The Remarkable Progress of Renewable Energy

[lpetrich]

A Giant Wind Farm Is Taking Root Off Massachusetts - The New York Times - "The offshore energy project will have turbines taller than any building in Boston, but they will be barely visible from Martha’s Vineyard."

Succeeding where Cape Wind failed. Cape Wind was opposed by the Kennedy family and Koch brother William Koch.

"The $4 billion project, known as Vineyard Wind, is expected to start generating electricity by year’s end."

"In the coming months, 62 turbines, each up to 850 feet high (taller than any building in Boston) with blades about 350 feet long, will be planted on a sweep of seabed 15 miles off Martha’s Vineyard, the island where former Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton have vacationed."

"In fact, a series of wind farms are planned that could add up to around 75 times the capacity of Vineyard Wind, according to Wood Mackenzie, a consulting firm. About 80 percent of this acreage is off the East Coast."

North Sea Sees Potential Shift from Oil and Gas to Renewable Energies - The New York Times - "The offshore wind industry continues to grow as nations look to change Europe’s oil and gas hub into a major source of renewable energy."

 

[lpetrich]

The Unstoppable Force Of Agrivoltaic Solar Farming - "Researchers at Purdue University have patented an agrivoltaic array with solar panels that tilt for farm equipment to pass through."

Agrivoltaic researchers have compiled a growing body of evidence demonstrating the benefits of agrivoltaic arrays for shade-tolerant crops. Growing sun-loving staples like corn, rice, soybeans, and wheat is a whole different ballgame.

...
A team of researchers at Purdue University in Indiana has come up with a workaround. Instead of taller racks, they designed a software-enabled agrivoltaic array that is mounted closer to the ground. As with many typical solar arrays, the panels rotate throughout the day to optimize their position relative to the angle of the sun. The system also factors in the optimal angle for crop growth.

The solar panels can also assume an almost vertical position when farm equipment needs to past by. Farmers who host the array would not have to invest in specialized equipment to continue farming.

Ukraine's Green Recovery To Kickstart Rapid Decarbonization - "Russia launches a war over fossil energy resources, Ukraine claps back with green recovery plans focusing on wind, solar, and biomass."

Israel Mandates Rooftop Solar Panels On New Buildings To Accelerate Renewable Energy Transition - SolarQuarter - "To accelerate progress towards its goal of obtaining 30% of electricity from renewables by 2030, the government mandated regulations within 180 days to ensure solar panels are installed on new non-residential buildings. For residential buildings, roofs must be equipped for easy future installation of panels."

Lacking land, Israel to cover its rooftops with solar panels | Reuters

 

[lpetrich]

New limits on solar, wind plants vetoed by Arizona governor - "Calling it a potential barrier to renewable energy, Gov. Katie Hobbs vetoed legislation Monday which would have imposed new requirements on solar and wind generating plants."

India To Be Self-Sufficient In Solar Modules By 2026 - CleanTechnica - "India has sought to boost local manufacturing and restrict imports of Chinese made PV modules."

In a challenge to China’s dominance of the PV market, India’s capacity to produce solar modules is set to reach 110 gigawatts (GW), and thus be self-sufficient, by 2026. After that date, we may see India entering the PV export market. Many countries are nervous about the concentration of panel manufacturing in China and would welcome an alternative.

Since 2010, China’s share in global production of solar modules has increased from around 50% (in 2010) to around 70% in 2022. A slowdown in Chinese production would have global ramifications.

India, the United States of America, and Europe have all enacted several policy measures to limit the dependence on China and to support local manufacturing. If India commences aggressive exports, will it face the same policy backlash as China? Or will the competition lead to lower prices?

US Goes Bonkers Over Floating Solar Power Plants - "The Garden State is emerging as a floating solar powerhouse, and there’s plenty more where that came from."
New Jersey

Romania removes legal barriers to development of large-scale solar – pv magazine International - "The Romanian president has passed a new law to shorten the permitting process for solar projects installed on less than 50 hectares of buildable land."

 

[lpetrich]

Why the Cost of Solar Panels Will Likely Keep Falling - CNET - "The Inflation Reduction Act's clean energy incentives have set the solar industry up for a boom. Here's how it’s changing the math for you."

