Slashdot Mirror

On a per kWh produced basis the subsidies for solar power is far greater.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/j...

The thing you are missing is that the allocations are from the tax code and if you follow the chain of documents of where that is defined it leads back to SEC.1703 of 2005 US Energy Policy Act">2005 US Energy Policy Act. That made the provision for the ARRA Act that provided the additional subsidies not provided for in the Energy Policy ACT. A program that created a lot of jobs around the US for electricians and tradesmen. Subsidies that have already ended in 2016.

Also what is not mentioned is that Solar and Wind had 10 times the growth of Nuclear power. It also fails to mention - if you hadn't gone through the Policy act *BEFORE* reading the EIA report that Nuclear Power gets an input tax credit per kilowatt hour. NP also gets another source of funding that is not in the criteria of the EIA document in the form of contract construction delay subsidies.

So the Forbes article is based on an obsolete notion because the subsides ended 2 years ago and aren't part of core Energy policy according to the Act.

Look at the pie chart here on where the USA gets it's electricity:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

.

What is missing here is the mass of concrete used in base of the wind generators will be reused for the next generation of wind technology as they are being set up where the wind is. The Nacelle will be upgraded and the base re-used. The up front establishment of a new industry will have those costs the same way Nuclear Power does.

What differs is that the steel in the Nuclear plant can't be re-used as it is radio-activated. The concrete can't be used without a massive energetic cost.

Come to think of it using Uranium mine tailings as concrete bases for Wind Turbines might be a really good way of disposing of the Uranium mine tailings in a constructive way. Build more wind to clean up the nuclear industry.

I'll also say, I don't object to funding the research of nuclear reactors, what I object to is the flat out raiding of the ratepayers to keep the current failing nuclear power industry as a means for oil and coal interests to further rob taxpayers. At least the limited solar and wind subsidies are ending up in the pockets of ordinary people.

Americans per person still get more of their electricity from coal than Chinese people do. Even though you closed a bunch of plants, and China opened a bunch too.

China: 69%

US: 30%

This US bashing is far beyond denial.

while Transportation % has risen. That does not mean that emissions from transportation has risen, just the % of our output has.

Yet in your comment here you linked to this and explained the reason for the increase.

Everything went down, EXCEPT for Transportation, but that was because oil became cheap and ppl bought new big cars.

So you knew about it enough to 'explain' it to other people, giving reasons and links. But then conveniently forget about it when you needed to lie about it later.

Why are you claiming from below 15? You are above 15 Windy at 15.8 so stop lying.
More than twice China's level too, don't keep lying about that either.

Well trump did increase your coal exports 61% in 2017, reduce your emission standards for power plants, reduce your MPG standards for cars.

U.S. Energy Information Administration Projections Consistently Underestimate Renewable Energy and Overstate the Promise of Fossil Fuels
For first 6 months of 2018 vs 2017, all parts of America is burning less fossil fuel except for south east


As others have told you, go back to sucking Xi's cock. You have nothing intelligent to say. All you can do is lie, lie, lie.

America will very likely be below 10 before 2025, if not sooner

How? Following this data, even a continued linear trend extrapolated from the most favourable scenario of -0.35 per year would put the US at around 12 in 2025, with only falling under 10 in the 2030s.

Disregard the linear trend. That assumes that everything remains the same, which will NOT be the case.: 1) Nearly all of America's CO2 cuts has been caused by the killing of the coal plants and replacing with Nat Gas and Wind. That will likely continue in spite of Trump's push.

You idiot. you can't just say it's likely with no evidence whatsoever.

After declining by 0.9% in 2017, EIA forecasts that energy-related carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions will rise by 2.0% in 2018. The increase largely reflects higher natural gas consumption because of a colder winter and warmer summer than in 2017.

2) Because of the massive focus that America has had on cutting CO2 from electricity, that has dropped as %, while Transportation % has risen. That does not mean that emissions from transportation has risen, just the % of our output has.

You liar, I've already showed you before that transport is increasing. Not just as a percentage, but the level of CO2 is increasing as can be easily seen on the graph. Last time I showed you the t of CO2. Why still lie about it now?

3) Over the next 3-6 years, the west and china will be moving heavily to EVs. In America, Commercial and passenger vehicles are all moving to these. We have lots of new buses that are moving to EV with both BYD and Proterra. This is forcing other bus companies, even school buses to switch. Tesla producing a Semi truck that does 600 MPC is going to put a LOT of pressure on ICE version of semis. Delivery starts in less than a year. BYD is producing a Semi that gets less than 200 MPC, though lots of quality issues with. THis is leading to multiple other companies producing EV semis, as well as new ones. In addition, we have Rivian about to introduce both a pick-up truck and a 3 row SUV in 2020(to be shown in Nov at LA show) with more to follow afterwards. What does that mean? It means that by 2024, EVs will almost certainly occupy at least 1/2 of ALL road-based vehicle sales, if not more. The average passenger vehicle in America is around 11.5 years. Basically, ppl have been holding off on buying cars, which is why Ford decided to kill sedans here. Point is, come around 2020/1, lots of vehicles are going to be bought and I would guess that few will want an ICE. Ideally Rivian and Tesla will be able to convince most F1, F2, F3 buyers to switch.

tiny and not growing

Electrified vehicles continue to see slow growth and less use than conventional vehicles

America will very likely be below 10 before 2025, if not sooner

How? Following this data, even a continued linear trend extrapolated from the most favourable scenario of -0.35 per year would put the US at around 12 in 2025, with only falling under 10 in the 2030s.

