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No Fossil Fuel-Based Generation Was Added To US Grid Last Month (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: In the U.S., two types of electricity generation are on the rise: natural gas and renewables. If one of those is set to make a bigger mark than the other this year, it's natural gas: in 2018, natural gas-burning capacity is expected to outpace renewable capacity for the first time in five years, according to data from the Energy Information Agency. Although natural gas additions are expected to overtake renewable energy additions in 2018, forecasts for renewable energy additions to the grid roughly match what we saw in 2017. Natural gas is overtaking renewables not because renewable energy adoption is slowing, but more because natural gas facilities are seeing a considerable boom.
In fact, barring any changes in the EIA numbers, natural gas, wind, and solar generation are the only electricity generation sources that will be added to the U.S. grid in any consequential manner in 2018. Battery, hydroelectric, and biomass facilities make up the small percentage of "other" sources that are expected to come online this year. Renewable energy also started off the year strong. According to the EIA, "in February 2018, for the first time in decades, all of the new generating capacity coming online within a month were non-fossil-fueled. Of the 475 MW of capacity that came online in February, 81 percent was wind, 16 percent was solar photovoltaic, and the remaining 3 percent was hydro and biomass."
In fact, barring any changes in the EIA numbers, natural gas, wind, and solar generation are the only electricity generation sources that will be added to the U.S. grid in any consequential manner in 2018. Battery, hydroelectric, and biomass facilities make up the small percentage of "other" sources that are expected to come online this year. Renewable energy also started off the year strong. According to the EIA, "in February 2018, for the first time in decades, all of the new generating capacity coming online within a month were non-fossil-fueled. Of the 475 MW of capacity that came online in February, 81 percent was wind, 16 percent was solar photovoltaic, and the remaining 3 percent was hydro and biomass."
And it will be for crypto mining.
Natural Gas is a fossil fuel. Who writes this stuff?
Battery and solar are good solutions.
I am surprised there is not more motion to add batter plants like Australia's where they were able to really level out the generation requirement and feed a lot of short demand peaks with batter plants. It sure seems to add a lot of stability and efficiency to a system.
Part of the problem is republicans see these ideas as only half baked.
Yeah, like climate change doesn't result in increased costs. Want to see the effects? Check with the fishes. Along the Atlantic seaboard, fisherman have had to cruise much further north because it turns out fish like cooler water and the tropics have been heating up...which also kills off the coral (which is another cost at the base of the food chain). This increases the cost of fishing.
That's only one effect. Increased cooling costs for the humans is another.
So you can either pay for increased power costs due to renewables, or you can pay for increase power costs due to global warming. You will probably choose the latter, which will come a quite a relief to the poor people in the tropics.
If you would learn a bit of systems theory, you wouldn't have such an uneducated view of power.
Obama's war on Coal, especially Clean Coal, ended so all the Coal Miners should have gone back to work, and mined Coal, which is America's number one best product.
As we all know, the sun does not work, it is only shining half the day at best, and wind can't work, the air is far too small, you can't even see it. And besides, Obama was behind it, and we all know that Obama was a Kenyan and Kenya is home to Chewbacca, and Chewbacca hates America. That is why he kept us from building our nuclear waste storage site on Tattoonine. Even though nobody except a bunch of fat, welfare moms lives there.
In conclusion, this report is wrong. Trump's America is now coal and nuclear powered, and it is the biggest and best.
Solar + wind works best with storage. But nobody wants to invest in storage before there's actually a problem that needs to be solved. So, first step is to invest in solar + wind, and create a problem. 2nd step is to invest in storage now that it is becoming profitable to do so.
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Could you be more specific about the compounds in your blue pills and red pills? Some of us have to worry about allergies and side effects, you know.
Not necessarily. Swap gas for instance is a natural gas, but not fossil.
Or in the absence of grid-scale storage, we could use the German approach: wait until there's a problem, then dig enormous strip mines for spinning-reserve coal. Moah jerbs in Wyoming and West Virginia!
