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posted by Fnord666 on Wednesday March 08 2017, @07:09AM   Printer-friendly
from the getting-windy dept.

In the US, a number of major milestones occurred on the electric grid in 2016, almost all of them involving wind power. Now the Energy Information Administration is confirming that's because of a big overall trend: wind power is now the largest source of renewable energy generating capacity, passing hydroelectric power in 2016. And since the two sources produce electricity at nearly the same rate, we'll soon see wind surpass hydro in terms of electricity produced.

Wind power capacity has been growing at an astonishing pace (as shown in the graph above), and 2016 was no exception. As companies rushed to take advantage of tax incentives for renewable power, the US saw 8.7 Gigawatts of new wind capacity installed in 2016. That's the most since 2012, the last time tax incentives were scheduled to expire. This has pushed the US' total wind capacity to over 81 GW, edging it past hydroelectric, which has remained relatively stable at roughly 80 GW.

Note that this is only capacity; since generators can't be run non-stop, they only generate a fraction of the electricity that their capacity suggests is possible. That fraction, called a capacity factor, has been in the area of 34 percent for US wind, lower than most traditional sources of electricity. But hydropower's capacity factor isn't that much better, typically sitting at 37-38 percent. As a result, wind won't need to grow much to consistently exceed hydro.

The graphic in the article aptly illustrates the dramatically different growth curves.


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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by jmorris on Wednesday March 08 2017, @11:28PM (1 child)

    by jmorris (4844) on Wednesday March 08 2017, @11:28PM (#476778)

    NewSpeak:

    As companies rushed to take advantage of tax incentives for renewable power...

    English: As companies made huge malinvestments to cash in on government largesse....

    When a huge spike occurs when a subsidy is expiring it means the activity probably isn't economically productive. So the idiots in DC are stealing money from productive uses and flushing it down the green energy toilet so they can feel good about themselves at other people's expense. Why don't we ever see progressives donating their own money to these causes instead of stealing other people's money? Because they KNOW it isn't economically viable and they would indeed be donating and not 'investing.'

    The key to ending this madness is calling it by the right name. We must not allow them to virtue signal, we must not allow them to feel good about doing this sort of theft, we must instead relentlessly force them to face the reality that they are common thieves. Do not let them pat themselves on the back, give themselves awards, etc. Point an accusing finger in their face and say "THIEF!" Give them sadz.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 09 2017, @02:05AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 09 2017, @02:05AM (#476828)

    Your comment is in line with the criticism of Wall Street's demand for short term corporate profits. If you don't look past the quarterly results, it makes for a great report to the share holders. But not so good in the long term.

    It's good common sense to plan far ahead for energy needs of the future. This simple concept came out of a solar energy class at university in the 1970s...where the prof took a long view of energy use and civilization. Right now we still have (relatively) cheap oil (and other fossil fuel) to fund development of renewable energy infrastructure. If we (as a society) wait until oil is expensive, then steel and copper will also be expensive (due to mining and refining costs) and it will be much more expensive to ramp up wind mill, solar, and other renewables...maybe even impossible. Thus the subsidies are well justified if we want our children & grandchildren to continue living in a high-energy-consumption "western" lifestyle.

    That same prof postulated an alternate course as well. While we have cheap fossil fuel, put some really big money into developing fusion, which he called "star power", and make it work. We can probably all agree that at the current piddling rate of investment, fusion is always going to be 20 years away.