[HN Gopher] Wind and Solar Will Be 25% of Total U.S. Generating ...
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Wind and Solar Will Be 25% of Total U.S. Generating Capacity Within
Three Years
Author : geox
Score : 136 points
Date : 2023-07-24 20:11 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (electricenergyonline.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (electricenergyonline.com)
| FredPret wrote:
| It's truly exciting that we're electrifying cars and solarizing
| electricity. We'll all be driving around on sunbeams soon.
|
| Now we need to swap out the baseload from oil and coal to
| nuclear, and drastically increase our overall capacity so we can
| run as much of everything on electric.
|
| We'll probably use dead dino's for decades to come though,
| especially natural gas.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Now we need to swap out the baseload from oil and coal to
| nuclear_
|
| Not now. SMRs seem to be making real headway. No need to
| Deutschland ourselves by prematurely optimizing for a legacy
| design.
| nimbius wrote:
| regionally speaking, and state-to-state, the numbers are also
| pretty shocking
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_electri...
|
| California and North Carolina both generate nearly 50% of their
| energy from renewables for example.
| connicpu wrote:
| As another example, in April this year, Washington generated
| 73% of its electricity from non-carbon sources (Hydro, Other
| Renewables, and Nuclear). This number varies throughout the
| year of course. Some months have Hydroelectric production alone
| as high as 80% of the state's total generation.
|
| https://www.eia.gov/state/?sid=WA#tabs-4
| nonethewiser wrote:
| That sounds good but I cant help but be skeptical about that
| stat. It seems like consumption is the bottom line and I
| assume theyd highlight consumption of it was more favorable.
| What percentage of consumption is from renewables?
| philipkglass wrote:
| That state profile page doesn't highlight consumption
| statistics because that's not part of the standard short-
| form description produced by the Energy Information
| Administration. You have to visit other EIA pages to find
| out about a state's import-export electricity balance, like
| this one:
|
| https://www.eia.gov/state/analysis.php?sid=WA
|
| _Overall, Washington 's electricity net generation exceeds
| electricity demand in the state, and the excess power
| generated is sent to the Western Interconnection, a
| regional grid that stretches from British Columbia and
| Alberta in Canada, to the northern part of Baja California,
| Mexico, and across all or parts of 14 western states._
|
| Washington is a net exporter of electricity. It produces
| more electricity than it consumes.
| djha-skin wrote:
| Yeah, but that's because they have all those rivers and Hydro
| dams. Not something replicable across most of the US.
| bigyikes wrote:
| Also interesting to see that Texas accounts for nearly 10% of
| the country's renewable output, with Illinois at 7% and
| California at 6%.
|
| Texas has a lot of oil fields _and_ windmills.
| hadlock wrote:
| Texas has very roughly as much coast line as florida. Daily
| heating cycle of the land creates a pretty good heat pump to
| blow wind onshore in the afternoon . In Corpus Christi and
| Galveston they call it the 1:30 at 1:30pm which indicates the
| wind direction clocking that way in the early afternoon.
| Couple that with very low land value best served by feeding
| cows on it, makes Texas a great wind producer, and higher
| than average sunny days makes solar very easy.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| > Texas has very roughly as much coast line as florida.
|
| Sorry, but no.
|
| Florida (Method 1) 1,350 mi (Method 2) 8,436 mi
|
| Texas (Method 1) 367 mi (Method 2) 3,359 mi
|
| From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_
| territ...
| jgwil2 wrote:
| And at the same time the Texas state government is actively
| trying to sabotage the industry:
| https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/texas-
| republican-...
| robertlagrant wrote:
| Coming from the UK, where also media is of course always
| going to be biased, I have to say honestly, I read that,
| and one of its linked articles, and its phrasing seems _so_
| biased that I don 't feel like I'm getting a neutral (or at
| least balanced) take. How can one hope to just understand
| the facts of a situation when even senior politicians such
| as governers are just making such pot-shotty comments? It
| appears to be written to leave an emotional impression,
| rather than information, in the reader's mind.
| noobface wrote:
| Politics in the US long ago transitioned away from
| reasoned arguments backed with data. The polarization of
| parties has created a gulf too wide to scaffold an
| argument across. The emotional impression is the point,
| but it's not for you. It's for the people who already
| prescribe to this dogma. Reading that gets them excited
| and engaged. Ready to go vote for their "tell it like it
| is" political party.
| peyton wrote:
| Yeah it's tradition for Texas state legislators to drop
| by and dump a bunch of crazy shit. I'm seeing 12,000
| bills filed this past regular session. The next session
| is in 2025.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| Yeah its very slanted. Texas Monthly is nothing close to
| balanced. Its from Austin Texas.
| wintogreen74 wrote:
| and sun, and it's BIG
| MattGaiser wrote:
| Surprised Hawaii is so low. Would have thought costs would have
| pushed them higher than that.
| wonderwonder wrote:
| What's the plan with all of this capacity? Assuming we dont have
| anywhere close to the battery capacity to use this effectively at
| night and on non windy days. Are we looking at a future where we
| run on wind and solar in the day and fossil fuels at night and
| high capacity days?
| ianburrell wrote:
| Wind and solar are complementary, solar during the day and wind
| at night.
|
| In the short term, wind and solar provide power when they can
| and make up the difference with natural gas. That is much
| better than the current system of coal and natural gas. This
| extends to wind and solar providing all of the normal power.
| Then can have storage to cover the daily needs. There is no
| problem turning off wind and solar when not needed, but we will
| find ways to use the free power.
|
| In the long term, we can have so much wind and solar capacity,
| I have seen 3 times load, to cover nearly all the time. The
| excess power will be needed for carbon capture and fuel
| production. For the rare times when renewables aren't enough,
| can use hydrogen or other generated fuels as backup.
| dynamorando wrote:
| You seem to have some knowledge in this area. I'm curious
| your thoughts on Enhanced Geothermal?
|
| https://www.cnbc.com/2023/07/18/fervo-energy-hits-
| milestone-...
| Synaesthesia wrote:
| Geothermal is great, where it's available. According to the
| article you linked it's still quite expensive, but coming
| down in price rapidly.
| mbgerring wrote:
| That's a bad assumption, battery technology and deployment are
| both ramping up and battery capacity will likely massively
| increase in the coming years.
| bit_logic wrote:
| We need to stop thinking carbon chemical fuels are the problem.
| FOSSIL fuels are the problem, not carbon fuels itself.
|
| We should be blanketing every inch of desert with solar. And pair
| it to use excess energy for carbon fuels synthesis. Reuse all the
| existing natural gas power plants to run on synthetic carbon
| fuel. Batteries are not the solution for this. It only fixes the
| day/night imbalance, but not the seasonal summer/winter imbalance
| for solar production.