I'm surprised that there aren't tons of coal burning plants being built or brought back online. /s
Most of the coal burning plants around here have already been torn down, or replaced by a much smaller scale/footprint natural gas generating plants.
There is a push for solar, and wind farms, I'd like to see more emphasis on storage.
If you're adding more natural gas generation you're adding more fossil fuel generation.
I only please one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow isn't looking good either. - Scott Adams
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Looks like your power costs could do with a little skyrocketing.
Don't know much about fishing huh? It's not that the fish are going further north. It's that warmer climates have been over-fished to the point that we're moving into the actual spawning grounds to catch fish. It also doesn't help that despite treaties, there are numerous governments that let commercial fisheries operate right along the territorial limits, or catch more then is allowed by quota. Or simply black-flag companies that simply don't care(I'm looking at you Finland and China), and the governments in question simply look the other way or slap meaningless financial penalties on them.
Seriously, do you think that average people will take high cost electricity forever without a form of revolt? Why don't you look to Ontario, where the current government has pushed your idea. An idea so hard that they will likely cease to be a political party in ~18 days.
Om, nomnomnom...
According to the EIA, "in February 2018, for the first time in decades, all of the new generating capacity coming online within a month were non-fossil-fueled. Of the 475 MW of capacity that came online in February, 81 percent was wind, 16 percent was solar photovoltaic, and the remaining 3 percent was hydro and biomass."
>"Battery, hydroelectric, and biomass facilities make up the small percentage of "other" sources "
Sorry, but "battery" is not a "source" of electricity, it is just a storage of one.
>"Of the 475 MW of capacity that came online in February, 81 percent was wind, 16 percent was solar photovoltaic, and the remaining 3 percent was hydro and biomass."
Kewl! Reduction of fossil fuel usage is great for everyone, regardless of ideology or party. Energy independence, sustainability, and long-term cost control (because it doesn't "run out") are vitally important to security, peace, and the economy. Everything else is icing on an already delicious cake :)
What will the price actually be at that point
That depends on a lot of factors, and I'm not an expert in any of them, so I can't tell you that. Do you know the cost of fossil fuel in 10,20,30 years ? Do you know that we can rely on Russia to keep supplying Europe with natural gas for reasonable prices ? Having an alternative source of energy seems like a useful thing, even if the price is high right now.
They provide jobs, and good paying jobs. But hey, f wad's like you hate the people you work for. Because why?: You are the animal you hate. A greedy slut that wants more as long as someone has more then you.
Anonymous comments are as pathetic as the anonymous "sources" that contaminate gutless journalism from the New York Time
So it's the crass manipulation of solar and wind in Denmark and Germany that makes their power super expensive?
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Nevermind the effects on environment and health. Oil is worth killing for!
What we've done in the UK is switch from coal to natural gas. That halves the CO2 emissions, and is much more flexible, it can start and stop much more quickly.
Then you ramp up wind and solar.
You only need storage when you get to the point where the renewable production completely shuts down the natural gas, but unfortunately we're a fair way from that. By the time that happens battery storage will be cheap, just a few pence per kilowatt hour extra for the stored electricity. There's technologies like vehicle to grid which can help with that- electric cars have pretty enormous batteries, that are mostly not used very much.
-WolfWithoutAClause
"Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"Since America is just about the worst CO2 producer, and it's households wastes the most energy, and it's people are one of the richest. They could afford to pay a bit more for green energy to help save the environment.
You could cut back your use at the same time and it wouldn't even cost a cent more. Just an incentive to be less wasteful. You don't really need to use 3x everyone else.
Awesome rant, yet:
How does that relate to the correlation between amount of green energy and cost per kWh?
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
I agree completely. It's the corporate Republican Party that is sucking the corporate tit and ignoring constituents. Sane fiscally conservative republicans wouldn't have voted for the tax cuts that are poised to generate 2.5 trillion in debt over the next decade either. Dems or Republicans, or independent - vote for canidates not taking unlimited secret PAC money and even better no corporate money at all. If everyone did this the system would see immediate improvements.
