Part of the problem of these kind of studies is that the allocation of costs between solar+wind vs fossil is difficult when fossil fuels alone can provide all the energy, but solar+wind are intermittent and have to be backstopped by fossil fuel plants. So if you have to use short-term and therefore expensive fossil fuel plants when solar+wind can't supply enough energy, the additional cost over long-term fossile fuel use should be allocated to the renewable side IMO. If you don't do that, you make renewables look cheaper than their real economic cost.
Another way to think about it is if renewables were saving us a lot of money over fossil fuels, shouldn't our fuel billsbe going down? Most utilities are regulated so they are not allowed to keep excess profits. But even before the spike in oil prices related to Ukraine, the places with a higher proportion of renewables have higher energy costs than those without. So where are these so-called savings?
You could make the alternative argument that we need to use renewables despite their greater cost to help the environment, and in the hope that greater use leads us down the learning curve to lower costs in future, but that's clearly not the argument being made by the posted article
Backing intermittent sources with dispatchable generation is a solution, but not the only solution (energy storage and deferring loads are some alternatives for example).
The cost of the fuel also doesn't account for costs they can externalize (ecosystem, healthcare) and the political issues it causes (Saudi Arabia gets by with more shit than they would otherwise, Russia is a big problem).
I believe the point is that the cost/kW to consumers has remained steady despite the large increase in the price of fossil fuels. See https://www.texaselectricityratings.com/resources/historical... (there has been a sharp increase this year, which counters the argument made, but otherwise steady since 2016).
Great point. Renewables are getting cheaper, but are still interment and require baseload power. They also require significant investments in grid infrastructure, with costs borne by governments and utilities. Additionally, equipment must be recycled and discarded after ~30 years.
For perspective, it takes about 1 unit of materials to generate 2 units of power from wind and solar. Significant resources are used, often on land that was formerly growing food. Oil and gas are roughly 10:1 in terms of output, with nuclear around 100:1.
~85% of world energy is currently non-renewable, relative to ~87% at the start of the millenia. Even if the world suddenly started building hundreds of nuclear facilities and blanketing the landscape with solar, wind, hydrothermal, and hydro, these investments will take decades to come into effect.
Easiest solution is to tax externalities and let the market efficiently allocate resources. Charge 100, 200, or even 500/ton for carbon emissions, allocated globally. Distribute some of the proceeds to low income countries who are still developing. Every 100/ton in taxes is ~3.5B, which could be distributed to the majority of the world who subside on less than 20 dollars per day.
Furthermore, tax air pollution. There are ~10m deaths annually from air pollution, primarily due to fossil fuels. Not to mention shortened life and health complications for the majority of the planet. Air pollution taxes could generate another couple billion in revenue.
Finally - stop subsidizing both oil and gas and renewables. Current incentives are riddled with loopholes and tax breaks. A mix of carbon and air pollution taxes would efficiently incentivize far more renewables development. Viola - more renewables and a cleaner world for eons
> the places with a higher proportion of renewables have higher energy costs than those without.
That's not true. You are almost certainly including added taxes in the costs, and well run states tax pollution and also invest in renewables. Both of these are sensible policy responses to pollution.
It's like claiming states that tax cigarettes are using more expensive cigarette technology.
You're right. A total "P&L" of the hybrid solution (fossil+renewable) vs. the fossil fuel only solution is what's needed to make a fair economic comparison.
Of course, there are other important non-economic considerations.
This headline is derived from a report published by for-profit Energy consulting company (IdeaSmiths) that specializes in writing reports to justify big CapEx investments.
From their site-
> Our analytical and due diligence capabilities can provide significant value to early-stage inventors and professional investors and legal firms.
The “article” (and Study) also features BS projections like this:
> The drop in emissions has saved Texans between $10.2 billion and $76.4 billion in healthcare and other environmentally related costs, the report states.
These sorts of reports and headlines are aimed at people that want 3rd party validation rather than objective, unbiased analysis.
