Wave heights have tamped down to 3-6 feet in the wake of a hurricane force low that formed on Monday and Tuesday offshore. Surf conditions are likely to remain favorable in the mid-range of 2-6 feet over the next day. Then, a nor’easter is expected to form late Friday into Saturday near Georgia and track northward bringing gale force conditions and high surf.
All posts tagged wind
The OBX Wave Report February 9 — A Gnarly Nor’Easter For the Weekend
Posted by robertscribbler on February 9, 2023
https://robertscribbler.wordpress.com/2023/02/09/the-obx-wave-report-february-9-a-gnarly-noreaster-for-the-weekend/
Climate Scientist Chat — Fusion vs Clean Energy and Record Low Global Sea Ice
Today’s climate scientist chatter on social media is dominated by the need to mass deploy wind and solar now and the likelihood that fusion won’t be ready for at least another decade even as it poses serious health risks. Meanwhile, one of the world’s top sea ice experts reports that global sea ice is hitting new lows.
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Posted by robertscribbler on February 1, 2023
https://robertscribbler.wordpress.com/2023/02/01/climate-scientist-chat-fusion-vs-clean-energy-and-record-low-global-sea-ice/
Sound of Wave and Wind, Sight of Surf and Spray
Ten minutes of the relaxing sounds and sights of the Outer Banks filmed from Nag’s Head.
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Posted by robertscribbler on January 20, 2023
https://robertscribbler.wordpress.com/2023/01/20/sound-of-wave-and-wind-sight-of-surf-and-spray/
The Clean Energy Revolution is Here, But There Are No Silver Bullets
Breakthroughs in fusion, falling prices for clean energy, mass deployment of wind, solar, water, EVs, and a dire need for rapid climate action are all spurring a transition away from dirty fuels. But it needs to happen fast to save our coastlines and so many of the natural systems we all rely on.
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Posted by robertscribbler on December 25, 2022
https://robertscribbler.wordpress.com/2022/12/25/the-clean-energy-revolution-is-here-but-there-are-no-silver-bullets/
Wind, Rain, Waves With Tops Blown Off at Avalon Pier OBX
Heavy rain and near gale force conditions at Avalon Pier, OBX.
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Posted by robertscribbler on December 22, 2022
https://robertscribbler.wordpress.com/2022/12/22/wind-rain-waves-with-tops-blown-off-at-avalon-pier-obx/
Record Year For Renewables Brings 185 GW of Clean Power Generation and 1.1 Million Electrical Vehicles
Despite policy opposition from fossil fuel backers across the world, renewable energy adoption rates rapidly accelerated during 2017 as both renewable electricity generation and clean energy vehicles saw considerable growth. This rapid growth is providing an opportunity for an early peak in global carbon emissions so long as investment in and broader policy support for clean energy continues to advance.
Solar Leads Record Year for New Renewable Power Generation
At the grid level, the biggest gains came from solar which saw an estimated 98 GW added globally. This is a 31 percent jump YOY from 2016 when 76.2 GW of solar energy was installed. More than half of this new solar generating capacity (52.83 GW) was added by China — now the undisputed solar leader both in terms of manufacturing and installations. That said, large gains were also made by India, Europe and the U.S. even as the rest of the world saw broader adoption as panel prices continued to fall. Uncertainty in the U.S. over the 201c trade case brought by Sunivia and enabled by the Trump Administration hampered solar adoption there. However, it is estimated that about 12 GW were still installed. Australia also saw a solar renaissance with more than 1 GW installed during 2017 as fossil-fuel based power generation prices soared and panel prices continued to plummet.
(Solar energy’s versatility combined with falling prices generates major advantages. In the coming years, solar glass will make this clean power source even more accessible.)
Wind energy also saw major additions in the range of 56 GW during 2017. Though less than banner year 2015 at 60 GW, wind grew from an approximate 50 GW annual add in 2016. This clean power source is therefore still showing a healthy adoption rate despite competition from dirty sources like natural gas and cheap coal due to overcapacity. Other renewable energy additions such as large hydro power, small hydro, biofuels, and geothermal likely resulted in another 30 GW or more– with China alone adding 12.8 GW of new large hydro power capacity.
Overall, about 185 GW of new clean electricity appears to have been added to global generation during 2017 — outpacing both new nuclear and new fossil fuels. This compares to approximately 150 GW from similar sources added during 2016. The primary drivers of this very rapid addition were swiftly falling solar costs, continued drops in wind prices, a number of policy incentives for clean energy adoption, rising access to energy storage systems and increasing concerns over human-caused climate change.
(More bang for your buck. Despite a plateau in clean energy investment over recent years, annual capacity additions keep rising — primarily due to continuously falling wind and solar prices. Image source: Bloomberg New Energy Finance.)
Electrical Vehicles Boom
Even as clean power generation was making strides, clean transport was racing ahead. With new offerings like the Chevy Bolt, the Tesla Model 3, and the upgraded Nissan Leaf, the electrical vehicle appears to have come of age. Luxury EVs are now more and more common in places like Europe and the United States even as mid-priced EVs are becoming widely available. Concern over both clean air and climate change is driving large cities and even major countries like India and China to pursue fossil fuel vehicle bans. A growing number of EVs with range capabilities in excess of 200 miles are hitting markets. And charging infrastructure is both growing and improving. As a result of these multiple dynamics, EV sales grew by nearly 50 percent from about 740,000 sold in 2016 to 1.1 million sold in 2017.
Renewables + EVs Bring Potential For Early Peak in Carbon Emissions
Such rapid rates of renewable energy adoption are starting to have an impact on human carbon emissions. Annual rates of renewable power addition in the range of 150 to 250 GW are enough to begin to plateau and/or reduce global carbon emission so long as reasonable efficiencies are added to the energy system. Meanwhile, annual EV sales in the range of 3 to 5 million per year and growing around 20 percent annually is enough to start to tamp down global oil demand and related externalities.
(Very rapid EV sales growth during 2017 is likely to be repeated in 2018 as more capable and less expensive electrical vehicles like Tesla’s Model 3 hit markets in larger numbers. Image source: Macquarie Bank and Business Insider.)
We are beginning to enter the range of visible fossil fuel replacement by renewable power generation now and it appears that EVs will start to measurably impact oil demand by the early 2020s. To this point, direct replacement of coal with renewable and natural gas based energy sources during recent years has resulted in a considerable slowing in the rate of carbon emissions growth. If renewables continue to make substantial gains during 2018 and onward, this trend of replacement of fossil fuels and reduction of harmful greenhouse gasses hitting the atmosphere will become more and more apparent.
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Posted by robertscribbler on January 23, 2018
https://robertscribbler.wordpress.com/2018/01/23/record-year-for-renewables-brings-185-gw-of-clean-power-generation-and-1-1-million-electrical-vehicles/
Record Renewables Growth in 2017 as New Global Solar + Wind Installations are Projected to Hit Near 175 GW
Last year, global growth in new solar energy installations hit a new record of 56 gigawatts (GW) in a single year. This year, growth could nearly double to 108 GW installed according to recent reports from IHS. Meanwhile wind appears on track to add another 68 GW of clean power generation. In other words, the age of the renewable energy revolution is in the process of overtaking us. None too soon considering the fact that we are now facing serious ramping harms due to fossil fuel burning and related human-forced climate change.
Rocketing Global Growth For Solar Despite Trump/Republican Efforts to Throw a Wet Blanket on a Key Industry
Such amazing growth comes on the back of rapidly ramping solar markets in China, India and around the world. A ramp that’s happening despite anti-solar policy by the Trump Administration feeding a trade case that has injected uncertainty and distortion into the U.S. market. And even as the same Administration is waging an Orwellian-styled war on the employees of the Environmental Protection Agency who are still doing their best, despite rising odds, to protect the health of U.S. citizens from polluting industries.
The upshot is that the U.S. will lag behind these two emerging solar energy leaders as republicans in power put energy policy in retrograde following years of rapid advancement and clean energy leadership under Obama and the democrats.
(U.S. sees shrinking pie of new solar additions under Trump. Image source: PV Magazine/IHS.)
But despite harmful policy stances by republicans and related nonsensical litigation, the U.S. market is still expected to see 10-12 GW of new solar added in 2017 — or the second highest levels of solar installation on record.
Solar’s resilience in both the U.S. and around the world is primarily due to low photovoltaic panel prices combined with broad popular support by states, cities, businesses, and individuals. These low prices are evidenced by numerous solar tenders and purchase agreements that now range below the 5.5 cent per kilowatt hour level, that can often hit below the 4 cent threshold and sometimes dip as low as 3 cents or less. A recent solar purchase agreement in Arizona, for example, sold for less than 3 cents per kilowatt hour or lower than half the price of nuclear for that region. As mentioned above, trade case uncertainty has since driven solar prices in the U.S. marginally higher. Despite this counter to the global trend, U.S. solar sales are still beating out every prior year except 2016.
(Policies like the Sun Shot Initiative under President Obama and major investments by countries like China helped to rapidly reduce the cost of photovoltaic solar panels globally. Recently, major cost reductions have also been realized in concentrated solar power (CSP). Image source: PlanetSave.)
Concentrated solar power (CSP), which has the inherent advantage of offering both clean, renewable energy and storage in a single application, is also seeing falling prices. For ACWA Power is building a 700 MW CSP facility in Dubai that will provide clean solar energy for just 7.3 cents per kwh. This compares to natural gas prices which range as high as 24 cents per kwh for the Gulf region. If such low prices can be widely duplicated globally, CSP, which employs reflectors to gather solar heat into an oil based medium that is used to boil water to spin a turbine, then this additional form of solar is also likely to see broader use.
Wind Continues Steady Gains
Even as solar energy rockets to record gains, wind energy is also expected to see considerable increases. Forecast International now predicts that 68 GW of new wind capacity will be added globally in 2017. Wind installations at this point are quite widely distributed around the world. However, increased growth in Asia is a major factor in the continued steadily rising rate of adoption.
(Globally, wind energy is projected to continue its steady growth trend of recent years. Image source: Forecast International.)
Prices for wind energy range from 3.1 to around 5.5 cents per kwh, according to Lazard. Unlike solar, the price for wind has been on a slower decline curve during recent years. This means that at this time prices for both wind and solar are presently comparable for most regions. It also means that in places like Alberta, where a recent 600 MW wind project is expected to cost an average of 3.7 cents per kwh, prices for wind are less than half that of nuclear and less than most existing coal or even many new gas projects.
Major Growth in Renewable Energy as Coal Stagnates
If IHS and Forecast International projections for new solar and wind growth bear out, then we’ll see about 176 GW of these forms of renewable energy installed in 2017. That’s a tremendous rate of add that will considerably outpace new coal and gas installations even as it helps to reduce overall demand for power from these polluting sources and major contributors to climate change, related sea level rise, and similarly related worsening extreme weather. We are already seeing these effects as the world’s largest coal terminal is seeking to diversify on lowering demand forecast and as GE — a major provider of turbines for the gas industry — is cutting its fossil fuel based equipment sector.
One major aspect of the larger global shift can be seen in China. During past years, China rapidly added new coal and gas capacity. But non fossil fuel power generation additions were the major story for China in the first half of 2017. For by July China had added 24.4 GW of new solar capacity, 7.3 GW of new wind capacity, 6.69 GW of new hydro capacity, and 1.09 GW of new nuclear capacity. The total new add was 39.48 GW of non fossil fuel based electrical power generation vs 18.84 GW of new thermal capacity primarily coming from coal and gas. In other words, renewables outpaced fossil fuel generation in China by more than 2 to 1.
This comes as China is seeking to reduce coal use in an effort to clean up its air quality and fight climate change, as the price of coal burning rises to the point of producing losses in regions like Europe, and as predictions abound that the near term coal market is stagnating and long term future coal prospects, without the addition of costly carbon capture and storage, look bleak.
