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Google Says It Is About To Reach 100 Percent Renewable Energy (blog.google)
Google said today it will power 100 percent of its sprawling data centers and offices with renewable energy starting next year. The company said today it has bought enough wind and solar power to account for all the electricity it uses globally each year. In comparison, 44 percent of Google's power supplies came from renewables last year. From a blogpost: To reach this goal we'll be directly buying enough wind and solar electricity annually to account for every unit of electricity our operations consume, globally. And we're focusing on creating new energy from renewable sources, so we only buy from projects that are funded by our purchases. Over the last six years, the cost of wind and solar came down 60 percent and 80 percent, respectively, proving that renewables are increasingly becoming the lowest cost option. Electricity costs are one of the largest components of our operating expenses at our data centers, and having a long-term stable cost of renewable power provides protection against price swings in energy.
Which tells you that no government incentives or actions are needed: if this is a reasonable accounting of costs, companies will switch to renewables all by themselves.
"if I was starting a search company the potential for Evil would not even popup in my mind" and that's why you're not a billionaire, and Serge is.
Code, Hardware, stuff like that.
And we're focusing on creating new energy from renewable sources, so we only buy from projects that are funded by our purchases.
What exactly does that mean? Buying green power isn't really all that green: the renewable power you are consuming is power that is not going to be consumed by someone else. To be really green you need to work towards significantly increasing green energy [\production, not consumption. True, what they do does increase demand which may help drive investments in renewables. But I'd be more impressed if they would actually generate most of the power they need themselves. At the scale they use it, that should be economically feasible too.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
So they aren't necessarily using renewable energy, they are buying it? This sounds more like they're paying money to companies who have renewable energy credits to sell. They may also be taking part in that travel scam where you don't have to change how much your people fly and waste jet fuel at all... you just swap credits with other non-flying people and say you're being "green".
Someone in an earlier comment used the term "indulgences" - and it really is a lot like the medieval practice where rich people would pay the Vatican basically for pre-approved forgiveness of whatever unethical / immoral thing they were planning to do.
#DeleteChrome
Time for the FTC to Break Google up into multiple companies and separate the Search and Ads so that Google Search can be used with Bing Ads and Bing search can be used with Google Ads
Not one of us deserves to live in the ensuing paradise such a scheme would create.
(BTW, the FTC doesn't break up companies. That's the job of the DOJ)
More like:
"There's a giant coal plant outside our offices **smack bang in the middle of a large city already contributing to peak power usage where electricity costs a fortune** providing power....but we purchased electricity credits in some far off land **where it's dirt cheap because it can't be practically transported to anywhere so they can't sell it to anyone else** to offset this"
So, am I about to reach 100% veganism if:
"I eat meat all day long, but I pay someone else to eat only vegetables too, so that's alright, isn't it?"
Sure, just follow senior advisor to Trump General Flynn on twitter for all your real news.
Dude is full on fucking conspiracy nut crazy. Like need to see a psychiatrist crazy. Institutionalized crazy. Electroshock therapy crazy.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
Have you dumb fucks ever heard of batteries? Or energy storage in water/train cars/etc?
Holy shit. Just because the sun/wind isn't available doesn't mean you must use any grid/carbon power.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
Honestly, this is just getting embarrassing for you green fanatics. You don't seen to understand at all how the grid works AT ALL.
The fact that you can just buy your power from a so called renewable resource power company doesn't mean that you're not still pulling power from the same coal fire power plants that are the BACK BONE of the US power infrastructure. They're not 'bottling up' that electrics and shipping it to the Google. You're just buying more expensive power so you can feel like you're doing something.
Energy is localized. A solar plant in Texas can't send energy to Ireland. So in places where they physically can, they do. I would expect their Oregon datacenters are 100% hydro. In other places they just can't.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
Who are you talking to?
Who are these mythical environmentalists who think that "green" energy comes at absolutely no cost to the environment?
Anyone worth debating on this issue is painfully aware that all of our energy solutions come with some form of cost. We always have to weigh pros and cons. We're not asking whether wind power is perfect; we're asking if it's better than burning coal.
It's like the driverless car arguments. Yes, we're all aware that the computers navigating the cars aren't going to be perfect. The question is whether or not they'll be safer on average than the average human driver, and whether the safety/productivity gains offset the investment costs.