|
| But most importantly, we don't have time. We don't have time to
| wait for the beautiful, elegant solution of all cars EV, all
| power storage in batteries, all planes flying on electricity.
| Perfect is the enemy of good. Look at the arctic and ocean temps,
| we do not have time. The developing countries will not wait for
| the perfect nice solar and battery solution. We need to reuse as
| much of what we have now in a way that will make a difference for
| carbon output. Again, we do don't have time for the most
| efficient solution.
|
| What is industry good at? Mass producing a lot of stuff. We can
| do that now with solar. Stop worrying about matching it to daily
| power usage. Just pump out those panels and get it installed
| everywhere. Get the excess into synthetic carbon fuel and we can
| quickly make a difference in carbon output.
| oatmeal1 wrote:
| Even if we went 100% renewable today we would still be
| consuming vastly more resources than the earth can handle. The
| priority should be reducing needless and wasteful consumption.
| That means getting people out of cars and onto bikes or public
| transit. That means eliminating land use regulations that
| create inefficient sprawl.
|
| Of course that won't be the priority for the government though,
| because there aren't any special interests that can benefit
| from that. Politicians don't really care about the environment.
| Don't trust them to spend money fixing the environment.
| [deleted]
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _That means getting people out of cars and onto bikes or
| public transit. That means eliminating land use regulations
| that create inefficient sprawl_
|
| This is a generational project. We don't have time for it.
| That doesn't mean we can't do both. But we can't only make
| the long-term massive-upheaval play. While suggested with
| good intentions, it's the sort of thing a fossil-fuel
| lobbyist will latch onto as a stalling tactic.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| All sorts of special interests could benefit from that.
| manzanarama wrote:
| What resoruces are you talking about? Seems like everything
| can be solved with enough energy and the earth can surely
| produce enough energy through nuclear.
| numbers_guy wrote:
| > The priority should be reducing needless and wasteful
| consumption.
|
| In an utopian world I would agree with you. I find
| consumerism ugly as well. However, without consumerism there
| is no economic growth. Without growth no capitalism. Without
| capitalism no democracy and peace. It would completely upend
| our civilization.
|
| I mean consider how crazy everything goes when we have a
| small dip in economic markets.
| pkulak wrote:
| > use excess energy for carbon fuels synthesis
|
| Is that a thing? I know you can turn water and electricity into
| hydrogen, but that's not a carbon fuel.
| Armisael16 wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_fuel
| [deleted]
| tonymet wrote:
| what about natural habitats ? how are we going to maintain them
| Manuel_D wrote:
| What about them?
|
| Climate change prevention should distance itself from the
| environmental movement in my opinion. Make it clear that
| we're focused on stopping global warming for the benefit of
| humanity. Yes, blanketing deserts in solar panels will
| destroy habitats. Yes, mining lithium is ecologically
| destructive. And we should cut environmental regulation for
| both, because the survival of humanity is more important than
| desert tortises.
| pornel wrote:
| I presume that in the desert environments cool shade is a
| positive thing. Panels will cover only a small fraction of
| the land anyway.
|
| Even if it's not ideal, we have urgent big problems to solve,
| and comfort of lizards and thumbleweed is low on the list.
| tonymet wrote:
| maybe another biology class? every thing everywhere gets
| its energy from the sun.
| melling wrote:
| "But most importantly, we don't have time"
|
| "Look at the arctic and ocean temps, we do not have time."
|
| "Again, we do don't have time for the most efficient solution."
|
| Yes, we squandered 45 years not doing obvious things and
| waiting for the batteries to improve, etc.
|
| However, I sort of take issue with the "it's too late to do
| things the right way"
|
| We can stop burning coal. We are all time highs globally.
|
| https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2022/12/16/world/coal-use-record-hig...
| titzer wrote:
| I agree with most of your comment, but this:
|
| > We should be blanketing every inch of desert with solar.
|
| Please god, no. Solar is so much more useful close to where
| it's consumed, like rooftops and parking lots. Utility-scale
| solar power projects like this are just more corporate welfare
| boondoggles.
|
| And I happen to think that maybe humanity should learn how to
| leave some things alone. Deserts have fragile, intricate
| ecosystems. This fucks them up. We need to learn to stop
| fucking things up to gobble up more energy.
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| Utility/grid scale solar isn't just corporate welfare, it's
| old thinking regarding centralized production.
|
| The electrical industry fears becoming a mere 'backup' or
| network instead of generation and supply. Or people
| disconnecting from the grid entirely, destroying economic
| viability of the infrastructure. They're pushing laws in
| various states that make a structure uninhabitable if it
| doesn't have a grid connection.
|
| The only reason most people need to still be connected to the
| grid are low solar days and peak usage that the panels alone
| can't supply.
|
| In 10 years you'll probably be able to have an iron flow
| battery in your basement or backyard that is completely
| harmless and can meet peak needs, like running an induction
| stove or a heat pump.
|
| At that point, why do you need a grid connection? You don't.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| > At that point, why do you need a grid connection? You
| don't.
|
| I have a 6.7kW ground mount array. It generates 3x our
| needs in summer, 0.33 of our winter needs (we heat with
| air-source heat pumps). We'd need a battery as big as our
| house to deal with that.
| [deleted]
| sanderjd wrote:
| > At that point, why do you need a grid connection?
|
| Because winter happens?
| idiotsecant wrote:
| I am an electrical engineer that designs control systems for
| renewable power production for a living.
|
| Curious what makes you think that the overhead and
| inefficiencies inherent to a million small solar installs is
| somehow better than a single managed facility benefiting from
| economy of scale both for maintenance and design.
|
| Additionally, curious how you plan to address the problem of
| adding additional generation to existing way overloaded
| distribution systems to accomplish this. If this massive
| hypothetical solar install is all non-grid tied then fine, I
| guess, but you're losing a substantial amount of the power
| that's made that way.
|
| Distribution systems don't come for free and have many of the
| same problems as 'last mile' internet. Not terribly complex
| but expensive en masse, particularly in areas that are not
| densely populated (which is a lot of the US).
|
| There is a reason we spend a lot of money on transmission.
| Spending a lot of money on distribution helps a very small
| part of your network. Spending a lot of money on transmission
| helps a huge part of your network.
| walrus01 wrote:
| In my opinion the greatest benefits for large numbers of
| discrete small PV installs (with battery) is in places
| where it's uneconomical to extend the grid.
