A Guest Post by Islandboy
The EIA released the latest edition of their Electric Power Monthly on February 27th, with data for December 2017. The table above shows the percentage contribution of the main fuel sources to two decimal places for the last two months and the full year 2017 (YTD).
The winter solstice occurs around December 21st so the absolute contribution from Solar remained much lower than in the summer months falling slightly from 4651 Gwh in November to 4536 GWh, with the corresponding percentage contribution decreasing to 1.31% from 1.52% in November. Nuclear generated 73700 Gwh, 10.6% more than it did it November but the increase in total generation resulted in the percentage contribution to the total remaining essentially the same. The gap between the contribution from All Renewables and Nuclear continued to widen with a 1.21% decreased contribution from All Renewables as opposed to the the 0.41% decrease in the contribution from Nuclear. The amount of electricity generated by Wind decreased by about 2%, (544 GWh) resulting in the percentage contribution decreasing from 7.6% to 6.51%. The contribution from Hydro increased 2666 Gwh (13%) in absolute terms with the increase in total generation resulting in the percentage contribution decreasing by 1.02%. The combined contribution from Wind and Solar decreased to 7.9% from 9.12% in November and the contribution from Non-Hydro Renewables also decreased to 9.5% from 10.76%. The contribution of zero emission and carbon neutral sources, that is, nuclear, hydro, wind, solar, geothermal, landfill gas and other biomass decreased to 37.32% from 38.94% in November.
Full Year Data
Now that the full year’s data is in for 2017, below is the updated chart for the annual contribution from the various Sources. For the full year 2017, Natural Gas generated 31.7%, 1.6% more than Coal, going against the EIA’s projection that Coal would generate more electricity than NG in 2017. The unusually high levels of rain in the west over the 2016 to 2017 winter season boosted the contribution from hydro-electric generation to 7.47%, the highest level since 2011 when hydro contributed 7.79%. 2017 Makes it the fourth year in a row that non-hydro renewable sources have contributed more to the electricity mix than conventional hydroelectric sources and wind alone is getting closer to contributing as much as hydro, coming in at 6.33%. Last year the EIA reported, U.S. wind generating capacity surpasses hydro capacity at the end of 2016. The lower capacity factors of wind turbines result in lower overall generation from wind but, with the growth in wind capacity continuing apace, it is a matter of time before wind generates more than hydro on an annual basis. In 2017 and 2016 wind generated more electricity than conventional hydroelectric for the months of October and November.
The fastest growing source continues to be solar PV, with the contribution from solar growing by almost 50% for the second year in a row. The contribution from solar in 2017 doubled in comparison to 2015. The more spectacular growth story comes from a ten year view of the growth of solar. Solar contributed a mere one hundredth of one percent to the electricity mix in 2007 and the contribution has grown to 1.92 % in 2017, 192 times as much. Granted, solar was growing from a very small base but, recent trends suggest that the high growth rate should be sustainable for at least another couple of years, since global manufacturing capacity is still growing.
The chart below shows the total monthly generation at utility scale facilities by year versus the contribution from solar. The left hand scale is for the total generation, while the right hand scale is for solar output and has been deliberately set to exaggerate the solar output as a means of assessing it’s potential to make a meaningful contribution to the midsummer peak. In December 2017 the output from solar continued it’s decline heading into the winter solstice.
The chart below shows the total annual generation from 2005 to 2017. Except for 2009, 2017 had the least amount of electricity generated for the period. This may have been as a result of the very mild winter early in the year, followed by mild late summer temperatures but, further explanations may be needed.
The graph below helps to illustrate how the changes in absolute production affect the percentage contribution from the various sources.
The chart below shows the monthly capacity additions for 2017. In December 27.67 percent of capacity additions were Natural Gas. Solar added 27.6 percent and and Wind contributed 43.7 percent of new capacity. Batteries had relatively minor capacity addition of 0.21 percent and 0.75 of capacity additions were Geothermal. In December the total added capacity reported was 4960 MW, the highest figure for the year. For the complete year 44.73 percent of the added capacity was Natural Gas (9349 MW), 30.11 percent was Wind (6294.7 MW), 22.32 percent was Solar (4666.4 MW), 0.99 percent was Hydro (207.6 MW), 0.66 percent was Batteries (137.6 MW), 0.54 percent was Wood Waste Biomass (112 MW) and all other sources contributed less than 0.2 percent each to the capacity additions. It is worthy of note that no new coal fired capacity was added in 2017.
The chart below shows the capacity retirements for each month of 2017 and the whole year (YTD). 55.78 percent of the retirements were Coal fired plants (6263.1MW), 35.59 were fueled by Natural Gas (3996.4 MW), 6.11 percent were fueled by Petroleum Liquids (658.5), 0.92 percent of the capacity retirements came from Conventional Hydroelectric (103.8 MW) and all other sources retired less than one hundred megawatts of capacity.
Exodus from Puerto Rico grows as island struggles to rebound from Hurricane Maria
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/exodus-from-puerto-rico-grows-as-island-struggles-to-rebound-from-hurricane-maria/2018/03/06/b2fcb996-16c3-11e8-92c9-376b4fe57ff7_story.html?utm_term=.ac6d7c1f2407
Puerto Ricans moving to Florida are likely to be Democrats and it will only take a few hundred thousand there to swing the vote. In the past it has been swayed the other way by a lot of first or second generation Cubans, who tend to vote Republican.
I agree with your analysis.
However, later Cubans were not always on the Right, as they were often from the majority of society, and not members of the privileged elite.
My Ex was living in Florida during the First Wave, and was amused with students arriving in school dripping with jewelry.