CREDITS:
Hat tip to Greg
Hat tip to Vic
Hat tip to Suzanne
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Posted by robertscribbler on December 18, 2017
https://robertscribbler.wordpress.com/2017/12/18/record-renewables-growth-in-2017-as-new-global-solar-wind-installations-are-projected-to-hit-near-175-gw/
Just One More Reason Why Fossil Fuels Suck Tailpipe — The Cost of Wind and Solar is Now Lower Than Pretty Much Everything Else
During October, in Australia, something rather strange and hopeful happened. Grid prices for electricity rose. Power customers, fed up with this, en masse decided to purchase 100 megawatts of rooftop solar in a single month.
How and why did this come to pass?
Conservative allies of fossil fuel based utilities are currently in control of the Australian federal government. And they have been working to provide captive grid-tied energy consumers for their political backers — polluting power system owners. Because these systems are more expensive than their renewable energy counterparts, the price of electricity went up.
The Australian public, who generally supports renewables and who likes to pay less for electricity, wouldn’t have any of it. They didn’t like being forced to purchase more expensive, polluting energy. So more than 15,000 of them decided to tell fossil fuel backers to go suck tailpipe and went on ahead and bought solar energy directly.
(Guess what? That green glass you see on the school in this image comes from hundreds of solar panels. Solar is versatile and increasingly inexpensive. You can put it on rooftops, building sides, car roofs, fuel station overheads, build it in traditional utility arrays, construct it on co-generating farms, or float it on reservoir surfaces. Image source: Inhabitat and EPFL.)
This choice, enabled by falling renewable energy prices, is one that people around the world will be more and more able to make as time moves forward. And it’s the case even in instances where national governments of western democracies are heavily influenced by fossil fuel special interests — as is presently the case in Australia. The primary reason is that when conservative governments support fossil fuels and nuclear over renewables, power prices to society rise.
The cost of both wind and solar energy are now less than every traditional power source even in more mature markets like the United States. In this major market, according to Lazard, the levelized price of nuclear is 14.8 cents per kWh, coal is 10.2 cents per kWh, gas is 6 cents per kWh, solar is 5 cents per kWh, and wind is 4.5 cents per kWh. That’s right. Renewables are about 1/3 the price of nuclear, half that of coal, and 10-20 percent less than gas in the U.S.
(The levelized cost of wind and solar energy keeps falling. This is making continued fossil fuel development an expensive and untenable prospect. Image source: Lazard.)
But in places like Australia and in the developing world, this price difference is even greater. In the developing world, there are less legacy fossil fuel power systems — which makes it a no-brainer just to go ahead and build less expensive renewables. And islands like Australia traditionally suffer from higher import costs for fossil fuels and clunky or inefficient fossil fuel energy system components.
Levelized cost is a way of measuring total life-cycle costs. It includes such costs as fuel, transmission and construction. Because renewables do not require fuel and because they are based on technologies that benefit from both advancement and economies of scale, they are able to continuously increase efficiency and reduce cost over time. Fossil fuel based power systems are mated to very inefficient combustion and to mining and extraction of fuels that grow more scarce over time. As such, the power systems they are based on tend to have difficulty reducing costs and are subject to market shocks and scarcity of feedstocks.
These simple economic facts put the political backers of fossil fuels at a disadvantage on the issue of base economics. But these direct cost related factors don’t even begin to count in the terrible external costs of fossil fuels ranging from ramping damages due to climate change and direct health impacts by adding toxic particles to the air and water. As such, fossil fuels are both economically and morally untenable. But such simple and easy to understand facts haven’t stopped republicans like Trump in the U.S. and LNP members like Turnbull in Australia from trying to ram these harmful and expensive energy sources down the throat of an increasingly outraged public.
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Posted by robertscribbler on November 27, 2017
https://robertscribbler.wordpress.com/2017/11/27/just-one-more-reason-why-fossil-fuels-suck-tailpipe-the-cost-of-wind-and-solar-is-now-lower-than-pretty-much-everything-else/
Watts Up With Renewables? According to IEA, About a Thousand Billion More in Capacity by 2022
The big word around the block is that solar is presently changing the global energy game — and rapidly.
The major driver of this global sea change is presently China. But it appears that India is also about to play a substantial role. The U.S., depending on the policy choices of the Trump Administration, can remain a renewable energy leader or turn into a laggard. It all just depends on the whims of a man who has shown a quixotic propensity for pushing terrible policies and then, somehow, self-sabotaging at least half of them.
(Many locations around the world are rapidly transitioning to renewable energy. The destructive impacts of human caused climate change may well serve to speed that process as we see here with Tesla providing solar power generation to Puerto Rico hospitals following the terrible impacts of Hurricane Maria.)
Back to China, the country now holds about 110 billion watts (gigawatts) of annual practical solar panel manufacturing capacity. This is about 66 percent of the world total. From this capacity, it appears that China will itself add around 50 gigawatts of installed solar this year alone — pushing the cumulative to around 125 to 130 gigawatts by year end. China had already, as of September, added 34 gigawatts during 2017 with an overall installed generation capacity at 111 Gigawatts as of about a month ago.
Such a massive add by China will likely drive global new solar capacity in 2017 to around 80 to 100 gigawatts. Add in wind and hydro and that high number probably hits close to 150 billion watts in just one year.
The massive new solar additions are now helping renewables to swamp dirty energy sources like coal and somewhat less dirty though still very carbon intensive sources like gas. This remarkable achievement is primarily due to the fact that solar is now presently cost competitive with these older, more traditional energy sources. And the price of solar energy worldwide is expected to continue to fall over the coming years. According to a recent report — by a further 60 percent within the next decade.
Major energy think tanks are starting to take notice. And it is on the basis of solar, wind, and hydro’s relative economic strengths due to growing price advantages (particularly for solar), that the International Energy Agency (IEA) has predicted a 1,000 gigawatt addition of new renewable energy sources through 2022. Such an addition, in just five years, according to IEA’s Dr Fatih Birol, would amount to “half of the current global capacity in coal power, which took 80 years to build.” The agency also notes that renewable capacity additions will effectively double additions from sources like gas and coal.
(New study shows the cost of solar will fall by another 60 percent over the next ten years.)
IEA recognizes that China, the U.S. and India will be primary drivers of this large renewable energy gain. Though the agency points out that detrimental U.S. policy choices could put a damper on renewable energy additions in that key market. However, IEA also notes that more positive policy choices by China, India, the U.S. and others could result in a more than doubling of the new capacity add for renewables to 2,155 GW. Such policies not only result in major renewable energy growth. They would also produce wholesale replacement of fossil fuel and carbon emissions based power sources. A considerable boon to the global climate.
Even IEA’s base five year scenario shows renewable electrical power generation growing to compose 30 percent of the global market. This up from 26 percent during 2016. Though still not as high a percentage as coal, IEA predicts that renewables will make up half the difference with that dirtiest of power sources by 2022.
(With atmospheric CO2 levels likely to hit between 411 and 412 parts per million by May of 2018, global carbon emissions cuts due to fossil fuel energy replacement by renewables couldn’t come sooner. Image source: The Keeling Curve.)
IEA also predicts that power consumption from electrical vehicles will double from now to 2022. A somewhat conservative estimate considering the fact that the number of EVs on the road will likely double by 2019 to 2020 and that battery sizes for EVs are rapidly growing. IEA’s more conservative base scenario projection continues in that it sees renewables’ contribution to transportation energy sources only growing from 4 to 5 percent by 2022.
Taking this analysis a step further and applying it to the potential for global carbon emissions reductions we should point out that renewables taking up a larger portion of both power generation and transportation through 2022 will present an opportunity to start bending the carbon curve downward. The adoption range in which renewables begin to replace fossil fuels at a rapid enough pace to strongly impact global carbon emissions is 150 to 250 GW added per year + a net replacement of the fossil fuel based transportation fleets with EVs and other alternative fuel vehicles. Given IEA’s forecast, it appears that there’s a decent likelihood that this will happen over then next five years — barring any major numb-skullery by the present U.S. President and his sometimes-enabling fellow republicans in the U.S. Congress.
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Posted by robertscribbler on October 24, 2017
https://robertscribbler.wordpress.com/2017/10/24/watts-up-with-renewables-according-to-iea-about-a-thousand-billion-more-in-capacity-by-2022/
Nearing a Trillion Watts: By End 2017, Global Wind + Solar Capacity Will be 2.4 Times That of Nuclear
In 2017, the world will add about 80 gigawatts of new solar capacity. It will also add another 60 gigawatts of new wind capacity. This combined 140 gigawatts will push wind and solar to 940 gigawatts of global capacity — or nearly one trillion watts. A pace that’s ahead of even recent optimistic projections by about 25 gigawatts:
(Historic and projected global wind and solar capacity. Image source: Forecast International.)
Such a total renewable energy generation capability compares to a global 391.5 gigawatts of nuclear energy now in use around the world. In other words, solar energy by end 2017 will come close to surpassing total global nuclear energy capacity. And wind and solar combined will account for 2.4 times the amount of installed nuclear around the world.
The reason wind and solar are now rapidly eclipsing global nuclear capacity is due to simple economic competitiveness alone. By 2022, wind + solar is now expected to exceed 1,600 gigawatts. Or more than 4 times present nuclear capacity. Such a strong build rate comes on the back of rapidly falling costs for renewable energy systems. With wind and solar’s levelized costs of production now below that of all other new power sources in many places and with prices bound to continue falling through 2030, base economic incentives for adding renewable energy are now quite high. Add in the fact that these systems produce no harmful particulate or greenhouse gas pollution in use, and the appeal of such clean energy systems is difficult to contest.
(In the U.S. unsubsidized levelized costs of energy vastly favor wind and utility scale solar. And indication that other utility sources such as coal and gas are over subsidized by society. Image source: Clean Technica.)
Increasingly, coal and even gas fired power generation relies on subsidies and an uneven playing field to compete with renewable energy systems. With research from John Abraham indicating that from 2013 to 2015, global fossil fuel subsidies rose from a staggering 4.9 trillion dollars to an astounding 5.3 trillion dollars. And backwards-looking political bodies like the Trump Administration are increasing this highly distorting and harmful subsidy allotment still further.
There’s really no excuse for such an unequal and continuously tilting playing field considering the fact that fossil fuels are the main driver of a climate change that is contributing to catastrophic storms like Harvey and a rising ocean that is now threatening hundreds of cities around the globe. Considering the fact that about 7 million people die each year from air pollution primarily related to fossil fuel burning each year alone. With inexpensive and much cleaner alternatives now available, and with these alternatives proving increasingly competitive with the rickety and harmful old energy sources that the world’s tax payers unjustly prop up, there’s really no excuse in creating further delays for the far less dangerous and harmful clean energy systems we all deserve.
Links:
Global Solar Capacity Set to Surpass Nuclear
Wind Energy Cost Reductions of 50 Percent Possible by 2030
Global Cumulative Installed Wind Capacity
7 Million Premature Deaths Annually Linked to Air Pollution
Trump Moves to Increase Subsidy for Coal on Federal Lands
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Posted by robertscribbler on August 28, 2017
https://robertscribbler.wordpress.com/2017/08/28/nearing-a-trillion-watts-by-end-2017-global-wind-solar-capacity-will-be-2-4-times-that-of-nuclear/
India and China Building Solar Like Gangbusters, Electric Revolution Continues as GM Sells EV for $5,300 in China, Tesla Plans 700,000 Model 3s Per Year
If we’re going to halt destructive carbon emissions now hitting the atmosphere, then the world is going to have to swiftly stop burning oil, gas and coal. And the most effective and economic pathway for achieving this removal of harmful present and future atmospheric carbon emissions is a rapid renewable energy build-out to replace fossil fuel energy coupled by increases in energy efficiency.
(To halt and reverse climate change related damages, fossil fuel based greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere need to stop.)
