Slashdot Mirror
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.
I think that's similar to the argument that technology is going to take all of our jobs while we are at 'full employment' and been made for 100s of years
Are we near peak solar?
. 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.
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
On the plus side, there will be a lot of very cheap power available. That's a very big opportunity right there.
The vast bulk of energy is still coming from fossil fuels, and an ever growing dependence on natural gas is not at all something to celebrate. Enormous spending aside, solar power still barely registers in production statistics; was this really money well spent? Slashdot (or other) propaganda is never interested in exploring this question, but you will find the answer in your increasing energy bills.
I think that's a valid concern although I don't see results as dire as what you're describing.
My impression is funds that invest in energy products/services are beginning to diversify into renewables. These people spend their days watching the markets in an attempt to anticipate changes. And I think the drop in demand for oil will be gradual; not sudden.
But I do agree re fossil fuels; esp. oil. Oil has been a world-wide exchange medium for several decades, but that is about to change. Coal, IMO, is on its way out. I just reviewed a potential investment (energy sector) where the group was clearly moving out of coal since more and more energy producers (aka utilities) are switching plants to gas. These utilities also seem to be looking at blending renewables into their grids.
And I know there are plants that are going to use coal, but I think those are meant more for PR than any actual trend.
So, again IMHO, anyone invested heavily in fossil fuels should be watching the markets.
An effective "democracy" creates the illusion the people have a say in their government.
Between the hours of maybe 9 AM and 5:30 - 6:00 PM, solar electricity will be so plentiful that it will sell for a very few cents per KwH, causing it to be difficult to pay for the infrastruction.
At other times, the traditional sources of electricity will prevail. Electricity prices will be what the always were.
At least until someone invents the magic battery that can spread the peak sun-gathering times out across the 24 hours the rest of us have to deal with.
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
Well, it's a good thing that all the big energy companies are investing heavily in renewables then, right?
Most of the buying in actual fossil fuel stocks in the past decade has been institutional. Yes, a lot of day traders play the energy derivatives, but they'll make money either way.
Switching to more renewables isn't going to happen fast enough to crash the economy. Anyway, the bubble's got to pop. Corrections are good for everyone, and when it's done, we'll have cleaner energy (and in the case of renewables, cheaper too).
You are welcome on my lawn.
it's not just retirement. There's tons of fortunes tied up in those assets and it's not easy to divest. Ideally we should be doing something to help people move on, but there's a lot of laissez faire economics going around.
When it's brought up folks say you shouldn't pick winners and losers. They might have a point about picking winners but when it's clear somebody's going to lose that hard we should probably do something about it. For one thing sore losers on a global stage are dangerous. As the saying goes it's cheaper to drop food than bombs. For another thing it's just plain a humanitarian thing to do. But a lot of folks don't like humanitarianism without strings attached.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
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.
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.
You mean like a panda that just eats bamboo, and when hungry just eats more bamboo?
Conservatives are supposed to be pro-business yet when the next big business comes along they do everything in their power to kill it.
About 15 years ago I spotted an extrapolated trend chart that predicted solar's energy-per-dollar-spent ratio would surpass petroleum in roughly a decade.
So, I decided to invest in solar. Sure enough, solar boomed, BUT the stocks I picked soured because the solar industry largely shifted to China. (China was later sanctioned for cheating.)
Sigh. Right church, wrong pew.
Table-ized A.I.
Crashing the economy by cheapening the energy would be a truly spectacular feat. A little bit like when the green revolution "crashed" agriculture.
Ezekiel 23:20
Are you high, or off your meds?
Well, we now know how his investments work, anyway.
The crashing the economy warning is in the context of a command from on high telling the nation (or world) that they will stop using fossil fuels on some timetable. That's how the loonies wanted things to go. That's how Mao Tse Tung ruined the economy of China and caused the deaths of 55.6 million people in the Great Leap Forward. What is actually happening is companies are selling solar generation equipment such that consumers are buying and using them instead of fossil-fueled generation. It's gradual, but ensures that things are done right.
