Wind, Solar Surpassed 10 Percent of US Electricity In March, Says EIA (thehill.com)

According to the Energy Department's Energy Information Administration, wind and solar produced 10 percent of the electricity generated in the U.S. for the first time in March. The Hill reports: The Energy Information Administration's (EIA) monthly power report for March found that wind produced 8 percent of the electricity produced in the U.S. that month, with solar producing 2 percent. The two sources combined to have their best month ever in terms of percentage of overall electricity production, EIA said. The agency expects the two sources topped 10 percent again in April but forecasts that their generation will fall below that mark during the summer months. Due to the way geographic wind patterns affect the generation of electricity, the two sources typically combine for their best months in the spring and fall. Annually, wind and solar made up 7 percent of electric generation in 2016, EIA said.

Comments

What happens when you eliminate subsidies?

[Anonymous Coward]

Solar and wind sound great until you eliminate the subsidies. Take away those subsidies and they become far more expensive. Once that happens, nobody will want to pay the extra costs and renewables will decline again. Like everything with the climate change agenda, it's a house of cards built on deception and lies.

Re:What happens when you eliminate subsidies?

[Anonymous Coward]

OK, but the gasohol is clearly working by adding pure energy to gasoline thru alcohol derrived from corn. Not all is lost. Did you vote for Trump or something? I smell something rotten.

Re:What happens when you eliminate subsidies?

[Ol Olsoc]

Solar and wind sound great until you eliminate the subsidies. Take away those subsidies and they become far more expensive. Once that happens, nobody will want to pay the extra costs and renewables will decline again. Like everything with the climate change agenda, it's a house of cards built on deception and lies.

Fresh meat! Give me a list of the energy sources that do not get subsidized.

Oil - yes, Gas yes, Nuclear? Bitch, please.

Come back and make your argument when the only energy source left that is getting any form of subsidy is alternative.

Re:What happens when you eliminate subsidies?

[iggymanz]

subsidies are everywhere, in I.T. and textiles and food and vehicles

Re:What happens when you eliminate subsidies?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think we should subsidize nuclear. To do otherwise requires either more subsidies, or generates externalizes (ie climate change). It would have been nice if we would have just gone that route decades ago instead of screwing up the environment even further, but now's the second best time to start.

Re:What happens when you eliminate subsidies?

[kenh]

Gasohol/Ethanol is among the dumber ideas for reducing our dependence on crude oil - the more ethanol you add to gasoline, the lower the MPG the car gets compared to 100% gasoline. Then there is the energy burned growing and harvesting the corn, processing the corn, transporting the additive, and then blending in the additive to create Ethanol.

The ONLY reason ethanol is a thing is because politicians forced it on the American consumer - it serves no other purpose than to further the goals of the politicians that keep it in place.

Re: What happens when you eliminate subsidies?

[Anonymous Coward]

Gasohol/Ethanol is among the dumber ideas for reducing our dependence on crude oil - the more ethanol you add to gasoline, the lower the MPG the car gets compared to 100% gasoline.

What's dumb is arguing as if that was the reason ethanol is added to Gasoline in the United States.

Then there is the energy burned growing and harvesting the corn, processing the corn, transporting the additive, and then blending in the additive to create Ethanol.

Yes, yes, I remember when you were lying about the energy balance of the process. It was quite obvious, you were leaving out how the actual use for most of the corn was not for ethanol production.

The ONLY reason ethanol is a thing is because politicians forced it on the American consumer - it serves no other purpose than to further the goals of the politicians that keep it in place.

Nope, but nice lie. Well, actually, terrible. Too bad for you that everyone didn't forget about MTBE or the actual reason for ethanol blending.

The sad thing is, you keep following for the same bait. Consistently.

Re:What happens when you eliminate subsidies?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, money doesn't grow on trees. You know what else doesn't grow on trees? Energy.

Re:What happens when you eliminate subsidies?

[Humbubba]

Spending a few tax payer bucks on wind and solar is money well spent. Let's get this straight: All Viable Energy Is Subsided. It keeps the prices at a sweet spot for producers and consumers alike. In fact, fossil fuels, like oil, have been hugely subsidized. In 2015, global fossil fuel subsidies were over $5 trillion dollars. Oil, natural gas, and coal received 70% of the total energy subsides from 1950-2010. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_subsidies

Oil is the reason we war in the Middle East, sacrificing lives and tax payer money; it's another form of subsidy. War a racket, as the great Major General Smedley Butler pointed out. We have reached peak oil, and future dependency on oil projects a bleak future, with more war, scarce resources and dire prices. Raytheon, Academi/Xe/Black Water, Lockheed Martin and others would love such a Dystopia. Not me.

Subsidizing alternate energies is a good idea. Wind, solar, water and yes, even other energy sources like fusion should be subsidized, encouraged and exploited.

Re:What happens when you eliminate subsidies?

[Hognoxious]

It's true. Round here there was an error once and they added too much alcohol. It made the cars go backwards.

Re:What happens when you eliminate subsidies?

[TRRosen]

Wind and solar have already become cheaper than coal and gas without subsidies. Renewables have already won.

Re:What happens when you eliminate subsidies?

[Maxo-Texas]

I tested in my car (we have pure gasoline stations in Texas) and I got 12 more mileage from pure gasoline than I did from "up to 10%" ethanol. That would indicate that in some cars, the ethanol is worse than a neutral filler.

Government sites estimate it should have been a 6-7% loss of mileage.

Re:What happens when you eliminate subsidies?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wind and solar have already become cheaper than coal and gas without subsidies.

Wind and Solar get massive subsidies, so much so that in some places they outright pay for the entire cost of the deployment and 20 years of use. That's what happened in Ontario, it's also happening in parts of the US like WI is experiencing. In Ontario, wind/solar account for less then 18% of generation and 48% of the price(0.188kWh@peak). The problem is so bad, that it has likely killed the Liberal Party of Ontario for good, just like in the 1990's the bad policies of the NDP killed them.

Re:What happens when you eliminate subsidies?

[gtall]

More to the point, it aids the farm lobby, which, in a rarely photographed mating ritual, causes three-way co-recursive "backscratching" between farmers, lobbyists, and congress people. The bastard sproggs of this unholy activity include higher food prices, higher energy prices, bad land management, never dis-elected congress people, and extra congressional aids to keep track on ledgers of who is doing what to whom and how good it feels.

Re:What happens when you eliminate subsidies?

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is largely one of engine design. Most cars sold in the US are fairly low compression. Under those conditions, the burning ethanol just adds heat, no real power.

In a high compression engine, especially with a turbo is where ethanol works well. Australia sells a fuel mix that's 85% ethanol which is really popular with performance car owners as you get a lot more power from the same engine.

Re:What happens when you eliminate subsidies?

[Anonymous Coward]

But all the bad policies of the Ontario Conservatives will see them re-elected forever?
Bitch, please.

Re:What happens when you eliminate subsidies?

[thinkwaitfast]

You can buy solar panels in Phoenix for under $0.25/Wp retail. Averaged out over a year, this is less expensive than hydropower. Of course that only covers the solar panel and ignores the other power electronics that most people will want, still the remaining cost of solar is about $0.75/Wp which gives you a 100% payback period of less than five years (in Phoenix). And the system will last 30 years with about $100/year ($8/month) maintenance amortized cost.

Re:What happens when you eliminate subsidies?

[guises]

Where does this subsidies rumor keep coming from? Yes the subsidies may have been the deciding factor at first, but they did their job and drove down costs as the new technologies gained wider adoption. It's been years now since then. Here, the Energy Information Administration publishes an annual forecast on the costs of different sources of energy. You can see that the cost ($/MWh) before subsidies is lower for onshore wind than anything save geothermal and basically tied with natural gas (but only natural gas plants which do not capture carbon emissions). And the cost for photovoltaic solar before subsidies is just above that, more expensive than hydroelectric but still cheaper than nuclear, biomass, etc.

There's some variation there depending on how you measure, you can see there are multiple charts, but in none of those are solar or wind dependent on subsidies to be more cost effective than most of their competition.

Re:What happens when you eliminate subsidies?

[MoarSauce123]

Coal gets subsidies as does natural gas....so what's your point? Go back to dirty coal instead of renewables?

Re:What happens when you eliminate subsidies?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh wait. Yes it does.

Re:What happens when you eliminate subsidies?

[Anonymous Coward]

Here, the Energy Information Administration publishes an annual forecast on the costs of different sources of energy.

That report is pretty much useless since it does not take into account price of keeping alternative sources ready for generation when wind is not blowing or when it is cloudy.

Re:What happens when you eliminate subsidies?

[budgenator]

Wind and solar have already become cheaper than coal and gas without subsidies. Renewables have already won.

Then why are we seeing things like this?

“TransAlta is very interested in repowering this site. Unfortunately, right now, it’s not economically feasible, ... We’re anxiously waiting to see what incentives might come from our new government. . . . Alberta is an open market and the wholesale price when it’s windy is quite low, so there’s just not the return on investment in today’s situation. So, if there is an incentive, we’d jump all over that” Wayne Oliver, operations supervisor for TransAlta’s wind operations in Pincher Creek and Fort Macleod, Oldest commercial wind farm in Canada headed for scrapyard after 23 years

We see it because wind energy is so cheap they can't make a profit, and cover depreciation and replacement costs at he same time!

