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The Remarkable Progress of Renewable Energy

World’s Largest Solar Energy Project Will Also Be Its Cheapest | Greentech Media
Abu Dhabi has set a global record-low solar price as authorities confirmed the winning bid in a 2-gigawatt tender. Upon its expected completion in mid-2022, it is slated to be the largest single-site solar energy project in the world.

The Al Dhafra project had five bidders, with the lowest offer coming in at 1.35 U.S. cents per kilowatt-hour.

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There are numerous factors behind the ever-lower prices for solar in the Middle East, including great solar resources, large and flat sites, cheap-to-zero land costs, massive scale, and the cheap finance that comes with a 30-year PPA with a petrostate as the offtaker.
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So nice to see.

2.2 Gigawatt Solar Park In India’s Rajasthan State Now Fully Operational | CleanTechnica

Size Matters: Energy Storage Scales Up To Beat Down Fossil Fuels
Everybody knows that coal is on the way out, but the latest electricity report from BloombergNEF is something of a shocker. It casts a shadow of gloom over natural gas, too. Low-cost renewables are creeping into gas territory, helped along by falling costs for energy storage. In fact, according to BNEF, energy storage is now a cheaper alternative to building new gas “peaker” plants in some regions. And by some they mean Europe, which was supposed to be a lifeline for US gas exporters.

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According to the US Energy Information Agency, by July 0f 2019, the US had become the third-largest LNG exporter in the world, surpassed only by Australia and Qatar.
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More from that article:
Another warning sign is the emerging green hydrogen or power-to-gas area, in which hydrogen is “split” from water with electricity from wind or solar farms, and treated as a renewable energy storage medium for excess wind and solar power.

Right now most of the world’s hydrogen comes from fossil natural gas. Competition from green hydrogen could pull that rug right out from under it.

The US is all over the green hydrogen idea and so is Europe. In both countries, researchers are beginning to see evidence that green hydrogen is already on track to compete with fossil gas on a niche basis. The challenge is getting costs down for mass-market application. Last week the Hydrogen Europe consortium pitched that very thing. They set a target date of 2030, meaning that competitive green hydrogen would be poised to hit the mainstream even while the US completes its current LNG buildout.
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I find this especially interesting, because it helps fill in some important gaps in renewable-energy development. Electrolysis hydrogen can not only be used for storage, it can be used as a chemical-manufacturing feedstock. Hydrogen has been used as such a feedstock for at least a century, like in the Haber-Bosch process for making ammonia. So all one does is substitute electrolysis hydrogen for natural-gas hydrogen. So we can still have fertilizers.

As electrolysis hydrogen becomes more commonplace, it will get used as a feedstock, for synfuels and plastics and the like. So we can still have plastics.
 
Construction begins on world’s largest solar powered hydrogen plant in China - Renewable Energy World
The project will use a 200-MW solar power plant located in the Northwestern region of Ningxia to make hydrogen via electrolysis.

Several reports indicate that the project is expected to cost about 1.4 billion yuan ($198 million) and produce 160 million standard cubic meters of hydrogen per year.

The project also involves the creation of hydrogen refueling stations and a collaboration with urban hydrogen-powered busses.
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UK blown away as huge new wind farm will soon power 170,000 homes | Living - "50-turbine wind farm in southern Scotland will be up and running by 2023, sustainable energy firm Vattenfall confirmed this week."
 
Meet the New Flack for Oil and Gas: Michael Moore | The Nation - "Planet of the Humans is wildly unscientific, outdated, full of falsehoods, and benefits fossil fuel industry promoters and climate deniers."
Because the film is so dangerous, so wildly off-track and full of misinformation, fossil fuel industry taking points, and unfounded, wacky statements you could be forgiven for thinking it was created by Breitbart News or Steve Bannon and not the erstwhile bastion of progressive bombast that is Michael Moore. (As if to prove that the world is upside down, when world-renowned author and climate scientist Michael Mann, Naomi Klein, and I came out with a sign-on letter protesting the film’s inaccuracies and falsehoods, Breitbart actually piped up in defense of Michael Moore!) What’s wrong with Planet of the Humans? To begin with, the film utterly ignores the new emboldened environmental movement. Even more baffling, it totally ignores Trump.

