The Remarkable Progress of Renewable Energy

[fromderinside]

Now if we could only get zero carbon life .....

It already is, on average (which is all that matters in the context of climate).

The amount of carbon actively cycling is unimportant; What matters is how much is being released from ultra long term storage as coal, gas, oil, clathrates and geological structures, vs how much is being returned to those ultra long term stores. The amount returning is tiny; So unless we either massively increase that amount, or massively reduce the amount we release, we are fucked.

Anything with a cycle time of less than a century is irrelevant, so biological effects are negligible unless they are measured on timescales of millions of years - such as the formation of new coal or oil deposits, for example.

That's why burning coal is disastrous, but having eight billion humans exhaling carbon dioxide isn't. What we exhale was already part of atmospheric carbon dioxide until very recently, and so it's adding net zero to the short term average amount in the atmosphere.

Nice. But I was thinking of carbon based life alternatives rather that keeping some frigging balance in a decaying, er, cooling system

 

[steve_bank]

The melting Alaskan tundra will release carbon to the atmosphere. Snowball effect.

 

[fromderinside]

Damn. I wish I'd written something like that. Oh what. I did, except I also wrote Methane release would be 16 times worse.

 

[lpetrich]

Declining renewable costs drive focus on energy storage | REVE News of the wind sector in Spain and in the world

Though pumped hydropower is still the most-used, batteries have become big, and numerous alternatives are being researched, like storage as heat and storage as cold, as chilled water or ice to assist a building's A/C. Even hydrogen made by electrolysis.

US Electricity: Solar Up 15%, Wind Up 9% | CleanTechnica

• 48.45% of new power capacity came from renewable energy
• 28.55% of new power capacity came from wind energy
• 18.59% of new power capacity came from solar energy
• 49.67% of new power capacity came from natural gas

• 18.18% of electricity generation came from renewable energy, up from 17.57% of electricity generation in October 2018
• 8.5% of electricity generation came from wind energy, up 32.8% from October 2018, when it was 7.72% of electricity generation (note that wind electricity generation is up 32.8%, not wind’s share of electricity generation)
• 3.37% of electricity generation came from solar energy, up 21.2% from October 2018, when it was 2.93% of electricity generation (note that solar electricity generation is up 32.8%, not solar’s share of electricity generation)
• Solar output increased 14.59% in January–October 2019 compared to January–October 2018
• Wind output increased 9.21% in January–October 2019 compared to January–October 2018

Impressive progress, even if it is not as fast as one might want in controlling CO2 emissions.

 

[lpetrich]

The New Coal-Killing Energy Storage Challenge Will Ding Nat Gas

It’s no secret that the Trump Administration has presided over the collapse of the US coal industry, but do they have to rub it in? The answer appears to be yes. On Wednesday, newly minted Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette announced an all-hands-on-deck initiative to push the energy storage envelope farther into coal-killing territory. For good measure, the new $153 million “Energy Storage Grand Challenge” will probably bump off natural gas, too. And all this under a President* who pledged to save coal jobs!

...
“Today, U.S. Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette announced the launch of the Energy Storage Grand Challenge, a comprehensive program to accelerate the development, commercialization, and utilization of next-generation energy storage technologies and sustain American global leadership in energy storage.”

...
The Energy Department is not just trying to keep up with the Joneses here. It is aiming for the US to dominate the global energy storage marketplace. In the process, it will steamroll all over the prospects for future growth in both coal and natural gas for power generation in the US.

The agency has already dropped a couple of huge hints about its intentions. For starters, it is launching a series of stakeholder workshops with the goal of developing a “coordinated R&D roadmap to 2030 for a broad suite of storage and flexibility technologies.”

Flexible is code for intermittent energy sources, namely wind and solar, so there’s one clue right there.

It is welcome to see such people depart from what the fossil-fuel oligarchs might want. However, good storage technologies are also good for fossil-fuel generation, for these reasons:

• "Spinning reserve" is wasteful.
• Natural-gas "peakers" are not as efficient as combined-cycle natural-gas generators.
• Coal, combined-cycle natgas, and nuclear generation have long reaction times, typically hours.

 

[lpetrich]

Study Shows Coal Kills People. Imagine That! | CleanTechnica
noting
Shutdown of US coal power facilities saved over 26,000 lives, study finds | Environment | The Guardian
Because of drops in nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide.