In short renewable energy isn't economically sustainable.

Re:What happens when you eliminate subsidies?

[Anonymous Coward]

Typical Farmer: We're no lazy commies dependin' on the gummint to pick the pockets of hard-working folks! We're self-reliant around here. Ethel! Where's my gol-darn farm subsidy check?

Ethel: On the hall table with the disaster relief check!

Re:What happens when you eliminate subsidies?

[GLMDesigns]

The biggest US "subsidy" to oil companies is not something that I, or many others, consider to be a subsidy.

The US government, in it's ever diligent attempt to grab every cent, declares that you cannot depreciate the full value of an item on purchase so they estimate the life of the object and have you depreciate it over that time. The rational way would be full depreciation on purchase and then pay taxes on the sale. But, that's not the way it works.

This is especially horrible on capital intensive projects such as building oil rigs and refineries. So, the US government created "accelerated depreciation". It's still bad, only not as bad.

I, for one, do NOT consider accelerated depreciation to be a subsidy. In fact I consider it disingenuous to do so.

I am a big proponent of alternative energy. I have no love for the oil companies. I would love to see fossil fuels become a thing of past, along with horse shoes.

Re: What happens when you eliminate subsidies?

[Anonymous Coward]

It is very important to match your ecu to the fuel being used. Not doing that would be like complaining that 110 volts mains is crap all my 220 volt devices work like crap.

Re:What happens when you eliminate subsidies?

[avandesande]

I heat my house with wood you insensitive clod!

Re:What happens when you eliminate subsidies?

[fred6666]

You forget the even bigger subsidy. By not taxing oil/gas/coal enough to cover pollution costs, they in fact receive a subsidy from the whole world.

Re:What happens when you eliminate subsidies?

[Anonymous Coward]

Man, just you wait till we start going to war over deserts to put our solar arrays in.

Re:What happens when you eliminate subsidies?

[hey!]

Well, do you eliminate all the various ways the governments of the world subsidize fossil fuels? I'm not just talking about allowing oil companies to externalize their environmental costs, I'm talking cash, like the 21 billion dollars in tax breaks the US gives oil companies to encourage domestic exploration and production.

Re:What happens when you eliminate subsidies?

[higuita]

simply... fox news and oil lobbies

Re:What happens when you eliminate subsidies?

[higuita]

ethanol taken from corn is stupid, i agree... but cars tuned for ethanol works just fine... just look to Brazil
even if in ethanol you may get less "MPG", it have a lower cost... you need to compare $PG and CO2PG

looking only to the MPG, nuclear have a much higher MPG!! :D

Re:What happens when you eliminate subsidies?

[Humbubba]

I agree with you that we need to move off fossil fuels. But I disagree with you about horse shoes and that the depreciation allowance is Big Oil's biggest US subsidy. I'm often wrong, so I checked with the right wing, Libertarian 'Competitive Enterprise Institute'. The three largest fossil fuel subsidies in the US are: Foreign tax credit ($15.3 billion); Credit for production of non-conventional fuels ($14.1 billion); and Oil and Gas exploration and development expense ($7.1 billion).

So Big Oil isn't just wallowing in depreciation allowances. And I could be wrong about horse shoes; I didn't check.

Which third party?

Re:What happens when you eliminate subsidies?

[GLMDesigns]

No. We don't do that for any business anywhere. That's a false flag.

Re:What happens when you eliminate subsidies?

[jimbolauski]

The subsidies nonhydro renewable energy receives account for about 2 of the 10 cents per kWh while all other forms account for fractions of a penny. That's the problem, renewable subsidies are significantly higher then the profits, they would literally be loosing money if not for subsidies.

Re:What happens when you eliminate subsidies?

[ctilsie242]

Depends on the ECU. The vehicle I have senses how much booze is in the gas tank, and adjusts mixture accordingly. It is happy up to E-85, and with E-85, it will add a few (5-10) horsepower... but the overall MPG loss (because alcohol doesn't have the energy density per gallon as gasoline) makes it not worth the bother.

I find it funny watching the soccer moms fight over the E-85 pump when their vehicles are not Flex-Fuel rated, though.

Re:What happens when you eliminate subsidies?

[Anonymous Coward]

What a load of crap. Oil is subsidized even more, and you pay for that with increased taxes AND increased healthcare costs AND increased military costs. Kickstarting solar/wind is a smart long term thinking solution. Oil is on the long downward slope now. And the NDP was not killed by bad policies but by big banks and corporations who stood to lose when the gov't put people first, rather than corporations.

Re:What happens when you eliminate subsidies?

[Anonymous Coward]

Solar and wind sound great until you eliminate the subsidies. Take away those subsidies and they become far more expensive. Once that happens, nobody will want to pay the extra costs and renewables will decline again. Like everything with the climate change agenda, it's a house of cards built on deception and lies.

Petroleum sounds great until you add in the cost of oil-related foreign policy & military intervention and other externalities. Take those away & it becomes far more expensive and like everything with the fossil fuel agenda is a gigantic house of cards built on deception, lies, blood & tyranny. But it's fun to see righteous Christian leaders holding hands & kissing bearded Muslims.

Re:What happens when you eliminate subsidies?

[GLMDesigns]

I'll have to check CEI. I respect them. They do good analysis.

I don't usually consider foreign tax credit as a subsidy and I need to look into the others you mentioned such as the definition of non-conventional fuels. (Is that a subsidy for non-carbon based fuels?)

We were talking about tax breaks for energy types (carbon v non-carbon) not companies. (If Exxon gets one of the tax breaks for developing a wind farm it's still a subsidy for alt-energy even though it's going to Exxon.)

As far as 3rd Party. I'm a libertarian so if you think you own your own body, in favor of freedom of speech and in think that individual freedom is a foremost priority then I would persuade you to vote libertarian. If freedom is less important than equality of outcome then vote Green or Socialist. Regardless it's time to end the two party system. Now, in practice, there would coalitions, but that's fine. It's the nature of things.

Re:What happens when you eliminate subsidies?

[Anonymous Coward]

In other news, Ajax Electric, has gone out of business. We see it because automobiles are not cheap and make a profit to cover deprication and replacement costs of equipment and workers at the same time!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ajax_(1914_automobile)

Re:What happens when you eliminate subsidies?

[skids]

Storage solutions would benefit the entire provider market, and the cost of any program to boost that sector should be attributed fairly. They and other grid improvements aren't as sexy as panels and windmills, so they don't attract as much serious investment.

Also, where is this vaunted "invisible hand of the free market" that's supposed to make companies that schedule their industrial power consumption to match when electricity is cheaper do better and thus grow to dominate the market?

Re:What happens when you eliminate subsidies?

[Maxo-Texas]

That should have said 12% more mileage.

I average 265 miles long term with a max of 268. I tested twice and got 300 and 305 miles.

Re:What happens when you eliminate subsidies?

[Ol Olsoc]

The subsidies nonhydro renewable energy receives account for about 2 of the 10 cents per kWh while all other forms account for fractions of a penny. That's the problem, renewable subsidies are significantly higher then the profits, they would literally be loosing money if not for subsidies.

So anyhow, here is the question. Actually a couple. Are the non renewable energy sources going to last forever? Or if they aren't, we just fold up the tents and kill ourselves?

As well, should the US go to the concept of - if it doesn't work from the very beginning, doesn't spring like Venus from the ocean, fully formed, it must not be done? Not everything works right from the beginning, and susidies have allways been used, either through regular or th eultimate technology driver, total war.

In other words, allow the rest of the world to subsidize promising technology, and only adopt them after they are fully realized and in practice, which means no subsidies at all for anything, and America ceding technological leadership to the rest of the world.

Sounds like the USA's path to becoming a third world nation. Let China build the solar panels and energy efficient products, and the people in the US who can afford them can buy them, and be grateful that someone else is doing the hard work.

I know that it doesn't fit in with the marriage of fossil fuel interests and free market libertarians, but there is definitely a place for Government to encourage promising energy technologies. Because whether direct, or University driven research on all forms of energy generation, it's subsidies all the way down.

Re: What happens when you eliminate subsidies?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not say that joke out loud while you are eating a meal of food raised by ... farmers.

Re: What happens when you eliminate subsidies?

[Anonymous Coward]

Robert Goddard, Bell Labs and IBM were all part of the government?

Re:What happens when you eliminate subsidies?

[Anonymous Coward]

Kickstarting solar/wind is a smart long term thinking solution.

You mean where it costs people to the point where they no longer have a job? That's Ontario. So who's going to pay for all those nice subsidies you like. Guess your long term plan isn't working very well when you're talking about the bankruptcy of a province to cover it.

Woot!

[Maxo-Texas]

Going to make an amazing difference to the marginal price of other fuels used for power generation.

Re:Woot!

[PopeRatzo]

Going to make an amazing difference to the marginal price of other fuels used for power generation.

They already have. You only have to take a look at the price of oil and gas now.