It’s even noted on IdeaSmiths LLC’s website as a speciality:
> Technical due diligence for investors vetting new ventures and inventors looking for 3rd party validation
Texas is likely to pass California in total renewable energy resources soon, which kind of annoys me. I would like California to step up its construction game, and not just rest on our head start.
Part of it is very favorable geography. But part of it, yes - You can throw up a wind farm in Texas cheaper and with less red tape than just about anywhere else.
Only if you’re a blind ideologue. The wind boom in Texas is the result of raising their renewable energy portfolio laws to require a certain amount of it, and by establishing renewable energy zones which give power plant builders expansive powers to condemn and take private property.
You see it’s quite the opposite of free market forces.
Why does renewable energy sources have to be so political? Personally, I like the idea of better and more wind and solar generated power, but not because I 'hate fossil fuels'.
If solar panels keep getting cheaper and more efficient, I will eventually get a rooftop solar system. If I can buy a good electric car without breaking the bank then I will.
Renewables seem like a great way to meet the growing demands of an energy hungry society but if they are really good then we shouldn't have to try to scare people away from competing energy sources.
As usual, follow the money: I suspect this is a wedge issue because it has been manufactured/amplified as one with the encouragement of the fossil fuel lobby.
Some green energy advocates are pushing the narrative of that we can replace fossil fuels with wind/solar. Fossil fuel advocates are trying to push the narrative that green energy is too intermittent to make a reliable grid. Both see it as a zero sum game - the other side loses, they win. In that light, political fights are inevitable.
Reality is that no energy source is replacing any other, we're simply growing the overall pie. All that new wind and solar is merely added on top of natural gas electricity production, which itself is growing. For now.
Renewable energy enjoys broad bi-partisan support amongst voters. It's politicians and fossil fuel lobbyists that are trying to convince Republicans to hate renewable energy.
When I worked in power renewables were a way to add volatility to the grid which you could make a _lot_ of money from. Price swings per MWh are in the tens of thousands. Compared to coal/nuclear/gas you would never see anything like that.
Because the tech in question has been developed for several decades and you still haven’t been convinced it’s a great investment (waiting for price to get lower). We’d be much further behind without public funds/tax incentives.
Because the government regulates, subsidizes, and mandates these forms of energy. It does all these things because renewable energy is more expensive and so they have not been sustainable, financially, on their own in the free market. Therefore the government, and by extension those who lobby the government for this, are compelling people to spend more for energy. Whether or not this is justified is a different question - but regardless of justification, this is why it's political.
>Why does renewable energy sources have to be so political?
The Republican Party made it political as part of its efforts to establish itself as the pro-business, pro-oil, anti-regulation party[0].
Also, historically environmentalism has had cultural intersections with leftist and feminist movements, which leads in a thumbtacks-and-string way to a suspicion among the American right of a radical socialist agenda behind environmentalism which still persists, as was demonstrated with Trump's infamous tweet about global warming being a Chinese communist plot.
All of this, along with global warming skepticism and a general disdain for "expertise" and "academia" applies via the transitive property of American politics to renewable energy. There is even a dimension of anti-environmentalism/anti-renewable belief among some conservative Christians who believe God gave humanity the world to use as they saw fit, and that God will literally just fix everything.
Remember when they had the power outage and people died? Wind turbines in Texas aren’t winterized so usage drops to around 10% in the winter. The natural gas also stopped working because it wasn’t winterized either.
Remember when the governor of Texas blamed frozen wind turbines for the disaster?
It's not the answer of course, there's no singular answer to a problem as complex as good, reliable, non-polluting energy at grid scale. But nuclear absolutely is an answer for that in some scenarios.
It actually would be and I would welcome all the new ones the government wants to allow (following regulations of course). We're out of time on climate change. One advantage of the new Supreme Court lineup is they might actually give the middle finger to some of the NIMBYs and greens blocking nuclear power. The downside of that is they will be doing similar to regulations like the Clean Water Act soon as well :(
And what was the financial impact of the blackouts that happened in the last few years?