As summarized by The Guardian, the study concludes that the closure of coal-fired generating plants over the past 10 years has kept 300 million tons of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. More importantly from a health point of view, nitrogen dioxide and sulfur dioxide emissions from those plants were reduced by 60% and 80%, respectively. Those pollutants are linked to increased rates of cardiovascular and pulmonary disease.

As a result, 26,610 American lives were saved over the past decade by taking those coal-powered facilities offline, according to the research. “When you turn coal units off you see deaths go down. It’s something we can see in a tangible way,” Burney tells The Guardian. “There is a cost to coal beyond the economics. We have to think carefully about where plants are sited, as well as how to reduce their pollutants.”

Her study shows that emissions from coal plants not only affect human health, they can lead to decreases in the yield of crops such as corn, wheat, and soybeans. In other words, emissions from coal-fired plants are bad for all living things, which seems rather a high price to pay to secure the blessings of electricity, especially when there are cost competitive alternatives available that have no harmful emissions at all.

Air filters create huge educational gains - Vox - "$1,000 can raise a class’s test scores by as much as cutting class size by a third." - 0.20 standard deviations for the one that got air filters - was in Aliso Canyon in the LA area

Air pollution research: Health and cognitive harms - Vox

Air pollution — mostly fine particulates, but also ozone and nitrogen oxides — has risen in recent years, in part due to ongoing rollbacks of regulations relating to air pollution, leading to what a team of researchers at Carnegie Mellon estimate is nearly 10,000 extra deaths per year.

Policymakers in the Trump administration seem determined to continue down this course.

The Impact of Indoor Climate on Human Cognition:Evidence from Chess Tournaments - particulates in the air degrade chessplayers' performance

Air Quality and Error Quantity: Pollution and Performance in a High-Skilled, Quality-Focused Occupation | Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists: Vol 5, No 4 - carbon monoxide and particulates degrade baseball umpires' performance

Particulate Pollution and the Productivity of Pear Packers - particulates drive productivity down

Project MUSE - Pollution and Politician Productivity: The Effect of PM on MPs - particulates drive down the grade level of politicians' speeches

Associations of Cognitive Function Scores with Carbon Dioxide, Ventilation, and Volatile Organic Compound Exposures in Office Workers: A Controlled Exposure Study of Green and Conventional Office Environments - 4892924.pdf - the less pollution the better

Fresh Air Eases Work - The Effect of Air Quality on Individual Investor Activity

School Bus Emissions, Student Health, and Academic Performance - cleaning up bus exhaust improves students' performance

 

[Bomb#20]

Shutdown of US coal power facilities saved over 26,000 lives, study finds | Environment | The Guardian

Cardiologist statistics.

Oncologists know better than to measure their success or failure in lives saved. You can't save a life. As with a medical intervention, the death rates before and after a coal facility shutdown are the same: one each. To measure the benefit from shutting down coal facilities you need to calculate how much longer those 26,000 inferred but unidentifiable people lived. Did the American people collectively get 26000 more decades of life, or 26000 more years, or 26000 more weeks, or what?

 

[lpetrich]

Denmark Passes Magic 50% In Renewable Electricity Generation Milestone | CleanTechnica

2019 was a record year for renewable electricity generation in Denmark. The national media outlet dr.dk reports that, for the first time ever, half of Denmark’s electricity consumption originated from renewable generation. Those are the data for 2019 totals supplied by energinet.dk. Wind dominated, with 47% of the green energy coming from wind turbines. The rest came from solar.

...
However, the staggering growth has only just begun. The 600 MW offshore wind farm Kriegers Flak in the Baltic Sea will be connected to the Danish and German electricity grid by 2021, and by 2025 the offshore wind farm Thor in the North Sea is scheduled to be connected at a nameplate capacity of at least 800 MW. Thor is the first of 3 giga-size offshore wind farms that the Danish Parliament agreed in 2018 to build by 2030.

25 Climate Activists Occupy Chase Bank & Launch A Major New Campaign Targeting The Financial Industry | CleanTechnica

Over twenty people occupied a Chase Bank branch in Washington, D.C. today to kick off Stop the Money Pipeline, a major new activist effort going after the financial industry’s funding of climate destruction.

