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Clinton Plan To Power Every US Home With Renewables By 2027 Is Achievable
Lucas123 writes: As part of her campaign pledge, Hillary Clinton has said she would make it a priority in her first term to increase the number of solar panels by 500M and U.S. installed solar capacity from 21 gigawatts (GW) today to 140GW by the end of 2020. Her plan, is to increase solar, wind and other renewables so that they'd provide 33% of America's electricity by 2027, enough to power every home. While the plan may sound overly ambitious, experts say, it's not. Today, renewables provide about 15% of America's power. Shayle Kann, senior vice president at GTM Research, said the Clinton's renewable energy goal is doable, but with caveats. In order to achieve the goal, current programs, such as federal tax breaks for solar installations (set to expire next year), must continue and future initiatives, such as Obama's Clean Power Plan that will begin in 2018, must not be curtailed. Considering that if elected, Clinton wouldn't take office until 2017, the her campaign goals could be more bravado than reality. Clinton, however, is not alone. While most candidates have yet to announce their clean energy plans, Clinton's Democratic contender, Martin O'Malley, also came out with strong support for the end of fossil fuel use and a full clean energy economy by 2050, and creating a national goal of doubling energy efficiency within 15 years.
The headline is sufficient for those who do not understand how the power grid works, and anyone who knows how the power grid works would not be misled by the headline.
Even though my bill says "100% wind" on it, and somewhere out there are windmill(s) generating as much electricity as my home consumes, the actual power consumed in my house might just as easily come from the coal plants up the highway. It's all on the same grid.
If you understand that, then it's obvious that "Power Every US Home With Renewables" means "Generate As Much Renewable Energy As All Homes Consume". What appears on the bills of those homeowners is irrelevant.
I disagree. If utilities had to provide 100% renewable power to every home, then it would need to have significant overcapacity, because it would need enough renewables for the PM peak and have idle renewables during other times. So to power homes with 100% renewables you would need to have many times more renewable capacity than homes consume.
Now, out of that small handful of people, which one cares about us exactly?
The only person who has a remote chance of caring about us is Trump.
Wait, wait, don't bring out the pitch forks... yea, I know he is a walking ego trip, yes he is a arrogant SOB...
I am well aware of that... but he also has nothing to gain by screwing us at this point. He is now old, very wealthy, and has nothing else to do but take the country in a new direction. He also isn't owned by lobbyists or 30 years of political connections the way Bush and Clinton are.
If Bush or Clinton are elected, exactly nothing will change. If you keep doing what you've always done, you'll keep getting what you've always gotten.
At least Trump will kick over the table and say, "new direction".
Will it turn out well? Hard to say, we won't really know without trying, but at some point we either try something new, or accept the current situation forever.
She was basically expected to fail. For various political reasons within the DNC she needed to be given the presumption of a chance but there was an understanding from the start that she'd not go anywhere.
Sort of like the republicans running John McCain or something... the know he's not going to win. They might even nominate him... but if they do... they know he's not going anywhere.
Hillary is the same thing and so is Bernie or Trump. the political forces that know anything know that these people are the opening circus attraction.
Behind Hillary there are a lot of people in the Dem ranks that can stand up and be more credible than her. And they will especially since Hillary appears to be self destructing faster than anything believed possible. This email thing is getting increasingly serious. I doubt she's going to jail over it but... it is looking like something nasty could come out of it. The sweater is getting unraveled.
On the other political side you have Trump... who also will not be president. Its not going to happen. Even if he got the nomination and he won't... but even if he did... he'd still lose.
So who cares what these people say they would do. I might as well stand up and say what I would do if I were president. Or anyone else on slashdot... Stand up and tell us what you'd do if you were president.
Whatever you said matters about as much as Hillary's various schemes to get enough votes to get her party's nomination.
I will say this... IF Hillary got nominated... she might win. She'd have a D after her name and that is a very powerful thing in an election. But... I don't think she's going to get nominated.
She's kind of a female Al Gore in a lot of ways. Neither Gore nor her wants to associate with Bill Clinton but neither of them would even be considered for high office without that association. I don't know why they distance themselves from Bill. If I were either of them I'd walk around on stage as Bill Clinton gave me piggybacks. As much as possible, I'd try to make people think they were voting for Bill Clinton.
Bill Clinton could actually win again... I mean... legality and term limits aside... people like him. No one likes Hillary. Even her supporters don't like her. They feel comfortable with her maybe or they think her politics are right or whatever. But they don't like her. Who wants to have a beer with Hillary? or a glass of wine or anything? No one likes her. Bill is funny. He's got stories. He's charming. You'd have a good time and he projects that in his politics and personality.
Hillary projects... Agnes from accounting... The woman in the office that does something boring and repetitive that no one cares about... she goes home every day at 5pm and people assume she has a lot of cats because of the pictures of cats all over her cubicle...
I mean seriously... imagine if Hillary were not a politican but just some person. Would you want to know her or spend any time with her?
Exactly. I mean... I'd rather spend time with Trump then her... and Trump is insane. But Trump is at least amusing. I'd likely deck him every so often... and doubtless he'd call the cops on me because I assume he's a whiny bitch on the subject. But... people you want to spend time with versus not is relevant in politics. Likability.
And that's a problem for old Hill. She isn't getting the nomination. I don't see it. And if she does... she's one of the weaker presidential candidates the dems could field.