Disregard the linear trend. That assumes that everything remains the same, which will NOT be the case.: 1) Nearly all of America's CO2 cuts has been caused by the killing of the coal plants and replacing with Nat Gas and Wind. That will likely continue in spite of Trump's push.

You idiot. you can't just say it's likely with no evidence whatsoever.

After declining by 0.9% in 2017, EIA forecasts that energy-related carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions will rise by 2.0% in 2018. The increase largely reflects higher natural gas consumption because of a colder winter and warmer summer than in 2017.

2) Because of the massive focus that America has had on cutting CO2 from electricity, that has dropped as %, while Transportation % has risen. That does not mean that emissions from transportation has risen, just the % of our output has.

You liar, I've already showed you before that transport is increasing. Not just as a percentage, but the level of CO2 is increasing as can be easily seen on the graph. Last time I showed you the t of CO2. Why still lie about it now?

3) Over the next 3-6 years, the west and china will be moving heavily to EVs. In America, Commercial and passenger vehicles are all moving to these. We have lots of new buses that are moving to EV with both BYD and Proterra. This is forcing other bus companies, even school buses to switch. Tesla producing a Semi truck that does 600 MPC is going to put a LOT of pressure on ICE version of semis. Delivery starts in less than a year. BYD is producing a Semi that gets less than 200 MPC, though lots of quality issues with. THis is leading to multiple other companies producing EV semis, as well as new ones. In addition, we have Rivian about to introduce both a pick-up truck and a 3 row SUV in 2020(to be shown in Nov at LA show) with more to follow afterwards. What does that mean? It means that by 2024, EVs will almost certainly occupy at least 1/2 of ALL road-based vehicle sales, if not more. The average passenger vehicle in America is around 11.5 years. Basically, ppl have been holding off on buying cars, which is why Ford decided to kill sedans here. Point is, come around 2020/1, lots of vehicles are going to be bought and I would guess that few will want an ICE. Ideally Rivian and Tesla will be able to convince most F1, F2, F3 buyers to switch.

tiny and not growing

Electrified vehicles continue to see slow growth and less use than conventional vehicles

You can't produce nuclear plants fast enough.

Sure we can.

There was a time when the USA could build them "fast enough", and the USA has only grown in population, industrial capacity, and wealth. We can afford to build new nuclear. We can't afford not to. The USA built 99 reactors between 1967 and 1990. That's nearly 5 per year, but they were going online much faster than that at the peak.
http://www.world-nuclear.org/i...

Just to keep up with the rate of expected closures of old coal and nuclear, and growing electrical demand, the USA will have to build about 2 new nuclear power reactors, of about 1GW capacity, every month. Once we've replaced all the old power plants we will have to keep building them at that rate to replace the ones we build today in 40 or 50 years. This is consistent with EIA projections of 20GW of new natural gas electrical generation capacity this year.
https://www.eia.gov/todayinene...

I have heard from a nuclear engineer that a nuclear power plant takes no more materials or engineering than nuclear power. The only difference is in the paperwork. If we can get all the legal hurdles out of the way then we could be building new nuclear like we did in the 1970s and 1980s.

Nuclear power is safe, clean, reliable, and we can build it as cheap as anything. Even with all the current bureaucracy on building nuclear power it is competitive with wind and natural gas, and it's certainly cheaper than solar right now. It's not as cheap as natural gas just yet but it only takes a spike in demand, and therefore prices, to flip that around. I expect that to happen after a couple years of 20GW of more natural gas power coming online every year.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

It seems all there is to say against nuclear are easily debunked lies. We will have more nuclear power, that not a question any more. The only questions to answer is how quickly we can ramp up production and what kind of nuclear power we will be building. We can build more light water solid fuel reactors like we have for decades, or we can move beyond that and build molten salt reactors.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimates that in 2017, the U.S. residential sector and the commercial sector used about 273 billion kilowatthours (kWh) of electricity for lighting. This was about 10% of the total electricity consumed by both of these sectors and about 7% of total U.S. electricity consumption. Residential lighting consumption was about 129 billion kWh or about 9% of total residential sector electricity consumption in 2017. The commercial sector, which includes commercial and institutional buildings, and public street and highway lighting, consumed about 143 billion kWh for lighting, equal to about 11% of total commercial sector electricity consumption in 2017. EIA does not have an estimate specifically for public street and highway lighting.

https://www.eia.gov/kids/energ...

38% of electricity is residential and commercial.

38% of total energy, 74% residential and commercial, with 10% of that for lighting.
equals 2.8% of total energy is for lighting (thats not even counting industrial lighting).
If all incandescent bulbs were replaced with LED (it wouldn't cost anything after a year or so due to electricity savings) you could save about 60% of that say about 1.7% of total US energy emissions (for free).
That may not sound like much,
https://rhg.com/research/final...

EIA released their final estimates this week which align with our preliminary numbers. Energy-related CO2 emissions fell by 0.66% last year

But it's 2 and a half years at the current US rate of decline. So quite meaningful (if you are pretending US is meaningfully cutting emissions, an argument for another day perhaps)

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimates that in 2017, the U.S. residential sector and the commercial sector used about 273 billion kilowatthours (kWh) of electricity for lighting. This was about 10% of the total electricity consumed by both of these sectors and about 7% of total U.S. electricity consumption. Residential lighting consumption was about 129 billion kWh or about 9% of total residential sector electricity consumption in 2017. The commercial sector, which includes commercial and institutional buildings, and public street and highway lighting, consumed about 143 billion kWh for lighting, equal to about 11% of total commercial sector electricity consumption in 2017. EIA does not have an estimate specifically for public street and highway lighting.

https://www.eia.gov/kids/energ...