Stop the Money Pipeline

Wall Street is financing
climate destruction

Banks, insurance companies, and asset managers are funding,
insuring and investing in the climate crisis.

Stopping this money pipeline is one of the
most important ways we can address the climate emergency.

I don't think that I want to beat up the financial industry too much, because renewable-energy systems are also capital-intensive.

 

[lpetrich]

School and city buses are good for electric vehicles since they don't travel far.

Largest Electric School Bus Program In United States Launching In Virginia | CleanTechnica

Dominion Energy has partnered with local Virginia school districts to begin replacing diesel buses with 100% electric school buses in phases. No phase can come too soon, so CleanTechnica wishes all school districts a rapid rollout after the initial 50 launch the program. Children are more sensitive to air pollution than adults, and it hurts them and their studies.

15 New Electric Articulated Buses Deployed In NYC — 500 Planned To Serve All 5 Boroughs | CleanTechnica

New York City’s MTA announced on December 15, 2019, that it has deployed the first phase of its new all-electric articulated bus fleet. The now historic 2020–2024 Capital Plan includes $1.1 billion to acquire 500 new electric buses to serve all 5 boroughs. This first phase includes 15 buses. The first electric articulated bus recently took off on one of the city’s busiest crosstown routes – the 14th Street busway.

Utility-Scale Solar Has Led U.S. Solar Since 2012 | CleanTechnica - about 60% of the market.

Zero Mass Water Shrinks Its Panels - Cleantech Talk With Founder Cody Friesen | CleanTechnica

Behind Zero Mass Water's $2,000 Device That Will Generate 5 Liters of Water a Day--in the Desert | Inc.com

A combination solar panel and water extractor - it extracts water from the air, even in arid areas. Amortized over 10 years, its cost is $0.11 / liter or $110 / kiloliter. Checking on Cost of Water gives an average of $1.50 / 1000 gallons of tap water in the US, or $0.4 / kiloliter.

Bottled water is much more expensive. Why is Bottled Water so Expensive? | Quench Water Blog claims 240 to 10,000, or $96 to $4,000 / kiloliter. How Much Does Bottled Water Cost? | IBWA | Bottled Water claims a wholesale price of $1.11 / gallon or $300 / kiloliter.

Crystal Geyser CGW35001PL Alpine Spring Water, 16.9 oz. Bottles, Bottled at the Source (Pack of 1890): Amazon.com: Grocery & Gourmet Food - for $389. The bottles' capacity is 0.51 liters, and the cost is $400 / kiloliter.

For water coolers, one typically uses 5-gallon bottles, where water typically costs $1.50 (5 Gallon Water Bottles Safe to Reuse? (symptoms, danger, costs, Walmart) - Health and Wellness -Doctors, illness, diseases, nutrition, sleep, stress, diet, hospitals, medicine, cancer, heart disease - City-Data Forum). That's $80 / kiloliter.

So these panels can compete with bottled water, even if not with tap water.

 

[lpetrich]

National Community Solar Programs Tracker | CleanTechnica

Through community solar, individuals subscribe to a portion of a nearby solar project and get credits on their energy bill for the electricity it produces. This way, people without the financial means for solar on their rooftops and people who don’t own suitable rooftops can still reap the benefits of renewable energy. Local governments and installers can go even further to include subscribers with poor credit, or use local installers on the project.

Puerto Rico power outage: How have microgrids performed? - "After Hurricane Maria, battery companies like Tesla and Sonnen helped set up alternate power systems across the island. Now that the island is without power again, they are showing a way forward instead of counting on the Puerto Rico’s beleaguered utility."

Throughout the island, a handful of organizations that now have solar microgrids, like the Boys and Girls Club, have become places that people from the community can visit when the power goes out. “We are there for them,” says Escalera. “Anything they need from us, we’re there.”

...
Homeowners that can afford them often install their own solar panels and battery storage; in the first year after Hurricane Maria, the amount of rooftop solar power on the island nearly doubled. But everyone recognizes that the overall grid, which was in poor repair even before the hurricane, also needs to transform. In a draft plan, the utility called for microgrids across the island, along with some use of natural gas. The challenge is implementing the plan, in part because the federal disaster aid that Congress appropriated—$42 billion—has been slow to arrive.

US Must Offer Puerto Rico The Funding It Needs To Rebuild Grid, Says Environmental Defense Fund | CleanTechnica
First Hurricane Maria in 2017 September, now the recent earthquakes.

