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135-year-long streak is over: US renewable sources topped coal in 2019
Two weeks ago, we covered a US Energy Information Administration (EIA) projection that renewable wind, solar, and hydroelectric power would top coal for total electricity generation in 2020. That was particularly believable given that renewables had beat coal in daily generation every day going back to March 24. As it happens, that daily streak finally came to an end this week, as coal picked up amid rising demand and a couple low days for wind. Coal likely topped renewables on Tuesday, although it's possible that rooftop solar generation (not included in EIA's daily data) extended the run until Wednesday.
But the EIA also released some numbers Thursday that highlight a related and interesting piece of trivia: if you include energy use beyond the electric sector and all types of renewable energy, renewables actually beat out coal last year. And to find the last time that was true, you have to go all the way back to the 1880s.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Thexalon on Sunday May 31 2020, @04:08PM (27 children)
The completely fictitious idea of "clean coal" was really pushed not by the current idiot, but one of the previous ones, George W Bush. But without question the GOP is promoting obsolete technologies to protect the equivalent of buggy-whip manufacturers, by heavily subsidizing coal, oil, and gas as well as giving them sweetheart deals to use federal land as they like, while cutting, blocking, and eliminating similar deals for renewable sources.
And in my state, in a move I suspect was organized by ALEC, they cut programs and subsidies for wind and solar installations and started to charge substantially more to register hybrid and electric cars versus gas-only and diesel vehicles, and sent the money in question to the company running its aging nuclear plants. While I agree nukes can be part of the long-term energy solution, that didn't seem to be the main motivation of this move.
And yes, some of this is being justified by the ideology of what I call "anti-environmentalism": The logic seems to be that environmentalists are a bunch of left-wing commie hippies, so anything they suggest or even worse turn into law or regulation must be evil and opposed at every turn, because nothing says "Communist plot" like following scientific recommendations and modern engineering to give us water and air that won't kill us. I've even encountered anti-environmentalists who will do things like getting the dirtiest diesel engine they can and drive it up and down country roads for a while just to stick it to the libs.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: -1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 31 2020, @05:09PM (11 children)
And get silenced about anything the owners of propaganda outlets do not want. Case in point: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Watson#Comments_on_race [wikipedia.org]
You cannot get any more qualified to have an expert opinion on genetics than the discoverer of its mechanism; still, he got muzzled just like any common peon.
Till the lefties' propaganda machine is dismantled and their influence on the grants system balanced out, any noises made about "following scientific recommendations" are disingenuous at best. For really obvious reasons.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 31 2020, @07:35PM (2 children)
Sure. That's about as valid as claiming that the truth has a left-wing bias (which, if it is actually true, implies that the right wing holds the greater amount of lies).
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 31 2020, @10:11PM (1 child)
Remember, believing your own propaganda is the first step on the road to ruin.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 01 2020, @03:52AM
Remind me again, which news network has a higher proven track record of lies and misinformation?
Just to preclude your bullshit reply to a rhetorical question, the answer is Fox News. Thankfully for you that doesn't include the talk show programs the spew terrorist level propaganda.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Sunday May 31 2020, @08:32PM (5 children)
So your argument is "Some people revoked James Watson's awards because he's racist, ergo all studies about air and water pollution and their effects on humans are all wrong"? That's a non-sequitur if I've ever seen one.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 31 2020, @10:08PM (3 children)
Do tell.
If the logic chain "When one of the most distinguished scientists on the planet Earth, when communicating an opinion in the area of his expertise, is tagged "racist" on a signal, and materially harmed, instead of listened to with respect, any other scientist will either never communicate an opinion not approved by the signal-givers, or never get listened to; therefore all the studies that the signal-givers do not suppress, in the areas of their political interest, do nothing but parrot the signal-givers' agenda" is actually non-obvious to you, however, receive my pity.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 01 2020, @02:32AM (1 child)
For those of a certain age, he was certainly one of the widely known names. I don't know about the "most distinguished" part. There is a difference between the two. Some times they go hand in hand and sometimes not. In fact, E.O. Wilson (who would be on the same dias as Watson) once described him as "the most unpleasant human being that I've ever met."
The problem he had was that he was just saying the same eugenics based arguments that have been said for over a hundred years. All of his statements were not backed by any science, just his gut feelings, and these were feelings and hunches he had his whole life. He didn't support these statements with identifying which was the "smart" gene predominantly seen in the Jews, or likewise the "dumb" gene seen in blacks or women, and in effect he was just making the same noises that you hear from your old racist uncle at Thanksgiving. And when he was known for saying other things like "you really feel bad interviewing a fat person because you know you aren't going to hire them," well, yes, he basically comes off sounding like your crazy racist uncle. It had nothing to do with "virtue signaling" and everything to do with him sounding like a racist uncle.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 01 2020, @05:26PM
Even I happen to know of some, surely Watson knows a huge lot more. Enjoy a small sample in popularized writeups:
"On The Evolution Of Ashkenazi Jewish Intelligence" http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/002812.html [futurepundit.com]
"Better brain wiring linked to family genes" https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/03/110303111423.htm [sciencedaily.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 01 2020, @06:20AM
You picked the wrong hill to die on. While you have a valid point about the suppression of politically incorrect results, it is going to get lost in the noise. Right or wrong about the genetics, Watson is genuinely racist.