Instead, it directs its attack on renewable energy and on the basic premise of all climate action and modern environmentalism: that humanity must end our addiction to fossil fuels. The film even attacks and tries to demonize Bill McKibben, one of the most selfless and influential fighters for the climate over three decades.
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Moore’s Boorish Planet of The Humans: An Annotated Collection
  • too error-filled for non-educated/knowledgeable people to watch due to misdirection & embedded deceit that might not be evident as the viewer has to be knowledgeable to see the truthiness and deceit.
  • tedious and painful for those already knowledgeable as the core thematics/points aren’t news and it just takes so much effort to wade through the falsehoods and truthiness for having thoughts/perspective that are already out there in discussion.
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350.org – Response: Planet of the Humans Documentary
noted by
Bill McKibben: How Michael Moore Damages Our Most Important Goal - Rolling Stone
 
My problem is with Rolling Stone's article title. It's a clear advocacy position of political perspective while posing as a 'scientific' critique.

If one reads bilby, even though I most always take issue with his views, his statement on renewables are substantial and real, maybe not lethal, but real. I'm pretty sure he's going to take Moore apart piece by piece, correction by correction.

Unread list of articles praising  Planet of the humans

https://planetofthehumans.com/critical-acclaim/
 
I measured that image, and it assumed that wind energy and solar energy have natural-gas use with 60% of the natural-gas emissions of natural gas alone.

Sweden erects the first wooden wind turbine tower - Electrek
Swedish engineering and industrial design company Modvion has erected the first wooden wind turbine tower on an island outside Gothenburg, Sweden. It was a pilot project for the Swedish Wind Technology Centre and will be used for research purposes.

Modvion develops modular wind turbine designs in renewable engineered wood. The company claims their technology results in decreased cost and streamlined installation of towers that exceed 120 meters.

Modvion partnered with glulam company Moelven Töreboda to build the wooden wind turbine tower, which is 30 meters high. Because the two companies built the tower in a modular fashion, and wood is lighter than steel, it’s easier to transport, so future towers can be built taller.
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Seems interesting.

A major player in solar energy leaves some customers seething | Salon.com - "Over the last decade, consumer complaints against U.S.-based solar companies have multiplied."
Hundreds of complaints to the Better Business Bureau cite grievances ranging from damaged roofs to poor customer service. Among them are claims that salespeople misrepresented the terms of power purchase agreements or leases. Some homeowners say they were tricked and locked into 20-year contracts that can't be broken, short of paying the solar company tens of thousands of dollars.

"It's ground zero for consumer protection violations these days," said Andrew Milz, a Pennsylvania attorney who represents clients fighting with solar companies. "When you have young, motivated salesmen going door to door with vast amounts of research and data and information on the consumers… it's just a recipe for abuse."
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Moving towards 100% renewable power in Hawaii (with a little help from sheep) | solar power, USA, Kauai, Hawaii | UN News
The US island state of Hawaii has committed to generating 100 per cent of its power using renewable energy by 2045, demonstrating to other US states and island communities across the world, that sustainable energy can be a reality. UN News travelled to Hawaii with the International Labour Organization (ILO) to talk to a power company executive and a sheep farmer to find out how they are contributing to that goal.

Neatly arranged rows of deep marine blue-coloured photovoltaic panels are lined up on the undulating hills of one of Hawaii’s volcanic islands, creating a sea of solar-energy generation. It’s midday, and the strong tropical sun is beating down on this power plant, which will provide electricity to over 70,000 people.
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On Kauai, an island in Hawaii.
Speaking to UN News before the oil price declined to historical lows in April 2020, David Bissell, the Chief Executive Officer of KIUC said that the cost of solar power is “significantly lower than a cost of oil-generated power” adding that “it’s getting cheaper as the technology improves.” And, importantly for businesses and domestic consumers, solar power has stabilized prices which “before could have fluctuated by 50 per cent depending on the volatility of the price of oil.”
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The volatility of fuel markets may be a major driver in adoption of renewable energy -- it has much more stable pricing.

