6 ms·

What powers Hawaii at night?

nicoburns 3y ago
I mean, you're commenting on a post about a battery which can help to solve this problem (albeit this battery alone probably doesn't entirely solve it).
ceejayoz 3y ago
Plenty of oil. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Hawaii https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Hawaii Coal was only a small percentage of the energy mix in the last decade. Can we move on from the tired old "haha idiots forgot about night time" slam on renewable energy yet?
- rootusrootus 3y ago
  > Can we move on from the tired old "haha idiots forgot about night time" slam on renewable energy yet? Not likely. Identity politics never goes out of style.
  - reocha 3y ago
    That is not idpol
    - ceejayoz 3y ago
      Sure it is. The side that complains about “identity politics” engages in plenty of it. Being anti-renewable is one of those identity bits - from rolling coal to Trump thinking windmills give you cancer. See also: “cancel culture”
- bequanna 3y ago
  Well, it’s a bad argument made that way, I agree. But let’s at least be honest about the necessity to massively overbuild intermittent sources (and expensive storage) to provide reliability when we compare $/MWh.
  - ceejayoz 3y ago
    An honest discussion of that should probably include the ecological and health impacts of coal, and the ongoing dramatic decline in cost to add new solar/wind capacity. It's cheaper even factoring in variable production, and this battery project is part of how you address intermittency. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:3-Learning-curves-for-electricity-prices.png https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:3-Learning-curves-fo...
    - gottorf 3y ago
      I don't know where that linked dataset is from, but almost every claim I've seen for the LCoE of wind/solar being lower than any fossil fuel source excludes the cost of energy storage. Latest estimates[0] put solar and wind roughly at par with combined-cycle gas plants, but without the cost of addressing intermittency. Plus, it would be probably unwise to extrapolate the current downward trend in costs for the relatively new technology (meaning early in its marginal cost curve) of utility-scale solar and wind that it would continue to get much cheaper. The two factors combined would suggest that current energy policy in Hawaii is likely to result in increased costs for the consumer down the line. [0]: https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/pdf/electricity_generation.pdf https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/pdf/electricity_generation....
      - ceejayoz 3y ago
        > I don't know where that linked dataset is from Scroll down a bit under the graphic. https://ourworldindata.org/cheap-renewables-growth https://ourworldindata.org/cheap-renewables-growth (which has some more dramatic charts, and a lot of explanation)
      - bryanlarsen 3y ago
        2019 numbers: https://www.nrel.gov/news/video/lcoss-text.html https://www.nrel.gov/news/video/lcoss-text.html California has contracts with 8 Minute Energy to buy energy from their solar+storage plants for 4 cents per kWh.
        3y ago
- ijhuygft776 3y ago
  > Can we move on from the tired old "haha idiots forgot about night time" slam on renewable energy yet? maybe if they move to volcano power plants
deleted 3y ago
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TheCoelacanth 3y ago
Do you think batteries stop working at night?

I mean, you're commenting on a post about a battery which can help to solve this problem (albeit this battery alone probably doesn't entirely solve it).

ceejayoz 3y ago

Plenty of oil. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Hawaii https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Hawaii Coal was only a small percentage of the energy mix in the last decade. Can we move on from the tired old "haha idiots forgot about night time" slam on renewable energy yet?

rootusrootus 3y ago
> Can we move on from the tired old "haha idiots forgot about night time" slam on renewable energy yet? Not likely. Identity politics never goes out of style.
- reocha 3y ago
  That is not idpol
  - ceejayoz 3y ago
    Sure it is. The side that complains about “identity politics” engages in plenty of it. Being anti-renewable is one of those identity bits - from rolling coal to Trump thinking windmills give you cancer. See also: “cancel culture”
bequanna 3y ago
Well, it’s a bad argument made that way, I agree. But let’s at least be honest about the necessity to massively overbuild intermittent sources (and expensive storage) to provide reliability when we compare $/MWh.
- ceejayoz 3y ago
  An honest discussion of that should probably include the ecological and health impacts of coal, and the ongoing dramatic decline in cost to add new solar/wind capacity. It's cheaper even factoring in variable production, and this battery project is part of how you address intermittency. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:3-Learning-curves-for-electricity-prices.png https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:3-Learning-curves-fo...
  - gottorf 3y ago
    I don't know where that linked dataset is from, but almost every claim I've seen for the LCoE of wind/solar being lower than any fossil fuel source excludes the cost of energy storage. Latest estimates[0] put solar and wind roughly at par with combined-cycle gas plants, but without the cost of addressing intermittency. Plus, it would be probably unwise to extrapolate the current downward trend in costs for the relatively new technology (meaning early in its marginal cost curve) of utility-scale solar and wind that it would continue to get much cheaper. The two factors combined would suggest that current energy policy in Hawaii is likely to result in increased costs for the consumer down the line. [0]: https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/pdf/electricity_generation.pdf https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/pdf/electricity_generation....
    - ceejayoz 3y ago
      > I don't know where that linked dataset is from Scroll down a bit under the graphic. https://ourworldindata.org/cheap-renewables-growth https://ourworldindata.org/cheap-renewables-growth (which has some more dramatic charts, and a lot of explanation)
    - bryanlarsen 3y ago
      2019 numbers: https://www.nrel.gov/news/video/lcoss-text.html https://www.nrel.gov/news/video/lcoss-text.html California has contracts with 8 Minute Energy to buy energy from their solar+storage plants for 4 cents per kWh.
      - 3y ago
ijhuygft776 3y ago
> Can we move on from the tired old "haha idiots forgot about night time" slam on renewable energy yet? maybe if they move to volcano power plants

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

TheCoelacanth 3y ago

Do you think batteries stop working at night?