Solar & Wind Power Naive, Impractical "Feel Good" Solution (Brown, versus)
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Your subject statement was "Wind & Solar Impractical and Harmful". I showed that isn't true. It's the current defense of the flailing right who is desperate to serve oil companies and let them destroy the environment through global warming.
How Producing Clean Power Turned Out to Be a Messy Business
I debated on whether to start a new thread or post this article, in yesterday's New York Times Business Section here, How Producing Clean Power Turned Out to Be a Messy Business. A brief snippet (article is about two broadsheet pages long):
Quote:
Originally Posted by New York Times
Even NRG’s big renewable projects — installations that are supposed to one day replace coal- and gas-fired plants — are mired in problems. In the Southern California desert, NRG oversees operations at Ivanpah, the world’s largest solar thermal installation, where thousands of mirrors reflect the sun at enormous towers and water is converted to steam that powers turbines. NRG owns the plant along with BrightSource Energy and Alphabet, the parent company of Google.
Heralded as a beacon of clean energy when it opened in 2014, Ivanpah has been continually troubled.
From the outset, it produced less electricity than expected. Over the last few years, the cost of solar panels fell sharply, making Ivanpah’s power comparatively expensive. In March, the consortium that owns the plant nearly defaulted on a contract with Pacific Gas & Electric, the Northern California utility.
This is one of many examples of the difficulties that even a well-capitalized, profitable and solid company (NRG Energy) has in bringing renewables to the market.
Anecdotal. I know a fellow who was standing guard at the bottom of a tower at whch an A bomb had not gone off while two scientist climbed up to figure out why it had not gone off. There but for a bit of luck our guy could have ended up not just blown up but disintegrated.
I suspect it ended up with the engineers developing alternate escape plans for going up those towers. Getting down a hundred meter tower is not terribly hard.
Anecdotal. I know a fellow who was standing guard at the bottom of a tower at whch an A bomb had not gone off while two scientist climbed up to figure out why it had not gone off. There but for a bit of luck our guy could have ended up not just blown up but disintegrated.
I suspect it ended up with the engineers developing alternate escape plans for going up those towers. Getting down a hundred meter tower is not terribly hard.
One jumped the other durned to death.
Two conferment deaths to wind power.
ERCOT, the entity that manages the flow of electric power to some 24 million Texas customers, representing about 90 percent of the state’s electric load, has posted its predictions of where the state will be able to find the cheapest electricity over the next 15 years. Insiders knew this was brewing, and a formal discussion in planning circles is scheduled for June 21.
As it usually does, ERCOT looked at a range of scenarios. The group mapped potential bulk power purchases from 2017 to 2031 under six different scenarios, including low gas prices, high economic growth, etc. And here’s the part that marks a momentous tipping point: solar power emerged as a clear economic winner in the state in all seven scenarios. In other words, ERCOT is saying that the price of solar power in Texas is now low enough that it predicts no other power plant types will be built....
ERCOT, the entity that manages the flow of electric power to some 24 million Texas customers, representing about 90 percent of the state’s electric load, has posted its predictions of where the state will be able to find the cheapest electricity over the next 15 years. Insiders knew this was brewing, and a formal discussion in planning circles is scheduled for June 21.
As it usually does, ERCOT looked at a range of scenarios. The group mapped potential bulk power purchases from 2017 to 2031 under six different scenarios, including low gas prices, high economic growth, etc. And here’s the part that marks a momentous tipping point: solar power emerged as a clear economic winner in the state in all seven scenarios. In other words, ERCOT is saying that the price of solar power in Texas is now low enough that it predicts no other power plant types will be built....
2016
King Power Station Harris Natural gas
Fort Bliss Solar El Paso Solar
Cobisa Greenville Hunt Natural gas
La Paloma Energy Center Cameron Natural gas
San Antonio Solar Bexar Solar
Tenaska Brownsville Generating Station Cameron Natural gas
FGE Texas Mitchell Natural gas
On top of that ERCOT has built more non renewable in the last 10 yrs. They know hwta happens when the wind doesn't blow.... http://www.puc.texas.gov/Industry/ma...s/gentable.pdf
Good news on ERCOT, although the entity reports up through the TX PUC & ultimately to the TX Lege, infamously for sale or rent on most of its activities. Still, if solar makes sense economically, then it makes sense.
Advocating renewables feels good, but has high cost and very questionable benefits.
Other articles have explored wind power's highly blemished environmental record. In an article entitled Wind Forum Explores Concerns. It seems many Vermonters have had not only their scenery, but right to live in reasonable quiet, utterly wrecked.A neighbor of one such project, quoted in the article stated:
Vehicle Emissions Standards Produce More Fraud than Benefit for Environment
In another article strongly hinting at the limits of environmentalism, Volkswagen Scandal Reaches All the Way to the Top, Lawsuits Say The linked article is one of many deailing VW's extensive fraud designed to fool environmental tests of diesel engines. For a reputable company with a lengthy history to go to these lengths it strikes me that the limits are utopian and not practical.
Ok so the even if the studies that have found that the levelized cost of wind power is now lower than that of coal were to be believed to be false, why is it that there are so many home owners who put solar panels on their roofs who report they work great, provide independence, and are cutting their cost of electricity? Maybe they've all been paid by panel manufacturers to say that?
If you're one of those hard-core righties, while you probably wouldn't want to "destroy the world you live in" you might very well parrot the pro-corporate propaganda that right wing media peddles.
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How Producing Clean Power Turned Out to Be a Messy Business