Yet the Trump Administration continues to withhold funds that Congress appropriated for the island almost a year ago, the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) argues. The money, under the jurisdiction of the Housing and Urban Development Administration, was intended to support recovery and redevelopment in Puerto Rico in the wake of 2017’s Hurricane Maria.

...
Even before Saturday’s major aftershock, which fissured more roads and prompted more landslides, The New York Times reports that Puerto Rico estimated damages from the earthquake at $110 million. Gov. Wanda Vázquez asked the federal government on Saturday to approve a major disaster declaration, which would clear the way for additional federal assistance, including funds for temporary housing.

The Trump administration approved an initial emergency declaration last week. CNN notes that the president hasn’t spoken or tweeted about the disaster that took place on the US territory, adding that he often publicly comments on natural disasters in the US and abroad and that “Trump has had a fraught history with the US territory since Puerto Rico was devastated by Hurricane Maria in 2017.”

...
Microgrids already are seeing success in Puerto Rico’s most remote regions. Even with extended regions of Puerto Rico without electricity as a result of this week’s earthquake, the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) reveals that microgrids in 10 schools are up and running.

The solar plus storage microgrids were recently installed by RMI, Save the Children, and Kinesis Foundation. These microgrids offer sufficient battery and solar capacity to back up school libraries, administrative offices, kitchens, and critical water pumps indefinitely in the event of an outage.

President Trump seems to have some grudge against Puerto Rico. He had a much less generous approach to that territory after Hurricane Maria than he did to Florida and Texas after they also were hit by hurricane. In a recent Instagram livestream, AOC agreed about this apparent grudge, and she claimed that some Congresspeople recently snuck about $10m of aid to PR without naming its recipient.

 

[lpetrich]

Work starts on huge wind farm that could power 4.5 million homes - "Dogger Bank Wind Farms will be made up of three 1.2 gigawatt offshore sites."

Near Ulrome in Yorkshire, England, it will have a capacity of 3.6 gigawatts. "The scheme is set to use GE’s Haliade-X wind turbine, which has a 12 megawatt generator and stands 260 meters tall."

The scale of that project is considerable: it is capable of powering more than 590,000 homes, has 87 turbines and covers an area of around 20,000 soccer pitches, according to Danish energy company Orsted.

Europe as a whole is home to a significant offshore wind sector. According to industry body WindEurope, 409 wind turbines were connected to the grid in 2018. The average size of offshore turbines in 2018 was 6.8 MW, which represents a 15% rise compared to 2017.

Solar 'Farms' Will Capture Greenhouse Gases to Store in the Soil

When White Oak Pastures learned that their 'radically traditional farming' practices were sequestering more carbon than grassfed cows emit in their lifetimes, they knew the results were repeatable. Through the use of planned livestock grazing, which moves animals daily and restricts grazing to model how herds of ruminants behave in the wild, White Oak Pastures has increased organic matter in their soil from 0.5% to over 5%. That is the equivalent to approximately 919 tons of CO2 taken out of the atmosphere per year.

So carbon capture with vegetation could be a good way to draw down atmospheric CO2.

 

[lpetrich]

How China is cleaning up its air pollution faster than the post-Industrial UK

Beijing has seen some of the lowest air pollution levels in recent history this past winter, just as China’s Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) – now strengthened and renamed to Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE) – has put the final touches on a new, three-year plan to improve air quality. But while the trend is positive, air pollution levels in China are still dire: The MEP calculates an annual average PM2.5 concentration of 43 µg/m3 for China’s cities in 2017, more than 4 times the level of 10 µg/m3 recommended by the WHO. Official measurements for Beijing even showed the capital’s air quality at 58 µg/m3

...
Air quality in London is far from perfect, but it’s also come a long way from the days when people died in the “Great Smog.” The graphic above brings together the earliest known air pollution data from China, from 1980 to 2012, and from the UK from the Industrial Revolution until 2008. Air pollution levels in the main Chinese cities at the beginning of the 1980s were almost exactly at the level of London at the height of the Industrial Revolution in 1890 (a shocking outlier is Hohhot, the capital of Inner Mongolia, which reached a concentration of Total Suspended Particles of 1,501 µg/m3 in 1987, possibly the highest level of urban air pollution in recorded history).