|
| I'll use some hard to reach parts of WA and BC and OR and
| ID for example. You might be able to build a nice
| house/cabin on a piece of rural land and find that setting
| the poles and running lines to bring basic 100A or 200A
| service to that house will cost $40,000.
|
| For 40k you can build quite a large off grid PV system that
| will have a reasonable ROI on it to serve the same loads,
| vs. spending 40k one time on construction costs for grid
| and then $50 to $200 monthly electric bills recurring for a
| long time after that.
|
| As far as grid tied decentralized power systems do I agree
| with you 100%. It is VERY COSTLY in labor and complications
| to do something like cover the roof of a Home Depot or
| similar warehouse-sized structure in grid feeding PV, as
| compared to doing medium-sized to massive scale ground
| mount PV on empty land somewhere.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| > For 40k you can build quite a large off grid PV system
| that will have a reasonable ROI on it to serve the same
| loads, vs. spending 40k one time on construction costs
| for grid and then $50 to $200 monthly electric bills
| recurring for a long time after that.
|
| Why would such an off-grid system have any monthly
| electric bills? Are you just pre-amortizing the cost of
| replacement batteries?
|
| EDIT: I'm an idiot. The bills are for the grid-tied
| option.
| bombcar wrote:
| They're saying that it's 40k once for PV or 40k once for
| a grid connection, but then you need to pay the grid
| operators monthly.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| Ah, thanks. I didn't read carefully enough.
| debo_ wrote:
| You are not (necessarily) an idiot. Misreading something
| doesn't make you stupid!
| nonethewiser wrote:
| > Curious what makes you think that the overhead and
| inefficiencies inherent to a million small solar installs
| is somehow better than a single managed facility benefiting
| from economy of scale both for maintenance and design.
|
| Location. Deserts are far from people. 80% of people in the
| US live on the east half of the country (and most of these
| on the eastern half of that). But even the midpoint is too
| far from deserts to use energy from it.
| caeril wrote:
| Transmission losses are a concern, but this is fairly
| irrelevant to the OP's original idea: that of producing
| carbon fuels in the desert and then transporting them.
| Most populated places in the US are pretty far from
| Erath, Louisiana or Cushing, Oklahoma, and we get by just
| fine under this arrangement.
| unusualmonkey wrote:
| > Deserts are far from people
|
| So... you've not heard of LA or Arizona or Nevada etc?
| maxerickson wrote:
| My town built a solar install on undeveloped land
| adjacent to the airport. That's lower impact than desert
| and cheaper than smaller installs would have been. I'm
| sure there's lots of situations like that, even in areas
| denser than the rural Midwest.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Transmission losses are tiny. Think single digit percent.
|
| Meanwhile urbal solar is many times more expensive, and
| vastly less efficient per panel.
| quags wrote:
| Not OP but I suspect some comes from what I would view as
| the ability to first add solar to where there is existing
| infrastructure like parking lots, roofs, telephone poles
| etc. These areas are already built out and adding solar on
| top of it doesn't take over an untouched eco system.
| Deserts are not voids of nothing ness and there is already
| a vast impact on the environment already.
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| > Distribution systems don't come for free and have many of
| the same problems as 'last mile' internet.
|
| Nor does centralized. The grid needs to be upgraded to
| handle the significant increase in demand. But more
| importantly, over-centralization will mean we're putting
| all our energy production in fewer baskets (than we have
| now). Decentralized is a form of a redundancy, a form of
| backup. It's also a form of independence.
|
| There's no single silver bullet. We'd be wise to blend, and
| blend wisely. And yes, they might have some added financial
| costs, but not doing it will surely come at other costs
| (e.g., blackouts).
| noiceyeha wrote:
| Engineering mitigate signal attentuation and paying all the
| middle men from Desert->a home thousands of miles away
| ain't cheap
| imperfect_light wrote:
| The problem is that it's become so difficult to tie into the
| grid that projects are being cancelled.
|
| There was a NY Times article on this (http://web.archive.org/
| web/20230226032242/https://www.nytime...) that mentioned that
| the PJM Interconnection, the biggest US grid, is not even
| accepting new applications for large projects until 2026.
| bsder wrote:
| > Solar is so much more useful close to where it's consumed,
| like rooftops and parking lots.
|
| Yes and no.
|
| Yes. In places like Southern California, rooftops and parking
| lot solar would do a _great_ job of providing power for mid-
| day consumption.
|
| No. This is far less effective in, say, Seattle or
| Pittsburgh.
|
| However, HVDC links are _really good_ at moving power over
| long distances. The US has _lots_ of places that are
| effectively completely uninhabited and would make really good
| spots for solar farms if they had an HVDC link.
| thinkcontext wrote:
| > Utility-scale solar power projects like this are just more
| corporate welfare boondoggles.
|
| Rooftop residential is 2x+ times as expensive as utility
| scale. Lazard's well regarded annual Levelized Cost of Energy
| survey puts the range for utility scale at $24 - $96 MWH vs
| $117 - $282 for residential rooftop.
|
| https://www.lazard.com/research-insights/2023-levelized-
| cost...
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| IIUC, levelized cost of energy DOES NOT include
| transmission costs: https://www.re-explorer.org/re-data-
| explorer/cost-of-energy/...
|
| Adding in transmission costs would make non-rooftop solar
| 2x+ more expensive...
| adventured wrote:
| And we should actually be doing both.
|
| For exactly the same reason we should subsidize the cost of
| nuclear energy to ensure a sustained ~25-40% nuclear base,
| we should subsidize solar locally (rooftop et al.) and
| utility scale.
|
| The answer isn't either or, it's all of the above.
| peter422 wrote:
| Also I'd assume the people who physically install rooftop
| solar are different than the people doing utility scale
| projects.
|
| We should be doing both!
| titzer wrote:
| > Rooftop residential is 2x+ times as expensive as utility
| scale.
|
| This may be true, but a residential install does eventually
| pay for itself in 5-10 years, and after that, effectively
| free power. So it's cheaper and better for consumers.
|
| How does that work? Oh yeah, it's because they don't have
| to pay for the maintenance of the _entire distribution
| network_ plus the profits of utility companies.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| > it's because they don't have to pay for the maintenance
| of the entire distribution network
|
| How is that going to be paid for?
| olyjohn wrote:
| Right you just have to pay for maintenance of all of your
| own equipment.
| pfdietz wrote:
| If a residential install pays for itself, it's because
| it's gaming the details of the rate structure. That is,
| it lets the consumer avoid paying for electricity at the
| full retail cost, while still deriving benefit from the
| distribution infrastructure those retail costs are
| supposed to pay for. This is neither honest nor
| sustainable.
