Solar and Wind Power So Cheap They're Outgrowing Subsidies (bloomberg.com) 297
For years, wind and solar power were derided as boondoggles. They were too expensive, the argument went, to build without government handouts. Today, renewable energy is so cheap that the handouts they once needed are disappearing. From a report: On sun-drenched fields across Spain and Italy, developers are building solar farms without subsidies or tax-breaks, betting they can profit without them. In China, the government plans to stop financially supporting new wind farms. And in the U.S., developers are signing shorter sales contracts, opting to depend on competitive markets for revenue once the agreements expire. The developments have profound implications for the push to phase out fossil fuels and slow the onset of climate change. Electricity generation and heating account for 25% of global greenhouse gases. As wind and solar demonstrate they can compete on their own against coal- and natural gas-fired plants, the economic and political arguments in favor of carbon-free power become harder and harder to refute. "The training wheels are off," said Joe Osha, an equity analyst at JMP Securities. "Prices have declined enough for both solar and wind that there's a path toward continued deployment in a post-subsidy world."
This was inevitable (Score:2, Interesting)
Solar was always going to cross the threshold at some point, early subsidies probably made that happen a bit sooner than it would have otherwise - time to ditch subsidies and let the technology stand on its own, without regulation distorting progress.
Wind power can go DIAF as far as I'm concerned however, it's the worst for of renewable energy and in 20 years we'll have a mess of dead towers no-one wants to pay to tear down.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
20 years is a fine lifespan, and you're wrong about wanting to tear them down, lots of valuable scrap metal in them. If they're in windy places they'll be replaced or upgraded
Re:There are already dead farms proving you wrong (Score:5, Informative)
https://phys.org/news/2017-06-... [phys.org]
Additionally cell towers and cats cause way more bird deaths than windmills do:
https://www.usatoday.com/story... [usatoday.com]
Re:There are already dead farms proving you wrong (Score:5, Informative)
Or to be more specific: even the Audubon Society supports wind turbines [audubon.org]. They have (very reasonable) siting / study conditions that they want to see met for new projects, but "Audubon and other leaders in the science and conservation space agree that that in order to help prevent species extinctions and other catastrophic effects of climate change, we must significantly reduce pollution from fossil fuels as quickly as possible. This will require rapidly expanding energy efficiency, renewable energy, and alternative fuels and making changes in land use, agriculture, and transportation. Properly sited wind power is an important part of the strategy to combat climate change. Wind power is currently the most economically competitive form of renewable energy. ... Expanding wind power instead of fossil fuels also avoids the wildlife and human health impacts of oil and gas drilling, coal mining, and burning fossil fuels."
Re:There are already dead farms proving you wrong (Score:5, Informative)
Or to be more specific: even the Audubon Society supports wind turbines.
Note - The wife and I are memberrs of the Audubon Society
There are a lot of different statistics concerning things like bat and bird kills. I've seen numbers varying from 10-15 total per turbine, to a nebulous "thousands of bats every day."
I'm expecting that the thousands every day is unamalgamated bullshit.
I also know that there is a huge difference between a localized demise of some birds or bats, and say, a disease like White nose syndrome in bats. In 2012, that killed 5-7 million bats. I'm sure the wind turbine haters are equally as concerned about that. Or perhaps not.
Anyhow Birds and bats are capable of making incredibly dramatic returns from dangerous levels of whatever is killing them. I'm on vacatio right now, and doing some bird watching. Ospreys have gone from scary levels of loss to actually common sighting at the counters. Even eagles are making a decent comeback.
So localized and relatively small problems by comparison make wind and solar pretty good options.
Final note - we have a large solar install a few miles away from my place. Vegetation does grow under it, and it turns out that birds are nesting underneath the panels on the mounting beams. Phoebes seem to really like that location. Some others as well. We went and built them really nice bird condos.