The article also mentioned what kind of lawnmower for the grass under the panels: sheep.

Major Minnesota electricity provider to shut coal plant, invest in wind power - Bring Me The News
Coal plants have been losing money as gas-fired power and renewable energy become more popular. In 2018, the research group Carbon Tracker found that more than four out of every 10 coal-fired power stations were running at a loss.
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US ones, not sure about elsewhere in the world.
 
In a potential big win for renewable energy, Form Energy gets its first grid-scale battery installation | TechCrunch
1 megawatt, 150 MW-hours. That 150 hours of storage time or 6.25 days.

Most grid-scale Li-ion projects have 2 to 4 hours of storage time.

Long Duration Breakthrough? Form Energy's First Project Tries Pushing Storage to 150 Hours | Greentech Media - an "aqueous air" battery system.

I searched for "aqueous air" batteries, and I found Will Form Energy Aqueous Air Battery Challenge Tesla For Grid Storage Dominance? | CleanTechnica and Form Energy claims its aqueous air battery provides 150-hour duration storage – pv magazine USA

Form Energy: We are Transforming the Grid does not have anything on that subject.

I'm guessing a combination of electrolysis and fuel cells, because electrolysis splits water and fuel cells use air. But the CleanTechnica article has
In an interview with NPR last year, Chiang dropped a hint about the chemistry used by the new batteries. “Lithium-ion batteries use not only lithium, but they also use nickel. They use cobalt. They may use iron and manganese. And all of these elements have a cost to them. But what we’re looking for are batteries that can use either metals or other elements that are much lower cost, and an example of that would be sulfur. In fact, one of the ironies is that fossil fuels, which we’re trying to get rid of, are one of the great sources of sulfur.”
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Both conservatives and liberals want a green energy future, but for different reasons
Political divisions are a growing fixture in the United States today, whether the topic is marriage across party lines, responding to climate change or concern about coronavirus exposure. Especially in a presidential election year, the vast divide between conservatives and liberals often feels nearly impossible to bridge.

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We found that our respondents had some misperceptions about where energy in the U.S. comes from. They tended to underestimate U.S. reliance on oil and natural gas and overestimate coal’s contribution. We believe Americans may not realize how dramatically electric utilities have switched from coal to gas for power generation over the past decade, and may therefore have dated impressions of coal’s prevalence.

Conversely, we found that participants overestimated the contribution of lesser-used energy sources – specifically, renewables like wind and solar power. This pattern may partially be explained by people’s general tendency to inflate estimates of small values and probabilities, which has been seen in areas ranging from household energy use and water use to risk of death.

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Liberal participants showed strong support for policies consistent with increased use of low-carbon energy sources, such as providing government funding for renewable energy and subsidies for purchasing electric vehicles. They strongly opposed actions that would increase reliance on fossil fuels, such as relaxing oil drilling regulations or lowering fuel economy standards.

On average, conservative participants supported several policies that favored low-carbon energy use, though not as strongly as their liberal counterparts. Conservatives tended to be closer to neutral or only slightly opposed to policies that promote fossil fuel use.

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Recent research has shown that both Democrats and Republicans strongly support renewable energy development, but do so for different reasons. Democrats prioritize curbing climate change, while Republicans are more motivated by reducing energy costs. We see these motivations playing out in the real world, where conservative oil-producing states like Texas are experiencing huge booms in renewable energy generation, driven primarily by the improving economics of renewable energy.
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That's why it's so nice to see renewable energy becoming economically competitive. That's so we don't have to choose between the environment and the economy.
 
lpetrich said:
Both conservatives and liberals want a green energy future, but for different reasons
Political divisions are a growing fixture in the United States today, whether the topic is marriage across party lines, responding to climate change or concern about coronavirus exposure. Especially in a presidential election year, the vast divide between conservatives and liberals often feels nearly impossible to bridge.