You also have the problem of suppression of profit-damaging results, and I think that's actually a bigger problem.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Monday June 01 2020, @12:26AM
It's projection.
They're called Anonymous Cowards for a reason.
(Score: 5, Informative) by c0lo on Sunday May 31 2020, @11:35PM (1 child)
Bush administration suppressed and distorted climate scientific reports [ucsusa.org]
Trump administration suppressed suppressing scientific information [eos.org]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 01 2020, @05:07PM
It is not really smart to expect the other side to play a giveaway game forever and ever, now is it? A "scientist" wants to follow the leftist agenda for whatever reason, let him do it on the leftists' dime.
This is THE danger of the mercenary science; you cannot rely on scientific validity of ANY result, so basically you've got no science AT ALL. Enjoy your "win", and keep looking away from the ruins.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 31 2020, @06:07PM (14 children)
Ah yes, the old "oil subsidies." Things like not paying imaginary taxes that liberals say they should pay, depreciation on capital like any other business, and my favorite, money spent by regulatory agencies. Sometimes they even count oil purchased to run government and military vehicles, because we totally have solar powered tanks and airplanes just sitting around.
Meanwhile renewables get real subsidies, big ones. It's great that solar is getting to the point where it can be competitive with coal even without subsidies. But then, ethanol is pretty much nothing but subsidies.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by PartTimeZombie on Monday June 01 2020, @12:44AM (13 children)
As reported by those notorious lefties Forbes. [forbes.com]
If you're happy with the fabulously profitable oil industry paying no taxes, you'll be happy to pay for the roads and rails they'll use, and also pay to clean up their pollution once they've taken all the oil.
I'm not sure your neighbours will agree with that.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday June 01 2020, @01:57PM (12 children)
That's absolutely bogus, based on those fantasy numbers that AC was complaining about. Bad premise, bad conclusions.
And when is the IMF study in question going to do the same accounting for all the other energy sources out there? I assure you there are trillions of fantasy subsidies lurking in mining uranium and rare earths, damming rivers, displacing human activities, etc.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday June 02 2020, @12:19AM (11 children)
Oh, right.
Those notorious communists the International Monetary Fund, is what I should have put then.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday June 02 2020, @04:45AM (10 children)
I figure they're the IMF's token Green group. And needless to say, I read the study [imf.org] rather than just assume that these authors must know what they're talking about just because IMF shows up somewhere. For example (page 7):
In other words, they're equating "environmental costs", a proxy for the primary negative externality of fossil fuel use (and which in turn is some numbers that they pull out of their asses) with subsidies. We also need to consider that much of these "environmental costs" is because the developing world, most particularly China, can't be bothered to implement basic pollution controls. It's not a subsidy of fossil fuels, but a subsidy of bad industrial practices.
Anyway, this conflation of subsidy and externality is more explicit in their definition of subsidy (pages 7-8):
In other words, pre-tax subsidies are real world subsidies, more or less, and post-tax subsidies are with all the imaginary crap thrown in.
Once again, no similar treatment is taken with any other power generation. And in addition, we haven't included positive externalities of cheaper power either - they're only considering half the balance sheet. So there you have it, a one-sided, fossil fuel-only, make-up-shit study of the alleged subsidies of fossil fuel use. Truly a great thing to hang the IMF name on. Just keep in mind this caveat (page 2):
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday June 02 2020, @07:06AM (9 children)
I can't understand why the IMF don't ask you to do their studies for them, you're obviously way ahead of them.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday June 02 2020, @08:11AM (8 children)
No kidding. That study was pretty shitty. It doesn't take much drilling into the details before the wheels come off.
But much of that information just isn't there. I've only seen one study (of Europe) that even tried to compare real world subsidies of energy generation on an equal footing. (Needless to say, renewable energy didn't fare well on a per unit energy comparison.) The rest are just selling a talking point like this one. They just aren't interested.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday June 02 2020, @09:40PM (7 children)
Wow. Have you been diagnosed?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday June 02 2020, @10:57PM (6 children)
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday June 02 2020, @11:21PM (5 children)
I wasn't being sarcastic, and I'm not a psychologist, so I don't know what's wrong with you, but you have an incrediblly inflated sense of your own abilities, and I'm sure that affects your life adversely.
It does not however affect mine.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday June 02 2020, @11:53PM (4 children)
Not to denigrate my abilities, but what abilities do I really need to write opinion papers for the IMF?
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday June 03 2020, @12:25AM (3 children)
Oh, and absolutely no self-awareness. It's weird and creepy.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday June 03 2020, @06:41AM (2 children)
Psychoanalyzing my level of alleged self-awareness isn't going to help.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday June 03 2020, @08:13AM (1 child)
No you haven't. That's hilarious.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday June 03 2020, @02:09PM
If you're just going to tell me what I have or haven't done without regard for reality, then at least make the story amusing.