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Re:Wind and solar are cheaper than thought, admits UK govern... by bigphishy on Thursday August 27, 2020 @09:03PM (#24300398)
Renewables accounted for nearly 25% of all energy generated in the US in 2020.

https://www.solarpowerworldonline.com/2020/07/renewables-rea...

and here are the statistics to back that up https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.ph...

Re:Wind and solar are cheaper than thought, admits UK govern... by ThomPete on Thursday August 27, 2020 @09:21PM (#24300484)
You are confusing energy with electricity. It's a common mistake and it's used by the "green" energy companies to paint a rosy but unrealistic picture of renewables. Why do you think california is having their issues.

Electricity is only a subset of our energy usage (around 20%) and out of that wind and solar is only a small part. Hydro is much bigger.

Re:Wind and solar are cheaper than thought, admits UK govern... by imtringued on Friday August 28, 2020 @07:00AM (#24303460)
Primary energy includes waste heat so it's a pretty useless metric. If 50% of the energy in a coal plant turns into heat then a 1GW coal plant will generate 2GW of primary energy. Is that primary energy useful? It can be if you build district heating but even district heating won't need that much excess energy.

How about cars? Most ICE engines are less than 40% efficient. If you charge an EV with renewables it will consume 2.5 times less primary energy. Renewables look small in primary energy comparisons because they are less wasteful.

Re:Wind and solar are cheaper than thought, admits UK govern... by ThomPete on Friday August 28, 2020 @03:53PM (#24309227)
no they look small because they are small.