FWIW I made a map this year about Non Fossil electricity usage around the world and the results are quite surprising actually, supporting the article for the most part. Btw. this was surprisingly quick to do with google spreadsheets.
Strange entry. Looks like they pumped a lot of fossil fuel generated energy to hydroelectric storage, so they generated more than consumed in the year of this statistic.
After your edit, does your question really make sense to you still? Of course nuclear is non fossil?
And yes, whether we go full renewable or a mix of nuclear and renewable is IMO a second order question, the main focus should be carbon neutral to negative economy ASAP.
Well, only if you are pedantic with fossil meaning long dead organic (which is true, of course). But for energy it makes more sense to distinguish between sources that can be used or they are gone (sun shines on the planet and at some point the heat dissipates back into the universe) and those that are gone at some point because we have used them. So, yeah, point taken, but then I do not think it makes much sense to distinguish between fossil and non-fossil for the point you want make here, which is dependence on a time-limited resource.
I disagree on your last point. By far our biggest problem right now is to keep the climate stable enough. Earth's carbon absorption rate is the most critical resource we have, not the amount of non renewable energy resources that are left. The first problem we have to solve within 1-20 years max., the second is more like 100-500 years (Uranium/Thorium/Plutonium/Fossil Fuel that's available).
That is true, but wind and solar do not change because we do use them, they will occur anew. Nuclear material does not reappear (within our system on earth). So the entropy increases for wind and solar anyways, while much slower for uranium under normal circumstances.
Which comes with the desirable property of solving the problem of radioactive waste storage, as waste is stored in a very convenient place far away from any human dwelling.
Calling it "alternative energy" always strikes me as a bit silly. It's an alternative source, the energy stays the same.
From my limited research into energy sources, both solar and wind seem like good short-term goals. The fundamental problems with both seems to be that it's not viable in many locations and it's not steady or predictable. With the space craze that has started developing in the last few years, I'm hopeful people will open up more to the idea of nuclear power. Nuclear is our only path to the stars!
The article left me with more questions than answers. How do they define being a "leader in alternative energy", and why is it important? They don't provide enough evidence to prove this is the case. How do their efforts compare to other countries around the world? What effects would we expect this have on the host country? e.g. improved economy, quality of life, etc.?
Nuclear is too slow and too expensive. Even once you get past the permitting objections, it takes a long time to build the plants. And building nuclear plants in countries that don't currently have any is extremely problematic because of the arms proliferation question. I suspect that's a big factor in South America.
I don't really see what nuclear has to do with space. Our short-to-medium term life is a question of keeping Earth safe, both politically and environmentally. While the energy costs of rockets are individually huge they're still not a significant percentage of our global energy consumption.
The uplands of Chile, Peru, Bolivia etc are particularly suitable for solar, entirely viable and cloudless for most of the year. I've been to the altiplano: this https://www.flickr.com/photos/136766297@N06/21300817773/in/a... is a short drive from La Paz, 4000m above sea level and 16 degrees south of the equator. Ideal landscape for solar farming.
Edit: just remembered, while I was there I saw the floating islands of Lake Titicaca, which is an incredible way for people to live; a sort of houseboat built of reeds. The only modern convenience was a TV ... powered from a solar panel and car battery.
Solar hot water is also already ubiquitous at that latitude - all you have to do is put a black barrel on your roof.
> While the energy costs of rockets are individually huge they're still not a significant percentage of our global energy consumption.
The limiting factor for chemical rocket propulsion is not the total energy consumed, but the specific impulse (the "mileage", i.e., efficiency). This is because rockets have to carry and accelerate all their fuel with them, leading to the size of the rocket growing exponentially with the speed you want to reach. For nuclear propulsion, it's still exponential, but the exponent is much smaller.
Furthermore, electricity generation using solar panels quickly becomes infeasible with growing distance from the sun.
