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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

#171

Post by tialaramex »

hstaab wrote: post #99
tejohnso wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you be adamantly against solar? That sounds like someone who is of the opinion that solar is NEVER a good idea. Nonsense.

I’ve talked to some local people who are convinced that panels slowly leach heavy metals into the surrounding ground. They mainly argue against it on residential & farm land (Midwest USA) for this reason.

The argument I've seen against it for prime farm land in the UK is "Well we could use it to farm things" but that maybe lands less well in the US because of the enormous scales involved. "¿Por qué no los dos?" is the obvious retort in a huge region like that.

I've never seen "heavy metals" conspiracies, though I'm sure if I just wait I'll run into some because people sure do like making up reasons good things are bad...

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

#172

Post by ZeroGravitas »

nonethewiser wrote: post #132

Is it possible to increase the grid by add solar and wind and NOT adding an on-demand backup source (gas, etc.) WITHOUT ADDING RISK? What I mean is say the grid demands 100. The grid is powered entirely by coal. You give it 120 for 20% redundancy. This is extremely reliable. The grid demand is now 120. You now need 144 for 20% redundancy. You dont want to use coal. So you add solar and batteries. Batteries are great…

Your existing demand is not flat. Not flat over a single day, nor a single week nor a single year.

So you already have some spare capacity on the system.

If your demand peak was summer air con, then adding the solar makes the system more stable. This can be seen in a few grids that issue less grid warnings in summer now.

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

#173

Post by Neywiny »

foxyv wrote: post #107
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 d…

I think you've missed that all generators have upfront cost. That's why the monetary payoff time for installing solar is non-zero. Versus a backup generator you're paying 2-3x the cost upfront. And yes we know the running cost is almost 0, the maintenance is almost nothing, etc etc, but I could see that argument not holding as much water as we need it to.

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

#174

Post by singpolyma3 »

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?

Put it on your roof. Never pay for power again.

Pretty easy sell for me.

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

#175

Post by zahlman »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #139
nonethewiser wrote: post #132

Is it possible to increase the grid by add solar and wind and NOT adding an on-demand backup source (gas, etc.) WITHOUT ADDING RISK? What I mean is say the grid demands 100. The grid is powered entirely by coal. You give it 120 for 20% redundancy. This is extremely reliable. The grid demand is now 120. You now need 144 for 20% redundancy. You dont want to use coal. So you add solar and batteries. Batteries are great…

Take a look at California. Their grid is routinely, daily, generating ~84% of its power from renewables [1] (with ~25GW of existing solar PV capacity, ~6GW of wind, and ~6GW of hydro). They are adding batteries rapidly [2] (with a goal of 52GW by 2045; they are 33% of the way there). They still have ~32GW of fossil gas generation capacity, but it is rarely used constantly at full capacity. They have plans for another…

> Take a look at California. Their grid is routinely, daily, generating ~84% of its power from renewables [1] (with ~25GW of existing solar PV capacity, ~6GW of wind, and ~6GW of hydro).

> ... Not everywhere is California, but solar and batteries are the cheapest form of generation in 90%+ of the world [5].

... Then why is electricity so expensive there compared to the US average?

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

#176

Post by dalyons »

_ZeD_ wrote: post #67
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?

> I know some people who are adamantly against solar and wind let me guess... they sell oil?

no, sadly its somehow become part of the global culture war. Fossil is right wing manly dominant power, renewables are woke and womanly and left.

Its all electrons how did we get here jesus.

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

#177

Post by zahlman »

pstuart wrote: post #15
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?

I'm going to guess they are against it because it's "woke". A question might be "why is it woke?" And if it's because libtards like it, then you can point out that libtards like coffee, beer, sports, etc -- so when will they boycott those?

Rather than guessing, have you considered asking?

Sure, sometimes people haven't reasoned themselves into positions, and won't simply be reasoned out of them. But understanding others' epistemology is still the first step to changing minds.

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

#178

Post by triceratops »

wat10000 wrote: post #62
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.

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.

> My favorite is outrage over wind turbines killing birds

I've coined the phrase True Bird Lover. Someone who's never seen a picture of a bird covered in an oil slick from the Exxon Valdez and wants to tell everyone how bad windmills are.

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

#179

Post by zahlman »

jl6 wrote: post #137
tialaramex wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 stil…

All true, but also remember that in a zero-fossil world the supply chain for solar/wind also needs to be decarbonized, which involves things like making green steel, which is not such a favorable efficiency story (the way to overcome it is simply to generate massive amounts of electricity cheap enough that you can eat the inefficiency).

...Do we really need steel just to mount solar panels?
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