I forgot who but, somebody made a good point about this switch to solar & renewables: it's going to crash the economy.
You make good points. I however think otherwise. For example, I think Trump's rollback of Obama's financial regulations that were designed to abate another 2007 - 2008 crash will put us in even more danger. As I watch the stock market soar, I can't get the word 'bubble' out of my mind.
...We've got massive amounts of investment wealth tied up in fossil fuels. People's retirements are heavily vested in them...
Admittedly, some do think it's a good idea to invest mostly in a single stock or industry, but I don't think that's a good idea for fossil fuels; the writing is on the wall. Diversifying your stock portfolio has always been a good idea, anyway.
Before Trump, the solar industry was booming. The fastest and largest growing job market was in renewable energy, specifically solar (1). Trump has seriously curtailed this growth with tariffs and elimination of tax credits, while at the same time, Trump has repealed rules and promoted coal, shale oil and fracking. As a result, oil production is up, and it has become much less affordable for business and home owners do go solar (2). Nonetheless, I find it telling, and perhaps foretelling, that the oil industry isn't happy about Trump's steel tariffs, NAFTA spats, and other policies (3). Something's not right; something smells and just seems rotten. And as the Ruskies say, a fish rots from the head down. But I digress.
Even with this turnabout, solar and renewable energy will soon be consistently cheaper than fossil fuels, and in some cases are cheaper now (4). I suspect that a few years after the US becomes the world's leading crude oil producer (5), solar and renewables will begin to surge and eventually dominate. Cheaper is better for the average consumer and business alike, which is better for the economy, and so the marketplace will abide. Eventually. Best to divest your fossil fuel investments before then. At least diversify while you still can.
BTW, some say fusion reactors are economically viable now (6). It may be true, but I expect it will take some 20 years before they come online. Such is the nature of the beast. Eventually my money will be on them. After all, cheaper is better.
(1) http://money.cnn.com/2017/05/2...
(2) https://ntknetwork.com/u-s-oil...
(3) https://www.politico.com/story...
(4) https://www.forbes.com/sites/d...
http://www.businessinsider.com...
https://www.engadget.com/2018/...
https://about.newenergyfinance...
http://energyinnovation.org/20...
https://about.newenergyfinance...
(5) http://money.cnn.com/2018/01/0...
(6) https://phys.org/news/2015-10-...
Count me in as one who has heavily invested savings into "oil and gas" companies recently. In some cases due to price dips because of renewables hype.
Don't get me wrong, I think growing solar and wind options are great.. I'm just realistic. When I read summaries like this (having a background in math), I can immediately spot where they are using statistics to distort the facts. Energy consumption is additive as new technologies come online, and this growth is not at the expense of fossil fuel growth, which continues to grow as well. Remember, more energy used == higher quality of life. People aren't going to stop using any source of energy they find.
Second, what you think of as "oil & gas" companies largely don't exist, they have all long since diversified to "energy" companies. In most cases, the big "oil" players are the world's heaviest investors into renewable energy installations and infrastructure. Kind of funny to think the same companies you blast as "big oil" are probably doing far more for renewables than you or any activist I've ever heard of...
Interesting side note: some of these companies I have invested in have started in the last two years or so to sell their solar and wind assets. In not so many words, their reasoning is: current hype has these assets so overvalued it makes sense to sell them and reinvest that money elsewhere into something that makes better money.. usually back into Oil & Gas (natural gas is a popular one lately). In particular I hear reference to falling subsidies, which make the shaky economics even worse.
Lastly, rather than just hype about maybe making money in the future, most of these companies earn lots of steady cash, which you should count on for dividends far more than share price growth. If you understood any hydrocarbon market dynamics or fundamental uses of fuel, you'd realize it's not going anywhere. In the best scenario, say solar power replaces all transportation fuel; absolutely great! There will still be people lined up around the block to buy it for other uses. It will always be valuable.
the magic is in how to be dirt cheap.
