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Wind and solar generated more power than gas globally in April 2026

electrek.co

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Re: Wind and solar generated more power than gas globally in April 2026

#101

Post by simbosambo »

PyWoody wrote: post #72
wat10000 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a lot of selective concern. They'll be outraged about the environmental damage from mining and manufacturing needed for panels, but ignore the orders of magnitude worse damage from burning fossil fuels. My favorite is outrage over wind turbines killing birds. Cats kill a thousand times more birds but nobody cares about that.

> They'll be outraged about the environmental damage from mining and manufacturing needed for panels, but ignore the orders of magnitude worse damage from burning fossil fuels. I always try to point out that, after all of the "environmental damage" done to create the solar panels, the panels will exist for 30 years before they can be recycled into new panels. Whereas, after all of the environmental damage done to pro…

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Re: Wind and solar generated more power than gas globally in April 2026

#102

Post by toast0 »

dnautics wrote: post #22
willio58 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s already irreversible, but it’s just disappointing to see how the U.S. administration has chosen to actively fight against it, while other countries like China are embracing reality. It’s actually funny if you don’t think about it too hard. The U.S. president is trying to make us more reliant on fossil fuels, while starting a war in Iran that’s led to the global fossil fuel market to be negatively impacted, forci…

> the U.S. administration has chosen to actively fight against it the biggest producer of renewables is Texas, by a longshot. and the state of california just created insane NEM laws that favor the pockets of pg&e (and are shit for the environment) and as a result solar home installations have cratered.

From the CalISO graphs, there doesn't seem to be a shortage of solar power for most of the day. It doesn't seem reasonable to incentivise production in the same way as it was when that wasn't the case.

I think NEM 3.0 incentivises storage now? Which seems to be what the (California) grid is looking for.

Re: Wind and solar generated more power than gas globally in April 2026

#103

Post by jqpabc123 »

ReptileMan wrote: post #27
jqpabc123 wrote: post #2

Renewable energy offers a competitive advantage for any energy intensive activity --- like manufacturing or AI. China gets it, the USA doesn't.

Indeed. Steel mills, aluminum smelters and glass factories really adore the intermittent nature of renewables.

Yes, that probably explains why US imports of steel and aluminum continue to grow, even with a 25% tariff.

US manufacturers and consumers just love the added cost --- aka, inflation.

https://www.steel.org/2026/03/steel-imports-up-4-6-in-januar...

Re: Wind and solar generated more power than gas globally in April 2026

#105

Post by ceejayoz »

fp64 wrote: post #59
Aurornis wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know how you can be against solar unless you’ve been given some uninformed talking points. Are they against solar subsidies or other policy provisions? It’s hard to understand someone who is against passive energy collection.

I'm not against solar, my primary issue is that in northern Europe there's not much sun at some times. Energy storage and "smart grid" are not there yet, in my view, but maybe should have come first. Hydrogen (electrolysis) sounds a bit wild and impractical to me.

Finland:

> The net result: Pornainen fulfilled all of its municipal climate targets with a single installation. Oil use dropped 100 percent, emissions fell 70 percent, and woodchip combustion was cut by 60 percent. According to the Mayor of the Municipality of Pornainen, Antti Kuusela, the municipality now heats all its public buildings, including a new sports arena opening in September 2026, entirely through this district heating network.

https://interestingengineering.com/energy/sand-battery-polar...

Re: Wind and solar generated more power than gas globally in April 2026

#107

Post by foxyv »

erelong wrote: post #9

I know some people who are adamantly against solar and wind (personally I like both but I can see some shortcomings - for example I have heard that ai datacenters are using gas at times because of its flexibility) So what are some of the best talking points to "sell" solar and wind to the unconvinced? Or will they just adopt it once it's seen everywhere?

Solar/wind is the cheapest form of power generation by far. You just can't beat it because they don't have any fuel costs. Gas peaker plants will always make sense until we have enough grid scale batteries. They will hold on for now until the price of natural gas hits rock bottom. But with the current advances in low cost battery technology I see them becoming less and less necessary. They would probably already be dead if hydrofracturing hadn't propped up the cost of gas.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source

Re: Wind and solar generated more power than gas globally in April 2026

#109

Post by fp64 »

ceejayoz wrote: post #105
fp64 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not against solar, my primary issue is that in northern Europe there's not much sun at some times. Energy storage and "smart grid" are not there yet, in my view, but maybe should have come first. Hydrogen (electrolysis) sounds a bit wild and impractical to me.

Finland: > The net result: Pornainen fulfilled all of its municipal climate targets with a single installation. Oil use dropped 100 percent, emissions fell 70 percent, and woodchip combustion was cut by 60 percent. According to the Mayor of the Municipality of Pornainen, Antti Kuusela, the municipality now heats all its public buildings, including a new sports arena opening in September 2026, entirely through this di…

That's for 5000 people. And only covers heat. Happy if it can scale and move from prototype to long-term deployment at a reasonable cost, serving heavy industry in manufacturing.

Re: Wind and solar generated more power than gas globally in April 2026

#110

Post by tialaramex »

mtmickush wrote: post #74

This is exciting news but the term power here should really be replaced with electricity which is clarified early on in the article. Electricity only accounts for roughly 20-25% of all power / energy used and the vast majority of the remaining 75% is fueled by gas (cars, ships, heating, construction, ect.)

This is true but also distorting because it's not an Apples-to-Apples comparison. Electricity is not only much more flexible it's also much more efficient when it's an option.

The internal combustion engine is not a very efficient way to convert fuel into movement, its key benefit was that it is compact enough to put inside the vehicle itself. A steam train was more efficient, and steam boats were more efficient still, but those are both enormous so it was seen as a more reasonable option for these vehicles. So an EV transition actually doesn't mean that much more electrical generation compared to much less fossil fuel production.

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