There's a big new solar tax credit in town.

A federal incentive expanded in 2022 through the Inflation Reduction Act can offset 30% of the cost of a residential solar installation. That's obviously good news for individual customers -- but it's also great news for the solar industry as a whole. With a decade's worth of certainty built into these federal incentives, the price of solar is poised to continue its precipitous drop, and become even more accessible for American homeowners.

A chicken in every pot and some solar panels on every roof.

The cost of solar has been falling for a long time.

"Over the last decade, prices have come down by over 50% in the residential space," Rumery said.

The average cost of a rooftop solar system now hovers around $25,000. It's down from about $50,000 just a decade ago, thanks to decreasing material costs, as well as gains on the installation side, with the labor and permitting processes becoming a lot more efficient. "You've really seen, across the board in the last decade, costs coming down. And that's really enabled solar to flourish," Rumery said.

Energy independence on a personal and family level, at least partially, even if it means depriving some big donors to many politicians of income.

 

[bigfield]

Energy independence on a personal and family level, at least partially

Rooftop solar doesn't provide any "partial" independence, because households need to have access to grid supply at all times.

Plus the price is still extremely prohibitive. A $25k PV array may take decades to pay for itself (unless the government guarantees a high feed-in tariff) and may need to be replaced before then.

 

[lpetrich]

100 percent renewable energy? Italy can do it, a study reveals how - Icona News - Ruetir

In a First, Wind and Solar Generated More Power Than Coal in U.S. - Scientific American - "Wind and solar produced more U.S. power than coal during the first five months of this year, as several coal plants closed and gas prices dropped"

Alarm at rightwing push to reverse clean-energy success in Texas and beyond | US news | The Guardian

In the scramble before the end of Texas’s legislative session last week, a must-pass bill was amended to impose new costs upon renewable energy. ...

Sections of the bill that impose new burdens upon clean energy providers were directly crafted and edited by the Texas Public Policy Foundation (or TPPF), a conservative group that has led the backlash to renewables and to make what it calls “the moral case for fossil fuels”, according to a copy of the draft language seen by the Guardian.

So they want to win by regulating their competition to death.

Germany seeks more solar on farmland to meet green goals | Reuters - agrivoltaics

 

[lpetrich]

The Truth About Offshore Wind: Busting Oil Money Myths and Misinformation - Center for American Progress - "Misinformation and falsehoods about offshore wind are running rampant online and in legislatures; here’s what they get wrong."

Arguing:

"Offshore turbines will not cause coastal tourism-based economies to decline"

Then noting wind-turbine tourism. Britain’s offshore wind farms attract tourists and Taking a Boat Tour to Visit Giant Offshore Wind Turbines - Bloomberg and Microsoft Word - 1_Tourism_offshore wind_kg.docx - 1_tourism_offshore_wind_0.pdf and The Potential of Offshore Wind Energy Toursim in Ocean City, New Jersey - offshore-wind-energy-tourism-white-paper.pdf and Sustainability and tourism: the effect of the United Statesâ•Ž first offshore wind farm on the vacation rental market - Sustainability and tourism: the effect of the United States? firs.pdf and How Are Tourists Affected By Offshore Wind Turbines? A Case Study Of The First U.S. Offshore Wind Farm - Block Island Wind Farm Impacts on Tourism.pdf
I remember trying to see some wind turbines up close in a road trip that I once went on.

"Coastal home prices will not decline because of offshore wind farms"

"Offshore wind farms will not meaningfully affect fishery catch"

"Wind turbines are not wasteful and have long life spans"

The authors address the issue of threats to whales, something that wind-farm opponents have made a big issue out of.

 

[lpetrich]

Global investment in clean energy nearly doubles that of fossil fuels – pv magazine USA - "For every dollar invested in fossil fuels, 1.7 dollars are invested in clean technologies. Five years ago, it was a one-to-one ratio, said the International Energy Agency."