38% of electricity is residential and commercial.

38% of total energy, 74% residential and commercial, with 10% of that for lighting.
equals 2.8% of total energy is for lighting (thats not even counting industrial lighting).
If all incandescent bulbs were replaced with LED (it wouldn't cost anything after a year or so due to electricity savings) you could save about 60% of that say about 1.7% of total US energy emissions (for free).
That may not sound like much,
https://rhg.com/research/final...

EIA released their final estimates this week which align with our preliminary numbers. Energy-related CO2 emissions fell by 0.66% last year

But it's 2 and a half years at the current US rate of decline. So quite meaningful (if you are pretending US is meaningfully cutting emissions, an argument for another day perhaps)

And is this manufacturing just for fun? Or are people consuming all the things that are being manufactured? More people more consumption. (since America is a net importer, they are even worse than the CO2 numbers show)

Just in case you were serious, here is the kids page from the EIA showing who uses all the energy in America.
Manufacturing is just a part of that blue 32% industrial sector.
All those other sectors, the majority, are obviously directly related to population size. More population, more of all those things.

Hope you learned something.

Then you'd be wrong. Compare the unsubsidised LCOE columns, and look how nuclear is still double the cost of wind.

the equipment to collect solar energy cost money

As does the equipment to collect any other form of energy, plus maintenance and security. AND you have to pay the fuel extraction costs - along with capital, maintenance, etc for all the mining and refining infrastructure - and the same for all the transportation too (and its fuel costs).

all the hard currency you have to send to China to buy all that equipment

As opposed to their home-grown coal & gas plants? Most solutions require importing equipment. You're still pointing out the obvious.

the environmental effects of setting up solar collection facilities

.. are a heck of a lot less than the environmental effects of mining fossil fuels, transporting it, setting up a power plant, then burning millions of tonnes of it. And what makes you think you need water to clean solar panels? Some cheap labour and a broom is enough, or you can go more high tech.

Natural Gas is the cheapskate's fuel of choice these days.

You seemed to have missed the part of TFA where the whole reason for investing in solar was because their LNG imports were too expensive. And you're completely wrong about the relative LCOE of gas vs wind (comparable) and solar (US is within 20% on average, Egypt would be cheaper) - unsubsidised of course, except for the public still paying the bill for the health & environmental costs of the gas plant's emissions. If you factor those in then gas doesn't even get close to competitive.

We actually import very little oil from the Persian Gulf. Most of that oil we're protecting goes to our allies in the EU, or to Asia. I guess we should charge our allies for the protection we offer for their energy supplies...

HHAHHAHHAHHHAHHHHAHHAHAHHAHAAHA. Thanks, i needed a good laugh.

https://www.eia.gov/todayinene...

More recently, the 556 MW Kewaunee Nuclear Power Plant in eastern Wisconsin was shut down in 2013. Kewaunee’s operator, Dominion Power, anticipates nearly $1 billion in total costs using the SAFSTOR method and estimates that work will not be complete until 2073.

That $200,000 is looking pretty good put up against that $1 BILLION plus....and 60 years to complete.

The capacity factor of a wind turbine is about a 1/3rd. The biggest wind turbines are about 2 megawatts. Kewaunee had a lifetime capacity factor of 84% for it's 39 years of service.

To replace Kewaunee's output with wind turbines, you would need 631 of the largest wind turbines available, for a cost of about 2 billion dollars. Since wind turbines last perhaps half as long as nuclear plants, figure $4 billion. That also doesn't count added costs with spreading them out geographically far enough to get reliable generation from them; nor have we touched the tremendous amount of land they need.

At a $200,000 per unit decomissioning cost for wind turbines, the total cost would for scrapping two generations of a 631 unit 'wind farm' would be $250,000,000, less than Kewaunee's billion..... but now you're starting to compare apples to apples.

New nuclear plants are double the output of Kewaunee- while they're admittedly expensive, they have the tremendous benefit of power-on-demand- something that's vital for a stable electrical grid.

More recently, the 556 MW Kewaunee Nuclear Power Plant in eastern Wisconsin was shut down in 2013. Kewaunee’s operator, Dominion Power, anticipates nearly $1 billion in total costs using the SAFSTOR method and estimates that work will not be complete until 2073.

That $200,000 is looking pretty good put up against that $1 BILLION plus....and 60 years to complete.

Nuclear energy is not safe and is not inexpensive when humans are involved.

It's safe...
https://ourworldindata.org/wha...
https://www.nextbigfuture.com/...

It's inexpensive...
https://www.eia.gov/electricit...
https://insideclimatenews.org/...
https://www.forbes.com/sites/j...

Decommissioning costs are running two orders of magnitude more expensive than proponents said they would be.
* This means that nuclear is actually much more expensive than it's stated cost and that means the next generatiosn subsidizes nuclear power used by the prior generations.

That's just a lie. The Forbes article above explicitly point out that decommissioning costs are included in the price. They also point out that past cost overruns in nuclear power were often the result of poor money management, not any flaws in the technology or construction.

