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UK Renewable Energy Capacity Surpasses Fossil Fuels For First Time (theguardian.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: The capacity of renewable energy has overtaken that of fossil fuels in the UK for the first time, in a milestone that experts said would have been unthinkable a few years ago. In the past five years, the amount of renewable capacity has tripled while fossil fuels' has fallen by one-third, as power stations reached the end of their life or became uneconomic. The result is that between July and September, the capacity of wind, solar, biomass and hydropower reached 41.9 gigawatts, exceeding the 41.2GW capacity of coal, gas and oil-fired power plants.
Imperial College London, which compiled the figures, said the rate at which renewables had been built in the past few years was greater than the "dash for gas" in the 1990s. However, the amount of power from fossil fuels was still greater over the quarter, at about 40% of electricity generation compared with 28% for renewable sources. In total, 57% of electricity generation was low carbon over the period, produced either by renewables or nuclear power stations. In terms of installed capacity, wind is the biggest source of renewables at more than 20GW, followed by solar spread across nearly 1m rooftops and in fields. Biomass is third.
Imperial College London, which compiled the figures, said the rate at which renewables had been built in the past few years was greater than the "dash for gas" in the 1990s. However, the amount of power from fossil fuels was still greater over the quarter, at about 40% of electricity generation compared with 28% for renewable sources. In total, 57% of electricity generation was low carbon over the period, produced either by renewables or nuclear power stations. In terms of installed capacity, wind is the biggest source of renewables at more than 20GW, followed by solar spread across nearly 1m rooftops and in fields. Biomass is third.
Amory Lovins, a well-known advocate of renewable energy, likes to tell the story of how the whales were saved from extinction in the mid-1800s by "profit maximizing capitalists" who brought kerosene to market, which rapidly wrecked the market for whale oil. This is the same story... renewables are simply getting to be cheaper than fossil fuels now, and the trend is only going to continue as technology improves and fossil fuels become harder to extract.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it. --AC
This is great but there is still a long way to go. Renewable capacity is not really comparable to fossil fuel power station capacity because the coal / gas ones can run 24/7...
To get a better picture of where we are check out http://grid.iamkate.com/ . Basically in the last year UK electricity was 19% from renewable sources with fossil fuels at 48%.
Renewable capacity is not really comparable to fossil fuel power station capacity because the coal / gas ones can run 24/7...
I don't know if you've ever been offshore in the North Sea but the wind blows there about as close to 24/7 as you are likely to find. Same thing with most hydro power - dams are quite predictable and steady at large scale. Geothermal is super steady. You really are just talking about solar and to a lesser extent on-shore wind. Sure solar is variable and wind to a lesser extent but with built in battery buffers and enough capacity that can be mitigated. And that variability can be an asset in the right circumstances. Solar power is a fantastic fit for use cases like refrigeration and AC which tend to draw the most power exactly when the sun is shining the brightest. Plus once you get enough renewables installed to the grid they statistically balance out and proved effectively a baseload. The wind is pretty much always blowing somewhere and you can route the power from there to where it is needed.
It's more than possible to power most needs of a typical house with a solar roof and a large battery pack. Coal and gas have their utility and are going to be with us for a while but the whole baseload argument really is not supported by the facts unless you (wrongly) assume we aren't going to make any changes to the grid. Plus if you need a constant carbon free power source nuclear is more than capable. I wouldn't call it clean per-se and it certainly isn't renewable, but it's arguably less dangerous than fossil fuels on grid scale.