This one has a shot: https://www.cell.com/joule/abstract/S2542-4351(17)30032-6
Air-Breathing Aqueous Sulfur Flow Battery for Ultralow-Cost Long-Duration Electrical Storage
Wind and solar generation can displace carbon-intensive electricity if their intermittent output is cost-effectively re-shaped using electrical storage to meet user demand. Reductions in the cost of storage have lagged those for generation, with pumped hydroelectric storage (PHS) remaining today the lowest-cost and only form of electrical storage deployed at multi-gigawatt hour scale. Here, we propose and demonstrate an inherently scalable storage approach that uses sulfur, a virtually unlimited byproduct of fossil fuel production, and air, as the reactive components. Combined with sodium as an intermediary working species, the chemical cost of storage is the lowest of known batteries. While the electrical stacks extracting power can and should be improved, even at current performance, techno-economic analysis shows projected costs that are competitive with PHS, and of special interest for the long-duration storage that will be increasingly important as renewables penetration grows.
In winter when its dark and everyone returns from their job and wants to internet, TV, to warm up, cook, read? Then its back to the grid and the sun is not out.
Solar is great in summer with the sun and time zones later into the day. Winter is not so great when demand is up and the sun is not up.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Why is gas a new power? It has been used for a long time already. Perhaps they wanted to say 'alternative' and even that us a stretch.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Since the US is 1.2m barrels up per day in oil consumption over last year I doubt there is going to be much of a problem for a while.
My shares in buggy whips never recovered. I was ruined!
There should be firm laws against this sort of 'progress'.
No sig today...
First off, capitalism is all about being able to shift industries faitly easy. And stranded asset will be bankrupted ( covered by society ), or new profits from elsewhere will cover it. Secondly, we have already been.shifting away from fossil fuel for 10+ years. Coal accounts for 30% of our electricity, and should be somewhere around 20% by 2025. Thirdly, all the drilling equipment for oil will still continue. Why? Because it can also be used for Geothermal as well as oil. So no stranded assets there. Fourthly, oil processing will still be needed since oil/Nat gas are far better used as feed stock for chemical processes. Burning oil, Nat gas has been a major waste. Fithly, the burning of oil will slow down a great deal over the next 10 years. Musk is forcing that issue. Hopefully, trump will put same tariffs on Chinese cars that they put on American cars. However, that is only useful if some our billionaires decide enter this race.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
It may be true, but I expect it will take some 20 years before they come online
What are we going to do between now and then? Hint : it has long blades or a shiny surface.
After all, cheaper is better.
ROFL ! remember 'too cheap to meter' ? fusion will not in a thousand years be cheaper than solar (or wind).
What do you think the oil majors are doing? They are doing what anyone with bundles of cash and half a brain would do, they are investing in renewables themselves.
We're not wiping out trillions in value and replacing it with nothing, we're devaluing fossil fuels but increasing the value of renewable energy. I'm already looking at renewables to move some of my investments from fossils over, and I highly doubt I'm the only one.
--- Keep the choice with the user..
...overproduce power that needs to be dumped.
...or just put to good use. Merely replacing global world hydrogen consumption for agricultural and chemical purposes with electrolytic hydrogen would necessitate something like 800 GW of nameplate solar capacity dedicated to the task.
They have approximately doubled their end consumer energy cost for grid tied electricity thanks to their "cheap" expansion of green retardable energy.
Correlation does not imply causation.
Ezekiel 23:20
Loosers hang on...
I think we have a paradox here.
Do you also have investments in typewriters and telegraphs?
Point is, investment portfolios can be changed, but it doesn't mean we should hold back innovation and doing the right thing because a few people may not move their money in time. Either move your money into something forward thinking, or don't come crying when you lose it.
Coal is already out, it's being propped up by people with dementia who think it's still 50 years ago.
Oil has been on it's way out for several years.
The big energy producers have been dumping money into renewables for years because they see hydrocarbons as dying and hard carbons as dead. The only reason they push to keep it running currently is they want to squeeze every last dime possible out of it before it does finally collapse.
If we're not making motion now to deal with it pre collapse, then we'll see an energy crisis unlike any seen before, and we don't have a ton of time before we hit that point.