This week, major advances in the present renewable energy build and introduction rate were reported. Chiefly, India and China are rapidly adding new solar panels to their grid, the monthly rate of global EV sales surpassed 100,000 in June, GM is offering a very inexpensive electrical vehicle in China, and Tesla has ramped up plans for Model 3 EV production from 500,000 vehicles per year to 700,000 vehicles per year.
India and China Solar Gangbusters
In the first half of 2017, India is reported to have built 4.8 gigawatts (GW) of new solar energy capacity. This construction has already exceeded all 2016 additions. The country is presently projected to build more than 10 GW of new solar energy capacity by year-end. Large solar additions are essential to India meeting its goal of having 100 GW of solar electrical generation available by 2022. It is also crucial for reducing carbon emissions from fossil fuel fired power plants (coal and gas).
(Total solar capacity in India could hit 30 GW by end 2018. India will need to add solar more rapidly if it is to achieve its goal of 100 GW by 2022. Image source: Clean Technica.)
Further east, China added 24.4 Gigawatts of new solar energy in just the first half of this year. This pushed China’s total solar energy generating capacity to a staggering 101 GW. It also puts China firmly in a position to surpass last year’s strong rate of solar growth of 34 GW. China’s previous goal was to achieve 105 GW of solar production by 2020. One it will hit three and a half years ahead of schedule. China now appears to be on track to overwhelm that goal by achieving between 190 and 230 GW of solar generation by decade’s end.
(China has already overwhelmed its 2020 target for added solar capacity. Recalculating based on present build rates finds that end 2020 solar generation levels are likely to hit between 190 and 230 GW for this global economic powerhouse. Image source: China National Energy Administration.)
Such strong solar growth numbers in traditional coal-burning regions provides some hope that carbon emissions growth rates in these countries will continue to level off or possibly start to fall in the near future. Adding in ambitious wind energy and electrical vehicle build-outs in these regions provides synergy to the larger trend. If an early carbon emissions plateau were to be achieved due to rapid renewable energy build-outs in China and India, it would be very helpful in reducing overall levels of global warming during the 21st Century.
GM’s $5,300 EV for the Chinese Market
Adding to the trend of growing movement toward an energy switch in Asia this week was GM’s introduction of a small, medium-range electrical vehicle for the Chinese auto market. GM is partnering with China’s Baojun to produce the E100. A small EV that’s about the size of the U.S. Smart Car. The E100 has about a 96 mile all-electric range, a 62 mph top speed, and goes for $14,000 dollars before China’s generous EV incentives. After incentives, a person in China can purchase the vehicle for $5,300. GM states that 5,000 buyers registered to purchase the first 200 E100s hitting the market last month, while a second batch of 500 vehicles will be made available soon.
100,000 Electrical Vehicle Sales Per Month by Mid 2017
Globally, electrical vehicle sales have ramped up to 100,000 per month during June of 2017. This growth is being driven primarily by increased sales volumes in China, India, Japan, Australia, Europe and the U.S. as more and more attractive EV models are becoming available and as governments seek to limit the sale of petroleum-burning vehicles in some regions.
(Projected growth rates for EV sales appear likely to surpass present projections through 2020. Image source: Cleantechnica.)
Meanwhile range, recharge rates, acceleration, and other capabilities for these vehicles continue to rapidly improve. This compares to fossil fuel vehicles which have been basically stuck in plateauing performance ranges for decades. 2017 will represent the first year when sales of all EV models globally surpass 1 million per year. With a possible doubling to tripling of EV production through 2020.
Telsa Aiming for 700,000 Per Year Model 3 Sales
2018 will likely see continued growth as new vehicles like the Model 3, the Chevy Bolt, and Toyota Prius Prime provide more competitive and attractive offerings. This past month, the Chevy Bolt logged more than 1,900 vehicles sold in the U.S. in one month. If GM continues to ramp production, marketing, and availability of this high-quality, long range electrical vehicle, the model could easily sell between 3,000 and 5,000 per month to the U.S. market. Another vehicle — the plug in electric hybrid Toyota Prius Prime — is also capable of achieving high sales rates in the range of 5,000 per month or more on the U.S. market due to a combined high quality and low price so long as production for this model also rapidly ramps up.
But the big outlier here is the Tesla Model 3. By end 2017, Tesla is aiming to ramp Model 3 production to 5,000 vehicles per week. It plans to hit more than 40,000 vehicles per month by end of 2018. And, according to Elon Musk’s recent announcement, will ultimately aim to achieve 700,000 Model 3 sales per year. If such a rapid ramp appears, the Model 3 along with other increasingly attractive EVs could hit close to 2 million per year annual combined sales in 2018 and surpass 3 million at some time between 2019 and 2020. This is well ahead of past projections of around 2.2 million EV sales per year by 2020. Representing yet another early opportunity to reduce massive global carbon emissions coming from oil, gas, and coal.
Links:
India Installs 4.8 GW of Solar During First Half of 2017
China’s New 190 GW Solar Guiding Opinion Wows
China Could Reach 230 GW Solar by end 2020
GM Should Bring Baojun E100 EV to USA
Model 3 Annual Demand Could Surpass 700,000
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Posted by robertscribbler on August 11, 2017
https://robertscribbler.wordpress.com/2017/08/11/india-and-china-building-solar-like-gangbusters-electric-revolution-continues-as-gm-sells-ev-for-5300-in-china-tesla-plans-700000-model-3s-per-year/
Renewable Energy Technology is Now Powerful Enough to Significantly Soften the Climate Crisis
In order for the world to begin to solve the climate crisis, one critical thing has to happen. Global carbon emissions need to start falling. And they need to start falling soon before the serious impacts that we are already seeing considerably worsen and begin to overwhelm us.
Carbon Emissions Plateau For Last Three Years
Over the past three years, countries around the world have been engaged in a major switch away from the biggest carbon emitter — coal. China is shutting down hundreds of its worst polluting coal plants, India is following suit, the U.S. is shuttering many of its own facilities, and in Europe the trend is much the same. Around the world, investment in new coal fired plants continues to fall even as the old plants are pressured more and more to halt operations.
(It’s starting to look like cheap renewable energy and the drive to reduce pollution and to solve the climate crisis are a stronger factor in the present carbon emissions plateau than a cyclical switch to natural gas fired power generation. Image source: The International Energy Agency.)
In many places, coal generation is being replaced by natural gas. This fuel emits about 30-50 percent less carbon than coal, but it’s still a big source. In the past, a switch to natural gas due to lower prices has driven a cyclical but temporary reduction in global carbon emissions. And falling coal prices have often driven a price-forced switch back to coal and a return to rising emissions rates. But after years of rock-bottom coal prices due to continuously falling demand this, today, is not the case.
Low-Cost, More Desirable Renewable Energy Blocks a Cyclical Switch back to Coal
And the primary reason for this break in traditional energy cycling is that renewable energy in the form of wind and solar are now less expensive than coal and gas fired power generation in many places. Add that wind and solar are considerably more desirable due to the fact that they produce practically zero negative health impacts from pollution and that such zero-emitting sources are critical to solving an ever-worsening climate crisis and you end up with something seldom seen in markets anywhere. A rare synergy between a public interest based drive for a more moral energy industry and a, typically callous to such concerns, market-based profit motive.
(In Western Europe basic economics and a desire for cleaner power sources has resulted in both wind and solar overtaking coal fired power generation capacity. Image source: Bloomberg.)
Consider the fact that now, in Western Europe, both solar and wind energy have higher installed capacities than coal. Combined, the two sources have more than double the present energy producing capacity of this dirty fuel. Coal just can’t compete any longer. And an increasing glut of low-cost, non-polluting renewable energy is forcing even the largest, most economically viable, coal fired power plants such as the 2.2 gigawatt facility in Voerde, Germany to shut down.
In Australia, despite the mad-hatter attempts by coal cheerleader politicians to supply more of this dirty carbon to a dwindling world market, renewable energy just keeps on advancing. This week, Queensland announced a new solar + storage project that would at first supply 350 megawatts of renewable energy and would ultimately expand to 800 megawatts. The drive for the project comes as solar prices in Australia are now beating out gas fired power generation. Meanwhile, market analysts are saying that solar+storage will soon be in the same position. And, even more ironically, many of the new solar and battery storage promoters in Queensland are past coal industry investors.
Simple Technologies Leverage Economies of Scale
The technologies driving this fundamental energy market transformation — wind, solar, batteries — are not new silver bullet advances. They are older technologies that are simple and easy to reproduce, improve, and that readily benefit from increasing economies of scale. This combination of simplicity, improvability and scaling is a very powerful transformational force. It enables companies like Tesla to spin core products like mass produced batteries into multiple offerings like electrical automobiles, trucks, and residential, commercial and industry scale energy storage systems. A new capability and advantage that is now beginning to significantly disrupt traditional fossil fuel based markets world-wide.
A fact that was underscored by the shockwaves sent through combustion engine manufacturers recently after Tesla’s simple announcement that it would begin producing electric long-haul trucks.
The announcement almost immediately prompted downgrades in conventional truck engine manufacturer stock values. In the past, competition by electric vehicle manufacturers like Tesla have forced traditional, fossil fuel based vehicle and engine manufacturers to produce their own electric products in order to protect market share. But since these companies are heavily invested in older, more polluting technology it is more difficult for them to produce electric vehicles at a profit than it is for pure electric manufacturers like Tesla.
Renewable Energy Technology Capable of Removing Lion’s Share of Global Carbon Emissions
In light of these positive trends, we should consider the larger goals of the energy transition with regards to climate change.
- To slow and plateau the rate of carbon emissions increases.
- To begin to reduce global carbon emissions on an annual basis.
- To bring carbon emissions to net zero globally.
- To bring carbon emission to net negative globally.
By itself, market based energy switches to renewable energy systems can cut global carbon emissions from their present rate of approximately 33 billion tons of CO2 each year to 1-5 billion tons of CO2 each year through full removal of fossil fuels from thermal, power, fuel, manufacturing, materials production and other uses. In other words, by itself, this now rapidly scaling set of technologies is capable of removing the lion’s share of the human carbon emission problem. And given the rapid cost reductions and increasing competitiveness of these systems, these kinds of needed reductions in emissions are now possible on much shorter timescales than previously envisioned.
(UPDATED)
Links:
Europe’s Coal Power is Going up in Smoke — Fast
The International Energy Agency
Plans Laid for 800 MW Solar + Storage Facility in Queensland
Tesla Semi Announcement Causes Analysts to Start Downgrading Traditional Truck Stocks
Hat tip to Phil
Hat tip to Spike
Hat tip to Brian
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Posted by robertscribbler on April 19, 2017
https://robertscribbler.wordpress.com/2017/04/19/renewable-energy-technology-is-now-powerful-enough-to-significantly-soften-the-climate-crisis/
Electric Flights Between Major Hubs Possible in Ten Years as Tesla Outpaces Ford & GM Market Value
As the impacts of climate change continue to worsen, the opportunity still exists for leaders and individuals at every level to reduce the coming harms by renewing and redoubling the push for clean energy. And in many places, this kind of strong leadership is happening — just not in the Trump White House.
(Battery gigafactories, solar roofs, electric vehicles and many other renewable energy advances are enabling both energy independence and the potential for a rapid response to human-forced climate change. But obstacles imposed by short-sighted and immoral leaders like Trump could get in the way of these much-needed actions. Image source: Tesla.)
In January, China appeared ready to take the title of clean energy leader away from the United States as it planned to shut down 104 carbon and soot spewing coal-fired power plants. California and New York pledged to redouble support for renewables even as they vowed to fight Trump’s repeal of the Clean Power Plan all the way to the Supreme Court (an all-too clear reminder of why the Republican sabotage of Garland really hurt us all). Meanwhile, 25 cities in the U.S. have now set their sights on getting 100 percent of their energy needs from zero-carbon sources.
