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For the first time in the U.S., renewables generate more power than natural gas
- Ericson2314 7mo agoGood stuff. But I would blame the Trump admin more then data centers for coal power plants staying on line. Gas would substitute for the coal ata minimum otherwise. > Nine coal power plants that were set for retirement last year have had their operating lives extended, including five in response to emergency orders from the Department of Energy. Maybe the other 4 still stay open without the bullshit DoE order keeping the 5 open, but who knows.
- wat10000 7mo agoIt’s worth noting that at least one of those is being kept open against the operator’s wishes, as it’s no longer profitable to operate. That’s how ridiculous these people are about coal.
- cucumber3732842 7mo ago"you're not allowed to shut this down until after congressman so and so wins reelection."
- tialaramex 7mo agoIf an incumbent US Senator's electability depends upon a single coal power plant they're already in deep shit. On the other hand for House reps the elections are every two years like clockwork, "after they win election" is in effect never because they will already be thinking about re-election, so if that's what they're asking for they mean never.
- pstuart 7mo agoA promise of Nuclear SMRs (Small Modular Reactors) is that they could be dropped into existing coal fired power plants and leverage the existing power generation equipment. Apparently they are failing to attain traction because despite the promise of lower cost reactors due to them no longer being bespoke, their LCOE cannot compete with renewables. I'd argue that we should subsidize those and help make them happen NOW even if the cost is not as low as it should be, as we need all the energy we can get and we need to get off of fossil fuels NOW to try to mitigate global warming.
- dummydummy1234 7mo agoHow much is industrial scale batteries for solar?
- lukeschlather 7mo agoThe LCOE is better than nuclear and nuclear is not getting cheaper while industrial scale batteries continue to get cheaper.
- nradov 7mo agoThe problem with small nuclear reactors is that costs don't scale down linearly with size or power output. Like you still need about the same number of armed security guards to protect the site. They might be a good option for remote sites off the grid where physical security isn't a concern.
- lithos 7mo agoThey are scaled for politics. Tell someone over 60 or 70 that Poland has better modular reactors than us, and they'll suddenly care.
- credit_guy 7mo agoSome costs scale down more than linearly, some less. For example, because of the square-cube law, you lose more neutrons through the walls of the reactor, so you often times need a higher level of uranium enrichment, and you produce less energy per ton of fuel, all other things being equal. That’s bad news for SMRs. But many reactor components, being significantly smaller, become much cheaper to manufacture, at least that’s the theory. We don’t know yet. But China is planning to start operating its ACP100 SMR in the next few months, and we will probably hear soon how happy they are with it.
- mchusma 7mo agoI do think the Iran crisis should continue to push countries towards nuclear + solar. Like Ukraine helped shift some in Europe back to supporting nuclear after foolishly shutting down reactors.
- pydry 7mo agoPoland was ~80% coal before Ukraine. It wasnt energy independence which got them interested in nuclear power it was the idea that they might one day want a nuclear bomb (in case the current nuclear umbrella goes away). It's never an economic decision to build nuclear power stations. They're 5x the cost of solar and wind.
- nsxwolf 7mo agoIf we actually cared about making nuclear cheap - getting rid of the political barriers to building Gen IV reactors, not throwing away our “waste”, it would beat the pants off solar by operating 24/7 and not using up all our land.
- actionfromafar 7mo agoAnd also be peaceful and never bomb plants.
- RealityVoid 7mo agoWhile I am a big fan of nuclear, I think the issue of land usage for solar is overblown. We use a lot of land for far less useful things. In the end, anything that helps us burn less fossil fuels, I am happy with.
- burningChrome 7mo agoYou're also taking away farmland that could be used to produce all kinds of things. Most of the prime solar areas are the same prime areas for agriculture. By creating massive solar farms, you're at the same time, reducing acreage that could be used for range animals and other agriculture: Modeling by the American Farmland Trust (AFT) finds that 83% of projected solar development will be on agricultural land, of which 49% will be on land AFT deems “nationally significant” due to high levels of productivity, versatility, and resiliency. In May 2024, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Economic Research Service (ERS) reported that between 2009 and 2020, 43% of solar installations were on land previously used for crop production and 21% on land used as pasture or rangeland. In a few years we'll have to deal with an impending disposal issue on farmland: Forecasts suggest that 8 million metric tons of solar panels will have reached the end of their lifecycles by 2030. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory reports that less than 10% of decommissioned panels are recycled. Many end up in landfills at the end of their lifecycle, which could be problematic, according to researchers with the Electric Power Research Institute because panels could break and leak toxic materials like lead and cadmium into the soil. If decommissioned panels are not disposed of properly, they could contaminate the surface and groundwater in the surrounding area, making disposal a major issue for farmers and rural communities who rely on groundwater for needs ranging from crop irrigation to drinking water.
- itopaloglu83 7mo agoI wonder how good it could be if the governments offered the exact same amount of subsidies to renewable energy they offer to coal and petroleum, including indirect subsidies like distribution infrastructure etc.