Re:Woot!

[blindseer]

That's right, everyone that has a brain has converted their gas-burning SUV to wind power!

I've upped my use of wind power! Up yours!

Re:Woot!

[Anonymous Coward]

oil dropped in price because of cheap natural gas.

oil dropped in price in spite of OPEC continuing to curtail production.

OPEC countries, specifically Saudi Arabia are investing a lot into Solar. Every barrel of oil they don't burn themselves can be turned into $$$ on the market. But it might be too late for that to do their economy a lot of good.

Trump won't let this stand

[Socguy]

Get ready for federal 'tweaking' to prevent further renewable growth. Time to tax renewables so that coal can be competitive again. Now that renewables are seriously starting to cut into market share, special interests are going to pull out all the stops to make sure nothing changes.

Re:Trump won't let this stand

[Anonymous Coward]

Let me guess...failing to shovel tons of taxpayer money after something will be portrayed the same as putting your boot on their neck.

Re:Trump won't let this stand

[ShanghaiBill]

Get ready for federal 'tweaking' to prevent further renewable growth.

If by "tweaking", you mean removing subsidies, then that is a good thing. Subsidies are supposed to be a temporary incentive to innovate, not a permanent crutch.

Time to tax renewables so that coal can be competitive again.

Coal is dying. Killed by shale gas, not renewables. The coal companies don't have money to invest in a lost cause political campaign, and the coalminers soon won't have enough votes to matter.

Re:Trump won't let this stand

[drinkypoo]

If by "tweaking", you mean removing subsidies, then that is a good thing. Subsidies are supposed to be a temporary incentive to innovate, not a permanent crutch.

Great. Let's take away subsidies from coal and oil, then.

Re:Trump won't let this stand

[ShanghaiBill]

Great. Let's take away subsidies from coal and oil, then.

Sure. Dumb subsidies don't justify dumber subsidies.

Re:Trump won't let this stand

[argStyopa]

As a taxpayer, I'd be fine with killing ALL subsidies (to renewables, as well as to coal, etc).

Note, however, that renewables are getting something like 30x-40x the subsidy per mW/h generated.

If all subsidies were equally eliminated, renewables would go back to powering the land of unicorns and imagination.

Re:Trump won't let this stand

[kenh]

Now that renewables are seriously starting to cut into market share

It peaked, for the YEAR, at 10% (the rest of the year it is less) - that isn't "seriously cutting into market share", that's "peaking at a noticeable level before sinking back into irrelevence."

Re:Trump won't let this stand

[Anonymous Coward]

You are leaving out the biggest of all, which is the cost of the United States to police the energy lanes of Europe.

The indirect military subsidies to the oil industry through the military is the largest of them of all. Remove it and petrol prices go back through the roof until everyone gets in on the fracking game and tells the Arab states to pound sand.

Re:Trump won't let this stand

[kenh]

Let's take away subsidies from coal and oil, then

Let's examine the subsidies of each:

Solar: Free money to pay for basic Research & Development, Secured loans to build factories, Free Training for solar panel installers, Tax breaks for creating "green" solar panel installer jobs, Free money to pay for half of each solar panel installation, and, artificially high rates utilities must pay solar panel owners, regardless of the utility's ability to actually use the electricity when it is generated.

Oil: Ability to deduct research and development costs from income.

The great thing about oil is the ungodly amount of tax dollars the end-user pays per gallon, as we reduce dependence on Oil, tax revenues will drop, and have to be replaced by collecting more money elsewhere, for example, by taxing electric cars to help pay for infrastructure (roads, bridges, etc.), erasing even the illusion that electric cars are "cheaper". (Oil companies earn less than 10 cents a gallon, the federal government collects almost 20 cents a gallon, and states collect up to 40 cents for each gallon of gasoline sold.)

Re:Trump won't let this stand

[Cmdln Daco]

We don't get our oil delivered through the energy lanes of Europe. In fact, the US share of Middle Eastern oil has shrunken dramatically. North America now produces a dramatic amount of it's own oil and gas.

Perhaps, as you imply, we should stop subsidizing the shipping lanes for oil delivered to Europe. That has nothing to do with said 'subsidies' imbalancing the cost of oil in the US.

Re:Trump won't let this stand

[Maxo-Texas]

Anytime you consider subsidies for oil, you must consider the 2 trillion dollars and 4,000 lives spent in the gulf war.

The same will apply to Solar and Wind power when we go to war to protect the mines where their raw materials come from as well.

And I'm ignoring the ongoing cost of stationing troops and ships to protect oil fields.

Re:Trump won't let this stand

[Cmdln Daco]

America gets a very small amount of it's oil from the Persian Gulf. We are bigtime producers of our own energy these days.

Most M.E. oil goes to Europe and other countries.

Re: Trump won't let this stand

[Anonymous Coward]

You are leaving out the biggest of all, which is the cost of the United States to police the energy lanes of Europe.

Read again, work on your comprehension a little.

Re:Trump won't let this stand

[Anonymous Coward]

Great. Let's take away subsidies from coal and oil, then.

Apparently you don't realize that subsidies for renewables are paid for by fossil fuels. Moreover, try producing renewables without fossil energy.

Re:Trump won't let this stand

[Anonymous Coward]

China is the biggest ME market. It's past time for the US to haul anchor towards home. If China wants their oil shipments they can sail their assess over to the ME and take over babysitting the Emirs Sheiks, Mullahs, inbred despots, and all the other morons that only act responsibly when they have a gun stuck in their ear.

Re:Trump won't let this stand

[blindseer]

Most M.E. oil goes to Europe and other countries.

That's true but oil is traded on the global market. If an area that produces a lot of oil is all of the sudden not producing oil because of war then oil gets expensive even for those that don't buy oil from that area. That oil has to be replaced by those that continue to produce oil, and increasing production costs money.

I'm not saying that this justifies US military involvement in the Middle East. Quite the opposite in fact. I say let them fight it out amongst themselves. I also say we need to make it clear that we will trade with people that can act kindly to their neighbors, treat their citizens and visitors with respect, and generally act with civility. This trade can include weapons if they like. Keeping the peace does mean being prepared to go to war after all.

The way to allow the USA to not concern itself with what goes on there is to produce enough energy on our own that whatever happens in the Middle East will have minimal effect on prices we pay here. We can do this by drilling for more oil, digging for more coal, putting up more windmills, and building more nuclear power plants.

I've had people tell me that building nuclear power plants will do nothing for the price of oil because oil is primarily for vehicle fuel while nuclear power is primarily used for electricity. I've seen the opposite though. Energy is energy. People will use whatever is cheapest.

I grew up on a farm and I've seen gasoline driven augers and electric driven augers used to move corn. There's advantages to both but in the end it comes down to cost on which the farmer will choose to use. Go to Sears, or wherever you might see lawn mowers and such, and you will see electric mowers next to the gasoline powered ones. This happens on the small scale with suburban yards to mow. On the medium scale with the family farm. Why would this not happen on an industrial scale?

Oil is oil and energy is energy. An economy needs energy. To decouple the USA from the Middle East militarily means that the Middle East needs to be decoupled from the world economically.

Re:Trump won't let this stand

[Jeremi]

We don't get our oil delivered through the energy lanes of Europe. In fact, the US share of Middle Eastern oil has shrunken dramatically. North America now produces a dramatic amount of it's own oil and gas.

True, but oil is a global market -- so unless we decided to ban all exports exports of domestic oil (which is unlikely, even under Trump), disruptions in Europe and the Middle East would increase the price of oil here in the USA about the same as it would anywhere else. Being able to produce oil cheaply in Montana doesn't help Americans much if the oil producers prefer to sell it for more abroad than they can get at home.

To avoid that, we're left policing the world's seas, and picking up most of the tab.

Re:Trump won't let this stand

[RotateLeftByte]

Banning oil exports/imports will cripple parts of industry.
There are different types of crude. Different refineries process them specifically for their customers. Stopping that import of a type of crude that is essential to say the plastics industry won't fly.
If any restrictions are imposed make the nett sum === Zero at the very least.

Oil pumped in Texas is very different chemically from oil from Saudi and if different to North Sea. etc

Re:Trump won't let this stand

[Hognoxious]

Moreover, try producing renewables without fossil energy.

It clearly violates the fifth law of thermodynamics, which is why windmills and waterwheels were invented 700 years after the steam engine.

Re:Trump won't let this stand

[Anonymous Coward]

Before you got all exited about your political bull shit, maybe you better read this
https://www.aei.org/publication/inconvenient-energy-fact-it-takes-79-solar-workers-to-produce-same-amount-of-electric-power-as-one-coal-worker/

And here is a shorter version from different sources

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-06-06/more-solar-jobs-curse-not-blessing

>This is supposed to be a good thing, according to the Times. It shows how important solar power has become in taking people out of unemployment lines and giving them productive jobs, the paper suggests.

>Indeed, the article notes, California had the highest rate of solar power jobs per capita in 2016, thanks to its “robust renewable energy standards and installation incentives” (ie, mandates and subsidies).

