This is an interesting video about the economics of on-grid solar. Is it the best way to invest your money? Probably not, but it's also not a net loser for people who decide to go for grid-tied solar.
"Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt said on Monday that the federal tax credits for the wind and solar power industries should be eliminated."
"Pruitt told a crowd at a Kentucky Farm Bureau event that the credits stand in the way of utility companies making the best decisions about power generation."
"The Trump administration will scuttle an Obama-era clean power plan aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, Scott Pruitt, made the announcement in Hazard, Ky., on Monday, saying the rule hurt coal-fired plants. "The EPA and no federal agency should ever use its authority to say to you we are going to declare war on any sector of our economy," Pruitt said, speaking at an event with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. "That rule really was about picking winners and losers," the EPA administrator said, adding that the rule change would be signed on Tuesday. The announcement had been anticipated. It would eliminate the Clean Power Plan that was put on hold by the U.S. Supreme Court and therefore never implemented."
"Since June 2017, six additional weather and climate events impacted the nation that had direct, total costs exceeding $1 billion. These new events included the western U.S. wildfires, the Northern Plains drought, a severe weather event in the Midwest, and major Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria. This brings the year-to-date total to 15 separate billion-dollar weather and climate disasters, tying 2011 for the record number of events during January–September. The record number of billion-dollar disasters for a calendar year is 16 events set in 2011. Cost estimates associated with the 2017 hurricanes will be available in January 2018."
"The September nationally averaged temperature was 66.3°F, 1.4°F above the 20th century average, and ranked among the warmest third of the historical record. Near-record warmth was observed in parts of the Great Lakes and Northeast. The year-to-date U.S. average temperature was the third warmest on record at 57.7°F, 2.7°F above average. Only January–September of 2012 and 2016 were warmer. Above-average temperatures spanned the nation for the first nine months of the year."
"Driven largely by a boom in solar power, renewable energy expansion has hit record-breaking totals across the globe and is shattering expectations, especially in the United States, where projections were pessimistic just a decade ago."
"In 2016, almost two-thirds of new power capacity came from renewables, bypassing net coal generation growth globally for the first time. Most of the expansion came from a 50 percent growth in solar, much of it in China."
"In the U.S., solar power capacity doubled compared to 2015—itself a record-breaking year—with the country adding 14.5 gigawatts of solar power, far outpacing government projections. In the first half of 2017, wind and solar accounted for 10 percent of monthly electricity generation for the first time. "
"Mattson says the fact that Americans responded positively to a speech that berated their way of life suggests that they don't mind having their values called into question. In that way, he says, the malaise speech had the potential to effect a significant cultural change.
"[Carter] did blow the opportunity," Mattson says. "But I think the original success that the speech had symbolizes the fact that Americans will listen when they're being criticized and when they're being called out to their better selves."
Subsidizing baseload power makes absolutely no sense, especially as more renewables come online. If you can't produce power economically at non-peak times, you shouldn't be on the grid.
That said, we need more peaking and mid-load plants, to make the sure ramp can be met affordably, especially on hot days. The ramp is going only to get steeper in coming years, especially as hot weather becomes more common -- and renewables slack off by mid-afternoon as the sun angle falls and wind becomes still. Grid operators have to ensure they always have enough spinning reserve to meet whatever demand is put on the grid.
Coal right now doesn't ramp well, but that's where coal supporters should be putting their money -- researching how to make coal ramp up and down quickly (and cleanly). They ramp up and down coal plants to a certain extent in wind-heavy parts of country, but it's tough on equipment that doesn't take well to temperature and pressure changes, and is actually making air pollution worse, as coal plants tend to pollute the most when they're being ramped up and down.