I'd actually fear Bernie more in this election if I were the republicans more than Hillary. I mean... bernie is a frizzy haired crack pot. But he's at least sincere. He actually believes the shit that comes out of his mouth. Hillary doesn't believe anything. Those are just animal sounds she makes to lull the peasants. Everything is focus groups, talking points, lobbying scripts... she licks her finger, holds it up to the wind, and that's her position.
And I think THAT perception is going to be very hard for her to overcome.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Or maybe because hydro is mature and already close to peak, so giving it incentives would not help the overall energy picture? The point of most of the "renewable energy bills" is to drive development and deployment of a large range of renewables. If solar panels become much cheaper/better (such that "the market" will handle it) then I'd expect solar panel subsidies to dry up. To my uninformed view, it looks like wind may be approaching that level?
Solar is currently the most expensive renewable by far.
Huh? This thinking seems outdated. Average solar has reached (and beaten) cost parity with all competing generation except for about the top 50%, top 25% of wind projects, and nearly all consequential new hydro proposals. ABY is adding solar yield projects with better returns than prior wind and hydro projects developed under more lucrative subsidy regimes... Projects are breaking ground with PPAs in the sub 6 cent range. First Solar, Recurrent Energy are successfully building projects and generating gross margins of 15-20% by selling power at 0.0387 $/kWh and .047 $/kWh respectively. They are doing it for 5 and 6 cents all over the world, even locations without subsidy. That is competitive with virtually any new energy construction. Companies building owning these projects are and will outgrow the global economy for foreseeable future (absent all subsidies) and then become the most impressive profit machines in the history of markets within a few decades. Minting money from fully-depreciated assets like the world has never seen (haha, except from current utilities :) ) I don't think you fully comprehend the economics of a maintenance free, nearly indestructible, fully-depreciated, solid state, money making machine. And thus business plan can scale to several % of global GDP without a hitch...
but the technology just isn't there yet (at least without tremendous expense).
Huh? Specifically what are the technological challenges? Today's technology will likely generate 70% of its nameplate capacity 50 years from now. All components are now offered standard with warranties that will last the entire amortization period. Solar panels and micro inverters would be among if not the most durable and reliable products in your home. Solar energy is available at higher energy density than necessary for single family construction and multi family construction less than 4 stories, aside from that there is no shortage of cheap land, even cheap land at favorable transmission and distribution locations.
There are tens of millions + homes all over the country for which a homeowner with good credit can go net positive energy using a cash flow positive PV investment (e.g. PV + financing = cheaper than utility bill) and actually provide a pretty good return on investment that has lower risk and better return than many different financial vehicles that would be sold to you as part of a balanced portfolio. For a solar array producing power after the 20-25% amortization period, the reduction in total cost of ownership for the home over the lifetime of these components will be tens of thousands of dollars.
You are clearly not up to speed on the technology, the production costs, the financing, or the global explosion in the industry.You have rested on some older state of knowledge too long. The technology awesome. The economics are extremely favorable. The only barrier is the transition to an enlightened long term view about power production. Don't blame cheap, high performance technology for man's failure to identify the obvious advantages of long term thinking.
ACA caused doctors to change what plans they accept due to the amount insurance companies pay out based on changed due to ACA.
For example, my wife accepts Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Texas, but only for PPO plans outside of the exchanges. If you're on the cheap HMO plan on the federal exchange your insurance doesn't work for her.
A number of her patients used to be covered, until their old plans were discontinued and they were moved to new plans that she wasn't on. These changes were directly caused by ACA.
The ACA was well intentioned, but executed poorly.
BUT who cares, Cecil the lion is dead!
Yea, the outrage over that is amazing...
People are so stupid, I sometimes have little hope for humanity.
If you want to care about something, how about the thousands of miles of coral reef that China is destroying to build islands in the South China Sea? That is FAR more damaging to the planet than a lion dying.
But no one cares, because they aren't being told to care, because people are idiots and sheep. Which I guess isn't new, but it is sad. :(
The only person who has a remote chance of caring about us is Sanders.
Fixed. He may be a relative fringe candidate, but as the election approaches, so will become Trump.
Germany is powered by coal oil and gas, with a veneer of solar (https://www.energy-charts.de/energy.htm), has some of the dirtiest power around, and it's little bit of solar has made it some of the most expensive power around...
Here's one example: The cost of air pollution in the San Joaquin Valley is more than $1,600 per person per year, or $6 billion to the region's economy, according to the researchers.
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
Specifically what are the technological challenges?
The real challenge is the ability to maintain the stability of the power grid once renewables are increased. In order to maintain the stability of the power grid the amount of energy being produced has to equal the amount of energy being consumed. In other words load has to equal generation, the conservation of energy and physics makes this a requirement.
Now this isn’t an issue when the load is low and generation is high. For the most part generation can be shed and the demand can be meet with little to no impact to consumers. Trouble starts when generation is low and load is high. In this scenario you need to either shed load (making a lot of people angry) or increase generation.
Right now I don’t believe anyone will argue that we can’t generate enough energy over all with solar and other renewables. The technical challenge with renewables is making the generation consistent enough so that it is always capable of instantly meeting the demands of the power grid (remember load always has to equal generation). On those nights when the wind isn’t blowing where the wind turbines are, utilities will need to find a way to provide that power.
A sensible solution is to develop a method to store excess energy during the time when generation is high than demand. That stored energy could then be used to make up for the low generation when the demand is higher. Unfortunately the development of a large scale energy storage solution has not happened yet. This is a very big technical challenge, ask Germany (considered by many to be the leader in renewable generation) who is presently dealing with this very issue
I guess another solution would be to develop a large enough method of renewable generation that would be available all the time or at least during the times that solar and wind aren’t available.