3 ms·

...wind, water, and solar. Bad news for companies that make their profit by burning dead dinosaurs.

lispisok 3y ago
eia.gov statistics disagree. https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/us-energy-facts/ https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/us-energy-facts/
- epistasis 3y ago
  EIA stats are pretty strong that fossil fuels are on their way out: >The US has posted its largest annual volume of new capacity in 20 years [with most of the growth coming from renewables] per @BloombergNEF using @EIAgov data https://twitter.com/ShanuMathew93/status/1779902695719006648 https://twitter.com/ShanuMathew93/status/1779902695719006648 > Solar and battery storage to make up 81% of new U.S. electric-generating capacity in 2024 https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=61424#:~:text=February%2015%2C%202024-,Solar%20and%20battery%20storage%20to%20make%20up%2081%25%20of%20new,electric%2Dgenerating%20capacity%20in%202024&text=Developers%20and%20power%20plant%20owners,Preliminary%20Monthly%20Electric%20Generator%20Inventory https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=61424#:~:tex....
  - lispisok 3y ago
    Fossil production and consumption is still increasing. Once you get all new capacity coming online to 100% renewables then you have to start replacing existing fossil fuel capacity with renewables. It is a very big hill to climb
    - zizee 3y ago
      > Fossil production and consumption is still increasing. Are you talking worldwide? Or in the US? Because in the US and many other advanced economies total energy consumption is still increasing, but the total amount from fossil fuels is shrinking. At a certain point it is going to no longer make economic sense to continue to build new fossil fuel based energy production (it already doesn't if externalities are accounted for). It is a big hill to climb, but as the saying goes, "people vote with their wallets". Economic forces are pretty hard to resist.
    - philipkglass 3y ago
      According to the data on the page that you linked, https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/us-energy-facts/ https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/us-energy-facts/, fossil consumption is past its peak. You can download the data as a CSV file from the hamburger menu on the chart "U.S. Primary Energy Consumption by Major Sources." In the US primary energy from fossil fuel consumption was higher in 2007 than it was in 2022: 85.78 quads in 2007, 79.102 quads in 2022. Production is unfortunately still rising because fuel exports provide an outlet for production that isn't consumed domestically.
mschaef 3y ago
The problem is what you'd expect - wind and solar are what are known as energy resources. They are not capacity resources. This is another way of saying what you already know - wind doesn't work in still air and solar doesn't work at night. This presents a handful of challenges: * Generators make a lot of their money when they run. WWS can displace thermal units, reduce their runtime/profitability and make them less economically viable. (Even though they currently provide essential services that cannot be replicated with wind or solar) * Solar falling off at night (or during an eclipse) requires thermal generation to step in to make up the loss. Just as an example, the eclipse cost TX something like 14,000MW of generation over four hours. That's ~25% of grid load around the time. They had to turn on 14,000MW of generation over two hours, turn it back off over the next two, and then ramp it all back up as night fell. This is not easy to do. * Wind and Solar are typically both distributed and remote. Power needs to be moved over long distances from many places. This adds both cost and complexity, but also the need for reactive support for voltage stability, etc. I tend to support wind/solar, but you shouldn't lose sight of the fact it's very complex to get it right.

eia.gov statistics disagree. https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/us-energy-facts/ https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/us-energy-facts/

epistasis 3y ago
EIA stats are pretty strong that fossil fuels are on their way out: >The US has posted its largest annual volume of new capacity in 20 years [with most of the growth coming from renewables] per @BloombergNEF using @EIAgov data https://twitter.com/ShanuMathew93/status/1779902695719006648 https://twitter.com/ShanuMathew93/status/1779902695719006648 > Solar and battery storage to make up 81% of new U.S. electric-generating capacity in 2024 https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=61424#:~:text=February%2015%2C%202024-,Solar%20and%20battery%20storage%20to%20make%20up%2081%25%20of%20new,electric%2Dgenerating%20capacity%20in%202024&text=Developers%20and%20power%20plant%20owners,Preliminary%20Monthly%20Electric%20Generator%20Inventory https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=61424#:~:tex....
- lispisok 3y ago
  Fossil production and consumption is still increasing. Once you get all new capacity coming online to 100% renewables then you have to start replacing existing fossil fuel capacity with renewables. It is a very big hill to climb
  - zizee 3y ago
    > Fossil production and consumption is still increasing. Are you talking worldwide? Or in the US? Because in the US and many other advanced economies total energy consumption is still increasing, but the total amount from fossil fuels is shrinking. At a certain point it is going to no longer make economic sense to continue to build new fossil fuel based energy production (it already doesn't if externalities are accounted for). It is a big hill to climb, but as the saying goes, "people vote with their wallets". Economic forces are pretty hard to resist.
  - philipkglass 3y ago
    According to the data on the page that you linked, https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/us-energy-facts/ https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/us-energy-facts/, fossil consumption is past its peak. You can download the data as a CSV file from the hamburger menu on the chart "U.S. Primary Energy Consumption by Major Sources." In the US primary energy from fossil fuel consumption was higher in 2007 than it was in 2022: 85.78 quads in 2007, 79.102 quads in 2022. Production is unfortunately still rising because fuel exports provide an outlet for production that isn't consumed domestically.

mschaef 3y ago

The problem is what you'd expect - wind and solar are what are known as energy resources. They are not capacity resources. This is another way of saying what you already know - wind doesn't work in still air and solar doesn't work at night. This presents a handful of challenges: * Generators make a lot of their money when they run. WWS can displace thermal units, reduce their runtime/profitability and make them less economically viable. (Even though they currently provide essential services that cannot be replicated with wind or solar) * Solar falling off at night (or during an eclipse) requires thermal generation to step in to make up the loss. Just as an example, the eclipse cost TX something like 14,000MW of generation over four hours. That's ~25% of grid load around the time. They had to turn on 14,000MW of generation over two hours, turn it back off over the next two, and then ramp it all back up as night fell. This is not easy to do. * Wind and Solar are typically both distributed and remote. Power needs to be moved over long distances from many places. This adds both cost and complexity, but also the need for reactive support for voltage stability, etc. I tend to support wind/solar, but you shouldn't lose sight of the fact it's very complex to get it right.