I used to know maybe half a dozen Cubans, total. One of them was a physician who got out while getting out was still relatively easy. We were damned glad to see him, since there weren’t enough MD’s locally. He took care of my family for years.
He was a Democrat type at heart, but he supported the R party because the R’s were tough on communism. The others were working class, not middle class, and were also basically Democrats at heart, but they too supported the R party, because it took a hard line on communism. They’re all dead now I guess.
I never met a well to do Cuban, other than Dr, Sutter, and he only got to be well to do, by local standards, after he arrived here. Cubans are political refugees pretty close to one hundred percent of the time.
I’m with George and Hightrekker on this one. It seems very likely that most of the people who flee Puerto Rico who register to vote will vote D.
And it’s true that it won’t take a hell of a lot of new D voters to change election outcomes in Florida. Elections tend to be very close there.
But predicting how many as a percentage would be tricky. A lot of well off Puerto Ricans may have moved, and more may do so as soon as they can put their affairs in order. Why shouldn’t they be thinking that they have a lot better chance of living a prosperous life on the mainland?
Does anybody know specifically how long it will take Puerto Ricans who move to the mainland to establish themselves as registered voters? I’m thinking that in Virginia, you have to have proof, such as a tax record or utility bill, that you have lived in this state for a year, and an acceptable ID. There may be a federal standard.
A LOT of elections are going to be closer than usual for a good while to come, because we’re in a transition period, politically, economically, demographically, and culturally. This is why I keep hammering away about not pissing off religious people unnecessarily. As few as a thousand votes will be determining who is a Senator, Congressman, governor this fall in some cases.
Some elections for local and state level offices will be determined by less than a dozen votes. The only real way for the D’s to REALLLY get control of the country again is to start winning back control of local and state level offices, and that means getting D’s elected to school boards, elected as city and country supervisors, sheriff, yes even as dogcatcher.
Thanks Islandboy.
Non hydro renewable net generation has grown at an average annual rate of about 13% per year from 2007 to 2017. If that rate continues from 2018 to 2035 and total output remains at 2017 levels, then all net generation could be renewable in the US by 2035. I have assumed hydroelectric generation is unchanged, hopefully the transition will accelerate as peak fossil fuel possibly raises fossil fuel prices, as the need to reduce carbon emissions becomes more widely accepted, and as costs for wind and solar power fall as they ramp up in output and further technical innovation is applied.
Yes, but over the last two years all-renewables hasn’t grown at all as a percentage of electrical supply. It just might be true that renewables have peaked in that regard.
Droughts are a major problem for hydro power output. The other renewables are on the rise.
Joe says- “It just might be true that renewables have peaked in that regard.”
And then again, the chances of that being the case are about zero.
Maybe, but since total annual US investment in RE from all sources has not increased much at all in the last 5 or 6 years it may be a sign that RE will not take over the electricity supply here any time soon and perhaps not increase much either.
Worldwide investment is now falling too. I’m not particularly happy about any of these trends, but they can’t be ignored either.
Hi Joe,
The prices of wind and solar have been falling so the same investment dollar gets more net generation. I have calculated the 2007 to 2017 trend for non-hydro renewable net generation based on the EIA data using ordinary least squares linear regression on the natural log of net electrical output (to find the growth rate). The growth rate of non hydro renewable net generation is the slope of this trend line which is 13.3% per year.
It is possible that growth rate will fall or it might increase as natural gas and coal rise in price relative to the falling price of wind and solar power.
Hard to predict what will happen, but time answers these questions.
Oil and natural gas output at the World level grew by 7% per year on average from 1920 to 1970 and was limited by demand growth.
It is mostly a matter of how fast cheaper wind and solar replace more expensive coal, nuclear, and natural gas fired electrical generation.
Fossil fuel will have a harder time competing over time, first coal, then natural gas.
Meanwhile, the cost of solar keeps falling. One reason is that the amount of silicon needed keeps falling, thanks to improved manufacturing methods.
https://www.pv-tech.org/news/polysilicon-consumption-to-decline-below-4g-w-in-q3-2018
Are there issues about existing electrical grid infrastructure for developing nations? I read recently that in 2015 Saudi Arabia dialed back their Vision 2030 plan to include something like 9.5 GW renewable installation by 2030. That seems absolutely pathetic. How can that be? They have nothing but money and tons of son and lots of need for air conditioning. Or are there just so many non-cost barriers (contempt for planet, tribal squabbles, too “off brand”) that it doesn’t matter how cheap solar is
SAUDI ARABIA TOUTS US$500 BILLION WIND AND SOLAR POWERED INVESTMENT ZONE
https://www.pv-tech.org/news/saudi-arabia-invest-usd500-billion-in-special-zone-including-jordan-and-egy
Hi Twocats,
I’ve spent a few hours looking for information about the future of the solar energy business in the richer parts of the desert world, such as Saudi Arabia.
My conclusion, which is based on my own personal casual research, is that while there are plenty of well educated and technically competent people in government there, they aren’t the decision makers, although the decision makers DO apparently listen to them….. and that when it’s politically feasible, they act on their recommendations.
So … when oil was way up , and the cost of giant solar farms was falling like a rock, they planned on building solar on the grand scale.
Now the price of oil is down, relatively speaking, and the country is going thru a major internal political upheaval. The most powerful one person, MBS they call him, seems to be waging a war on the old line establishment.
And it looks like he and his allies have their hands full to overflowing dealing with problems and issues that are more important, in the short to medium term, than solar energy. Tearing out and tearing down the people who are dug in and like things the way they are is always a hell of a job.
My guess is that once things settle down, they will get on with building solar farms on the grand scale, on the assumption that they can save enough oil to be sold to other countries by doing so to MAKE money, long term.