Solar and Wind Power Now Deliver ‘More than Double’ the Net Energy Produced by Oil, New Study Finds – Byline Times

Many studies have shown that the EROI of global fossil fuels peaked around the 1960s and is now in terminal decline. This means that, because we are using more and more fossil fuel energy just to extract and refine fossil fuels, we have less and less net energy for social and economic activity.

EROI = energy return on investment. Also called EROEI = energy returned for energy invested.

As Byline Times has previously reported, a study led by French scientists found that, by 2050, half of the energy extracted from global oil reserves will need to be put back into new extraction to keep producing oil. This level of energy use is so big it makes the whole enterprise pointless.

Energy to extract crude oil? Pumping it out of the ground is fairly easy. With 100% efficiency, pumping 1 kg up 100 meters requires 1 kilojoule of energy, and burning it releases some 40,000 times more.  Energy density But getting the oil to where it can be pumped out is more difficult. A common way of doing so is pumping water into a well. There is also the problem of the energy needed to construct the oil well. For an offshore oil platform, that could be high, though I don't have good numbers on that.

Tar sands or oil sands, like in Alberta, are very difficult. One mines it and then bakes it to get the oil out of it, and baking it takes a *lot* of energy, something like 1/3 of the energy in the released oil.

The increasing energy for extracting oil shows us that most of the "easy" oil has been extracted, and that we are moving to more and more difficult oil.

In the new research, Prof Murphy demonstrates that while oil, gas and coal are becoming more inefficient and expensive, the opposite is true for renewables – for which EROI is increasing all the time. This means that for every unit of energy we are using to create and install renewable technologies, we are getting far more energy out – and this amount of net energy is actually getting larger, not smaller.
Even more exciting, the new research confirms that renewables have been generating far more net energy than fossil fuels for years.

 

[bilby]

So they want to win by regulating their competition to death.

It's how they beat nuclear power, and that was a tougher opponent because it actually works as a replacement for fossil fuels.

 

[lpetrich]

Ukraine Bets on Wind Power, Which Missiles Can’t Damage as Easily - The New York Times - "Bombarding the power grid has been an essential part of Russia’s invasion, but officials say it would take many more missile strikes to badly damage a wind farm than a power plant."

Ukrainians are putting solar panels on hospitals to fight blackouts - The Washington Post

Russian airstrikes on Ukraine’s power grid plunged many parts of the country into darkness in the fall, but one water company was able to keep its pumps going. Its field of solar panels, installed as an environmentally friendly measure before the war, turned into a tool to resist the Kremlin’s attacks.

Now a growing number of Ukrainian hospitals, schools, police stations and other critical buildings are racing to install solar panels ahead of what many expect will be another hard winter.

By comparison, nuclear power plants are much more vulnerable.

Renewable energy on the rise: 37% of EU’s electricity - Products Eurostat News - Eurostat

In 2020, renewable energy sources made up 37% of gross electricity consumption in the EU, up from 34% in 2019.

Wind and hydropower accounted for over two-thirds of the total electricity generated from renewable sources (36% and 33%, respectively). The remaining one-third of electricity came from solar power (14%), solid biofuels (8%) and other renewable sources (8%). Solar power is the fastest-growing source: in 2008, it only accounted for 1% of the electricity consumed in the EU.

Among the EU Member States, more than 70% of electricity consumed in 2020 was generated from renewable sources in Austria (78%) and Sweden (75%). The generation of electricity from renewable sources was also high and accounted for more than half of the electricity consumed in Denmark (65%), Portugal (58%), Croatia and Latvia (both 53%).

At the other end of the scale, the share of electricity from renewable sources was 15% or less in Malta (10%), Hungary and Cyprus (both 12%), Luxembourg (14%) and Czechia (15%).

 

[lpetrich]

Ukrainians are putting solar panels on hospitals to fight blackouts - The Washington Post

At a small hospital in the Kyiv suburb of Horenka, the medical staff learned the difficulty of operating without electricity in the first hours of the war last year. ...

Now the hospital has been rebuilt. This past winter, along with much of Ukraine, it used diesel generators to keep going during blackouts. But these generators consume vast quantities of fuel, they are prone to breaking down, and their noise and fumes make them inconvenient for long-term use at places like hospitals.