During that event the solar was effectively zero, and wind was close to that. Plus too many gas plants were in maintenance or froze/broke, which caused outages. If Texas would have still been fully on gas/coal/nuclear, would there have been a blackout? If they would have invested more in nuclear, what would be the financial impact? Would it have operated better in the freeze?
There are trade off with every decision made. I'm trying to sus out of the state would be better off spending money in a different way.
State officials including Republican governor Greg Abbott[13] initially blamed[14] the outages on frozen wind turbines and solar panels. However, data showed that failure to winterize power sources, like wind turbines and natural gas infrastructure, had caused the grid failure.[15][16] Texas's power grid has long been separate from the two major national grids to avoid federal oversight, though it is still connected to the other national grids and Mexico's;[17] the limited number of ties made it difficult for the state to import electricity from other states during the crisis.[18] Deregulation of its electricity market beginning in the 1990s resulted in competition in wholesale electricity prices, but also cost cutting for contingency preparation.
In all cases it was because the infrastructure wasn’t hardened for the weather. This is something that they have now been doing I believe, although how ready they are will only be found out at the next big freeze.
A nuclear power plant went down when it's lake froze. Coal power plants did the same. Natural gas fared better when the supply wasn't frozen, because natural gas turbines don't require intensive cooling that steam generation does. And yes, it's really ironic that steam generation had to stop due to lack of cooling on the coldest day of the year.
Wind Turbine gearboxes froze up (oil congealed, not froze) because they were too cold and also not winterized. They could have been but they weren't.
Solar could have powered some people's homes, but most home solar turns off when the grid turns off.
The issue is how they set up the grid and avoided any federal regulation. Additionally, the market structure that it uses is designed to be running as close to being a blackout as possible without actually blacking out in the name of "an efficient market".
What are you even talking about? We had that awful blackout, and it sure as heck wasn't renewables, it was the fossil fuel power plants and gas plants that provided for them. I hate to see it but you really should go look up the real causes of the blackout. It was winterization at fossil fuel plants (gas and electric) if you want the short version. It's not like we have constant blackouts. could we improve the grid? Of course and by a lot. Are we experiencing 3rd world power grid conditions? Not even close.
I’m sure all of that extra capacity has been wasted by now on Bitcoin mining.
Edit: Let me do some math instead of guessing.
> The Texas grid operator expects crypto miners to increase electricity demand by up to 6 gigawatts by mid-2023
> Texas leads the U.S. in wind installations, with 30.46 GW, and it’s second in solar energy, with 8.6 GW as of August.
Still. Not great. Almost every solar panel in Texas going to mine something with seven transactions per second. There is no excuse for this amount of power wasted since Ethereum moved to proof of stake. https://ultrasound.money/.
I have a buddy in a tiny rural Texas town who saw what looked to him like some sort of datacenter-in-a-container type thing roll into his town, hook up to their power lines, and deployed hoses into a cooling pond. He googled around a bit and is pretty sure it's a bitcoin mining setup, which makes sense.
[+] [-] ghufran_syed|3 years ago|reply
Another way to think about it is if renewables were saving us a lot of money over fossil fuels, shouldn't our fuel billsbe going down? Most utilities are regulated so they are not allowed to keep excess profits. But even before the spike in oil prices related to Ukraine, the places with a higher proportion of renewables have higher energy costs than those without. So where are these so-called savings?
You could make the alternative argument that we need to use renewables despite their greater cost to help the environment, and in the hope that greater use leads us down the learning curve to lower costs in future, but that's clearly not the argument being made by the posted article
[+] [-] bee_rider|3 years ago|reply
The cost of the fuel also doesn't account for costs they can externalize (ecosystem, healthcare) and the political issues it causes (Saudi Arabia gets by with more shit than they would otherwise, Russia is a big problem).
[+] [-] insane_dreamer|3 years ago|reply
I believe the point is that the cost/kW to consumers has remained steady despite the large increase in the price of fossil fuels. See https://www.texaselectricityratings.com/resources/historical... (there has been a sharp increase this year, which counters the argument made, but otherwise steady since 2016).