Solar energy is a very long-term goal if you include a dyson sphere in your calculation. And even less long-term, it is not that bad for space travel as you have more and especially 24h coverage without an atmosphere and a planet to block the view. Even on earth, cheap wind and solar power may be used in the near future for (more) long term storage solutions like power-to-gas etc. With 3ct per kWh as currently planned in Dubai, that is entirely feasible.
Nuclear power (I am not speaking about fusion as that is still down the road) is to the contrary rather short-term as the sources for uranium etc. are somewhat limited. And it wont get cheaper anymore. On the contrary we are still detecting down-sides of nuclear energy like it was detected in recent years that around nuclear plants there are significantly less female life birth and increased child tumor rates. Not much but for still around a thousand girls for a normal power plant over its life time. Of course, coal is not better in that regard but wind and solar are or at least will be.
While riding in an Uber through Washington DC, my dad and I had a chat with the driver about his plans to build two solar installations in the US.
He also mentioned the likelihood that their company would soon enter Latin America, where higher electricity rates for consumers would allow them to make more money for selling the same amount of electricity compared to the US. He said this was the main angle he was using to attract investors.
Plenty of Uber drivers only drive customers when they're already heading from one place to another. Since you pick what fares you want to take, a professional leaving from Fairfax to, say, NW DC can exclusively accept a fare going from their relative location to their relative destination.
This wastes maybe a couple of minutes. But it does provide company and perhaps an added member to your network, all while earning you (perhaps negligible amounts of...) money. All this to say, maybe they can run a startup and drive Uber.
Right now I'm most worried about two places when it comes to carbon footprint: US and India. The US is very worrysome now, India in a decade or two. China is worrysome as well, but at least there you can see progress being made on a national scale, which can't really be said yet about the US, and with a Trump administration I'm afraid that even commercial attempts could be spoiled again with an artificially propped up fossil fuel economy. If that happens it's borderline suicidal really.
Just a few days back India installed a huge solar electricity generation project in Tamil Nadu, we have a working smart grid in place like Latur, in the next 2-3 years there is a mandate that all railway platforms shall use solar energy. I think India is taking solar energy seriously. Upto this limit that Indian PM and transport min went to meet Musk about starting Tesla manufacturing in India for Asian markets!
I wasn't aware of this, thank you for the heads up. India is critical - hundreds of millions of soon-to-become energy consumers, it's imperative that gas/coal gets trumped by alternative thats both carbon neutral and cheaper.
If India gets this right the next bigger problem will be Indonesia - unfortunately with a much more worrisome government.
Yes, even I was unaware of this, it was after meeting a lady who lived in Latur that I realized that we have a smart grid working. They have to install solar panels, use electricity and if excess is generated they can sell it to the grid
although, I will say, not a lot of people are using it because of the cost. Money and cost are interpreted in a funny way in India, you ignore it when you do what you like and tend to think too highly of it when you do something you don't want to do.
For instance, a typical Indian lady would go xx km to get a short discount on clothing, they'll spend more $ on fuel as compared to the savings they'll get due the the discount, but that's fine. When it comes to installing solar, which will pay itself out within a few years, "no, it costs a lot of $$". It is here that we face deadlock, unless everyone else does it, we don't do it.
One positive highlight I'd like to do is that most of India uses solar water heater, at least we have that. Plus with Tesla, I hope we get to a point where solar panels are cheap, and we can store a lot of electricity and not require special cabling for the solar electricity, everything should be a drop in replacement, plus, solar panel prices are said to drop steeply.
Especially with Mr. Trump as the President, who openly said that climate change is a hoax perpetrated by China. I am still optimistic that something +ve will happen on the climate change front
China has a long way to go for sure. It's just that I do get the impression that the Chinese government is pushing clean energy not just for show. If any place can do massive changes in just one or two decades, it's (atm) China. And since they currently need to find ways to become a fully developed nation with high tech exports anyway, energy tech certainly seems like a good bet. That's why I'm more worried about the US - yes the numbers currently point to China first, but in the US all indicators in the government point to the wrong direction.
