7 ms·

Renewables became the second-most prevalent U.S. electricity source in 2020

88 points by dane-pgp 5y ago

dane-pgp 5y ago
Generation from natural gas is also at an all-time-high, so it is the most prevalent source.
hulitu 5y ago
So they are burning more trees instead of coal. Way to go.
- colordrops 5y ago
  What do you mean?
  - zdragnar 5y ago
    It is wrong wrt scale, but biomass burning electrical generation is a thing. As an example, I had a massive old oak tree that needed to come down for safety reasons. I desperately wanted to keep some of the wood from the trunk either to carve a statue or convert to lumber, just so that something from the original tree stayed with us. None of the professional (i.e. insured) services around could do that; all of them had a contract with a local power company to grind up everything they cut so it could be burned for electricity as part of their "green" commitment (which admittedly also included solar and maybe wind).
    - jimbob45 5y ago
      Were they willing to do a handshake deal under the table on the day of or did you not try? Just curious, no judgement either way.
      - zdragnar 5y ago
        They were already making money from the power company for the wood- no idea how much, but enough that they didn't seem open to it.
    - Symbiote 5y ago
      I'm surprised, as the wood is worth more as timber than fuel in this case.
      - wahern 5y ago
        Not when you factor in the cost of labor and other market dynamics. Like most markets, supply chains and expertise have become highly specialized and adapted to economies of scale. Wood is either sourced from farms, managed forests, or from people who make a living in niches, such as recovering sunken logs or scrap industrial and commercial framing, which are easier to scale and offer more consistency. I've dabbled a little in woodworking, and AFAIU while there are still people out there willing to do the work for small, one-off jobs, they're few and far between, especially in regions without significant hardwood stocks. Fewer still willing to actually pay you for the privilege. It also doesn't help that engineered wood products are displacing quality lumber even at the high end of the market. These days a new, solid hardwood floor would probably appear cheap or antiquated to people accustomed to the look of laminated flooring.
        zdragnar 5y ago
        This is spot on. I tried reaching out to some local mills and forestry folk, and dealing with a single tree was simply too small a job for them to bother with.
- bastiantower 5y ago
  As long as they are being replanted, this is carbon neutral
  - olyjohn 5y ago
    I guess that would depend on the tree, wouldn't it? How is a tiny little seedling going to clean as much carbon as a tree that took 40 years to become anything substantial?
    - IneffablePigeon 5y ago
      Well... the process of that seedling growing into the big tree over 40 years is what takes carbon out of the atmosphere. The carbon just goes into the tree's biomass. So - long term, if you have a steady state where the biomass of the trees you're talking about remains roughly constant (or dips but comes back to the same level) - it is carbon neutral. Even if you're cutting down big trees and planting seedlings. Of course, you're right, there's nuance there. If you start with a mature forest, cut it all down, and replant it with seedlings, that's not a steady state (yet) - particularly when you take ecosystem effects into account, I suspect.
    - p1necone 5y ago
      If you take land that doesn't currently have trees on it, and plant a bunch of trees that you periodically cut down and replant then you're at worst carbon neutral. Unless that land would have otherwise be planted and left alone entirely.
- flexie 5y ago
  No, they are actually burning less trees (although they are still burning trees and waste). Biomass is a shrinking part of the renewables. The increase in renewables is mainly solar and wind: https://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/browser/index.php?tbl=T07.02A#/?f=A&start=1949&end=2020&charted=8-10-11-12-13-14 https://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/browser/index.php?tbl=T...
- dang 5y ago
  Please stop posting flamebait and/or unsubstantive comments. If you have a substantive point, make it thoughtfully; if you don't, please don't comment until you do. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
newyankee 5y ago
I think in 10 years there will be so much progress made so fast in renewables that we will look at all large agency forecasts and think how bad these were. I think all the innovations in the storage space are coming together with 10s if not 100s of different options to provide the final nail in the coffin of fossil fuels. Long term though i guess 30 to 40 years is a reasonable time frame to envision a global economy that becomes net negative. I have gone from a pessimist to an optimist on this topic. Having said that the incumbents will not give up easily and aggressive goals can only be pursued by fighting their misplaced priorities.
- mbgerring 5y ago
  The large agency forecasts have underestimated the growth of renewables for I think about a decade. But, concerning your optimism — one of the reasons that renewables have gotten better and cheaper faster than predicted is that smart people decided to work on it. There’s a lot of opportunity in clean energy and climate tech, and working on it full time is a great way to manifest your optimism.
  - pydry 5y ago
    China's energy insecurity is also a large part of it. Their exposure to shipping blockades in the south china sea and reliance on oil and gas imports provided a lot of the early impetus for beating down the price.