But short term, solar farms will be costing them money at a time when even they are having budget problems.
They’re good at counting their money, lol.
So am I, which is why I haven’t yet put in a pv system myself. The price is still dropping so fast I’m better off, financially, delaying the purchase from one year to the next.
Very well put OFM – and I think that is the rub on every single argument that a transition to renewables or EVs or whatever is possible – Only when there are 1) no crises, 2) low product prices, 3) high levels of capital, can very significant progress e made on the transition. Right now EV sales are doing very well – but in an economic down-slide (assuming it cannot be prevented, no matter the measures taken. pretty sure we’ve gone longer without a recession than at any point in history) or in input cost inflation it could easily delay gains made in transition efforts
Saudi Arabia is highly unstable. More stable desert countries like the UAE and Oman (and Morocco, for that matter) are installing solar at a massive rate.
Twocats has a good point: solar installs are much higher if you have a stable situation and access to a lot of capital.
Despite that, they’re popping up all over Africa.
See here.
Quote Highlights:
Don’t be an idiot. Learn how exponentials work. You’ve been told this before, Caelan. Go to the back of the class and start doing your remedial work.
We’ll be at 100% renewable electricity before 2030 (it’s looking like 2028) and all new cars & trucks & buses will be electric around 2030.
Yes, we still have a problem with airplanes and concrete-making. But focus on the real problems rather than making shit up.
Excluding large hydro projects new renewable energy capacity added in 2016 was about 55% of all added capacity, a new record. So if it’s costing less, that is great. That was an increase of 9 percent over the year before.
Investment varies from year to year, but the trend is exponential growth in energy so far.
Firm third quarter suggests global clean energy investment for the whole of 2017 may slightly exceed 2016’s total of $287.5 billion.
Seven giant wind projects, each costing between $600 million and $4.5 billion, and spread between the U.S., Mexico, the U.K., Germany, China and Australia, helped global clean energy investment to jump 40% year-on-year in the third quarter of 2017.
https://about.bnef.com/blog/clean-energy-investment-3q-2017-trends/
Yes, but over the last two years all-renewables hasn’t grown at all as a percentage of electrical supply. It just might be true that renewables have peaked in that regard.
Hang on a minute! That’s not what the chart “US Annual Electricity Generation” above shows. Here is the actual data for the last three years for All Renewables, 13.35%, 14.94% and 17.12%. If one looks at just Non-hydro Renewables it’s 7.24%, 8.42% and 9.65%. Between 2015 and 2017 the contribution to electricity generation grew as follows, All Renewables grew by 28%, Non-hydro Renwables grew by 33%, Wind grew by 35% and Estimated Total Solar by 100%. What are the sources that are saying “all-renewables hasn’t grown at all as a percentage of electrical supply”?
Sorry for the late reply. My wife had knee surgery on Monday.
Look at the first chart, US Monthly Electricity Production, Percentage of Total by Source. If one compares December 2016, December 2016 and December 2017, the All-Renewables line hovers at 16% or so.
It may well be that annual averages have crept up over the last three years, but it looks like most of that was from a bumper spring output for hydro in 2017.
It will be interesting so see what the December 2018 percentage is. In any case, if renewables were rapidly taking over electricity production from other fuels, one would expect that year on year percentage increases would be evident for any month of the year. Since the peak month for All-Renewables is April, it will also be interesting to see the percentage for April 2018 and see how it compares with 2016 and 2017. It should be a good year for spring hydro in California.
It’s better to calculate separate growth curves for solar and wind, since they behave differently. Very roughly, solar doubles every 2 years and wind doubles every 3 years (though wind may finally be slowing down — or it may not).
If you follow this simple projection, you find that the US gets to 48% renewables in 6 years, i.e. 2023. I’m assuming flat electricity demand, because energy efficiency is *finally* becoming a thing: LEDs, insulation, and heat pumps are reducing electricity demand.
I’m hesitant to project past 2023, since some degree of market saturation may be happening by then, but a naive projection gets us to 100% renewables circa 2026.
Is that actual generation or installed capacity you are talking about?
I think that’s actual kWhs.
Generation.
Doubling every two years is *powerful*.
The possible wind slowdown is something to watch, though; this can be caused by governmental hostility making it impossible to get permits for wind farms.
(There is no sign of any solar slowdown in the future, and it’s basically
impossible for governments to force a slowdown; even the most egregious attempt, Rajoy’s tax on the sun, was not very successful.)
Meanwhile, up in the Arctic insolation levels across the Arctic Ocean reach a peak of about 170 W/m2 in June. The actual uptake of energy is less due to albedo factors and a shifting water/ice ratio through the season. The graph shows the solar energy input to the Arctic Ocean after taking into account monthly water and ice areas along with monthly solar energy input changes. These are then calculated to a global area extent to give a better comparison to standard GHG energy flux figures.
Energy from warm southern air and ocean currents entering or leaving the Arctic Ocean are not included.
Changes in the Arctic Ocean region are influencing the weather south of that region as well as changes external to it are influencing Arctic Ocean region.
If you think the Arctic effects are decoupled from the power grid and our energy system, think again and again. Every time the jet stream wanders south in the winter, heating energy goes up. When the opposite happens in the summer, air conditioning bills rise like a rocket. The jet stream has gotten slowed, more sinusoidal and the patterns can get stuck for weeks. Plus there are some highly unusual patterns showing up with triple jet streams, broken ones and just a few days ago the northern jet stream crossed the equator again.
Plus the Arctic warming may directly affect wind power in the future.
