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posted by martyb on Thursday October 27 2016, @12:37AM   Printer-friendly
from the The-answer-is-blowin'-in-the-wind dept.

The International Energy Agency [IEA] says that the world's capacity to generate electricity from renewable sources has now overtaken coal.

The IEA says in a new report that last year, renewables accounted for more than half of the increase in power capacity.

The report says half a million solar panels were installed every day last year around the world. In China, it says, there were two wind turbines set up every hour.

Renewable energy sources, such as wind, solar and hydro are seen as a key element in international efforts to combat climate change. At this stage, it is the capacity to generate power that has overtaken coal, rather than the amount of electricity actually produced. Renewables are intermittent - they depend on the sun shining or the wind blowing, for example, unlike coal which can generate electricity 24 hours a day all year round. So renewable technologies inevitably generate a lot less than their capacity.

Even so it is striking development.

The IEA's Executive Director Fatih Birol said "We are witnessing a transformation of global power markets led by renewables".

Link to original BBC story: http://www.bbc.com/news/business-37767250


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  • (Score: 2) by jmorris on Thursday October 27 2016, @05:12AM

    by jmorris (4844) on Thursday October 27 2016, @05:12AM (#419289)

    Looking at the numbers on Wikipedia, which they admit they fudged with an artificial 'carbon penalty' on the carbon based sources doesn't look good. Even looking ahead a bit and taking the projections for 2020 it doesn't look good for ratepayers if more green energy comes online near you. Old school Coal costs between $87 and $119 per megawatt/hr and the most modern gas fired stuff $69 - $82 per MWH. Wind at $66-$82 is competitive but almost certain to be a fictional number before the the subsidies are even dealt with, otherwise they would be building more, a LOT more. Geothermal is great but not likely to grow because it is being stamped out as being as bad as fracking. Forget offshore wind and thermal solar though, those range from $170 to $383 per MWH and again, are probably much more expensive than even those depressing numbers in reality. Doubt the PV solar number ($98-$193) includes storage (looking down the page gives numbers for batteries in the hundreds of dollars per MWH so this is a reasonable assumption) so is a joke, costing the grid more than it is worth if there is more than a couple of percent being put onto it. Assuming typical hippie home PV solar, not grid scale PV solar, which is almost never done since thermal solar is more efficient at scale, again that $240 per MWH average for thermal solar is the clue to how cooked the PV solar number is.

    We should be building hundreds of nuke plants ($91-$101 and no carbon emissions) if we really cared. We don't which is why we aren't. AGW is just a power grab, any 'solution' that doesn't give power to the right people gets ignored.

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  • (Score: 5, Informative) by Sarasani on Thursday October 27 2016, @06:37AM

    by Sarasani (3283) on Thursday October 27 2016, @06:37AM (#419307)

    When we're going to mention subsidies, we should also make a mention of the subsidies going towards all forms of "traditional" energy generation.

    For instance, the state of Queensland (Australia) intended to subsidise the creation of one of the world's largest coal mines (Carmichael coal mine) by offering to pay for the rail line that was needed to transport the coal. Due to a change of government, this offer is no longer on the table. And who pays for cleaning up all of the abandoned mines that continue to be a risk to the environment? Or should we just completely ignore that aspect of the equation? Externalities and all that.

    When people are talking about renewables, they are easily forgetting that those "traditional" energy industries have been (and continue to be) subsidised to the max to get them off the ground initially (and to keep them running afterwards). And the subsidies can come in many forms too. Want oil? Just invade a country or two. That can even be considered an indirect subsidy (after all, there would be no need to invade a country because it has wind, waves or sunshine).

    However, smart and progressive governments will provide subsidies to encourage future growth (and sustainable) industries. For me, that's a no-brainer.

  • (Score: 2) by fubari on Thursday October 27 2016, @05:34PM

    by fubari (4551) on Thursday October 27 2016, @05:34PM (#419496)

    I don't care so much about the cost difference.

    Lots of reasons to stop burning coal & oil; we should just use them for plastics - setting them on fire is short sighted.

    Clean air is beautiful (literally and health-wise), so I'll pay more for that.
    And if even just half the Global Warming consequences come true, it would be worth paying more to avoid that.

    Fracking is a slow motion disaster going off the rails (Damn, sorry about those aquifers - good luck with that).
    The gist of it is [wikipedia.org] that fracking is "pretty safe" so long as nothing goes wrong. I trust the oil industry to never screw up [fortune.com] about as far as I can throw a super tanker [eljefe.net]. But of course the kids doing the fracking are perfect and would never cut corners or make mistakes. Right?

    We totally don't need the oil.
    We can do other things, and if that costs more... so what? It is long-term worth it. (though I've never been overly impressed with our specie's ability to think long term).