2.5 gigawatts! That's enough to power 2 DeLoreans!
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
Global warming caused by those fossil fuels will wipe out a lot more. Anyhow, the shift is happening slowly enough for people to take advantage and shift their investments. Hell, even the oil companies now see themselves as energy companies and investing in alternative production to fossil.
So take your fellow's crystal ball as a giant crystal of salt.
Yea sure, after I buy a EV and finish outfitting my roof with solar panels I'm gonna buy a gas-powered laptop.
Idiot.
Back in 1903:
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
posting to undo moderation, sorry for misclick.
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
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.
We did this story last week. It's still wrong
See the "International Energy Outlook" report: https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/i...
Renewables are great and their use will continue to increase but nations and industries rely on diversity of supply. That's why the Trump admin is keeping coal plants open for now. They have their shortcomings but they are reliable, run on a fuel we have a huge supply of, and are required to keep a 90 day supply of that fuel to prevent outages due to supply interruptions.
> When it's brought up folks say you shouldn't pick winners and losers. They might have a point about picking winners
If politicians weren't picking winners and losers, we wouldn't be focused NEARLY so much on solar-electric, which is about the fourth-best renewable energy source overall. 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. Instead of cheap and effective solar energy, we're 100% focused on the complex and expensive way. That's just *solar*. Compare solar-electric with wind, battery storage with hydro. Our government policy, including billions in handouts of taxpayer money, over the last 15 years has been ridiculously on favor of solar-electric, practically ignoring better, cheaper, and more environmentally friendly options.
This has nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that a powerful senator and vice president made hundreds of millions of dollars on solar electric. It's not at all related to the fact that the people funding the politicians, their donors, were also the ones getting billions of dollars from tax payers for putting a sign that said "solar panels" on an empty building that didn't ever produce solar panels.
You don't have to pick winners and losers in order to have a gradual transition to better technologies. *NOT* picking winners and losers would have done that.
Unfortunately, politicians discovered that calling your kickback slush fund "green energy" was very effective at keeping voters and others from asking why exactly the politician is handing a a hundred million dollars of taxpayer money to their friend and largest donor.
You say this as if it is a bad thing.
You know how these stock investments will get "wiped out"? By people selling them, freeing up capital to use for other things.
In other words, the market working as intended.
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.
This is true of every change in technology, of course. People who invested in radio stations moved their investments elsewhere. Radio stations still exist, of course, but because demand is down they aren't the huge moneymakers they were when everybody listened to the radio. Fossil fuels will still exist and still be used, of course, but if demand goes down they won't be the big moneymakers they once were.
People move investments around. This is what happens. The economy does not crash, in fact, it is actually GOOD for the economy to build new infrastructure to replace old, run down infrastructure.
... And that's before we start talking about what's going to happen to the middle east.
I can't help but think that what will happen in the middle east will be good (and good for ALL the parties involved) once all the powerful interests that have no motivation but oil, oil, and oil stop messing around.
I think that's similar to the argument that technology is going to take all of our jobs while we are at 'full employment' and been made for 100s of years
I'm much more scared of that, actually. In this case what the "disruptive technology" is making obsolete is people. As long as it makes new jobs for people, that's fine. But I'm not sure what happens when AI can do things better than any person in any job.
The broken window principle states that having broken windows in a neighborhood encourages crime. The city thus requires people to repair their broken windows immediately. The broken window principle actually helps window repairmen get business.
On the plus side, there will be a lot of very cheap power available. That's a very big opportunity right there.
There already is a lot of cheap power available. It turns out to be available when nobody wants it: from roughly midnight to 6 am, the actual cost of power is zero. (Not the price, but that's because regulators don't allow time-dependent pricing.)
This is something a lot of people commenting don't seem to understand. Utilities dump power in the dead of night-- they can't spin down to zero generation.
In the near term, people charging their electric vehicles overnight is a very, very good thing for utilities.
Intermittently cheap power when all those panels and wind overproduce power that needs to be dumped....
