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For the first time, renewable energy generation beat out coal in the US

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Re: For the first time, renewable energy generation beat out coal in the US

#81

Post by rhplus »

simplicio wrote: post #63
jillesvangurp wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing that's often overlooked in statistics like this is roof top solar because it's just not that easy to account for. In places like Australia, where double digit percentages of homes have solar and where building codes are actually being changed to require solar panels, this is a non trivial amount that is putting a lot of pressure on energy suppliers to adapt. Effectively whole states are running on solar whe…

I don't really understand the advantage of rooftop solar over just putting the same number of solar panels in a field somewhere. Id think it would be a lot cheaper to install the panels in one-place then having to distribute them to a bunch of differently shaped and oriented roof tops, and cheaper to have a few large inverters instead of a bunch of small ones.

Rooftop solar can help cool roofs/attics by a small amount.

Re: For the first time, renewable energy generation beat out coal in the US

#82

Post by haizhung »

looping__lui wrote: post #61
revertmean wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What, France? The poster child for the nuclear fans had to re-open coal plants? Well, I hadn't heard that. That's interesting. It makes sense to me because they were all clearly dependent on Russian gas, which is what caused the price spike in electricity across Europe. It still doesn't make sense to me that you think it's something to do with renewables.

… they probably had to ramp up to help out their German neighbors when their electricity grid was close to collapose because of a non-sustainable idealogically driven strategy authored by the Green part being completely oblivious of today’s reality.

No, they had to reopen them because their nuclear plants stopped working. Too hot, not enough water in the rivers due to climate change to cool down the nuclear plants - so they shut them off, and France was buying renewable energy from Germany. So you got your facts exactly the wrong way.

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/even-crisis-germany-...

Turns out, nuclear is not the end all, be all solution. Who knew?

I don’t know why HN has such a rage boner for Germany’s energy transition, it doesn’t seem that triggered by any other country.

Re: For the first time, renewable energy generation beat out coal in the US

#83

Post by looping__lui »

pastacacioepepe wrote: post #73
looping__lui wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because renewables (which I am personally fond of; PV on my roof) cannot cover Germany’s electricity needs/baseload but only supplement it. Driven by an ideological agenda of Ms Merkel and the green party, they shut down nuclear power plants (needed to cover our base load in chemical/manufacturing/whatnot) and replaced it with gas from Russia (don’t ask me why). Now that Russian gas isn’t exactly on the table anymore…

> Driven by an ideological agenda of Ms Merkel and the green party, they shut down nuclear power plants (needed to cover our base load in chemical/manufacturing/whatnot) and replaced it with gas from Russia (don’t ask me why). You have been misinformed. They shut down nuclear to replace it with renewables. They already used Russian gas at the time.

You cannot replace nuclear with renewables in Germany. You cannot shut down production if the sun doesnt shine or there is no wind. There is a non-trivial amount of electricity that needs to be available 24/7 and there needs to be a source of electricity that can be ramped up quickly when demands spike or renewable isn’t delivering.

Re: For the first time, renewable energy generation beat out coal in the US

#84

Post by maxerickson »

anovikov wrote: post #26
adrianN wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"A crazy rate" that is unfortunately still much too slow to limit warming to 2° or below.

Forget global warming. Of course it will not be stopped. All fossil fuels will be burnt till full exhaustion of reserves, until the remainder is completely uneconomical to extract. But then the nations that were the last to start switching will find their economies too inefficient and expensive to run with the fossil fuels while everyone else is using much cheaper renewables, and will probably no longer have money fo…

It's more or less a tautology that extraction will continue until it isn't worth doing.

The thing is, abundant cheap energy will make it less and less worth doing.

Re: For the first time, renewable energy generation beat out coal in the US

#85

Post by ericmay »

soitgoes511 wrote: post #55
ericmay wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn’t rushing to get nuclear reactors online just make the OPs point stronger? Geopolitics of oil showed the weakness of relying on fossil fuels.

The point is that Europe does not have energy in general figured out. If I am being told I can be fined for having my thermostat higher than 19C (true for children school also), than we are far from that statement.

Or maybe Europe does have it figured out and an unforeseen shock to the system temporarily set back plans?

Re: For the first time, renewable energy generation beat out coal in the US

#86

Post by looping__lui »

haizhung wrote: post #82
looping__lui wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

… they probably had to ramp up to help out their German neighbors when their electricity grid was close to collapose because of a non-sustainable idealogically driven strategy authored by the Green part being completely oblivious of today’s reality.

No, they had to reopen them because their nuclear plants stopped working. Too hot, not enough water in the rivers due to climate change to cool down the nuclear plants - so they shut them off, and France was buying renewable energy from Germany. So you got your facts exactly the wrong way. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/even-crisis-germany-... Turns out, nuclear is not the end all, be all solution. Who knew?…

Maybe because it’s not a transition but an ideology driven f** up? I live near the coal plants they are firing up again. I’m all pro PV (have one), I heat my house on geothermal, I spent a ton on energy efficiency for my house. But this entire “renewable transition”, “getting out of nuclear” and coming up with other random ideas in a industry focused economy is just bogus in execution.