The location really protects the chicks, and the discussion hasn't been about excess mortality, but hope that they will have enough mortality. The pace has been almost 100 percent of chicks surviving to adulthood.
Re: (Score:3)
Increasingly offtopic, but: I've never been a "birdwatcher", but I've always have a lot of affection for birds. Even geese, which everyone seems to hate; it makes me smile whenever I see them, especially when they return in the spring. In the past couple years I've twice rescued gulls from bad situations, although I don't know if either ultimately survived. One was a chick/fledgling that had fallen out of its cliff's nest, into a ice-cold cave river and gotten stuck under a waterfall in the rapids; I wade
Yeah but (Score:2)
Re:Yeah but (Score:5, Funny)
do you have statistics on the number of Windmill deaths due to cancer?
Zero windmills died from cancer in 2018.
In related news :
Windmills caused zero cancer deaths in birds in 2018. (the only year the study covered)
Re:There are already dead farms proving you wrong (Score:4, Insightful)
More birds die flying into buildings, only surpassed by the number killed by domestic cats and dogs than ever die due to windmills.
This claim about bird deaths is a ridiculous talking point by the fossil fuel industry. It comes out of a study of one of the first windfarms California built in the 80's that was built in a migration path and used rapidly spinning blades and at the same height as bird traffic. Modern windmills do not suffer from the same consequences. The lesson was learned and now when they propose a site they evaluate these risks and don't build them in migratory paths and the modern windmills spin at about 3-10RPM.
And for the record, both Wind and Solar subsidies are sunsetting. Both federal subsidies will be expired in 2024.
Re: There are already dead farms proving you wrong (Score:5, Interesting)
I thought the biggest complaint about wind farms was the NIMBY attitudes. The elitist that wanted it the most didnâ(TM)t want it in their backyard because they thought it was an eyesore. At least in the north eastern parts of the US that was like that.
Re:There are already dead farms proving you wrong (Score:5, Informative)
I never saw that article before. Its source is apparently the "Windaction Group". I looked them up at SourceWatch [sourcewatch.org]:
"... While the homepage of its website implies it is neutral on whether wind power is a good idea or not, elsewhere on its website it is more explicit that it opposes windpower ... The website was registered on May 31, 2006 by the Parkerhill Technology Group LLC of 286 Parker Hill Road, Lyman, New Hampshire. [2] Parkerhill Technology Group are also listed as the address for contributions to be sent to. The group provides no office address, contact names or contact numbers on its website, only a page to sent an email to the group. Parkerhill Technology Group was founded by Jonathan S. Linowes, a self-proclaimed Tea Party activist and climate change denier. According to the Wisconsin Gazette, the group "routinely quotes as 'experts' affiliates of various front groups supported by Koch Industries, Charles Koch and the Koch family."
Well, credible source then.
This got me curious, so I checked out the first article. It looks like it's from the Hawaii Free Press, but actually it's a reprint from the famously unreliable UK conservative tabloid, the Daily Mail. The notion is that it's a wind turbine graveyard that nobody wants to take down. Except that it was already being taken down when that was written [bizjournals.com]. Let's go to Google Map [google.com] and, oh, what's this? It's almost entirely dismantled (still some work crews on the site).
Wind turbine blade recycling is almost unheard of today, for the specific reason that there are so few blades to recycle; it's a hypothetical problem. Plans are, however, to shred them; the organic binder will be incinerated (like most organic waste), while the glass fibre will be used in concrete (fibre fill in concrete improves its properties).
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Wind turbine recycling is something that isn't being done. They are actually being sent to landfills as they can't be recycled or incinerated.
https://www.npr.org/2019/09/10... [npr.org]
I assume you'll take NPR as being liberal enough for a source for your use.
Re: (Score:3)
I'm sorry, but did you think that you're contradicting my post? Please reread the last paragraph.