...
We found that our respondents had some misperceptions about where energy in the U.S. comes from. They tended to underestimate U.S. reliance on oil and natural gas and overestimate coal’s contribution. We believe Americans may not realize how dramatically electric utilities have switched from coal to gas for power generation over the past decade, and may therefore have dated impressions of coal’s prevalence.

Conversely, we found that participants overestimated the contribution of lesser-used energy sources – specifically, renewables like wind and solar power. This pattern may partially be explained by people’s general tendency to inflate estimates of small values and probabilities, which has been seen in areas ranging from household energy use and water use to risk of death.

...
Liberal participants showed strong support for policies consistent with increased use of low-carbon energy sources, such as providing government funding for renewable energy and subsidies for purchasing electric vehicles. They strongly opposed actions that would increase reliance on fossil fuels, such as relaxing oil drilling regulations or lowering fuel economy standards.

On average, conservative participants supported several policies that favored low-carbon energy use, though not as strongly as their liberal counterparts. Conservatives tended to be closer to neutral or only slightly opposed to policies that promote fossil fuel use.

...
Recent research has shown that both Democrats and Republicans strongly support renewable energy development, but do so for different reasons. Democrats prioritize curbing climate change, while Republicans are more motivated by reducing energy costs. We see these motivations playing out in the real world, where conservative oil-producing states like Texas are experiencing huge booms in renewable energy generation, driven primarily by the improving economics of renewable energy.
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That's why it's so nice to see renewable energy becoming economically competitive. That's so we don't have to choose between the environment and the economy.
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Renewable energy is devastating to the environment.

And intermittent and expensive enough to also devastate the economy.

If you want to save the economy and the environment, it's not fit for either purpose.

Yet the obvious solution that could do both is unthinkable, for "reasons" everyone knows, but that are completely counter factual.

We can't have the safest option, because it's too dangerous.

We can't have the only option that already contains all of its waste (of which there is less than from any other option), because it's too dirty, and we can't guarantee that the waste will never hurt anyone (it never has - which is more than can be said for any other options).

We can't have the option that has the highest capacity factor, because people are worried that it could be unreliable.

We can't have the option that uses fewest resources, because it doesn't use none at all.

We can't have nice things, because the people who care about the environment are the same people who are most exposed to, and invested in, anti-nuclear propaganda. And they refuse to even consider the head-and-shoulders best-on-every-measure tried-and-tested safest, cleanest, lowest emissions, and most reliable way of generating electricity.

Because they are fucking ignorant tree-hugging morons who have swallowed the nuclear = bombs = evil bullshit that's been pushed by neo-luddites (and their backers in the fossil fuel industries) since the 1950s.

I dispair for humanity. We have spent most of the last century worrying about various non-existent existential threats; And now that we have an actual, real, clear and present threat, half of us refuse to believe it exists, and the other half refuse to even consider the obvious solution, for what are apparently religious "reasons" - that is, a fiat declaration of evilness, that owes nothing to reasoning at all, backed by a bunch of truthy rationalisations that woudn't bear a moments scrutiny, and a vacuous faith that their totally ineffective and often counterproductive "alternatives" can save us if we just wish hard enough (and handwave into existence an impossibly large storage infrastructure at almost zero cost).

Everyone "fucking loves science", until it contradicts their cherished prejudices, biases, and appeals to nature.
 
Mammoth Solar Power Plant Drives Another Nail Into US Coal Coffin
In the latest development, the Trump administration has just green-lighted the biggest solar power plant in US history. The 690-megawatt behemoth, dubbed Gemini, is also expected to make it into the top 10 biggest PV arrays worldwide.

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Before we get into the biggest solar power plant ever built in the US, let’s pause and consider the location. The Gemini Solar Project will take up 11 square miles in the Mojave desert about 30 miles northeast of Las Vegas, Nevada. The parcel is located on federal land managed by the Bureau of Land Management under the US Department of the Interior.

