For example, in Ohio several state legislators were purchased, and passed regulation claiming to "save" nuclear but what it really did was bail out coal and prevent the cheapest source of energy from competing in the market. The most surprising is that this corruption is actually resulting in prosecutions, and the top regulator has now resigned too:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-11-20/firstener...
Funny you should bring up Texas, it actually is installing massive batteries, with 17GW in the pipeline last time I heard. And natural gas is dwindling to nothing, getting replaced with solar. ERCOT is one of the very very very few places where cheapest cost can actually win, and it's where we are going to see natural gas die first because of that.
Gas plants are still being constructed, and there are more in planning. There is 0 indication its going anywhere anytime soon.
They're generally cheaper to run and better at load-following.
Coal has been on the way out for a decade or so, long before renewable energy started to be a big player in the US.
But, that isn't the point. The point is that even if we go to a ~70% wind model, we will _STILL_BE_WORSE_OFF_THAN_FRANCE_WAS_40_YEARS_AGO_.
The "Green energy" movement there is _INCREASING_ their CO2 production.
https://www.worldometers.info/co2-emissions/france-co2-emiss...
I don't get why this is so hard to understand for all those down voters. Worse, at the current rates, we won't get there for decades.
No.[1]
Denmark has about 48% of their energy from wind, and their per capita carbon emissions are at the same level as in 1960.[2] Ireland with 33% is at the same level as in 1980.[3] Portugal with 27% now has the same emissions as 1990.[4]
There is a trend here.
> I don't get why this is so hard to understand for all those down voters.
You are ignoring data that doesn't agree with your hypothesis.
[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/217804/wind-energy-penet...
[2] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.PC?location...
[3] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.PC?location...
[4] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.PC?location...
It sure sounds like you were arguing that renewable energy had a time-travel effect causing the construction of gas before the renewables were added?
People are downvoting because what you're saying makes no sense.
You realize that the natural gas plants sit mostly idle when renewables are producing enough power, right? And the more renewable capacity we build, the more often that happens?
> Worse, at the current rates, we won't get there for decades.
So, about the same timespan it took to execute the Messmer plan in France, and at a fraction of the cost? (The Messmer plan was France's big nuclear buildout from the 70s through the 90s.)
On a side note, even if we started building reactors today they probably wouldn't be operational for a decade or more (including planning time).
https://rmi.org/clean-energy-is-canceling-gas-plants/
The market is responding to the inflection point, where renewables are clearly the lowest cost energy.
The switch is happening right now!
I mean, the International Panel on Climate Change certainly thinks renewable energy is a core part of solving carbon emissions. Their special Report on 1.5C AKA SR15 (https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/chapter/spm/) says:
> In 1.5°C pathways with no or limited overshoot, renewables are projected to supply 70–85% (interquartile range) of electricity in 2050 (high confidence).
For the 3 scenarios where we achieve needed emissions reductions, renewables are 48-60% of electricity generation in 2030, and 63-77% in 2050.
> Energy is sufficiently deregulated in enough of the US that they will sell to the areas that aren't
In the US in 2020 the majority of new generating capacity being added is from solar or wind: https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=42495# -- and if you do the math for capacity factors (around 40% for wind, 25%ish for solar, 60% is for natural gas) then you'll find that solar and wind capacity generates more electricity than the gas.
If the US grid operators and utilities are building all this renewable energy capacity, perhaps they know something...??
> in places like TX the power costs frequently go to zero when the wind is blowing and spike at other times.
Isn't that what a free market is supposed to do -- respond to supply and demand? Last I checked, we don't say that the stock market is broken because it goes up and down.
> that does little but create an oversupply problem
Are you saying free excess power is a BAD thing? I can think of a TON of ways to take advantage of a temporary oversupply; capturing it in storage is only one of them.
> If big battery plants are economically workable then we would also see a lot of companies arbitraging the free wind energy into $ when the price spikes but we don't see that either
Hold your horses -- they're literally starting to do this in Australia. Batteries were pretty expensive up until a couple years ago: https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/10/us-grid-battery-cost...
Now we're seeing a race to install batteries. Energy arbitrage is only one of the possible income streams -- grid services such as frequency regulation are an even bigger source of funds. The "Big Battery" in Australia has already paid for itself after just a couple year and they've already increased capacity by 50% and are installing a second one in Victoria.
> balancing with gas
In the US, gas capacity is mostly replacing dirtier, more expensive coal powerplants. I don't see a problem with using spare gas capacity to help balance the grid while storage gets ramped up -- the renewable generation is directly replacing fossil fuels except when they need an extra boost.
Energy is sufficiently deregulated in enough of the US that they will sell to the areas that aren't, just like France was doing with all its "old dirty" nukes, to the countries around it building "green".
I can't tell from your graph, but I saw an actual cost estimate a couple months ago that points out what has been true for the past 10 years of "wind is cheaper" metrics.
Which is that its not, because its not continuous (or controllable) power delivery. Nor does it account for the fact that it also needs to be overbuilt if its going to supply an energy storage system either. Nor does it account for the energy storage costs.
So, yes in absolute KW produced its cheaper, but that does little but create an oversupply problem. Which is why in places like TX the power costs frequently go to zero when the wind is blowing and spike at other times. Making cheap power when you don't need it doesn't help. What TX needs is lots of power at 3PM (when in theory solar would be useful, but the existing smaller plants aren't making money either).
The net result in TX has been lots of wind install, but even more gas install. Because the gas plants are actually making money. If big battery plants are economically workable then we would also see a lot of companies arbitraging the free wind energy into $ when the price spikes but we don't see that either.
So its not a simple/sure bet like is being claimed.
(for those that don't know, TX is one of the largest green energy systems in the world https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_Texas)