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posted by cmn32480 on Tuesday June 12 2018, @01:33PM   Printer-friendly
from the global-warming-is-a-hoax dept.

World spending on renewable vitality is outpacing investment decision in electric power from coal, natural gasoline and nuclear energy plants, pushed by slipping costs of manufacturing wind and solar ability.

More than 50 % of the energy-producing capacity extra all-around the entire world in current several years has been in renewable sources this kind of as wind and solar, in accordance to the International Vitality Company.

In 2016, the newest calendar year for which data is out there, about $297 billion was used on renewables—more than two times the $143 billion spent on new nuclear, coal, gas and gas oil electric power plants, according to the IEA. The Paris-based organization assignments renewables will make up 56% of net producing potential additional through 2025.

The moment supported overwhelmingly by hard cash-back incentives, tax credits and other authorities incentives, wind- and solar-era charges have fallen continually for a 10 years, earning renewable-energy financial commitment additional competitive.

Renewable charges have fallen so significantly in the earlier number of yrs that "wind and photo voltaic now symbolize the least expensive-charge selection for building electrical energy," claimed Francis O'Sullivan, study director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Energy Initiative.

Sustained government assistance in Europe and other formulated economies spurred the development of renewable vitality. But expenses have fallen for other factors. China invested closely in a domestic photo voltaic-producing market, generating a glut of affordable solar panels. Innovation assisted makers make for a longer period wind-turbine blades, generating devices ready to generate significantly far more ability at a reduced expense.

Quoted Article: http://relatednews.net/31303/global-investment-in-wind-and-solar-energy-is-outshining-fossil-fuels/

Originally Submitted Article [paywalled]: https://www.wsj.com/articles/global-investment-in-wind-and-solar-energy-is-outshining-fossil-fuels-1528718400


Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Aiwendil on Tuesday June 12 2018, @02:51PM

    by Aiwendil (531) on Tuesday June 12 2018, @02:51PM (#691925) Journal

    That is double-edged, in part it is good that non-fossil sources get more investment, and in part it is bad.

    To explain the bad part it is twofold - in part you want as much high quality energy as possible (placing sources of pollution away from people is better than placing it near people) so the relative higher cost for non-hydro renewables are bad, and in part it might hamper the replacement of worse sources.

    For instance it might shock some of you that building even brown coal plants without exhaust control might be good at some places, like estonia. this mainly due to that their power is even dirtier (they pretty much only burn oil).

    The falling order of CO2/kWh roughly is (so if you can replace something higher up then anything lower down is a good choice) what is hidden by the spoiler-tag in order to shorten post


    * Oil
    * Brown coal
    * Black coal (antracite)
    * Biogas (but this is non-fossil, so it is good as long as sanely sited)
    * Erdgas / "natgas"
    * Coal with CCS
    * Gas with CCS
    * Solar PV
    * Solar Thermal
    * Wind land
    * Nuclear
    * Wind sea
    * Hydro dam
    * Hydro run-of-river.

    Given the bang-for-the-buck your best choices is to first completly build out the hydro, then for as long as your grid allows for it to build nuclear or wind sea depending on how much wind the grid can cope with, and after that build either gas or any plant with CCS up until everything worse it taken out of the grid. After that build out nuclear and wind sea up until almost everything with more than 20g CO2/kWh over the lifecycle is gone from the grid. Then start to export clean electricty to your dirtier neighbourds and and only when their grid is clean as well does it make sense to pit nuclear and renewables against each other (rather than as complements to speed the build-up of clean sources)

    If the grid is very small (less than about 600MWe) then wind and solar has a very good case (assuming you are in a suitable position for those).

    I'm actually cheering less for heavy RE investments in Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Norway, France, or Ontario (canada) than I do for coal plants in estonia or gasplants in poland (the former will drop the CO2/kWh with between 280g to -2g CO2/kWh, while the latter will drop it between 800g and 400g CO2/kWh)

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