For example: wind. “We’re talking about a reduction of wind power all the way across the Northern Hemisphere, midlatitude,” says Kristopher Karnauskas, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Writing in the journal Nature Geoscience, he says average wind speed could drop significantly over the next 80 years. That could put a damper on wind energy.
“For example,” he says, “in the central United States, the models are predicting somewhere between 10 and 40 percent reduction compared to present-day amount of wind power.” A day that is on the low end of windy would, on average, become the norm.
And there’s more. A warmer Arctic could cause more drought in California.
Atmospheric researcher Ivana Cvijanovic also ran computer simulations of a warmer Arctic, at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California where she works. She found that air circulation over the eastern Pacific could change in a two-step process that ends up steering rain from the Pacific away from California by the end of the century, or even before. “So on average, it will be 10 to 15 percent drier,” she says.
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/12/12/570119468/arctics-temperature-continues-to-run-hot-latest-report-card-shows
Good thing the eventual reduction in global dimming will help those PV panels and CSP plants.
Now it’s tough to predict the future and especially in such a multivariate interdependent system, but since many feedbacks are so poorly understood they are not even considered or at best considered poorly, the future may be even more drastic than what scientists think now. At least on a human time scale, but on a geologic time scale it probably will only be the precursor to a long period of warming. That is something the planet has experienced several times before.
But right now the power outage is ending around here, some people are in their 9th day out. Trucks still running around with power poles on trailers. Imagine the fuel use when 100,000 homes are running generators, using 6 to 8 gallons of gasoline or propane every day they are out. Stronger storms effect our food, wealth and energy situation as well as uses up our machines and time.
Add all those effects from the major hurricanes last year and several years before and society is being affected horrendously in regions and the effects spread out to society as a whole. Nature is poking sticks into the ant’s nest. But it’s the “ant’s” that poked nature first.
And it’s not just happening in the northern hemisphere.
Jet Streams WIDEN and FILL Most of Southern Hemisphere
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDKHoX0izGE
Change is the new normal. All of these changes affect the energy and material situation but do little so far to change the ways of mankind.
Those who do not prepare will be using gasoline or propane generators. Those who prepared will be sitting pretty with solar panels and batteries.
There’s going to be a great big transfer of wealth from the former to the latter.
Thanks for this post. It is necessary to look at power supplies as many think that petrol and diesel cars will be easily transitioned to electric vehicles while this will create yet another primary energy problem. I have done following research for Australia:
14/3/2018
NSW coal power maxed out in hot summer (part 1)
http://crudeoilpeak.info/nsw-coal-power-maxed-out-in-hot-summer-part-1
11/3/2018
Australia’s east coast solar generation is replacing coal by only 2% in late summer
http://crudeoilpeak.info/australias-east-coast-solar-generation-is-replacing-coal-by-only-2-in-late-summer
13/1/2018
Energy guzzling NSW had to import up to 1,700 MW on 7 Jan 2018
http://crudeoilpeak.info/energy-guzzling-nsw-had-to-import-up-to-1700-mw-on-7-jan-2018
petrol and diesel cars will be easily transitioned to electric vehicles while this will create yet another primary energy problem
EV can charge off-peak, like 3 in the morning, or whenever the wind is blowing and/or the sun is shining.. And…as you note in your articles, Australia has plenty of wind and sun – they just have build it as needed!
Do the math; electric cars would only add about 20% demand to the US grid. It’s not significant compared to the growth in solar and wind.
We lost Steven Hawking today may he RIP. Today is also π day and Albert Einstein’s birthday.
Stephen Hawking’s Last Speech
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0eJRXOOikg
Hawking was a great thinker and scientist, despite his horrible afflictions he kept working. He brought physics a step closer to a unified theorem. He was also a great communicator of science.
His urging for us to achieve interplanetary status should be taken as a Plan B. Separate self-sustaining colonies are also how our species could survive planetary destruction. But while considering all this exploration and space exploitation, remember our first duty is to keep Earth as a viable home.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B91cd3DOHL4
But while considering all this exploration and space exploitation, remember our first duty is to keep Earth as a viable home.
I agree! Though I must confess there are days when I think that goal is becoming rather elusive. While there are some points I disagree with in the essay I link below, there are more than a few grains of truth as well…
https://eand.co/the-age-of-the-imbecile-c52ee205d94c
The Age of the Imbecile
The World is Turning Catastrophically Stupid. Here’s How Not to Join It.
That author is at first like a punch-drunk boxer striking out in all directions. He does bring it together more at the end and makes some good points.
It’s true though, the intolerance on both sides of the political/religious/corporate spectrum can wear a person down. So who can blame anyone for not being tired of all the BS from “both sides”? The system seems to isolate people in so many ways, that makes them powerless and paranoid. Being fed crap news all day just makes a lot of people tune out or live in a dream world. Many are afraid to stand alone so they tune in to what makes the most sense to them and join the gang.
Best approach is to realize 90 percent of what comes in from society is either wrong, has an agenda or is a mis-mosh of truth and falsity (the con).
So get on with whatever one feels improves things. Also get on with talking to people (not winning arguments but maybe planting seeds) and helping out where one can. Put intolerance to the wayside and talk facts and money and time and good deeds.
Otherwise hunker down and prepare for the rising chaos to come. Sometimes things have to get worse before they get better. Sometimes they just get worse.
Such a shame he had to pass on. RIP. At least he is in the arms of our heavenly father now.
Typical religious apologist/troll! who comes to this site just to spout his completely insincere BS. Go look under your bed for the bogeyman!
“Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist,” he wrote in The Grand Design. “It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going.”…
…“I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail,” he told the Guardian. “There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark.”
