8 ms·

This seems good as long as the industry is being supplanted domestically with renewable alternatives at the same rate it's falling.

toomuchtodo 6y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23567153 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23567153 > In the US, renewables are expected to see fifty times as much net capacity added in the next three years as nuclear and fossil fuels combined. > This particular item was widely commented on in the media, as SDC releases often are. But the issue everyone covered was the fact that renewables accounted for 100% of installations in April [1]. It seems nearly nobody noticed the paragraph above. > I was stunned by the idea that renewables would outpace fossil fuels plus nuclear by a factor of 50 over the next three years. In fact, I double-checked the data at FERC. It is true, as you can see for yourself in the Energy Infrastructure Update for April 2020 [2]. > Another thing, however, is that the news from the real world suggests that coal, in particular, is declining faster than FERC, or anyone else, could have expected. Every week, I seem to see two or three announcements of coal-burning power plants being closed ahead of schedule. These are retirements that FERC has not yet taken into account.
- andromeduck 6y ago
  It shouldn't be that surprising as wind and solar recieve 10x and 40x more subsidies per unit energy generated vs nuclear. Hydro is even lower. https://files.texaspolicy.com/uploads/2020/04/23135621/Bennett-LP-Federal-Energy-Subsidies.pdf https://files.texaspolicy.com/uploads/2020/04/23135621/Benne...
  - toomuchtodo 6y ago
    Because solar and wind actually get built and generate power without a decade of planning, construction, and egregious cost overruns. Subsidize what works and is cost effective (solar and wind need no further subsidies to beat fossil and nuclear generation costs). Renewables are fusion at a distance. No waste storage (solar panels can be recycled, wind turbine composites are feedstock for cement kilns or insulation pellets), no expensive or dangerous failure modes (caveat being a turbine failure on a wind turbine, which is usually remote and the damage is minimal), just cheap, clean power you can install almost anywhere. No need to throw shade on what’s going to mitigate climate change. No offense to Texas (regarding your “Texas Public Policy Institute” citation), but they are actively fighting utility scale battery storage by Tesla because it’s going to further damage natural gas generator profits (already ailing from enormous wind output in the state, with ERCOT having no substantial interconnectors to other regional grids). A whole lot if entrenched interests who aren’t going to go quietly into the night.
    - PhantomGremlin 6y ago
      Renewables are fusion at a distance. I love that line. What a wonderful way to put it. It's perhaps a meme in the renewables industry? It needs to spread far and wide.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
    - andromeduck 6y ago
      The overruns happen due to red tape and the overall loss of the heavy industry capability/capacity brought on - and these are the specific problems federal subsidies are supposed to tackle. Deaths per TWH for solar and wind have proven much higher than nuclear and that's before including their dependence on natural gas which is higher still. Utility scale batteries are so far still for peak shaving which is wonderful because the simple cycle plants they displace are super efficient, but won't be replacing combined cycle in our lifetimes. IIRC the issue in texas was due the the way they've separated generation vs distribution responsibilities for their market model but it's been a while since I've taken a close look.
      - toomuchtodo 6y ago
        > The overruns happen due to red tape and the overall loss of the heavy industry capability/capacity brought on - and these are the specific problems federal subsidies are supposed to tackle. This might have mattered a decade or two ago, but that time has passed. Solar and wind have enormous momentum behind them, and they will only continue to scale up faster. [1] [2] > Deaths per TWH for solar and wind have proven much higher than nuclear and that's before including their dependence on natural gas which is higher still. Modern renewables are roughly as safe as nuclear [3]. > Utility scale batteries are so far still for peak shaving which is wonderful because the simple cycle plants they displace are super efficient, but won't be replacing combined cycle in our lifetimes. Enormous amounts of battery manufacturing capacity is coming online for EV production [4]. Elon said on Tesla's last earnings call that demand for batteries for utility scale storage is tremendous and they can't keep up with demand [5]. I'll take the other side of that bet: overbuilt renewables, hydro, HVDC transmission across long distances, and battery storage will be enough to deprecate natural gas from the grid. South Australia's grid operator is already nervously preparing for distributed renewables generating so much power, there will be times where there is no net demand on the grid ("But it’s the latest “first” that is putting the wind up the state government and the market operator: Within one to three years, they say, South Australia could become the first gigawatt scale grid in the world where the growing amount of rooftop solar effectively eliminates grid demand."). [6] [1] https://ourworldindata.org/renewable-energy https://ourworldindata.org/renewable-energy [2] https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2019/6/18/18681591/renewable-energy-china-solar-pv-jobs https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2019/6/18/1868159... [3] https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy#modern-renewables-are-about-as-safe-as-nuclear-energy https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy#modern-r... [4] https://cleantechnica.com/2019/04/14/global-lithium-ion-battery-planned-capacity-update-9-growth-in-a-single-month-march-charts/ https://cleantechnica.com/2019/04/14/global-lithium-ion-batt... [5] https://www.utilitydive.com/news/tremendous-demand-for-stationary-storage-outstrips-teslas-2020-supply-ca/577157/ https://www.utilitydive.com/news/tremendous-demand-for-stati... [6] https://reneweconomy.com.au/south-australia-the-first-big-grid-where-rooftop-solar-could-eliminate-all-demand-73229/ https://reneweconomy.com.au/south-australia-the-first-big-gr...
