Wind and Solar are Crushing Fossil Fuels

Doesn't oil still get subsidies?

Or very cheap leases on federal lands and territory off the coasts?
 
From EIA:

In 2015, the United States generated about 4 trillion kilowatthours of electricity.1 About 67% of the electricity generated was from fossil fuels (coal, natural gas, and petroleum).
Major energy sources and percent share of total U.S. electricity generation in 2015:1

  • Coal = 33%
  • Natural gas = 33%
  • Nuclear = 20%
  • Hydropower = 6%
  • Other renewables = 7%
    • Biomass = 1.6%
    • Geothermal = 0.4%
    • Solar = 0.6%
    • Wind = 4.7%
  • Petroleum = 1%
  • Other gases = <1%
Solar and wind have a long way to go, but in 2008, "renewables" accounted for just 7% of electricity generation, so it's gone up 6%.


Or as that Bloomberg article would say, "It's DOUBLED unstoppable!! (sic)" A whole bunch of fuzzy stat manipulation in that article.


I see two primary issues here:

- Renewables aren't as readily available in most cases. Wind isn't viable everywhere and there is resistance to and environmental impact from ubiquitous windmills. Solar is less viable in certain parts of the country and during certain parts of the year. Hydro is limited by water sources, obviously.

- 87% of electrical power generation comes from fossils and nuclear. That means we need to somehow generate 8 times as much energy from these limited sources as we do now in spite of the fact that renewables aren't readily available.

Now, there's something to solar being a technology rather than a fuel, but it's really got a long way to go.

IMO, the answer to replacing fossil is primarily nuclear, but there's an awful lot of ignorance and fear about that energy source out there, so it is unlikely to happen.

(Disclosure: I'm part-nuclear engineer.)
 
It just tells me they're spending a large fortune on renewables.

10% of U.S. steel production is going into the windmills. Little of the U.S. has enough wind to generate much power by this method, and wind is just a tiny percentage of U.S. power production. With it costing $2 million per mile just to hook up to the grid, don't expect wind power to be reasonably priced--despite wind being "free."

We still see 53% of U.S. power produced by fossil fuels--coal. Politics has gotten in the way, and we're seeing the big 4 coal companies driven into bankruptcy. Peabody Energy was the latest company going into bankruptcy last week. This is simply not good for the security of the U.S., as our industry needs reasonably priced power to keep down prices of goods and services.

For the near future, look to natural gas power plants to be the only ones being built. Coal and hydro power requires mega capital to build plants, and natural gas plants are cheaper to build.

Renewables--forget'em. They're incapable of producing enough power for a major industrial country like the U.S.
 
I'm skeptical too. We had a proposal done for for a solar installation at our house a couple years ago. With subsidies, payback was about 15 years assuming that opportunity cost of money is 0%. With a reasonable opportunity cost, the payback was about 25 years.

I decided that it was no a wise investment for a 60 year old. I wrote to the guy and explained that the economics were not attractive but perhaps the technology would improve and the cost would come down where it would be attractive.

He responded that now was the time to buy as certain federal and state subsidies might not be renewed. I responded asking that if that was the case did it mean that the solar installation was nowhere near economically viable without taxpayer subsidies.... I never received a response on that one.
 
Wow. [mod edit] Since you missed it, here's the subtitle:

Record clean energy investment outpaces gas and coal 2 to 1

The article isn't about energy output or production or market share. Just investment.

Why am I even wasting pixels here? *headdesk*
 
Last edited by a moderator:
It's funny how attached people are to coal. :LOL: It's like getting emotional about bauxite or something.
 
dixonge said:
Wow. [mod edit] Since you missed it, here's the subtitle:

Record clean energy investment outpaces gas and coal 2 to 1

The article isn't about energy output or production or market share. Just investment.

Why am I even wasting pixels here? *headdesk*
Click to expand...

I can read, and I did read the article (admit, I skimmed a bit).