- actionfromafar 7mo ago[flagged]
- oklahomasports 7mo agoYou also then have to include the subsidies renewables have gotten. They of course also use distribution infrastructure
- deleted 7mo ago[deleted]
- epistasis 7mo agoRight now renewables and storage are cheaper than most new fossil fuel types of generation. The cheapest new fossil fuel generation, gas, is bottlenecked by limited capacity to build new turbines currently. So if you look at new resources being added to the grid, it's all solar, wind, storage, and a tiny bit of new fossil gas generation. The biggest impediment to more renewables is no longer cost, it's politics and regulations. We have a president that has torpedoes one of the best new sources of wind, offshore wind, just as it's becoming super economical, and all the rest of the world is going to get the benefit of that cheap energy while the US falls behind. Floating offshore wind in the Pacific, based on the same type of tech as floating oil platforms, could provide a hugely beneficial amount of electricity at night and in winter, to balance out solar with less storage and less overbuilding. Meanwhile on land, transmission line are a huge bottleneck towards more solar and wind, and the interconnection queue for the grid is backed out to hell in most places. The technology and economics are there, but the humans and their bureaucracy is not ready to fully jump on board.
- dylan604 7mo ago
- mekdoonggi 7mo agoExtending the life of existing power infra is low-hanging fruit for more power short term, but the economics of renewables are just unstoppable. Article states 93% of new generation capacity was renewable which is good, but I can sense that nimbyism is growing towards wind and solar. Not to mention the animus towards China who has wisely cornered manufacturing of these. The US has shot itself in the foot because of its energy dependence on its own energy source. The resource curse strikes again.
- Amezarak 7mo agoThe WTO found that China cornered the market with illegal dumping. Of course the investigations and punishments are too little too late.
- mekdoonggi 7mo agoThat may be the case, though from a US perspective, in terms of "unilaterally acting to gain control of other markets" being bad, we aren't a position to criticize.
- 0xWTF 7mo agoWhat's even more important is how solar, and to a lesser extent other tech, served as a gateway for China to accumulate electrical engineering, physics, and chemistry talent the US seems committed to offshoring by incentivizing universities to hire the cheapest available grad student talent (inevitably from China). We are training them and not our own.
- ike2792 7mo agoI don't think this article did the math right. In the linked source from the article (https://ember-energy.org/data/electricity-data-explorer/?entity=United+States&metric=absolute&fuel=total&tab=main&chart=trend&mode=stacked&multi=true&temporal_res=monthly&date=2026-03-01&date_from=2022-03-01 https://ember-energy.org/data/electricity-data-explorer/?ent...), in 03/2026 combined generation from hydro (26 TWh), wind (53), solar (27.7), bioenergy (3.82), and other renewables (1.51) is 112.03 TWh, vs 120 TWh for natural gas. It's still an impressive number but it is still slightly less than natural gas.
- 0xdde 7mo agoI think you misread the solar number. The link says 37.6TWh solar with the remaining numbers matching what you wrote. That gives a total of 120.42TWh.
- ike2792 7mo agoYou are right, I read 37 as 27. I will update my parent comment.
- mekdoonggi 7mo agoI am not seeing those numbers in the chart. For March, I see 37.6 solar, 53 wind, 26 hydro, 60.4 nuclear, 5.3 other, together for 182.3 vs 120 for gas.
- ike2792 7mo agoUPDATE: Solar was 37.6, not 27.7. I'm not quite sure where I got the incorrect number from. The corrected total is 121.93, which is indeed greater than the 120 for natural gas. I apologize for the error but I can't edit my original comment anymore so I'll just post the correction here. Thanks to mekdoonggi and 0xdde for correcting my mistake.
- dyauspitr 7mo agoFor everyone confused by all the different ways, these things are measured. Here’s the simplest breakdown. Total U.S. energy use: about 27.6 million GWh/yr From renewables: about 2.5 million GWh/yr Renewables’ share of total energy: about 9% This includes the total energy usage, including cars and buses and propane for heating homes and like just about everything else. This is the number we need to maximize.
- aidenn0 7mo agoFusion power has gone from 30 years away to just 8 light-minutes away.
- dxxvi 7mo agoBut the energy prices (electricity and gas) don't go down :-( Then "renewables generate more power than natural gas" is not very meaningful.
- tialaramex 7mo agoPower companies will charge what they can, and to be fair most of their costs aren't generation, the guy who fixed that HV line a block over when the power went out during a winter storm? He doesn't work for free. And somebody paid for all those huge metal pylons or, if there aren't any where you live, the even more expensive underground cables. But, the other practical effect is that if you use less fossil fuels you're making the climate worse more slowly. Now, given we'd like it to stop getting worse just making it worse more slowly isn't the whole answer but it does at least help.
- pulketo 7mo agoCuriosa noticia en medio de una guerra por el control de la zona petrolera...