Tesla Surges Ahead Despite Negative Attacks
The supporting clean energy industry is also still making great strides despite attacks on helpful climate and energy policy by Trump. Tesla this month announced that nearly 30,000 of its electric vehicles were sold in the first quarter of 2017 — that’s a 69 percent jump in sales over the same period for 2016. The news buoyed Tesla stock prices which are now more highly valued than those of the still mostly fossil-fueled Ford and GM. The news shows that confidence among investors for Tesla’s future success is hitting extraordinary high levels, despite what has been an ongoing negative PR campaign linked to fossil-fuel special interests against the clean energy company.
(Elon Musk mocks those in the investor media who’ve been on what amounts to a multi-year campaign to talk down Tesla at all costs.)
Tesla plans to rapidly ramp up electric vehicle production this year with the entry of the Model 3. The clean energy company is presently on track to sell about 400,000 Model 3’s in 2-3 years. And its Nevada Gigafactory is already ramping up the battery production that will support the new vehicle.
Electric Medium Range Aircraft on the Horizon
Tesla owes a lot of its success to its ability to provide high energy density batteries at a relatively low cost. And the company now produces a wide range of clean energy products from battery storage systems to electric vehicles to solar rooftops. Tesla’s ability to leverage advances in energy storage and renewable energy technology has been a primary key to its relatively rapid short-term success. And it’s these rapid advances in renewable energy that are enabling another wave of products increasingly capable of replacing harmful fossil fuel burning — extending even to medium range aircraft in the near future.
(The Wright 1 by Wright Electric is expected to be able to handle up to 30 percent of global air travel without the use of fossil fuels.)
According to reports from BBC, Wright Electric is set to produce a plane that, within the next decade, will be capable of making medium range flights. It expects to produce an aircraft called the Wright 1 which will be capable of making 300 mile flights using electric engines and battery power alone. The aircraft could, for example, make the trip from London to Paris. Wright Electric says that the new craft would be capable of completing 30 percent of global flights. The aircraft is expected to be considerably quieter than conventional, fossil fuel driven craft. And British low cost flyer — Easyjet — has already expressed interest in the design.
Storage Advances Our Options for Fighting Climate Change
In the past, battery storage energy density was too low to support the needs for most air travel platforms. But recently, both increasing energy density in new batteries and falling costs have been enabling electric flight. That said, electric medium range aircraft would be a real sustainability breakthrough — adding to the biofuel option for air travel.
It is becoming increasingly clear that we have strong options for confronting climate change. With each week there seems to be some new advance or positive movement. But we must make the choice to turn away from harmful fossil fuels together. And, unfortunately, this issue has been clouded by harmful political actors which puts everything we’ve worked for up until this point into jeopardy.
Links:
London-Paris Electric Flight in a Decade
Tesla Now Worth More Than Ford, GM
Hat tip to Wharf Rat
Hat tip to Greg
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Posted by robertscribbler on April 4, 2017
https://robertscribbler.wordpress.com/2017/04/04/electric-flights-between-major-hubs-possible-in-ten-years-as-tesla-outpaces-ford-market-value/
An Agenda Harmful to the American People
Farmers in Iowa, Kansas, Texas and California’s Central Valley know that the weather is getting worse. They know that droughts are intensifying, floods are more severe, and wildfires are growing larger as the years steadily warm. Coastal dwellers in Nantucket, Virginia Beach, Cape Hatteras, Myrtle Beach, Miami and the lowlands of Louisiana know that the seas are rising. They know that tidal and storm flooding takes more land and property with each passing year. And those who live in the far north, in places like Barrow, Alaska, know that the glaciers and sea ice are melting.
(Harmful impacts to Americans from climate change are on the rise and the number of Americans concerned about climate change has never been higher. Image source: Gallup.)
Americans, in greater numbers than ever before, believe that climate change is real, that it is a threat to them, and that humans are the cause. The growing consensus on the matter from the U.S. populace does not match the 97 percent or more of climate scientists who are very concerned about the issue, but the 68 percent of Americans who believe that global warming is occurring and is caused by humans cuts a stark contrast with the person who is now the sitting President of the United States.
Obama’s Helpful Response
The world has already warmed by 1.2 degrees Celsius since the 1880s. We see the effects of that warming all around us. All across this country, lives, property and livelihoods are under increasing threat from a climate fundamentally changed by fossil fuel burning. However, the warming we’ve already experienced is the early, easy warming. The warming that lies ahead is of a much more difficult caliber. In other words, a blow is coming at us all. We can’t completely stop it at this point — it’s too late for that, we’ve coddled the fossil-fuel special interests for far too long — but we can soften it.
President Barack Obama tried to help the American people do just that. He established fuel efficiency standards aimed at inspiring innovation among America’s corporations. Such innovation would put them at the forefront of new technology that could help wean our country off oil dependency. By 2025, most vehicles were to have average mileage standards of 54.5 mpg, the implication being that a large portion of U.S. vehicles would be electric by then. At the same time, Obama pushed to shift U.S. power generation away from coal, and more toward wind and solar. These combined efforts would have cut U.S. carbon emissions across the entire economy 26 percent by 2025. They would have generated a leaner, meaner U.S. economy better suited to compete in a world whose constituents increasingly demand clean energy, and better able to face the harms coming down the pipe from human-caused climate change.
Fossil Fuel, Petrostate Interference in Global Democracies
The fossil fuel interests of the world — including both corporations and states suffering from economic dependence on fossil fuel revenues — did not at all like the new policies coming out of the U.S. The United States, as a global leader promoting renewable energy and responses to climate change, was fully capable of spearheading a global energy transition. Under Obama, the beginning of such a transition happened. Solar cell production multiplied, wind farms proliferated, clean energy costs fell, electrical vehicles hit the markets in increasing numbers, and net energy use per person fell, all while economies grew. In part due to exceptional American leadership, the U.S. trend toward cleaner energy repeated itself around the world. Meanwhile, demand for dirty fossil fuels began to lag. People began to talk widely about leaving a large portion of the world’s fossil fuel reserves in the ground, unused. Coal interests experienced mass bankruptcies. And oil and gas markets grew ever more uncertain.
(As government policies supporting renewable energy proliferated, prices dropped and production boomed. In other words, positive policy on the part of the world’s governments produced a renewable energy revolution — much to the ire of fossil-fuel special interests. Image source: Clean Technica.)
Powerful interests associated with fossil fuels, who already held amazing influence over the world’s political bodies, began to fight back. In Europe, this came in the form of right-wing politicians apparently backed by the espionage campaigns of an expansionist and resurgent Russia. Meanwhile, Russian aggression surged into Ukraine and even at times threatened wind production in the Baltic Sea. In the U.S., fossil-fuel-backing Republicans like James Inhofe and Scott Pruitt fought to remove key government policies promoting climate action. But consistent U.S. climate policy managed to hang on.
Now, with the election of Donald Trump — achieved in part through the Russian petrostate’s cyber-warfare campaign against the U.S. electoral system — all the progress achieved by the Obama Administration is in doubt.
A Cadre of Fossil Fuel Backers, Climate Change Deniers, and Ties to Russia
Trump has placed Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson as head of the State Department, fired top career diplomats, and placed political cronies into key roles. Tillerson has failed to recuse himself in the case of interests related to Exxon — a key element of which were Obama-era sanctions that prevented Exxon partnering with Russia in developing oil fields in the Arctic. Trump’s chief national security adviser Michael Flynn — now identified as being employed as a foreign agent for Turkey at the time (it is illegal for a foreign agent to hold a position as part of the U.S. government) — was found to be secretly conferring with Russia (allegedly about the removal of said sanctions) before he himself was forced out of the post.
(Former Bush ethics lawyer weighs in on Michael Flynn failing to register himself as a foreign agent. Video source: CNN.)
Over at the Environmental Protection Agency, Scott Pruitt, a politician who has for many years denied that the world is warming and that humans are the cause, now heads an agency he often sued. Pruitt is well-known for his attacks on government action to reduce the impacts of climate change and for receiving considerable campaign contributions from the fossil fuel industry. Almost immediately after coming to head the EPA, Pruitt stocked top offices at the agency with well-known climate change deniers, many of whom were once staffers of Congress’s chief climate change denier — James Inhofe.
Attack on CAFE Standards
As Trump fills key policy-making positions with fossil-fuel industry chiefs, climate change deniers, and people with odd ties to the Russian petrostate, he is moving to kill off Obama’s signature climate actions. This week, Trump appears ready to announce a rollback of Obama’s fuel efficiency standards. Such a move would put a damper on U.S. electric car production just as competitive foreign automakers are jumping into the EV market with both feet. The threatened rollbacks could also cost consumers an extra $2,600 in fuel over a vehicle’s lifetime, harm U.S. energy security, and result in more carbon dumped into the atmosphere. According to the New York Times:
[Obama’s] rules have been widely praised by environmentalists and energy economists for reducing the nation’s dependence on foreign oil and its greenhouse pollution. If put fully into effect, the fuel efficiency standards would have cut oil consumption by about 12 billion barrels and reduced carbon dioxide pollution by about six billion tons over the lifetime of all the cars affected by the regulations (emphasis added).
Though it would take about a year to remove Obama’s policy, and though it is likely that states like California (along with nine other states pushing automakers to increase EV availability) will fight the measure, this change in direction comes at a critical time for the world’s climate, right when harmful impacts from climate change are hitting the American people harder and harder.
Removal of Clean Electricity Goals
Trump’s early moves against U.S. fuel efficiency standards (and by extension energy and climate security) are, unfortunately, just the first subset of a two-pronged effort. Trump is also expected to direct a denier-stacked EPA to dismantle Obama’s clean electrical power regulations — rules aimed at incentivizing wind, solar, and lower carbon forms of fossil fuels while shutting down highly polluting coal power plants. Obama’s actions would have sped renewable energy expansion while cutting U.S. carbon emissions by 26 percent (from 2005 levels) by 2025. But if Trump’s new proposals go through, an extra 2 billion tons of CO2-equivalent gasses could be coming from U.S. smokestacks and tailpipes by that time.
G20 Promotes ‘Market Magic’ as Solution to Climate Change
Trump’s policy moves also appear to be aimed at hollowing out international actions on climate change. A recent draft of the upcoming G-20 Summit, a meeting of finance ministers from the world’s top 20 industrialized nations, backed away from key commitments to combat climate change. The G-20’s preliminary policy statement removed language supporting the Paris Climate treaty (only 47 words address the treaty now as opposed to 163 words in 2016), appears to have reneged on $100 billion worth of commitments from wealthy nations to fund renewable energy and greenhouse gas emissions cuts, and relies on “multilateral development banks to raise private funds to accomplish goals set under the 2015 Paris climate accord.”
John Kirton, director of the University of Toronto’s G-20 Research Group, in an interview with Bloomberg noted that the new policy statement “…basically says governments are irrelevant. It’s complete faith in the magic of the marketplace. That is very different from the existing commitments they have repeatedly made.”
It’s worth noting that Trump’s appointed treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin is the U.S. lead for G-20-related climate policy, so this new direction for the G-20 can’t entirely be separated from Trump or from his former Goldman Sachs employee Treasury Secretary.
Worsening Climate Situation
All these prospective national and global climate policy reversals come as the climate situation continues to worsen and damages from climate change related disasters escalate. We are currently in the process of warming from 1.2 C (present global temperature departure) above 1880s averages to 2 C above average. The amount of damage coming from this next degree of warming will be considerably more than the amount of damage that occurred as we warmed from 0.5 to 1.2 C above average from the 1980s to now.
(According to reinsurer Munich Re, the number of natural disasters has more than doubled since the early 1980s. Growth in the number of natural disasters all come from meteorological events, hydrological events, and climatological events — all which are influenced by warming global temperatures. Image source: Munich Re.)