Yes, what happens is that the period of cheap energy will change from midnight to 6 am to roughly 9am solar time to 3pm solar time.
They have approximately doubled their end consumer energy cost for grid tied electricity thanks to their "cheap" expansion of green retardable energy.
Correlation does not imply causation.
In this case it is causation, but the ultimate cause is not the technology itself, but simply early adopter cost. ("An early adopter is likely to pay more for the product than later adopters, but accepts this premium" -- Investopedia).
The early adopters end up paying down development costs to allow the rest of us to buy at cheap rates, so: thanks, Germany.
Nissan makes the #1 selling LEAF all-electric car, Toyota makes the Prius Prime that has an all-electric mode along with improved hybrids using the lithium ion battery, and these manufacturers are not positions to make all-electric cars?
It is this kind of over-the-top bragging that has serious people shorting the Tesla stock?
The crashing the economy warning is in the context of a command from on high telling the nation (or world) that they will stop using fossil fuels on some timetable.
The economy isn't crashing. The transition from one energy source to another had been incremental, replacing the most expensive fossil fuel plants first.
In general, upgrading infrastructure helps the economy, rather than hurt it.
BTW, some say fusion reactors are economically viable now (6).
Since nobody has yet demonstrated a fusion reactor that generates even one watt of power, no. Maybe some day, but not "now".
(6) https://phys.org/news/2015-10-...
This is an example of why you should always read the article, not just the headline. The first sentence of the article you cite says:
Decades from now. Not "now".
When I'm at work (the DAYTIME, when solar usually works) I am not generally running my A/C or doing laundry or charging a car. That generally all happens when it gets dark outside. Wind may (or may not) work in the evening but you need a reliable standby power source and it is neither of these things.
then why hasn't the price of oil collapse? It looks pretty steady to me. If the asset was already deemed worthless you'd expect it to be around $10 or $20 a barrel, It's pushing $60 as I write this. That's below it's peak of a $100, true. But that's more a correction than a crash. And that correction was mostly brought on by stabilization in the middle east due to the Iran deal and a decline in oil fired power plants as natural gas got cheap due to fracking.
There's still trillions of dollars tied up in oil. And it looks like that money is going to become worthless. You can say anyone caught holding the bag deserves what they get, but it's still going to hurt everybody when it happens. Just like the housing bubble from 2008 did.
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> People's retirements are heavily vested in them.
Westinghouse, ToyRUs, Sears, Blockbuster, Enron, Kodak, Pan Am.
Lots of people were highly invested in all of these companies. All of these companies failed. World did not end.
I had equal amounts in Nat Gas stock and Solar (Sunpower).... Nat Gas up .... Sunpower waaaaay down.
5 out of 6 people enjoy Russian Roulette & 6 out of 7 Dwarfs are not Happy
Thanks.
Before Trump, the solar industry was booming. The fastest and largest growing job market was in renewable energy, specifically solar (1). Trump has seriously curtailed this growth with tariffs and elimination of tax credits, while at the same time, Trump has repealed rules and promoted coal, shale oil and fracking. As a result, oil production is up, and it has become much less affordable for business and home owners do go solar (2).
It seems this very article would debunk several of the claims from your links. He's seriously curtailed their growth? Then explain the below.
From the very summary itself:
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
In fact, the US is using less each year. Under these conditions expanding with something productive 24/7 is not necessary, in fact new power isn't even needed, Solar is just a feel good story at this point that helps politicians, and with tax breaks and grants a few manufacturers and installers.
Don't get me wrong, someday we will need it, but not today, fortunately this gives us a chance to evolve the technology before it becomes necessity.
People probably said the same about hay farmers when the automobile came about.
Texas Instruments still sells calculators even though smartphones are a thing.
There are still companies that make commercial ice when everyone has electric refrigeration.
It's not like we're switching overnight. The market and economy have time to adjust. The fossil fuel companies themselves are diversifying and getting into biofuels in order to stay relevant and not circle the drain.