The numbers point to China first, how does that not worry you? You say they can do massive changes in a few decades, you could say that about anyone even the U. S. and we're still far from where we should be. Just because current policy looks like they "heading" that direction this doesn't hold much weight.
China is going to do what is best for them economically, while I'd say it's probably smart to invest and make strides now they might not see it that way. I also don't blame them because we had years throughout the industrial revolution with no penalty to get booming. They could view this as it's their turn to crank out everything they can.
India has made solar a priority. We are depending a lot on coal right now, but our leaders are thankfully not obtuse enough to see the future it will lead us to.
That we also have enough sunlight to make solar easily feasible is a plus
I think Solar coupled with batteries or hydroelectric storage makes a lot of sense - decentralized, proven tech, relatively easy to repair, much cheaper to build in remote areas instead of long high voltage power lines. I'm just wondering about Lithium supplies if half the world is going battery powered.
More interesting is that Lithium is recycled but cannot find how much per year. In theory 70% of lithium batteries from 5 years ago are recycled back into new batteries.
This is a really interesting project: store energy in the form of concrete blocks moved up and down slopes by electric train bogies with regenerative braking.
http://www.aresnorthamerica.com/
IMO this needs some citation. The ones I'm aware of are these big expensive spanish power plants. I think this is neither simple nor cost effective compared to batteries, plus the energy is AFAIK only stored short term.
No one builds them though because there isn't a lot of need currently. Mostly I think because it's cheaper to build a natural gas fired peaking plant than time shift say electricity from coal fired plants. However as we add more wind and solar this should change.
With a Trump administration one just has to frame things in terms of national pride. Who wants to be left behind third-world countries in energy innovation?
What I mean is subsidies for the fossil fuel industry. We'd be doing a lot of progress if it were just sold at market value, and if the market price is below the cost of extraction/refinement/distribution, it would just not be pumped out.
>What I mean is subsidies for the fossil fuel industry.
The nature of fossil fuel subsidies are tax breaks and unpaid externalities.
As far as the former, basically irrelevant: global oil companies (and their employees) pay BILLIONS in taxes annually. We aren't handing them free money. There's a big difference between handing people money to burn, and giving a tax break to companies that, let's face it, are fundamental to national security infrastructure.
Regarding the latter: we're working on it. The externalities aren't easy to pin down, and there is much argument over what the values should be.
The most important part of this article was a mention of connecting national grids. If we had a global grid, the section of earth with enough sunlight could power the rest of the world. And hence no need for non-renewable energy.
This is an interesting setup -- because the example solar plant is in Chile, which has a LOT of hydropower, they can plug in a lot of wind and solar without having to worry as much about storage.
Indeed, here in Chile we have a lot of hydropower, but the overwhelming majority of it is located on the center and south of the country (where most of the population lives), while the big solar projects are located on the north (where most of the mining activity happens).
Being such a long country this means that there are big distances between hydropower and solar plants (1500+kms) rendering inefficient to make use of combined energy sources due to energy loss on the transmission lines and the cost of building these transmission lines.
In fact, the power grids of the north (SING) and the power grids on the south/center (SIC) are not yet connected [0], causing a huge excess of energy on the north system due to the recent addition of solar plants. The excess of energy is being sold to Argentina [1] instead of being used on the south, making me wonder what interesting things we should be doing with this excess... (mining bitcoins, datacenters, etc).
Though I think the world is going to be a better place. We're headed for a very difficult political reality in my lifetime. We have a whole lot of challenges coming up, and our leaders don't know what to do about them.
Luckily, on our current trajectory, its not as bad as you'd think. Even without additional political support, clean energy can finally stand on its own.
TL;DR The question is no longer if we'll make it, just when.