Re: For the first time, renewable energy generation beat out coal in the US

#87

Post by Intox »

kuhewa wrote: post #8
jokoon wrote: post #2

It doesn't really matter if renewable generated more energy than coal for 1 day. What matters is annual generation. Renewables generates 5 times less than coal annually and still peak for a short period of time, so this is not a big progress. Wind turbines can have big energy peaks when it's very windy, but there is no cheap way to store that energy for a long period of time, WHICH IS WHY NUCLEAR IS THE GREENEST BASE…

Too bad the capital requirements upfront are so expensive for nuclear and literally no one wants to fund a project that will cost at least $8 billion, won't be online for a decade, and the power it be will produce is already more expensive than that of smaller renewable projects. Who knows maybe once renewable market penetration is nearly maxed out and if storage tech somehow hasn't caught up enough despite the great…

Nuclear is not offering the best price per Mwh now (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source), but it will certainly in the next decades.

Solar and wind power sources requires an absurd amount of metal (sometimes rare metals) to build the generators (solar panels, wind turbines, etc). This metal is extracted today with an enourmous consumption of fossil fuels, and it will be difficult to have a greener alternative for this extraction (anything running on batteries will require even MORE metal).

The prices per Mwh of renewable energy sources are heavily linked to the prices of fossil fuels, which are quite "low" compared to what will probably happen in the next decades. Moreover, most metals are getting harder and harder to extract (it's likely that we met the peak of copper extraction already), which means that we'll have to dig deeper and deeper to get metal.

I'm not saying we should not invest in renewables, but it will be probably be 10x to 50x more expensive to maintain a renewable parc of solar panels or wind turbines without relying on fossil fuels at all, which will cause the prices per mwh to explode.

Countries that try to go 100% renewable without a healthy dose of nuclear energy will probably end up either burning fossil fuels or buying raw materials from countries that does, at a very heavy price.

Re: For the first time, renewable energy generation beat out coal in the US

#88

Post by pastacacioepepe »

looping__lui wrote: post #78
pastacacioepepe wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It was Schröder Northstream 2 was planned under Merkel. > Merkel decided in a completely irrational overnight move to just phase out nuclear. No, it was an almost unanimous vote where even the opposition agreed with the government[0]. Nothing irrational about it, they decided to go for renewable instead of nuclear. - 0: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/jun/30/germany-end-nu...

Oh, Merkel certainly made it worse, but Schröder had a leading role… https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/23/world/europe/schroder-ger... The opposition agreeing - you mean like the Green party who wanted to end nuclear like forever? Merkel had essentially absolute power in Germany and was leading some major changes that are hard to believe now… 1) shut down nuclear, 2) abolish compulsory military service, 3) open the bor…

> The opposition agreeing - you mean like the Green party who wanted to end nuclear like forever?

No, I mean pretty much everyone: 513 yes to 79 no.

> abolish compulsory military service

hard to believe? I guess we agree to disagree.

Re: For the first time, renewable energy generation beat out coal in the US

#89

Post by pastacacioepepe »

looping__lui wrote: post #83
pastacacioepepe wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Driven by an ideological agenda of Ms Merkel and the green party, they shut down nuclear power plants (needed to cover our base load in chemical/manufacturing/whatnot) and replaced it with gas from Russia (don’t ask me why). You have been misinformed. They shut down nuclear to replace it with renewables. They already used Russian gas at the time.

You cannot replace nuclear with renewables in Germany. You cannot shut down production if the sun doesnt shine or there is no wind. There is a non-trivial amount of electricity that needs to be available 24/7 and there needs to be a source of electricity that can be ramped up quickly when demands spike or renewable isn’t delivering.

I actually agree on this, but I was just replying to your statement that they decided to shut down nuclear to replace it with russian gas.

Re: For the first time, renewable energy generation beat out coal in the US

#90

Post by shadowgovt »

timwaagh wrote: post #75
tjbiddle wrote: post #57

My comment isn't directly related to the OP, but figured it'd be an interesting insight to share as it's very recent for me. Just finished a motorbike trip in Laos. Fun fact, their largest export is electricity. Would've never guessed that, right? 90% of the electricity they generate is exported to neighboring countries - mostly Thailand. 80% is renewable - Go Laos! But wait, it may be renewable... but turns out the…

You think the energy transition can be achieved without harming people? Yes if you are a river fisherman you do not live in the right century. Nor do people living in mountain villages. There are those who will get cancer from working in a nuclear fuel reprocessing plant. Still it's not going to be that bad because the pollution from fossil fuel electricity generation is also causing a lot of disease and killing a lo…

Human activities harm people.

That doesn't imply we can't compare alternatives and say "This one will result in less harm than that one."

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