The U.S. and every other nation in the world is now seeing a clear and present danger coming from climate change as natural disasters ramp up. In other words, the climate change related fire is already burning. And the Trump Administration appears set to throw more fuel on that fire. We can say with complete certainty that these policies represent a political agenda that is harmful to the American people. And we should resist this harmful agenda at every turn.
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Posted by robertscribbler on March 15, 2017
https://robertscribbler.wordpress.com/2017/03/15/an-agenda-harmful-to-the-american-people/
Kauai Shows Solar + Storage is Starting to Become Cost Competitive With Fossil Fuels, Nuclear
It wasn’t too long ago that the cost of an average solar energy power plant was above 10 cents per kilowatt hour and the world was raving at the low prices for Middle East solar generation in the range of 6 cents per kilowatt hour. At that time, to the shock, awe, and dismay of many, solar began to become earnestly competitive with traditional power plants based on price of energy alone.
Base Wind + Solar Now Cheaper Than Fossil Fuels, Nuclear
But it’s amazing what a difference just two years can make. Now solar prices have fallen into a range of around 4-6 cents per kilowatt hour with the least expensive solar plants now hitting as low as 2-3 cents per kilowatt hour. These prices are now far less than diesel and nuclear based generation (in many cases 1/2 to 1/4 the price of these systems) and today even out-compete coal and gas fired generation.
(Research by Lazard now shows that wind and solar are less expensive than all forms of fossil fuel and nuclear based energy. Image source: Lazard and Clean Technica.)
For as you can see in the image above, the cost of new natural gas generation now ranges from 5 to 8 cents per kilowatt hour for the least expensive plants and the price for new coal generation ranges from 6 to 14 cents per kilowatt hour. Utility wind and solar, by comparison, now ranges from 3 to 6 cents per kilowatt hour in most cases.
These, far more competitive, prices for renewable energy based systems provide a very strong case for the base market competitiveness of renewables. One that supports a clear rational economic argument for rapid integration of renewable energy systems. A strong economic case that can now be made even when one doesn’t include the various harmful externalities coming from nuclear energy and fossil fuel based power or the related and continuously worsening climate crisis. Renewable energy detractors, therefore, can now no longer make an argument against clean energy sources based on price alone. As a result, the argument against more benevolent energy systems during recent months has tended to shift more and more to the issue of intermittency.
Facing Down Fears of Intermittency
As an example, in its most recent report on the cost of global energy, the typically pragmatic Lazard Consulting group recently noted:
Even though alternative energy is increasingly cost-competitive and storage technology holds great promise, alternative energy systems alone will not be capable of meeting the baseload generation needs of a developed economy for the foreseeable future. Therefore, the optimal solution for many regions of the world is to use complementary traditional and alternative energy resources in a diversified generation fleet.
It’s a statement that moves the consultancy group closer to reality. One that opens wide the door for a much needed rapid integration of clean energy supplies. But, as with the analysts who failed to predict the precipitous fall in solar prices and the related rapidly increased availability of renewable energy sources as a result, the Lazard report fails to understand the fundamental price and mass production supply dynamics now setting up. A dynamic that will likely transform the cost and availability of energy storage systems in a similar manner to those that acted to greatly reduce the price of solar energy systems during the period of 2011 through 2016. As a result, Lazard’s ‘not for the foreseeable future’ statement is likely to have a life expectancy of about 3-5 years.
Soft Limits
Wind and solar power generation systems do have the base limitation that they only produce energy when the wind is blowing or the sun is shining. Often, these energy sources have to be widely distributed and interconnected to cover a significant portion of demands coming from power grids (30 to 50 percent or more). And in the present understanding of energy supply economies, standby power or power storage systems have to be made available for the periods when majority renewable energy systems go off-line. All too often, this standby power generation comes from conventional sources like coal, gas, or nuclear.
That said, the underlying flexibility of renewable energy is starting to overcome the soft limit that is intermittency. And a recent report by the U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory found that as much as 80-90 percent of grid electricity demand could be met by widely distributed renewable energy sources such as wind and solar as soon as 2050 so long as an advanced grid and related energy storage systems are developed.
In order to meet the challenge of transitioning most or all electricity based energy supply to renewables — not only does the cost of renewable energy need to be competitive with fossil fuels, but the cost of intermittent renewable energy + the systems that store them must be similarly competitive. Fortunately for those of us concerned about the growing risks posed by the global climate crisis, it appears that we are now entering a period in which exactly this kind of cost competitiveness for integrated renewable + storage systems is starting to emerge.
Solar + Battery Storage Becoming Cost Competitive
Last year, the Hawaiian Island of Kauai purchased a ground-breaking solar + battery storage system from Tesla and Solar City. The system paired solar panels with Tesla power packs to provide 17 megawatts of solar energy and 10 megawatts of battery storage in order to replace about 10 percent of the island’s expensive diesel electricity generation.
(Tropical Kauai aims to be powered by the sun. In doing so, it’s starting to shift away from dirty and expensive energy derived from coal and diesel generating plants. Image source: Kuaui.com.)
On Kuaui, diesel generation costs about 22 cents per kilowatt hour. Expensive fuel and equally expensive heavy machinery must be shipped from far-flung locations to the remote island. And this adds to the overall cost of fossil fuel generation. During 2016, Solar City and Tesla significantly out-competed the price of diesel generation by offering its solar + storage generating system for 13.9 cents per kilowatt hour — a cost that was comparable to the more expensive versions of nuclear, coal, and gas fired generation plants the world over.
Fast forward to early 2017 and another solar + storage provider was being contracted to add still more renewable based electrical power to Kauai’s grid. AES Distributed Energy is now contracted to build 28 megawatts of solar photovoltaic panels mated to 20 megawatts of battery based storage. The price? About half that of diesel-fired power generation at 11 cents per kilowatt hour.
This is about 20 percent less than the Solar City + Tesla offering just one year later. A system that hits a price comparable to mid-range coal and nuclear generation systems. And, more to the point, AES’s solar panels + battery packs will enable Kuaui to produce 50 percent of its electricity through renewable, non-carbon-emitting sources.
Renewables + Storage to Beat Fossil Fuels in Near Future
Compared to the cost of renewable energy, the price of batteries is still comparitively expensive — effectively doubling the price of base solar. However, widespread adoption of battery-based electrical vehicles is helping to both rapidly drive down the cost of batteries and to provide a large global after-market supply of batteries useful for storing energy. By 2017, it’s likely that about 50 gigawatts worth of energy storage will be sold on the world market in the form of electrical vehicle batteries. By the early 2020s, this number could easily grow to 150 gigawatts of storage produced by the world’s clean energy suppliers every year.
(Global lithium ion battery production is expected to hit more than 120 GW and possibly as high as 140 GW by 2020. This production spike is coming on the back of newly planned battery plants in China, the U.S., and Europe. Presently, the largest plant currently operating is LG Chem’s China facility which was completed in 2016. Tesla’s Gigafactory is already producing batteries and is expected to ramp up to 35-50 GW worth of annual production by 2018-2019. Volkswagen has recently announced its own large battery plant to rival Tesla’s Gigafactory [not included in chart above]. FoxConn, BYD, and Boston Power round out the large projects now planned or underway. Image source: The Lithium-Ion Megafactories Are Coming.)
As electrical vehicles are driven, the batteries they use lose some of their charge. However, by the time the life of the electrical vehicle is over, the batteries still retain enough juice to be used after-market as energy storage systems. Meanwhile, the same factories that produce batteries for electrical vehicles can co-produce batteries for grid and residential based energy storage systems. This mass production capacity and second use co-production and multipurpose versatility will help to drive down the cost of batteries while making energy storage systems more widely available.
Though mass produced batteries represent one avenue for rapidly reducing the cost of energy storage systems mated to renewables, other forms of energy storage including pumped hydro, molten salt thermal storage, flywheels, and compressed air storage also provide price-competitive options for extending the effectiveness of low-cost variable power sources like wind and solar. And with the price of solar + storage options falling into the 11 cent per kilowatt hour range, it appears likely that these varied mated systems have the potential to largely out-compete fossil fuels and nuclear based on price alone well within the foreseeable future and possibly as soon as the next 3-5 years.
Links:
The World’s Cheapest Solar Energy in January 2015 Was 6 Cents Per Kilowatt Hour
Levelized Cost of Energy Analysis
Cost of Solar and Wind Beats Coal, Nuclear and Natural Gas
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Kauai Solar Peaker Shows How Fast Solar + Storage Costs are Falling
The Lithium-Ion Megafactories Are Coming
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Posted by robertscribbler on January 19, 2017
https://robertscribbler.wordpress.com/2017/01/19/kauai-shows-solar-storage-is-starting-to-become-cost-competitive-with-fossil-fuels-nuclear/
Record Drop in Coal Burning Raises Question — Is Peak Fossil Fuel Use Happening Now?
Peak oil, gas, and coal.
It’s a possibility that many who believe the fossil fuel industry’s false dependency mantra look at with fear and trembling. Because, for years, that industry, through various public relations efforts, has perpetuated a myth that a loss of access to fossil fuels would ruin the modern global economy. That fossil fuels were so high-quality no other energy source could effectively replace them.
It’s a myth that, in many ways, competes with the threat of human-caused climate change for space in the public’s collective imagination. One that is not without a few valid supports. For the shifting of energy use away from one set of sources and on toward another set is a massive, disruptive undertaking even in the case where the new energy sources are superior to the old.
(This is what a real existential threat to global civilization looks like. From the 1880s to the six month cold season of 2015-2016, global temperatures warmed by 1.38 degrees Celsius. At the end of the last ice age, it took about 3,000 years for as much warming to occur as human fossil fuel burning has achieved over just the last 136 years. Dealing with what is a problem of geological scale ramping up with lightning speed will require a necessarily rapid reduction to zero fossil fuel burning over the coming decades. Recent swift curtailments of coal use provide some hope that such a reduction may be possible. But rates of fossil fuel use will have to peak soon and be cut even more swiftly to prevent a very rapidly intensifying global emergency. Image source: NASA GISS.)
But despite a few reasonable worries, the overall effect is to generate a decoy existential threat to the very real threat of a new global mass extinction event if fossil fuel burning isn’t somehow halted in very short order. One that removes innovative thinking and generates a false impression that there really is no way to effectively mitigate and respond to the impacts of an ever-worsening long climate emergency.
The World Health Organization implicates fossil fuel based carbon emissions as one of the greatest risks to human health this Century stating:
Climate change is among the greatest health risks of the 21st Century. Rising temperatures and more extreme weather events cost lives directly, increase transmission and spread of infectious diseases, and undermine the environmental determinants of health, including clean air and water, and sufficient food.
At the same time, many of the same policy and technology choices that drive climate change, such as polluting energy sources and unsustainable transport systems, also have large immediate and local health impacts – most notably the more than seven million deaths that are caused each year by air pollution (emphasis added).
Given what is a very real danger to human health and well-being arising out of the practice of burning fossil fuels coupled with potential human civilization collapses due to severe climate change, sea level rise, disruptions to the growing season, and extreme weather, it’s worth considering the notion that a functional world without them is not only possible — it is absolutely necessary. For shift away from what some have called energy sources from hell and we open up the potential to expand prosperity, to increase prospects for not just the rich, but for practically everyone. For by doing so we shift away from fuels that result in severe systemic harms in a transition to new, less damaging, more distributed and democratic fuels.
And with a massive curtailment of coal energy use, with a rapidly growing adoption of renewables, and with increasing challenges to growth in natural gas and oil consumption all showing up during 2015, it appears that just such a shift may have already started.
*****
Today’s harbinger of what may well now be an ongoing massive move away from harmful fossil fuel energy is itself a bit ironic. For the message comes in the form of a new report out from the fossil fuel giant British Petroleum. And it’s a real eye-catcher. For this fossil fuel industry based report found that global coal use fell by the largest margin ever recorded. With oil and gas struggling to make up the difference, with the fortunes of renewable energy on the rise, and with fossil fuel energy use growing at a very sluggish net annual rate of about 0.56 percent, we’ve got to ask the question — have we reached the age of peak fossil fuels? And, if so, why isn’t the world economy falling apart as some predicted?
