The pressure to shift more of the country’s electric supply to renewable sources is not just a rallying cry for environmentalists. Some of the power industry’s biggest customers, like General Motors and Microsoft, have made a commitment to clean energy. And to help them meet it — and keep them from taking their business elsewhere — utilities are changing their ways.
West Virginia, where coal is king, is no exception.
—Coal Country’s Power Plants Are Turning Away From Coal
I find that encouraging. I also find it encouraging that Trump’s lawyers are urging him to run his tweets past them before he sends them off. We’ll have to see if he has sense enough to listen to them.
May 28, 2017
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/05/india-solar-wind-renewable-power-electric-cars-leds/
Good for India! And good for the states and companies here in the U.S. that realize how stupid Trump’s administration is about the environment.
“Sense” and “Trump”—the two words just don’t fit together, no matter how I read them. Also not encouraging that Trump’s lawyers are trying to corral him. It’s a sad commentary!
Even Trump’s supporters think he tweets too much. I’m curious to see if he can gain some impulse control.
I’m not a big fan of the renewable sector. Construction of wind and solar renewables, in my view, are only cost effective, barely, through government subsidies. Downtime for solar (cloudy periods) and wind (low, very high, or no wind) is variable and unpredictable. Since reliable, cost effective storage of excess generation is not yet a reality, wind and solar requires nearby idling fossil fuel backup capable of providing 100% of the output of the solar and/or wind farms. For example, German wind power is about 32% of installed energy capacity, but that’s only when they have ideal wind conditions. When they don’t, coal must make up the difference, since Germany has shut down their nuclear plants. “Average electricity prices for companies have jumped 60% over the past five years because of costs passed along as part of government subsidies of renewable energy producers. Prices are now more than double those in the U.S.” (Germany’s Expensive Gamble on Renewable Energy)
I’ve seen recently that wind turbines only have about a 20 to 25 year expected service life.
The article quoted above was published in the Wall Street Journal (behind a pay wall) as Germany’s Expensive Gamble on Renewable Energy
The real problem is storage. Our new storage batteries were expensive, but they make life so much easler.
Thank you for the link.
Here’s another Wall Street Journal article: Coal Mines Are Reimagined as a New Power Source They have a long way to go, but at least people are trying to put on their thinking caps rather than just wringing their hands in despair.