| thinkcontext wrote:
| > This may be true
|
| So you are admitting its not a corporate boondoggle?
|
| > but a residential install does eventually pay for
| itself in 5-10 years, and after that, effectively free
| power.
|
| LCOE amortizes over the life of the system so that its an
| apples to apples comparison.
|
| > So it's cheaper and better for consumers.
|
| Its cheaper for the homeowner. Its likely more expensive
| for the other ratepayers, especially if there is net
| metering or RPS. They have to spend more on storage or
| flexible generation to combat the duck curve and have to
| make up for the fixed costs that net metering is not
| covering plus buy solar generation at the retail rate
| instead of wholesale. And its not a good deal for the
| taxpayer who is paying for a third of the system price
| since they are getting less carbon reduction per dollar
| than they would with utility scale.
|
| That last one combined with RPS has really gotten on my
| nerves lately. My city I've seen several panel
| installations done on the north side of a gabled roof.
| That's such a horrible deal for tax payers.
| m463 wrote:
| s/desert/unused land/
|
| That said, 100 sq miles of desert is 10 miles by 10 miles.
|
| also, distribution systems are pretty efficient, and power
| can be sent from sunny areas to areas with dimmer sun or
| clouds.
| specialist wrote:
| Surely u/bit_logic's enthusiastic phrasing was aspirational
| vs literal.
|
| That said, the bottle neck is now expanding and upgrading the
| grid. u/bit_logic is advocating we continue to build new
| generators, do not wait for the grid, and use that excess
| capacity to create green hydrogen. ASAP.
|
| aka known as The Correct Answer(tm).
|
| Here's an interview with Andrew Wang of ETFuels, who is
| executing this strategy, with paying customers, today.
|
| "Making shipping fuel with off-grid renewables" [2023/06/28]
|
| https://www.volts.wtf/p/making-shipping-fuel-with-off-grid
|
| https://overcast.fm/+oT_lO0G8Y
| kelnos wrote:
| * * *
| colordrops wrote:
| My understanding is that you only need to cover a small
| percentage of available desert to cover all needs.
| anonuser123456 wrote:
| >Solar is so much more useful close to where it's consumed,
| like rooftops and parking lots. Utility-scale solar power
| projects like this are just more corporate welfare
| boondoggles.
|
| What is more efficient, a utility with dedicated engineers
| and technicians who spend their days managing an install or
| clueless homeowners who can't even be bothered to clear the
| leaves off their panels?
|
| Installation and management for large scale commercial
| companies is _much_ cheaper. Bespoke rooftop installs require
| way more permit, engineer, contractor overhead. Oh year and
| don't forget to upgrade your roof framing and hope your
| installer doesn't ruin your waterproof membrane of your roof.
| Have a clay tile roof? There's another 5k in broken roof
| tiles.
|
| Transmission losses are in the noise by comparison.
|
| And when your components go out... a small potato install can
| basically go pound sand. A friend of mine has been out 18
| months b/c LG Chem recalled his battery and hasn't replaced
| it! They remotely disabled it, so it can't be used.
|
| Contrast that with a utility. LG chem would probably have a
| dedicated field agent to manage bad batteries for a utility
| scale buyer.
|
| >Deserts have fragile, intricate ecosystems. This fucks them
| up. We need to learn to stop fucking things up to gobble up
| more energy.
|
| You know what's worse for desert eco systems than solar
| installs? Climate change. Gobbling up 25% of the deserts to
| prevent the other 75% from becoming totally uninhabitable
| sounds like a bargain to me.
|
| We need more solar as soon as possible. Messing up the desert
| to save the artic and permafrost is a winning bet every time.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| > Installation and management for large scale commercial
| companies is _much_ cheaper.
|
| Even when you need to transport it thousands of miles?
| Thats where most people are in relation to the deserts in
| the US.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| The tradeoffs:
|
| 1. we already have a grid
|
| 2. the US southwest is where the sun is. insolation per
| unit of area is crazy high compared to elsewhere, meaning
| you need less panels per unit of generating capacity.
| anonuser123456 wrote:
| 2.5% loss per 1000km.
|
| 1.45$/w for commercial install
|
| 2.95$/w for residential install.
|
| That doesn't include management economies of scale.
|
| Big chunks of the US can't do solar in the winter, so you
| need long range transmission anyway.
| walrus01 wrote:
| Long distance transmission of massive amounts of electricity
| is a solved problem, it just requires funding and political
| will to do it. Look at the Pacific DC intertie which takes
| power from the massive hydroelectric dams associated with the
| Columbia River down to California.
|
| There is no serious reason why solar power plants in the UT,
| CA, NV, NM and AZ deserts can't transmit power 1000 to 1500
| km to far-away loads.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| 1500km from those deserts doesn't even begin to reach most
| major population centers. It needs to get much further than
| that to be impactful on the bulk of the population.
| Animats wrote:
| This is what modern long distance transmission looks
| like.[1] This is a 12 gigawatt line running at 1.2 million
| volts.
|
| China does a lot of this, because the good power sources
| are in northwest China, and the big loads are in the
| Southeast.
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZ2KfrP_R3s
| ericpauley wrote:
| Got numbers to back that up? Intuitively, it is far cheaper
| to put solar panels on the ground than bespoke micro-installs
| on every roof.
| WaxProlix wrote:
| > Utility-scale solar power projects like this are just more
| corporate welfare boondoggles
|
| Citation strongly needed. Especially in a context where
| turning sun power into carbon-based fuel wouldn't want to be
| in a parking lot, but could be near or even colocated with a
| large solar installation.
| titzer wrote:
| Ivanpah (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivanpah_Solar_Power_
| Facility): $2.2 billion for 392 megawatts, including a $1.6
| billion federal loan guarantee. It'll be profitable (yay!)
|
| ..but that'd pay for 100,000 - 200,000 residential solar
| panel installs that would primarily benefit...residential
| homeowners. That'd be a ton of jobs, too. And there'd be no
| power-company profits.
|
| We could crunch numbers on how much more efficient a
| utility-scale plant is, but look at the reality of who ends
| up with the money and the profits and who has to keep
| paying the same damn power bills.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| > but that'd pay for 100,000 - 200,000 residential solar
| panel installs that would primarily benefit...residential
| homeowners. That'd be a ton of jobs, too. And there'd be
| no power-company profits.
|
| If those homes are not grid-tied, good luck with
| electrically-powered heat pumps as a winter heat source
| during the winter anywhere that has a winter. Not
| everyone has (and for the foreseeable, can have) a
| Passivhaus.
|
| So that means the local grid has to be able to accept the
| overflow in summer and deliver in winter, which means ...
