Solar now accounts for over 50% of new electricity capacity added to the U.S. grid

In Australia there is a growing possibility that nuclear will trump both wind and solar.
Aussie Green Panic: “the nuclear push is designed to bring … renewables to a halt”
Eric Worrall
Opposition party support for nuclear energy appears to have collapsed renewable investment. . . .

 

After the misrepresentation in your last Watts article, I'm not even going to read this one. Here's some truth though, from March 13, 2024

https://www.cleanenergycouncil.org....australias-electricity-supplied-by-renewables

NEW REPORT: ALMOST 40 PER CENT OF AUSTRALIA'S ELECTRICITY SUPPLIED BY RENEWABLES

Record-breaking investment in utility-scale storage and booming results for rooftop solar are among the new data published in today’s Clean Energy Australia 2024 report

The report found that renewables overall accounted for nearly 40 per cent of Australia’s total electricity supply at 39.4 per cent, while figures for generation capacity added were strong at 5.9 GW, up from 5 GW in 2022.

The average nuclear power plant has a capacity of 1 GW. So the renewable investment in 2023 is the equivalent of almost 6 nuclear power plants. Note that they are also investing in utility-scale storage.

 

Sorry, but the only misrepresentation is in your use of the term. Even if you hide your head under the covers the monsters will still be there. The data are the data.

 

Except nuclear plants run reliably 24/7 for years on end - renewables - not so much.

 

The state of Iowa is a great model for working around this. They have a "Wind-First" philosophy, and they get over 60% of their power from wind. They have natural gas fired plants as backup. They are a great model for other states to follow. Also, as EVs continue to sell, there will be a lot of retired EV batteries that still have 10-15 years of life as power storage devices. EV Batteries :> 80% of original capacity, Power storage - between 60 and 80% capacity, Recycle at below 60% capacity.

The future of electricity generation and subsequent pricing will be to pay substantially less during off-peak hours. I can even envision EVs that attach to a Utility algorithm with software, and the utility decides (customer would have the option to select this algorithm, with the ability to override) when the EV charges (wind blowing, sun shining, etc). The customer would receive a substantial discount for charging during the Utility recommended hours. In this regard, all the EVs in a County or Region would be storing renewable power when the renewables are producing a lot. How's this sound?

 

Here's a look at the future as envisioned by alarmists.

California’s Electricity Disaster In Seven Charts
From Robert Bryce’s Substack
Residential electricity prices jumped nearly 12% in 2023 and they are going higher. But the carbon intensity of power generation isn’t falling and low-income ratepayers are subsidizing the rich.

California’s energy woes are getting worse. According to the latest numbers from the Energy Information Administration, the state’s residential electricity prices, already among the highest in America, jumped by 3 cents per kilowatt-hour last year, an increase of 11.9%. The average California homeowner now pays 28.9 cents per kilowatt-hour for electricity, which is the third-highest price in the U.S., behind only Connecticut and Hawaii.

Unfortunately, the 2023 price increases are only a hors d’oeuvre. California’s electric rates are headed for the exosphere. As I explained last March in “California Screamin,” in 2022:

The California Public Utilities Commission unanimously approved a scheme that aims to add more than 25 gigawatts of renewables and 15 gigawatts of batteries to the state’s electric grid by 2032 at an estimated cost of $49.3 billion. In addition, the California Independent System Operator released a draft plan to upgrade the state’s transmission grid at a cost of some $30.5 billion. The combined cost of those two schemes is about $80 billion.

Given the raging inflation in utility products, that $80 billion estimate is undoubtedly too low. Whatever the ultimate price tag, the state’s aggressive alt-energy plans will inflict more economic pain on the low-income residents of a state with the dubious distinction of having the highest poverty rate in the United States.

From natural gas bans to aggressive alt-energy mandates and bans on vehicles with internal combustion engines, the Golden State provides a clear example of what not to do. . . . .

 

The alarmists can produce propaganda but they can't produce enough power.
Officialdom Responds To Doubts That A Renewables-Based Electricity System Will Work
March 24, 2024/ Francis Menton

• 
  The single biggest problem with the Left’s “climate” agenda is that the proposed response to the alleged crisis — replacement of fossil fuels in the energy system with intermittent wind-and-sun-based electricity generation — is not going to work. This is obvious to anyone who considers the subject seriously for any amount of time.
  