Record Drop in Coal Use
The big shock comes in the form of a massive 1.8 percent annual drop in coal use globally. Lead by China and the US, total global coal curtailment reached 71 million tons of oil equivalent during 2015. This was the greatest single annual drop in coal use in the entirety of the 50 year BP record.
(According to fossil fuel industry giant, BP, global coal use fell by its largest margin ever. Image source: Carbon Brief.)
The massive drop in coal also occurred at a time when prices for the carbon-emitting commodity were at or near historical lows. A situation that would normally stimulate demand — all other things being equal.
But with coal, all things are not equal. China suffers from some of the worst air and water pollution conditions in the world due to its reliance on the stuff. Its people are getting sick from emissions particulate related lung damage and from coal-based water contamination. Many are dying prematurely as a result. And since coal use is the greatest contributor to China’s air and water woes, China has undertaken a massive effort to curtail its burning.
Globally, coal is also the worst fossil fuel contributor to Earth System warming on a pound-burned for pound-burned comparison. With global temperatures now hitting near the 1.3 C above 1880s temperature marks on an annual basis — a level high enough to begin to inflict severe climate change related harms — world leaders are increasingly feeling the heat to cut coal.
No Global Recession, But Fossil Fuel Use Stagnates
Curtailment of coal use on such a large scale due to climate, health, welfare, and environmental concerns is unprecedented. In the past, large drops in coal use have only occurred during times of economic recession or when another major fossil fuel source such as natural gas out-competed coal on the global market. During this year of greatest coal losses, neither was the case. Coal remained competitive with natural gas on a cost vs cost comparison basis during 2015 even as the global economy grew by about 3 percent according to International Monetary Fund estimates.
(Despite stagnating fossil fuel use and plummeting rates of coal use, the global economy grew by 3.1 percent during 2015. Image source: The International Monetary Fund.)
Coal’s loss also comes in the context of a declining fossil fuel share in the global energy mix. According to BP, fossil fuels accounted for only 86 percent of global energy use — which was the lowest level ever recorded. Non fossil fuel interest sources such as the recent REN21 paper on the global state of renewable energy put that number even lower — close to 80 percent.
But the BP numbers look bad enough from the fossil fuel industry perspective. Globally, both gas and oil use increased by a combined 134 million tons of oil equivalent. A gradual rate of growth that follows historical lines for those two sources. However, when you account for the loss of coal, net fossil fuel energy use only grew by 63 million tons of oil equivalent — and that represents just a 0.56 percent annual rate of growth for the fossil fuel sector. This compares to a historical annual growth rate in fossil fuel use of 1 to 3 percent during non recession years.
Peak Fossil Fuel Use as Boon Not Bane
Rising rates of renewable energy adoption are the primary reason for coal’s fall and fossil fuel stagnation. Globally, according to BP figures, the net add in non-hydro renewables energy use was equivalent to 48 million tons of oil. A number that, if BP is correct, is nipping away at fossil fuel market dominance by achieving a rate of adoption similar to that of a mainstream energy source.
(Renewable rise while coal plummets, dragging down fossil fuels’ overall share of the global energy supply during 2015. Image source: Carbon Brief.)
Falling rates of overall energy gain for fossil fuels may well represent the start of a period when oil, gas, and coal begin to go into net decline. This has not happened yet. But it will be necessary if the world is to have much hope of preventing extremely catastrophic rates of warming by greater than 2 C above pre-industrial levels this Century. So the big coal curtailment during 2015 as the global economy continued a 3 percent annual growth rate was a huge step in the right direction. But to prevent a future in which ever-more-harmful rates of warming occur. In which 3 C, 4 C, or even 5 C warming becomes likely during this Century, then we will need to continue seeing renewables advance. Then we will need to see what would be a benevolent peak in fossil fuel use. One that is coming on a bit late for comfort and that couldn’t happen soon enough.
Links:
BP — Coal Use Fell By Largest Recorded Margin in 2015
The International Monetary Fund
Choose Between Fuels From Hell and Renewable Jobs Economy
Renewables Global Status Report
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Posted by robertscribbler on June 9, 2016
https://robertscribbler.wordpress.com/2016/06/09/record-drop-in-coal-burning-raises-question-is-peak-fossil-fuel-use-happening-now/
“Injurious to the American People” — Republicans to Receive a Well-Deserved Drubbing Over Decades of Climate Change Denial in 2016 Election
Back in 2013, Donald Trump had a bit of a hissy fit. The problem? In his mind, the planned construction of majestic wind turbines off the coast of Scotland would mess up the view from his newly built golf course. So Trump, in typical bellicose Trump fashion, went to war against an elegant and beneficial energy source:
Donald Trump isn’t happy. So, as usual, he’s making a big fuss.
The trouble this time? Not Barack Obama’s birth certificate. No. It’s windmills. In this case eleven wind turbine generators slated to be built in the ocean near a new golf course Trump constructed in Scotland.
The wind mills will provide power for a much as half of local residents and cost only about 400 million dollars. Trump’s golf course will cost 1.2 billion and suck up a goodly portion of its own energy while giving nothing back. One project produces a luxury that many residents of the Scotland coast will be unable to enjoy. Another produces renewable, zero GHG emission power that benefits everyone in the region and has much larger benefits around the globe.
Yet Donald Trump’s hoity-toity 1.2 billion golf course is too good for those helpful turbines. Trump, invoking the royal ‘we,’ says “We will spend whatever monies are necessary to see to it that these huge and unsightly industrial wind turbines are never constructed.”
In the end, Donald Trump engaged in a two-year legal battle to stop these wind turbines. A battle that he ultimately lost. But not only did he lose his fight to kill the turbines — he earned himself the disdain of the Scots and many Britons as well. A Scottish leader dubbed Trump ‘three times a loser.’ And hundreds of thousands of Britons signed a petition to have him banned from coming to the UK.
(Wind turbines in the gloaming. Which would you rather have — these gossamer beauties or another golf course for 1 percenters? Image source: Emaze.)
Trump’s self-destructive tilting at wind turbines would be comical — if this kind of socially and environmentally damaging behavior were not endemic to a vast majority of currently-elected republicans. And, in fact, this episode of Trump’s blindness to public sentiment, self-important ranting, and unfounded ideological attacks on a helpful energy source could well be seen as microcosm to the responses of the republican party to the threat posed by human-caused climate change and to its potential mitigations over at least the past three decades.
Who, after all, was the party of drill, baby, drill, fight to defend coal, attack the EPA, dismantle the Clean Water Act, kill the Clean Air Act? Who was it that fought practically every government support for wind, solar, and electric vehicles? Who was it that attacked every international climate agreement even before the signature ink was drying? Who endlessly harangued the IPCC? Who, again and again, attempted to de-fund NASA and NOAA climate science research initiatives? Who stymied a carbon tax, a gas tax, or any other incentive policy that would help people move away from carbon-based energy sources? Who brought snowballs into the Senate as ‘evidence’ that climate change was a ‘fraud,’ despite more objective proofs for human-caused global warming than for the theory of gravity itself?
(Global heat spiral shows planetary warming since 1850. Once you realize that high levels of climate danger are reached at the 1.5 C and 2 C threshold, this graph really hits you like a sucker punch. But, in order to protect their fossil fuel allies from a much needed energy switch, many republicans are willing to pretend a rapid spiral toward more and worse climate disasters isn’t happening. In other words, they’re willing to put the lives and livelihoods of American citizens at risk for the sake of a single, destructive industry. Image source: Ed Hawkins.)
Who fought Obama’s Clean Power Plan? And who, when their legislative roadblocks failed, drummed up 27 fossil-fuel aligned governors to mount a legal challenge for the plan in the US Supreme Court? If there was ever a party that turned support of fossil fuels and denial of climate change into a brand name, then it was republicans.
And this year appears to be an opportunity for republicans to be paid back in full for their bad climate actions by an increasingly informed and concerned electorate. For according to a report today in the Washington Post, fully 64 percent of Americans are worried either a ‘great deal’ or a ‘fair amount’ about climate change — a number that includes 40 percent of self-identified republican voters. In addition, the cited Gallup poll also found that 65 percent of Americans now believe that climate change is human-caused. That’s still not in line with 97 to 98 percent of scientists — but it’s more than enough to influence an election.
And Hillary Clinton, the current democratic front-runner, appears to be homing in on an issue that may well prove to be the weak underbelly of the republican party this year. Chris Mooney, in the Washington Post today found that:
“The Clinton campaign sees polling showing profound political vulnerability on climate for the Republicans generally and Trump specifically, so the Clinton camp intends to push climate themes aggressively, ” adds Paul Bledsoe, who worked on climate issues in the former Clinton White House and is now an independent energy consultant. “They see GOP climate denial fitting into a larger narrative of Trump and the Republicans being willing to deny factual information injurious to the American public just because it doesn’t fit into Tea Party ideology. That will be a meta-theme of the campaign, and climate fits into it.”
Clinton earlier today announced her overall climate strategy should she be elected. One that included hopes for a carbon tax, but that looked to pragmatically work with Congress over renewable energy funding initiatives. One that continued to build on initiatives already set in place by Obama. Clinton also hinted that she’d treat climate change as a national and international security issue — setting up a climate situation map in the White House. And though Clinton may not be quite as climate-hawkish as the outspoken and passionate Bernie Sanders (which is one of many reasons why I still hope Bernie wins, but it’s looking increasingly like a long-shot), she is certainly a far cry from the wind-killing Trump or any other potential republican candidate (Ted Cruz or Paul Ryan) for that matter.
(With the price of solar cells falling by more than 99 percent since the 1970s, both wind and solar energy are now competitive with coal and gas. In addition, National Renewable Energy Lab figures indicate that over a 30 year lifespan solar energy system averaged a very strong Energy Return on Energy Invested of between 8 and 18 in most cases and as high as 30 in the highest efficiency, lowest material use modules — competitive with both wind and fossil fuels. On the back of these strong economics, solar has caught up with wind and together the two represented 2/3 of installed new power generation in 2015. Clinton’s stated policies would leverage the strengths of renewable energy systems to help mitigate the harmful effects of climate change. Image source: Commons.)
Trump, for his own part, has stated “I am not a big believer in man-made climate change.” So no climate change response plan. No situation room like Clinton’s. He has pledged to do away with all of Obama’s executive orders (including the Clean Power Plan). And he has pledged to de-fund the EPA (thereby removing the EPA’s ability to regulate carbon emissions). Trump has also pledged to reinvigorate the dirty coal industry and to double down on fracking. In other words, true to his wind-killing history in Scotland, Trump would be a nightmare candidate during a time in which the worst effects of climate change are now starting to ramp up.
If Trump and Clinton become the nominees and Clinton decides to use republicans’ vulnerability to the issue of climate change to the fullest, it’s possible that not only would Trump suffer, but so would many other republicans down-ticket. Republican voters from a growing number of regions (like the key battleground state of Florida — which is at risk of having its southern 1/6th rapidly flooded out by sea level rise) are facing increasingly obvious harms as a result of fossil fuel related warming. So there’s a clear vulnerability here if the climate change message is communicated correctly. And if this is the case — if the Senate returns to Democratic hands and if those concerned about climate change get a shot at the House — then we may not just have to settle for clean energy incentives. We could have a decent shot at a carbon tax.
And to this point — for any republican out there in the woods who is listening — even former Ronald Reagan Secretary of State George Shultz (back from the days when republicans were just a little bit wiser and even-handed than they are today) supports a carbon tax:
“I have long advocated a revenue-neutral carbon tax,” Shultz said. “It’s just there to level the playing field. Because you want sources of energy to compete equally and to bear the costs of what they produce.”
