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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

#221

Post by iamerroragent »

tut-urut-utut wrote: post #195
goodluckchuck wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hegemony is inevitable, prosperous, and peaceful. Anyone who would challenge US hegemony would either intend to establish themselves their own hegemony or would be patsies creating a situation where another force could do so. Do would we be better off under a global islamic caliphate deriving from afghanistan, iraq, libya, etc… or a Chinese hegemoney, or a German hegemony? I’d put American hegemony up against any civ…

For the Americans. In the meanwhile, the rest of the world is so sick of your hegemony, it would rather see anyone else, or better yet, state of a never ending direct fight between the contenders while the rest of the world is left alone. Something like Star Trek no involvement rule.

I'm sorry you don't enjoy our Coca-Cola, McDonald's, Apple, and Hollywood.

I'm really really sorry that our Navy is used to protect trade. Terrible of the U.S.

I'm sorry that the U.S. likes to have allies with democracies and a thriving, consuming, middle-class.

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

#222

Post by Fatnino »

lube wrote: post #165
rainsford wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Relying on a non-friendly country for something so crucial as energy is generally not a great position to be in, particularly if that country has rival world power ambitions. Europe and Russia have provided a great recent example of why you don't want to be reliant on potential enemies for your energy needs, and while the situation between the US and China is not the same and solar is different than fossil fuels, it'…

I think your vision is too US centric, US hegemony lead to disruptions to foreign nations like afghanistan, iraq, libya, etc. My pov from latinamerica is that my country could be next, and neither your culture nor your "business class" seems the future(we reflect your cultural hegemony with our version of shitty role models), si why not challenge US hegemony?

If you think your own country is in bad enough shape that it could be next on a list that includes Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya as they were just prior to US involvement you need to have a good long think about fixing your own problems fast. Each of those countries might have been "stable" by some definition of the word, but they all had pretty crappy organizations monopolizing power. US interference certainly didn't fix their underlying problems but it did dislodge the badguys on top. (unfortunately, often just leaving the spot open for some other badguys because aforementioned underlying problems)

Realistically, the next country on the US hitlist is probably Iran, not your latam home country. But first the American public needs to get back it's war appetite, and the shooting in Ukraine needs to simmer down (probably within a year, along new borders that are pretty close to what the current battle lines are), and China needs to not distract us by starting with Taiwan.

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

#223

Post by pyrale »

photochemsyn wrote: post #101
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…

The division of electricity production into baseload, load-following and peaker categories is just a historical anachronism. Coal and nuclear plants have poor abilities to ramp power production up and down in response to fluctuating demand, so they were called 'baseload'. Various versions of natural gas power plants could respond more rapidly, so they were typically placed in the other other two categories. This is a…

> The division of electricity production into baseload, load-following and peaker categories is just a historical anachronism.

Since you're obviously some time traveler, would you mind sharing winning lottery numbers with us?

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

#224

Post by fbdab103 »

adrianN wrote: post #7

Nice. The economics of renewables are really hard to beat. I hope we speed up the construction speed and at the same time electrify more sectors.

One thing I have idly considered - what to do with the excess daily solar energy? Presumably the problem is only going to magnify over the coming years. Net-metering agreements are continuing to get worse, so it seems that the surplus electricity will go to waste.

Outside of bitcoin mining, is there any energy sink a residential user could engage to suck up the spare capacity? At the industrial scale - what processes can intermittently engage in production which is still cost effective if the equipment lays idle for a majority of the day?

Fuel synthesis? Desalination? SETI-like computations?

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

#225

Post by nforgerit »

themitigating wrote: post #196
somesortofsystm wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just stop. China as a manufacturing solution for anyone but the people of the region must cease. It is utterly inefficient to produce stuff far, far from where it will be used. Spreading things out like this is balls. Lets start building again. If we're to get off this dust-ball, we have to learn to do things ourselves, again.

Isn't it just economics? How can a US company compete with the cost of labor?

And how is the economics changing if you internalize social and environmental cost?

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

#226

Post by robomartin »

This article is a mess. Energy is NOT power. Reporting on energy (which is what the original publication does; and even they confuse it) is almost pointless.

We need power. Not energy.

Let me explain. There is no such thing as a useful measure of energy reliability. Energy is the accumulation of power over time. Here's a super simplistic example to illustrate the point:

You spend all day walking through the desert. Your water bottle is empty. You drank it all. You really need water, yet there's none to be found. You nearly die a few times, yet manage to make it out to a settlement by nightfall.

Someone there fills your bottle with water.

A reporter says your bottle, over that 24 hour period, was full.

That's the way you compute energy. You can have zero power for 12 hours and then have some for another 12. Energy just adds-up all the bits of power you had over 24 hours and reports it as one number.

Energy comparisons are useless.

Here's reality:

Solar is, nominally, about 50% reliable (if this term isn't comfortable, think "available").

No?

It turns off at night.

Roughly 50% of the time...it does not work.

Wind, on the other hand, does not suffer from this issue. It is much more reliable.

With the addition of a nominal amount of storage wind can easily get up to 95% reliability. Solar, with the same amount of storage, runs about 70% reliability.

This is about power delivery. Consistent. Water bottle in the desert, to use when you need water.

Ignoring all other factors (environmental, wildlife, NIMBY, noise, etc.), wind is a far better technology than solar.

Yet, again, to pull this back into the realm of what we should discussing: We need to talk about power, not energy. When you go to charge your electric car at the same time a million other people want to do the same thing, you need power.

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

#227

Post by nforgerit »

fbdab103 wrote: post #224
adrianN wrote: post #7

Nice. The economics of renewables are really hard to beat. I hope we speed up the construction speed and at the same time electrify more sectors.

One thing I have idly considered - what to do with the excess daily solar energy? Presumably the problem is only going to magnify over the coming years. Net-metering agreements are continuing to get worse, so it seems that the surplus electricity will go to waste. Outside of bitcoin mining, is there any energy sink a residential user could engage to suck up the spare capacity? At the industrial scale - what processes…

Electrolyzing excess energy to produce hydrogen is a good option. Sure, it is not that efficient but you can store hydrogen and it's a useful base ingredient for many industrial processes. And if you need electrical energy you just burn it in a gas-fired power plant.

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

#228

Post by themitigating »

nforgerit wrote: post #225
themitigating wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't it just economics? How can a US company compete with the cost of labor?

And how is the economics changing if you internalize social and environmental cost?

Can you elaborate, I don't know what you mean

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

#229

Post by Teever »

bufferoverflow wrote: post #184
photochemsyn wrote: post #106

This would have happened a bit earlier if the most efficient and long-lasting solar panels, monocrystalline silicon, had been developed by US manufacturers instead of by Chinese ones. All the tariffs applied by state and federal regulators on the import of these panels have been about slowing the rate of solar PV production in the USA on behalf of the fossil fuel and investor-owned utility sectors. https://www.pv-mag…

You're forgetting labor costs in the US are much higher and environmental regulations are much more strict. So US made panels will unlikely to ever be price competitive with the Chinese made ones.

I was under the impression that most of the cost difference between Chinese and American panels was due to dumping efforts by the Chinese government.

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

#230

Post by adrianN »

catiopatio wrote: post #216
adrianN wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many people actually work in a solar panel factory? I'd expect that to be almost completely automated.

Why would you expect that?

Because solar panels are quite simple and robots are cheap?
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