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No amount of Trump insisting on saving coal will save it at this point. We've hit an inflection point where wind and solar are getting to be cheaper and it's le

No amount of Trump insisting on saving coal will save it at this point. We've hit an inflection point where wind and solar are getting to be cheaper and it's less risk to place a turbine or panel. Barring new coal subsidies or taxes on renewables, coal won't grow in the US. Tesla isn't having a great look on Wall Street, but that's because investors priced them as a tech company instead of a car manufacturer. They're having demand issues, but they'll adjust and markets will adjust the way they price Tesla shares. They still had no trouble raising funds despite serious new direct competition. Solar is making huge international wins from cheaper, non-domestic manufacturers, including a few of the first massive installations to come in cheaper than coal. Immigration is a real issue, of course, but a lot of companies have adjusted by opening R&D offices in Vancouver to be close to the border and the time zone of US tech offices.

StreamBright 7y ago
If you are comparing solar and wind to coal you are missing the point by 10.000 miles. Coal is base load energy, wind and solar is for peak. You cannot control when the wind blows and over night there is no solar energy. You cannot store a large amount of energy (at least without massive destruction of land). Combining these, you need base load power plants, options: coal, nuclear. In some countries water could be a small fraction of the base load (I think Austria does that). If you have enough wind and solar you can use them to help out with peak but the same amount of fossil peak load has to be in your system as much as wind you got because something has to counter balance the fluctuation wind means. Options for peak load: wind, solar, oil or gas turbines. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_load https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_load https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_demand https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_demand
- icebraining 7y ago
  I'm no expert, but I bet base load is mostly an artifact of having fossil fuels, not a reason to keep them around. When you have cheap storage in the form of coal or oil barrels, it makes sense to just use energy whenever. But that will change - people will change their behaviors and business processes to adapt to the new conditions. Energy-expensive activities will become asynchronous - programmed to run whenever energy is cheap. Guaranteed energy - knowing you'll have a certain amount of kWh to spend at a specific time - will be expensive, and will be mostly used for prioritizing when the production is low. Once your real base load drops enough, you won't need much storage to keep up even when production is abnormally low. Keeping a coal plant for the rare situations in which storage isn't enough, simply won't be economical. A natgas plant is more likely.
  - StreamBright 7y ago
    I only have a degree in this but you know nowadays on Hn anything goes. Regardless if I literally quote wikipedia about the subject, there are people who know better. Based on this, base load is dead, long live solar + wind!
    - icebraining 7y ago
      No offense intended. I did preface by saying I'm no expert. I'm basing my opinion on what I've read by some people, such as: "What we need for this fluctuating renewable energy in the electricity mix is not baseload. Baseload is poison for our electricity transition in Germany," -- Thorsten Herdan, a director general for energy policy at the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy "The idea of there being an average or 'base' electricity load, doesn't make sense. Let alone having this sort of big, slow-changing power station to meet that load," -- CSIRO Energy Director Dr Glenn Platt. "Technology has moved on from base load, and now you want flexible power. And that's what demand management, batteries and pumped hydro is," -- Professor Andrew Blakers, director of the ANU Centre for Sustainable Energy Systems. And reports like Brattle Group's "Advancing Past “Baseload” to a Flexible Grid", and a few more which I have forgotten the name of. And of course, knowing about the tech (IoT and such) that enables real-time communication of energy prices. And finally, my own guess that people will change their behaviour if it hits their wallet. Sorry if I misread or got the arguments wrong.
      - StreamBright 7y ago
        None taken. You are quoting politicians and their wishful thinking here. Of course, they say what you want to hear. I could answer you by writing a very lengthy essay, but I do not have the time or motivation to do that. Instead, if what they are saying is true why does Germany has 7 outs of 10 of the worst CO2 producing sources in the EU all of them are coal power plants? https://infographic.statista.com/normal/chartoftheday_17582_megatonnes_of_co2_equivalent_in_the_eu_n.jpg https://infographic.statista.com/normal/chartoftheday_17582_... The answer is: German mass hysteria made the country to turn off its nuclear power plants (you know, the other type of base load power plant that does not produce CO2) while not having any other option because renewables are not going to give you enough power. As a result they run on coal. Lets add to the mix of the price of doing that: https://ibb.co/rvJ1Wb2 https://ibb.co/rvJ1Wb2 So to sum it up, Germany produces the most CO2 in the EU and having the most expensive energy price by a large margin. This happens when you try to bend reality to your ideology instead of facing the challenges of our world and try to solve it. It should be clear at this stage that without serious advencement in storing energy you cannot have a green solution to our energy needs. My prediction to the future, we are going to use solar + nuclear in the future because the combination of these two gives the best option of humanity and also because these work in a setup when you need the energy in space.
onepointsixC 7y ago
You're right that coal can't be saved, but not because of wind. Natural gas is dirt cheap and can be a reliable base load while being even more flexible with fast startup and shutdown times.

