Democrats are evil.
https://amp.ft.com/content/8b738eac-c024-11e9-89e2-41e555e96722?__twitter_impression=true
National Grid’s preliminary investigation into the blackout that caused widespread disruption in England and Wales last week has raised the possibility that it was caused by the world’s largest offshore wind farm accidentally going offline.
The provisional report, which was submitted to regulators on Friday, suggests for the first time that the Hornsea offshore wind farm, which is owned and run by Denmark’s Orsted, may have tripped offline seconds before an outage at a smaller, gas-fired station.
Nuclear is renewable. Just supernova a star every few billion years or so. :)
That being said, with safety accountability firmly ensconced, nuclear is an excellent option.
As an non tech guy who reads a lot, the energy problem with renewables won’t be solved until the energy is safely, economically and efficiently stored.
We are not there yet.
I was involved in nuclear construction back in the day. It was killed by a thousand cuts made by whining antinuc cutters. They must not live through the next round.
I have come to believe that the future in America is the develpoment of small and relative simple power genetating units rather than a few humongous widely spaced units.
Clearly, wind and solar will be a viable replacement for fossil fueled generation after energy storage gets less expensive and the total cost per Mwh comes down.
That time is not quite here yet but advances are being made rapidly each year.
Once that happens the changeover to safe, non CO2 emitting generation is just a matter of time.
All sources of energy are renewable, it just takes a hell of a long time to renew oil and gas.
$2 per MCF of natural gas is what is killing all of these. Adjusted for inflation, this is about the lowest price ever recorded. Natural gas is quite abundant and will continue to be.
The upcoming California Solar crash will be similar to the stupid program they did for solar water and Water Heating Heat Pumps in the 80’s.
I would be surprised if 1% remain in use.
I made lotsa money for years as customers had to pay to decommission those useless systems.
The current solar panel crazzzz.... only exists because of wanna be greenies, tax deductions and predatory marketing by companies who are mostly inept mechanics and of course by legislators who are ignorant, Green brainwashed or filling their pockets from lobbyists.
These systems WILL ALL WEAR OUT over time.
Most parts are not interchangeable so repairs will be costly.
Few techs truly understand these systems as they are made to just drop in place by low skilled installers (different when needing to trouble shoot and repair)
There are so many brands, types etc that have already gone out of business .... good luck getting parts especially in California where warehouses have to pay inventory tax ! Why keep anything in stock?
The electric companies and greenies have been lulled into believing these systems are back filling power needs when if fact, when these systems begin to crash there will have been no pre planning to face the darkness.
Instead of building other traditional generation right now we will be years behind when this crashes. Yeah I understand power companies don’t wanna own transmission lines anymore. They just want to send out bills and have us subsidize their public relations messages and junk mail.
There are already safety issues with these systems and how they are tied to the grid. Just wait. High voltage electricity is Not Safe especially on the roofs of the typical California voter.
The Stupidity in thinking these 10’s of 1000’s of systems installed have reduced carbon footprint or other buzz-wordy nonsense will be fulfilled when they are eventually dismantled at great cost.
Land fill trash for these panels and components ? No this will be some expensive garbage even after dismantling expenses.
Silliest of all is these systems are owned by people who know Nothing about them high voltage systems that are atrophying on their roofs.
Few even know how to get on their roof. Good thing.
This coming problem is not on anyone’s radar except a few mechanical people who know better..... after all ... right now there’s money to be made continuing these stupid policies and plenty of roofs still waiting to have holes poked in them.
Go Green California ? Nope, going down Brown.
Wholesale gas power costs about $30 per MWh depending on demand: https://www.eia.gov/electricity/wholesale/xls/ice_electric-2019.xlsx It varies from worthless $3 to very expensive > $100 depending on demand.
Unsubsidized, wind or solar electricity, either one, costs about $80 a megawatt-hour to generate.
That's wrong. Texas wind without subsidies is as low as $30. However because wind is inflexible the spot price for an incremental MWh of energy can be as high as $1000. That price doesn't last long since gas can be spun up pretty quickly. The latest offshore wind price was $50 in England although that has hidden subsidies built into the contract (assumptions of future price increases).