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The conservationists raise a good point: there are plenty of opportunities to build smaller-scale solar arrays where something else is already built including rooftop solar systems and solar canopies for parking lots, landfills and other brownfields, and constructed ponds (for floating solar arrays).

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To cite just one example, under Trump’s watch the Obama-era goal of revving up the US offshore wind industry is (finally) being realized along the Atlantic coast. Now the Energy Department is taking a good look at offshore wind for the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific coast, too.

Then there’s the ambitious new energy storage initiative launched by the Energy Department in January, which aims a dagger at natural gas power plants as well as coal.
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Wind turbines are going ahead despite Trump considering them an eyesore. He didn't like the sight of them near his golf courses in the British Isles. I'd have to look up which ones, but that stood out in my mind.
 
So I decided to estimate how much space CleanTechnica devotes to various topics. I used the first page of each list of articles and I then found the date range.
  • Solar: May 12 - May 5
  • Wind: May 10 - Apr 26
  • Geothermal: May 4 - Apr 3
  • Energy Storage: May 11 - May 1
  • Smart Grid: May 5 - 2019 Oct 7
  • Energy Efficiency: May 11 - Apr 1
  • Lighting: Apr 9 - 2018 Oct 31
I don't have the patience to do much more than that, but some trends are clear. Solar energy gets the most discussion followed by energy storage. I think that that's because they both scale down very well. Wind turbines don't scale down as well as solar panels do.

The Latest in Green Energy News - Renewable Energy World

Vestas sets a new world record in wind energy installation - Renewable Energy World - installed 10 gigawatts of capacity in 2019

D.C. neighbors unite to fight for solar rights for all - Renewable Energy World - Supporters of clean and affordable energy dream of neighborhoods powered by rooftop solar. In D.C., this vision is becoming reality; the district is en route to 100% renewable energy in just twelve years.

Greening industry: Building recyclable, next-generation turbine blades - Renewable Energy World
A recent Bloomberg News article stoked concern by shining a spotlight on Casper, Wyoming, home to a graveyard for nearly 900 wind turbine blades.

Casper’s municipal landfill serves as a final resting place for spent blades, the volume of which has been growing exponentially as wind energy’s robust expansion continues. The article suggested that over the next four years alone, the United States will decommission more than 8,000 blades.

While other parts of the wind turbine can be reused or recycled, blades as they are currently constructed cannot be. A study found that each megawatt of installed capacity equates to 9.6 metric tons of composite waste.
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As waste goes, it's much less of a problem than nuclear waste -- it isn't radioactive, it isn't very soluble in anything, and it's very low on toxicity.

How are blade materials and manufacturing changing to keep up with larger turbines? - "Materials for the wind-turbine blade market include resins of glass fiber reinforced polyester, glass fiber reinforced epoxy, and carbon fiber reinforced epoxy."

So some NREL researchers devised a composite material that uses a thermoplastic resin. There are two kinds of plastics, thermoplastic and thermosetting. Thermoplastic ones will melt when heated enough, and thermosetting ones will not. Both kinds of plastic will decompose at sufficiently high temperatures, like any other organic-compound materials.
“Employing a thermoplastic resin system, including thermal welding, is the answer for building longer, lower cost, recyclable wind turbine blades,” explained NREL researcher Robynne Murray.

“It’s the ability to use this infusible thermoplastic in the same processes that are currently used by blade manufacturers that makes this resin different from other thermoplastics that are widely used in other industries,” Murray said.

These thermoplastic resins enable a manufacturing process that allows wind turbine blades to be recycled at their end of life and also reduces the time, cost, and energy involved in manufacturing.
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The progress of renewable energy feels like a painfully slow grind in light of the threat of climate change.

We've chosen to forgo nuclear power--which would certainly and effectively stop climate change--and staked our collective future on some not-yet-invented system of scalable distributed generation and storage.