Securing the nuclear waste costs millions of dollars per site per year for the foreseeable future.
* This cost increases over time. What cost $6 million 10 years ago, costs $8 million a couple years ago.

Prove it.

Private insurance will not cover the risk. That's evidence right there that the risks are unknowable or larger than proponents say.
* This means citizens are on the hook for unlimited losses. Corporations and executives get the profits up front and dump the costs on citizens.

The risks are large. That's what happens with any large project. A multi-billion dollar anything will be more than any private insurance company is willing or able to cover. This is a financial risk, which again is often a problem of poor money management and not any flaw with nuclear power itself.

It has benefits for CO2 but we sail thru the 2 degree celcius increase about 2024. Nuclear plants wouldn't be done for 20 years.

Mean construction time for a nuclear power plant is about 7.5 years, though many have been completed in 3 years. Just because the TVA took 42 years to complete a reactor at Watts Barr does not mean all reactor projects are doomed to take as long.

The public hate them.

That's changing.
https://www.statista.com/stati...
https://www.thedailystar.net/o...

I've seen people flip on their stance on nuclear power right before my eyes when I point out that Fukushima was older than Chernobyl. We don't build nuclear reactors like Fukushima and Chernobyl any more. People understand this. You can complain about nuclear being unsafe, too expensive, and so on, but that's technology from 1980 if you are lucky. I can make wind and solar look bad too if I'm taking state of the art from 1978 and compare that to modern nuclear. Should I base my car purchases from what I learned by reading Unsafe At Any Speed?

I could see using Nuclear only in extreme lattitudes where alternative energy is less practical.

Then you need your vision checked.

1) Explain the first graph in 3 sentences and why it perfectly matches the suns day cycle: https://www.eia.gov/todayinene...

2) Explain the graph on page 21, in 3 simple sentences and admit that all your recent posts are wrong: https://www.ethz.ch/content/da...

3) Explain the first graph here https://www.weforum.org/agenda... and explain the correlation to my question 1)

Stop making an idiot of yourself.

Sorry if using Texas as a simple to follow example annoys you, or if you don't find the examples simple to follow. Well if you don't find it simple to follow, my suggestion is: "stay out of discussions you are not competent to join".

What's obvious here is that you're mostly just crap at communicating your point - and just as crap at recognising the points of others.

GP is clearly referring to seasonal variation, which is obvious enough that I'm assuming you just prefer to trash anyone who disagrees rather than concede anything. Since the only clarification you bothered to offer was a reference to the "key" part of your quote, yet you included both "when" and "where" in your claim, you could've meant regional variations or diurnal variations, or maybe something else entirely.

Since e.g. Germany is further north than nearly all the US, yet can already generate excess solar at times (clearly adding some storage will allow further increases of solar in their energy mix) - then I'd say latitude is not a barrier for the great majority of the population. And if you meant that peak usage often lags after peak solar, then storage helps there too.

the current grid runs at 100% capacity nearly all the time

If that were true then the Electricity Demand Curve would be the Electricity Demand Horizontal Line. The reality is there's a glut of capacity at night, which conveniently coincides with the time most people would be recharging their EVs.

https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/index.php?page=electricity_in_the_united_states

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_electricity_consumption

Reuters, Forbes, CNBC and others report that the US solar industry lost about 10,000 jobs in 2017. And that's after an initial increase of jobs in 2017 that promised to be about 17 times faster than the total US economy.

Yeah, I think Trump has curtailed the adoption of renewable energy. But it's just my opinion. I could be wrong. Wouldn't surprise me. Often am.

Initial report of job growth:

http://money.cnn.com/2017/05/24/news/economy/solar-jobs-us-coal/index.html

Reports of job loss:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/joshuarhodes/2018/01/23/solar-tariff-a-direct-hit-to-fastest-growing-job-market-in-us/

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/07/us-solar-industry-lost-nearly-10000-jobs-in-2017.html

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-solar-jobs/u-s-solar-industry-lost-nearly-10000-jobs-in-2017-idUSKBN1FR15O

How much oil is used to make plastic?: "Although crude oil is a source of raw material (feedstock) for making plastics, it is not the major source of feedstock for plastics production in the United States."

Natural gas is less polluting. Still a problem, but not as much of a problem as using oil.

but somebody made a good point about this switch to solar & renewables: it's going to crash the economy.

Let me explain. We've got massive amounts of investment wealth tied up in fossil fuels. People's retirements are heavily vested in them. At the rate we're going their value, while not worthless, is going to be massively diminished. And it's happening fast. Plus there's no massive natural resource to replace it.

We're going to wipe out trillions in value and replace it with, well, nothing really. Now, from a practical standpoint we've still got power. But human beings aren't very practical. When that wealth shift happens it's going to make a mess of things. The people who lose their shirts in oil futures are likely to be abandoned. And that's before we start talking about what's going to happen to the middle east.

We did this story last week. It's still wrong
See the "International Energy Outlook" report: https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/i...

Renewables are great and their use will continue to increase but nations and industries rely on diversity of supply. That's why the Trump admin is keeping coal plants open for now. They have their shortcomings but they are reliable, run on a fuel we have a huge supply of, and are required to keep a 90 day supply of that fuel to prevent outages due to supply interruptions.

How much electricity does an American home use?

In 2016, the average annual electricity consumption for a U.S. residential utility customer was 10,766 kilowatthours (kWh), an average of 897 kWh per month

https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs...
897kWh/mo / 30 days is 30kWh/day

So the 40% stands.