Stephen Hawking
Why don’t you religious apologists go pray for Donald Trump…
According to the bible the necessary and sufficient thing you have to do to get into heaven is declare total belief in the christian god on your deathbed; every other sin is then pretty much ignored and up you go. Hawking had a long time to decide to do that, but didn’t to the end and therefore didn’t qualify no matter what his other qualities. Just as well as Christopher Hitchens’ description of heaven as a never ending, ethereal North Korea doesn’t sound too far off to me.
Actually, the Bible contradicts itself repeatedly. At one point Jesus says that to get into heaven you have to abandon all your possessions and abandon your family. For some reason this is not popular among so-called Christians.
“heaven”- good example of fake news.
seems to resonate with people though.
people are a most gullible animal.
they will believe just about anything, and gather in big crowds to proclaim it.
have ‘faith’, they say.
i’d rather have a good photovoltaic system.
Everybody finds out the truth… eventually.
NAOM
My my, there’s a lot of sensitivity here about this topic. My take is, prayer and faith may not be for you. That’s fine, but for billions of people around the world religion is an uplifting, comforting and a rewarding part of life.
I think folks “here” feel that religion is just fine as long as religious folk are able to think realistically about the world around us, treat other people with love and compassion, and work and play well with others.
When religions teach that evolution is wrong, that climate change isn’t real, and that people of other faiths are enemies…that’s a problem.
“When religions teach that evolution is wrong, that climate change isn’t real, and that people of other faiths are enemies…that’s a problem.”
Wow, do we have problems. The medieval is always with us, the Crusades are still being fought and instead of jailing scientists, the non-useful ones are ignored or harassed and threatened.
Let’s face it, for much of humanity modern civilization is just a façade.
At least he is in the arms of our heavenly father now.
No, no, no. God is a female. Don’t you know anything? He is in the arms of our heavenly mother now. 😉
She is black!
She is a Black-identified artificial intelligence, as we are all the product of a massive backstory database for a video game.
Even god’s admitted it now.
Maybe we should use the precautionary principle and work our way up through the supernatural, just in case. 🙂
Ogden Nash
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NuKz-kb-9Dk
First vacuum tube photovoltaic system, at least it sounds like a very fancy vacuum tube being designed to use a broad spectrum of EM and collect heat too.
Upcoming high tech thermophotovoltaic systems from MIT. The energy flow goes like this
Sunlight ==> Heat Collector ==> narrow band light ==> PV cell +excess heat is recycled back to Heat Collector
Because heat is easier to store than electricity, it should be possible to divert excess amounts generated by the device to a thermal storage system, which could then be used to produce electricity even when the sun isn’t shining. If the researchers can incorporate a storage device and ratchet up efficiency levels, the system could one day deliver clean, cheap—and continuous—solar power.
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/603497/10-breakthrough-technologies-2017-hot-solar-cells/
If this fringe science PV system, or actually hybrid system, can be made to function well it could play a great role in continuous power systems. At least our scientist/engineers do not lack for imagination.
If this fringe science PV system, or actually hybrid system, can be made to function well it could play a great role in continuous power systems. At least our scientist/engineers do not lack for imagination.
I don’t think it’s the lack of imagination of our scientist/engineers that we have to worry about. It’s the ignorance and lack of imagination of the naysayers, contrarians, pseudo skeptics etc. The ones that say things like:
“Will never work! Don’t you know the sun doesn’t shine at night and therefore you can’t generate heat in the dark…” 😉
There are many shades of stupid.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j78aIW6dfE8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGe3xVg_rcs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eh-nZJXccmo
But luckily, some people don’t hear the naysayers and seem to not even understand the terms “it can’t be done” or “it will never work”.
At the time no one had built an 8 meter class mirror.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dmRmqtZ77E
Simplest Solution.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/PWM-MPPT-Heater-Charger-Regulator-Solar-Photovoltaic-Solar-Panels-Hot-Water-PV/263523458861
Related – Pilgrim Nuke down when needed. – more Russian LNG to Boston?
https://www.iso-ne.com/isoexpress/web/charts
http://nuclearhotseat.com/ – Show #351
Technology to watch. Solar 2.0 – Check out ENPH Investor Presentations.
While I prefer DC Direct for Critical Life support – Like Communications, Lighting, Hot Water, etc. MicroInverters may return from the ashes. The Criteria is eChem Agnostic – Remove the battery and you still have useable power by day. This may be the breakout for PV Power – PV Powerby Day, Storage by Night. It’s immoral to convert Pure PV Power into Toxic Chemistry unnecessarily.
Much of the Gov RADNET monitoring has been disabled.
Is that a Pistol or Geiger Counter in your pocket?
https://blog.safecast.org/
https://www.amazon.com/Safecast-bGeigie-Portable-Radiation-Bluetooth/dp/B01HOYD7KE
So how are we doing in the advanced energy sector? US spending on advanced energy is more than twice the spending on beer, so I guess we are gaining ground. Globally still behind media though and about equal to clothing spending ( do they really need two dozen pair of shoes and 20 outfits?).
https://blog.aee.net/market-report-shows-record-1.4-trillion-global-200-billion-u.s.-revenue-for-advanced-energy-and-highlights-five-trends-shaping-the-future
Advanced or New Energy is the Cherry on Top. Gotta get real on consumption. Passive or efficient design is not Rocket Science. 1st step is metering what you got and start the Journey reducing waste. If you want a step function – feed your structure with a 2 pole 20A/240v Breaker. At 100% SF ( Service Factor ) that’s 100+ kWh per day. To Guarantee such service in December in many areas requires 500-1000 300 watt PV Panels. The Mass production of affordable PV is the 2nd Biggest Energy Story of our Lifetime.