The difference is in the speed of improvements: Air pollution in China has been decreasing at a similar trajectory as London’s 90 years earlier, but at twice the pace. While extreme air pollution levels in China’s recent history are typical for an industrializing economy, its pace in cleaning up the pollution is fast by historical standards.

I'm mentioning this here because much of that dirty air is due to coal burning, meaning that one can do a lot of cleanup by stopping burning coal. Renewable energy sources don't have emissions problems, and well-shielded nuclear reactors don't either.


Sustainable building: The hottest new material is, uh, wood - Vox - "The many, many benefits of using wood in place of concrete and steel."

Wood???

However, a new way of using wood has put the material back in the spotlight. The hype is focused on structural timber or, as it’s more popularly known, “mass timber” (short for “massive timber”). In a nutshell, it involves sticking pieces of soft wood — generally conifers like pine, spruce, or fir, but also sometimes deciduous species such as birch, ash, and beech — together to form larger pieces.

Yes, the hottest thing in architecture this century amounts to “wood, but like Legos.”

Essentially super plywood - sheets of wood glued together. The sheets can be assembled from boards or strips, meaning that one does not need very old trees. The sheets are stacked with their wood grain in different orientations, for added strength. This makes slabs that typically have size 1 ft * 10 ft * 40 ft -- the main limitation on their size is from having to transport them.

In Austria and in Europe generally, where it spread in the 2000s, CLT was developed for use in residential construction. Europeans do not like the flimsy wood stick-frame construction used for so many US houses; they prefer more solid materials like concrete or brick. CLT was meant to make residential construction more sustainable.

But in the US, CLT can’t (yet) compete with stick-frame construction, which is cheap and ubiquitous. It wasn’t until North American architects got the idea of using CLT in bigger buildings, as a substitute for concrete and steel, that it began popping up in North America in the 2010s.

In 2015, CLT was incorporated into the International Building Code (IBC), which jurisdictions across the US adopt as their default. A set of new changes that will enable mass timber structures up to 18 stories tall have been accepted and are expected to be formalized into the newest IBC code in 2021.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

How China is cleaning up its air pollution faster than the post-Industrial UK

How much of this cleanup is real, though?

China does things like simply decree the air quality is not too bad, and prohibit people from reporting information to the contrary. Related, there's a law about not requiring people to work in heat above a temperature that I do not recall at the moment. It's amazing how many days have a high temperature just below the threshold.

 

[steve_bank]

Assume anything from China is propaganda. There is no free press. There was recent mention in the news of a scientist in China publishing a paper on the threat of climate change and causes.

That being said China has tried large scale solar for transportation, I believe it failed. They see it and are trying. They are reported to be the biggest consumer of solar panels. Probably a lot cheaper outside major developed areas than electric infrastructure.

India has a program to bring solar to small villages. Nothing big like refrigerators. Enough for indoor lighting in the day/night and internet/education access for kids.

Brazil has a program to lease solar systems for farms off grid.

Farmers over here were adapting windmills to generators. From a solar text I had in the late 19th century there was a growing market for solar heading.. Eventually it was killed off by cheap natural gas.

 

[lpetrich]

"Mass wood" has some virtues.

Unlike stick-frame construction, it is difficult to ignite.

The thing is, large, solid, compressed masses of wood are actually quite difficult to ignite. (Hold a match up to a large log some time.) In the case of fire, the outer layer of mass timber will tend to char in a predictable way that effectively self-extinguishes and shields the interior, allowing it to retain structural integrity for several hours in even intense fire.

...
An interesting aside: Most people don’t realize that “steel is terrible in fire,” says Green. “Once it reaches a yielding temperature, it becomes highly unpredictable, and it’s done. Your building has to be torn down.” When Green does use steel, he often surrounds it with CLT to protect it in the event of fire.

Thus using mass wood as a sacrificial kind of insulation.

Roughly 11 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions come from building materials and construction; another 28 percent comes from building operations, which mostly involve energy. As energy gets cleaner in coming years, materials and construction will represent a growing fraction of buildings’ carbon impact. That’s what mass timber aims to reduce.

First, some greenhouse gas emissions are released by the supply chain, starting with forestry. ...