  - heurisko 5y ago
    If one is not able to work in the industry oneself, there are also clean-energy ETFs that one can invest in, to support companies working on clean energy, which can manifest similar optimism by-proxy.
    - rotexo 5y ago
      Have any recommendations? I bought a bunch of shares of VOTE recently (the Engine No. 1 ETF), but I’m curious about others.
Robotbeat 5y ago
Unfortunately, after basically monotonically reducing over the last decade, coal has started creeping up slightly, from 19.5% last year to 21% last 12 months (May2021 and previous 11 months). But it was at the expense of natural gas. We need to crush coal. The entire coal logistics train, from mines, to coal trains, to power plants, to coal export terminals (and replace blast furnaces with DRI/etc). The US has a quarter of the world’s coal, but we’ve got to lock that stuff underground.
- legulere 5y ago
  If you look at the longer term graph that might as well be some smaller fluctuations. The longer term trend seems to sharply down for coal.
  - uCantCauseUCant 5y ago
    Coal seems to be strongly dependent on logistic highways aka large boats and trains. Carbontax per mile transported should make that nonviable?
  - Robotbeat 5y ago
    I think so, too, but it won’t happen unless we continue to push for it. The US is now exporting significant amounts of coal to China, whose demand is increasing.
- tonyedgecombe 5y ago
  We had some odd figures like that in the UK. It turned out two coal stations that were shutting down rushed to use up their coal reserves. Perhaps that is the case here?
baybal2 5y ago
I find it strange that US power consumption peaks in summer, and not in winter.
- creddit 5y ago
  Gas heating, electric AC.
  - nicolaslem 5y ago
    As AC units are basically heat pumps why aren't people running them in reverse in the winter? Except in very cold climates, it should still be cheaper/more efficient than gaz. What am I missing?
    - qeternity 5y ago
      > Except in very cold climates, it should still be cheaper/more efficient than gaz This isn't true at all. Gas is much cheaper per joule than electricity.
      - i_am_proteus 5y ago
        This. Bear in mind also that even with the efficiency gain of the heat pump in warmer places (much of the US lives in places that are not warm), there are efficiency losses from generation and transmission of electricity to the end user.
      - agurk 5y ago
        A key point to understand about a heat pump is that it can move a lot more (heat) energy than the equivalent it consumes. One joule of pumping could get up to six joules of heat moved[0] - so it could be represented as being 600% efficient. Burning gas can only generate a maximum of one joule of heat for every joule consumed (i.e. 100% efficient). Getting six joules requires favourable conditions and a good setup, but the normal expected efficiency is considerably above 100%. Gas is (normally - I'm on a variable tariff and being paid to consume electricity at the moment) cheaper than electricity per joule, but not so much that it works out cheaper than a heat pump to achieve the same effect. [0] https://www.eec.org.au/for-energy-users/technologies-2/heat-pumps https://www.eec.org.au/for-energy-users/technologies-2/heat-...
sharikous 5y ago
I don't like the title. Sorry for nitpicking but "renewables" are packed together in opposition to what? To non-renewables? If so being second is actually the worst position to be in. Only after looking at the picture you see the categories are "natural gas", "coal", "renewables", "nuclear", "other". And the decline of coal vs natural gas is more significant than the rise in renewables. And if you look at the second graph already in 2019 "renewables" were for some time the "second" source. I would like to see a more insightful analysis and a better title
- spodek 5y ago
  Beyond this title, most titles and the prevailing culture focuses on adding non-fossil fuel sources. But adding more alternatives doesn't mean decreasing carbon emissions and pollution. History shows that finding a new energy source leads to using the old ones and the new one. Only decreasing burning fossil fuels decreases burning fossil fuels. Focusing the important measure: carbon and toxic pollution emitted will get results. Whether politically feasible or not, the fastest, most effective way to reduce carbon and pollution emissions is first to close fossil fuel extraction and production, then to solve what problems arise. We'll need less peaker plants and nuclear. People will adjust faster than anyone expects, I'd estimate in weeks to months, not years. Since the people polluting the most (U.S., Europe, rich people everywhere) aren't using most of their energy for life necessities or even things they'd miss, most Americans can decrease our use 70 percent or more just with low-hanging fruit (source: I've reduced mine over 90 percent and each step improved my life, mostly getting rid of waste and frivolities). We'd have to make sure hospitals, public transit, and some infrastructure keeps powered during the transition, and protect people on the margins, but most people will quickly adjust to flying less, not leaving the a/c on 24/7 six months of the year, eating less meat, etc. Tldr: 1. Focusing on lowering emissions will result in lowering emissions more than focusing on increasing alternatives. 2. Lowering supply of fossil fuels would create the changes we seek faster than trying to prepare for the changes first, mainly because we waste so much.
mrfusion 5y ago
From a climate change perspective we could move nuclear into the renewables category. Then it would be number one.

