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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.
. People's retirements are heavily vested in them.
Why would anyone with sense bet on one industry for their retirement? People should diversify for retirement. This is not a great argument against solar as a good argument against terrible investment advice.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
but somebody made a good point about this switch to solar & renewables: it's going to crash the economy.
Let me explain. We've got massive amounts of investment wealth tied up in fossil fuels. People's retirements are heavily vested in them. At the rate we're going their value, while not worthless, is going to be massively diminished. And it's happening fast. Plus there's no massive natural resource to replace it.
We're going to wipe out trillions in value and replace it with, well, nothing really. Now, from a practical standpoint we've still got power. But human beings aren't very practical. When that wealth shift happens it's going to make a mess of things. The people who lose their shirts in oil futures are likely to be abandoned. And that's before we start talking about what's going to happen to the middle east.
While I agree with your assessment, I think there's more context to this.
Tesla is about to come online at 5,000 cars a week (250,000 cars/year) and ramping up from there. Tesla is a highly desired car, and will probably be a big seller.
It's likely that Tesla charging will take up some of the slack. America (and much of China and a few other places like Canada) will transition away from gasoline and rely on electricity instead. The extra burden will be taken up by solar and other renewables, while gasoline use diminishes.
The big losers in the future will probably be gasoline producers and ICE car manufacturers. Gas stations and repair shops will either switch or go out of business (Teslas don't have many moving parts, and so don't need many repairs).
Once the country is largely running on electricity, we can look into replacing fossil fuel generation plants with something more eco-friendly.
Oh, yes! Please do enlighten us on the desperate plight of all those wealthy oil barons and what we as the common man should be doing to save them and their poor fragile egos from financial discomfort.