Peaking. Now do you have any other absurdly easy questions?
Yeah, it's not like variability has ever been a part of the grid before. Current grids have their own annoyances on the demand side, including daytime power consumption being much less than nighttime, summer and winter variations (sometimes major), etc - as well as also on the supply side, such as interlinks or plants suddenly dropping offline. It's not some sort of new ground.
The short summary of a high-renewables-penetration grid is:
1) Peaking plants (NG is a good choice).
2) Geographic smoothing (aka, while one front is leaving the US east coast, another is coming on the west; while there's a high stuck over one part of the country, a low is churning up winds elsewhere; also, midwest and east coast wind is strongest in the winter, while west coast wind is strongest in the summer)
3) Geographic timeshifting (aka, desert southwest sun is still shining when it's evening demand in NYC, the evening wind is blowing on the east coast during the morning rush on the west, etc)
(HVDC grid needed for #2 and #3 - est. 0,3 cents per kWh amortized cost for construction and maintenance, saving 1,1 cents per kWh in reduced generation hardware requirements)
4) Multiple source variability compensation (e.g., wind and solar tend to run opposite to each other - highs make low winds but lots of sun, and vice versa; winds are strongest at night, solar during the day)
5) Hydro uprating as storage. Optional storage additions = solar thermal, wind flywheel, battery (price is dropping fast), etc as needed/desired, but are not a fundamental requirement.
6) Demand shifting if needed (aka, power-hungry industries get favorable power rates if they're willing to occasionally shut off as needed; this is not a rare arrangement)
For the future, EVs also help, but are not required - insofar as they're mainly nighttime loads, steady draws, and easy targets for charge rate modulation (or even reversal). Nobody cares exactly when their vehicle takes power from the wall, so long as it has a full charge when they told it to be done by. The more flexible they let their car be, the cheaper they get their power for. But again, this sort of arrangement being wirespread is not a requirement - just a bonus.
People said I was dumb, but I proved them.
I dont trust any company which at its very beginning has such a megalomaniacal view of itself that it makes its logo "Do no Evil" .
Fair enough, but what large, successful company *doesn't* have the opportunity to be evil? I don't view that as megalomaniacal, I view it as taking the viewpoint that you may one day be wildly successful. I'm not suggesting that they've adhered to this motto exactly, but compared to banks, agrochem and pharma (in particular Monsanto's pending merger with Bayer), the food/tobacco industry (in particular Altria)...
Yes, it's a mildly disturbing motto, but at least they're confronting it head-on. Just my opinion though.
Google Says It Is About To Reach an accounting method by which it can claim 100 Percent Renewable Energy
FTFY.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Which tells you that no government incentives or actions are needed: if this is a reasonable accounting of costs, companies will switch to renewables all by themselves.
I'm afraid not. First off the competing fossil fuels receive substantial subsidies from the government. Worse, fossil fuels do not have to pay for a large portion of the pollution (including carbon) that they create so their prices are artificially low. Second, while renewables are becoming cheaper they aren't the lowest cost option just yet outside of some corner cases. Getting them to be the lowest cost option likely will require some amount of financial and/or regulatory support for a while longer. Not forever but just until cost parity is approximately reached.
Once the economic incentives are in place the switch will take place like osmosis but I don't think we are quite there yet. Only rich companies like Google can do it today and they do it as a marketing expense more than anything else.
For the future, EVs also help, but are not required - insofar as they're mainly nighttime loads, steady draws, and easy targets for charge rate modulation (or even reversal). Nobody cares exactly when their vehicle takes power from the wall, so long as it has a full charge when they told it to be done by. The more flexible they let their car be, the cheaper they get their power for. But again, this sort of arrangement being wirespread is not a requirement - just a bonus.
I've also wondered if the whole smart device thing could end up being a net bonus -- for example, during the cheap hours, freezers/electric water heaters/dishwashers/etc. could do their thing. Most of this could of course be done with a simple timer, but having some amount of communication with the grid and the personal schedule of the user could be more effective.
I find it outrageous that you would inject facts into a Slashdot discussion about renewable energy. What were you thinking, man?
You are welcome on my lawn.
Wikipedia says 4700 annually, 70 of which are eagles. It also says that it's due to the turbines being very small turbines that spin way, way faster than the modern large turbines, which spin a lot slower.
