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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."
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.
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.
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!"