Yes, investment in wind and solar is growing. Maybe we can get some more focused input if you explain why you posted the link?

Are you interested in investing in solar wind companies or suppliers?

Do you want a discussion on whether this investment is good/bad? For who?

I'll throw out one thought, at the risk of drifting from wherever you wanted this thread to go:

Adding wind/solar is a positive in many ways, but it could be debated as to whether it makes economic sense to push it now, or wait for it to get better or (lots of questions if you think about it). But let's forget that for now, and assume it's almost all good.

Growing now is fine then, but w/o storage, the intermittent nature takes a toll when you start getting to 10, 20, maybe 30% of average production being wind/solar? To have that much average, you end with peaks that probably can't be absorbed, so can't be sold. So the price starts going up again (to recoup the investment with less sales). And storage costs $ and wastes some of the energy.

That doesn't mean wind/solar aren't viable, it's just an issue when you start hitting higher average rates.
​

I saw an article on this just today, pretty good, IMO....hmmmm, not finding the link offhand, will try later.

-ERD50
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Gone4Good said:
It's funny how attached people are to coal. :LOL: It's like getting emotional about bauxite or something.
Click to expand...

The only attachment that should be questioned are those who blindly think the world can run on windmills and solar panels.

Coal is a proven, reliable energy source that has contributed greatly to the benefits of modern life.
 
pb4uski said:
He responded that now was the time to buy as certain federal and state subsidies might not be renewed. I responded asking that if that was the case did it mean that the solar installation was nowhere near economically viable without taxpayer subsidies.... I never received a response on that one.
Click to expand...

Besides subsidies being cut some electric utility companies are now looking to recover their infrastructure cost from home solar users. My local utility is proposing a ~$70/month fee for home solar users to be connected to the grid. If approved it will bring new local home solar installs to a halt.
 
Note that this article is discussing investment in power plants only, not in fuel industries. It's comparing investment in fossil-fueled power plants versus alternative power plants...not comparing investment in the solar/wind industries versus investment in the oil/coal industries.
 
explanade said:
Doesn't oil still get subsidies?

Or very cheap leases on federal lands and territory off the coasts?
Click to expand...
Not aware oil (or coal or NG) is getting paid to produce energy. Correct me. please.
 
Actually if you look at the numbers onshore wind is crushing coal and about equal in cost to combined cycle natural gas. Offshore wind costs twice what onshore wind costs. Some utility scale solar comes in the same price range, and some does not. Interestingly the same thing is happening to rooftop solar in Europe and the US as it gets market penetration in introductory deals vanish, see feedin tariff in Germany for an example.
But for utility scale solar the US has lots of land that could be used good chunks of West Texas and Eastern NM come to mind. Of course to use this we need to build power lines east and the NIMBY crowd will object. (Actually locating the solar so that the sun sets 2 hours later than the consuming location, helps in terms of demand as the peak demand is during the still major output from the solar in the west.
 
dixonge said:
Wow. [mod edit] Since you missed it, here's the subtitle:

Record clean energy investment outpaces gas and coal 2 to 1

The article isn't about energy output or production or market share. Just investment.

Why am I even wasting pixels here? *headdesk*
Click to expand...

Hey, you didn't say we were supposed to read the article before commenting on it. That's not how we do things.
 
dixonge said:
Wow. [mod edit] Since you missed it, here's the subtitle:

Record clean energy investment outpaces gas and coal 2 to 1

The article isn't about energy output or production or market share. Just investment.

Why am I even wasting pixels here? *headdesk*
Click to expand...

Well, since the subsidy market is politically skewed to heavily favour wind and solar investments, what was your point? Anyone who has been on this site long enough should know that people here understand why those investments are up and won't easily fall for misleading headlines.
 
As nash has pointed out, renewables provide 7% of US energy. The big "but" is there is about 300,000 people working in that industry.

The nuclear and fossil fuel industry provide 93% and have at max, 100,000 workers in that industry.