So your argument is
1) wrong on the numbers
2) not applicable to modern wind farms with slower spinning turbines
3) not applicable to this wind farm, which is replacing the turbines with safer ones
moox. for a new generation.
Yes, but cross country grid loading is a bad idea. Very bad. Also, when peaking occurs it actually causes blackouts.
1. It's a good start for what could be considered to be a chicken-and-egg problem.
2. It tells any local would-be renewable energy company that chooses to step in that there is local demand for your product.
That was the turning point of my life--I went from negative zero to positive zero.
So much for "green" power. I'm all for it, really, but let us not be deceived that "green" means at no cost. There is a real cost to everything. Tens of millions of birds (and bats) are killed the world over annually the world over.
The number of birds killed by windmills is several orders of magnitude smaller than the number killed by domestic cats. Heck FAR more birds are killed in collisions with cell phone towers than by windmills - roughly an order of magnitude more.. Bird deaths are a very minor issue especially compared with the number of deaths that will occur if we don't do anything about climate change. You're focusing on the little problem when it is the big one you should be worrying about.
Lick my balls, bro.
Buying "carbon credits" and the like don't mean that you're actually using sustainable energy. What happens when the wind plants and solar plants aren't producing? Covering average demand is ONLY covering average demand. Idiots.
Its an accounting trick. They are actually using energy produced by non-renewable generators much of the time. They are simply signing contracts and paying a bit more to say it comes from renewables. Meanwhile, every neighbor is using the exact same mix of power from the exact same generators. The only difference is the piece of paper..
No, he's saying that an energy plant in Texas, whether it's solar, nuclear or coal cannot send it's energy to Ireland.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Peaking does not cause blackouts; peaking prevents blackouts. I'm thinking that perhaps you're confused about what a peaking plant is.
Interconnected HVDC grids offer increases in grid stability, as cascading failures can't propagate through them (AC failures are prone to cascade as different parts of the grid go out of sync with each other). Yet most of the time a nationwide renewables-supporting HVDC grid is not used at near peak capacity (its capacity is sized for peak load transmission requirements, not average), and thus can generally have their power routed through other legs if one line goes down without curtailments (often, even, without need for peaking - it depends on timing). The grid itself is designed, as with everything else concerning electricity generation and transmission, to provide a statistically-guaranteed level of power reliability.
It's important to remember also that in the US you have basically three separate power grids today - west, east (which is kind of a patchwork), and "ERCOT", which is basically Texas doing its own little weird thing. To allow them to support each other, they have a number of converters, mainly DC ties. Basically, HVDC terminals without any actual long-distance transmission lines. So it's already done to improve grid reliability and economics. Also, certain parts of the grid already rely on long HVDC lines. Not just for "moving peak power because of intermittent shortages in one region", as a grid for supporting high renewable penetration does, but actual baseload. For example, in the northeast, RMCC moves 2 GW of remote Quebec hydropower to New England. It's almost always run at near capacity.
Europe and China uses HVDC a lot more than the US. Europe mainly for undersea lines, China to move power from inland to its densely populated coast. Both have major plans for expansion.
People said I was dumb, but I proved them.
I've also wondered if the whole smart device thing could end up being a net bonus -- for example, during the cheap hours, freezers/electric water heaters/dishwashers/etc. could do their thing.
Call me when your washing machine moves the load of colors to be washed in warm water to the dryer by itself, and reloads itself with whites and bleach and switches to hot water afterwards.
Until then, while it's not human intensive while running, washing clothes is pretty human intensive before and after a cycle runs, and in the middle, when the washer->dryer transfer needs to happen.
The "FoldiMate" and "Laundroid" just don't cut it yet (and take power themselves).
Look, you'd have to be insane to be buying inefficient fossil fuel power nowadays. It's way too expensive, has fire and insurance risks, and it's too expensive.
Plus, non-renewables cost too much.
Did I mention the cold hard business fact that efficient modern energy supplies from renewables are cheaper?
Put that in your e-cig and blaze it
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
While you are correct, there is more difference than a price of paper. They are actively promoting renewable energy.
Grid reliability/stability is not a big problem, so its not a key reason for HVDC lines. In reality, that they are HVDC offers no real stability advantage in and of itself. Simply having long transmission interconnections does offer some stability. But HVDC has the drawback of being a point to point solution, not a multi-node solution. That is, multiple HVDC lines cannot connect together as a network of lines as AC lines can, HVDC lines are essentially stand alone lines which reduced flexibility in operation and therefore their use cases are narrower.