Re: (Score:2)
Most of the time, unless they are damaged, you should be able to reuse the existing blades. Sure, you might get more power with newer blade designs, but the old ones can always be resold as surplus, and I'd expect someone to buy them, if you set the price low enough.
Either way, like all recycling, the reason this isn't being done is lack of volume. There aren't enou
Re: (Score:3)
The Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) is a non-partisan progressive watchdog group led by Lisa Graves. CMD manages this website, SourceWatch.org.
(P.S. pleased that they are open about it. I had never heard of them before, but noticed a trend on some of their entries, so I thought I'd look deeper.)
Re:There are already dead farms proving you wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:There are already dead farms proving you wrong (Score:4, Funny)
Cats and windows kill such a stupendously larger numer of birds than turbines could ever hope to. I'll just assume you're against putting windows in buildings.
In short, as the other reply pointed out, yur a dingdong.
Re:There are already dead farms proving you wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
https://www.wind-watch.org/new... [wind-watch.org]
The Kamaoa Wind Farm, which you linked to, was disassembled in 2012. They were prototype Mitsubishi turbines installed in 1987. As they got older they were hard to get parts for, but they kept them going as long as possible. They were disassembled and... sold for scrap.
Re: (Score:3)
20 years is a fine lifespan, and you're wrong about wanting to tear them down, lots of valuable scrap metal in them. If they're in windy places they'll be replaced or upgraded
20 years is to start with, an optimistic number - and s not enough to pay back the costs in material and wildlife deaths [google.com].
If they would be replaced or scrapped then why has that not happened [hawaiifreepress.com]?
Turns out the thought you can reclaim that metal is a fantasy [slashdot.org].
Everything you just tried to prove is bullshit.
From your own sources :
https://www.google.com/search?... [google.com]
Here's a good one :
https://phys.org/news/2017-06-... [phys.org]
"In other words, for every one bird killed by a wind turbine, nuclear and fossil fuel powered plants killed 2,118 birds."
http://www.hawaiifreepress.com... [hawaiifreepress.com]
"They were expensive and badly designed. Some were far too small to make a difference, others were just clunky machines designed by the aero industry with blades the length of a rugby pitch."
"Not to put
Re: (Score:3)
> 20 years is to start with, an optimistic number
25 years is the typical number and the oldest currently is 41 years.
> and s not enough to pay back the costs in material
Wind turbines pay back their materials and CO2 budgets in approximately 6 months.
> If they would be replaced or scrapped then why has that not happened
It did. You quoted an article that was in the midst of the job. The entire system was removed by April.
I'm sure if you were actually interested you would have googled it and found tha
Re:There are already dead farms proving you wrong (Score:4, Interesting)
The wind farm in the linked article has since been dismantled, but in the meantime the owners have built another wind farm in another, more favorable site nearby.
The fact that *a* particular wind farm is not repowered doesn't mean no wind farms *ever* get repowered. In fact in some cases older turbines that are fully functional get replaced by newer more efficient units. However older turbines have also been reported to wear out faster than their designed lifespans. That's an engineering problem.
A lot of the problems with wind power could be alleviated by a more capable national grid. There are wind farms on the edge of regional grids that can't sell their power to communities that are a couple hundred miles away. So if you built a wind farm, then a large new gas fired power plant is built nearby, you're out of business. You can easily compete with coal, but at current prices gas beats everything.
Re: (Score:2)
Heck, even the headline is a subsidy. More truthful to say "no longer so expensive as to be economically non-viable". That's a long way from cheap.
I certainly agree solar is just a matter of time, but until we have orbital solar it won't be base load, and it will never be the answer for heavy industry (something like 20% of non-transport energy use is "primary thermal", that is, it never becomes electricity, e.g. blast furnaces). Orbital solar is the inevitable eventual future of course, with fusion for
You think wind is bad? At least it works at night (Score:2)
Oh, and it works in a northern hemisphere winter quite well too instead of only working for 8 hours a day at most IF its not cloudy. And north of the arctic circle when solar is a waste of fucking space for 6 MONTHS of the year.