But Shultz comes from an era when respectable republicans didn’t do silly things like go tilting at solar panels and wind turbines.
Links:
Donald Trump’s Money Would be Better Spent Building Wind Farms
He’ll Take the Low Road — Trump’s Tortured History With Scotland
National Renewable Energy Lab Calls Claims of EROEI Constraints on Solar a Myth
Hat Tip to Colorado Bob
Hat Tip to TodaysGuestIs
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Posted by robertscribbler on May 10, 2016
https://robertscribbler.wordpress.com/2016/05/10/injurious-to-the-american-people-republicans-to-receive-a-well-deserved-drubbing-over-decades-of-climate-change-denial-in-2016-election/
“A Harbinger of the End of the Fossil Fuel Era” — Coal Production, Exports Plummet as Peabody Energy Declares Bankruptcy
“Peabody Energy’s steep decline toward bankruptcy is a harbinger of the end of the fossil fuel era … Peabody is crashing because the company was unwilling to change with the times, — they doubled down on the dirtiest of all fossil fuels, and investors backed their bet, as the world shifted toward renewable energy. They have consistently put profit over people, and now their profits have plummeted. Our world has no place for companies like Peabody.” — Jenny Marienau, U.S. Divestment Campaign Manager of the environmental group 350.org, in a recent statement.
****
Jenny Marienau of the climate disaster prevention group 350.org is certainly right about one thing. A healthy world. A world full of life and of prospects for all people, all living things. A world that avoids the worst impacts of a terrible climate disruption on the road to a hothouse mass extinction. In this, far more hopeful, world there is no place for companies like Peabody Energy. Companies whose profit-making and related accumulation of a corrupting political power and influence is entirely dependent on locking in an ever-worsening global crisis.
(Peabody became infamous for its destructive strip mining efforts that transformed beautiful and treasured lands into toxic, lifeless moonscapes. Here, a Peabody crane scoops coal out of the Nara strip mine which was also the location of a sacred Native American burial ground. Continued fossil fuel burning will ultimately have a similar beauty and life-denuding effect on the whole of the global environment. Image source: Commons.)
Coal’s Moral and Economic Bankruptcy
Today that company, representing the largest coal interest in the Western World, declared bankruptcy. An optimistic announcement that comes amidst a swift sea change and a precipitous contraction in the global coal industry. One that, if world-wide public, private, protest action, and individual efforts to reduce carbon emissions on the back of 200 nations reaching a landmark global climate agreement in Paris continue in force, may well be a beginning of an end to the fossil fuel energy era.
With each passing day, that start of an end becomes more and more visible in what appears to be an ongoing global coal industry collapse and retrenchment. In three of the world’s largest coal producing and consuming regions — India, China, and the US — production, imports and exports are down. In the US, coal production has fallen by more than 50 percent since 2008. Meanwhile US coal exports plummeted by 23 percent in 2015 alone. In China, coal consumption is reported to have dropped during both 2014 and 2015. This drop comes as this world’s largest current greenhouse gas emitter has announced an expanding array of bans on coal burning for its highest polluting power plants and a cessation of coal plant construction in 15 of its provinces. In India, one region that coal backers had looked to for expanding consumption, coal imports are also down.
The broadening contraction in coal has forced bankruptcies not just for Peabody, but for other major American coal players like Arch Coal and Alpha Natural Resources. A devastating wave for a climatologically destructive industry that appears less and less likely to survive in any form resembling its former might.
The Supertrend That’s Driving Coal’s Downfall — Mass Protest, Divestment, The Rise of Renewables, Policy Push to Prevent Climate Change, and The Switch To Gas
It’s all a part of an emerging supertrend that is being reinforced along many fronts. The first of which involves a broad global protest action against new coal plant construction and wider fossil fuel based energy itself. Led by key groups like 350.org, Greenpeace, and the Sierra Club, these critical actions have targeted construction sites, pipelines, railways and mines. In addition, a comprehensive divestment campaign spear-headed by 350.org has targeted capital flows to the fossil fuel special interests. In this campaign, investing firms and institutions are faced with a call to moral action. A call to shift resources away from the fossil fuel-based companies that profit by locking in the ever-worsening impacts of climate change. In most cases, coal divestment is seen as the low-hanging fruit in these efforts. The coal companies produce the highest level of fossil fuel based carbon pollution per ton of fuel burned, are among the biggest threats to clean air and clean water, and are the most financially at risk entities among the fossil fuel based polluters.
Such campaigns against coal would be toothless without readily available alternative energy sources. And during recent years, clean substitutes for coal like solar and wind energy have become more and more accessible. Market prices for both resources have plummeted to the point where either can now compete directly with coal in most major markets. A fact that was brought into stark contrast this year when the cost of a newly constructed Indian solar power station fell below the cost of a newly constructed Indian coal plant fueled by imports. Solar energy in particular has been surging by leaps and bounds with India alone planning 100 gigawatts of new solar powered generation in just six years — a level of construction that will inevitably take a big bite out of what appears to be the last remaining major energy market where coal could potentially expand. In effect, what we are seeing is coal being crowded out by far more benevolent and increasingly competitive wind and solar based energy systems.
(US coal production has plummeted since 2008 in the face of rising renewables, increased use of gas, and falling overseas demand. Global trends seem to indicate that the US coal market is a microcosm of the larger shift in the international energy trade — one that has been driven by a broad-based effort to reduce carbon emissions and impacts related to a human-forced warming of the world. Image source: Clean Technica. Data source: US EIA.)
In many nations, drives to increase the rate of renewable energy adoption have been put at logger-heads with the special-interest funded bodies supporting polluting legacy fossil fuel generation. In the US, republicans have become infamous for their pro-coal, drill-baby, drill, anti-renewables, climate change denial political stance. But despite a well-funded effort by fossil fuel industry to lock in carbon pollution and climate disruption by stacking the political deck, policies aimed at confronting climate change have continued to advance. The Paris Climate Summit, though the object of much criticism, produced the strongest global climate treaty yet. And the broader effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions has now been reinforced by a growing number of cities, states, and nations who now realize that continuing the current massive carbon emission is a hazard to their ongoing existence. Coastal cities and nations facing worsening sea level rise, states in expanding drought zones, regions stricken by water insecurity and increased crop damage, cities, states and nations dependent on healthy oceans for tourism and seafood, regions confronting waves of persons displaced from drought-stricken nations, and cities, states, and nations in the path of increasingly severe weather have all both quietly and loudly fought back — pushing the necessary cuts in hothouse gas emissions forward. These key stakeholders — who basically represent all of the rest of the non-fossil fuel interest world — are starting to realize that the carbon industry, though excessively influential, is not all-powerful. And they are starting to more effectively wield their own, far more just, influence in an attempt to reduce the climate harm that is now setting in.
Within the fossil fuel ranks there is also division. Even among the fossil fuel players there appears to be an acceptance that coal is on its way out. Messaging coming from the fossil fuel industry appears to have shifted to support of the still very harmful natural gas and for a new global fracking campaign. In essence, what we observe is that the oil and gas interests, including the new fracking interests, have basically maneuvered in a way that effectively throws coal under the climate change response bus. Coal is tougher to greenwash than natural gas and the spearhead campaign against coal as the worst of the worst among carbon polluters has proven undeflectable. This has been especially true in the UK where even conservatives are aiming to shut down coal plants (while continuing their harmful efforts in support of fracking and aimed at suppressing rates of renewable energy adoption).
Preventing Ever-Worsening Harm — Why The Fossil Fuel Era Must End as Soon as Possible
With today’s Peabody bankruptcy declaration, and in light of these observed trends, it’s becoming more and more apparent that the global energy game has changed and that the political and economic power of coal is fading. A positive shift to be certain. One that will help to reduce global carbon emissions. But we should remember that the current human greenhouse gas emission is now ten times faster than during the last hothouse mass extinction event 55 million years ago. And the only way to greatly reduce that terrible spewing of heat trapping gasses is to not only completely cut out the coal emission, but to also remove the major atmospheric carbon contributions coming from a massive burning of both oil and gas. To this point, we should work as hard as we can to help make Jenny’s prediction above a reality. For we desperately need the end of the fossil fuel era to happen soon.
Links:
A Harbinger of the End of the Fossil Fuel Era (Please Support 350.org)
The Western World’s Largest Coal Company Declares Bankruptcy
US Coal Production Continues Plunge
Sans a Swift Switch to Renewables, Dangerous Climate Change May Be Imminent
US Energy Information Administration
Peabody Strip Mining on Indian Burial Grounds
Hat Tip to Colorado Bob
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Posted by robertscribbler on April 13, 2016
https://robertscribbler.wordpress.com/2016/04/13/a-harbinger-of-the-end-of-the-fossil-fuel-era-coal-production-exports-plummet-as-peabody-energy-declares-bankruptcy/
Toxic Interests: In Lead-up to Paris Summit, Conservative Politicians Around the World are Fighting to Kill Renewable Energy
We have seen the enemy and he is us.
‘He,’ in this case, is those among us now fighting an all-out war against government programs aimed at reducing the damage caused by human-forced climate change. And in this present time of ramping climate catastrophe, there is no excuse at all for this morally reprehensible activity. Yet, excuse or no, the foul actions of these shameless ignoramuses continue. For all around the world conservatives (called [neo] liberals in Australia) with ties to fossil fuel based industry continue to scuttle programs that would result in the more rapid adoption of renewable energy systems even as they undermine related initiatives to increase energy efficiency.
At a time when the world faces down a growing climate crisis — one that will have dramatically worsening impacts as the decades progress — these failed and corruption-born policies represent the most abhorrent of political activities. And as the world convenes to consider how best to lessen the danger posed by an unfolding global tragedy, there are many in power who are now actively working to increase that danger.
More than anything else, this corrupt group is fighting to enforce ramping dangers, an ever-broadening harm, and untold future tragedy.
Shutting Down Coal to Build Natural Gas in The UK
This week, the conservative government of the United Kingdom made what seemed to be an optimistic announcement. It now plans to phase out all coal generation by 2025. Because coal power generation is the worst of the worst among carbon polluters, this news was rather good. Good, that is, when one doesn’t take a look at the broader context of current UK energy policy. And taking that look, we find what could best be described as an utterly abysmal state of affairs.
(Wind power, produced by these and many other majestic towers turning over the UK countryside, is a critical solution to human-based fossil fuel emissions and a target of conservative energy policies. Image source: British Wind Energy Association.)
Ever since coming to power this summer, the conservative government has consistently cut subsidies for renewable energy while providing subsidies for some of the worst polluting facilities imaginable. Recently, UK Energy Secretary Rudd received stark criticism for this move along with pointed words over related backward policies like the provision of subsidies for expensive and polluting diesel-electric generators. Pointed words that came from both politicians and scientists alike. One such scientist was chief of the UN’s environmental programme Jacqueline McGlade who recently stated in the Financial Times:
“What’s disappointing is when we see countries such as the United Kingdom that have really been in the lead in terms of getting their renewable energy up and going — we see subsidies being withdrawn and the fossil fuel industry being enhanced.”
So even as conservatives in the UK are phasing out coal, they are replacing it with oil and natural gas. Fossil fuel replacements for fossil fuels at the expense of both zero-carbon renewables and a climate capable of supporting human civilization. For both oil and gas are still major carbon emitters. Especially when one considers the UK conservatives’ intention of fracking the countryside in search of these dangerous fuels. A method of extraction that has proven to increase emissions of volatile methane gas. And each new gas or oil plant built will continue to pump carbon into the atmosphere for decades even as it risks having its production lifespan cut short as the damages caused by carbon pollution become ever more obvious.
Ms Rudd told the Today programme she wanted to rewrite the rules of the scheme to encourage gas instead. She said: “We have a capacity market auction coming up. We are going to review it carefully afterwards and ensure we do get the new gas we need.”