Next winter, the medical personnel in Horenka hope to avoid them. In February, workers screwed solar panels onto its steeply pitched roof, completing a project that is expected to cover about half the hospital’s typical power needs — enough to ensure that critical equipment stays online even if the grid fails. A battery will extend the reach of the solar panels into the night. And an electric-powered heat pump can keep the hospital warm even if it gets cut again from the grid. The solar panels and battery cost $11,700 for a 12.6 kilowatt system — comparable in size to what might go on a house.

By contrast, the vulnerability of the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant has been big news.

 

[lpetrich]

Spanish government devotes €600 million to solar-powered desalination – pv magazine International - "State-owned company Sociedad Estatal de Aguas de las Cuencas Mediterráneas (Acuamed) will soon launch tenders for solar-powered desalination projects in Spain."

Intermittency should be less of a problem there, since it is very easy to store water.

Flirting with fossils: the faux crusade for ‘responsible solar’ – pv magazine USA - "An ostensibly fossil-friendly group has been quietly orchestrating faux concern campaigns to disrupt the renewable energy landscape. We outline the history and apparent motives of Citizens for Responsible Solar, and its growing network of affiliates."

Susan Ralston, founder of ‘Citizens for Responsible Solar’ (CRS), dons the guise of a grassroots environmentalist, pitching woo and conspiracy theories to authoritarian conservatives eager to impose science-mangling values on local land owners. While appearances can be deceiving, we have uncovered the true nature of CRS’s self-proclaimed ‘responsible’ solar advocacy. Concealed beneath the organization’s veneer of environmental stewardship lies a network of fossil fuel allies, united in opposition to renewable energy initiatives. Solar developers would do well to familiarize themselves with this group and its affiliates to prepare their defenses in town meetings.

NPR recently profiled Ralston’s CRS. Ralston, a seasoned political operative, may be best known for her 2006 resignation from a White House position as executive assistant to Karl Rove. This resignation was prompted by her close association with former longtime boss Jack Abramoff, a lobbyist who defrauded Native American tribes of tens of millions of dollars. ...

 

[lpetrich]

Dutch claim international first as North Sea offshore wind farms powered down to protect migratory birds

Offshore wind farms close to Borssele and Egmond aan Zee were powered down to a maximum of just two rotations per minute on May 13, according to Dutch authorities. The four-hour shutdown is part of a pilot initiative.

Japanese group using second-life solar panels at construction sites – pv magazine International
Old solar panels that are still somewhat usable.

Could This Be the Final Frontier for Renewable Energy? - CNET

The Biden administration's Ocean Climate Action Plan reveals how the ocean holds important potential for renewable energy, both from offshore wind power and less-explored sources such as waves, tides and currents. Even the chillier waters that lie deep below tropical seas could provide clean marine energy.

The plan acknowledges an ambitious endeavor nearing completion off the coast of Oregon, where 7 miles of conduit were laid under the floor of the Pacific Ocean using pioneering horizontal drilling techniques. Soon, thick cables will be run through that conduit to connect the mainland to PacWave, an offshore experimental testbed built to develop and demonstrate new technology that converts the power of waves into onshore electricity.

Once fully operational (as soon as 2025), PacWave could generate up to 20 megawatts, enough to power a few thousand homes. "I get really excited about wave energy because the resource is so large," Levi Kilcher, a senior scientist with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, told me.

The project's home page: PacWave: Offshore Wave Energy Test Site | Department of Energy

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

Offshore windpower comes to Texas.

....
GALVESTON — The federal government on Thursday announced the first-ever chance for companies to lease areas in the Gulf of Mexico to build wind farms, including two parcels roughly 30 miles off the Texas coast near Galveston.
.....
When they’re built, the wind turbines could feed energy into the Texas power grid. Companies suggest the energy could also be used to produce hydrogen, which in turn could fuel planes or long-haul trucks. The leases are expected to be able to generate some 3.7 gigawatts of power, or enough for almost 1.3 million homes.
.....

First offshore wind leases off the Texas coast offered for bidding

Some oil companies have expressed interest in bidding to build wind turbines off the Texas coast, which could help reduce emissions that cause climate change but still come at an environmental cost.

www.yahoo.com

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Companies suggest the energy could also be used to produce hydrogen...