I'm not a big fan of "the invisible hand" of the market, especially when each and every energy source has an invisible (or not so invisible) thumb on the scale. But the concerns you are voicing are just the standard disruption that comes with the maturation of any technological revolution, and the market and economies are already shifting.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
> The fossil backup that is necessary to keep society working will be expensive though.
As repeated studies have shown, it is cheaper to supply power through a combination of renewables and fossil than either alone.
That is correct: adding renewables *lowers the cost of fossil fuel electricity*. Mostly through less wear and tear. This is not purely theoretically, many of the studies are in-market, notably California.
> The fossil backup that is necessary to keep society working will be expensive though.
Indeed, and that's when the PV flows back out of your home and goes and powers a factory somewhere.
You understand that wires are bidirectional, right?
You'll still buy plastics. And eat food. How was it, one kilogram of food uses 9 kilograms hydrocarbons? Not so much the transport but fertilisers.
Use any medicine? Organic synthesis....
I'm not sure about the number but if you start synthesizing from carbon and hydrogen you'd need an order of magnitude more energy....
> BTW, some say fusion reactors are economically viable now
Yeah, they're wrong.
In fact, it's trivially easy to demonstrate that they will never be commercially viable. People in the power industry are very much aware of this and have been publishing reports on it since the 1960s (actually, 1958).
The fusion guys get these reports and then say "well, we don't have a working reactor so we don't really know" and then stick their fingers in their ears and do the "la la la I CANNOT HEAR YOU" thing.
https://matter2energy.wordpress.com/2012/10/26/why-fusion-will-never-happen/
https://xkcd.com/1162/
Used that one as desktop for a while....nice conversation starter and great trigger of fundies...
It's called "stranded assets".
It's been clear for years for anyone with a few neurons that solar and wind electricity will replace most fossil fuels. The oil companies benefit from $5.3 trillion a year in subsidies (IMF... googleit) so have been living in a fantasy land. They also bribe politicians to discourage wind and solar in favor of fossil fuels.
In spite of this, wind and solar have exponential growth because they are cheaper. When you don't have to pay for fuel, the energy cost is just the amortized value of the equipment which keeps getting cheaper.
Fossil fuel companies (and automobile companies who don't make the investments in EVs) will lose value rapidly over the next ten years.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
Except there's a lot of old power plants that are being shut down.
Not as big of a concern as people think.
One, electricity is just one aspect of the barrel of oil sector. There are many other economic uses of oil. The gradual down trend of oil demand will give plenty of time to divest to their replacements. Assuming the other uses don't pick up the slack due to price depression (historically this is what happened).
Two, public's retirement funds are very regulated, at least in the US. They are only to be used in specific risk categories. No firm wants to risk an Enron level fiasco with retirement like accounts. Most are well insured and hedged against major losses. As the risk of oil securities rises (we aren't nearly anywhere close to this; maybe another 10 years), slowly these types of funds move out to safer pastures.
Three, in large movements, as a general economy, there is no such thing as "wiping out x dollars". There are winners and losers with a small transaction loss. The drop in value of the specific sector primarily frees up capital to be used elsewhere.
What you are talking about already exists in various sectors in a much more progressed state. Example: very large ships. There are so many large ships running around right now, another downturn in the global economy will kill many off. Capacity is so high and prices so low that they need the global economy to grow much bigger than it is now.
Oil maybe the blood of the economy, but these are the arteries. Yet you and I see no doom and gloom in our horizon with them teetering on the edge of oblivion.
When I'm at work (the DAYTIME, when solar usually works) I am not generally running my A/C or doing laundry or charging a car.
And despite all of that, the peaks are in the middle of the day in most countries. What does that tell you about the need for industrial electricity?
Ezekiel 23:20
No. Just no. First of all there are disruptive forces all the time in dynamic economies. Second of all it's not as if there will be zero use for oil. It's used for roads, roofing materials, plastics ... AFAIK 25% of oil is used for these purposes. This need will continue.