Now’s it’s blame Putin for the Fragile Centralized Grid’s lack of resiliency
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-russia-sanctions-energygrid/in-a-first-u-s-blames-russia-for-cyber-attacks-on-energy-grid-idUSKCN1GR2G3
I agree, which I have been pursuing for years. Once we stop wasting energy then renewables work quite nicely. Passive design has been around a long time, can be made to work in most areas.
They’re also talking now of sufficiency.
Not sure if this is sad or funny:
DONALD TRUMP CLAIMS US SOLD NORWAY ‘F-52’ AIRCRAFT THAT DOESN’T EXIST
In the latest gaffe to befall the US President, Mr. Trump managed to suggest the US was selling Norway a type of fighter aircraft that does not actually exist. The President claimed Norway had started receiving the first American-made “F-52s”. “In November, we started delivering the first F-52s and F-35 fighter jets,” he said. The F-52 is a fictional aircraft that features prominently in the successful Call of Duty video game series.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/donald-trump-us-norway-f52-aircraft-sold-deal-not-exist-defence-erna-solberg-a8153126.html
Oh yeah! Trump’s also thinking about a ‘Space Force’… What a fucking imbecile!
https://www.nbcnews.com/video/trump-suggests-us-military-may-build-a-space-force-1185104963594
President Trump: We have the Air Force, maybe we’ll have a Space Force
TUE, MAR 13
While addressing troops at the Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, outside San Diego, California, President Trump called for new security efforts in outer space. “We should have a new force called the ‘Space Force,'” Trump said during comments about the arrival of more modern machinery and equipment for the U.S. military.
.
The US has many treaties where we promise not to militarize space, Trump said something like we are already doing a lot. Likely pissing off some of our allies, plus it’s likely another security breach to be talking about it. Sometimes you just start to feel sorry for the guy, he is just too stupid to understand what’s going on around him.
An embarrassing time to be a US citizen, imo.
Recently I’ve listened to an interview by George Lakoff, watched a presentation by Jennifer Francis, watched Joaquin Phoenix in ‘You Were Never Really There’ (not even an Oscar nomination?) and read some Stephen Jay Gould – I’d say if the US keeps turning out people like that Trump can be ignored as indicative of the country (not as a threat to everyone’s well being though).
I hope it gets even more embarrassing.
And Trump becomes a bit of an antihero for such folks as the anarchists.
Geophysical constraints on the reliability of solar and wind power in the United States
http://pubs.rsc.org/en/Content/ArticleLanding/2018/EE/C7EE03029K#!divAbstract
Good interview with Ken Caldeira on latest episode of Radio Ecoshock
https://www.ecoshock.org/2018/03/hail-mary-to-save-the-climate.html
Caldeira feels that we need to transition away from fossil fuels, and that we’re not moving as fast as we should.
He also feels that getting to the point where renewables (wind, solar, hydro) supply 80% of grid kWhs would be very straightforward. After that, he feels we’re going to need some combination of Demand Side Management (DSM), overbuilding, and large scale storage to handle seasonal lulls in renewable supply.
Seems sensible.
Now, he seems to think that DSM would be unacceptable to consumers, and that overbuilding and large scale storage would be unacceptably expensive. There I think he’s being unrealistic, but I’d be interested in seeing his numbers on those topics.
Anyone seen them?
What a lot of people seem to miss is that if you can do 80% renewables, you can *and will* do 100% renewables.
Overbuild your solar — which will happen anyway, as people put up rooftop solar. Install some batteries — which will happen anyway, as people put up home batteries. This leaves the mythical “week with no sun or wind across the whole continent”, which is not a real concern: we have blackouts more often than that *now* due to distribution wires going done.
Most Important – Buy or convert loads to Solar Compatible type. 8-57 Vdc input. Never AC powered constant voltage regulated inputs for critical 24×7 loads. Split freezer defrost heater coils so they can be locked out at Night, etc, etc. Minimize unnecessary eChem consumption. aka Battery Power. Measure and pencil the economics of Energy kWh and Power kW over Time. Battery power is not the solution – Unnecessary Battery Power is the Problem.
the United States has 82Gw of installed wind capacity.
If working at nameplate capacity the wind turbines would produce 61,000Gw/hours in December 2017.
Yet wind only produced 544Gw/h or 6.5% of all consumption.
Wind, solar and storage could well displace most coal, but as this study says
grid scale storage remains illusive.
http://instituteforenergyresearch.org/electricity-generation
Last I checked we are in March 2018. Why are you here posting IER bullshit from 4 years ago? Let’s just call a spade a spade shall we?! You are a dishonest troll with an economic, political and ideological agenda!
IER’s founder and CEO is Robert L. Bradley Jr., former Director of Policy Analysis at Enron. Bradley worked for over 16 years at Enron, also working as the speechwriter for Kenneth L. Lay, and wrote “Renewable Energy: Not Cheap, Not ‘Green’” (Cato Institute, 1997) where he voices his opposition of green energy. Bradley has worked with a range of free market think-tanks including the Cato Institute, Competitive Enterprise Institute, Institute of Economic Affairs in London, Center for Energy Economics, and the Institute for Humane Studies (IHS) at George Mason University. [35]
You can get slightly more up to date information from the Wind Power & Engineering site about the current state of wind power technology here:
https://www.windpowerengineering.com/
Fred
The statistics I referred to are from the current post. Wind production is so poor I thought they were wrong, so double checked. They are correct.
Ken Caldeira is a scientist who is concerned about pollution and climate change.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Caldeira
https://www.ecoshock.org/2018/03/hail-mary-to-save-the-climate.html
His study highlights the great difficulties of storing electricity for a country during weeks where there is little wind and sun.