America's coal plants ran at 90% load

America's coal plants only run in the low 50's
Too many numbers for you to understand so here is a pretty picture to make it easy for you. Figure 2 on page 3 is what you want to look at.

Since 2008, the utilization of the coal fleet has declined by almost 30 percent to an average capacity factor of 53 percent.

Since 2008 (as far back as the graph goes) it's never been above even 75%, so why did you lie and say it's 90%

Capacity factor is virtually irrelevant to the amount of coal used or the CO2 produced, so god knows why you had to lie about it or even mention it at all.
Compulsive lairs gonna compulsive lie I guess.

Clearly you are having reading troubles this clearly shows way over 2 billion tons of CO2 for oil, but less than 1.5 billion tons for coal (less than natural gas even).
Oil is obviously the bigger number, so oil is obviously the bigger polluter.

I'll ignore your other lies for now, explain how the above is wrong if you think you can.

The link for CO2 emissions by fuel source didn't come through in that post.

Gasoline generates about 8.89 kg of CO2 per gallon. So producing 1 ton of CO2 would require burning (1000 kg)/(8.89 kg/gallon) = 112.5 gallons of gasoline. The current average price of gasoline is $2.934/gallon, so 112.5 gallons of gas would cost (112.5 gal)*($2.934/gal) = $330.

A $100-$200 surcharge per ton of CO2 would thus raise the price of gasoline by just 30%-61%.

Using the same EIA chart, coal generates roughly 2 tons of CO2 per ton of coal. One ton of coal contains roughly 24 Gigajoules of thermal energy, which is 6.67 MWh. If the coal plant is 40% efficient, that means that one ton of coal generates 2.67 MWh of electricity. Since that one ton of coal also emits 2 tons of CO2, we end up with (2 tons CO2) / (2.67 MWh) = 0.75 tons per MWh.

Natural gas generates roughly 53.12 kg of CO2 per thousand cubic feet. A thousand cubic feet of methane contains 1.037 million BTUs of thermal energy = 303.9 kWh. If the gas plant is 60% efficient, this means 53.12 kg of CO2 are emitted per 182.3 kWh, or (0.053 tons CO2) / (0.1823 MWh) = 0.29 tons per MWh.

Coal accounts for 30.1% of U.S. electricity. Natural gas accounts for 31.7%. So the fractional CO2 contribution of these fossil fuels to electricity is (0.75 tons/MWh)*(0.301)+(0.29 tons/MWh)*(0.317) = 0.318 tons of CO2 per MWh. A $100-$200 surcharge per ton of CO2 then ends up costing $31.80-$63.60 per MWh, or 3.2 cents - 6.4 cents per kWh.

Average electricity price in the U.S. is 12 cents/kWh. So a $100-$200 surcharge per ton of CO2 would raise the price of electricity by 27%-53%. Almost exactly the same percentage as gasoline.

Like I keep trying to explain to people: Electric vehicles aren't cheap to operate because they're more energy efficient. They use nearly as much energy as ICE vehicles. They're just cheaper to operate because the coal and natural gas used to generate electricity are roughly an order of magnitude cheaper per MJ than gasoline. If you want to reduce CO2 emissions, buying an EV presently doesn't help. When you replace an ICE vehicleswith an EV without changing the makeup of your electricity sources, all you've done is shift your CO2 emissions from the car's tailpipe to a fossil fuel power plant's smokestack. That's why the claim that EVs are "zero emissions" is BS at present. You need to replace fossil fuel power plants with nuclear and renewable plants to cause a reduction in CO2 emissions.

That must be why all the greenies keep demanding we convert all those coal plants over to burning oil.
Look here oil is at the top. Checkmate in 1.

I got my numbers from the Energy Information Administration (EIA). Here's the website: https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs...

But the capacity factor is low and the O&M cost is not free. The land required is not free. The capital cost is not free. The owners cost is not free. The cost of T&D is not free. Levelized cost means renewables still cannot compete with natural gas.

Capacity factor is irrelevant for levelized cost, O&M is significantly lower for newly built renewables than for most other sources, and there's no shortage of unused land in the world.

You will be using fossil fuel your entire lives. Get over it.

If you're sixty or more, then maybe. Otherwise...nope.

How about it Tesla? Batteries, ready to spread solar power plant, multiplicity of connector types on a ship, always ready go in the case of a emergency.

Geothermal has a capacity factor of about 0.7. So the 38 MW the plant is rated for generates on average (38MW)*(0.7) = 26.6 MW.

Solar at Hawaii's location (96704 zip code) has a capacity factor of about 0.124 (this takes into account night, seasons, movement of the sun, weather, maintenance, etc). So generating 26.6 MW would require (26.6 MW)/(0.124) = 215 MW of installed nameplate capacity. That would make it the 18th largest PV solar plant in the U.S.

Assuming you're using commerical 180 W/m^2 panels, this would mean 1.195 million m^2 of solar panels, or 1.195 km^2 of panels alone. Or 67 Panamax-size container ships ( 66 meters x 49 meters) completely covered on PV panels to replace this single geothermal plant.

If you allow space to account for maintenance and tilt to the angle of the sun, the PV solar plants in this capacity range seem to cover about 5-10 km^2. So now you're talking about 280-560 Panamax-sized ships with solar panels on them to replace this single geothermal plant.