  - Guest42 6y ago
    Perhaps should look at a wider date range than 2010-2019 in order to determine patterns and magnitude. Perhaps should also consider totals that are net of environmental costs.
- gaukes 6y ago
  The US also gets a larger share of its energy from oil relative to coal. With the shale boom, oils become cheaper and more reliable in the US and burns more cleanly than coal.
  - toomuchtodo 6y ago
    Less than 0.5% of US electrical generation comes from oil. Perhaps you meant natural gas? https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3 https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3
    - perl4ever 6y ago
      Oil is used for heating in a lot of homes in the northeastern US. I believe it's essentially the same as diesel, but I think I recall reading that it's dyed because it's taxed differently and you're not supposed to use it in your vehicle. Natural gas heat is popular, but not everywhere is connected.
diogenescynic 6y ago
Among those renewables are “biomass” which is just burning trees. If we burned all the trees in the country it would only be enough fuel for a year. This is replacing one awful fuel source with another. Wind and solar rely heavily on fossil fuel infrastructure or directly—-solar panels are made with coal and mined quartz. And it has to be replaced ever few years. It’s looking more and more like nuclear is the only real option but that is another terrifying option because companies are greedy and will mismanage it and we can’t afford nuclear disasters.
- Avicebron 6y ago
  I agree that using biomass is a pretty shady metric unless there is strong side by side evidence that the mass is growing back at the same rate of consumption. Unlikely in the case of trees. I'm also a proponent of nuclear after my thermodynamics professor sat my class down and explained why solar is a dirty process to get up and running and biomass is not sustainable. I think the potential is in advancement of nuclear power plant tech. The US is working with pretty old 20th century technology and there isn't much movement in the space that I know of probably due to fear.
- skissane 6y ago
  > solar panels are made with coal You are talking about solar panel manufacturing being an energy-intensive process. It is true that over 50% of the global production of solar panels happens in China, and most of the electricity used in the manufacture of those panels comes from burning coal. But there is no reason in principle why solar panel manufacturing could not be powered by electricity produced by non-fossil fuel based power sources (nuclear, solar, wind, hydro, geothermal etc). China is going to move away from fossil fuels for electricity generation over time. Slower than it should, but it is going to do it. And just because China controls so much of that industry right now is no guarantee that it will continue to do so into the future.
  - diogenescynic 6y ago
    Not just that, you have to melt coal with quartz to produce the silicon for the solar panels. The entire process relies on fossil fuels. The energy and environmental ROI is probably actually negative/worse than just using the fossil fuels themselves. https://spectrum.ieee.org/green-tech/solar/solar-energy-isnt-always-as-green-as-you-think https://spectrum.ieee.org/green-tech/solar/solar-energy-isnt... It’s an illusion that renewables are replacing fossil fuels. The amount or renewables isn’t even replacing the amount of energy that demand is growing by, so we rely more and more on fossil fuels even as more “renewables” are trotted out as a distraction. This is just a sham death cult because people can’t accept reality. Conservatives have religion and liberals have technology they hope will save them. We are a species in denial.
ethanwillis 6y ago
It seems good as long as your local economy is actually given a chance to retool and not become a ghost town. You have people on the coasts buying up cheap housing from rural people. You have megacorps essentially squatting on what could be productive land for the communities. And then you have poor people who can't afford to take a couple of years to go get educated in another discipline. Not to mention lack of access to credit to retool their economy by forming new businesses.
totalZero 6y ago
Even if you replace coal with natural gas, you're doing the environment a favor.
- Gibbon1 6y ago
  My gut feeling is that natural gas plants can make a profit by filling in for unmet demands created by renewables intermittency. You can make money by letting out contracts to provide standby capacity. That situation may last decades. Coal plants though don't spin up fast enough to do that and are low margin as a result.
  - totalZero 6y ago
    Responsiveness to demand is one thing. But even for steady-state generation, natural gas emits about half as much CO2 as coal.
    - Gibbon1 6y ago
      Yes the high carbon footprint means they are at risk of becoming uneconomic due to higher carbon taxes. Or forced to shut down due to outright regulatory action. Either likely to happen as the powers that be[1] get more and more spooked by climate change. [1] Consider world wide only a minority of leaders have any particular personal interest in coal, oil, or gas.