| power-company _involvement_ and likely profits.
| atourgates wrote:
| My biggest case against utiliy-scale solar is that it
| (can) displace important natural ecosystems. Whereas home
| or commercial solar nearly always is just displacing
| rooftops, or parking lot covers.
| Analemma_ wrote:
| Ivanpah is a CSP plant; that technology is a dead end and
| its cost numbers have nothing to do with PV plants, which
| are the only kind which get built now.
|
| With the benefit of hindsight, Ivanpah should never have
| been built, but at the time both CSP and PV looked
| competitive, and so it made sense to invest in both. Now
| it does not.
| Veserv wrote:
| That is a solar thermal system not a photovoltaic system.
| You are comparing different technologys.
|
| Last I checked, solar thermal is not a price competitive
| utility scale generation technology; photovoltaic is.
| That facility was probably funded as a large scale
| experiment to investigate the viability of solar thermal
| at increasing scales (or corruption).
|
| The gigawatts of new utility scale PV being brought up
| every year are largely privately funded and cheaper than
| existing generation sources (in the current context).
| hinkley wrote:
| I'm sure somewhere along the way someone called the idea of
| centralizing power distribution in the first place a
| corporate welfare boondoggle.
|
| After all, why can't these industries generate their own
| power, like in the good ole days?
| tspike wrote:
| This quote from Wendell Berry often occurs to me in these
| contexts:
|
| "One possibility is just to tag along with the fantasists in
| government and industry who would have us believe that we can
| pursue our ideals of affluence, comfort, mobility, and
| leisure indefinitely.
|
| This curious faith is predicated on the notion that we will
| soon develop unlimited new sources of energy: domestic oil
| fields, shale oil, gasified coal, nuclear power, solar
| energy, and so on.
|
| This is fantastical because the basic cause of the energy
| crisis is not scarcity: it is moral ignorance and weakness of
| character.
|
| We don't know how to use energy or what to use it for.
|
| And we cannot restrain ourselves.
|
| Our time is characterized as much by the abuse and waste of
| human energy as it is by the abuse and waste of fossil fuel
| energy."
| anonuser123456 wrote:
| Someday, when the last red dwarfs are burning out and all
| the black holes have evaporated, the Malthusians will get
| their "see we told you so" moment. Thankfully that day
| isn't today.
| tspike wrote:
| > when the last red dwarfs are burning out and all the
| black holes have evaporated
|
| An odd timeline to consider, given the speed with which
| this chapter in existence seems to be unfolding.
| baron816 wrote:
| There are better alternatives than rooftops. Covering canals
| and reservoirs works well because it also prevents
| evaporation. Farms and grazing land can also be covered with
| solar since a lot of plants and animals prefer not to be
| under direct sunlight all day.
| billythemaniam wrote:
| Imagine if every big box store parking lot was covered with
| a solar panel roof? Customers walk to the store in shade
| and out of rain, cars aren't extremely hot in summer when
| customer returns, electricity for EVs right there, excess
| can go to grid or batteries, not disruptive to anyone or
| ecosystem, large sizes. Obviously someone has to pay for it
| which is always the tricky bit.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| Here in Santa Fe (and urbanized NM in general), you're
| seeing this not in big box parking lots (yet), but in
| public building parking lots (including schools).
|
| It is freakin' awesome. I imagine the 2nd graders at
| school around here, growing up with the idea that you can
| make electricity from sunlight just as second nature to
| them as the internet is to all of us freaks here on HN.
| billythemaniam wrote:
| Awesome!
| jrockway wrote:
| > Solar is so much more useful close to where it's consumed
|
| I'm not really worried about this. Humanity has already
| invented the greatest utility-scale battery. Pump water
| uphill when it's sunny. Let it flow back down, through a
| turbine, when it's dark out. No lithium needed!
|
| People often talk about the space required for pumped hydro,
| but it's probably a lot less than all the shopping mall
| parking lots in America.
| ebiester wrote:
| On the coasts, I think that's viable.
|
| It's not viable where water is a valuable resource.
| dumpsterdiver wrote:
| I wonder how efficiently a similar solar powered lift
| system would work for a "dirt battery"?
|
| The *dirt battery I have in mind would be a vertical
| pulley system with small dirt scoops spaced at regular
| intervals. The scoops would pull dirt from the bottom of
| the pulley system and bring the material to the top were
| it is dumped into a mechanically locked, very large
| container. Over time the container would fill up, and
| when that stored energy is needed the container could be
| unlocked, at which point it would power a clockwork of
| turbines on its way down.
|
| Thoughts, critiques?
| Armisael16 wrote:
| It's less efficient than normal electric batteries and
| will take up far more space.
|
| Gravitational storage only works in the very particular
| case of water, where moving it is downhill nearly
| perfectly efficient and free, and where you can also get
| free energy from things like rivers feeding in.
| sanderjd wrote:
| I'm slightly confused by this so I think I might just be
| missing a critical piece of the puzzle: Wouldn't natural gas
| plants burning synthetic carbon fuels still emit some portion
| of that carbon into the atmosphere?
| numbers_guy wrote:
| In theory the carbon would be sequestrated from the
| atmosphere. In practice that is very energy intensive.
| Manuel_D wrote:
| Yes, but it'd be net-zero based on the carbon used to produce
| the fuel. In theory at least, in practice most synthetic
| methane has only been produced by scavenging CO2 byproducts
| from the chemical industry. It's not truly net-zero rather
| it's releasing CO2 that would have been emitted anyway. CO2
| is in too small concentrations in the atmosphere to
| effectively capture.
| sanderjd wrote:
| What I was missing was that the assumption here is that the
| input carbon is being sucked out of the air. As you point
| out, that isn't the only way to get it...
| bobthepanda wrote:
| Synthesis of carbon fuels from what's already in the air is
| theoretically net-neutral if you use clean energy to do it;
| you're just taking what's there, and putting back what you
| took.
|
| The main issue with fossil fuel is that we are burning
| embodied carbon from millions of years ago, throwing the
| present system out of whack.
| sanderjd wrote:
| Ah! I see, you mean carbon capture and utilization as
| synthetic fuel. Yeah I think that's a good idea to pursue,
| though I have a lot of skepticism that it will be able to
| scale faster than other stuff that's going on (like battery
| storage and enhanced geothermal).
| bobthepanda wrote:
| We do have applications where batteries don't seem like
| they can solve fundamental physics issues.
|
| Batteries are too heavy for cargo ships to float, and too
| heavy for planes to fly. The only other real credible
| alternative is hydrogen, which has been trying to get off
| the ground for about three decades now. And of course we
| have all the extant hydrocarbon infrastructure that would
| need to be duplicated.