Mark Jacobson who did not like being contradicted tried to sue, then withdrew his legal action because he realised he would lose.
Jacobson like you simply cannot stand anyone having an opposite opinion.
Are you best mates?
The statistics I referred to are from the current post. Wind production is so poor I thought they were wrong, so double checked. They are correct.
You posted a link to a September 2014 IER post on Energy Generation. It is riddled with outdated misconceptions. And that is being kind.
As far as I could tell, the link to the Ken Caldeira’s Interview on Radio EcoShock was posted by Survivalist.
Ken has done legitimate research on many climate science related areas most notably ocean acidification. I certainly have no arguments with that research.
He is also on record with stating that we need to end emitting CO2 into the atmosphere and the oceans. Again I have no problem with that view.
When it comes to his ideas on geoengineering and power generation and his understanding of how technology is evolving I diverge from his views.
Though at the end of the day, I highly doubt he supports the ideological free market position of IER’s founder Robert L. Bradley Jr., former Director of Policy Analysis at Enron…
Peter,
6.5% is exactly what you would expect from 82GW of windpower in a grid that produces an average of 450GW. Please read about capacity factors:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacity_factor
“The net capacity factor is the unitless ratio of an actual electrical energy output over a given period of time to the maximum possible electrical energy output over that period.[1] The capacity factor is defined for any electricity producing installation, such as a fuel consuming power plant or one using renewable energy, such as wind or the sun. The average capacity factor can also be defined for any class of such installations, and can be used to compare different types of electricity production.“
You call that a study? As long as readers are aware that The IER is a “think tank” founded mainly with money from Charles Koch, no harm done, see:
https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Institute_for_Energy_Research
Far from being impartial, the IER has a very obvious agenda that aligns very closely with that of it’s funders, surprise, surprise!
I am curious about the motivation for linking to anything on the IER’s web site here. What does the poster hope to achieve?
Thanks for this as usual, islandboy. I read that Jamaica is putting in some big battery systems soon!
ABB’s Jamaica renewable hybrid microgrid is a ‘lesson for the Caribbean and beyond’
A statement from JPS on 28 February announced that a ground-breaking ceremony had taken place for the project. JPS said the ceremony was held at JPS’ Hunts Bay Power Plant Substation and revealed that the total project cost is expected to reach around US$21.6 million. JPS also declined to give further details on the system’s sizing, besides repeating the 24.5MW headline figure. It did however add that the energy storage portion of the system will utilise both “low speed flywheels and containerised lithium-ion batteries”.
Clear as mud! Let’s hope this turns out to be a good lesson.
Hey, maybe they can add a few of these molten salt reactors at a mere billion dollars a pop! /sarc
https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2018/03/terrestrial-energy-on-track-to-commercial-molten-salt-reactor-competitive-with-natural-gas-prices.html
Terrestrial Energy is developing a 190 megawatt small modular molten salt reactor that will cost less than $1 billion to build. This will result in kilowatt-per-hour costs of less than 5 cents, a price competitive with power from natural gas.
Terrestrial Energy of Canada has signed a contract for technical services with the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) in Karlsruhe, Germany. JRC will perform confirmatory studies of the fuel and primary coolant salt mixture for Terrestrial’s Integrated Molten Salt Reactor (IMSR).
What could a billion dollars buy you in solar, wind and storage systems?!
How fast could such systems be built?
And what would the final kilowatt-per-hour cost be?
Especially given the plummeting prices for solar projects globally.
A rather optimistic forecast if I do say so myself but food for thought nonetheless!
https://electrek.co/2017/11/16/cheapest-electricity-on-the-planet-mexican-solar-power/
…I predict that in 2019 we’re going to see 1¢/kWh from a solar power project – and this low price will be primarily driven by increasing solar panel efficiencies. I am bullish that efficiency will drive an additional 0.7¢/kWh out of solar power because right now we’re seeing laboratory efficiencies increase from a current standard of 16-17% solar panel efficiency toward a leading edge solar cell at 23.45% by JinkoSolar. Depending on how that cell efficiency translates to a panel, that’s an increase of up to 40% more efficiency based upon 16.5% solar panels. That means 40% less racking, 40% less labor laying our wiring and solar panels, 40% less maintenance and cleaning, 40% less land, etc.
This efficiency gain is in addition to other technological advances. Drones are lowering long-term costs, international finance has more trust in solar, inverters are getting smarter and cheaper, re-powering is extending plant lives and companies are learning how to manage their projects better.
Soon we’re going to have to confront new questions as solar power costs less than anything seriously considered before, and will offer new opportunities never thought of before. What will we do with all of this cheap energy? How do we move from fossil systems toward solar sources without destroying the social fabric of those dependent on revenue from gas and coal? How will our post scarcity society continue to advance? It’s going to be more difficult to live up to the potentials of solar and ‘free energy’ than we think.
BTW, while Li-ion batteries are a proven storage solution, when it comes to large scale containerized storage, I have to wonder why more isn’t being done with other chemistries such as Redox flow batteries.
Now how can any molten salt reactor or fossil fuel generating plant possibly continue to compete in the future?
Yeah, I wish there was some more info, but I do hope the battery system is effective and provides a good example.
Melting sea ice may be speeding nature’s clock in the Arctic
They found that warming winters and springs associated with declining arctic sea ice cover created a mixture of speed demons, slowpokes and those in between. One racehorse of a sedge species now springs out of the proverbial gate a full 26 days earlier than it did a decade ago. This was the greatest increase in the timing of emergence the researchers have seen on record in the Arctic.