>In reality, it’s not a good thing at all, and certainly not a positive trend. In fact, as Climate Depot and the Washington Examiner point out — citing an American Enterprise Institute study — the job numbers actually underscore how wasteful, inefficient and unproductive solar power actually is.

> That is glaringly obvious when you look at the amounts of energy produced per sector. (This tally does not include electricity generated by nuclear, hydroelectric and geothermal power plants.)

> 398,000 natural gas workers = 33.8% of all electricity generated in the United States in 2016
> 160,000 coal employees = 30.4 % of total electricity
> 100,000 wind employees = 5.6% of total electricity
> 374,000 solar workers = 0.9% of total electricity

Re:Trump won't let this stand

[drinkypoo]

Oil: Ability to deduct research and development costs from income.

You forgot ability to hand-wave away externalities like carbon release.

And then there's coal, ability to hand-wave away externalities like release of fissile nuclear elements into the air..

Meanwhile, solar panels made in/for the first world are required to be recycled (or at least you're paying for it), and to not leach if landfilled in spite of recycling requirements. And solar panels have paid back the energy cost of their production well within their lifetime since the 1970s. And wind power predates human production of electricity.

Since solar is required to account for its mess, it's only fair to count fossil fuels' being permitted to ignore their respective messes as a subsidy. Since we have no technology which can reasonably clean up what coal in particular has done to our environment, the subsidy for that particular fuel effectively amounts to an infinite amount of money.

Re:Trump won't let this stand

[blind biker]

And then there's coal, ability to hand-wave away externalities like release of fissile nuclear elements into the air..

People are (rightfully, to some extent) caught up with the radioactive shit that is released by the coal energy industry, but they forget the much worse stuff, mercury, lead, cadmium and other neurotoxic stuff. Especially mercury.

Re: Trump won't let this stand

[Anonymous Coward]

And once again you're a fucking dumbass since the meaning is you need spinning generation from fossil fuels and nuclear to maintain system voltage. But a jackass like yourself gets nothing and your post even fails as humor.

Re:Trump won't let this stand

[Sique]

It peaked, for the YEAR, at 10% (the rest of the year it is less) - that isn't "seriously cutting into market share", that's "peaking at a noticeable level before sinking back into irrelevence."

That's hell of an asumption. As the rest of the year is still another 6 and a half month, and we haven't even seen the numbers for April and May yet, I would put your claim into the "wishful thinking" category.

Re:Trump won't let this stand

[Anonymous Coward]

Genuinely curious; how much of the toxic elements end up in the air vs ash ponds? Hopefully most of the uranium and thorium remain in the ash ponds, since they represent more than 10x the energy of the coal itself, and could be mined in the future, paying for the cleanup of the massive toxic mess that coal leaves behind.

The radioactivity released is inconsequentially small though, even if much beyond the limits set for nuclear plants. Geothermal is also allowed to release a lot of radioactivity, because it is "natural".

The absurdly low limits applied to nuclear plants go far beyond what is necessary to protect human health, to the point that they actively harm health by discouraging clean nuclear energy. The present limits are based on bad science, and set explicitly for the purpose of driving up costs.

Re: Trump won't let this stand

[drinkypoo]

And once again you're a fucking dumbass

[citation needed]

since the meaning is you need spinning generation from fossil fuels and nuclear to maintain system voltage.

No, really, [citation needed]

Re:Trump won't let this stand

[budgenator]

If you're going to blame somebody Oil wars in the middle east, that should be British Petroleum and their 1953 Iranian coup d'état also called Operation Boot.

Re:Trump won't let this stand

[higuita]

yep, everyone knows that the Romans use huge refineries and steam engines to build windmills and watermills to produce bread... they where testing nuclear energy, but the barbarians attacked and they never finish it! :D

when people do not want to understand, they simply shutdown their brain and say things like that

Re: Trump won't let this stand

[higuita]

because wind and turbines are "static" generation systems, right?

and lets lower the scale... a UPS, using battery, can keep the voltage just fine... and it have no moving parts

Re:Trump won't let this stand

[hey!]

Well, with respect to dumb, two years ago people were criticizing solar subsidies because solar produced less than 0.5% of electricity in this country.

If by "dumb" you mean "something I don't like", I literally can't argue with you. But if by "dumb" you mean "obviously has no chance of meeting its objectives", the graph of percent of power generated speaks for itself.

Re:Trump won't let this stand

[LynnwoodRooster]

For 40 years, it was illegal to export US-sourced crude oil. It was the Obama Administration that lifted the ban in 2016. Prior to that, all US pumped oil had to be used in the US. Would be trivial to go back to that...

We are involved in the Middle East to essentially guarantee the oil flows for our "friends" in the EU who knock us for using our own oil and for military aggression in protecting their own oil supplies...

Re:Trump won't let this stand

[Anonymous Coward]

Holy strawman batman!

I get it, let's take a single data point. From there we can extrapolate that solar (and renewables) is bad and wasteful.

Also, your totally non-biased articles conveniently lumps solar in with a renewables without bothering to mention that all renewables (including solar) accounts for total of 15% of electricity.

I'm sure glad the US didn't bother wasting all that money on transistor development contracts to get a minuscule improvement on their radar systems! Vacuum tubes for life!

Re:Trump won't let this stand

[drinkypoo]

Geothermal is also allowed to release a lot of radioactivity, because it is "natural".

In some cases, the radioactivity is released whether you put a geothermal plant there or not. But yes, that is a problem. It's been a problem here at The Geysers, in fact.

Re:Trump won't let this stand

[Anonymous Coward]

But it does equal the fucking playing field.

Re:Trump won't let this stand

[Anonymous Coward]

Except you are wrong about everything there. Russia supplies the EU.

Re:Trump won't let this stand

[ShanghaiBill]

Subsidies for new clean energy tech are not dumb.
Making the subsidies permanent is dumb.

Solar and wind subsidies have worked well.
But it is time to start phasing them out.
First you crawl, then you learn to walk.

Re:Trump won't let this stand

[DanielRavenNest]

The federal investment and production tax credits for renewables are scheduled to phase out in the next 5 years, so you got your wish.

Re:Trump won't let this stand

[LynnwoodRooster]

Silly AC, facts show that OPEC - mainly Saudi Arabia, Libya, and Nigeria, provides 40% of all EU imports...

Re:Trump won't let this stand

[Cmdln Daco]

That's true but oil is traded on the global market. If an area that produces a lot of oil is all of the sudden not producing oil because of war then oil gets expensive even for those that don't buy oil from that area. That oil has to be replaced by those that continue to produce oil, and increasing production costs money.

Increasing production (in the US) under conditions where prices have gone up involves more money coming into the US. It just doesn't make sense for the US to defend the rights of non-US entities to get cheap oil from non-US sources.

Renewables gaining ground?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's frigging un-American. Around here we burn coal and oil and we drive big cars. And we're darn proud of it. Get your renewable commie ass outta here!

Re:Renewables gaining ground?

[Anonymous Coward]

You are thinking of Germany

A Red is Wind Blowing

[cosmicl]

Turns out a lot of this wind power is coming from "red" states, like Kansas for example. From the nytimes https://www.nytimes.com/2017/0... "Two years ago, Kansas repealed a law requiring that 20 percent of the state’s electric power come from renewable sources by 2020, seemingly a step backward on energy in a deeply conservative state. Yet by the time the law was scrapped, it had become largely irrelevant. Kansas blew past that 20 percent target in 2014, and last year generated more than 30 percent of its power from wind. The state may be the first in the country to hit 50 percent wind generation in a year or two, unless Iowa gets there first. Some of the fastest progress on clean energy is occurring in states led by Republican governors and legislators, and states carried by Donald J. Trump in the presidential election."

Re:A Red is Wind Blowing

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is that? I didn't know about Kansas, but I know that Texas is a huge wind power producer. Is it because Kansas and Texas are "red" or is it simply because they're big, flat, and and have windy sparsely populated areas that are ideal for wind farming? Or is there some other reason?

Re:A Red is Wind Blowing

[amiga3D]

In mid Georgia we've got cotton being replaced by solar panels. My last trip to Columbus I drove through Taylor county, a lot of red clay that used to grow cotton. Those areas are covered by mile upon mile of solar panels as far as the eye can see. It's a brilliant thing considering that when they produce the best is the same time when A/C units are working hardest. The green revolution is here and it's paying it's own way. It continues just fine without subsidies because it makes money. Money talks.

Re:A Red is Wind Blowing

[zieroh]

Let me know when Kansas can supply 100% of it's electrical needs through renewables when the electricity is actually needed - producing a surplus of electricity during the day does nothing to power lights at night.

Why is that relevant? The power grid is a large collection of power generation units that have different characteristics and are useful at different times for different needs based on the load at that moment. Having more options is a good thing.

You seem to be laboring under the illusion that one power source has to do it all. There is in fact no such rule.

Re:A Red is Wind Blowing

[Anonymous Coward]

Let me know when Kansas can supply 100% of it's electrical needs through renewables when the electricity is actually needed - producing a surplus of electricity during the day does nothing to power lights at night.