toomuchtodo 6y ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23567153 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23567153 > In the US, renewables are expected to see fifty times as much net capacity added in the next three years as nuclear and fossil fuels combined. > This particular item was widely commented on in the media, as SDC releases often are. But the issue everyone covered was the fact that renewables accounted for 100% of installations in April [1]. It seems nearly nobody noticed the paragraph above. > I was stunned by the idea that renewables would outpace fossil fuels plus nuclear by a factor of 50 over the next three years. In fact, I double-checked the data at FERC. It is true, as you can see for yourself in the Energy Infrastructure Update for April 2020 [2]. > Another thing, however, is that the news from the real world suggests that coal, in particular, is declining faster than FERC, or anyone else, could have expected. Every week, I seem to see two or three announcements of coal-burning power plants being closed ahead of schedule. These are retirements that FERC has not yet taken into account.

andromeduck 6y ago
It shouldn't be that surprising as wind and solar recieve 10x and 40x more subsidies per unit energy generated vs nuclear. Hydro is even lower. https://files.texaspolicy.com/uploads/2020/04/23135621/Bennett-LP-Federal-Energy-Subsidies.pdf https://files.texaspolicy.com/uploads/2020/04/23135621/Benne...
- toomuchtodo 6y ago
  Because solar and wind actually get built and generate power without a decade of planning, construction, and egregious cost overruns. Subsidize what works and is cost effective (solar and wind need no further subsidies to beat fossil and nuclear generation costs). Renewables are fusion at a distance. No waste storage (solar panels can be recycled, wind turbine composites are feedstock for cement kilns or insulation pellets), no expensive or dangerous failure modes (caveat being a turbine failure on a wind turbine, which is usually remote and the damage is minimal), just cheap, clean power you can install almost anywhere. No need to throw shade on what’s going to mitigate climate change. No offense to Texas (regarding your “Texas Public Policy Institute” citation), but they are actively fighting utility scale battery storage by Tesla because it’s going to further damage natural gas generator profits (already ailing from enormous wind output in the state, with ERCOT having no substantial interconnectors to other regional grids). A whole lot if entrenched interests who aren’t going to go quietly into the night.
  - PhantomGremlin 6y ago
    Renewables are fusion at a distance. I love that line. What a wonderful way to put it. It's perhaps a meme in the renewables industry? It needs to spread far and wide.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - andromeduck 6y ago
    The overruns happen due to red tape and the overall loss of the heavy industry capability/capacity brought on - and these are the specific problems federal subsidies are supposed to tackle. Deaths per TWH for solar and wind have proven much higher than nuclear and that's before including their dependence on natural gas which is higher still. Utility scale batteries are so far still for peak shaving which is wonderful because the simple cycle plants they displace are super efficient, but won't be replacing combined cycle in our lifetimes. IIRC the issue in texas was due the the way they've separated generation vs distribution responsibilities for their market model but it's been a while since I've taken a close look.
    - toomuchtodo 6y ago
      > The overruns happen due to red tape and the overall loss of the heavy industry capability/capacity brought on - and these are the specific problems federal subsidies are supposed to tackle. This might have mattered a decade or two ago, but that time has passed. Solar and wind have enormous momentum behind them, and they will only continue to scale up faster. [1] [2] > Deaths per TWH for solar and wind have proven much higher than nuclear and that's before including their dependence on natural gas which is higher still. Modern renewables are roughly as safe as nuclear [3]. > Utility scale batteries are so far still for peak shaving which is wonderful because the simple cycle plants they displace are super efficient, but won't be replacing combined cycle in our lifetimes. Enormous amounts of battery manufacturing capacity is coming online for EV production [4]. Elon said on Tesla's last earnings call that demand for batteries for utility scale storage is tremendous and they can't keep up with demand [5]. I'll take the other side of that bet: overbuilt renewables, hydro, HVDC transmission across long distances, and battery storage will be enough to deprecate natural gas from the grid. South Australia's grid operator is already nervously preparing for distributed renewables generating so much power, there will be times where there is no net demand on the grid ("But it’s the latest “first” that is putting the wind up the state government and the market operator: Within one to three years, they say, South Australia could become the first gigawatt scale grid in the world where the growing amount of rooftop solar effectively eliminates grid demand."). [6] [1] https://ourworldindata.org/renewable-energy https://ourworldindata.org/renewable-energy [2] https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2019/6/18/18681591/renewable-energy-china-solar-pv-jobs https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2019/6/18/1868159... [3] https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy#modern-renewables-are-about-as-safe-as-nuclear-energy https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy#modern-r... [4] https://cleantechnica.com/2019/04/14/global-lithium-ion-battery-planned-capacity-update-9-growth-in-a-single-month-march-charts/ https://cleantechnica.com/2019/04/14/global-lithium-ion-batt... [5] https://www.utilitydive.com/news/tremendous-demand-for-stationary-storage-outstrips-teslas-2020-supply-ca/577157/ https://www.utilitydive.com/news/tremendous-demand-for-stati... [6] https://reneweconomy.com.au/south-australia-the-first-big-grid-where-rooftop-solar-could-eliminate-all-demand-73229/ https://reneweconomy.com.au/south-australia-the-first-big-gr...
- Guest42 6y ago
  Perhaps should look at a wider date range than 2010-2019 in order to determine patterns and magnitude. Perhaps should also consider totals that are net of environmental costs.
gaukes 6y ago
The US also gets a larger share of its energy from oil relative to coal. With the shale boom, oils become cheaper and more reliable in the US and burns more cleanly than coal.
- toomuchtodo 6y ago
  Less than 0.5% of US electrical generation comes from oil. Perhaps you meant natural gas? https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3 https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3
  - perl4ever 6y ago
    Oil is used for heating in a lot of homes in the northeastern US. I believe it's essentially the same as diesel, but I think I recall reading that it's dyed because it's taxed differently and you're not supposed to use it in your vehicle. Natural gas heat is popular, but not everywhere is connected.