If I read one more person suggesting to use wind or solar to generate hydrogen (at a loss), I'm going to lose my mind. That is only useful when you have all of your electricity managed with green sources, like Costa Rica. I'm so tired of hearing about hydrogen. If industry wants to make their own hydrogen for industrial purposes, they can build their own mills or panels.

 

[bilby]

Companies suggest the energy could also be used to produce hydrogen...

If I read one more person suggesting to use wind or solar to generate hydrogen (at a loss), I'm going to lose my mind. That is only useful when you have all of your electricity managed with green sources, like Costa Rica. I'm so tired of hearing about hydrogen. If industry wants to make their own hydrogen for industrial purposes, they can build their own mills or panels.

The whole hydrogen thing is a massive red herring; Hydrogen is a terrible vehicle fuel in so many ways. There's literally no situation where it makes more sense to produce hydrogen than to produce a more useful synthetic fuel, such as alcohols or hydrocarbons.

Hydrogen is already cheap and abundant, and has been for as long as motorised vehicles have existed, and yet it's use is mostly limited to industrial processes, and it is very rarely employed as a fuel. There are a lot of good reasons for this.

If you did have a system that produced vast quantities of hydrogen at an arbitrarily low cost, it still wouldn't make sense to use the stuff directly as a fuel.

The reason neo-luddite greens love hydrogen is that they're desperately trying to find something useful for their beloved wind and solar generators to do - because they currently only generate electricity when it's almost entirely valueless. And the more such generators you build, the less valuable their electricity becomes.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

Electricity to hydrogen is here. It is off the shelf. Wind power + water = hydrogen. Stored hydrogen can be used to create electricity. Hydrogen will play a role in future renewable energy. Coal is expensive and is dying. Oil is nit cheap and is volatile price wise. Gas is getting expensive to produce and eventually will be less economically attractive.

 

[bilby]

Electricity to hydrogen is here. It is off the shelf. Wind power + water = hydrogen.

Yup. It's been that way since electricity was a thing.

It's still not a viable, useful, safe, or appropriate fuel for vehicles. And it likely never will be, other than for niche applications such as spacecraft.

 

[bilby]

Stored hydrogen can be used to create electricity.

Can ≠ will.

Hydrogen will play a role in future renewable energy.

Not a useful or economically viable one.

Coal is expensive and is dying. Oil is nit cheap and is volatile price wise. Gas is getting expensive to produce and eventually will be less economically attractive.

Yes.

But none of that will make hydrogen useful or viable.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Companies suggest the energy could also be used to produce hydrogen...

If I read one more person suggesting to use wind or solar to generate hydrogen (at a loss), I'm going to lose my mind. That is only useful when you have all of your electricity managed with green sources, like Costa Rica. I'm so tired of hearing about hydrogen. If industry wants to make their own hydrogen for industrial purposes, they can build their own mills or panels.

No. It's useful to produce hydrogen when all the current demand is satisfied by perishable sources even if you have fossil fuel use at other times.

Companies suggest the energy could also be used to produce hydrogen...

If I read one more person suggesting to use wind or solar to generate hydrogen (at a loss), I'm going to lose my mind. That is only useful when you have all of your electricity managed with green sources, like Costa Rica. I'm so tired of hearing about hydrogen. If industry wants to make their own hydrogen for industrial purposes, they can build their own mills or panels.

The whole hydrogen thing is a massive red herring; Hydrogen is a terrible vehicle fuel in so many ways. There's literally no situation where it makes more sense to produce hydrogen than to produce a more useful synthetic fuel, such as alcohols or hydrocarbons.

Hydrogen is a useful precursor for many chemicals and is easily produced from excess power without any need to power up/power down so it won't mind suddenly being cut off when the cloud goes in front of the sun. Just because it doesn't make a good fuel doesn't mean it doesn't have other uses.

As it stands now wind/solar sometimes gets idled because there's nothing to do with the capacity. Making hydrogen is a cheap (the plant is very cheap to build) way to make use of that effectively free power.