StreamBright 7y ago

If you are comparing solar and wind to coal you are missing the point by 10.000 miles. Coal is base load energy, wind and solar is for peak. You cannot control when the wind blows and over night there is no solar energy. You cannot store a large amount of energy (at least without massive destruction of land). Combining these, you need base load power plants, options: coal, nuclear. In some countries water could be a small fraction of the base load (I think Austria does that). If you have enough wind and solar you can use them to help out with peak but the same amount of fossil peak load has to be in your system as much as wind you got because something has to counter balance the fluctuation wind means. Options for peak load: wind, solar, oil or gas turbines. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_load https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_load https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_demand https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_demand

icebraining 7y ago
I'm no expert, but I bet base load is mostly an artifact of having fossil fuels, not a reason to keep them around. When you have cheap storage in the form of coal or oil barrels, it makes sense to just use energy whenever. But that will change - people will change their behaviors and business processes to adapt to the new conditions. Energy-expensive activities will become asynchronous - programmed to run whenever energy is cheap. Guaranteed energy - knowing you'll have a certain amount of kWh to spend at a specific time - will be expensive, and will be mostly used for prioritizing when the production is low. Once your real base load drops enough, you won't need much storage to keep up even when production is abnormally low. Keeping a coal plant for the rare situations in which storage isn't enough, simply won't be economical. A natgas plant is more likely.
- StreamBright 7y ago
  I only have a degree in this but you know nowadays on Hn anything goes. Regardless if I literally quote wikipedia about the subject, there are people who know better. Based on this, base load is dead, long live solar + wind!
  - icebraining 7y ago
    No offense intended. I did preface by saying I'm no expert. I'm basing my opinion on what I've read by some people, such as: "What we need for this fluctuating renewable energy in the electricity mix is not baseload. Baseload is poison for our electricity transition in Germany," -- Thorsten Herdan, a director general for energy policy at the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy "The idea of there being an average or 'base' electricity load, doesn't make sense. Let alone having this sort of big, slow-changing power station to meet that load," -- CSIRO Energy Director Dr Glenn Platt. "Technology has moved on from base load, and now you want flexible power. And that's what demand management, batteries and pumped hydro is," -- Professor Andrew Blakers, director of the ANU Centre for Sustainable Energy Systems. And reports like Brattle Group's "Advancing Past “Baseload” to a Flexible Grid", and a few more which I have forgotten the name of. And of course, knowing about the tech (IoT and such) that enables real-time communication of energy prices. And finally, my own guess that people will change their behaviour if it hits their wallet. Sorry if I misread or got the arguments wrong.
    - StreamBright 7y ago
      None taken. You are quoting politicians and their wishful thinking here. Of course, they say what you want to hear. I could answer you by writing a very lengthy essay, but I do not have the time or motivation to do that. Instead, if what they are saying is true why does Germany has 7 outs of 10 of the worst CO2 producing sources in the EU all of them are coal power plants? https://infographic.statista.com/normal/chartoftheday_17582_megatonnes_of_co2_equivalent_in_the_eu_n.jpg https://infographic.statista.com/normal/chartoftheday_17582_... The answer is: German mass hysteria made the country to turn off its nuclear power plants (you know, the other type of base load power plant that does not produce CO2) while not having any other option because renewables are not going to give you enough power. As a result they run on coal. Lets add to the mix of the price of doing that: https://ibb.co/rvJ1Wb2 https://ibb.co/rvJ1Wb2 So to sum it up, Germany produces the most CO2 in the EU and having the most expensive energy price by a large margin. This happens when you try to bend reality to your ideology instead of facing the challenges of our world and try to solve it. It should be clear at this stage that without serious advencement in storing energy you cannot have a green solution to our energy needs. My prediction to the future, we are going to use solar + nuclear in the future because the combination of these two gives the best option of humanity and also because these work in a setup when you need the energy in space.

onepointsixC 7y ago

You're right that coal can't be saved, but not because of wind. Natural gas is dirt cheap and can be a reliable base load while being even more flexible with fast startup and shutdown times.