diogenescynic 6y ago

Among those renewables are “biomass” which is just burning trees. If we burned all the trees in the country it would only be enough fuel for a year. This is replacing one awful fuel source with another. Wind and solar rely heavily on fossil fuel infrastructure or directly—-solar panels are made with coal and mined quartz. And it has to be replaced ever few years. It’s looking more and more like nuclear is the only real option but that is another terrifying option because companies are greedy and will mismanage it and we can’t afford nuclear disasters.

Avicebron 6y ago
I agree that using biomass is a pretty shady metric unless there is strong side by side evidence that the mass is growing back at the same rate of consumption. Unlikely in the case of trees. I'm also a proponent of nuclear after my thermodynamics professor sat my class down and explained why solar is a dirty process to get up and running and biomass is not sustainable. I think the potential is in advancement of nuclear power plant tech. The US is working with pretty old 20th century technology and there isn't much movement in the space that I know of probably due to fear.
skissane 6y ago
> solar panels are made with coal You are talking about solar panel manufacturing being an energy-intensive process. It is true that over 50% of the global production of solar panels happens in China, and most of the electricity used in the manufacture of those panels comes from burning coal. But there is no reason in principle why solar panel manufacturing could not be powered by electricity produced by non-fossil fuel based power sources (nuclear, solar, wind, hydro, geothermal etc). China is going to move away from fossil fuels for electricity generation over time. Slower than it should, but it is going to do it. And just because China controls so much of that industry right now is no guarantee that it will continue to do so into the future.
- diogenescynic 6y ago
  Not just that, you have to melt coal with quartz to produce the silicon for the solar panels. The entire process relies on fossil fuels. The energy and environmental ROI is probably actually negative/worse than just using the fossil fuels themselves. https://spectrum.ieee.org/green-tech/solar/solar-energy-isnt-always-as-green-as-you-think https://spectrum.ieee.org/green-tech/solar/solar-energy-isnt... It’s an illusion that renewables are replacing fossil fuels. The amount or renewables isn’t even replacing the amount of energy that demand is growing by, so we rely more and more on fossil fuels even as more “renewables” are trotted out as a distraction. This is just a sham death cult because people can’t accept reality. Conservatives have religion and liberals have technology they hope will save them. We are a species in denial.

ethanwillis 6y ago

It seems good as long as your local economy is actually given a chance to retool and not become a ghost town. You have people on the coasts buying up cheap housing from rural people. You have megacorps essentially squatting on what could be productive land for the communities. And then you have poor people who can't afford to take a couple of years to go get educated in another discipline. Not to mention lack of access to credit to retool their economy by forming new businesses.

totalZero 6y ago

Even if you replace coal with natural gas, you're doing the environment a favor.

Gibbon1 6y ago
My gut feeling is that natural gas plants can make a profit by filling in for unmet demands created by renewables intermittency. You can make money by letting out contracts to provide standby capacity. That situation may last decades. Coal plants though don't spin up fast enough to do that and are low margin as a result.
- totalZero 6y ago
  Responsiveness to demand is one thing. But even for steady-state generation, natural gas emits about half as much CO2 as coal.
  - Gibbon1 6y ago
    Yes the high carbon footprint means they are at risk of becoming uneconomic due to higher carbon taxes. Or forced to shut down due to outright regulatory action. Either likely to happen as the powers that be[1] get more and more spooked by climate change. [1] Consider world wide only a minority of leaders have any particular personal interest in coal, oil, or gas.