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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

#251

Post by adgjlsfhk1 »

looping__lui wrote: post #127
adgjlsfhk1 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you actually can. it's expensive, but it's an option. what's the cost compared to nuclear? I'm not sure.

Enlighten me how. 1) What do you do at night? 2) What do you do if there isn’t sufficient supply? 3) What if there is too much supply?

1. night currently isn't a significant problem. there's usually lots of wind, businesses aren't open and people don't use a lot of electricity when they're asleep. this may become worse overtime with increasing numbers of EVs charging at night.

2. this is the hard part, but there is good news.

solar and wind over large areas are fairly consistent and with HVDC you can transfer power 1-2 thousand miles with low losses. there's also a small but rapidly growing amount of storage on the grid. right now, we treat hydro as primarily generation with a side benefit of storage, but it's shifting to primary storage with a side benefit of generation. doing so gives most grids a decent ability to scale up and down renewable generation at will. lastly, you can use fossil fuels when everything else isn't giving you enough. a fossil fuel plant that runs a couple times a year for a few hours is a lot better than 40% of the grid being fossil fuel year round.

there's also a decent amount you can do in terms of demand shaping as the grid gets smarter. electric hot water tanks can be used as batteries where you set them up to turn on when there's excess power. you can also do things like make agreements with energy hungry sectors (like ore refining) to throttle output when necessary (compensating them for the lost revenue).

3. this is easy. refill batteries, smelt aluminum, turn off generation.

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

#252

Post by coryrc »

landemva wrote: post #233
kragen wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it still seems that you are unaware of the distinction i was focusing on between transmission systems and distribution systems a residence that can provide some of its own power during peak hours does not need distribution, transmission, or (utility-scale) generation sized for full load; a neighborhood that can provide some of its own power during peak hours does not need transmission or (utility-scale) generation si…

Who can generate at peak load, reliably, every hour of the day? Some areas have peak load in evening, when PV output is reduced.

Most of the components don't have a meaningful "maximum load". There's a load with 40-year life, a load with 10-year life, and a load with 160-year life (and obviously this is a continuous curve). It's okay to spend some time at 10-year life load if you can spend more time at the 160-year load than the typical model expects.

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

#253

Post by themitigating »

iamerroragent wrote: post #221
tut-urut-utut wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's hilarious because you also probably constantly complain about Hollywood and how the middle class is dying.

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

#254

Post by themitigating »

nroets wrote: post #163
peoplefromibiza wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honest question: so why aren't iPhones cheap? EDIT: thanks for all the answers, IIUC it boils down to "nobody cares if a luxury item from a western company is built on slavery, the only thing that matters is that poor people who built it cannot afford it"

Because Apple sets the price according to what people are willing to pay. The price isn't directly related to the manufacturing cost or the development cost.

Is that true? In India I thought I read how people have fake iPhones because of what a luxury symbol it is. That purchasing one for the vast majority of people is out of the question.

There must be some limit to how low it can be sold for.

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

#255

Post by gwright »

robomartin wrote: post #247
danhor wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both are great, since while the daily cycle is a problem with solar, the seasonal variations are a far larger issue (since much mobe energy storage is needed). But both complement each other. Wind is stronger in the winter and solar is strong in the summer. The best consistency is achieved when both are used, not one or the other.

No, not really. That's the impression most people have. For example, solar, in the northern hemisphere, is --to use your term-- stronger in March/April, not the summer. This is due to the panel negative temperature coefficient. > The best consistency is achieved when both are used, not one or the other. No. Wind with approximately three hours of storage is about 95% reliable. Once again, it's about power, not energy.

> No. Wind with approximately three hours of storage is about 95% reliable

That isn't enough, unless you are happy with 18 days of no power per year. Of course you could maintain traditional power plans to provide power for those 18 days, but then you've doubled or tripled your power costs because you have purchased two systems for providing power. An intermittent system and a second system with the same capacity that is unused 95% of the time but must be available at a moments notice. And of course you have to maintain a viable supply chain for fuel, repairs, maintenance, labor, etc.

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

#256

Post by themitigating »

nforgerit wrote: post #149
nroets wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should the US try to lead solar panel technology ? China has many talented engineers and plenty of venture capital. I'd prefer them to invest it in solar panel manufacturing and power electronics rather than social media, ai or Telco technology.

German speaking here. This position brought a lot of harm and made the German economy very fragile. The German business model in the last decades was based on cheap security (NATO), cheap gas (Russia) and a huge market to sell cars (China). And here we are in 2023, paying 100s of billions of tax money for (maybe) having a working army in a couple of years, a near collapsing economy bc of zeroed gas imports and a tigh…

Not to get off topic but that's why BMW has changed their grill and car design so much even though Western journalists hate it. They are targeting the Asian market.

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

#258

Post by gwright »

Yet another article and discussion that mostly ignores the fact that intermittent energy sources are not viable mechanisms for base-load generation. This is a basic physics problem that no amount of legislation or green-virtue signaling is going to make the problem go away.

Until we find a reasonable way to store energy at grid scale, a continued shift to intermittent energy generation will result in dramatically higher prices and dramatically lower reliability.

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

#259

Post by themitigating »

travisporter wrote: post #58
tmountain wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have solar on my roof, but I had to negotiate a net metering agreement with my utility company. I have friends saying the same utility company is now pushing back on new agreements. It seems that stupid issues will need to be resolved before solar hits a critical mass. That said, batteries help.

I live in the southeast and was quoted 35k for a 7kw Solar and 36k for two power walls. With tax credits,~50k

Have you calculated the savings each month in your electric bill and compared that to the cost of a loan for the solar? Maybe this is a bad time because of interest rates but my sister has a two story house in NY with solar and is saving between $100 and $150 a month.

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

#260

Post by nforgerit »

themitigating wrote: post #228
nforgerit wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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

Well I'm calling bullshit on neoliberal free-trade ideology based on voodoo economics which just looks at simple measurable factors like "cost of labor" completely ignoring social cost (local unemployment, mass migration, social tensions, etc.) and ecological cost (pollution, climate crisis, etc.) which were commonly socialized (tax money) in case of a concrete crisis. Not a personal attack, sorry if it sounded like that.
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