Re:This was inevitable (Score:5, Insightful)
>time to ditch subsidies and let the technology stand on its own, without regulation distorting progress.
Sure - but lets ditch all the subsidies for fossil fuels too, to keep the playing field even.
No more tax breaks. No more indemnification against responsibility for ecological disasters. No more foreign wars of aggression fought in order to maintain the flow of cheap oil. No more grandfathered amnesty on the hideous amount of radiation and other pollution pumped out by coal plants. No more free pass to strip-mine coal veins and tar sands without performing thorough environmental rehabilitation afterwards.
The fact that unsubsidized solar is becoming cost-competitive with heavily subsidized fossil fuels is truly impressive, but lets not go back to actively encouraging fossil fuels instead by subsidizing them exclusively.
Re:This was inevitable (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm concerned however, it's the worst for of renewable energy and in 20 years we'll have a mess of dead towers no-one wants to pay to tear down.
That's a lot like Nuclear power stations that have been retired. They *can't* be torn down for decades as they cool. For example Greifswald NPP [wikipedia.org] in Germany was decommissioned 30 years ago and is still standing while it is slowly disassembled and will take decades to complete.
There are 400 Nuclear Power plants around the world that will all have to go through this process eventually because no-one thought of how they would be demolished when they reached the end of their service life.
It's a difficult problem that, even now, the nuclear industry is intensely researching for ways to blame NIMBYs.
Re: (Score:2)
That's interesting. Plus it would be raised well above the bi-annual 100-year flood.
Also you score major Fallout points [gamepedia.com].
That's the whole point of renewables subsidies. (Score:5, Insightful)
The whole point is to advance the technology level and get them to economies of scale so that they can survive on their own.
Re:That's the whole point of renewables subsidies. (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course the poor struggling fossil fuel industries still need those subsidies, both direct and in "defense" spending...
Re: (Score:3)
I do wonder what the point is then of fossil fuel subsidies? Do we still need those?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Oh I know why, I was being facetous. The point is with the insane profits being made on the oil industry with oil companies topping the most wealthy companies that don't have a business model based on speculative value due to user data, why is it being subsidised at all? The only thing that is being subsidies are rich share holder's pockets.
Re: (Score:2)
Fossil fuels are strategic national resources and infrastructure for every country on the planet. That's why they get subsidized, and will continue to be subsidized until you can run your tanks on something else.
Re: (Score:2)
For instance: A subsidy program for plug-in electric car purchases would help along adoption of them, which would increase production of them, which would lower the cost to produce them, which would lower the cost to the consumer to purchase them. Everybody wins.
Now we need to stop fossil fuel subsidies (Score:2)
Great to see renewables getting lower in cost. We really need to stop burning fossil fuels. They currently receive over $5 trillion in subsidies annually (IMF). They need to be more expensive.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
$5 trillion in annual subsidies? If you're going to make up a number at least have it be somewhat believable. If you got that number from somewhere and just believed it unquestionable that says something about your bias.
Re:Now we need to stop fossil fuel subsidies (Score:5, Informative)
The '$5 Trillion annually' number is from an IMF working paper. It has been broadly referenced.
https://www.imf.org/~/media/Fi... [imf.org]
The original poster should have given the reference, and you can certainly argue with its validity. But it isn't ridiculous, and it wasn't pulled out of a hat.
Re: (Score:2)
It is utterly ridiculous. The annual GDP for the entire f'ing planet is only $88 trillion. 6% of the entire globe's GDP is not being spent on subsidies for fossil fuel companies. Use some common sense.
Re: (Score:3)
"6% of the entire globe's GDP is not being spent on subsidies for fossil fuel companies."
"This fact can't be true, because it doesn't sound possible or right." If that's your definition for common sense, that's a pretty lousy brain you have.
