In a First, Renewables Beat Coal In the US Power Sector In 2022 - Slashdot
source link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/23/03/28/0019220/in-a-first-renewables-beat-coal-in-the-us-power-sector-in-2022
Go to the source link to view the article. You can view the picture content, updated content and better typesetting reading experience. If the link is broken, please click the button below to view the snapshot at that time.
In a First, Renewables Beat Coal In the US Power Sector In 2022
Do you have a GitHub project? Now you can sync your releases automatically with SourceForge and take advantage of both platforms. Do you have a GitHub project? Now you can automatically sync your releases to SourceForge & take advantage of both platforms. The GitHub Import Tool allows you to quickly & easily import your GitHub project repos, releases, issues, & wiki to SourceForge with a few clicks. Then your future releases will be synced to SourceForge automatically. Your project will reach over 35 million more people per month and you’ll get detailed download statistics. Sync Now
-
by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @12:23AM (#63405106)
Yeah you will. The reason for the drop is mostly because natural gas is taken over so much of coal's market share. Meanwhile coal miners continue to be an effective prop used by the right wing to block serious efforts to switch to renewables.
We needed the Green New Deal, but the left wing in America really sucks at messaging and instead of focusing on the jobs through a little bit of social justice crap in there and a whole bunch of right wingers who would have realized they shouldn't be right wingers and joined them on a massive jobs program instead dismissed the idea as being "woke".
That failure in messaging set us back 20 years.-
It's still good news, given how terrible coal is in general
-
Indeed. Gas is a big improvement over coal. We should not make perfect the enemy of good.
Also, as we transition to more wind and solar, we will need gas-powered peakers to smooth supply until storage gets much cheaper.
Gas is good.
-
Renewables are good. Gas is merely less shitty than coal or oil.
-
We should be looking for a solution to the de-sequestration of fossil carbon before we successfully re-create the Permian–Triassic extinction event. Nat-Gas ain't that solution.
-
We could allow the world to return to pre industrial revolution times - that would put a real dent in the emitted greenhouse gases.
-
-
This should really be at +5 insightful or informative.
NatGas is a real blessing, as we don't want society to collapse while we transition to other energy systems.
Coal is nasty dirty, from mining to burning to disposal of the fly ash. And it is pretty well mapped out how much there is as well. At this point, we just have to decide if we really want to lop off the top of the mountain and destroy the adjacent valleys beside them.
Nuclear still has it's problems, with adherents proclaiming anyone who isn
-
-
Coal mines are being found to be quite useful for renewals. They're finding a lot of rare earth metals in a number of mines and to a degree in coal ash.
-
-
Unfortunately in the political spectrum what determines an outcome is not how good the opposition's arguments are but how bad your own are.
I believe any failure in the political ring can be attributed to moderates on your own side doing a piss-poor job of handling the extremists... Again on your own side.
-
Indeed. Making Bernie and AOC the most visible advocates of the GND was not a smart political move.
-
It doesn't matter who backs it. The right wing media will paint them as monsters, existential threats to your way of live and prosperity.
-
The problem was not "the right-wing media."
The problem was the mainstream media.
The GND never got traction, not from the media, not even from center-left politicians.
It was unrealistically ambitious and mismanaged from start to finish.
-
-
Why? They're both smart, principled, and trustworthy. Who would you put up instead?
-
Because the GND was an abysmal failure and that didn't need to happen.
Anyone. Not even center-left Democrats wanted to face re-election after standing with AOC and Bernie.
-
-
-
-
Uh, hello, the "We Love Inflation But Call It Infrastructure" bill was the GND renamed and extra porked up.
Best to say nothing than demonstrate ignorance.
Why do you hate the poor, the working class, the disabled, the old and everyone else on a fixed income? Those bills don't create jobs. They increase inflation.
Now pull my finger as you tell everyone how socialism is the answer to government created inflation from tossing extra trillions into the economy.