I cant speak for him, but I have a huge understanding of this, as a former navy nuclear engineer. However, anyone talking about these issues without demanding the abolition of crypto currency and the energy crisis it is creating either does not understand, or is motivated by pure greed. Telling people to replace lightbulbs with CFL to save the planet is crap in the era of crypto currency. The amount of power cryptocurrency mining is drawing in a single day exceeds small third world countries over a year of usage. The most despicable part is that it is pure design that it requires all this power and resources to mine. It could have easily been based on something productive but instead it burns power and energy for the sake of wasting power. IMO anyone who is a fan of crypto currency yet claim to be a crusader for global warming has a special place in hell reserved for them.
teslas storage system in australia seems to be doing a good job. Though IMO the best storage method should be hydrogen gas. Its portable, distributable, and burns clean.
the crypto currency problem is a global one.. the USA households are not 'wasting the most energy'. Burning even a single clock cycle on crypto currency on its face is wasting energy and yet the energy it devours is enormous and grows exponentially. In 4yrs the energy cryptocurency draws, globally, will exceed the energy non-crypto sources draw.
Yes, Americans are so special they are the only people who live in warm places...(What's Canada's excuse?)
You think Nigeria is the world average for household electricity consumption? And I'm the one who is deliberately maliciously flawed?
You could cut back (closer) to other first world country levels and then you wouldn't have to use more coal powered electricity per person than China does.
Did you miss-click or something? How is that in any way relevant to what I said?
Well, I do know that we have 1.5 trillion barrels of oil in the lower 48, and it is economically viable at today's oil prices.
That first link has this comment about that 1.5 trillion barrel projection: "However, the estimates of recoverable oil has been questioned by geophysicist Raymond T. Pierrehumbert, who argues that the technology for recovering oil from the Green River oil shale deposit has not been developed and has not been profitably implemented at any significant scale." So maybe not really available in such quantity?
And about that second link (which depends on speculative projections on price declines, reinforcing Pierrehumbert's point), we also see: "The water needed in the oil shale retorting process offers an additional economic consideration: this may pose a problem in areas with water scarcity."
Tell us where all that U.S. shale is again?
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
Look Windy, renewables are becoming less and less of your new electricity... 2015 66% 2016 62% 2017 55% 2018 36% No wonder your CO2 will rise this year.
Only because coal is steep decline, with natural gas picking up the slack (it produces about half the CO2 of coal, and much less of other pollutants). Actual renewable deployment is holding steady. It is fine if natural gas steps in to kill coal, the faster we get to coal zero the better.
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
Aussie here - Local media are reporting that South Australia's mega battery has reduced the state's grid maintenance costs by 90%
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
The first thing you do when building a house is make sure its fully insulated and you do not get direct sunlight onto the property if in a hot area. Insulation works for both hot and cold climates and reduces the usage of heating and cooling. A lot of the houses in hot areas do not seem very well insulated.
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
Not all crypto-currencies require a lot of power. Proof of work like Bitcoin, sure. But there are a lot of different types out there.
#DeleteFacebook
You are expected to add 21GW of natural gas, I hope you also shut down 10GW of coal to compensate? (And pretend away all the methane leaks.) Even after those plants close, you will produce more coal powered electricity than China per person. You still have a long way to go.
No, it's compressed stromatolites
Okay there. Don't worry that your desire to impose communism on people is missed by people, or your desire to leave the shithole you helped create and try again.
Om, nomnomnom...
Apparently I know more about fishing then you. Especially since the oxygen levels in the water are the same as recorded ~50 years ago. The problem isn't fish fleeing, the problem is too much fishing and not allowing them to rebuild their numbers. One of the reasons for instance that Canada has been pushing fish farms and direct population of depleted stock. Maybe ask yourself why Finland is against this.
Om, nomnomnom...