Or put another way, a single Panamax-sized ship with every upward-facing surface covered in solar panels would only generate (366 meters)*(49 meters)*(180 W/m^2)*(0.124) = 400287 Watts = 0.4 MW on average at this location. The average U.S. home uses 10,766 kWh per year, or an average of (10766 kWh) / (1 year) = 1481 Watts. So your one ship would be enough to power about 270 homes. There are already 10,000 people evacuated, which if you assume 4 per home is 2500 homes.

People *vastly* overestimate the power density of solar. Mobile solar is stupid unless you can drastically reduce your power consumption. Effective use of solar requires large areas of cheap land.

Still, electricity from clean sources like wind, hydro, solar, and nuclear (yes, nuclear) is cleaner than burning any fossil fools like oil or natural gas.

In the US over 60% of electricity comes from fossil fuels, including 30% from coal. Renewables only account for 17%.
https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs...

Look Windy, renewables are becoming less and less of your new electricity... 2015 66% 2016 62% 2017 55% 2018 36% No wonder your CO2 will rise this year.

Only because coal is steep decline, with natural gas picking up the slack (it produces about half the CO2 of coal, and much less of other pollutants). Actual renewable deployment is holding steady. It is fine if natural gas steps in to kill coal, the faster we get to coal zero the better.

What fraction of natural gas used for electric generation comes from swamp gas or other renewable sources?

Somewhere between jack, and shit: literally 11 billion kWh from landfill gas, and 1,273 billion kWh from natgas. I'm sure you knew that, but it's gratifying to be able to find the figures.

Look Windy, renewables are becoming less and less of your new electricity...
2015 66%
2016 62%
2017 55%
2018 36%
No wonder your CO2 will rise this year.

Even the dirtiest types of solar panels, the thin-film kind, only produce about 1/10th of the pollutants as the next closest fossil fuel, which is natural gas. Compared to coal or oil, it's closer to 1/50th.

This implies that coal or oil produce ~5 times the "pollutants" of natural gas. If you're talking about carbon dioxide, this is false. Coal produces ~2 times as much carbon dioxide as natural gas, for a given amount of heat. (See numbers.) If you're talking about something else, like particulates, the numbers could be almost anything, depending on the type of plant - but carbon dioxide is the relevant one if you're concerned about the greenhouse effect.

Given that your comparison between gas and coal is either irrelevant or false, why should I trust your claims with respect to solar power?

For that matter, you're not even using the right dimensions. Producing solar panels emits a certain amount of carbon dioxide; using them to generate power does not. Producing power by burning fossil fuels, in contrast, emits carbon dioxide continuously. The correct comparison would be something like "Manufacturing a solar panel of a given power output emits as much carbon dioxide as producing the same amount of power from coal for X years.". (And then you also have to clarify whether you're talking about ideal power output, or output in a particular realistic climate.) Note that the figure of merit, X, has dimensions of time: claiming a ratio of "1/10th" or "1/50th", with no dimensions, is nonsensical.

If you realize that this is a complex issue then why would you suggest such a simplistic and short-sighted action? Also, we don't produce anywhere near the amount of oil needed to match our consumption.

https://www.eia.gov/energyexpl...

Um.... Well, to though a few bombs into the fray...

I think we have enough fossil fuels to survive over in our hemisphere. We might have to alter a few things like using more NG than we do now, but we could make a go of it.

That's not to say I'm for letting the middle east just self destruct nor should we arm a couple of proxies over there and let them do it.

If you realize that this is a complex issue then why would you suggest such a simplistic and short-sighted action? Also, we don't produce anywhere near the amount of oil needed to match our consumption.

https://www.eia.gov/energyexpl...

Due to the shale revolution, the US is now self-sufficient in oil.

I guess you watched some American Petroleum Institute advertising a few years ago and you believed the attractive pitch-woman's predictions, and assumed they came true.

But in actual reality (not "reality TV" reality):

In 2017, the United States imported approximately 10.1 million barrels per day (MMb/d) of petroleum from about 84 countries. Petroleum includes crude oil, natural gas plant liquids, liquefied refinery gases, refined petroleum products such as gasoline and diesel fuel, and biofuels including ethanol and biodiesel. About 79% of gross petroleum imports were crude oil.

For comparison total U.S. crude oil production averaged 9.3 million barrels per day in 2017. So a bit more than half of U.S. oil consumption was imported.

96 million/day

so about a third of a percent.

but if it's an accelerating trend (7 years to 1/3 percent, 8 years to .4 percent), and it's not a proven tech, so it may spread to other countries, I bet they're watching it with some nervousness.

If it can handle buses, local delivery is next (Tesla truck for example).

growth 2016-2017 was .7%, so this in theory is hitting growth significantly.

(growth sourced here, daily use 2016 on a google search)
https://www.eia.gov/beta/inter...

Great point! Would mod you up if I could.

Given the importance of grow in this century, it is big.

Because in essence you did.

https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/h...

The spice must flow. The empire doesn't need to occupy the source, only install someone that will make sure to produce. Should they fail, install someone else.

They solve the spin up time problem by just running the plants all the time whether power is needed or not, then selling the power they don't need to their neighbors over the grid. That is nonsense. We have no strange spin up times where coal can not handle it.

Coal plants have lots of issues with starting up quickly. 23% of all coal plant cold start-up events fail (produce no electricity). These failed start-ups persist for a median of 4 hours before being retried, though the average is 8 hours (i.e. a substantial number persist much longer). Of the start-ups that succeed the average start-up time from the beginning of combustion to producing power is about 8 hours.