As for solar it costs at most $1/Watt fully installed and panels will last 30 years. Here in Virginia we get about 1.6 kWh per Watt of solar panel per year (that takes into account sun angle, clouds, etc). With zero percent financing (possible with net metering subsidies) that's 625 Watts of panel needed or $625 or $21 if the panels last 30 years with zero percent financing.
GW happens naturally, and there is nothing we can do to either cause nor prevent it. AGW is a big lie.
The CO2 emitted helps plants to grow better with less water, a great help to agriculture.
There is virtually no CO2 in the atmosphere.
78% = Nitrogen
21% = Oxygen
.04% = CO2
.96% = All other trace gases
100%
Sorry, but unless it's plutonium....4/100ths of a percent is essentially nothing.
In low concentrations, CO2 is neither a toxin nor a pollutant.
New Mexico is the nation’s #3 producer of oil and natural gas and contributes well over one billion dollars to the state treasury each year which provides 33+ percent of all state income. The newly elected radical enviro Dem governor elected last fall together with an all Dem legislature passed bills that outlaw fossil fuel use to generate electricity by 2045.
As a poverty-ridden state where families regularly have to decide whether to buy food or pay the electric bill, that cost will increase yearly as the grid moves to all renewables in coming years. And that cost doesn’t include the damage to the environment with windmills slicing and dicing protected predator birds like hawks and eagles. Already the eastern New Mexico landscape is littered with windmills everywhere and more being built.
While the rest of the state stagnates and bureaucrats in Santa Fe try to encourage high tech companies to locate here but can’t find any educated and skilled workers, in southeast New Mexico the oil and gas communities are overflowing with workers and have crowded roads, insufficient housing, new businesses, etc. associated with good paying diversified jobs. And the idiots in Santa Fe want to eliminate these and raise taxes (as they just did) on the poor in the rest of the state.
Education is lacking and the governor just fired a well-regarded and newly appointed head of the education department in favor of a man who was in charge of the Philadelphia schools. We all know how that is going to work out. Unfortunately we are stuck with her for the next four years and unless the legislature can elect members to stand up to her, we will lose additional freedom, including gun rights.
Here's an even cheaper solution; use nuclear and eliminate the nonsense of CO2 hysteria and carbon offsets.
The Entropy is strong with this one.
So why are we arguing about the details? It doesn't matter. The Left won't accept arguments against it and since saving the planet is not really their goal, it is a waste of everybody's time.
This whole democRATic Socialist Green New Deal, is nothing more than a road map for a socialist revolution. Designed to convert our economy from capitalism, which relies heavily on fossil fuels into socialism/communism, which relies on big government, pixie dust and unicorn farts.
Time to stop arguing the finer details of the climate change claims with the Leftists and start ignoring their demands that we do "something" right now or the earth will end and we will all die in 11.5 years.
Just for reference to put this in perspective:
A megawatt is 1,000 kilowatts, the standard unit of measure for your home bill.
1. $20 a MW is about $0.02/kW to produce coal fired electricity
2. In my coop this is delivered to our meter for about $0.12/kW, a pretty high rate and I burn about 1,700 kW/mo in hot weather or very cold for a bill of about $200.00
3. With unsubsidized wind or solar this bill would be $306.00.
4. With batteries supplying poweer from wind or solar it would be $629.00 and of questionable reliability.
No thank you to this codswallop of renewable energy mandated on the basis of very questionable needs grounds.
Quick, while ‘Renewable Energy’ has its back against the wall: A new E.O. - Coal For Industry removing all carbon and emission restrictions on coal and banning the leasing of US territorial coal mines to foreign nations.
Only the West is drinking the AGW coolaide.
Developing countries are snatching up as much fossil fuel as they can get their hands on -namely China.
Cheap energy is the lifeblood of all economies.
We’re being RIPPED OFF!
The article starts off some outlandish premises:
Run out soon? Which energy-source? Define soon? We’ve been hearing ‘peak oil’ for 40yrs+ already.
And CO2? When’s THAT been a ‘bad’ thing? Maybe ozone, CO, any free radicals...but not CO2. S*, WATER vapor is a worse green-house enabler.
I’m gonna just chalk it up to bad writing a/o govt indoctrination.