Coal and nuclear doesn't work well when you do that, they prefer to ramp up and down production slowly.
Hydroelectric have traditionally been the only power source that adapt directly to the load, then you use other power sources to not spend the dam as quickly.
Hydroelectric doesn't care if that other power source is coal or wind, it doesn't depend on someone else being constant.

I suspect your comment about powering lights at night comes from the misconception that solar power is limited to photovoltaic cells.
One solar power plant type that is becoming more and more popular is molten salt plants
It uses solar to heat salt and can then draw power from it through the night.

Re:A Red is Wind Blowing

[Barsteward]

"You seem to be laboring under the illusion that one power source has to do it all." unfortunately this is the standpoint of most detractors, they can't seem to think further than one source.

Re:A Red is Wind Blowing

[Anonymous Coward]

Republicans should love renewable energy. It can make marginal land profitable (e.g. in the UK the Scottish islands). I imagine the US has a lot of fairly unused marsh or moorland that would be perfect for wind farms, that would massively improve the land value and not impact any agricultural value.

Re:A Red is Wind Blowing

[Anonymous Coward]

ERCOT, the Texas grid (not East US, not West US) is hovering at about 30% wind.

Re:A Red is Wind Blowing

[thegarbz]

Let me know when Kansas can supply 100% of it's electrical needs through renewables when the electricity is actually needed - producing a surplus of electricity during the day does nothing to power lights at night.

That will happen when Americans stop thinking in absolutes and stop making everything all or nothing / black or white, or the current flavour red or blue.

If this ever were to be the case then they'd look back at all the ridiculous things they said and realise how stupid they were for saying them making you hope that we never actually come back to let you know.

Re:A Red is Wind Blowing

[Anonymous Coward]

More information about ERCOT.

Re:A Red is Wind Blowing

[thinkwaitfast]

In an analysis done by the English physicist David McKay, he goes into some detail about how the US is one of a very few countries where solar and wind could provide 100% it its energy needs keeping the current standard of living. This is based purely on available energy in the environment and ignores everything else.

Feel free to point out errors in the analysis.

Re:A Red is Wind Blowing

[Anonymous Coward]

The point is for letting the best tech win, not having the "All knowing geniuses in DC" decide who should win.
Solyndra shows what happens when DC decides on a winner based on donations to the Democrat party.
If it is cheaper in the long run, it should win.

Re:A Red is Wind Blowing

[Anonymous Coward]

If it can pay for itself and make a profit, don't worry, we love it.

Re: A Red is Wind Blowing

[KGIII]

I didn't click your link. You told me the problem already. It ignores everything else.

I feel inclined to make a joke about spherical cows, but I am feeling lazy. But, if it ignores stuff like political feasibility, it's just a pointless but of math. I do love me some math, but usually I prefer it to have a point.

Re:A Red is Wind Blowing

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is that? I didn't know about Kansas, but I know that Texas is a huge wind power producer. Is it because Kansas and Texas are "red" or is it simply because they're big, flat, and and have windy sparsely populated areas that are ideal for wind farming? Or is there some other reason?

Leftists live under the delusion that red states are backwards in everything, it's required to maintain their worldview.

Re:A Red is Wind Blowing

[avandesande]

the downside is we won't have any pants

Re:A Red is Wind Blowing

[higuita]

100% can take many, many years... but you can reach the 30-50% within a few years, other country with less money have done it.
Again, to reach the 100%, you need to start with a few % and slowly increase it... It is just like saying "wake me up when 100% of the state have cheap broadband access"... every step is a right step, but things change slowly

Re:A Red is Wind Blowing

[budgenator]

In an analysis done by the English physicist David McKay, he goes into some detail about how the US is one of a very few countries where solar and wind could provide 100% it its energy needs keeping the current standard of living. This is based purely on available energy in the environment and ignores everything else.

Feel free to point out errors in the analysis.

Does he mean ignoring things like chopping up endangered species of birds and bats, destroying delicate desert habitats and such?

Re:A Red is Wind Blowing

[Anonymous Coward]

I know this is hard for some to believe but Solyndra has become more of a conservative canard that proves that group of people believes false narratives that support their world view rather than prove anything about subsidies, renewable energy or Dems. In the end ROI on the Solyndra investment was marginal to flat, the wider program which the Solyndra investment was part of was wildly profitable with outstanding ROI.

If Solyndra is an example of anything its that there will always be less profitable investments within a wildly profitable large government based investment program and Republicans can wordsmith anything into a wedge then repeat the lies mercilessly until enough morons start believing them joining the circle jerk.

Re:A Red is Wind Blowing

[hey!]

Actually, battery storage technology is on a rapid downward trend. I was reading about India, which has severe coal-related pollution problems, and just recently the price of solar has dropped there has dropped to be less than coal. Within five years the cost of solar plus battery will be less on a per kwh basis than coal. It doesn't mean they'll be able to conjure the change overnight, but it'll start things going that way.

You didn't think Elon Musk just wanted to be this century's Henry Ford did you? He wants to be this century's John D. Rockefeller (Standard Oil) too. That's why pulling out of Paris pissed him off.

Anyhow, until battery backup of renewables is economically feasible, which will happen soon, there's plenty of fossil fuel generated kwhs that can be replaced with renewables. This is not only good for the enviroment, it'll mean lower local energy prices. That in turn will mean jobs and industry returning to some of those pockets of America that never saw any recovery from the Great Recession.

Re:A Red is Wind Blowing

[Anonymous Coward]

the downside is we won't have any pants

Is that a downside?

Re:A Red is Wind Blowing

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Let me know when Kansas can supply 100% of it's electrical needs through renewables when the electricity is actually needed...

That really doesn't matter. Both home and industrial scale energy storage with days of full-load capacity are already here and affordable. They're also improving rapidly, both in capability and cost. Solar generation, even with old-school energy storage, has already crossed price break-even for much of the continental US.

Also: Solar + wind does a very good job of tracking the variable part of the load, leaving a modest fraction that's almost constant and easy to predict for the storage to cover.

Re:A Red is Wind Blowing

[mugnyte]

If it reaches 100% to convince you of the efficacy, then you will be woefully behind the times. Battery banks already live through most data centers, normalizing power prices and effectively making the internet more resilient. They are now being implemented for municipal power storage, alleviating the temporal shifts for generation/consumption.

One of many articles describing these batteries: https://www.scientificamerican...

Generalizing this concept, here are a few alternatives to electro-chemical storage: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/n...

Kansas, by the way, is not the only location that's moving forward. Instead of try to convince you of how useful this is - it's obviously already happening regardless of your opinion - you should look into getting employment in this sector. It is literally replacing everything in its path.

Re:A Red is Wind Blowing

[blindseer]

I was reading about India, which has severe coal-related pollution problems, and just recently the price of solar has dropped there has dropped to be less than coal.

The price of any commodity gets lower as demand decreases. If fewer people burn coal, reducing competition on price, then coal gets cheaper. This is not a static price so any claims that do not take this into account is suspect.

Within five years the cost of solar plus battery will be less on a per kwh basis than coal.

What keeps people from charging these batteries with coal power? One reason that coal is so cheap is because it cannot follow changes in load. For that we primarily use natural gas turbines, likely true in India too. Maybe they use fuel oil generators, I don't know and I really don't care. Point is that batteries don't care what is used to charge them up and they work great for load following. If these batteries become cheap then it makes sense to use cheap and reliable coal to charge them up instead of expensive and unreliable solar power. Improvements in battery technology is not necessarily helpful for solar power.

Also, India is largely tropical and sub-tropical which makes solar more profitable. What are the people that live outside of 30 degrees north and south latitude supposed to do?

Re:A Red is Wind Blowing

[kenh]

Kansas peaks twice a year and produces about 10% of it's needed electricity from renewables - it's laudable, but not really noteworthy, it's like claiming that your SUV gets over 50 miles per gallon when you go down hill.

Kansas generates about 7-8% of it's needs through renewables every day, that's a good start, but is it really *that* big an accomplishment?

Re:A Red is Wind Blowing

[kenh]

Both home and industrial scale energy storage with days of full-load capacity are already here and affordable.

Define "affordable".

My "demand" about 100% energy from renewables includes energy storage, which is to say it doesn't exclude them specifically - it simply means that currently Kansas consumes about 40 thousand megawatts of electricity a year (aprox.), let me know when renewables (solar, wind, hydro, etc.) can produce those 40 thousand megawatts over the course of 365 days (1 year). You can use any storage mechanism you want to store renewable energy until it is used.

Re:A Red is Wind Blowing

[kenh]

Kansas consumes 40 thousand megawatts of electricity in a year, I want to know when Kansas can produce that much electricity over the course of twelve months - I never said they couldn't use any storage technology to use today's solar electricity tomorrow or tonight, I meant they need to provide enough energy to power the state via renewables for a year. This article celebrates the two times a year renewables can supply 10% of their needs, laudable, but not really earth-shattering news, since they can't replicate that level of success outside of two very small windows per year.

Heck, I'd be impressed if Kansas could produce 10% of it's annual needs via renewables, 4 thousand megawatts, but sadly that isn't even what this article is about - it's about a couple times a year when their renewable energy production peaks...