It's not even like we have to choose between one of the other. We can reduce emissions now with proven technology and we can adopt cheap renewable technologies as they are developed. There is absolutely no reason to lock ourselves into decades of reliance on coal and gas.
 
Siemens Gamesa releases details of huge offshore wind turbine
Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy (SGRE) has released details of a 14-megawatt (MW) offshore wind turbine, in the latest example of how technology in the sector is increasing in scale.

With 108-meter-long blades and a rotor diameter of 222 meters, the dimensions of the SG 14-222 DD turbine are significant.
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A prototype should be ready by 2021, and commercial production should start in 2024.
Last December, for example, Dutch utility Eneco started to purchase power produced by the prototype of GE Renewable Energy’s Haliade-X 12 MW wind turbine. That turbine has a capacity of 12 MW, a height of 260 meters and a blade length of 107 meters.
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It's impressive how far along this technology has come.

Trump admin slaps solar, wind operators with retroactive rent bills - Reuters
The Trump administration has ended a two-year rent holiday for solar and wind projects operating on federal lands, handing them whopping retroactive bills at a time the industry is struggling with the fallout of the coronavirus outbreak, according to company officials.

The move represents a multi-million-dollar hit to an industry that has already seen installation projects canceled or delayed by the global health crisis, which has cut investment and dimmed the demand outlook for power.

It also clashes with broader government efforts in the United States to shield companies from the worst of the economic turmoil through federal loans, waived fees, tax breaks and trimmed regulatory enforcement.
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It shows which side they are on.
 
Coal industry will never recover after coronavirus pandemic, say experts | Fossil fuels | The Guardian
The global coal industry will “never recover” from the Covid-19 pandemic, industry observers predict, because the crisis has proved renewable energy is cheaper for consumers and a safer bet for investors.

A long-term shift away from dirty fossil fuels has accelerated during the lockdown, bringing forward power plant closures in several countries and providing new evidence that humanity’s coal use may finally have peaked after more than 200 years.

That makes the worst-case climate scenarios less likely, because they are based on a continued expansion of coal for the rest of the century.
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Nice to see.

Michael Moore film Planet of the Humans removed from YouTube | Michael Moore | The Guardian
ouTube has taken down the controversial Michael Moore-produced documentary Planet of the Humans in response to a copyright infringement claim by a British environmental photographer.

The movie, which has been condemned as inaccurate and misleading by climate scientists and activists, allegedly includes a clip used without the permission of the owner Toby Smith, who does not approve of the context in which his material is being used.

In response, the filmmakers denied violating fair usage rules and accused their critics of politically motivated censorship.
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By claiming copyright???

This seems like how criminal gangster Al Capone was caught for tax evasion, and not for ordering some murders.
 
The Sioux man 'empowering' Standing Rock with solar power | USA | Al Jazeera
More than four years ago, the roads and rolling plains north of the Cannon Ball settlement on Standing Rock Reservation were strewn with tear gas, private security squadrons and thousands of environmentalists protesting a new oil pipeline. While life has settled down since then, change is very much afoot again.
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Including AOC, who visited there.
Driving along state route 1806 towards Cannon Ball, the sun irradiates off a large, shiny surface in the distance - a farm of 1,100 solar panels. In a landscape dominated by grassland and crops, it's a jarring sight, though one that represents an important and revolutionary milestone for the reservation.

Thirty-five-year-old Cody Two Bears from Cannon Ball is the driving force behind the 300-kilowatt solar farm - North Dakota's first, which formally opened last year - and he dreams of bringing solar-powered energy infrastructure and "energy sovereignty" to Native American reservations around the United States.
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That's a nice thing about renewable energy -- it does not require continually purchasing its "fuel". So one can be more self-reliant.

5 Wind Energy Giants Embracing Solar Power | Greentech Media - "More heavyweight wind developers are betting big on solar. Here are five to watch in the decade ahead."

Wind energy and solar energy have been acting like new technologies for the last few decades, and they have been getting more and more attention -- and more and more businesses moving into them.
 
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