BLOWIN' IN THE WIND--A WHIFF OF GOOD CLIMATE NEWS

Good news is scarce these days, so I'm thrilled to get to report that in the first three months of this year, nearly all--99.7 percent--of new electricity generating capacity in the US came from solar and wind. Once-and-hopefully-never-again King Coal accounted for a measly 0.2 percent of new capacity. 

                                        Wind Farm--Credit USFWS/Joshua Winchell

That brings renewable's percentage of US power generation capacity up to 24.7 percent of the total.

Actual power generation for the first quarter was comparable--21.6 percent of all power generated. March was even better--25.5 percent of the electricity that went into the US grid came from renewables.

Needless to say, the US and the rest of the world need to phase out climate destabilizing energy sources and replace them with renewables as quickly as possible.

-----

These data come from FERC, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

REA/6/14/21, 6/16/21

A BIT OF GOOD NEWS FOR THANKSGIVING

If you've been following the escalating climate crisis, you know that decarbonization of the global economy is a crucial part of achieving a sustainable world. The good news is that the U.S. is moving in the right direction. The latest assessment of how much carbon was injected into the atmosphere from US electricity generation shows that the carbon intensity--pounds of carbon dioxide per MW-hour--dropped 9 percent since this time last year. Total generation fell by 4 percent in the same period. Even better, that's a 40 percent reduction in carbon intensity of power generation in just the last 15 years. 

Carbon emissions per MW-hour in U.S. 2001-2019

Credit: Power Sector Carbon Index, 

Scott Institute for Energy Innovation 

"The U.S. electricity sector is continuing to get cleaner, and both carbon intensity and overall emissions are dropping," said Costa Samaras, assistant professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University and co-director of Carnegie Mellon's Power Sector Carbon Index.

The researchers say that this encouraging and continuing trend is due to the decline of coal-powered electricity generation, the increase in power from natural gas, and from renewables such as wind and solar. "We're in the middle of an energy transition right now, and the biggest part of that story in the U.S. is how swiftly coal has been declining over the past decade," said Samaras. "The decline of coal can be attributed to the rise of natural gas, the continued improvement of renewables, and energy efficiency efforts."

There's lots of room for improvement, however. Wind, solar and hydropower still account for less than 20 percent of U.S. electricity, just about equal to nuclear, the other zero-emissions source of power.

The goal, the experts point out, is to continue to produce abundant power while emitting less and less carbon, and also to grow the use of zero- or low-emission electricity in transportation, buildings and industry.

---

REA

CALIFORNIA POWERS AHEAD IN THE FIGHT AGAINST CLIMATE CHANGE

We need all the good news we can find these days, and California has just handed us a climate-change bouquet.

On August 28, 2018, the legislature passed a bill that requires 100 percent carbon-free electricity in the state by 2045. This massive change in the way power is produced in or imported to California will keep 70 million metric tons of greenhouse gases from being spewed into the atmosphere every year, equivalent to taking 12 million cars off the road.

California Wind Farm
a rapidly growing source of clean power

Credit: Creative Commons Zero; Max Pixel

If Governor Brown signs the bill into law, as expected, California will become the largest economy in the world to commit to 100% carbon neutral electricity before mid-century. (Yes! Governor Brown signed the bill into law on September 10, 2018).

Of course, much more than this is needed for the world to meet the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement and keep global temperatures no more than 1.5 or at most 2.0 degrees C (2.7/3.6 degrees F) above pre-industrial levels. Still, it's a giant step in the right direction, and one that we hope many more states, cities, countries, companies and industries will follow--and the sooner the better.

----------

You can find the text of California Senate Bill 100 here.

ELON MUSK'S MEGA-BATTERY SAVES SOUTH AUSTRALIA $35 MILLION IN FOUR MONTHS

Last year, Elon Musk made the State of South Australia an offer they couldn't refuse. He promised to install the world's largest lithium-ion battery in 100 days and at a bargain price in order to store surplus power from the Hornsdale Wind Farm and use it to stabilize South Australia's power grid.

The crash project has been enormously successful. In the first four months of operation it saved the state government $35 million (Australian dollars, equal to $26.3 million US). That's an amazing return on investment, given that the project cost the state just $50 million (37.5 million US). It looks as though it will pay for itself within its first 18 months.

Hornsdale Power Reserve battery with three of the Wind Farm's 105 turbines in background

Credit: David Clarke 

The giant battery's primary function is to stabilize the frequency of electricity flowing through the state's power grid. When a generator or transmission line goes down, the grid frequency drops until backup power can fill the gap. If there's insufficient backup, disruptive brownouts or blackouts occur. But even if a backup plant comes on line or power can be purchased from a neighboring grid, the price of that stopgap power can soar. A grid operator might have to pay $10,000 or more per megawatt-hour, compared to a normal price of $150 or less.

