Renewables Are Set To Overtake Gas and Coal By 2027 (computerworld.com)

Lucas123 writes: Renewable energy, including solar, wind and hydroelectric will overtake natural gas as an energy source by 2027. According to a new report from Bloomberg New Energy Finance, ten years later those same renewables will have surpassed the largest electricity-generating fossil fuel: coal. Solar and wind will account for almost 60% of the $11.4 trillion invested in energy over the next 25 years, according to Bloomberg's New Energy Outlook 2016 report. One conclusion that may surprise, Bloomberg noted, is that the forecast shows no golden age for natural gas, except in North America. As a global generation source, gas will be overtaken by renewables in 2027. The electric vehicle boom will increase electricity demand by 2,701TWh (terawatt hours), or 8% of global electricity demand in 2040. The rise of EVs will drive down the cost of lithium-ion batteries, making them increasingly attractive to be deployed alongside residential and commercial solar systems.

Comments

title seems to be misleading, at best.

[CrimsonAvenger]

Title and summary don't agree. There is a difference between "surpass coal and gas by 2027" and "surpass gas by 2027 and surpass coal by 2037".

Even ignoring the date differences, there's a difference between "surpass gas", "surpass coal", and "surpass gas and coal".

And let's not get into the whole base load thing. Gas and solar isn't baseload, but coal is....

Re:title seems to be misleading, at best.

[Dan East]

Two problems with your statements.

The first is the terminology. Instead of referring to them as "baseload" plants, they are now calling them "portable dispatchable power" and they're in the form of natural gas turbines. So yes, there is still backup "baseload" power generation that is non-renewable. The fact that it may be smaller scale and distributed does not change the fact that it is still non-renewable, serves the baseload needs, and runs off of fossil fuel. They might be more efficient in that they can spin up faster and don't cost as much as idling, say, a nuclear power plant, is the only difference.

The second is that Germany falls back on power from France and the Czech Republic (both mainly nuclear power), for example, to meet their baseload needs. They have a crutch to lean on whenever, as they are totally surrounded by other countries whose grids they are connected to. How's that supposed to work in a country like the USA? Grab power from Mexico when needed? LOL You try to look at Germany as a stand-alone shining example of what the USA is supposed to be, yet when you take Europe as a whole you see that it isn't technically possible for it all to generate power like Germany does.

I just think it's funny how your post talks so adamantly how baseload generation can totally go away but you talk around it and never say how that is supposed to happen.

Re:title seems to be misleading, at best.

[FirstOne]

I don't buy into the projected increasing amounts of coal usage. As the Chinese discovered, one pays a heavy price burning coal, (pollution of water, soil, air), and India will soon learn this lesson first hand.

Coal in the USA maybe a NOP by 2027, where coal generation peaked near 49% (2007), 33%(2015) and is still dropping like a rock 31% (April 2016).

As for the so called base-load argument, is a fool's argument, eventually we will need to use renewable's to provide more than 150% of our overall demand, using excess energy production to put Carbon back into the ground. Preferably in the form of Methane(CH4), which we can later tap to stabilize the grid when needed.

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We should speed this up

[Gravis Zero]

I see no reason why polluting industries like (oil/gas companies) should be subsidized at all. Frankly, we should be taxing them based on how much pollution they emit and how damaging it is. We are eventually going to have to remove CO2 from the air and it's going to be a pricey project. We might as well start saving money for it now.

Commercial rooftops are wasted space

[sjbe]

Large scale maybe, but if every home could provide 75% of their load through local solar panels during a hot summer day then the overall grid will be better. As the usage wouldn't spike as much.

I've wondered for a long time why we don't have every commercial building rooftop covered in solar panels. Particularly any building that utilizes air conditioning. It's just wasted space right now. Rather than put the panels in fields somewhere, use the space we already have for something productive.

I realize there are some economic and technical hurdles but in principle it's insane not to use solar panels on rooftops wherever possible. Install some battery systems and smarts to the grid to distribute the power adequately.

Re:Expect the same

[ultranova]

Here, climate change is an evil hippy illuminati conspiracy. It's all about taking your money away, or something.

No, it's just that pretending climate change doesn't exist has been succesfully made part of conservative identity, just like being anti-abortion and anti-gay is part of evangelical identity. Some believers rationalize the dogma through conspiracy theories, some by re-interpreting the data, but the real reason is that enough lobbyists told them that people like them believe climate change doesn't exist.

It's actually a pretty fascinating view into the human psyche.

Re:lets wait what happens if Trump gets president

[rahvin112]

Coal isn't being destroyed by the stroke of a Pen. Fracking is destroying coal. The new coal regulations aren't even into effect yet and coal has already been devastated by competition with gas. Coal has gotten a free pass for nearly 300 years to dump uranium, mercury and dozens of other heavy metals all over our cities and crops. It's high time that changed, regardless of the impact to the industry. There is so much mercury in fish these days that you probably shouldn't even eat it.

What you see with Trump is selling the narrative that the coal companies would like to see sold. That is the idea that government regulations are destroying their industry, not competition with cheap gas.