-
-
-
Or how much backup generation the wind and solar facility operators supplied for the periods when their renewable production dropped off because the sun went down or the wind stopped blowing, compared to how much they relied on the grids they fed into to provide the dispatchable power when their own production was inadequate. It is not an improvement to bring 30GW of wind or solar generation online to replace 30GW of coal-fired production if you have to keep the coal-fired production in service to cover the
-
The idea then, is that every renewable generator needs to have a battery to supply to the grid constantly. But say I have ten solar farms, maybe it would make more sense to have a single battery. But each farm needs to supply the grid constantly. So, I have to connect these ten farms up to one battery then connect that to the grid. In essence I have to great a second grid behind the first. Nuclear plants would also face a massive problem because they would either need to run permanently a reduced capacity o
-
So, I have to connect these ten farms up to one battery then connect that to the grid.
Perhaps you should read up what a grid is.Hint: the battery can be where ever....
-
-
-
-
That's actually a pretty interesting question.
If the batteries are made to be easily recycled, then yes, but many are made to be disposable.
I imagine that there is no reason whatsoever to make batteries used on the power grid not recyclable other than being evil on purpose.-
"but many are made to be disposable." - are you talking about EV/grid/stationary storage? if so, please post link to that analysis
-
I'm talking about the ones that go in devices made out mostly of glass and glue like phones.
-
-
-
Redwood won't be profitable for years, says their ceo... if ever says me. They're just a startup who made promises and got contracts. They may fail to deliver, but people can believe the typical startup 3 Hs of hope, hype and hooey.
-
-
Citation needed. What grid-scale batteries are not recyclable?
It is plausible that in the future, sodium batteries might not be recyclable since sodium is so cheap it isn't worth it, but sodium batteries are not currently used for grid-scale storage.
-
There's actually no reason for grid storage batteries to have the same energy density of EV batteries. You could probably even just use lead acid batteries, if you have enough space for them.
-
-
-
I do know that in California last year, for example, the power companies asked people not to charge their electric cars because demand was so high that it would have overstressed the system
That sounds suspiciously like a half truth. Let's see here...
"During a Flex Alert, consumers are urged to reduce energy use from 4-9 p.m. when the system is most stressed because demand for electricity remains high and there is less solar energy available," the release said.
I knew it.
-
No idea about the US, but one can look at prices to understand this better. When surplus power is generated when not needed prices should be low and when there is not enough power prices should go up. Europe gives us some data to look at. For Germany, which now has a substantial amount of renewables on the grid (~ 50% of public generation in 2022 was from renewables), export and import prices are pretty balanced: (In 2022: 237 EUR / MWh import vs 223 EUR MWh/export, 2021: 94 vs 100, 2020: 42 vs 44, 2019: 4
-
Data:
- Germany is emitting ~450g CO2eq/kWh, has extended lignite mining on its own soil just last year, and is building new gas plants as we speak (they also successfully petitionned the EU so that gas is labelled as green energy)
- on the other hand, France is emitting ~45g CO2eq/kWh since 40 years, and has been a net exporter of low carbon electricity since 40 years too, except in 2022 (and 2023 looks like a net export year son far)This is the différence between someone who is just pro-renewable
-
I always find it pretty funny when France is used as an example of how it doesn't work, despite having a 40-year history of it working for providing low-carbon energy generation.
-
France is just an example of how it's much more expensive than people imagine it to be. It doesn't say it doesn't work, it says it doesn't deliver on its promises.
-
It delivered on the promise of independent and carbon-free energy 40 years ago.
It's cool that spot prices can go negative when the wind is blowing a lot in Germany but it's a pointless comparison when the grid still emits 10x more CO2.
-
-
-
-
-
Depending on the country, nuclear has an availability factor of 70 to 90%. That is actually worse than offshore wind and desert solar.
The Mojave has 350 cloudless days each year. That is 96%.
-
No it's not. Offshore wind is like 40% and the sun doesn't shine at night.
-
He is talking about "availability".