Re:A Red is Wind Blowing

[mugnyte]

Yes this is a small milestone. The rate-of-growth for this realm is on an exponential curve (see: https://www.forbes.com/sites/r... ). Perhaps the 10% that would impress you for Kansas will take some time, but globally generation is increasing quickly. The EIA projects the next 2 years to be steady at 10% (see: https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/s... )

Percentage of load is a different stat entirely. There, it may be better to look at the conversion channels of energy (fuel vs electricity) via something like https://flowcharts.llnl.gov/ which show large opportunities for renewables. Load is increasing each year, so this skews all percentage claims.

But how much did this electricity cost?

[blindseer]

So, we see wind and solar combined to reach an arbitrary goal of 10% so that it is worthy of a headline apparently. One question that I'd like answered is how much this electricity cost. Not how much the consumers were charged for it, because that would include the government subsidies. I want to see the economics of this so I can judge the validity of this as a future energy source.

Every so often I get a bunch of letters in the mail from elected officials and lobbyists that want me to get all concerned about some vote coming up in Congress over wind subsidies. They tell me how much more CO2 would be produced, or how many jobs lots, or whatever bad thing they can think of that might trigger my "feels" to get me to call someone or vote some way.

Here's the thing. We can want wind and solar to replace coal as soon as possible but the only sure way for that to happen is for wind and solar to be cheaper than coal. Once that happens then no one would need to send me a letter telling me to call my congressman. Instead I should be getting a letter from the utility notifying me that my rates were lowered.

It looks to me like wind might actually be cheaper than coal except for that nasty problem of the wind not blowing when we need it. This can be addressed right now in some areas with a local pumped hydro dam used for energy storage. No other electric storage method is economical right now.

Solar will likely never get cheap enough to bother with. Like wind it is unreliable. Unlike wind we know it will never provide power at night. Any advancements in storage technologies to address this will also make wind look better. This also apples to coal and nuclear as storage systems would allow for load following with them. The problem with anything that boils water like coal and nuclear is that they do not follow load well. With something like a pumped hydro dam or a sufficiently large battery array even a gigawatt nuclear power plant can follow changes in loads. That would make nuclear look awesome.

For a short time solar power made 2% of the electricity used in the USA. How often do people ask why solar is so unpopular? After being subsidized heavily in the USA for decades this is all we have to show for it. Perhaps we need to stop and think if this is in fact a good use of our tax money.

Re:But how much did this electricity cost?

[Jeremi]

How often do people ask why solar is so unpopular?

Almost never since about 2005, because solar has actually become extremely popular.

After being subsidized heavily in the USA for decades this is all we have to show for it. Perhaps we need to stop and think if this is in fact a good use of our tax money.

The price per watt of solar power drops every year and shows no sign of leveling out any time soon. If you don't like the price this year, wait until next year. If you don't like solar power period, at any price, that's fine too -- the world will continue to adopt solar power at an ever-increasing pace, with or without your support.

Re:But how much did this electricity cost?

[amiga3D]

The real cost of solar is in storage. But for peak usage during the day to prevent having to fire up more generators it's perfect. I saw one installation where they used excess solar electricity to pump water uphill to a reservoir. At night they used the water to run through a dynamo to recover the electricity. An interesting concept, using gravity to store power.

Re:But how much did this electricity cost?

[zieroh]

I want to see the economics of this so I can judge the validity of this as a future energy source.

Renewable adoption of the world at large is not actually up to you, so your demand seems more than a bit empty. But if you really want to know the answer, Google is your friend.

Sadly, I expect you'll use your findings like a drunk uses a lamp post -- for support, rather than illumination.

Re: But how much did this electricity cost?

[Anonymous Coward]

Unlike wind we know it will never provide power at night. Any advancements in storage technologies to address this will also make wind look better.

Solar thermal. Also look up the growth curve in solar installs.

Length of time of subsidies? What a fucking stupid criticism.

Re:But how much did this electricity cost?

[Maxo-Texas]

They also use it to melt salt and then extract the heat as electricity when needed.

Re:But how much did this electricity cost?

[blindseer]

The price per watt of solar power drops every year and shows no sign of leveling out any time soon.

That's nice but I asked about the price per watt-hour. That claim on the dropping cost per watt means nothing since so many things can affect the price of solar energy other than the price of the panels alone.

I suspect that solar power advocates don't like to talk about the cost of the solar watt-hour because if they did that then the charts would not look so great.

Re:But how much did this electricity cost?

[Anonymous Coward]

So, we see wind and solar combined to reach an arbitrary goal of 10% so that it is worthy of a headline apparently. One question that I'd like answered is how much this electricity cost. Not how much the consumers were charged for it, because that would include the government subsidies. I want to see the economics of this so I can judge the validity of this as a future energy source.

...In reality, it’s not a good thing at all, and certainly not a positive trend. In fact, as Climate Depot and the Washington Examiner point out — citing an American Enterprise Institute study — the job numbers actually underscore how wasteful, inefficient and unproductive solar power actually is.

That is glaringly obvious when you look at the amounts of energy produced per sector. (This tally does not include electricity generated by nuclear, hydroelectric and geothermal power plants.)

        398,000 natural gas workers = 33.8% of all electricity generated in the United States in 2016
        160,000 coal employees = 30.4 % of total electricity
        100,000 wind employees = 5.6% of total electricity
        374,000 solar workers = 0.9% of total electricity

It’s even more glaring when you look at the amount of electricity generated per worker. Coal generated an incredible 7,745 megawatt-hours of electricity per worker; natural gas 3,812 MWH per worker; wind a measly 836 MWH for every employee; and solar an abysmal 98 MWH per worker.

In other words, producing the same amount of electricity requires one coal worker, two natural gas workers — 12 wind industry employees or 79 solar workers.

Even worse, whereas coal and gas electricity is cheap, affordable, and available virtually 100% of the time — wind and solar are expensive, intermittent, unreliable, and available only 15–30% of the time, on an annual basis. Wind and solar electricity is there when it’s there, not necessarily when you need it.

In truth, about the only thing solar and wind companies do well is collect billions of dollars in subsidies from taxpayers and billions of dollars in much higher electricity rates from consumers. And when you look at the overall picture, solar and wind power generation is far worse than this. ...to continue reading (and links to sources): http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-06-06/more-solar-jobs-curse-not-blessing

Re:But how much did this electricity cost?

[TRRosen]

Solar and wind are already cheaper than coal even without subsidies. (its called technology) Yes solar plants produce energy 24/7. Wind is very reliable. Guess what ignorant one? The wind is always blowing. That's how weather works.

We get more electricity from Solar than from Oil. We get more electricity from Natural Gas than from Coal.
Solar capacity is doubling every few years. Wind capacity is doubling every 4-5 years.

Re:But how much did this electricity cost?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not only "how much did it cost", but "how much is the remaining 90% going to cost?" Greens keep touting records, but they aren't indicative of progress, they're just cherry-picked snapshots which are highly unrepresentative.

There is no evidence that the ordained technologies will scale to any meaningful level of penetration, as the needed storage technology is pure fantasy today. If the goal is unattainable by these means, then the effort is a distraction and a huge waste of resources. The only real beneficiary is gas, which make a killing from the large gaps in renewable generation.

Regarding load following with thermal generation, there are other options than steam. An MSR coupled to a supercritical CO2 cycle will be very responsive. However, high levels of intermittent wind and solar would make extreme demands on backup generation, far beyond what is imposed on systems today.

Re:But how much did this electricity cost?

[Anonymous Coward]

Solar and wind are already cheaper than coal even without subsidies. (its called technology) Yes solar plants produce energy 24/7. Wind is very reliable. Guess what ignorant one? The wind is always blowing. That's how weather works.

Inventing facts? Solar is one of the most expensive energies. Wind? Not only expensive but also unreliable.

Re:But how much did this electricity cost?

[Anonymous Coward]

Obvious bullshit. Go away and learn something true.

Re:But how much did this electricity cost?

[blindseer]

Solar and wind are already cheaper than coal even without subsidies.

[citation needed]

Re:But how much did this electricity cost?

[Barsteward]

http://solar-power-now.com/cos... might help you out

Re:But how much did this electricity cost?

[Anonymous Coward]

uhm, since the sunlight and clouds and so on that change kw into kwh for solar haven't changed, the price per kwh changes in direct proportion to the price per kw

Moron.

Re:But how much did this electricity cost?

[Barsteward]

pretty much most of the solar jobs are infrastructure. why not include all the infrastructure jobs for the others as well. Is that one coal miner with a shovel or a huge digging machine that needs maintenance from a digger manufacturer who has to build the digger in the first place?

Re:But how much did this electricity cost?

[Anonymous Coward]

Can't you read? The report says "generated". That is not the same as "used". Think about it for a few seconds.

Re: But how much did this electricity cost?

[blindseer]

Also look up the growth curve in solar installs.

Whatever. It's easy to double the installs year over year when it can't make even 2% of total output. Also, how long can this last? It's easy to cover up for solar power shortfalls when it can't make even 2% of total output. If all that solar power capacity disappeared tonight would anyone care? I'm pretty sure they don't because it disappears every night.

Solar thermal.

