Red State passes Blue State in----------------------Renewable Energy!

In a day in age when the Blue has been dominating recent political elections, Texas has passed California in solar and wind capacity. All of the renewable naysayers on this forum can now start bashing Texas. They are now starting to invest in battery storage systems.



On a recent day, Texas boasted that 70% of the State's power came from wind and solar.

https://www.keranews.org/energy-env...exas-grid-was-carbon-free-at-one-point-sunday

Feb 26, 2024 --- Over 70% of the energy Texans used Sunday came from wind and solar power — a record for the state power grid.

 

Yep, wind passed coal up a few years ago in Texas and only a matter of time before it catches up with natural gas. Republicans in Texas dare not let their constituents know that progressive policies work.

 

So Texas is getting screwed too. Wind power is little more than an epic 'Rube Goldberg' method of storing energy. They mine the materials using fossil fuels, manufacture the parts using coal, transport and assemble them using more fossil fuels, and then over the course of 30 years or so (and regular replacement parts), wind makes all the energy back just in time for the unit to surpass its life expectancy and be scrapped. It would be more efficient to just burn the fossil fuels for energy and bypass the wind turbine part... but it makes people feel better about their electricty, so I guess thats worth something?

Someday advances in manufacturing and generation efficiency will likely make wind power worth it... but using the technology now just makes energy more expensive, because ultimately is just a less efficient way of using fossil fuels while making it look renewable.

 

Interesting the way some post charts, quotes from experts, news flashes. This is nothing but but biased unsupported rhetoric.

 

Texas has been using windpower since before wind power was cool. Doesn't really mean much though since they are not integrated into the national grid.

 

Why doesn't it mean anything?

 

Let's hope they do a better job in cold preparedness going forward.
And no one is a renewable energy "naysayer." But there's no denying that intermittent renewables cannot do the job without fossil or nuclear baseload backup. So "net zero" will not happen.

 

That is the part they continuously overlook is the need for the 24/7 back up power generation to stay online.

 

All the EVs in America, parked in garages, are backup. Retired EV batteries can be used for backup, with a lifespan of 10-15 years. Many other options - nuclear is a terrible option, with no long-term plan for the storage of low-level wastes, which must stored securely for hundreds of thousands of years.

 

they use it because it's a valid option... the anti-climate change folks don't want to use what works cause you know.... "feelings"

 

I'm afraid that's a low information-based post.

 

That's because you are trapped in a paradgm of misinformation, lack of imagination, and non-scientific conspiracy theories.

 

And yet I'm the one who posts data and peer-reviewed research results.

 

It would be foolish to not use renewables (when plentiful) to supplement other sources, so all the ideological opposition to it comes across silly.

 

There is no ideological opposition. That's a mere hobgoblin in the minds of climate alarmists.

 

Lot of people argue against renewables for ideological / political reasons, because in their minds it's "liberal agenda", which must be opposed. Maybe you don't, but many others do.

Also, it should not be assumed that its always about "climate alarmism". Its about generating energy out of natural resources when they are available. Norway has hydro, and they produce 90% of their energy from it. Texas has wind and solar, and they produce 70%. You are proving my point when you equate it with "climate alarmism"

 

Well, no. You'll note that I have never equated renewable energy per se with climate alarmism. Some of the arguments advanced to advocate for renewable energy are, however, alarmist. As, for example, the claim that opposition to renewable energy is ideological. In fact, the devastating arguments against renewable energy are practical: it is unsuitable for the expansion role (net zero) claimed by advocates. Renewable energy is a niche application, suitable for specific environments and purposes.

 

Yes, that's why I said "when plentiful". Apparently they are plentiful in Texas, Norway and some other places. Hitting 100% is not a reasonable expectation, but 70%in Texas is better than I expected. Nuke + renewables is the way to go IMO.

 

Nothing wrong with window or solar power generation as long as the system is thorough backed up by on-demand sources and storage. Question how much of that energy was supplied before sunrise or after sunset?

 

It would take well over a million turbines to power the US. Texas has 15K and started in earnest in the 90's after toying with them for a couple decades. We will be well past the tipping point to doom if the left is correct before we get anywhere close.

 

With renewables, it's all about transition. Ten years ago, naysayers were putting out numbers, and those have, by-and-large, been exceeded. Just like the title of this thread discusses.

 

The number I put out is the number offered by the chief strategist at TFIE Strategy, Inc., who is a left-wing techno-modernist not a naysayer, and we are nowhere close to being able to meet the 1.5°C limit of the Paris agreement within a decade. We will probably surpass it in the next 5 years.

 

Probably off-topic, but from an engineering standpoint it is very debatable whether battery storage systems for electric utility power actually makes economic sense.
People don't realize that it's very expensive to store large amounts of electric power in batteries.
It is more economical to just use the power from wind and solar as it is being generated, and then use another power generation source during the infrequent time periods when the renewable power sources are not adequate.

So I'm skeptical about this being money that was well spent.

It's better to build double the solar generating capacity than it is to have utility energy storage.

Unfortunately I think most people are too stupid to realize that. And most of the progressives and environmentalists who support renewable energy don't have any sense of the cost of money and don't care, it seems. It has to do with emotion and a logical fallacy. They'd rather reach 100% of their goal in an area than be able to achieve 90% of their goal on a much larger scale.

 

Yes, battery storage (new batteries) is not cost feasible at this point in time. However, using used EV batteries is a great way to get more life out of EV Batteries that are no longer capable of powering a car (10-15 years). I have another post describing this. Basically --->
Capacity 80-100% EVs
60-80% Storage of renewable electricity
<60% Recycle
This is currently done in markets where a lot of EV cars are retiring to salvage or doing entire battery changeouts (China, California). In this photo (CA), all those pods on this solar farm are retired EV Battery storage.

 

While that may be true, I think it only takes some basic rough math to show that used EV batteries in large utility power storage banks will probably never realistically be able to store enough power to charge all the new EV batteries at night.

Most ordinary people are probably not going to scrap the EV batteries in their car until it gets down to 75% capacity, due to the huge expense. That's just ordinary human nature. Some people might wait until it gets down to 65%.

And remember, those batteries are going to need to store more power than ends up actually being used because there will be maybe around 15% efficiency loss in getting that power from the batteries through the transmission line system and into the home.

(Actually it's worse than that. Ever try to charge a battery with a battery? If you have two equal batteries, and one is fully charged, it will only be able to half charge the other battery. It has to do with availability of voltage drive. So you're going to need maybe 15 to 20% more battery capacity on one end to be able to charge the other end)