Second, there is some amount of carbon embedded in the timber itself, where it is sequestered in buildings that could last anywhere from 50 to hundreds of years ... 1 m^3 of mass wood = 1 mt of CO2

Third and most significantly, substituting mass timber for concrete and steel avoids the carbon embedded in those materials, which is substantial. Cement and concrete manufacture are responsible for around 8 percent of global GHG emissions, more than any country save the US and China. The global iron and steel industry is responsible for another 5 percent. Something like half a ton of CO2 is emitted to manufacture a ton of concrete; 2 tons of CO2 are emitted in the manufacture of a ton of steel. All those embodied emissions are avoided when CLT is substituted.

Exactly how those three carbon effects balance out will depend on individual cases, but research suggests that, for all but the most poorly managed forests, the overall impact of using CLT in place of concrete and steel will be a reduction in GHGs

Concrete is sand and gravel held together with Portland cement, and the latter is made by baking limestone with clay rocks like shale. Limestone is CaCO3, and baking it makes CaO and drives off CO2. That makes "clinker", and it is then ground up. Adding water makes Ca(OH)2, and absorbing CO2 from the air gives CaCO3 again.

 

[lpetrich]

Rolling Stone on Twitter: "Oil-and-gas wells produce nearly a trillion gallons of toxic waste a year. An investigation shows how it could be making workers sick and contaminating communities across America. Rolling Stone investigates America's radioactive secret [url]https://t.co/mGoTxle53a https://t.co/2uJi1bRz1U" / Twitter[/url]
noting
Beyond Fracking: Oil-and-Gas Industry's Toxic Waste Is Radioactive - Rolling Stone

He hauls a salty substance called “brine,” a naturally occurring waste product that gushes out of America’s oil-and-gas wells to the tune of nearly 1 trillion gallons a year, enough to flood Manhattan, almost shin-high, every single day. At most wells, far more brine is produced than oil or gas, as much as 10 times more. It collects in tanks, and like an oil-and-gas garbage man, Peter picks it up and hauls it off to treatment plants or injection wells, where it’s disposed of by being shot back into the earth.

One day in 2017, Peter pulled up to an injection well in Cambridge, Ohio. A worker walked around his truck with a hand-held radiation detector, he says, and told him he was carrying one of the “hottest loads” he’d ever seen. It was the first time Peter had heard any mention of the brine being radioactive.

...
“A lot of guys are coming up with cancer, or sores and skin lesions that take months to heal,” he says. Peter experiences regular headaches and nausea, numbness in his fingertips and face, and “joint pain like fire.”

...
Radium, typically the most abundant radionuclide in brine, is often measured in picocuries per liter of substance and is so dangerous it’s subject to tight restrictions even at hazardous-waste sites. The most common isotopes are radium-226 and radium-228, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission requires industrial discharges to remain below 60 for each. Four of Peter’s samples registered combined radium levels above 3,500, and one was more than 8,500.

“It’s ridiculous that these drivers are not being told what’s in their trucks,” says John Stolz, Duquesne’s environmental-center director. “And this stuff is on every corner — it is in neighborhoods. Truckers don’t know they’re being exposed to radioactive waste, nor are they being provided with protective clothing.

 

[lpetrich]

How Germany helped make renewable energy cheap for the rest of the world - Vox - "One man, some very old solar panels, and a law that looks a lot like part of the proposed US Green New Deal helped transform the way Germany gets its power."

For this episode, The Impact partnered with NPR’s Planet Money to investigate the consequences of Germany’s green push. In some ways, the law succeeded beyond Fell’s wildest dreams. Demand for renewables grew so much in Germany that other countries, including China, started to mass-produce solar panels and wind turbines, which drove down prices. Now, people all over the world can afford this technology.

But the law has also had some unintended consequences. Because of amendments to the law and technological improvements, the surcharge on Germany’s electric bills have skyrocketed. Now, Germany has the highest electric bills in Europe. Electricity has become a burdensome expense for some Germans living on welfare, and the high cost has left a few spending a lot of time in the dark.

That's the downside of being an early adopter - one has to pay more than if one got involved later.

Tri-State Generation to end coal operations in Colorado, New Mexico | Business | gazette.com

Tri-State, a Westminster-based electricity wholesaler, said in a news release Thursday it will close the Escalante Station in New Mexico by the end of the year and the Craig Station in Craig and the Colowyo Mine in northwest Colorado by 2030.

