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Following 35% growth, solar has passed hydro on US grid

arstechnica.com

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Re: Following 35% growth, solar has passed hydro on US grid

#451

Post by philipkglass »

ongytenes wrote: post #385

Since the 1990s the US has removed over 1,000 dams. If those dams were still producing power, then how would that affect their claim?

Hydroelectric generation varies a lot annually due to naturally varying precipitation. In the 1990s, hydroelectric generation reached a maximum in 1997 with 356 TWh (this was also the all-time peak) and a minimum in 1992 with 253 TWh:

https://www.eia.gov/kids/energy-sources/hydropower/

(This page is "for kids" but it includes a good plot of hydroelectric output since 1950.)

This is just from natural variability, since the US didn't build any new hydro generating facilities in the 1990s.

Here's the EIA report that has generating statistics for 2025. It has "monthly" in the name but you can find full-year stats for 2025 in table ES1.B:

https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/current_month/februa...

In 2025, hydroelectric power generation was 247 terawatt hours. Utility scale solar generation was 295 terawatt hours. Estimated small scale (e.g. rooftop) solar generation was 93 terawatt hours. Combined, that would bring solar generation to 383 terawatt hours for the year.

Solar generation is now higher than hydroelectric generation ever was in the US, but it's also true that hydroelectric generation is lower in recent years. The Ars Technica article focused on the utility scale solar generation. Counting that portion alone, solar generation has yet to surpass hydro's 1997 record of 356 TWh.

Re: Following 35% growth, solar has passed hydro on US grid

#452

Post by philipkglass »

kayo_20211030 wrote: post #261

I'm not disputing anything, but would it have killed arstechnica to include some primary source links to back up their assertions?

A direct link would be better, but they mentioned it at the beginning: "On Tuesday, the US Energy Information Administration released full-year data on how the country generated electricity in 2025."

This is the report: https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/current_month/februa...

It has full-year data for 2025 in table ES1.B.

Re: Following 35% growth, solar has passed hydro on US grid

#453

Post by hunterpayne »

WhompingWindows wrote: post #310
hunterpayne wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You refuse to understand the difference between capacity and utilization. That mass of solar still only makes about 1/6th the actual number of watts of power delivered to the grid. Anyone who shows you capacity numbers about energy generation is intentionally lying to you. Capacity factor matters. The capacity factor of nuclear is .9. For Hydro and FF, its .6. For solar its .1. That means 9 watts of solar capacity ge…

Parent didn't mention either capacity or utilization? The article itself is mentioning generation. Not sure where you're getting what you're responding to?

The article reports capacity (which doesn't matter) not utilization (which does). Not sure why you are responding about a topic about which you literally don't know the first thing.

Re: Following 35% growth, solar has passed hydro on US grid

#454

Post by rudhdb773b »

jdejean wrote: post #432
rudhdb773b wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's why I see AI (with a clear set of provided objectives and guidelines, i.e., a constitution) as the future of government. As dystopian as that sounds, it's the only way I see to truly rid ourselves of corruption.

Why would AI at that scale not have the exact corruptible inclination humans have?

Because unlike natural life, which has evolved to be highly competitive and self-interested, we would explicitly set the AI's objectives to always benefit society.

Re: Following 35% growth, solar has passed hydro on US grid

#455

Post by 05 »

nazgul17 wrote: post #285
05 wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We would line in a very different country if, after the civil war, every slave owner was strung up from a tree and their estates were redistributed to the formerly enclaved. Yeah, but not for the reasons you think. A country that would just kill a significant share of its citizens for something that used to be legal very recently is not going to end up just fine. Moreover, due to normal distribution of human traits…

Do we actually know that goodness/evilness is 0% inheritable?

0%? Extremely unlikely. [0] Is your plan as an evil overlord to implement the stack ranking killing the evilest 10% generation after generation for the good of humanity?:)

Also hope you’re going global since other populations will quickly outcompete the docile sub-population if given chance.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetics_of_aggression

Re: Following 35% growth, solar has passed hydro on US grid

#456

Post by danaris »

rudhdb773b wrote: post #454
jdejean wrote: post #432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would AI at that scale not have the exact corruptible inclination humans have?

Because unlike natural life, which has evolved to be highly competitive and self-interested, we would explicitly set the AI's objectives to always benefit society.

And why would the people in power be willing to do that?

Re: Following 35% growth, solar has passed hydro on US grid

#457

Post by dalyons »

Rebelgecko wrote: post #409
idiotsecant wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That 'crazy' amount is not even scratching the surface of the surface of what we would need for a high-solar grid, let alone a majority solar grid. Not even within an order of magnitude. You don't have to take my word for it, the CAISO literally provides the data.

How much more do we need? 2x the capacity? 5x? 10x? The state has added a ridiculous amount of battery over the last couple years so it doesn't seem intractable I remember looking at CAISO's graphs a few years ago and when the sun goes down we were basically completely dependent on imports and natty gas, especially for scaling up to demand around 6-7pm. Looking at today's graph, batteries were actually our top electr…

Exactly. You can see batteries displacing a huge amount of gas already, and their rollout is going to keep accelerating.

The state is up to 67% clean energy total for 2025, crazy progress in a decade

Re: Following 35% growth, solar has passed hydro on US grid

#459

Post by whatever1 »

tialaramex wrote: post #421
whatever1 wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As long as thermodynamics allow, everything is possible. The question always is who is gonna pay for it? Societies have other priorities much higher on their list compared to energy cleanness.

"Natural" Oil is literally finite, we're currently burning everything which died over millions of years, when we say it isn't "renewable" that's not some vague idea about the planet not overheating (though to be sure if we heat the planet up and make it uninhabitable that would suck for us) but that literally it's running out. So "who is gonna pay for it" is everybody, eventually.

We can literally build complex hydrocarbons from thin air. The problem is again cost (energy).
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