Re: (Score:3)
It is utterly ridiculous. The annual GDP for the entire f'ing planet is only $88 trillion. 6% of the entire globe's GDP is not being spent on subsidies for fossil fuel companies. Use some common sense.
Common sense would be that countries such as Russia don't subsidies their single biggest trade and resource to the tune of 6% of their GDP, it's more like 40% for them.
The IMF report even breaks down the post tax subsidy as a fraction of GDP per country. In the USA it's 3.9%. In the Ukraine it's 66%, which happens when your country sits on a fuckton (actual metric unit) of gas.
Re: (Score:3)
6% for percent of global GDP being spent on fossil fuels might be low, yes. $5 trillion in annual go'vt subsidies GOING TO FOSSIL FUEL COMPANIES (which is what the op claimed) is flat-out ludicrous. Even the IMF summary being linked doesn't specify any where subsidies are going.
Re: (Score:2)
Download and read the paper. Again, it's only ludicrous to you because you refuse to believe it.
Re: (Score:2)
No, he's right. It's ludicrous that we spend so much subsidizing fossil fuels. We really should stop.
Re:Now we need to stop fossil fuel subsidies (Score:5, Informative)
Look, bud, we know you don't want this to be true, but here in "adult-ish debate land" we use these things called citations of fact. One side has presented such a rhetorical device, while you seem to believe that the hot, fetid air emanating from your noise-hole qualifies. It doesn't. If you think the fossil fuel subsidy is lower, find some sorta-semi-reputable numbers of your own and, you know, fucking present them. Your words mean shit without something to back them up.
Re: (Score:2)
" projected global energy subsidies for 2015 at a striking $5.3 trillion, or 6.5 percent of global GDP, with under-charging for domestic air pollution accounting for about half of the total subsidy"
So we're down to under 3 trillion without even trying already. Don't get me wrong, I think subsidies are stupid but let's be honest about them.
Re: (Score:3)
" projected global energy subsidies for 2015 at a striking $5.3 trillion, or 6.5 percent of global GDP, with under-charging for domestic air pollution accounting for about half of the total subsidy"
So we're down to under 3 trillion without even trying already. Don't get me wrong, I think subsidies are stupid but let's be honest about them.
I think not charging for pollution is a subsidy. It's a cost to everyone that bears the effects of the pollution, i.e. all of society. That externality should be internalized by requiring polluters to pay that cost, since they reap the benefits. Markets work best when all costs are factored in.
Re: (Score:3)
Tell me how many dollars it's cost you personally and how you came to that number?
Because if it's hard to figure out, it's not real? That's ridiculous.
Yes, these costs are always going to have to be estimated, but we already put a lot of effort into estimating them. To get a per-person figure, just take the estimate and divide by population.
You can't say, "No, there really is a subsidy of $X" because I could say "Well I assign a cost of 10x what you did, so the global subsidy on fossil fuels is actually $X * 10" and someone else says "Well I assign a cost of 0.0001x what you did, so the global subsidy on fossil fuels is negligible" -- and none of us are wrong.
This is complete nonsense. We have to not only show the figures but how they were arrived at. Yes, arriving at a consensus on methodology is hard, but it's not impossible.
Re: (Score:2)
https://www.imf.org/en/Publica... [imf.org]
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah I know. It's $5.2 trillion, not $5 trillion. You're more than welcome to read the 39 page working paper published by the IMF on exactly how they got to that number, but my guess is your belief is entirely based on the size of the number combined with an unhealthy dose of ignorance.
Re: (Score:2)
Don't forget that there are many 401/retirement funds that invest in all of the above. Nothing like screwing over peoples retirement plans. But I am sure YOU don't care about those common people. It's all about your pet pe
Re: (Score:2)
Subsidies are a government tool to encourage particular development. You're supposed to give subsidies for things you want. An educated populace, for example, has *lots* of knock on benefits from development of high tech industry to lower crime rates. There's considerable evidence that fossil fuel use has lots of detrimental externalities.