88 points by dane-pgp 5y ago

dane-pgp 5y ago

Generation from natural gas is also at an all-time-high, so it is the most prevalent source.

hulitu 5y ago

So they are burning more trees instead of coal. Way to go.

colordrops 5y ago
What do you mean?
- zdragnar 5y ago
  It is wrong wrt scale, but biomass burning electrical generation is a thing. As an example, I had a massive old oak tree that needed to come down for safety reasons. I desperately wanted to keep some of the wood from the trunk either to carve a statue or convert to lumber, just so that something from the original tree stayed with us. None of the professional (i.e. insured) services around could do that; all of them had a contract with a local power company to grind up everything they cut so it could be burned for electricity as part of their "green" commitment (which admittedly also included solar and maybe wind).
  - jimbob45 5y ago
    Were they willing to do a handshake deal under the table on the day of or did you not try? Just curious, no judgement either way.
    - zdragnar 5y ago
      They were already making money from the power company for the wood- no idea how much, but enough that they didn't seem open to it.
  - Symbiote 5y ago
    I'm surprised, as the wood is worth more as timber than fuel in this case.
    - wahern 5y ago
      Not when you factor in the cost of labor and other market dynamics. Like most markets, supply chains and expertise have become highly specialized and adapted to economies of scale. Wood is either sourced from farms, managed forests, or from people who make a living in niches, such as recovering sunken logs or scrap industrial and commercial framing, which are easier to scale and offer more consistency. I've dabbled a little in woodworking, and AFAIU while there are still people out there willing to do the work for small, one-off jobs, they're few and far between, especially in regions without significant hardwood stocks. Fewer still willing to actually pay you for the privilege. It also doesn't help that engineered wood products are displacing quality lumber even at the high end of the market. These days a new, solid hardwood floor would probably appear cheap or antiquated to people accustomed to the look of laminated flooring.
      - zdragnar 5y ago
        This is spot on. I tried reaching out to some local mills and forestry folk, and dealing with a single tree was simply too small a job for them to bother with.
bastiantower 5y ago
As long as they are being replanted, this is carbon neutral
- olyjohn 5y ago
  I guess that would depend on the tree, wouldn't it? How is a tiny little seedling going to clean as much carbon as a tree that took 40 years to become anything substantial?
  - IneffablePigeon 5y ago
    Well... the process of that seedling growing into the big tree over 40 years is what takes carbon out of the atmosphere. The carbon just goes into the tree's biomass. So - long term, if you have a steady state where the biomass of the trees you're talking about remains roughly constant (or dips but comes back to the same level) - it is carbon neutral. Even if you're cutting down big trees and planting seedlings. Of course, you're right, there's nuance there. If you start with a mature forest, cut it all down, and replant it with seedlings, that's not a steady state (yet) - particularly when you take ecosystem effects into account, I suspect.
  - p1necone 5y ago
    If you take land that doesn't currently have trees on it, and plant a bunch of trees that you periodically cut down and replant then you're at worst carbon neutral. Unless that land would have otherwise be planted and left alone entirely.
flexie 5y ago
No, they are actually burning less trees (although they are still burning trees and waste). Biomass is a shrinking part of the renewables. The increase in renewables is mainly solar and wind: https://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/browser/index.php?tbl=T07.02A#/?f=A&start=1949&end=2020&charted=8-10-11-12-13-14 https://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/browser/index.php?tbl=T...
dang 5y ago
Please stop posting flamebait and/or unsubstantive comments. If you have a substantive point, make it thoughtfully; if you don't, please don't comment until you do. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

newyankee 5y ago

I think in 10 years there will be so much progress made so fast in renewables that we will look at all large agency forecasts and think how bad these were. I think all the innovations in the storage space are coming together with 10s if not 100s of different options to provide the final nail in the coffin of fossil fuels. Long term though i guess 30 to 40 years is a reasonable time frame to envision a global economy that becomes net negative. I have gone from a pessimist to an optimist on this topic. Having said that the incumbents will not give up easily and aggressive goals can only be pursued by fighting their misplaced priorities.

mbgerring 5y ago
The large agency forecasts have underestimated the growth of renewables for I think about a decade. But, concerning your optimism — one of the reasons that renewables have gotten better and cheaper faster than predicted is that smart people decided to work on it. There’s a lot of opportunity in clean energy and climate tech, and working on it full time is a great way to manifest your optimism.
- pydry 5y ago
  China's energy insecurity is also a large part of it. Their exposure to shipping blockades in the south china sea and reliance on oil and gas imports provided a lot of the early impetus for beating down the price.
- heurisko 5y ago
  If one is not able to work in the industry oneself, there are also clean-energy ETFs that one can invest in, to support companies working on clean energy, which can manifest similar optimism by-proxy.
  - rotexo 5y ago
    Have any recommendations? I bought a bunch of shares of VOTE recently (the Engine No. 1 ETF), but I’m curious about others.