Coal plants are strictly base load plants, unable to deal with load fluctuation on a scale significantly shorter than a day.

OTOH, natural gas peaking plants start-up in a matter of minutes.

And: coal is down ot 40% of our power mix.

And: we still produce 10%-12% of oir power by nuclear.

Eh? No. In 2017 it coal power production was 30%, nuclear was 20%.

Get a damn clue and stop spreading FUD.

Maybe you should start looking up actual data and providing citations.

A big issue is this: Coal has been steadily automating its mining systems. In 1950 underground mining was at the rate of 0.68 tons per man hour and surface mining was at the rate of 1.9 tons/manhour. By 2011 underground mining was at the rate of 2.76 tons/man hour and surface mining was at 8.8 tons/man hour. There were productivity peaks in 2003 of 4.04 and 10.75 tons/man hour.

So assuming coal had maintained the same level of production between 1950 and 2011, the coal industry would have shed 75% of its manpower due to automation and has proven it can get to 80% reduction if it needs to. Then add in the reduction in coal consumption and it is a no-brainer as to why no one is being hired to work in the mines.

So it Trump tries to boost coal consumption (which is the goal of his actions here); more coal may get produced and purchased, but very few additional workers will be hired. If anything, the mine owners will buy more automated equipment.

Its not like any local town is going to build a coal power plant. Those take years of planning, approvals, oversight, and construction. Power plant planning and construction can easily take five to ten years, beginning to end. So any of this "make people buy more coal" rhetoric is not going to produce more jobs in any of the coal towns that are out there.

Cited Reference:
https://www.eia.gov/totalenerg...

Well,

instead of answering to the dumb posts I just make a new post, so you can flame me :D

9 billion debts are not peanuts, but for a power company that is nothing!

Puerto Rico has a power production capacity of about 5GW: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Building a new power plant costs between 1billion and 2billioin per GW, depending on technology used and other construction hassles: https://www.eia.gov/todayinene...

So much to: "corruption", "sozialism", "state owned", "burning tax money" ...

The numbers above btw. do not include grid costs. Puerto Rico us burning a lot of oil, hence they have a relatively high power cost.

Without Tesla no electric vehicles, just like without Apple there would be no mobiles phones. Clearly the same level of bullshit. China was investing in electric vehicles the same time as Tesla and others.

You will have to admit with your track record, and supplying no links to back up all your claims it's all looking quite hollow.

Energy isn't even the biggest sector, thats transportation. So coal is less and less relevant. Increases in gas and petroleum almost cancel them out. And coal is predicted to be flat in the US for the next few decades, not continually decreasing like you claim with no evidence.

And then there is the fact transportation has increased for the last 5 years that have numbers 2012-2016 1,665.8 1,681.6 1,721.2 1,739.2 1,786.1
And are predicted to keep on rising even with electric vehicles.

The largest sources of transportation CO2 emissions in 2016 were passenger cars (42.0 percent), medium- and heavyduty trucks (23.4 percent), light-duty trucks, which include sport utility vehicles, pickup trucks, and minivans (17.3 percent), commercial aircraft (6.7 percent), other aircraft (2.6 percent), rail (2.3 percent), pipelines (2.2 percent), and ships and boats (2.2 percent).

So passenger cars, SUV's pickup trucks etc, produced more than twice medium and heavy trucks, and nearly 60% of the total...
Makes your claim 'questionable'. Let's check back of a napkin, Transport is 28% of the total, medium and heavy trucks are 23.4% of that , for about 7% of the total CO2. Using your lowest estimate, there are no trucks left to change after 4 years as the CO2 for trucking is already zero... Is it even remotely plausible that the US only has 20,000 Trucks...

You are clearly just pulling numbers out of your arse.

Without Tesla no electric vehicles, just like without Apple there would be no mobiles phones. Clearly the same level of bullshit. China was investing in electric vehicles the same time as Tesla and others.

You will have to admit with your track record, and supplying no links to back up all your claims it's all looking quite hollow.

Energy isn't even the biggest sector, thats transportation. So coal is less and less relevant. Increases in gas and petroleum almost cancel them out. And coal is predicted to be flat in the US for the next few decades, not continually decreasing like you claim with no evidence.

And then there is the fact transportation has increased for the last 5 years that have numbers 2012-2016 1,665.8 1,681.6 1,721.2 1,739.2 1,786.1
And are predicted to keep on rising even with electric vehicles.

The largest sources of transportation CO2 emissions in 2016 were passenger cars (42.0 percent), medium- and heavyduty trucks (23.4 percent), light-duty trucks, which include sport utility vehicles, pickup trucks, and minivans (17.3 percent), commercial aircraft (6.7 percent), other aircraft (2.6 percent), rail (2.3 percent), pipelines (2.2 percent), and ships and boats (2.2 percent).

So passenger cars, SUV's pickup trucks etc, produced more than twice medium and heavy trucks, and nearly 60% of the total...
Makes your claim 'questionable'. Let's check back of a napkin, Transport is 28% of the total, medium and heavy trucks are 23.4% of that , for about 7% of the total CO2. Using your lowest estimate, there are no trucks left to change after 4 years as the CO2 for trucking is already zero... Is it even remotely plausible that the US only has 20,000 Trucks...

You are clearly just pulling numbers out of your arse.

First off, you are right that I did NOT speak about Americas increase in Coal exports TO CHINA. It is something that I am opposed to. In addition, it is CHINA'S consumption, not ours.