But how much does that cost? Not only does it have to be available 24 hours a day but it has to be cheaper than what we already use. I don't mean cost of installed capacity because that means next to nothing. I want to know how much it costs per watt-hour because that's what people really care about.

Do you think that solar thermal would be cheaper than, for example, nuclear? I'm certain solar thermal could ever be as "green", cheap, and reliable as nuclear. If solar thermal can't beat nuclear on carbon footprint and price then shouldn't we go with nuclear instead?

Re:But how much did this electricity cost?

[thinkwaitfast]

In AZ, solar is currently cheaper than hydro averaged over 4-5 years including cost of money.

Re:But how much did this electricity cost?

[thinkwaitfast]

I did a very detailed solar analysis as part of my EE degree. Sadly, I no longer have it, but some highlights - Phoenix gets ~2500hours of solar radiation/year for a fixed mount panel (tracking panels will produce more, but the cost is higher than the extra energy they will yield). That means for every 1wp capability you have, you will harvest 2.5kwh of energy/year. At $0.10/kwh, that is 25 cents of electricity per year. Solar panels are currently selling for less than 25c/Wp.

Re:But how much did this electricity cost?

[higuita]

yep, it is easy to compare the already establish coal and fuel industry, with all the required equipment, jobs and know-how against the wind and solar, where you do not have anything or weak industry... that is why you get subsidies for green energy, you need to create the basic market, industry and known-how... to reduce the CO2 emissions, we all can not wait for years for the market to slowly emerge

Re:But how much did this electricity cost?

[higuita]

what? Here in Portugal we already have a annual 50% wind based energy and increasing each year ... i would say it scales.
We do store energy during the night by pumping water in dams... even if you lose 50% of energy doing that, it is 50% more energy to be used later. What you need is a good energy distribution system, that is what needs to scale.
Also, (for now) you still need fallback to coal, gas or fuel, do not try to imagine a 100% green energy right now, that will take many years.. but to reach the end of a long journey, you need to take the first steps

Re:But how much did this electricity cost?

[Jeremi]

I suspect that solar power advocates don't like to talk about the cost of the solar watt-hour because if they did that then the charts would not look so great.

Utility-scale solar power is now selling for less than three cents per kWh. So that would be less than $.00003 per watt-hour.

This compares favorably to coal and other forms of traditional power generation.

My suspicion is that when you think about solar power, you are thinking only about residential rooftop solar power, which is indeed more expensive to due lack of economies of scale. That would be an error, since utility-scale solar power is where the advances in cost-effectiveness are occurring.

Re:But how much did this electricity cost?

[blindseer]

My suspicion is that when you think about solar power, you are thinking only about residential rooftop solar power, which is indeed more expensive to due lack of economies of scale. That would be an error, since utility-scale solar power is where the advances in cost-effectiveness are occurring.

No, I'm thinking of issues with reliability and transmission. Your citations even point out that the costs of storage and transmission was not part of the cost computations. If solar is going to grow beyond irrelevancy then it needs to have storage to deal with night time. That costs money.

If some unit of nuclear energy costs $5 and that same unit of solar energy costs $4 then nuclear still wins because no where are you going to find storage through the night for $1. For solar to compete we'd have to see $1 for that unit of energy, for a doubling of capacity we'd see another $1 since the sun will not shine for more than 12 hours per day, $1 for the storage through the night, and another $1 to account for the additional transmission lines to account for clouds here and there. That is over simplified round numbers math but I hope it makes the point.

Advancements in storage and transmission costs alone cannot save solar because those advancements can be applied to wind, nuclear, coal, or whatever too. If we can store energy for $1 then we'll use cheap coal and nuclear at $5 so we don't have to use gas turbines at $8 per energy unit for peak loads. If we can ship noontime solar energy from the east cost to the west coast for $1 then we can ship nighttime nuclear energy from the east coast to the west coast for $1.

The error in claiming solar is cheaper than coal is not taking storage and transmission costs into account. This can be ignored so long as solar is less than something like 10% since that is well within natural daily and seasonal variations. For it to get to something like 30% then these costs start to become very important because now that means building more infrastructure that we would not need with reliable energy like nuclear, coal, and natural gas.

Re:But how much did this electricity cost?

[mugnyte]

The infrastructure for gen/load time gaps is indeed real. However, you may want to compare that infrastructure to oil, gas and nuclear infrastructure for storage and waste disposal / containment. When a municipality builds a battery bank, it is hooked to the general market. Thus, they can buy off -peak power and begin to normalize the competition.

This cascades into prices for renewable power going up, increasing the investment returns per field. Some companies will spend more for "exploration" in wind & solar areas than others, sure. But these compete much the same as oil, coal & gas contractors - with one exception: Once a field is developed, it's performance graphs are highly predictable, and processing costs are negligible (vs carbon refinement/transportation/waste)

I'd also like to mention that the per-unit service of these solar and wind fields is more like per-well or per-mine, skipping the per-generator intermediate. Essentially, we're removing a point of inefficiency in the distribution. This also allows new transmission paths - which is a huge sticking point across the market regardless. Each field has a tie-in to the grid, but also services localized areas. Essentially, we're benefiting from solar & wind fields being more distributed than wells/mines.

Lastly, servicing the nighttime battery banks is also highly distributed - from muni all the way to per-home. You'd possibly be surprised to find that one can easily heat a home overnight from a battery bank with a moderate investment. This is going to make the future of "outages" in neighborhoods more like what we have in data centers: a slower ramp-down and homeowner conservation strategies for getting thru outages: Skip the hot water but keep the fridge cool. This is already the case for phones, laptops, routers and most mobile light sources (headlamps).

Essentially the future looks like tiers of electrochemical power storage and consumption, with delivery times being unimportant. From this viewpoint, renewables are an obvious choice; nobody will want to deal with the mess of mines, wells, rods and all their trucks and waste. I say this completely apolitically - nobody really gives a hoot what party supports what. The system is vastly more efficient, even if not flawless: Battery tech will continue to march forward and transmission continues to be a headache.

Re:But how much did this electricity cost?

[DanielRavenNest]

> (tracking panels will produce more, but the cost is higher than the extra energy they will yield

That's no longer true for utility installations, where a single tracker moves a whole row of panels. The daily power output goes up 30%, while the installed cost only goes up 10%, so it is a net win.

Re:But how much did this electricity cost?

[DanielRavenNest]

Your mistake is in not thinking the grid already has lots of storage, in the form of water behind hydroelectric dams and stockpiles of biomass fuels. These currently supply about 10% of US electricity, and nuclear supplies about 20%. There is no reason for them to stop. Electric cars will supply additional storage once they exist in larger numbers.

The US consumes about 4,000 GWh per night in total. That would be 60 million Tesla automobile's worth of capacity. Since we have other sources of night-time power, millions of electric cars would make a significant contribution.

Re: But how much did this electricity cost?

[Anonymous Coward]

Solar thermal.

But how much does that cost?

Your assertion, and I repeat it, for your edification was: "Unlike wind we know it will never provide power at night."

Solar Thermal exists.

Which means...you're wrong. Since you're wrong on that, you should admit it. Nothing else matters, you were wrong, and you should admit it.

Then after you do that, if you care about the costs, LIUFY

Also look up the growth curve in solar installs.

Whatever. It's easy to double the installs year over year when it can't make even 2% of total output. Also, how long can this last?

Yeah, yeah, you don't want to look at it, do you? Because it shows you that it went from almost nothing, to...well, the fact is, the amount installed in the last year is greater than the entire world's capacity ten year's ago.

Do you think that solar thermal would be cheaper than, for example, nuclear? I'm certain solar thermal could ever be as "green", cheap, and reliable as nuclear. If solar thermal can't beat nuclear on carbon footprint and price then shouldn't we go with nuclear instead?

Solar installs keep delivering, year after year, meanwhile, the nuclear power plants that were promised...not even up yet, except the one that dated from the 1980s. And Westinghouse's bankruptcy, well, that's going to be expensive.

That's why I'd go with Solar Thermal, I'd know I'd get results.

It's easy to cover up for solar power shortfalls when it can't make even 2% of total output. If all that solar power capacity disappeared tonight would anyone care? I'm pretty sure they don't because it disappears every night.

Well, you're full of shit, so what else is new? People notice when a single power plant, regardless of generation source, goes off-line. In fact, six of them tripped this year already that I know about. Of course, they also follow the daily demand curve, which means they're actually quite happy to chase peak power with solar, it's good for them, better than spot-generators.

Re:But how much did this electricity cost?

[blindseer]

Your mistake is in not thinking the grid already has lots of storage, in the form of water behind hydroelectric dams and stockpiles of biomass fuels.

I know that the grid has lots of storage, it's called nuclear, coal, and natural gas. The energy is stored in the fuel they use.

Since we have other sources of night-time power, millions of electric cars would make a significant contribution.

Are you saying that the grid would be so unreliable that people would have to run their houses off the batteries in their cars? Or, are you saying that the grid would be so unreliable that people would have to buy a battery pack for their house in addition to the one in their car? If people have a choice between an electric car and a non-electric car in this world then why would they choose the electric car?