Robotbeat 5y ago

Unfortunately, after basically monotonically reducing over the last decade, coal has started creeping up slightly, from 19.5% last year to 21% last 12 months (May2021 and previous 11 months). But it was at the expense of natural gas. We need to crush coal. The entire coal logistics train, from mines, to coal trains, to power plants, to coal export terminals (and replace blast furnaces with DRI/etc). The US has a quarter of the world’s coal, but we’ve got to lock that stuff underground.

legulere 5y ago
If you look at the longer term graph that might as well be some smaller fluctuations. The longer term trend seems to sharply down for coal.
- uCantCauseUCant 5y ago
  Coal seems to be strongly dependent on logistic highways aka large boats and trains. Carbontax per mile transported should make that nonviable?
- Robotbeat 5y ago
  I think so, too, but it won’t happen unless we continue to push for it. The US is now exporting significant amounts of coal to China, whose demand is increasing.
tonyedgecombe 5y ago
We had some odd figures like that in the UK. It turned out two coal stations that were shutting down rushed to use up their coal reserves. Perhaps that is the case here?

baybal2 5y ago

I find it strange that US power consumption peaks in summer, and not in winter.

creddit 5y ago
Gas heating, electric AC.
- nicolaslem 5y ago
  As AC units are basically heat pumps why aren't people running them in reverse in the winter? Except in very cold climates, it should still be cheaper/more efficient than gaz. What am I missing?
  - qeternity 5y ago
    > Except in very cold climates, it should still be cheaper/more efficient than gaz This isn't true at all. Gas is much cheaper per joule than electricity.
    - i_am_proteus 5y ago
      This. Bear in mind also that even with the efficiency gain of the heat pump in warmer places (much of the US lives in places that are not warm), there are efficiency losses from generation and transmission of electricity to the end user.
    - agurk 5y ago
      A key point to understand about a heat pump is that it can move a lot more (heat) energy than the equivalent it consumes. One joule of pumping could get up to six joules of heat moved[0] - so it could be represented as being 600% efficient. Burning gas can only generate a maximum of one joule of heat for every joule consumed (i.e. 100% efficient). Getting six joules requires favourable conditions and a good setup, but the normal expected efficiency is considerably above 100%. Gas is (normally - I'm on a variable tariff and being paid to consume electricity at the moment) cheaper than electricity per joule, but not so much that it works out cheaper than a heat pump to achieve the same effect. [0] https://www.eec.org.au/for-energy-users/technologies-2/heat-pumps https://www.eec.org.au/for-energy-users/technologies-2/heat-...

sharikous 5y ago

I don't like the title. Sorry for nitpicking but "renewables" are packed together in opposition to what? To non-renewables? If so being second is actually the worst position to be in. Only after looking at the picture you see the categories are "natural gas", "coal", "renewables", "nuclear", "other". And the decline of coal vs natural gas is more significant than the rise in renewables. And if you look at the second graph already in 2019 "renewables" were for some time the "second" source. I would like to see a more insightful analysis and a better title

spodek 5y ago
Beyond this title, most titles and the prevailing culture focuses on adding non-fossil fuel sources. But adding more alternatives doesn't mean decreasing carbon emissions and pollution. History shows that finding a new energy source leads to using the old ones and the new one. Only decreasing burning fossil fuels decreases burning fossil fuels. Focusing the important measure: carbon and toxic pollution emitted will get results. Whether politically feasible or not, the fastest, most effective way to reduce carbon and pollution emissions is first to close fossil fuel extraction and production, then to solve what problems arise. We'll need less peaker plants and nuclear. People will adjust faster than anyone expects, I'd estimate in weeks to months, not years. Since the people polluting the most (U.S., Europe, rich people everywhere) aren't using most of their energy for life necessities or even things they'd miss, most Americans can decrease our use 70 percent or more just with low-hanging fruit (source: I've reduced mine over 90 percent and each step improved my life, mostly getting rid of waste and frivolities). We'd have to make sure hospitals, public transit, and some infrastructure keeps powered during the transition, and protect people on the margins, but most people will quickly adjust to flying less, not leaving the a/c on 24/7 six months of the year, eating less meat, etc. Tldr: 1. Focusing on lowering emissions will result in lowering emissions more than focusing on increasing alternatives. 2. Lowering supply of fossil fuels would create the changes we seek faster than trying to prepare for the changes first, mainly because we waste so much.

mrfusion 5y ago

From a climate change perspective we could move nuclear into the renewables category. Then it would be number one.