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Solar Has Overtaken Gas, Wind As Biggest Source of New US Power (bloomberg.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: Despite tariffs that President Trump imposed on imported panels, the U.S. installed more solar energy than any other source of electricity in the first quarter. Developers installed 2.5 gigawatts of solar in the first quarter, up 13 percent from a year earlier, according to a report Tuesday from the Solar Energy Industries Association and GTM Research. That accounted for 55 percent of all new generation, with solar panels beating new wind and natural gas turbines for a second straight quarter.
The growth came even as tariffs on imported panels threatened to increase costs for developers. Giant fields of solar panels led the growth as community solar projects owned by homeowners and businesses took off. Total installations this year are expected to be 10.8 gigawatts, or about the same as last year, according to GTM. By 2023, annual installations should reach more than 14 gigawatts.
The growth came even as tariffs on imported panels threatened to increase costs for developers. Giant fields of solar panels led the growth as community solar projects owned by homeowners and businesses took off. Total installations this year are expected to be 10.8 gigawatts, or about the same as last year, according to GTM. By 2023, annual installations should reach more than 14 gigawatts.
Solar had the largest share of newly installed capacity. But solar's capacity factor (ratio of actual energy produced to capacity) is abysmal. About 0.145 for the U.S. as a whole, 0.185 for the desert Southwest (these can be improved with panels which track the sun, at the cost of needing more land area). Contrast this with wind (0.2-0.35), hydro (0.4-0.5, mainly because it's used for peaking power rather than base load), natural gas (0.5, also used for peaking load), coal (0.6-0.7), and nuclear (0.9).
Put another way, 1 GW of PV solar capacity is worth about 600 MW of wind capacity, which is worth about 350 MW of hydro capacity, which is worth about 300 MW of natural gas capacity, which is worth about 230 MW of coal capacity, which is worth about 160 MW of nuclear capacity. Comparing power generation on the basis of installed capacity is like trying to eat enough to live based solely on the weight of food you're consuming completely ignoring the different caloric and nutritional content of the different foods.
Broken window fallacy
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
A lot of the more sensible investment schemes have already heavily divested from fossil fuels, so they won't be directly affected by such a crash.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
You don't know how investments work do you?
BTW there are plenty of retirement funds divesting from fossil fuels for this very reason, it will be impossible to time the drop in value of the existing fossil fuel companies. CalPEL and NY and several other major retirement funds have already began to divest because of this future risk.
Anyone smart realizes the risk and has either divested or keeps fossil fuel stocks at less than 5% of the portfolio so a collapse won't significantly harm investments. But these stocks won't collapse to zero overnight, it's going to be a long slide as people realize the value the stock holds for fuel in the ground is not there and consumption declines.
It's likely that Tesla charging will take up some of the slack.
On average, Americans use about 30 kwh per day of electrical energy.
On average, Americans drive 20 miles per day, and an electric car uses about 0.3 kwh per mile, for about 6 kwh / day.
So a 100% switch to electric cars should increase electrical energy consumption by about 20%.
A large portion of the people that make ICE cars also make electric cars.
You assume that an electric car is similar enough to an ICE car that current car manufacturers can jump right in. However, the major manufacturing issue is the battery pack, and current ICE car manufacturers have no experience with that. Also, the vehicle control is much different with electric motors, and Tesla is gaining a lot of experience with that.
As far as natural gas, I don't think that would fly. Large parts of Europe depend on Russia for natural gas, and they wouldn't feel comfortable increasing that dependency. And if they can't sell them in Europe, it's not very interesting for car manufacturers. They don't want to make totally different cars for different markets.
You assume that an electric car is similar enough to an ICE car that current car manufacturers can jump right in.
Can you name any current manufacturer of ICE vehicles that has not ever produced an electric car in the last 10 or 20 years? Dusting off the EV1 and selling it now might be a stretch but that would be a possibility for GM to get in the market assuming they've never produced the Chevy Bolt. Also, given all the parts in a modern car the engine that makes it go is a pretty small part in reality.
However, the major manufacturing issue is the battery pack, and current ICE car manufacturers have no experience with that.