I lived on a farm and electricity is vital. We needed it to pump our water, keep the animals warm and dry, and so on. We deal with this by having a generator on the farm and diesel fueled tractors to run it. If the power was out then we'd have a tractor run the generator for the well pump and some lights and another tractor to mill corn instead of the electric mill. You think that people would buy an expensive battery pack instead of using cheap diesel fuel and natural gas to generate that electricity? It's possible that batteries could get very cheap but nothing compares to hydrocarbons in their ability to store and transport energy, and that translates to costs.

We kept fuel tanks on the farm, one with diesel for the tractors and another with gasoline for the car and truck. If electricity is so unreliable that people have to run their house on the batteries in their cars then why would they buy an electric car? What are they supposed to do if the power does not come back in the morning because of a storm or something and they need to drive to work? Or, school? Or, the hospital?

What you describe is a world in such poverty that they must often choose between driving and keeping the lights on in their home. I don't want to live in that world.

Re:But how much did this electricity cost?

[thinkwaitfast]

thanks, good to know. For me,overall installation hardware (non-professional) was under $0.10/watt. About $120 /2kw. I'm getting ready to install 6.5 more kw for ~$2000.

Re: energy sources that do not get subsidized.

[Anonymous Coward]

MOST U.S. Gas subsidies are products of trade agreements, it's paid to keep foreign oil prices low. And the only reason foreign oil is bought is to keep those foreign countries investing here. Nobody here buys foreign renewable energies just to keep those foreign countries investing here. Every country that sales renewable energy to other countries either stay in the red or barely break even.

Nearly every subsidy for renewable energy goes to offsetting the ridiculous footprint they make. Renewable energy loses money at every step, from development to production to distribution. The article cited leaves out the total expenses of all the systems to produce that 10% which mostly like could be 2x or 3x the systems used in natural energy.

Renewable energy is a money pit and that is the only reason it is so politicized.

The truth

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, maybe if we ALL continue to disobey Trump, this country actually WILL be great again.

Oh look, another never Trump hysteric!

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh look, another "never Trump" hysteric!

Get over it! Your team lost because it sucks. Period!

Re: energy sources that do not get subsidized.

[Anonymous Coward]

Even if your opener was correct, it doesn't stop it being a subsidy.

And what footprint? None that I know are about renting land areas cheap via eminent domain, which for solar may be something you are thinking (if I can use that term) of, but that's not the case for rooftop solar and not a subsidy I know of. What similar subsidy I DO know of are for pipeline access. Like DAPL. But that's not renewable energy.

Dear Republican Slashdot readers...

[Freischutz]

Don't worry, stop hyperventilating, just keep calm and carry on. President Trump has pledged to fix this, coal will be back, electric cars will be subject to severe restrictions to boost oil consumption and to further the sales of technologically obsolete internal combustion engine cars there is nothing to worry about. The greatest negotiator of all time is on the job.

Deceptive ... Solar is only 1.5% of US energy

[Anonymous Coward]

Note they list solar as 10% of electricity. But electricity only makes up 15% of the US energy consumption. So Solar is a meager 1.5% of US energy production. Yawn.

Re:Deceptive ... Solar is only 1.5% of US energy

[budgenator]

No that Wind and Solar is 10% generated, so solar is 2% * 15% = 0.3% of the Total US energy Consumption

Re:Deceptive ... Solar is only 1.5% of US energy

[Anonymous Coward]

Holy reading comprehension....

15% of total US energy consumption comes from renewables... Not 15% of total US energy consumption is electricity...

thanks a bunch!

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks Uncle Don!

bah! only 10%

[higuita]

USA really needs to improve that... Here in Portugal, annual wind power supply is already above 50%, with some months reaching 80-90%. Solar should be a little less than 10%

In the beginning, green energy was more expensive (so i needed subsidies to startup the market), but now its the same price as fossil energy and we do not any subsidies anymore.

Re:bah! only 10%

[Anonymous Coward]

Comparing the energy needs of a country with less than 3% of the population covering less than 1% of the area of the US is really not that useful. When your entire country can fit inside the borders of 38 individual states (and in most of those many times over) there is simply no comparison.

Renewable energy sources are great in theory and work well in some limited areas but do not scale as well as most conventional energy sources or adapt as well to different environments. While you can build a gas or nuclear power plant pretty much anywhere, wind, solar and hydro usually require very specific conditions to make them viable. Add to that the massive amount of land usage per kw/h and the scaling becomes even worse.

Corn vs sugar cane

[fred6666]

It depends. Corn ethanol is dumb. Sugar cane ethanol make sense, but that wouldn't help US farmers.

I myself help out with natural gas production.

[Anonymous Coward]

My copious consumption of cabbage, potatoes, egg & cheese sandwiches and bean burritos ensure a good supply of methane gas.

Fossil Fuels get the ultimate subsidy

[Anonymous Coward]

Fossil Fuels get the ultimate subsidy of been free. Yes there are some taxes on it but the Fossil Fuel Extraction industry does not pay for the fossil fuel. It does not belong to them. They pay for it in other countries.

Also: Radioactives are temporary.

[Ungrounded Lightning]

... they forget the much worse stuff, mercury, lead, cadmium and other neurotoxic stuff. Especially mercury.

Also: Radioactives are temporary (on geologic, and mostly on historic or shorter, timescales.) Heavy metals are forever.

(Or at least until the planet falls into a sun or black hole, or perhaps near the heat-death if it turns out protons DO decay. By which point, of course, it won't matter that it wasn't really forever.)

Or if corn was produced without GHG input

[presidenteloco]

So for example, if corn farmers exclusively used solar and wind powered electric tractors, and didn't dump fertilizers on that have a fossil-fuel intensive production process, then maybe corn ethanol would also make sense. But that doesn't happen, so it doesn't make sense.

Cause capitalism so far has done such a great job

[presidenteloco]

reducing global warming.

The problem is, capitalism optimizes toward what people perceive and value. If people en mass cannot perceive the problem due to its scale and complexity, and if the time scale of the problem is that it will harm your unborn grandchildren (or more likely, someone else's grandchildren halfway round the world) and the harm you will personally feel will be quite dilute if any, and also unattributable in the particular case to the cause, due to the complexity and scale and stochastic nature of the mechanism, well... Then you won't value the solution will you.

No, this is the kind of problem that needs to be identified and fixed by competent, highly educated experts and generally intelligent leaders, through government policy. It's kind of too bad that mocking experts and "lefty science" is the meme of the decade at least in American populist political culture, and also too bad that the leader of the country that needs to make the biggest change is a bird-brained tweeter (with apologies to intelligent bird species).

Re:Also: Radioactives are temporary.

[drinkypoo]

Also: Radioactives are temporary (on geologic, and mostly on historic or shorter, timescales.) Heavy metals are forever.

I was under the impression that radioactives were heavy metals. They're heavy and metallic, do they not qualify?

And yet my electric bill keeps going up

[Anonymous Coward]

Gotta pad the CEO of the electric company's pockets somehow...

Only because of subsidies

[p51d007]

That, and thanks to Obama, eliminating coal fire powered plants making up the difference.

Re:Cause capitalism so far has done such a great j

[Anonymous Coward]

It's pretty sad when pro-environmental policies which Republicans actually championed during Nixon's era (i.e. EPA) is now seen as commy leftist propoganda...

please not this again

[scatbomb]

Solar and wind sound great until you eliminate the subsidies. Take away those subsidies and they become far more expensive. Once that happens, nobody will want to pay the extra costs and renewables will decline again. Like everything with the climate change agenda, it's a house of cards built on deception and lies.

Fresh meat! Give me a list of the energy sources that do not get subsidized.

Oil - yes, Gas yes, Nuclear? Bitch, please.

Come back and make your argument when the only energy source left that is getting any form of subsidy is alternative.

So tired of this ignorant argument. Check the EIA website. In their latest report (2013) Coal, gas, and nuclear combined received less than $200 million in direct expenditures, Renewables received $8,363 million in direct expenditures. Pretty big difference.

You're probably looking at the tax expenditures column, which means tax breaks for asset depreciation, not spending. In any case, the tally for tax expenditures reaches $5,453 million for renewables and $4,128 for everything else combined (the everything else produces the vast majority of our energy and is a bargain compared to solar).

Please read this and get back to us: https://www.eia.gov/analysis/r...

This is in no way intended to diminish the undeniable fact that solar and wind are really great for a variety of reasons, but if you think nuclear and fossil fuels are subsidized anywhere near as much as renewables you are deluded.

Re:Also: Radioactives are temporary.

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Some are, some aren't. (Elemental tritium, for instance, is a VERY light gas.)

They nearly always change what atom they are when they decay. (Exception being those, such as tecnetium-99m, where the nucleus is in an excited state and decays to a non-excited state by emitting a gamma - though it then becomes tecnetium-99 which eventually decays further.)

Some decay processes make heavy atoms lighter - e.g. by emitting alpha particles or by spontaneous fission.

Doing our part...

[martinfb]

Our recently installed solar panels seem to now be struggling to get sun!

Perhaps we now need to push for climate change remediation, as more and more cloudy days are affecting our production!