| sanderjd wrote:
| You'll note that I didn't say we should use batteries for
| everything :) I think synthetic fuels are a great idea
| and I look forward to watching how the whole competitive
| landscape plays out between those and hydrogen-based
| solutions and (maybe??) really small nuclear.
| anon84873628 wrote:
| Not to mention all the combustion engines that already
| exist around the world. Just look at the prevalence of
| motor bikes in India and Southeast Asia. Can we really
| replace all of them with electric tech? Synthetic fuels
| or ethanol are a drop in replacement.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _pair it to use excess energy for carbon fuels synthesis_
|
| Is _de novo_ gasoline or diesel synthesis profitable at
| proximate prices?
| _hypx wrote:
| It depends on whether direct air capture of CO2 can be cost
| effective. If so, then it can happen. E-fuels will just be
| renewable energy plus water and air. That is likely to be
| pretty cheap. If DAC isn't doable, then it probably can't be
| profitable.
| ant6n wrote:
| No. And its a huge waste of energy. E-fuels are more likely a
| fairy tale you tell people so they won't buy electric cars.
|
| Where I live, the fossil gas industry has been running ads
| promoting green hydrogen, and of course fossil gas as a clean
| "bridge technology" to H2. So just keep running that gas
| heating system, cuz it'll switchover to H2, for sure, at some
| decade in the future.
| codingdave wrote:
| We also need to stop asking if it is profitable to save
| humanity.
| xyzzyz wrote:
| No, this is very wrong. You always need to be asking this,
| because you want to be using the most effective approach
| towards your goals, and price signals are irreplaceable
| tool to determine the effectiveness.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _We also need to stop asking if it is profitable to save
| humanity_
|
| Profitability approximates economic sustainability.
|
| If this fuel costs $100/gallon, it's cheaper and thus more
| sustainable to aggressively subsidize EVs before
| synthesising fuel. If, on the other hand, it costs
| $6/gallon, funding its production with a tax on fossil
| fuels makes sense.
|
| Rejecting reality "to save humanity" is a false economy.
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| Absolutely wrong. If it isn't profitable it won't happen,
| society will just choose to kill itself. We need to make it
| profitable.
| phkahler wrote:
| >> We should be blanketing every inch of desert with solar.
|
| Has anyone solved the water problem? You know, cleaning all
| those dusty panels.
| ke88y wrote:
| https://news.mit.edu/2022/solar-panels-dust-magnets-0311
| FollowingTheDao wrote:
| > What is industry good at? Mass producing a lot of stuff. We
| can do that now with solar.
|
| No, we can't. Because the U.S gets the majority of its goods
| from China [1]. So we have to get China to install all those
| panels.
|
| [1] https://ustr.gov/countries-regions
|
| We need to consume less. Please start consuming less, ok?
| FollowingTheDao wrote:
| :_^(
| xyzzyz wrote:
| > We should be blanketing every inch of desert with solar. And
| pair it to use excess energy for carbon fuels synthesis.
|
| Is there any EROEI analysis for this approach? Direct air
| capture of carbon is rather energy intensive, because CO2
| concentration in the air is really rather low, whereas making
| solar panel is very energy expensive. If we can't get enough
| _useful_ energy from the panels during their expected lifetime,
| we shouldn't be blanketing deserts with those.
|
| Also, blanketing the deserts with panels is difficult due to
| environmental regulations, read eg. about desert tortoises at
| Ivanpah, and the cost of their relocation. If we want to use
| deserts to generate energy, first we need to solve the problem
| of environmental regulations blocking it.
| numbsafari wrote:
| > solve the problem of environmental regulations blocking it
|
| Or, like, come up with solutions to the environmental
| externalities posed by blanketing anything with solar panels.
| xyzzyz wrote:
| There is no guarantee that this is possible.
|
| For example, if farming didn't already exist, it would
| probably be illegal to start it, because of how turning big
| patches of earth into monoculture completely destroys
| preexisting ecosystems. There is no known effective way to
| mitigate this damage, efficient farming at scale requires
| this, and inefficient methods will require more land and
| likely cause more damage.
|
| Similarly, blanketing deserts with solar panels will very
| much significantly damage existing fragile desert
| ecosystems. You can maybe avoid some of the negative
| aspects by carefully chosen procedures, but in general,
| there is no way around it.
|
| The question is whether the specter of environmental
| destruction will hold us hostage, and allow other,
| grandfathered environmental destruction to proceed.
| anon84873628 wrote:
| Permaculture people would probably argue about the higher
| productivity of permaculture systems (which theoretically
| have a better shot at maintaining/mimicking natural
| ecosystems) versus standard monoculture farming. The
| problem is that permaculture outputs don't fit neatly
| into the existing industrialized food supply chain.
|
| In theory we could produce more food and fuel while
| preserving diverse ecosystems, but it would require
| refactoring our entire conception of what we eat, how it
| is produced & preserved, distributed, etc...
| xyzzyz wrote:
| "Permaculture" is just a meme among hobby farmers with an
| environmental knack, it's simply not possible to feed the
| people this way (whatever permaculture actually is in
| practice, as it seems to mean something different every
| time I hear about it), and even then it still destroys
| the preexisting ecosystems.
|
| > The problem is that permaculture outputs don't fit
| neatly into the existing industrialized food supply
| chain.
|
| No, that's not a problem, "food supply chain" will buy
| produce from you with not a lot of concern of how you
| have grown it, as long as it meats the specs. The problem
| with "permaculture" kind of stuff is that it simply
| doesn't produce adequate amounts of food, relative to
| required investment of labor. That's the problem with it,
| not "industrial supply chain".
|
| > In theory we could produce more food and fuel while
| preserving diverse ecosystems, but it would require
| refactoring our entire conception of what we eat, how it
| is produced & preserved, distributed, etc...
|
| I hear this kind of vague stuff often, but rarely any
| concrete proposals. Whenever I do, these almost always
| involve reducing the human population to a fraction of
| existing population, and have the remaining ones consume
| only a fraction of what people consume today, with higher
| labor investment required from each. This is, obviously,
| a non-starter, which is why actual, concrete proposals
| are not forthcoming.
| Plasmoid wrote:
| Quick napkin math.
|
| Direct air capture is about $300-$600/ton of CO2. The numbers
| for this are terrible as everyone is posting estimates of
| what it'll cost by 2030. So let's pick $300/ton of CO2.