Here in Grapetown, which is in coal country, I pay less than 7 cents/kwh.

Renewables may provide supplemental power, but they will never be able to provide the kva demand that a manufacturing economy requires. Maybe there are those who do not want a manufacturing economy.

As a volunteer local zoning board member, a lot of the "subsidies" provided to industry whether it be petrochemicals, oil, steel are the same as those offered to housing and shopping malls. Tax incremental funding (TIF), is like a depreciation charge, given to investors to build sewage, roads and utilities to a site to enable construction and operation of the facility. A plant or shopping center with 1200 employees or customers will not make sense if the road into the plant can only handle cars and no delivery trucks or only 3 bathrooms. One may not agree that governmental bodies do this kind of thing, but they do it here so the next county,city or state gets the facility. And collects the income taxes.
 
ERD50 said:
Adding wind/solar is a positive in many ways, but it could be debated as to whether it makes economic sense to push it now, or wait for it to get better or (lots of questions if you think about it).
-ERD50
Click to expand...

I'm not sure you arrive at a point where it ever makes economic sense without pushing it first.

To the end-use customer, renewable power is a perfect substitute for power generated by any other source. On purely economic terms, there's no reason to choose it over electricity generated any other way. So nobody will.

And if nobody demands a special brand of power, there's little reason to build a special brand of power unless those technologies are far cheaper right out of the gate, with no benefits from economies of scale. That's a huge, some might argue impossible, lift to get a new infrastructure technology off the ground.

That's also a reason not to do it at all. And ordinarily, that reason would be the final word.

In this case, though, there's good reason to believe that most of our power generation technologies impose what economists call "externalities." Said in plain English, fossil fuel burning generates costs for society that aren't represented in any market prices.

Those costs come in the form of pollution that producers can dump into the air for free. And because they can dump their waste for free, the price they can charge for their product is lower than the true cost of production. In that sense, free dumping permits are a huge subsidy to fossil fuel burning technology.

If fossil fuel companies had to pay to dump their emissions, their prices would be higher and they'd look a lot less competitive versus "clean" alternatives.

So the only reason to push renewable technologies is because you believe the externalities created by fossil fuel burning are real. And the only way you get the investment and scale necessary to compete on economic terms is to "push" clean technology in some way. Without that push, it never gets off the ground.
 
ERD50 said:
...

... w/o storage, the intermittent nature takes a toll when you start getting to 10, 20, maybe 30% of average production being wind/solar? To have that much average, you end with peaks that probably can't be absorbed, so can't be sold. So the price starts going up again (to recoup the investment with less sales). And storage costs $ and wastes some of the energy.

That doesn't mean wind/solar aren't viable, it's just an issue when you start hitting higher average rates.
​

I saw an article on this just today, pretty good, IMO....hmmmm, not finding the link offhand, will try later.

-ERD50
Click to expand...

Here's the link:

How cheap does solar power need to get before it takes over the world? - Vox

and some quotes:

Thanks to a little-discussed phenomenon known as "value deflation," the electricity generated by solar panels gets less and less valuable as more panels come online. ...

The trouble comes when you keep adding more and more solar panels to a given grid. As that happens, the wholesale price of electricity keeps falling during sunny hours. And each additional solar panel becomes that much less economically valuable.
Click to expand...

Their chart seems to indicate that there is a crossover for solar when it produces about 12% of the averages power. If I'm reading it right, solar power is more valuable than average at lower %, I assume because it is generally producing near the peaks of demand, offsetting high cost peaker plants. Then, at ~ 12%, the average price they figure solar can charge starts dropping below the overall average, because at that point, some of that peak power will be wasted, or competes with cheaper base load power. In that case, I think they are projecting that the utility might be ramping down their coal plants a bit, if a sunny day is forecasted?

We are far from 12% in the US (~ 0.4%), so not an issue for a long time here.

-ERD50
 
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