Stealing people personal data and providing it to advertisers to better target Ads.
It's not stealing when people give it up willingly. You can argue that isn't a good deal for users of Google products but it isn't theft.
Can answer both of those:
Explain to me how exactly the technological solution to this works?
Technical solution is super easy -- probably already exists:
Contract with 3rd party ad servers.
Create or use an API for service ads and for receiving tracking info.
Send tracking info to Advert service.
Advert service sends back appropriate ad to search engine.
Google/Bing makes money via %% of ad revenue or fixed rate. ... so, works same as it is now, except no in-house ad serving and would need a shared API (or to support multiple APIs based on vendor).
Ad company makes money via %% of ad revenue or fixed rate.
Then the ad ranking would be unlinked from internal ad house -- based on something else, like if you give Bing more money, they rank your ads higher than someone else's ads.
Better yet, explain how it would benefit ANYBODY.
How do ads help anybody? its just questionable in itself. I guess it spreads more money among more people and exposes more private data to more people.
Since it would force the search-engine companies to share their tracking data with 3rd-party ad servers. Only benefit here is that the public would become more aware of how much search engines track.
I don't know original argument, I suppose it could be that Google (or Microsoft) could push its own products in its own engine to the top of the list at a cheaper cost-per-ad than a thirdparty ad provider; or preventing the lockout of thirdparty ad providers.
Not saying this is good or bad, but these questions don't raise any barriers to forcing search / ad code to be owned by separate entities.
With a little help from his millionaire father... Serge received, in the start, $1mi from his father too?
Domestic cats don't kill eagles and other typical endangered species of bird.
Domestic cats most certainly do kill endangered species of birds. They may not kill eagles but the certainly kill other threatened species in substantial numbers. Cats are an invasive species and a poorly controlled one at that.
Let us not also forget about bats,
Same deal as with birds. Windmills are simply not a significant threat to their populations.
and the fact that renewable provide a tiny amount of energy today.
You think 10% of US energy consumption is a tiny number? I think you don't understand the definition of the word "tiny".
Yeap: OP is only BSing!
The fact that you can just buy your power from a so called renewable resource power company doesn't mean that you're not still pulling power from the same coal fire power plants that are the BACK BONE of the US power infrastructure. They're not 'bottling up' that electrics and shipping it to the Google.
Calm down. We all know that. You don't seem to grasp that it doesn't matter on a net basis whether Google consumes the power themselves or not. Google needs X joules of power and they pay for X joules to be generated from renewable sources. Whether they use it themselves or not has EXACTLY the same effect on the ecosystem overall.
You're just buying more expensive power so you can feel like you're doing something.
They are doing something. They are subsidizing the development of renewable energy. Early adopters always pay more. It's a good thing that they are doing and with the amount of power they use it makes a measurable difference.
Yeah, because he doesn't throw out conspiracy theories like Trump throws out idiotic tweets.
Hey buddy, pizzagate isn't a real thing.
But glad you shared.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
HVDC lines can however connect the east and west coasts (and Canada and the U.S.), making a continent-wide electricity supply system (and market). Coast to coast losses are quite small (a few percent). Being able to balance production and demand across all of North America makes the need for storage and peaking a minor issue.
No single technology provides a complete solution to every problem, anywhere, ever. So criticizing HVDC for what it does not do, but does not need to do, is irrelevant.
Second class citizen of the New Gilded Age
Energy is localized. A solar plant in Texas can't send energy to Ireland. So in places where they physically can, they do. I would expect their Oregon datacenters are 100% hydro. In other places they just can't.
With the construction of HVDC lines, a technology in use since 1930 or so, a solar plant in Texas could send the energy to anywhere in North America (including Mexico, and even Latin America if we wanted to build those lines). Localized to the American super-continent, with a billion person market (or merely the 580 million in North America)? I can live with that. Not all that "localized".
Second class citizen of the New Gilded Age
Just like the components of renewable energy can be made in Texas and sent to Ireland.
You are welcome on my lawn.
That's not exactly true. RMCC is multi-node. But that's rare, and it's a lot more complicated. You're right that as a general rule, they're point to point - aka, move lots of power a long distance, then fan it out to local AC grids.