Policy isn't (supposed to be) a game of "oh yeah, well, I didn't get my handout so you shouldn't either!"
Re: (Score:2)
will you read it? probably not
https://www.imf.org/en/Publica... [imf.org]
Re: (Score:2)
That summary is not the paper so you didn't read it either. And no I'm not going to spend $18 to buy it. Will you?
Re: (Score:2)
You can download it for free. I'm sensing a pattern of denseness that should make you question your ability to acquire and process information that is available to you.
Re: (Score:2)
Ah thanks, didn't see the free download. Would it surprise you that the authors include solar subsidies in their $6 trillion number, along with ANY energy subsidy? They do. Page 4. So much for that.
Re:Now we need to stop fossil fuel subsidies (Score:5, Funny)
At the global level, energy subsidies are estimated at $4.7 trillion6 (6.3 percent of world
GDP) in 2015 and $5.2 trillion (6.5 percent of GDP) in 2017
By fuel, coal remains the largest source of subsidies (44 percent), followed by petroleum
(41 percent), natural gas (10 percent), and electricity output (4 percent).
95% of 5.2 is 4.9 trillion. The OP post said over 5 trillion. Your initial charge was that this number of ludicrous - now you've fallen back to splitting hairs. It's not a good look for desire to acquire the truth.
Re: (Score:2)
You were shown to be wrong and now you're trying to bullshit your way out of it.
Just admit you made a mistake and move on.
Re: (Score:2)
Un-levied fines are counted as subsidies to reach this number, placing China far ahead of the rest.
There is still the problem of intermittency (Score:2)
Price addresses onlly one aspect of the problem when considering phasing out fossil fuels. Intermittency of wind and solar power is the other, so storage will be the next big thing.
Until then, we will have a hybrid system given the reliability of fossil fuel plants.
The best on this respect are the gas-fired plants, where power generation can be ramped up and down quickly to keep level with the demand. Thiese plants will have the edge when generation will have to match both the variiable load, and the unpred
Re: (Score:2)
Renewables *with storage* are already competing with the price of fossil fuels, so the market says intermittency is not a problem.
Re: (Score:2)
Renewables *with storage* are already competing with the price of fossil fuels, so the market says intermittency is not a problem.
No it isn't. Not even close. Wake me up when we have a storage facility that can store a day's worth of production, and I will point out that you need 20 times that storage and go back to sleep.
Renewables (excluding hydro) are paired with gas - show me any country / state with a large proportion of renewables (excluding hydro), and I will show you a country / state generating even more of its energy with gas. As far as I can tell, it appears you need at least as much nameplate gas for every unit of wind or
Re: (Score:2)
Nobody told that to the people paying to have these systems installed:
https://spectrum.ieee.org/ener... [ieee.org]
And nobody would rely on solar or wind in a place where the sun or wind could disappear for 20 days.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The problem isn’t intermittency. The problem is the expectation of all or nothing, a false dichotomy. As a realist, I say there will be a need for power generation at all times of the day regardless of weather. That may be addressed by some fossil fuel or nuclear or power storage (batteries, compressed gas, etc.) Idealists think solar or wind will replace fossil fuels in the near future 100% of the time. That’s not realistic. On the opposite end is your advocacy of fossil fuels despite clear dow
Re: (Score:2)
That may be addressed by some fossil fuel or nuclear or power storage
I think we need something like Godwin's law for energy. For any given thread about wind or solar, at a certain threshold of posts someone will bring nuclear power into the discussion.
Perhaps Nukker's Law may be a good suggestion for the name of this phenomenon?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The topic is toxic/radioactive.
Re: (Score:3)
There is a reason the topic of nuclear power also ways comes up in subject of renewable energy. People think that renewable and green are the same thing, which they are not. People want green energy with zero emissions Which you simply can't have without nuclear, with current technology. Well not if you want to keep the lights on 24/7.