  
• Yet any mention of this issue has been almost completely banished from the mainstream media, from academia, from government, and from social media. It remains to a few lonely voices (such as, here in New York, myself, Roger Caiazza, and Ken Girardin of the Empire Center) to keep the subject in the public consciousness.
  
  
• As small and lonely as our voices may be, somehow we must be getting under their skin. We know that because increasingly officialdom feels a need to respond publicly to our criticisms.
  
  
• But how can they give a plausible response, given that we are absolutely right and a wind-and-sun-based electricity system is never going to work?
  
  
• Easy! — Just treat the public like morons.
  

READ MORE

 

YAWN. Once again, I will refer you to the state of Iowa. They get 60% of their electricity from wind, and utilize a "wind-first" philosophy.

 

1. Iowa is hardly representative of the whole US.
2. There's local pushback.
Green groups, tech companies fight $4B Iowa wind project

E&E News by POLITICO
https://www.eenews.net › Articles

Jan 17, 2023 — The largest-ever wind energy proposal in Iowa is getting blowback from some of the biggest champions of renewable energy — environmental ...

 

No Iowa is not representative of the whole US, but the rest of the US can learn a lot from them. Once other states get up to 60% of their power from Renewables, we can talk about next measures, like energy storage.

 

Then that talk will never happen.

 

Many states are heading in that direction. I just entered a separate about Texas solar and wind power.

 

East of the Mississippi it gets much more problematical.

 

Energy storage is absurd since that requires massive funding for a storage that quickly depletes thus another environmental mess to clean up afterwards.

 

A generalization lacking in details.
1. Pumped water storage is used throughout the world for energy storage. It's used extensively in the US as a way to help Utilities meet peak demand.

2. Retired EV batteries (<80% capacity) can be used for another 10-15 years for storage, until their capacity drops below 60%.
3. Utilities can use their customer's EVs for storage, and this can be done quite effectively - no infrastructure required.

 

All the dams generating power have this concept built in I have visited many of them in my state of Washington where water is the storage medium used to generate power.


Please park your misleading claims and stick to what YOU wrote that I responded to:

bolding mine


It will never happen since it isn't even close to that number in any state and not only that weather destroys them in time as this recent Hail Storm destroyed a huge solar farm which is now a concern about widespread soil contamination that might turn the region into a disaster site.

Hailstorm in Texas destroys thousands of acres of solar farms

LINK


Newsweek LINK says it is 3,300 acres solar farm.

 

Big news in the Watts Up with That propaganda network. Do they report when an area of oil rigs is devastated by a tornado?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_El_Reno–Piedmont_tornado

 

You verify the effectiveness of Pumped Water Storage, and then call it a "misleading claim". A little logic perhaps?

 

By your own post, it looks like that tornado was widely reported, as most, if not all, are.

So what is that supposed to prove?

 

It is misleading because Hydropower isn't classed as a renewable, this is elementary knowledge yet you didn't know that..... hmmm....

 

I notice you have no counterpoint......

You failed to notice due to your prejudice that the source in WUWT was ABS 13 Houston, X and MSN, I also linked to Newsweek that covered it too...... are you this lazy?

 

Gosh, anyone see the pics of the Solar site in TX that got smashed by hail?
https://twitter.com/Roughneck2real/...-destroys-thousands-of-solar-panels-in-texas/

 

Um... So what you're expressing here is a maximum potential output. Which, even the nice folks in Iowa know isn't a real number. And when the wind doesn't blow, Iowa gets nothing from wind energy. When the turbines freeze because Iowa can be the arctic tundra in the winter, those turbines aren't running because of the lack of deicing and turbine blade damage caused by being out of balance, etc.
TX has legions of wind power. It just doesn't work all the time. And when it doesn't, the grid is overextended. And folks are without.

 

It is funny when a professed Electrical Engineer is so besotted over LOW mass power generation that is highly intermittent and too expensive to maintain which is why there are a growing list of abandoned wind farms over time that is a blight to the landscape.

 

When green becomes brown. And worse, toxic. Since the turbines themselves have a short lifecycle, <20 years, and there isn't a recyclability of them, then what? Green superfund sites around the country?