People said I was dumb, but I proved them.
Because, obviously, there is no renewable energy in Ireland
Idiot.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
Renewable energy is a buzzword from the 90's
Modern fossil fuel harvest methods mean that there is no real shortage and we will have fossil fuels to burn indefinitely.
Ethanol and bio-diesel renewable even though there less carbon effecent than fossil fuels.
If Google ran there data centers on burning baby kittens, that would be renewable.
The new hotness is carbon neutral and I guarantee that Google's data centers are not.
You are only a few decades behind the times.
It's been common for decades in the UK for appliances to have delay timers. In the USA, appliances with delay timers are available.
In California, you can get better electricity rates if you hook up your AC controller to a service which will turn it off for some time when demand peaks.
In the UK, they have house heating systems that store heat at night and release it during the day. Again, these have been available for decades. Gas provides a cheaper energy source, so this type of heating is usually only found in houses that don't have mains gas connections.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
It will be someday, but we many more plants in more diverse geographies. Or better methods of storage and transmission than we have now. It isn't currently feasible for everywhere on earth.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
Its no more BS than DOJ forcing Microsoft to uncouple IE from Windows. Google and Apple just give bigger bribes to Congress than Microsoft. Google has an entire internal Department to lobby Congress. The amount of lobbying is so high that they had to develop an app to keep track of all the dollars going to all the Congressmen and all the causes. It was a very interesting contract to work on for all concerned. Really eye opening on how much Silicon Valley spends to make sure what happened to Microsoft doesn't happen to them.
**Life is too short to be serious**
HVDC lines have one big problem against them, cost. These wires cost money. The losses may be minimal on paper but they also add up over time.
This is compounded by the issue that wind and solar are not cheap. For a long distance power line to pay for itself, HVDC or not, the energy on one end has to be cheaper than what one can get on their own on the other end. It's not enough that wind and solar reach price parity with coal and natural gas, they have to be cheaper. If there is a need to add storage systems to make up for demand/supply mismatches then that adds to the cost too.
People don't burn carbon based fuels to be dicks to the environment. They burn this stuff because it is cheap, reliable, plentiful, dispatchable (is that a word? it is now), safe, and people need energy to get shit done.
So many people keep talking about energy storage, carbon taxes, wind mills, and solar power just to avoid the "N" word... nuclear.
We'd have cheap, reliable, safe, and carbon free energy if only people would get over their irrational fear of nuclear power.
We've seen government subsidies for wind and solar power going on for decades and little to show for it. At the same time nuclear power has been providing 20% of our electricity. Can someone tell me the definition of insanity? Now, tell me if wind and solar subsidies do or do not meet that definition.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
Lick my balls, bro.
Buying "carbon credits" and the like don't mean that you're actually using sustainable energy. What happens when the wind plants and solar plants aren't producing? Covering average demand is ONLY covering average demand. Idiots.
Its an accounting trick. They are actually using energy produced by non-renewable generators much of the time. They are simply signing contracts and paying a bit more to say it comes from renewables. Meanwhile, every neighbor is using the exact same mix of power from the exact same generators. The only difference is the piece of paper..
No, there's a little more to it than that. The fact that they're paying more for renewable means that utilities can afford to invest in more renewable production. Buying renewable energy, even if it does get all mixed together with non-renewable in the grid, actually causes renewable energy production to be built out -- and eventually to replace non-renewable production.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Probably the only reason no one's selling these already is because there aren't enough lazy people willing to spend the extra dosh to be marginally lazier than before, and the people who would want one haven't built one themselves because, again, they're lazy.
We aren't talking about "being lazy"; we are talking about having to get up a 3AM in the morning to change out loads in order to optimize energy usage.
At some point, we should just say "screw it", and build another nuclear plant. And then any time it drops below peak utilization, you divert the electricity into active desalination; other wise, you use the waste heat for passive desalination, all the time.
Power problem solve, carbon problem solved, drought problem solved.
I'm going to try the peer-reviewed study in Nature that I read on the subject, which determined that they save nearly four times as much as they cost.
(I've also done back of a napkin calculations, and ended up with a number well less than the Nature estimate)
Once upon a time that was true. Not any more. Even solar, which used to be playing catchup with wind, way behind, is now coming in at some crazy low cost figures, like the $1/W plant that just opened in India, which is bloody nuts.