This is no advocacy (Score:2)
Just wanted to point out that that I am not advocating fossil fuels. I am merely pointing out that at present we still have to keep generation in step with the load.
Storage plays a very small part, I certainly hope there will be a lot more storage capacity available in the future.
And for matchiing generation with load gas fired plants can be cycled the fastest, on a half-hour scale.
Coal plants can be cycled on 4-hour blocks, way too slow to keep with the daily variatiion of the load.
Nuclear runs only baselo
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Renewables with gas plants to make up the shortfalls seems like a great idea, with the gas plants phased out in favour of storage as it becomes more competitive seems like a great idea. Shockingly, that's what it looks like is happening. Economics wins again.
But on Slashdot it's gotta be all or nothing.
Re: (Score:2)
impossible. (Score:3, Informative)
How about starting the same cycle again by having them say "oh but what about batteries? they are never going to be good enough for electricity storage."
Fucking imbeciles and oil company shills.
Re: (Score:2)
Now what are they going to say ?
...that the projects won't make money because confinement fusion will eat their lunch before they break even, probably.
No renewable investor has lost that bet yet though.
That's assuming they have the capacity to change their tune, though. They'll probably just stick to the Donald Quixote line about windmills making them dizzy.
Re:impossible. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:impossible. (Score:4, Insightful)
A typical wind turbine is 2 MW. Add in a 40% capacity factor (I'm being generous), and knowing you need about 0.5 square km to have good coupling to air (spacing them too close hurts efficiency), we'll need around 10,000 turbines spread over 5000 square kilometers just to replace the 12 acre Diablo Canyon nuclear plant. And the plant is up 90% of the time - with downtime scheduled, rather than "oops - weather!"
I'm a fan of anything that provides power when we want it, as much as we want it, reliably and affordably. Requiring extensive backup (which wind and solar does) to get close is much less reliable and more expensive (once you are honest and factor in the cost of that dispatchable replacement source)
Then slowly reduce subsidies... (Score:2)
The entire intent of this kind of subsidy is to get a preferred industry on its feet and then to reduce subsidies so that the most efficient and higher quality companies in the industry survive.
UNLESS the goal isn't just to start an industry, but to make massive nationwide change to power generation. If that's the case, then keep subsidizing, but prepare to reduce funding to non-preferred power sources to match along the way.
Note: "Intent" changes with whomever is in charge at the moment.
Does this include ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You are the one with the solar panels. So the local conditions should be your problem. For renewables to be taken seriously, you need to provide the MWh you contracted for. Either from your own facilities or from a thermal or hydroelectric plant.
Some utilities might establish a renewable generation contract where they will handle the reserve issue. For a fee. But that fee will be based on connected capacity. So you could easily go in the hole, so to speak, if you don't produce enough.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
How much storage is "needed"? In other words, how much electrical demand is perfectly price-inelastic?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
> Does this include ... the energy storage needed for night and/or windless days?
It's true, storage adds costs and which isn't factored in post.
However, solar and wind can be used without storage. It means less usage of coal and natural gas during that time.
I don't take the article to mean coal and natural gas are gone (unfortunately).
Re: (Score:2)
However, solar and wind can be used without storage.
No, they can't. It's just that someone else is paying for it. Or contracting for the spinning reserve needed should a cloud pass in front of the solar panels.
I don't take the article to mean coal and natural gas are gone (unfortunately).
Of course not. What do you think they use for the reserve?
Re: (Score:2)
It's true, storage adds costs and which isn't factored in post.
Storage is not entirely downside. Battery storage provides superior quality frequency regulation to spinning reserves, which is a service industry pays for already.
Re: (Score:2)
Do the math about the amount of battery to actually be grid-level storage, rather than a few-second "hold up" so you can equalize AC frequencies. Los Angeles County alone used 67,800 GWh [ca.gov] in 2018. That's 185 GWh per day - or 7.7 GW per hour. The entire State of CA is more than an order of magnitude beyond that - and that's just California.