No idea what your 40% is supposed to mean... 60% of the time is none, not enough, or to much wind "off shore" ??? On which planet?
and the sun doesn't shine at night.
And a heat based solar plant does not need sun at night... you knew that, right?-
The OP seems to be using "availability factor" interchangeably with "capacity factor", which is average generation / nameplate capacity.
The capacity factor for offshore wind is around 40%: https://energynumbers.info/uk-... [energynumbers.info]
Yes? I'm not advocating for thermal solar plants so I'm not sure what this is about.
-
-
-
Average availability factor for nuclear in Europe is about 70%, but some countries go as low as 50%.
For comparison, offshore wind is already at 50%, and the next generation ones will be even better. That 50% is more reliable and predictable too. Wind we can predict in the short term with great accuracy, but a nuclear plant scan scram and take a gigawatt or more off the grid with no warning.
Another danger is you get a situation like Japan, where nuclear availability goes to 0% for years. It's pretty unlikely
-
"Some countries" is doing a lot of heavy lifting there
-
Wind we can predict in the short term with great accuracy, but a nuclear plant scan scram and take a gigawatt or more off the grid with no warning.
How often has that happened?
Serially producing Small Modular Reactors just heightens that risk, because at the moment the industry can at least argue that all the plants are different.
So kind of like how modern airliners are much more risky than old ones because there's a very small number of types serially produced?
-
I believe he is saying "yes, the Industrial Revolution was bad at producing things of consistent quality, it was better when everything was custom hand made".
An amusing argument I'd love to see him try to make.
-
I don't have stats on nuclear emergency shutdowns for the UK, but the National Grid has to help reserve spinning in case it happens.
As for airlines, yes that happenes from time to time. Recently all the 737 MAX aircraft were grounded.
-
-
I heard the next generation will be able to reach up to 170% availability factor!
Or did you mean capacity factor? I know, who cares about using correct terms anyway.On a more serious note, no it is not. This is why Germany, after 30 years of full-gas (pun intended) investment on wind/solar is still building new gas-plants, and keeps mining lignite for its coal-plants.
Here we go again with Amimojo made up numbers! Let the festival begin.
Even France, which uses its nuclear plants in a load-following mode, is-
Even France, which uses its nuclear plants in a load-following mode, is at ~77% capacity factor [wikipedia.org].
Last time I checked, the term "about 70%" is completely in line with your 77% quote.
Or did the meaning of "about" change recent years?CFs are pretty irrelevant, so no idea why people bring them up constantly. Obviously a load following plant has a lower CF than a fire and forget base load plant that runs 365/24 as close as possible to 100% output. So the same power plant type, has a different CF d
-
30 years? In they don't started going fully in on it around 2010.
-
-
-
-
-
You should hear some since the articles about this mentions how environmental groups are still blocking the use of nuclear energy.
The stupidity of the environmental groups still continue even more since anyone who has looked at energy usage knows that most coal plants have been converted over to natural gas, so of course coal usage will be down. However global wise coal usage did increase last year. -
I'm not going to wail and gnash teeth, but I was pretty pissed off to have rolling blackouts for the first time pretty much ever this past December because TVA took 8GW of coal out of the grid over the last ten years and replaced it with 3GW of natgas and 1GW of renewables. Anybody keeping score at home can see that there is 4GW of capacity that was simply not replaced, and 1GW of what was replaced is intermittent.
If you want to replace coal, fine, but at least do so in a way that keeps the fucking lights
-
And some of them have mod points, and marked you as troll.
I'll use my clairvoyant powers now. A few will bemoan how the wind doesn't blow constantly, and that solar power can never work because it gets dark
When in fact, there are places that do have constant wind, and there are these things called batteries, as well as hydraulic energy storage, already in use at power plants.
Then they'll yap about how since nothing else could ever work, that we need to go all in on nuclear power, which is perfectly gr
Recommend
About Joyk
Aggregate valuable and interesting links.
Joyk means Joy of geeK