Not even going to bring the conversation into the costs of dumping pollution into the environment. Or the costs and consequences of having to have huge amounts of cooling water (and the curtailments you have to do during droughts). Or geopolitical issues.
Yeah, if you have $10+/W just to spend on construction, not even counting operations and decommissioning or the government-provided catastrophic accident insurance (which no private industry would ever put themselves on the line for - Fukushima's now estimated at $200B). And of course which uses even more cooling water than fossil fuels. And if you like having to estimate future power supply and demand 10-20 years into the future before your plant even comes online.
K Street loves nuclear. Wall Street, not so much.
You have to be joking. First - beating around the bush here - wind subsidies are not that great, and more to the point, the constant year-to-year uncertainty on the PTC has been a big hindrance to the industry. But more to the point, wind has gone from absurdly expensive to very cheap (as low as 2,5 cents per kWh in 2014), growing with an average annual 30% rate of growth for 10 years. Last year wind made up 41% of new nameplate generation and solar 26%.
Whether you want wind and solar or not, they're happening. They've gotten too cheap to stop. You'd have to actively try to stop them with punative taxation policies at this point if you wanted to stop wind and solar's percentage of the grid from growing.
People said I was dumb, but I proved them.
Welp, I'll ignore the 20 articles that confirm what I said. Actually two of them quoted only 35 Golden Eagles per year, which is half of what Wikipedia was saying. Sorry that facts interfere with your world view.
moox. for a new generation.
I noticed the Trump is a billionaire, too.
We aren't sure of that. Maybe if he releases his tax reports, we can find that out. Until then, we should assume he's probably far below that in the millionaire range because of his tendency to exaggerate things.
My washer, dryer and dishwasher all have delay start features and I make use of them to use them when the rates are low. My dryer doesn't make too much difference since it uses natural gas. For an electric dryer this can make a big difference, though.
This post is encrypted twice with ROT-13. Documenting or attempting to crack this encryption is illegal.
How often do you have to run more than one wash load in a day?
Most of the time, one wash per night would serve. The occasional times you need to run more than one wash in a day, just run one during daytime.
Perfection is the enemy of good.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
My BS meter just twitched.
You need to take it into the shop to have it fixed. It's clearly malfunctioning.
Wind, at about 2% of the total energy market is tiny.
Even 2% of US generating capacity (not the actual number) is an enormous amount of power and the amount of wind power generating capacity is growing fast. Wind accounted for about 4.4% of US energy production in 2014. Some countries generate double digit percentages of their electricity from wind with Denmark topping the list at 39%! The US accounts for a (disproportionate) 18% of world energy consumption despite being just 5% of the population. If other countries (particularly India and China) follow our lead that is not sustainable without huge increases in the use of renewable energy.
This hostility from the government towards nuclear power is one big reason why I have trouble believing in the global warming hysteria.
The hostility towards nuclear power does not come from the government. It comes from citizens who are nervous about nuclear power and the consequences of what can happen when things go wrong. (see Chernobyl and Fukishima) There also is the as yet unsolved problem of nuclear waste disposal. Granted some (not all) of their concerns are more perception than reality but perception is what drives policy regardless of whether it is true. It also comes from financiers who look at a LONG track record of cost overruns and cost uncertainty in building nuclear plants.
This hostility towards nuclear power on costs is also something that bothers me. The reason it costs so much is because we've forgotten how to build them.
No we haven't. Nuclear power plants are being built routinely and have advanced significantly. Just not in the USA. I'm an accountant. The reason nuclear power plants cost so much is twofold. 1) They are very complicated and have to be engineered to very high standards with careful attention to safety culture to avoid disasters. This level of engineering and safety is very expensive and prone to cost overruns. Nuclear plants are (comparatively) cheap to operate but very expensive to build. Worse, there is considerable cost uncertainty surrounding their construction. When this happens financing costs for construction rise considerably. Private financing is very difficult to come by as a result. Public financing is substantially more expensive and harder to get. 2) Nuclear power plants are considered so risky by insurance and financing companies that they cannot be built without government guarantees. The risk profile is one where the odds of a disaster are (generally) low but the consequences are very high and challenging to quantify. That makes insuring and indemnifying them very expensive.
I'm not impressed with wind power. Nuclear power, on the other hand, is a much better solution.