|
| If we could convert captured CO2 directly into gasoline, it
| would have a market price of $170. This is already pretty
| problematic because I'm ignoring the cost of getting the
| hydrogen for gasoline, or the fast that 75% of CO2 is useless
| oxygen.
|
| More realistically, there is $60 worth of gasoline in that
| ton of CO2. And you still need to pay to get those hydrogen
| molecules.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Direct air capture of carbon is rather energy intensive_
|
| How does it compare to letting plants do the capture?
| anonuser123456 wrote:
| So like... grow switch grass, harvest it and burn it to
| harvest the flu gas co2?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _grow switch grass, harvest it and burn it to harvest
| the flu gas co2_
|
| Idk if you burn it. Digest it, maybe, into a fuel or
| whatnot. My point is biomass is a more-familiar
| industrial input than whatever comes out of direct-air
| capture .
| anonuser123456 wrote:
| co2 is pretty valuable as feedstock. If you burn it , you
| can recover the potassium and phosphorus to reseed the
| next batch.
| anon84873628 wrote:
| Well once you have the grass you could just ferment it
| into ethanol... An option that has been available to us
| this entire time...
| ebiester wrote:
| That works for things like E85, but does not for airplane
| fuel or diesel or natural gas or...
|
| The density of ethanol is the issue, no?
| Veserv wrote:
| The price of a good is almost always higher than the price of
| the energy invested (usually significantly). Solar panels are
| used for generating energy. Therefore, if a solar panel is
| profitable to buy and operate, then it almost certainly
| generates more energy than it cost to produce.
|
| Solar panels are profitable and are one of the cheapest
| marginal sources of power in many places. Therefore, solar
| panels are almost certainly net positive.
|
| Synthetic fuel generation is probably not in the current
| environment. Storage is not a major problem yet at the
| current power generation mix. It may become competitive if
| storage becomes a problem, or if solar drops in price by 66%
| or more.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| "Factoring in FERC's forecasts for hydropower, geothermal, and
| biomass, renewable energy sources would expand from today's
| 28.01% of installed generating capacity to 33.85% - i.e., over a
| third - by May 2026."
| asdefghyk wrote:
| This is good. A BIG problem, with renewable energy is storing
| large amounts of it until it is wanted to be used, when sun not
| shining and or wind not blowing. Batteries are expensive, ( have
| limited capacity compared to the total supply needed) and need to
| be regularly replaced. The need for upgraded/ new transmission
| lines and network infrastructure is another large cost.
| tamaharbor wrote:
| And adding zero base load capacity to the grid.
| dpierce9 wrote:
| The growth rate of this installed capacity is just astounding.
| Lots to say about timing, land use, tax incentives, stranded
| costs, etc but it is truly remarkable just how much steel/silicon
| has been put in the ground over the last decade.
| dynamorando wrote:
| I realize that this article is about Wind + Solar, but given this
| breakthrough, can anyone who is an authority on the subject
| explain if EGS is also set to take off?
|
| https://www.cnbc.com/2023/07/18/fervo-energy-hits-milestone-...
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| Note that this is the raw number, it doesn't account for the low
| capacity factor of wind and solar. In other word it doesn't
| account for the fact that solar doesn't produce power at night,
| etc. So it might not be 25% of the energy produced. Although
| it'll probably get close -- the capacity factor of other sources
| is well below 100% and dropping quickly because of competition
| from cheaper sources like wind & solar. For example, the capacity
| factor of coal plants in the US is only 60%, not much better than
| wind's.
| hanniabu wrote:
| > solar doesn't produce power at night
|
| I've always wondered, if we had a huge solar farm in a nevada
| or arizona desert, could we have a satellite with a mirror lens
| to redirect sun from above the horizon down to the panels so
| they can generate power throughout the night as well?
| nonethewiser wrote:
| That's a very interesting concept. Even completely putting
| solar aside. Im just imagining a cluster of satellites
| redirecting light at will to make it daytime whenever we
| want.
| mbgerring wrote:
| Why do people keep writing comments like this as if utility
| scale batteries don't exist?
| mschaef wrote:
| Because they don't at close to the necessary scale. This site
| shows a projected July load profile for ERCOT (Texas) in
| 2035:
|
| https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/news-
| insights...
|
| Note that Storage contributes for about four hours and at its
| peak comprises less than 7% of the total load serving
| capacity in the state.
|
| I'm not saying batteries don't exist and aren't useful, but
| the scale is very small at the moment. Too small to be a
| comprehensive way to balance out the low load factors of Wind
| and solar. (Which are also a useful but incomplete component
| of the overall electrical portfolio.)
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| Going by that projection, they should build a lot more
| solar and wind rather than worry about batteries.
| Aperocky wrote:
| They exist and are finite in cycles.
| aaronax wrote:
| It costs somewhere around $300/kwh to build utility-scale
| storage. Say they can cycle 3000 times. We find that just the
| storage costs $0.10/kwh, which is in the range of generation
| costs themselves (probably double wholesale generation
| costs). So one cannot assume to be able to cheaply store
| power in utility-scale batteries.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| That 3000 number is 0 - 100 - 0 cycles. You can get almost
| an order of magnitude more by using the sweet spot of the
| battery: 20 - 80 - 20 for standard nickel Li-ion batteries,
| and 30-100-30 for LiFePO4 batteries.
| biomcgary wrote:
| Is that an order of magnitude of cycles or energy
| throughput?
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| Cycles. Li-ion goes from ~600 -> ~3000, LiFePO4 from
| ~2000 -> ~9000. So "order of magnitude" is a bit of an
| exaggeration, and the 5x reduces to 3x when you use
| energy instead of cycles. But 3x is still pretty
| significant...
| Pxtl wrote:
| The day/night performance of Solar is pretty interesting in the
| South, where solar's cycle nicely correlates with air-
| conditioning.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| In Texas they're currently seeing some solar plants producing
| above nameplate capacity exactly at the time when air
| conditioning demand is at record levels.
| jillesvangurp wrote:
| There's a simple technology called a battery that is being
| produced at twh scale per year now that addresses this. On
| sunny days, charge the batteries from sunrise until sunset.
| And then people can cook, run the AC, etc. Fairly easy
| problem to solve. Charge during the day, cool at night.
| Battery prices keep on getting more and more attractive.
|
| Solar in the US is easy. Most of the US is south of most of
| Europe. If people in Germany at 52.5 (Berlin) degrees
| latitude can economically use solar, it should be no issue
| whatsoever for people at 40.7 degrees latitude (New York).