* Solar and wind are stupid cheap now, and getting cheaper, fast. In over 25 states, rooftop solar is a better investment than the S&P500. [1] You're seeing Power Purchase Agreements under 3 cents/KwH. [2] Solar will only get cheaper. Wind is still being built like crazy in Texas and the central Midwestern US. Some utilities even offer power for free at night wind power is so plentiful (and transmission capability lacking). [3] Tesla/SolarCity has already moved into Florida now that the utility-sponsored Amendment 1 failed. (Which was an underhanded utility attempt to hinder rooftop solar deployment)
* Utility scale battery storage has arrived. Again, its only going to get cheaper (Tesla's Gigafactory is a big deal, but lots of other players in the market as well) [4] [5] [6]. Tesla has already installed a microgrid on an island in the Pacific that satisfies all of the island's power needs, removing the need for their diesel generators to produce island power.
* Tesla will deliver its Model 3 in the next 12-18 months. I have no doubt Elon will drive Tesla into scaling up to 1 million vehicles/year in production (relying primarily on their recent German manufacturing automation acquisition) [7]. While I would like to see Nissan and GM make EVs that aren't purely compliance cars (Bolt? Pleasssssse), I think they're good enough for urban dwellers or car share networks where you're sticking to major metros. (Full disclosure: TSLA investor)
* OPEC has finally agreed (after 8 years) to reduce supply to push oil prices back up. Even with US shale coming back online at those profitable market prices ($60-80+/barrel) and some of OPEC cheating on those cuts (who wants to reduce their revenue artificially?), that only does one thing: accelerates the transition to EVs. [8]
* Repealing the Clean Power Plan will not be able to stop the phase out of coal power due to cheap natural gas. Market forces at work. [9]
* Federal electric vehicle subsides will phase out within the next 2 years for all manufacturers due to hitting the sales quotas dictated by the statute's phaseout provisions [10]. No point in trying to remove them.
* Solar and wind ITC tax credit extensions (to 2021) agreed to by Congress were bipartisan. In exchange, restrictions were removed on the export of crude oil from the US. This agreement will not be unwound.
Urban dwellers park on the street a few blocks away from their upstairs apartment if they're lucky. Rooftop solar and a charger in a garage are pretty much only an option for suburban homeowners (and only those without range anxiety).
I agree this is a tough nut to crack, although I've seen success in EV chargers on the street in Amsterdam, Oslo, Copenhagen. It can be done.
Renters or condo owners can elect to buy solar and or wind from their utility without having to install their own hardware. They can still install Powerwalls to be part of the distributed virtual demand response system (while receiving the benefit of avoiding demand or time of use charges).
Without the solar ITC and wind PTC most projects wouldn't be feasible. I'm skeptical these will last past a major tax overhaul as planned this year. I don't think your view on oil prices is correct. Even if supply cuts work US shale producers will pick up any slack. And I don't agree with your long term take on electric cars. Gasoline cars are just better for anyone who actually needs their car. Electric is a luxury and not necessarily cheaper at current gas prices.
* Wind does not require any ITC credits to be competitive, solar will require them for another 1-2 years. [1]
* Shale production is not nimble, and OPEC can always profit at lower prices. Saudi Arabia can profit at $12/barrel. Shale is barely profitable at $40/barrel, and needs $50-60/barrel to really be worth the production.
* Gasoline cars are twice as expensive per mile to operate compared to electric cars. EV drivetrains last forever. The internal combustion engine is not long for this world (witness how badly VW had to cheat to pass emissions standards). OPEC participants can't balance their budgets at current market prices, so the price must go up, making EVs even more attractive. [2]
Mind you, I don't really care if you agree with me. We're already on a trajectory; I'm simply describing that trajectory.
Seriously,EV drivetrains last forever? What about battery packs that will be fucking dead after a few years of driving?
Have you ever worked with actual machinery? Electric motors can fail just as well, the windings might break or burn out, the bearings wear out, there is still some gearing in the car as well
Solar and wind is ruinously expensive (just look at german energy prices before and afrer start of their retarded experiment - and remember they pretty much drove out a lot of energy intensive heavy industry to China)
Do you really think its a good thing energy prices go negative because of generators that provide miniscule amounts od total required energy?
