Solar Has Overtaken Gas and Wind as Biggest Source of New U.S. Power

[DonViejo]

Source: The Daily Beast



Americans installed 2.5 gigawatts of solar panels in the first quarter of the year—a 13 percent increase from a year earlier, according to a report by the Solar Energy Industries Association. That made solar the leading source of new energy generation at 55 percent, dominating over wind and natural gas turbines. This was in spite of the fact that President Donald Trump imposed tariffs earlier this year on imported panels and their parts, reported Bloomberg News. Total installations are on track to reach 10.8 gigawatts at the end of the year, with installations reaching more than 14 gigawatts by 2023.

READ IT AT BLOOMBERG

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Read more: https://www.thedailybeast.com/solar-surpasses-wind-natural-gas-as-leading-source-of-new-energy?ref=home

[George II]

1. No thanks to trump, he's bigly contributing to that "gas and wind"!

[IronLionZion]

3. What is going on with that running sock in your signature?

[saidsimplesimon]

2. The question mark?

Pruitt and those who are on the gravy train of big oil?

[lagomorph777]

6. The Fossilized Fuel industry will be destroyed not by politics but

by simple economics.

[Wounded Bear]

8. Hopefully before they succeed in destroying the planet...

if it's not already too late.

[Uncle Joe]

4. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread DonViejo

[Arkansas Granny]

5. You mean it isn't that beautiful, clean coal that Trump is always talking about?

[sandensea]

7. He must be referring to his beautiful, clean bribes.

The coal barons know Cheeto prefers new, unmarked bills. Fewer germs.

[mpcamb]

9. Ah, some good news! Screw oil,non renewable and nuke, too.

[progree]

10. U.S. solar + wind electric generation -- 11% of all U.S. electric generation in March

U.S. Net generation for all sectors (thousand megawatthours) https://www.eia.gov/electricity/data/browser

3/2010 ` ` `3/2014 ` ` `3/2018
===== ` ` `===== ` `======
` `` 76 ` ` ` 2,224 `` ` `7,513 ` ` Solar
` 8,589 ` ` `17,736 ` ` `27,275 ` ` Wind
` 8,665 ` ` ` 19,960 ` ` `34,788 ` `Solar + Wind
312,168 ` ` 331,823 ` ` `319,916 ` All Fuels
` 2.78% ` ` ` 6.01% ` ` `10.87% `Solar + Wind as percent of all fuels

` marks are for spacing

Note the rapid increase: from 2.78% of all generation in 3/2010 to 10.87% just 8 years later.

[hunter]

11. Great news for the gas industry.

A solar assisted fracked gas power system isn't desirable, and it isn't even a step in the right direction.

An economy without fossil fuels would look nothing like the high energy industrial consumer economy many affluent people now enjoy.

The only way to quit fossil fuels is to quit fossil fuels. It's like smoking. Somebody who switches to e-cigs at work but still has a pack a day habit outside of work hasn't quit smoking. Somebody who switches to "light" cigarettes hasn't quit smoking.

Fossil fuels are as deadly to the earth's natural environment as smoking is to human health and the use of fossil fuels worldwide is expanding, especially gas.

The largest industrial projects on earth today are the extraction and distribution of natural gas.

Current wind and solar projects "lock in" natural gas fueled power systems to an unacceptable extent. There are enough natural gas "reserves" to destroy earth's natural environment as we know it.

Solar and wind enthusiasts typically celebrate systems where two-thirds or more of "back-up" power is fossil fueled. This is true at every scale, from individual "off grid" homesteads to large regional electric grids.

That's not going to save the world.

The core problem is how we measure economic "productivity." This number we call productivity isn't productivity at all, it is in fact a direct measure of the damage we are doing to what's left of the earth's natural environment and our own human spirit.

If we were smart we'd be paying people to experiment with lifestyles having a very small environmental footprint. It's possible people living in an urban environment could be very happy without cars, without factory farm meat and dairy products, and very minimal electric service.

I'm not so impressed by someone who has enough solar panels to cool their 3,000 square foot house one hour out of three.

[lagomorph777]

12. Don't ignore key technologies and build in narrow assumptions.

It's a fallacy (a la Koch Bros) to imply that "energy = fossil fuels."

It's every bit as fallacious to imply that "backup power = fossil fuels."

A few alternatives, all based on storing renewably-generated energy:

Hydro storage (e.g. the reservoirs at the Niagara Falls power plants (on both sides of the border) which drive/are driven by generator/motors).

High pressure underwater pneumatic bladders

Flywheels

Liquid-electrode batteries

Hydrogen cycle (fuel cells / electrolysis)

Molten salts (applicable at solar thermal plants)

[hunter]

13. if you wish to loathe a technology such as batteries, try living with them.

The same is true of the other technologies you mention.

The problems are the same at all scales.

[lagomorph777]

14. Are you any relation to Vaclav Smil? Same style

I'm guessing you are unfamiliar with liquid-electrode batteries. They have an entirely different life cycle and scalability compared to conventional batteries. You can build them with gigantic capacity because the electrodes are just huge tanks of liquid; there are no surface-wearout mechanisms.

Nice generalization regarding the other widely varying technologies; great way to dismiss facts.