[+] [-] arb-spreads|3 years ago|reply
For perspective, it takes about 1 unit of materials to generate 2 units of power from wind and solar. Significant resources are used, often on land that was formerly growing food. Oil and gas are roughly 10:1 in terms of output, with nuclear around 100:1.
~85% of world energy is currently non-renewable, relative to ~87% at the start of the millenia. Even if the world suddenly started building hundreds of nuclear facilities and blanketing the landscape with solar, wind, hydrothermal, and hydro, these investments will take decades to come into effect.
Easiest solution is to tax externalities and let the market efficiently allocate resources. Charge 100, 200, or even 500/ton for carbon emissions, allocated globally. Distribute some of the proceeds to low income countries who are still developing. Every 100/ton in taxes is ~3.5B, which could be distributed to the majority of the world who subside on less than 20 dollars per day.
Furthermore, tax air pollution. There are ~10m deaths annually from air pollution, primarily due to fossil fuels. Not to mention shortened life and health complications for the majority of the planet. Air pollution taxes could generate another couple billion in revenue.
Finally - stop subsidizing both oil and gas and renewables. Current incentives are riddled with loopholes and tax breaks. A mix of carbon and air pollution taxes would efficiently incentivize far more renewables development. Viola - more renewables and a cleaner world for eons
[+] [-] ZeroGravitas|3 years ago|reply
That's not true. You are almost certainly including added taxes in the costs, and well run states tax pollution and also invest in renewables. Both of these are sensible policy responses to pollution.
It's like claiming states that tax cigarettes are using more expensive cigarette technology.
[+] [-] santoshalper|3 years ago|reply
Of course, there are other important non-economic considerations.
[+] [-] propogandist|3 years ago|reply
From their site-
> Our analytical and due diligence capabilities can provide significant value to early-stage inventors and professional investors and legal firms.
The “article” (and Study) also features BS projections like this:
> The drop in emissions has saved Texans between $10.2 billion and $76.4 billion in healthcare and other environmentally related costs, the report states.
These sorts of reports and headlines are aimed at people that want 3rd party validation rather than objective, unbiased analysis.
It’s even noted on IdeaSmiths LLC’s website as a speciality:
> Technical due diligence for investors vetting new ventures and inventors looking for 3rd party validation
https://www.ideasmiths.net/services-provide/
[+] [-] jeffbee|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] roenxi|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] legitster|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jeffbee|3 years ago|reply
You see it’s quite the opposite of free market forces.
[+] [-] AHappyCamper|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] didgetmaster|3 years ago|reply
If solar panels keep getting cheaper and more efficient, I will eventually get a rooftop solar system. If I can buy a good electric car without breaking the bank then I will.
Renewables seem like a great way to meet the growing demands of an energy hungry society but if they are really good then we shouldn't have to try to scare people away from competing energy sources.
[+] [-] namuol|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] perrygeo|3 years ago|reply
Reality is that no energy source is replacing any other, we're simply growing the overall pie. All that new wind and solar is merely added on top of natural gas electricity production, which itself is growing. For now.
[+] [-] epistasis|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thrown_22|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] themitigating|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] conductr|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mbostleman|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] krapp|3 years ago|reply
The Republican Party made it political as part of its efforts to establish itself as the pro-business, pro-oil, anti-regulation party[0].
Also, historically environmentalism has had cultural intersections with leftist and feminist movements, which leads in a thumbtacks-and-string way to a suspicion among the American right of a radical socialist agenda behind environmentalism which still persists, as was demonstrated with Trump's infamous tweet about global warming being a Chinese communist plot.
All of this, along with global warming skepticism and a general disdain for "expertise" and "academia" applies via the transitive property of American politics to renewable energy. There is even a dimension of anti-environmentalism/anti-renewable belief among some conservative Christians who believe God gave humanity the world to use as they saw fit, and that God will literally just fix everything.
[0]https://www.vox.com/2017/4/22/15377964/republicans-environme...
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] VoxPelli|3 years ago|reply
Great to see this in Texas! Didn’t know they were big in this
[+] [-] melling|3 years ago|reply
https://cbsaustin.com/news/local/fed-report-says-texas-grid-...