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
I don't know what you're complaining about... my Confederated Slave Holdings are holding steady ;)
ROFL ! remember 'too cheap to meter' ? fusion will not in a thousand years be cheaper than solar (or wind)
I do agree that solar and wind are some of the most viable renewable sources right now. But the sun goes down and the wind does stop, so rechargeable batteries are in high demand. Consider Tesla's Powerwall. Along with the supporting hardware, it costs over $6,500.00 grand, and that's not including installation fees. Brand new, the Powerwall stores about 13.5 kWh of usable electricity, slightly more than I use now, which is good. And it comes with a 10 year warranty. But Tesla does not offer any coverage related to how much capacity the battery will lose during that time. Kachink!
Don't get me wrong, I'm for renewable energy, solar, wind, hydro-power, geothermal, biomass, Jatropha curcas, microbial fuel cells, artificial photosynthesis, whatever. And I'm good with the government paying for research into such things.
Hell, if the Higgs field and virtual particles were potential viable energy sources, I say check 'em out too. Just be careful, I hear they can make a big bang. (For the uninitiated, that's called "sarcasm".)
MIT thinks they can make affordable, scalable fusion power plants. The likelihood is so real, MIT is getting money from venture capitalists via a newly formed company. They plan on having a working fusion power plant within 15 years. It's still a crap shoot, but the ROI prospects are beaucoup times better than average biotech company. And MIT is just one example. There are plenty of other universities, companies, and countries are into fusion research big time. The potential is that good.
BTW, Popular ingredients for fusion reaction include lithium (the stuff found in some batteries), deuterium (distillable from water) and tritium. I think it's cool that, after the initial supply, the fusion process breeds its own tritium.
Fusion can make electricity 24/7, whether or not the sun is out or the wind blows. And in about 20 years there's a good chance it will be overall cheaper than wind or solar. But hey, I could be wrong and often am. So I diversify. We should all hedge our bets.
http://news.mit.edu/2018/mit-newly-formed-company-launch-novel-approach-fusion-power-0309
nuclear is only that high because it can *only* be used for base load. It can't scale back very well at all. That doesn't make it bad, it just means those numbers aren't the whole story. Grid infrastructure or storage breakthroughs could modify those numbers without the generation tech changing at all. But distributed grids are also large surface area targets for cyber attack.
refactor the law, its bloated, confusing and unmaintainable.
I got to the LCoE tables and its clearly wrong.
You can cross reference with this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
The numbers are not similar and the link in the citation is dead. I was skimming the source looking for things to audit to validate the source and... it failed that quick examination. Not saying it doesn't make good points, but its citing 'facts' that aren't facts.
Keep in mind, I'm not saying fusion will or won't happen. I don't know enough about that and technological changes are capable of rendering any prediction as to its economics meaningless.
Consider aluminum. It was once a precious metal. At one time one could conclude that it would never be used as a throw away material in something like soda cans. And yet it is because a new refining process was developed that made production orders of magnitude more efficient.
Dangerous to say never or to presume upon the technology of the future.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
...The fusion guys get these reports and then say "well, we don't have a working reactor so we don't really know" and then stick their fingers in their ears and do the "la la la I CANNOT HEAR YOU" thing...
I like that. It's funny. And it could be that fusion energy is a fly-by-night used to bilk investors. It will forever be 20, 40, 50 years off (double entendre intended). Yeah, I dunno. There is a rumor that results from Big Data analytics is the reason Besos, Microsoft, Amazon, and others are investing here. Ah, it's probably just a ruse.
Oh, and I'm sure you know that there are fusion reactors working right now, just none in the commercial sphere. They're for research. Fusion energy has yet to reach a viable price point. Not yet.
https://www.chinadialogue.net/article/show/single/en/10042-Private-sector-companies-are-firing-up-the-fusion-race
http://theconversation.com/why-nuclear-fusion-is-gaining-steam-again-93775
https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/index.php?page=electricity_in_the_united_states
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_electricity_consumption
Reuters, Forbes, CNBC and others report that the US solar industry lost about 10,000 jobs in 2017. And that's after an initial increase of jobs in 2017 that promised to be about 17 times faster than the total US economy.