That "massive" battery installed in South Australia for grid stabilization? It was 100 MW [pv-magazine.com]. It would run Los Angeles County for about 46 seconds. Do the math about how
Re: (Score:2)
Does this include the energy storage needed for night and/or windless days?
Why would it? There's plenty of room to ramp up before that starts being an issue. The cost of energy storage is a potential future problem for when solar/wind becomes the dominant mode of energy production, but it's not a cost that we are facing today.
Re: (Score:3)
And the oil industry treats the cost of propping up autocrats and endless conflict in the Middle East as externalities.
Re: (Score:2)
You simply spread your wind farms far enough ... wow that was so easy.
At night you don't need solar power, as the grid load is in many countries below 50% of peak during daytime. Wow that also was easy.
And no, no one is setting on wind and solar alone. It can not work everyone knows that. So germany uses biogas in a great deal (and is increasing) and obviously for load balancing you need pumped storage and/or intelligent grids.
The cost of which will be borne by someone else. ...
See below
If they can't genera
It doesn't need to (Score:5, Insightful)
The goal isn't just to Shave the Whales. We want energy independence so we can stop caring when Saudi Arabia and Yemen get into it with Iran selling weapons. If we go to war with Iran to secure Saudi Arabia's oil supply it's going to cost trillions. That's money out of your pocket and mine that could have gone to roads, schools, or just plain stayed in our pockets. Not to mention all the dead American soldiers.
Re:Does this include ... (Score:5, Interesting)
You know full well this excludes energy storage.
Part of the incredible power of renewables is that there is plentiful energy during some times. I remember 15 years ago when the first overnight cost of electricity in Texas went negative due to the overnight wind farms overproducing. Of course, a weakness is the lack of power during other times. During the plentiful times, there can actually reach negative cost of power. Those negative costs really change the landscape of the cost of energy. It's an inherent subsidy for anybody who knows how to shift their loads or who can store the power and deploy it another time. This subsidy will / has been doing the same thing as renewable power subsidies do, it will increase the economy of scale for energy storage and load shifting.
There's a lot of R&D put into lithium batteries (as well as a wide variety of other chemistries), and a lot put into utility scale gravity storage (everything from water to trains) and even some air pressurized caverns. As we size the renewable portion of the grid up, there will be more and more times when the cost goes negative, and even more incentives to figure storage out.
But but but but (Score:4, Funny)
But what about 'clean coal'? Trump swore it was making a comeback.
Maybe the new Space Force rockets will run on clean coal.
Pity the fossil fuel industry... (Score:4, Informative)
...hasn't outgrown its subsidies of around $325 - 600 billion per year, worldwide https://www.iea.org/newsroom/e... [iea.org]
Imagine how much renewable energy we'd be generating & how much fuel & logistic efficiency savings we could make with that much subsidy.
So they do not need backup? (Score:2)
Re:Idiocy (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, as we all know, Natural Gas and Oil (why the caps, BTW?) are in infinite supply, the bowels of the Earth simply vomit more up as we need it.
Also, oil companies are not subsidized in any way and are all operating inches from bankruptcy.
Technology never progresses, this is why we still have coal powered airplanes.
Re: (Score:2)
"the bowels of the Earth simply vomit more up as we need it"
Joking aside, unfortunately in their increasingly desperate attempts to get the last drops out of the ground oil companies are taking extordinary and foolish risks with our enviroment - eg arctic drilling.
If a deepwater style blowout happened in the arctic it would be an enviromental catastrophy the like of which we've never seen.
Re: (Score:2)
I've always viewed the "giant mirror in space" crowd as a bunch of dupes being used to try to leach money and attention away from the practical and proven renewable technologies we are already deploying. With bonus points for building a death ray.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Sad (Score:3)