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More than 94% of net new electricity capacity in the USA from renewables in 2017
- ghouse 9y agoBecause it's less expensive. And it isn't exposed to forward price volatility of fuel.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- simooooo 9y agoLess expensive to some. But heavily subsidised by the taxpayer
- wklauss 9y agono more than coal or oil.
- ecpottinger 9y agoProbably, far less than coal or oil. For coal we should look at all the health costs cause by mining and burning coal. For oil we should not only look at the tax breaks the companies get but also how much of the military (percentage wise) exists to protect oil interests. The health costs of the renewables are a lot less.
- kgilpin 9y ago> military Although, the USA is about 90% energy independent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_energy_independence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_energy_independe...
- siidooloo 9y agoForeign volatility could still effect prices in the US.
- api 9y agoIt's not about where the oil physically comes from so much as managing the global oil market. We might not get much oil physically from the middle East anymore but volatility there affects the price here. Oil is a global market.
- candiodari 9y agoHowever, on one front they're incredibly bad. Renewables are usually just that : a piece of infrastructure that needs to be built and needs no fuel beyond it's environment. In other words it's capital investment taking out operational expenses. It's capital investment reducing the size of the economy. Or to put it very bluntly : it's free electricity for the rich, by making electricity for the poor more expensive (because the rich and companies will no longer share the burder of maintaining the electricity grid). To add insult to injury, solar also doesn't require people, and wind only a bit more. All of them are far below what fossil fuels require on a per megawatt basis. At least we can laugh a bit at the fact that this only cements the position of the very top of the wealthiest of our society: even though your landlord and your bank probably don't realize it, it will cost them income, indirectly, not just you. And for added bonus points, we are judging renewables by how they affect the environment at minimal capacities. Now that's great and all, but renewables make electricity free. Now here's fossil fuels: sun -> earth -> plants -> animals ... -> goto plants and loop a few 100 times -> get buried -> become coal/oil/gas/... Here's renewables: sun -> earth -> technology XOR plants. Currently that's 0.1% technology 99.9% plants. So, tell me, what happens when the inevitable Jevon's paradox happens ? When we waste electricity like there's no tomorrow, and have a "renewables" everywhere. They'll still be renewable, of course. But it'll be 99.9% technology 0.1% plants. And no worries, I bet we'll have a few choice spots for the ultra-rich that are left green. Clinton's "public" library-style places. But not for you and me, as we can't own any of this. And of course, when do we do this ? When we're about 50% through reasonably extractable fossil fuels. So how polluted is the world going to be with renewables ? Why exactly as polluted as without, as all available fossil fuels will be burned, and we weren't going to burn anymore than that, for obvious reasons. So it could easily turn out that renewables do one thing, and one thing only: give humans a reason to claim every last square centimeter of the planet surface, with the potential exception of the poles (although just deprioritizing them could work too). I mean, I like renewables in concept. But economically and from the perspective of inequality, they're disastrous. I'm not convinced that they're any good from an ecological standpoint either. But yeah, they'll make the center of cities somewhat more livable for a decade or two, maybe more, while driving more people out. Generally making things more comfortable. And as SV'ers on a "barely livable" wage of 200k per year, that's all that really matters, isn't it ?
- CapitalistCartr 9y ago" . . . forward price volatility of fuel." This is more important to most companies than cheapest price. It enables them to plan with more certainty.
- fineng123 9y agoThis headline is such clickbait. Netting out all fossil fuels is silly. Natural gas is alive and well and growing quite quickly, while coal is suffering.
- alex_young 9y agoAgreed. Link should be changed to reflect this.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- NickM 9y agoWhy would you call it silly? The headline basically implies "total fossil fuel generation has stopped growing, while renewables have grown substantially," which is both accurate and interesting. The fact that the coal/gas mix has shifted toward gas doesn't change the fact that total fossil-based generation capacity has basically leveled off.
- fineng123 9y agoBecause it's a lie. A lot of natural gas plants came online in 2017, which makes it a lie.
- pwinnski 9y agoYour objection is that natural gas shouldn't be considered non-renewable? Or that the comparison happens at too high a level? If you'd like to write about the shift from coal to natural gas, that's probably worth drilling down to one level below this comparison, but that doesn't make this comparison invalid or misleading.
- jtbayly 9y agoWhen you define "new" in such a way that you can only count renewables then it's really not "new" is it? Unless you can come up with some stats that prove that all of the non-renewable production that was added was directly replacing old non-renewable production, and all of the renewable production was added just to meet new needs, then you have no case.
- jtbayly 9y agoThis is a misleading headline. The article speaks of "net new," which is not the same as "new." In point of fact, as the article says, slightly less than half of new utility scale power production came from renewables (12321 out of 25041 MW).