So If China exports coal, it's China's fault. But if America exports coal, it's also China's fault. Typical WindBourne logic.
China isn't even in the top 5 export destinations for American coal in 2017. It was actually less than 3.5% of your coal exports. So more bullshit from you.

Secondly. pretty funny that you picked an article from EIA about China, which was based on 2015 numbers. The prediction was that coal usage would fall in China.

The article was from September 2017 and the prediction was accurate. If you can find a more recent one show us.

But, it does not. It continues to grow.

Your own link shows China increased only 0.4% in coal use and

However, as a portion of total energy consumption, coal usage fell 1.6 percentage points to 60.4 percent last year, while clean energy, including natural gas and renewables, rose 1.3 percentage points to 20.8 percent from 2016, the communique showed. That indicates the country remains on track to fulfil its promise to decarbonise its economy and reduce air pollution, as it vowed to cut the coal portion to below 58 percent of total energy consumption by 2020.

So it rose 0.4% in one year and is expected to stay flat or drop according to both articles. The opposite of your unsubstantiated claim. And why did you lie earlier and say that China's coal use increased over 5% in 2017?

It slowed down a bit relative to their GDP, but once their GDP growth rate picked up, so did the coal.

Again more lies from you, your own link says

Carbon intensity, the level of carbon emissions per unit of economic growth, dropped by 5.1 percent in 2017 compared to a year ago.

Carbon intensity got 5% better ! In one year !!
Why do you lie and say it was worse?

But the real use of that coal increase, are the EVs that are flowing in. Because China will not quit build new coal plants and instead focus solely on building wind/solar/hydro until they have their nuclear power plants going, then it will be more coal they will use.

You are just making this up, all projectionsshow coal stabilising and/or dropping. You haven't shown any credible evidence that this isn't the case. You still fail to admit that China is replacing less efficient coal plants with newer more efficient ones as has been shown to you repeatedly.

China is building 700 new coal plants in China and around the globe, of the 1600 new ones going up. They are pushing it even in places like Kenya China is builing it with Chinese workers, steel, etc, and 'loaning' money, BUT, in return, Kenya must not only pay for the power plant, but must also buy the coal from China.

Again America exports coal to China = China's fault. China exports coal to Kenya = China's fault. Are you starting to realise how stupid you look?

You really think that this will cut down the CO2 in the future? Nope. This is how you make things WORSE.

Did you even read your link?

Experts say one annual increase

Updated September 28, 2017, 8:40 a.m. Coal-fired electricity generation in China, the world’s largest coal consumer, is expected to remain flat through 2040, according to EIA’s International Energy Outlook 2017 (IEO2017). Other fuels, such as renewables, natural gas, and nuclear power, are expected to make up increasing shares of China’s electricity generation. Despite declines in coal’s generation share, IEO2017 projects that coal will remain an important component of China’s energy mix, peaking at nearly 4,400 billion kilowatthours (bkWh) by 2030. However, as China continues to replace older, less efficient generators with more efficient units, China’s power sector coal consumption is expected to peak as soon as 2018, at 4,800 million metric tons.

Strange you didn't mention America's increasing production and export of coal in 2017 isn't it.

It's clear to anyone who cares to look that China is still developing and growing and America has passed that level already. It's much easier for a country that is one of the most polluting at 16t per person to decrease a tiny bit (and still be one of the most polluting, EU average is 6.9) than it is to move over a billion people out of subsistence farming and into an industrialised economy (using half the US amount). Do you expect them to stay farmers forever?

Texas is primarily powered by natural gas and coal, with a bit of highly subsidized wind.

I applaud the good link, that's an interesting map. Tiny opposition to your point is it does mention TX is #1 in wind.

However, while gas+wind may reduce emissions some, it is incapable of scaling to replace fossil, and will forever be dependent on it.

True. This is probably just a difference on emphasis - I'd emphasize that it can be minimized. I'm also a proponent of nuclear power, but that's a different convo.

The cost of wind today is deceptively low because it pushes the subsidies and required backup generation into another column. No one is suggesting coal as the alternative; just be realistic about expectations. Nor does most of the world have such conveniently co-located wind+gas resources.

I do agree, we should be realistic. I bring up Germany, and the real results of them leading the solar industry in the 90's, and it rocking their stock market. Solar was profitable for them, not because it saved costs of electricity generation, but because they developed technology and sold it. A lot of your solar power converters are still German. I say real estate boom because all of a sudden, the roof Germans already owned made their house more valuable, almost instantly. There are so many secondary effects of green policy that actually make it profitable in the long run. Sustainable practices cost less than non-sustainable ones, is that not a realistic statement? How much money would we save if there was less air pollution and asthma occurrence dropped? Lung cancer. I often wonder what pollution has to do with my stupid allergies. It's hard to imagine the costs of the worst possible effects of this ocean current stuff.

Greens making money isn't the goal; decarbonization is. Germany provides a fine example of how expending enormous resources building renewables is not making effective progress toward this goal.

Again, that link is an impressive map. I have to admit it's taking me a while to absorb all the info in it. But why can't there be 2 goals? Make money and save the planet? If the goal is decarbonization, it's much easier to accomplish the goal if we make it profitable. Germany proved it can be done. They did it with solar, and this is a country that gets as little sun as Portland. Yes they invested some money and worked hard, but they ended up with a smarter grid than us, and some days they have to pay everyone on the gird to use electricity. The horror.