Yeah, I think Trump has curtailed the adoption of renewable energy. But it's just my opinion. I could be wrong. Wouldn't surprise me. Often am.
Initial report of job growth:
http://money.cnn.com/2017/05/24/news/economy/solar-jobs-us-coal/index.html
Reports of job loss:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/joshuarhodes/2018/01/23/solar-tariff-a-direct-hit-to-fastest-growing-job-market-in-us/
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/07/us-solar-industry-lost-nearly-10000-jobs-in-2017.html
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-solar-jobs/u-s-solar-industry-lost-nearly-10000-jobs-in-2017-idUSKBN1FR15O
Um...that any of the municipalities crowing about their 100% renewable energy City grid are incompetent fools? Should I have had a different take-away from that (provided you aren't living near a large hydroelectric or nuclear power plant, both of which the "greens" hate)
No, that the "has to be dumped" part is stupid.
Ezekiel 23:20
Bankrupting the billionaire Koch brothers?
Worth it!
While that's super insightful (and also aguably untrue in many cases) it has nothing to do with my statement. You need reliable standby power sources for when it isn't windy or sunny outside. If you claim "100% renewable" and don't have like 3000 lead-acid batteries you are a liar, you are producing power when it's sunny or windy out and have brokered deals with people that may be running coal fired plants out of state
You need reliable standby power sources for when it isn't windy or sunny outside.
You need them regardless of anything. Many grids are connecting together total generation capacity amounting to twice or thrice their average load.
Ezekiel 23:20
Don't get me wrong, I'm not pro fossil fuel in any sense other than it still gives us the energy we need right this moment. Most vehicles are still ICE. But ultimately, I concede that it's a dead end, it's dirty and will eventually run out at some point.
I have nothing whatsoever against solar, wind, geo-thermal, etc. I just believe a complete non economy crippling switch-over will take longer than many would like to see, but also that renewable has the potential to be to this decade what the IT boom was to the '90s: the explosion of a still maturing technology/industry that could ultimately fuel the economy. I would prefer to see Trump invest more in it, but his immediate concerns are the economy and the blue collar workers who voted for him. Hopefully near the end of his term, he's satisfied with the progress made and begins to support renewables more.
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
The other thing to consider with these types of investments is that the lifespan of both Wind and Solar are much lower in terms of assets. They get subsidies to get built and make money, great, but in 20 years when the panels need replacing, or the turbines need replacing, where are those capital costs are going to come from? So it makes sense to "jump on the bandwagon" when they are profitable, however it also makes sense to "jump ship" before all the replacement costs come due. Depending on how things go in the future, if they are not going to be profitable, they are not going to get replaced without incentive. There is a reason why they sign 20 year electricity contracts, because that is about the useful life of the asset. Anyway that is how I see it.
According to GOP Congressional members, there isn't that much sun in the Untied States.
Way to intentionally deflect the issue asshat. Solar doesn't work at night time. Wind only works when it's windy out. I'd like my lights to stay on whether or not either of those two conditions are met. If you mandate "100% Renewable" you effectively mandate another Enron scam where the state gets billed for millions of dollars in "peak usage" fees unless you have many many (also ecologically unfriendly) batteries to cover that.
cyberchondriac, your points are clear and well reasoned. I've missed that on Slashdot. And although I think I see Trump differently, I too hope that he eventually supports renewables more.
I have 15KW or so on my roof doing absolutely NOTHING! County is dragging their feet to inspect it and the power company is taking its time to replace the meter. I have to wonder if they order each solar installation's meter individually from China or something. Taking a crazy long time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
I don't have a position in Tesla, but I got to get me some "put" options real quick to make me some money!
Here I thought I was going to disagree with you.
The oil companies will reduce production and charge more per unit. I doubt they'll have the sort of short term profits they get these days but the benefit to everyone is that there will be gas in the ground for us in the coming centuries and they can pump it out then. If you think about it they're selling earth's oil far below it's real value and pocketing the profits.
The energy density of oil is a property that makes it valuable in certain applications. Not to mention it's non-energy applications.
I say save it for those applications and get over to renewables.