar panels. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re:Maybe! But I don't recall Blackouts! (Score:5, Insightful)
https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/14... [cnn.com]
Re: (Score:3)
Coal doesn't help with that. It's a small part of the electricity generation, and it's very bad at electricity generation. Coal production is declining and nothing is going to stop that. It's amazingly dirty and no one wants that either. Preventing blackouts will be more effective with petroleum or natural gas than with coal.
Re: (Score:2)
Wind has been significantly cheaper than gas for a while now, even before Putin caused the price to shoot up.
It's just a matter of time until the amount of installed renewable energy makes gas uneconomical too.
Re: (Score:3)
Just checked with US DoE [eia.gov]. Coal is about 21.9% of use electricity generation, all renewables are about19.8%, nuclear is 18.9%. That's all roughly equal. It wouldn't surprise me if renewables are greater than coal by '25.
Note, this is only electricity, not all energy generation. It doesn't cover home heating, industrial uses, or transportation, all bastions of fossil fuels.
That being said, natural gas is 38.4%, almost double goal, renewables, or nuclear. I don't know who's taking market share from coal, natur
Re: Ukraine? (Score:3)
Re: Ukraine? (Score:2)