- jtbayly 9y agoHere is a better article, which is referenced in the original article: https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=34472# https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=34472# It is titled "Nearly half of utility-scale capacity installed in 2017 came from renewables"
- jtbayly 9y agoAlso of interest, total renewable additions are down in 2017, compared to 2016 (dropped from 17 to 12 GW), as is the percent of the additions (dropped from 62% to 49%).
- dannypgh 9y agoI disagree that it's misleading. Net new seems equivalent to "new capacity" to me. The new non-renewable electric producers are mostly replacing retired fossil sources. I suspect a lot of the churn in fossil-based plants is from age as well as newer regulations. I do hope they subtracted out whatever amount of renewables were turned down, but I suspect it likely wasn't much (but I lack data).
- sctb 9y agoThanks, we've reverted the submitted headline to that of the article.
- jasoncartwright 9y agoSubmitter here. Thanks. I regret editing the headline.
- yodsanklai 9y agoDoes it come as a replacement of old coal plants or does it add to existing plants?
- velodrome 9y agoNo money going towards nuclear.... If people were serious about ACTUALLY reducing carbon emissions, then baseload power production would be nuclear. Please look at France as an example. France: 5.0 metric tons per capita (2013) US: 16.4 metric tons per capita (2013) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_di... Nuclear power is the largest source of electricity in the country, with a generation of 416.8 TWh, or 76.3%[2] of the country's total production of 546 TWh, the highest percentage in the world. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_France https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_France
- coding123 9y agoBecause of this: https://www.ucsusa.org/nuclear-power/nuclear-power-accidents/history-nuclear-accidents#.WlpO45M-fBI https://www.ucsusa.org/nuclear-power/nuclear-power-accidents...
- yodsanklai 9y agoAccidents occur but this needs to be compared with alternative sources of energy. Even dams cause much more environmental issues and casualties than nuclear [1]. And let's not even talk about coal. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dam_failure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dam_failure
- bartkmq 9y agoNuclears problem is not accidents but irrational fear. For comparison here are the deaths per PWh produced¹. Coal 100,000 (US: 10,000) Nat. Gas 4,000 Hydro 1,400 (US: 5) Solar 440 Wind 150 Nuclear 90 (US: 0.1) Nuclear is the safest option available and at the same time the only energy source that is stable and scalable. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_accidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_accidents
- jswizzy 9y agoI use to be a Rad worker and have even cleaned up a few "spills". Nuclear accident fears are based on accidents that occurred in plants that were designed with primitive nuclear technology by people who were just starting to understand the technology. Innovations like pebble bed reactors make release of fission particles highly unlikely. Just like rocket technology though nuclear technology has advanced leaps and bounds. It's also the only power source that could get us to Mars.
- ZenoArrow 9y agoThe article is misleading. Here's the EIA article it references: https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=34472 https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=34472 Here's another EIA article that suggests that electricity derived from natural gas is on the rise in the US: https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=29732 https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=29732 I'm all for renewables, but twisting the facts does not help skeptics take renewables more seriously.
- gipp 9y agoDisagree... Your second link cites 11.2 GW of new NG capacity for 2017, which is less than the 11.8 GW of retired fossil-fuel capacity over the same time (per the original article). Besides which, saying that the vast majority of net capacity increase is in renewables doesn't mean that fossil sources aren't also going up. In fact, unless it's 100% of new capacity, fossil fuel sources are definitely going up, by definition. There's no real conflict or twisting the facts there.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- yongjik 9y agoIf I understood it correctly, the title is very misleading. It's trying to compute percentage of values where the total sum can be either negative or positive. Imagine a hypothetical scenario: California added 90 GW worth of new power plants, Texas added another 360 GW, and New York decommissioned old power plants totaling 350 GW. Assuming all other states remained the same, the national power capacity increased by 90+360-350=100 GW. But if I say "California added 90% of net new electricity capacity," it gives a very misleading impression. The fact that this is silly is clear when we consider Texas: it added 360% of net new electricity capacity! More fun happens if Iowa decommissioned additional 110 GW of power plants. Now the national net increase is -10 GW, and California contributed -900% of that. DISCLAIMER: I'm not an electricity expert. Please correct me if I misunderstood anything.
- dennisdamenace 9y agoKeep in mind capacity does not equal generation. A solar facility with 1MW of capacity will generate 1MW at it it’s peak moment, maybe, on a good day. Given the lat, weather and season, maybe you will get 8MW hours total for the day. Whereas a 1MW gas plant could produce 24MW hours for the day. In other words you could have 100MW of renewable capacity and have 0 generation if it is too cold, dark or calm.
- the8472 9y agoOther plants don't operate at 100% capacity either due to variable demand, the cost of spinning them up and down, river water being too warm for cooling, cost of fuels, being displaced by renewables etc. Sure, nighttime imposes a hard cap on the capacity factor of solar, but solar is not the only renewable power source. Natural gas plants may have a much higher theoretical limit, but in practice they are limited by more expensive fuel.