Remember when they had the power outage and people died? Wind turbines in Texas aren’t winterized so usage drops to around 10% in the winter. The natural gas also stopped working because it wasn’t winterized either.
Remember when the governor of Texas blamed frozen wind turbines for the disaster?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/02/17/texas-abbot...
Remember 45 years ago we were warned not to burn all that coal or we would cause climate change?
We’re still at 40% coal for electricity globally and it’s now too late to prevent a significant amount of warming.
But hey, the batteries are almost ready? We can’t be more than 10-20 years from widespread adoption?
[+] [-] sofixa|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] geoduck14|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stjohnswarts|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] TheDesolate0|3 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] jiggyjace|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mpweiher|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] byyll|3 years ago|reply
29,000,000,000 / 29,145,505 (population) = ~$995 savings per person over 12 years
$995 / 12 years = ~$83 per year
$83 / 12 months = less than $7 per month per person.
Am I missing something?
[+] [-] graton|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kyrra|3 years ago|reply
During that event the solar was effectively zero, and wind was close to that. Plus too many gas plants were in maintenance or froze/broke, which caused outages. If Texas would have still been fully on gas/coal/nuclear, would there have been a blackout? If they would have invested more in nuclear, what would be the financial impact? Would it have operated better in the freeze?
There are trade off with every decision made. I'm trying to sus out of the state would be better off spending money in a different way.
[+] [-] andsoitis|3 years ago|reply
Wikipedia on the 2021 Text Blackout (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Texas_power_crisis):
State officials including Republican governor Greg Abbott[13] initially blamed[14] the outages on frozen wind turbines and solar panels. However, data showed that failure to winterize power sources, like wind turbines and natural gas infrastructure, had caused the grid failure.[15][16] Texas's power grid has long been separate from the two major national grids to avoid federal oversight, though it is still connected to the other national grids and Mexico's;[17] the limited number of ties made it difficult for the state to import electricity from other states during the crisis.[18] Deregulation of its electricity market beginning in the 1990s resulted in competition in wholesale electricity prices, but also cost cutting for contingency preparation.
[+] [-] noneeeed|3 years ago|reply
https://www.texastribune.org/2021/02/16/natural-gas-power-st...
In all cases it was because the infrastructure wasn’t hardened for the weather. This is something that they have now been doing I believe, although how ready they are will only be found out at the next big freeze.
Wind works fine in cold weather if you build it with the weather in mind. Cold states like Michigan have wind turbines and do just fine https://empoweringmichigan.com/how-do-wind-turbines-work-in-...
[+] [-] csours|3 years ago|reply
Wind Turbine gearboxes froze up (oil congealed, not froze) because they were too cold and also not winterized. They could have been but they weren't.
Solar could have powered some people's homes, but most home solar turns off when the grid turns off.
[+] [-] shagie|3 years ago|reply
The issue is how they set up the grid and avoided any federal regulation. Additionally, the market structure that it uses is designed to be running as close to being a blackout as possible without actually blacking out in the name of "an efficient market".
[+] [-] stjohnswarts|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] jackmott42|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] GartzenDeHaes|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] black_13|3 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] JohnJamesRambo|3 years ago|reply
Edit: Let me do some math instead of guessing.
> The Texas grid operator expects crypto miners to increase electricity demand by up to 6 gigawatts by mid-2023
> Texas leads the U.S. in wind installations, with 30.46 GW, and it’s second in solar energy, with 8.6 GW as of August.
Still. Not great. Almost every solar panel in Texas going to mine something with seven transactions per second. There is no excuse for this amount of power wasted since Ethereum moved to proof of stake. https://ultrasound.money/.
[+] [-] irusensei|3 years ago|reply
There is. After the PoS merge more than 50% blocks on the ethereum chain are OFAC compliant raising censorship concerns. https://cointelegraph.com/news/51-of-ethereum-blocks-are-now...
[+] [-] hotpotamus|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] replygirl|3 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] api|3 years ago|reply