Tesla warranties their battery pack and electric motors for 8 years/unlimited miles. Their CTO has stated they expect 10-15 year lifetimes, minimum, from their stationary storage battery packs. Existing Model S data has shown their battery packs only degraded 6% over ~180k miles of use. The drivetrain will last the entire lifetime of the vehicle.
Electric motors are more reliable than internal combustion engines. Full stop.
Wind is cheaper than all other energy sources. Solar is still expensive, but that's what subsidies are for.
Yes, it's absolutely fine for energy prices to go negative when renewables are over producing.
I'll back you up on the electric motors being more reliable than gasoline engines. Gasoline engines by design have all sorts of moving parts where there is sliding friction mediated by partial lubrication[1]. Wear is inescapable.
Simple math gives you an estimate for the max run time of a gasoline engine.
200,000 miles / 30 mph => 6600 hours.
So after 7000 hours of run time a gasoline engine is shot. Industrial electric motors easily achieve run times that are ten times that number as do the power electronics needed to drive them.
[1] Partial lubrication means you have metal to metal contact. Full lubrication ala a pressure fed journal bearing is a different story. There the bearing surfaces are separated by a film of fluid. These types of bearing can an do last for decades.
Yes, a lifetime of realism is worth more than a few selective quotes.
You want a quote - here's one from the CBC:
"The province will drop the guaranteed rate for small rooftop solar projects from 80.2 cents per kilowatt hour to 54.9 cents, while larger solar installations will get between 34.7 cents and 44.5 cents a kWh."
The Canadian government pays citizens 80 cents a Kw/h to generate solar electricity.
They sell it back to consumers at about 12 cents a Kw/h.
So you tell me with a straight face how they're going to get '80 cents Kw/h' down to '12 cents Kw/h' in 2 years?
Or even 10.
Not going to happen in most of North American for a very long time.
Thank you so much for putting this together. Any place where I can keep up with summaries like this? It's nice to read something optimistic on clean energy sources.
I put this together based on my habitual consumption of Bloomberg.com, utilitydive.com, reddit.com/r/solar, reddit.com/r/teslamotors, energy-specific posts in reddit.com/r/worldnews, and consumption of every report produced by the US EIA.
I'd recommend energy specific Bloomberg articless, utilitydive.com and EIA's mailing list. That should get you most of the type of information I summarized.
Globally solar represents more than 1% of electricity.[1] The long term growth rate has been around 40% p.a.[2] If that growth rate stays for 10 more years, the global energy market is going to look very different.
93% of new generation capacity coming online each month is from renewables, according to the EIAs "Electric Power Monthly" and "Electricity Monthly Update" reports.
EDIT: I included natural gas in the total generation mix. That's my mistake.
I don't discount additional natural gas coming online; that's a good thing. It throttles faster than nuclear and coal, and produces far less CO2 than coal generation. Natural gas is almost a requirement as renewables scale up until batteries for utility scale storage have dropped in price to be competitive. This is already happening: Tesla is contracting with several utilities to replace their natural gas peaker plants with battery storage substations.
"Electric generating facilities expect to add more than 26 gigawatts (GW) of utility-scale generating capacity to the power grid during 2016. Most of these additions come from three resources: solar (9.5 GW), natural gas (8.0 GW), and wind (6.8 GW), which together make up 93% of total additions. If actual additions ultimately reflect these plans, 2016 will be the first year in which utility-scale solar additions exceed additions from any other single energy source."
It doesn't make sense to include natural gas. We added 15GW of renewable energy to our 1068 GW. We really need to do a lot better. Your optimism is unfounded.
So, we should do less? The first 1% is the hardest, the next 1% slightly easier, by the time it gets to 10% probably 80% of the hard challenges will be overcome. Successful adoption curves always look like hockeysticks, which means a slow early grind. Less carbon is always better, and taking the gains we can now is better than waiting for perfection.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/16K4gNhy_AN8Eg4Ov3z7p...