Tesla has been buying their batteries from the open market for a very long time, nothing prevents a new entrant in the electric car market from doing the same. Might not be an ideal vehicle design but it will at least buy them some time and gain them experience for the future. Given that a battery maker could gain a lot of future sales by helping out a car maker I'd imagine a battery maker might offer some engineering expertise to such a car maker.
Also, the vehicle control is much different with electric motors, and Tesla is gaining a lot of experience with that.
Again, can you name any current car manufacturer that has not come out with an electric vehicle in the last 20 years? I know 20 years is a long time but automotive technology moves slow enough, IMHO, that this is sufficient to compete. Even if we narrow that down to even 5 years the number of such manufacturers is still very small if not zero.
As far as natural gas, I don't think that would fly. Large parts of Europe depend on Russia for natural gas, and they wouldn't feel comfortable increasing that dependency. And if they can't sell them in Europe, it's not very interesting for car manufacturers. They don't want to make totally different cars for different markets.
You do realize that major car makers already make different cars for different markets, don't you? Left hand drive vs. right hand drive already separate the markets so international companies already produce completely different cars for these markets.
Next is that there are many buyers of natural gas cars right now. These are mostly corporate owned vehicles but they are produced right now in limited quantities. The current offerings are pretty much just gasoline conversions so they have many nagging problems that don't make them popular with those that buy cars one at a time as oppose to those that order them by the hundreds. If the market grows to be large enough then it makes economic sense to expend the resources for a vehicle designed specifically for natural gas. If the goal is to simply take advantage of what they perceive as a larger potential market then all they need to enter this market space to offer something has in the past been only available to corporate buyers to the wider public. I expect that this demand already exists among many future buyers.
While I'll admit that what you point out is not completely invalid those are pretty weak points.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
How much electricity does an American home use?
In 2016, the average annual electricity consumption for a U.S. residential utility customer was 10,766 kilowatthours (kWh), an average of 897 kWh per month
https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs...
897kWh/mo / 30 days is 30kWh/day
So the 40% stands.
> which is about the fourth-best renewable energy source overall
Here we go, another "those people are dumb" post by someone that never worked in the industry...
> We don't even use solar heating - a simple black tank sitting in the sun is pretty darn effective water heater nine months out of the year
We tend to use hot water in very peaky patterns, you can't ship it to your neighbour if you're not using it, and heating it with gas costs very little.
Electricity has a much less peaky patterns (look it up), will go into the grid when you're nothing using it, and tends to be more economically interesting.
If you own a laundry service, pool or steam bath, solar hot water makes a lot of sense. Not many other use-cases do. And I say that who has run the numbers for hundreds of prospective customers.
> we're 100% focused on the complex and expensive way
Riiiight.
Solar hot water consists of an insulated tank that also contains a secondary energy source, piping that has to be run in lines and heavily insulated, filled with glycol for anywhere that freezes and thus also includes a heat exchanger, and connected to several pump systems and valves. I know of many systems that overheated in the summer and dumped boiling water or glycol in bad places, or alternately the pumps broke and the system froze.
A PV panel consists of some glass, some fancy glass (the cells), and an aluminum frame around it. The entire balance-of-system consists of some house wiring you can pull with a fish tape, a solid-state inverter, and a breaker. There are no moving parts, no fluids, and they have an operational temperature range well beyond anything seen in Death Valley or Antarctica. The very first panels connected to the grid, in 1982, are still in use today, and the current estimate is a 100 year lifetime.
So sure, PV is the complex one. :rolleyes:
> Compare solar-electric with wind, battery storage with hydro
All of those have moving parts and cost more than PV.
You really have no clue at all, do you?
> This has nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that a powerful senator
That's right, it doesn't.
You understand that there is an entire planet outside the US, right? And that PV is the fastest growing power source over most of that planet?
And that it has nothing whatsoever to do with your no-name senator in the US? And that it has everything to do with the fact that the price of PV fell *200 times* since 1973 and is now the cheapest form of power in CAPEX terms *ever*?
> exactly the politician is handing a a hundred million dollars of taxpayer money to their friend and largest donor
Thanks for so clearly illustrating that you are part of the problem purely because of politics.