Conservatives, in this case, who have ideologically (and ludicrously) campaigned against all subsidies have instead decided to subsidize the bad climate outcomes all while cutting funding for solutions.
Fighting Renewable Energy Subsidies, Clean Power Plan in the US
In the US, the situation is only slightly better. Slightly better in that conservatives do not currently hold the Presidency. That said, conservatives are still doing their damnedest to kill off practically every renewable energy program the United States has to offer.
In May, House Republicans presented a bill (HR 1901) that would completely kill off the Production Tax Credit (PTC) for wind energy in the US. This in contrast to a permanent wind Production Tax Credit proposed by Obama. Meanwhile, the same Republican clowns who bring snowballs into the halls of Congress as supposed proof that global warming isn’t happening repeatedly try to de-fund the PTC for both wind and solar at each and every new budget session.
And it’s primarily due these efforts on behalf of fossil fuel backers by Republicans that the PTC is set to expire again by 2017. A move that will inject volatility into the renewable energy markets and bite into what has been an amazing period of growth by both Wind and Solar energy across the US. Growth that has happened despite Republicans’ apparent best efforts to halt it (see Paul Krugman’s Enemies of the Sun).
(US Solar energy adoption rates continued to soar in 2015, jumping to 40 percent of all new installed energy capacity for the first half of the year. These great gains have occurred despite broad based assaults on public policies supporting the rapid adoption of this critical renewable energy source. Image source: US Solar Market Summary.)
Though the PTC represents the Federal Government’s big support program for wind and solar energy development, any program that would reduce carbon emissions falls under attack. Republicans, who have hypocritically spoken in favor of US energy independence, mount repeated attacks on increases in Corporate Average Fuel Efficiency Standards. Republicans incessantly assault the EPA and its underlying Clean Air and Clean Water Acts. But more recently, Republican attacks against EPA have focused on the underpinnings of Obama’s Clean Power Plan. The plan, which sets modest goals to reduce US carbon emissions by 32 percent below 2005 levels through 2030, would also greatly increase the rate of US renewable energy adoption, force the early retirement of the worst polluting power plants, and push for further increases in energy efficiency. Exactly the kind of progress against human forced climate change and toward US energy independence that Republicans apparently abhor.
By contrast, there hasn’t been a bit of legislation supporting fossil fuels that Republicans haven’t loved. Republicans constantly call for ending the oil export ban — a move that would greatly benefit US-based oil corporations. They wholeheartedly support the polluting and groundwater destroying process that is fracking. They’ve repeatedly called for increased drilling of all kinds everywhere including offshore drilling, Alaska National Wildlife Refuge Drilling, and Arctic Ocean Drilling. And they continuously support the dirtiest, highest carbon emitting fuel sources imaginable such as Canada’s Tar Sands and Coal. In fact, Republicans support for coal extends to the point that they frequently pass bills like this one which would allow toxic fly ash the enter groundwater supplies.
At the State level conservative republicans have repeatedly attempted to ram through ALEC and Koch funded bills to roll back net metering laws and renewable energy targets (see Koch Brothers, Big Utilities Attack Solar Energy). All while attempting to open public lands and waters to every variety of drilling and coal mining.
But despite these broad based attacks, renewable energy in the United States continues to make major gains even as energy efficiency measures advance. Sadly, the pace of carbon emission reduction and related renewable energy adoption has been greatly slowed by these continuous attacks by conservative Republicans.
Australia — From Terrible to Not Much Better
In the Southern Hemisphere, recent years have seen a wholesale gutting of renewable energy based policies by the Tony Abbott government in Australia. Time and time again, Abbott (which like northern conservatives foists laizzez faire markets and supports destructive industries like fossil fuels) pushed for a roll back in Australia’s previously aggressive renewable energy adoption rate all while trying to breathe new life into a zombie coal mining, export and power industry.
By Summer of 2015 the situation had gotten so dire that solar energy industry leaders were calling Abbott’s actions a ‘vindictive crusade’ against the renewable energy industry. John Grimes, head of the Australian Solar Council, this July launched an attack on the Abbott government after Australia’s Clean Energy Finance Corporation decided to stop funding new wind projects.
In a statement to the Saturday Paper, Grimes asserted:
“If Abbott continues this way, we’re [the solar industry] finished. We know that solar and other renewables are competing with coal, and Abbott is intent upon protecting that industry. So, this is our WorkChoices moment. We will be mobilising, and we’ll be campaigning in marginal seats. We’re starting to plan this now.”
(During June of 2015, the Tony Abbott government cut Australia’s Renewable Energy Target [RET] from 41 gigawatts by 2020 to 33 gigawatts. Unfortunately, the new Prime Minister — Malcolm Turnbull — hasn’t moved to support previous, more aggressive targets. As such, Tony Abbott’s legacy of cutting renewable energy in favor of coal lives on. Image source: Renew Economy.)
By Fall, the Abbott government had fractured. This development likely in no small part due to campaigning by renewable energy supporters and those concerned about human caused climate change. The new head of the Australian Liberal Party (don’t let the name fool you, they’re just like conservatives everywhere else) Malcolm Turnbull, when considering past performance, might want to support cutting edge solar technology for Australia. However, in his first months as Prime Minister he appears to have done little but cowtow to his numerous coal industry supporting party colleagues.
As an example, Turnbull’s appointed Chief Scientist Dr Alan Finkel recently stated:
“My vision is for a country, a society, or world, where we don’t use any coal, oil, or natural gas, because we have zero-emissions electricity in huge abundance”.
But Turnbull, who is now being pushed by his political colleagues to make it illegal for environmentalists to sue coal companies if they open up new land to mining, felt the need to defend coal on the same stage by making the following and highly fallacious statement:
“If Australia were to stop all of its coal exports … it would not reduce global emissions one iota.”
Due to renewable energy’s popularity in Australia, due to Turnbull’s own likely affinity for the development of cutting edge wind and solar ventures, but also due to the terrible and intransigent institutional legacy of coal support in his party, the Turnbull government has come across as schizophrenic on the issues of renewable energy and climate change. On the one hand, some within Turnbull’s administration make statements like that of Dr. Finkel above. But when it comes to actual policy, Turnbull has continued to support many of the disastrous initiatives set forward by Tony Abbott. Which makes the Turnbull government look like it’s attempting to greenwash a facade over a rather ugly coal-ash face.
If Leaders Can’t Support Renewable Energy and Work to Halt Fossil Fuel Burning, Then They Need To Go
Though the UK, the US and Australia do not make up the entirety of the western world, the conservative anti-renewable energy and pro-fossil fuel sentiment represented in these three countries is wide-ranging. Such sentiment is common to conservative governing groups around the world — from Canada to Europe to New Zealand and beyond. In the western democracies of the world this crippling ideology is preventing a necessarily rapid push to adopt non-carbon energy and prevent the worst impacts of global climate change.
As we approach the Paris Climate Summit, we should be very clear on this one political issue of key importance. If these people continue to hold political power, we will not act rapidly or decisively enough. We will find ourselves overwhelmed by consequences as their delaying actions stymie any effective response. It is therefore crucial that the supporters of the fossil fuel industries of the world are removed from office. They have shown themselves for their true colors — they’ll continue to support these harmful and wretched fuels regardless of consequences, regardless of any, even the most extreme, risks to their own nations and to the nations of the world.
Links:
Top UN Scientist Criticizes UK Cuts To Renewable Subsidy
UK Coal Fired Plants to be Phased Out
Ministers Accused of Trying to Sneak Through New Fracking Rules
Methane Leaks Wipe Out any Benefit of Fracking
Republicans Fight to Repeal PTC for Wind
House Panel Passes Extenders Package Without PTC
The GOP Assault on Environmental Laws
GOP Attacks on Clean Power Plan Going Nowhere
163 Republicans Push for More Offshore Drilling
Republicans Push for Renewed Drilling in Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge
Republican House Passes Bill Forcing Keystone XL Approval for the 9th Time
Republican House Passes Bill That Would Allow Toxic Coal Ash to Enter Groundwater
Koch Brothers, Big Utilities Attack Solar Energy
Abbott’s Campaign to Kill the Renewable Energy Sector
Australia Slashes its Renewable Energy Target by 20 Percent
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Posted by robertscribbler on November 24, 2015
https://robertscribbler.wordpress.com/2015/11/24/toxic-interests-in-lead-up-to-paris-summit-conservative-politicians-around-the-world-are-fighting-to-kill-renewable-energy/
At 40 Percent Generation, Renewables are Mothballing Coal Plants on the South Australian Grid
Rapid renewable energy adoption by homeowners and grid visionaries resulting in the mothballing of dirty and dangerous power sources. It’s the kind of action that’s absolutely necessary if we’re going to have a prayer in dealing with human-caused climate change. And South Australia is making impressive strides by doing just that.
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Despite being afflicted with a backwards Federal Government that is radically opposed to the further expansion of renewable energy, Australia continued to make amazing gains in alternative energy adoption this year. Throughout the country, rooftop solar installations surged — spurred on by a combination of high electricity costs, plummeting panel prices, and a grid readily capable of handling renewable energy additions.
Both the upgraded grid and the incentives for home renewable energy use that started this trend can be attributed to earlier and wiser governments. And, as a result, Australia boasts a massive distributed solar capacity with one out of every five homes (19 percent) across the country featuring solar arrays.
South Australia — Smooth Grid Loading, 52 Percent Generation From Renewables on Boxing Day
In South Australia, the story is amplified. This region of Australia features the highest home owner adoption of solar energy in the country — with more than 23 percent of homes equipped to generate solar based electricity. In addition, the grid in South Australia is heavily supported by 1,500 megawatts of wind turbine generated power.
As the wind tends to peak at night and solar peaks at mid-day, South Australian grid operators show few strong peaks in demand. And this makes grid operation quite a bit easier and less taxing on personnel and equipment.
The typical mid-day peak is smoothed out by solar even as wind powers up through the night. The only peak in the system occurs at midnight — when water heaters are programmed to switch on and take advantage of supposedly cheapest times. However, ramping solar energy adoption has tipped this previously intelligent feature on its ear as cheapest times now come at noon with the surge in solar wattage.
As we can see from December 26 figures, grid loading is mostly smooth but for the anomalous midnight peak:
(South Australia December 25-27 grid loading shows that renewables smooth out peak demand curves. Image source: Clean Technica)
On this day, solar energy’s contribution to grid generation surged to 30 percent even as wind dropped off in the heat of the day. Perhaps more impressive was the fact that fully 52 percent of this region’s electricity was generated by renewables — with the lesser portion being derived from coal, gas and imports.
This majority generation from wind and solar flies in the face of renewable energy detractors who have long stated that high loads from wind and solar energy would be too variable to be useful to grid integrators. But the net effect for South Australia is both abundance and smoothing:
(Renewable dominate power generation in South Australia. Image source: Clean Technica)
South Australia’s 1500 MW worth of wind and high solar rooftop penetration resulted in an average of 40 percent of electricity coming from renewables in 2014. A figure that is expected to surge above 50 percent well before 2025.
An upshot of this is that two coal fired plants have been mothballed. These plants will no longer crank out tons and tons of greenhouse gasses. They have been idled, set to pasture by far less harmful energy sources.
Meanwhile, Rob Stobbe, CEO of SA Power Networks notes that he sees no future for large conventional fossil fuel generators. Stobbe’s vision is instead for rooftop solar, storage and renewable-based micro grids served by an operator and integrator like SA Power Networks.
Links:
One out of Every Five Australian Homes Use Solar Energy
Rooftop Solar in South Australia Met 1/3 of Electricity Demand
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Posted by robertscribbler on January 15, 2015
https://robertscribbler.wordpress.com/2015/01/15/at-40-percent-generation-renewables-are-mothballing-coal-plants-on-south-australian-grid/
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