You can waste your time being "not impressed" with wind power but it's an important and fast growing and affordable and clean source of energy. It's not going to solve all our energy needs. No one form of energy (not even nuclear) is going to do that. Stop thinking in terms of either/or and start thinking in terms of balanced portfolio. Nuclear fission will be an important part of the energy portfolio for the foreseeable future and it has almost none of the climate change issues we get from fossil fuels. The goal is to reduce the amount of fossil fuels used to a level lower than what the Earth's ecosystem can handle. This number isn't zero but it's far lower than where we are now. To do this with existing technology will require some combination of wind, solar, nuclear, geothermal, and hydro. Battery and energy storage technology will matter greatly. I think distributed power (solar panels on roofs) are going to matter a lot as well.
How often do you have to run more than one wash load in a day?
Most people let laundry build up until they need to run a full load of a given type. They do this because wasting electrons is apparently only slightly less of a sin than wasting water, since we don't really do any useful large scale desalination.
Practically speaking, this is easy to do with 3-4 people in a house, particularly if one or more of them is a child.
In any case, this build up over time is how we get the event called "laundry day", as opposed to doing laundry daily.
Most of the time, one wash per night would serve. The occasional times you need to run more than one wash in a day, just run one during daytime.
I think you are perhaps single and male, with not a lot of clothing so that you can build up a laundry backlog without wasting water instead of electricity, and so instead, you waste both by doing daily laundry, and you put everything in together, without separating it by type, fragility, and temperature/cleaner requirements.
That's cool and all, but realize you aren't very representative of the majority of people who need to do laundry.
While there are technically few subsidies in our accounting books for fossil fuel energies, please don't ignore the many expenses that are externalized and pushed onto taxpayers, consumers, and the government.
1. How about the Iraq war and other "oil wars" in the Middle East? I think we should count the financial cost of those when we calculate the extra cost of fossil fuels. Not even to mention the loss of life incurred as a result of fighting over oil, which has reached millions.
2. How about environmental damage such as oil spills that never really get cleaned up, pollution in the air, greenhouse gasses, etc? I think we should include the social and environmental costs that we indirectly pay for through damage to our natural resources like the oceans, soil, and atmosphere. The damage caused by fossil fuel harvesting and use directly impacts people's quality of life, health, and pocketbooks.
3. How about the future cost of climate change? We don't know how climate change will affect global GDP in the long run, but most predictions suggest that all but far North and far South will experience changes that are detrimental on the whole.
In short, if you think that the price we pay at the pump or on our utility bill represents the full cost of our exploitation of fossil fuel resources, I believe that you are mistaken.
Actually, parent specifically said "global fossil fuel subsidies," not "US fossil fuel subsidies." Your comment and danbert8's comment applies only to the US. Lucas123 is correct.
The grandparent danbert8's comment (modded +5 insightful, I suspect the mods are either biased or sleeping) states some facts but completely ignores the bigger picture. The social, economic, and environmental cost of fossil fuel use is not accurately depicted when you look at just government subsidies. I won't copy/paste my reply to his comment, but please read it if you want to discuss further.
All of your assumptions are wrong.
Also, your logic fails badly.
All that is necessary is to let the laundry build up until there is a complete load and then run it that night. In your scenario, there is some need to wait until the laundry has built up to require multiple loads. OK, you might need to have a few extra clothes (one day's extra) if the loads build up so that you need to run different types of loads on the same day.
There is no difference in this process if there is one person in the household or multiple. In fact, it is probably easier with multiple people in the household.
I suspect that the concept of "laundry day" has more to do with other scheduling issues than build up of dirty laundry.
But, go ahead, making up your wrong assumptions. Progress lies in the other direction, but you probably don't care.
Remember, that the occasional time the washer is run during the day doesn't invalidate the idea. The goal is shifting use of as much electricity as possible to night use and it's not a failure if some electricity is used during the day.
Perfection is the enemy of progress as well as the enemy of good
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
We could cut down on nuclear construction costs pretty significantly if we just simplified the requirements, particularly in terms of delaying construction. Newer plants can't fail the same way Fukushima did. Wind and solar have made tremendous - and surprising - gains, and they are here to stay, for sure. But nuclear could be a good option as well.
Examine even your most deeply held beliefs. Nobody is always right.
You realize that it is all about handing over timing decisions to a network?
OK... you really do not want to be there when I land.