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"The intermittency... can be addressed by... natural gas" That is indeed a great way to argue that renewables can do it all. Cynical individuals would even co

by 08-15 7y ago

"The intermittency... can be addressed by... natural gas" That is indeed a great way to argue that renewables can do it all. Cynical individuals would even conclude that they just use renewables as a convenient talking point to shill for fossil methane.

imtringued 7y ago
I don't understand this argument. Renewable energy and fossil fuel usage can be summarized in a single number: percentage of energy produced by renewables. As long as that number goes up everything is fine. Switching to natural gas allows that number to go up even faster. So why does it matter what label is attached to the fossil fuel part of the number? What a lot of people seem to forget is that the CO2 level doesn't care about the time of the day the CO2 is emitted or whether you use 80% fossil fuels on one particular day and then 30% on every other day. Intermittency doesn't prevent renewables from reducing CO2 emissions, unless of course people ban the transition technology called natural gas. Then it doesn't even make sense to close the coal plants and we will have neither renewables nor will we stop using fossil fuels and the fossil fuels that are still in use, will be the dirtiest kind because coal emits more CO2 emissions per kWh than natural gas. Once you realize the crucial difference between a peaker plant and a "baseload" plant you will start to realize that it's the baseload plants that are holding everything back. Peaker plants have low capital costs. They can be built in a short time frame. Unlike a baseload plant they do not have to run continuously to recoup their initial investment even if that means that renewables will have to be shut off (alternatively you shut off the coal plants but remember you still have to pay for them even if they produce nothing). The key aspect is that natural gas is more expensive, to the point that it never makes sense to deploy natural gas when renewables are available.

by 08-15 7y ago

imtringued 7y ago

I don't understand this argument. Renewable energy and fossil fuel usage can be summarized in a single number: percentage of energy produced by renewables. As long as that number goes up everything is fine. Switching to natural gas allows that number to go up even faster. So why does it matter what label is attached to the fossil fuel part of the number? What a lot of people seem to forget is that the CO2 level doesn't care about the time of the day the CO2 is emitted or whether you use 80% fossil fuels on one particular day and then 30% on every other day. Intermittency doesn't prevent renewables from reducing CO2 emissions, unless of course people ban the transition technology called natural gas. Then it doesn't even make sense to close the coal plants and we will have neither renewables nor will we stop using fossil fuels and the fossil fuels that are still in use, will be the dirtiest kind because coal emits more CO2 emissions per kWh than natural gas. Once you realize the crucial difference between a peaker plant and a "baseload" plant you will start to realize that it's the baseload plants that are holding everything back. Peaker plants have low capital costs. They can be built in a short time frame. Unlike a baseload plant they do not have to run continuously to recoup their initial investment even if that means that renewables will have to be shut off (alternatively you shut off the coal plants but remember you still have to pay for them even if they produce nothing). The key aspect is that natural gas is more expensive, to the point that it never makes sense to deploy natural gas when renewables are available.