Vestas announces plans for 'zero-waste' turbines

Danish firm Vestas said Monday that it was aiming to produce "zero-waste" wind turbines by the year 2040.

The wind turbine manufacturer explained that its goal would mean operating a value chain that produced no waste materials.

This, it added in a statement, would be achieved through the introduction of a "circular economy approach" in the design, production, service and end-of-life parts of the value chain.

Commendable ambition.

Desert solar farms can improve tortoise habitat – pv magazine International - "With openings in the fence and improved growth of plants vital for tortoise survival, solar farms in Nevada can provide better habitat than the surrounding desert. First Solar has found similar habitat gains in California."

 

[lpetrich]

I checked on PV Magazine's regional sites again, and by language:

• English: US, Australia, India
• Spanish: Spain, Mexico, Latin America
• French: France
• German: Germany
• Chinese: China

Congolese president makes off-grid renewables pledge – pv magazine International

The president of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has reportedly pledged to use off-grid renewable energy systems to bring electricity to at least 21 million people by 2029.

A press release issued by London-based off-grid solar system supplier Bboxx yesterday quoted an announcement made by president Félix Tshisekedi, apparently at the UK-Africa Investment Summit held in London on Monday.

According to Bboxx, Tshisekedi said: “With the DRC’s growing population, new grid connections are needed each year to keep the electrification rate constant. My ambition is to use decentralized and renewable energy solutions as a foundation to improve the country’s electrification rate from 9% to 30% during my presidency.”

Good to see a Third World nation bypass fossil fuels. The way that such nations have often bypassed landline telephone service in favor of cellphones.

Germany tops global league table for renewable energy – pv magazine International

• Germany: 12.74%
• UK: 11.05%
• Spain: 10.17%
• Italy: 7.35%
• Japan: 5.3%
• Turkey: 5.25%
• Australia: 4.75%
• US: 4.32%

The next 10 listed were, in order, China, France, India, Canada, South Africa, Indonesia, Mexico and South Korea, with Russia and Saudi Arabia far behind.

This seems like total energy rather than just electrical energy, but it's hard to tell from that article.

 

[lpetrich]

Renewable Energy Prices Hit Record Lows: How Can Utilities Benefit From Unstoppable Solar And Wind?

Over the last decade, wind energy prices have fallen 70% and solar photovoltaics have fallen 89% on average, according to Lazard's 2019 report. Utility-scale renewable energy prices are now significantly below those for coal and gas generation, and they're less than half the cost of nuclear. The latest numbers again confirm that building new clean energy generation is cheaper than running existing coal plants.

noting
Lazard's Levelized Cost of Energy Analysis - cost in US: $/MWh

• 151 - 242 - Solar PV - Rooftop Residential
• 75 - 154 - Solar PV - Rooftop C&I
• 64 - 148 - Solar PV - Community
• 36 - 44 - Solar PV - Crystalline Utility Scale
• 32 - 42 - Solar PV - Thin Film Utility Scale
• 126 - 156 - Solar Thermal Tower with Storage
• 69 - 112 - Geothermal
• 28 - 54 - Wind
• 150 - 199 - Gas Peaking
• 118 - 192 - Nuclear
• 66 - 152 - Coal
• 44 - 68 - Gas Combined Cycle

It's good to see wind and solar beating fossil fuels. Now what we need is good batteries and other such storage.

 

[lpetrich]

India Added 50 Gigawatts Of Renewable Energy Capacity In Last Five Years | CleanTechnica

India has added 50 gigawatts of renewable energy capacity over the last five years, a major achievement for the country in which two-thirds of its capacity still uses fossil fuels to generate electricity.

As per government data, between March 2015 and December 2019 India added 98 gigawatts of power generation capacity. 52% of this was based on renewable energy technologies dominated by solar power, which saw addition of 30 gigawatts of new projects. Over the last five years, solar power capacity in India has increased 10 times to 33.7 gigawatts as of 31 December 2019.

With its low latitudes, India is a good place for solar power. From the graph, India's solar-power capacity has increased by 10% every 2.5 years. That means 100% in 25 years. Not very fast.


If Madrid and Barcelona can build a high-speed rail connection, why can’t Toronto and Montreal? | The Star - continued failure to get a high-speed line in place, or even an upgraded one.