| Not to mention those lucky people blessed with long, warm
| sunny winter days at 25 degrees latitude (Miami), 29.7
| (Houston) or 37 degrees latitude (San Francisco). Plenty of
| light there all year round. Most of the US actually matches
| Northern Africa in terms of latitude. Marakesh for example
| would be at 31 degrees latitude. That means a relatively
| stable and longish amount of time between sunrise and sun
| set. About 9 hours of daylight in New York around
| Christmas. More for anything south of there. Texas should
| be more than fine. There's a reason temperatures are so
| toasty there in the summer. It's at the same latitude as
| the Sahara desert. Plenty of light in other words.
|
| For most of the US, solar should be usable throughout the
| year. It being cold doesn't mean it's dark. Also, solar
| panels actually work better when they are cool. So cold
| temperatures and sunny days are a good combination. Clouds
| are more of an issue, of course. But they are more of a
| local thing and they you don't have those every day. And
| even they let through some light. If you have to wear sun
| glasses to protect your eyes when you go skiing, it's an
| excellent day to be generating solar power as well.
| smileysteve wrote:
| We also have new battery technologies (suitable for grid
| style storage).
|
| Such as Vanadium Redox flow batteries;
|
| There was a big push for local salt reactors for cities
| or neighborhoods, but Vanadium Redox flow batteries could
| be a local solution to level demand from Solar/Wind -- or
| more simply, to balance load during the day; ie run ACs
| off of liquid batteries that charged last night.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| Winter is not only worse for solar because the sun is
| less intense, but also because its cloudier.
| colechristensen wrote:
| At 45 degrees north solar also nicely correlates with air
| conditioning needs.
| abfan1127 wrote:
| it does not cycle well with heat in the North though.
| baridbelmedar wrote:
| It will also be interesting to follow how the development
| of solar and wind power will affect the stability of the
| electricity grid and the ability to prevent large
| fluctuations in frequency.
| est31 wrote:
| Even outside of air conditioning, generally the demand is
| higher during the day than during the night. It's often off
| by one hour or so though as there is often a peak in the
| evening.
| FollowingTheDao wrote:
| That is a huge guestamate by the "SUN DAY" campaign which is
| funded by who...?
|
| Also, "on track to provide a quarter of the nation's installed
| electrical generating capacity within three years." is a way to
| make something sound much bigger than it is.
|
| If you look at this chart you get a better idea of the real
| picture: https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=56980
| harryvederci wrote:
| Meanwhile in Scotland:
|
| https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-56530424
| hazelnut wrote:
| to save you a click: "Renewables met 97% of Scotland's
| electricity demand in 2020"
|
| great job, Scotland!
| onpointed wrote:
| Capacity is not measured output, right?
| mywittyname wrote:
| No. Capacity is reported in Watts, but usage is reported in
| Watt-hours.
|
| While coal has considerably less capacity (~60%) than
| renewables, but coal generates nearly as many kilowatt hours as
| renewables do.
|
| https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/electricity/electricity-...
|
| Annoyingly the charts are misleading as generating capacity
| separates hydro from other renewables, yet actual generation
| figures combine the two.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Is this servicing new demand or is it replacing fossil-fuel
| generation?
| dymk wrote:
| Both
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| There's a third answer -- it could be increasing the resiliency
| of the grid. In other words, it could be increasing the gap
| between supply and demand so the grid can better handle times
| of exceptional demand and/or supply outages.
|
| And the answer is all three, but mainly the third. Some coal
| plants are getting shut down, but many coal plants are still
| online but are being idled more often.
| legitster wrote:
| The US is actually very well situated for green power.
|
| As comparison, Germany installed one of the largest solar and
| wind systems in the world - however being not particularly sunny
| nor windy, it's only generating about 54% of its rated capacity:
| https://spectrum.ieee.org/germanys-energiewende-20-years-lat...
|
| Germany, one of the largest national investors in green power in
| the world, is only _keeping up_ with the US on decarbonization.
| WheatMillington wrote:
| America also has a lot more headroom to decarbonise, as per
| capita emissions are almost twice that of Germany. So not quite
| time to pat oneself on the back.
| throwbadubadu wrote:
| If Germany doing it moved the rest it was still well invested
| even if not intentional... and 50% is not bad, just need twice
| as much.
| mywittyname wrote:
| > FERC foresees a net decline of 1,564-MW in natural gas
| generating capacity over the next three years in addition to a
| drop of 19,966-MW in coal capacity.
|
| EIA.gov reports coal capacity is 198 million kilowatts, so,
| unless my math is wrong, that's ~10.0% of total coal capacity.
| (19,966 MW = 2.00e7 kilowatts vs 1.98e8)
|
| I do wonder if recent political trends were considered. Lots of
| "coal country" states are doing everything they can to curb
| adoption of renewables and I believe WV is looking to subsidize
| coal.
|
| Edit: corrected billion to million - OG calcs were off by a
| factor of 3.
| philipkglass wrote:
| _EIA.gov reports coal capacity is 198 billion kilowatts_
|
| Are you perhaps misremembering units? A billion kilowatts is a
| terawatt. 198 terawatts is more electrical generating capacity
| than exists in the whole world. As of November 2022 the EIA
| says the US had 200,568 megawatts of coal capacity:
|
| https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=54559
|
| That would mean that about 10 percent of US coal capacity is
| going to retire over the next 3 years.
| mywittyname wrote:
| I plucked the data from here [0], so no misremembering on my
| part. US Capacity Generation by Major Source: 2022 Coal
| 198.00 billion kilowatts.
|
| However, I don't guarantee that I didn't misplace a decimal
| point. Honestly, the point of my comment was to get someone
| to double-check my work because it didn't feel right.
|
| https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/electricity/electricity-.
| ..
|
| Edit: doh - I used billion when it said million.
| two_handfuls wrote:
| Honestly I was hoping for more.
| FredPret wrote:
| Life can always be more wonderful. Doesn't mean it's not pretty
| great already
| Synaesthesia wrote:
| There's no reason why China should be leading the U.S. in
| transitioning to green, it just shows that it can be done.
| Lots of European countries did it too.
| [deleted]
| adam_arthur wrote:
| Economics are what will drive renewables adoption.
|
| People can try to convince others of the importance all they
| want, but once renewables are cost competitive with fossil fuels,
| the majority will switch of their own volition... no convincing
| needed. EVs are already on the cusp of this
|
| Of course everything is a bit reflexive... less dependency on Oil
| will drive lower oil prices and vice versa.
| Synaesthesia wrote:
| Maybe the government should stop subsidising fossil fuels, just
| a thought.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| You need the technology in place to deal with the fact that
| solar and wind are not demand-based systems (so, basically,
| storage). That goes beyond the generation cost, and prevents
| switching even if generation cost is far lower.
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