Most of the $35 million that the huge battery saved the South Australian government came from the battery's ability to switch on and re-stabilize the grid extremely quickly--within 200 milliseconds, far faster than other kinds of backup power plants. According to RenewEconomy, the battery now commands 55 percent of the stabilization market in South Australia, and has reduced the cost of back-up power by a stunning 90 percent.

By the end of 2018, the savings surged to an estimated $40 million.

Critics of renewable energy cite intermittency--the fluctuating supply of energy from wind and solar--as a major obstacle to the urgently-needed transformation to renewables. Although the Hornsdale project shows convincingly that batteries can solve the short-term back-up power problem, the battery doesn't store enough energy to make coal or gas power plants obsolete. But it's clearly a step in the right direction. South Australia agrees, with several giant battery projects being developed in the state, and several more in other parts of Australia.

---------

If you enjoyed this post, please sign up to follow or receive email alerts from zerospinzone.blogspot.com.

---------

Here's an interesting and extremely positive follow-up to the above story. Basically, South Australia's continuing development of carbon-free energy, including storage, has been an incredible success.

PORTUGAL GENERATES A SURPLUS OF RENEWABLE ENERGY -- WHAT ARE WE WAITING FOR?

Portugal, home to 10 million people, surged to the front of the pack in terms of renewable energy in March of this year. Using a combination of hydro, wind and solar generation, it produced more than enough electricity to power its 3.6 million households, plus businesses, industry and transport. It exported a surplus of 4.8 percent of its electricity--878 gigawatt-hours--to other European countries.

Portugal's use of renewable energy in March kept 1.8 million tons of climate-destabilizing CO2 out of the atmosphere.

Many other countries, including Sweden, Costa Rica and Germany, are moving rapidly towards meeting all or most of their power needs with renewables. You can read about Scotland's successes here.

Portugal's Alto Minho Wind Farm Under Construction

Credit: BBC News

Portugal's per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is $30,300 per year, just about half that of the United States ($59,500). If they can do it, why can't we?

-----------

If you enjoyed this post, please sign up to receive email alerts or to follow zerospinzone.blogspot.com

NO NUKES IS GOOD NUKES--RENEWABLE POWER TOPS NUCLEAR IN THE US FOR THE FIRST TIME

Growing up in the '50s, I remember reading about the great promise of atomic energy. Nuclear reactors, we were told, would produce so much energy so efficiently that electricity would essentially be free--"too cheap to meter," as Lewis Strauss, Chairman of the United States Atomic Energy Commission, said in 1954.

As we know, reality didn't turn out to be quite so rosy. Between cost overruns and delays, opposition supercharged by the 1979 Three Mile Island meltdown, reliability issues, and the still-unsolved problem of what to do with nuclear waste, nuclear power came to be seen as far more problematic than promising. Currently, nuclear plants generate just 20 percent of all electric power in the US, and their share is gradually falling.

Solar power plant
License: CCO Public Domain

In the meantime, clean, renewable sources of energy--especially wind and solar--have been burgeoning. With renewables surging and nuclear flagging, it was inevitable that renewables would eventually win out. The only question was when.

That question has now been answered. According to the US Energy Information Administration, in March and April of this year renewable energy sources produced more energy for the US than nuclear plants--21.6 vs 20.34 percent in March and 22.98 vs 19.19 percent in April.

"Renewable energy is now surpassing nuclear power, a major milestone in the transformation of the US energy sector," says Tim Judson, Executive Director of the Nuclear Information and Resource Service.

And with solar energy growing by 38 percent and wind energy by 14 percent in the last year alone, this extremely positive trend has nowhere to go but up. I, for one, will be delighted when the only signs of out nuclear power misadventure are the silent silos of decommissioned plants.

Signpost memorializing the nuclear accident at Three Mile Island
Credit: The Baltimore Sun

With the cancellation of two planned reactors in South Carolina, just two new nuclear power plants are in the works in the US.  Nuclear energy can no longer compete with wind and solar. The end is in sight.

---

If you enjoyed this post, please sign up for email alerts from zerospinzone, above right.

THE WINDS OF CHANGE--SOLAR AND WIND GENERATE 10 PERCENT OF US ELECTRICITY FOR THE FIRST TIME

Despite the best efforts of President Trump and EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, the US continues to make progress in renewable energy generation. The national Energy Information Administration (EIA) reports that in March of this year 10 percent of all electricity generated in the US came from wind and solar--a first for the US.

San Gorgonio Pass windfarm

Riverside County, California

Credit: Nandaro

While the US is by no means the leader in the proportion of energy derived from renewable sources, we are adding a great deal of solar, wind and other renewable-energy infrastructure, so we can expect both the amount and percentage of clean, green energy to grow rapidly.

The fundamental reason for this is that large-scale wind and solar energy is now cheaper than electricity from fossil fuels. This is yet another situation where the slogan "follow the money" rings true, or, to put it another way, actual economics trumps Trumponomics.

---

If you enjoyed this post, please subscribe or sign up for email alerts.