“When we started studying this, I never would have imagined we’d be talking about a 26-day per decade rate of advance,” said lead author Eric Post, a polar ecologist in the UC Davis Department of Wildlife, Fish and Conservation Biology who has been studying the Arctic for 27 years. “That’s almost an entire growing season. That’s an eye-opening rate of change.”
https://phys.org/news/2017-02-sea-ice-nature-clock-arctic.html
These are profound and irreversible ecological systems changes with long term unknown consequences! We find ourselves in completely uncharted territory and proceed on our current path at our own peril. It’s NOT the ‘Economy Stupid’, it’s the ‘Ecology’!
Problem is Fred, the economy affects the ecology. As economies fail or go into downturn, the people look at the wild as source of food and income and species get reduced to the brink or eliminated in a very short time now. Probably the only thing keeping final extinction from happening to larger species now is the economy holding back the people from tapping the last of the wilderness for food and money.
Animals are stressed by climate change, loss of habitat and disease. Economic crashes force poaching and some local species population crash fast.
Examine the saga of the Saiga Antelope. It only took 15 years to crash populations when the USSR folded and satellite countries went on their own.
It’s time for the human retreat.
Problem is Fred, the economy affects the ecology.
Of course!
My point however is, that focusing on attempting to maintain the health of the current economy at the expense of the ecosystems will end up crashing both, probably sooner than later.
The ecosystem webs are what I worry about the most! The loss of large charismatic species while devastating, pales in comparison to the consequences of losses of the species most humans are least aware of, such as those in niche microbiomes, diatoms, phytoplankton, fungi, detrivores, insects, land and marine invertebrates the mostly invisible world of worms, nematodes, etc… etc…
It is the absolutely crucial ecosystem services provided by these flora and fauna at the bottom of food webs and the ecosystem services provided by the living forms that help in the recycling of nutrients back into the food webs that once affected are what will have the greatest consequences.
It’s time for the human retreat.
Once you upset the delicate balance of the interactions in the systems I mention above, you get an almost guaranteed human retreat. It is otherwise known as massive die off! Humans at that point become part of the ongoing 6th Mass Extinction event. Politics and economics at that point become kind of irrelevant.
Cheers!
I think the biggest problem with your political side is how you guys are selling global climate change disruption to the public. In the present time the whole matter is being viewed under the lens of something polar bears and liberal coastal communities will have to deal with. Therefore the majorities of people pay some lip service to the issue but aren’t motivated to sacrifice or spend any money to clear it up. For best results it will have to be made local and personal, such as in how spending $10M now will save us $20M down the road. That’s the kind of statistics and science people really care about.
Just curious, what political side are fungi and bacteria on?
FYI, I’m not on any political side either. Furthermore, math, physics, chemistry, biology, ecology, geoscience, empirical data, etc… are politically agnostic as well. Mass extinction doesn’t care about your personal political views either or what ideology or isms you or anyone else clings to. And I’m not interested in convincing anyone of anything. I was just having a conversation and stating some basic facts. Don’t believe I made any mention of Polar Bears!
However should you be interested in an example of economic impacts…
http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/weather-alert/9511070
I just thought your message seemed to be a complaint about the general public not taking any of your theories to heart. Keep in mind the majorities of people working in all the fields you mentioned usually do vote heavily Dem.
your theories
So…you disagree?
Hey Stooge-a-baker poster,
“In the present time the whole matter is being viewed under the lens of something polar bears and liberal coastal communities will have to deal with. Therefore the majorities of people pay some lip service to the issue but aren’t motivated to sacrifice or spend any money to clear it up.”
I have two words for you-
Houston Texas
Politics aside, how would you rate the cost of dealing with one foot of sea level rise in an area like say, South Florida, more specifically somewhere like downtown Miami and Miami Beach. I have noticed that there has been a significant amount of new construction of high rise condo style buildings in that area over the past decade or so. I recall seeing a report from South Beach during Hurricane Irma that described a Sliding door being blown out from the 42nd floor of an unfinished high rise. I can’t imagine that the owners of these buildings will be very happy if (when?) the inundations from king tides become more frequent and/or more severe.
On the other hand, the likes of Bob Murray and the Koch Brothers are spending millions of dollars on a sophisticated, well organized PR campaign to make sure that there is an opposing viewpoint to the climate scientists that have been promoting “the theory” of man made global warming. Obviously these guys built their fortunes out of extracting fossil fuels so it seems only natural that they would want to defend their right to keep their businesses going and quite possibly growing. What strikes me is that, it seems a little selfish to want to maintain a state of affairs that may lead to the dislocation of billions of people, very few of whom have access to the wealth obtained by the likes of Bob Murray and the Koch brothers.
“It is otherwise known as massive die off! Humans at that point become part of the ongoing 6th Mass Extinction event. Politics and economics at that point become kind of irrelevant.”
I find politics quite irritating anyway and lately US politics is like sticking one’s head in a toilet. Good riddance.
Our furious leader has weathered his first year, confidence builds and the best (worst) is yet to come. Looks like a tipping point to me.
According to Climate Reanalyzer, about 2/3 of Greenland has been in a strong warm anomaly for several days now.
Autonomous cars are all the talk now, but how about autonomous ice sheets? Ice sheets with their own vast network of interconnected lubrication systems that accelerate the spillage into the ocean.
Lead author Dr Poul Christoffersen, from Cambridge’s Scott Polar Research Institute said, “This growing network of melt lakes, which currently extends more than 100 kilometres inland and reaches elevations as high a 2,000 metres above sea level, poses a threat for the long-term stability of the Greenland ice sheet.”
“This ice sheet, which covers 1.7 million square kilometers, was relatively stable 25 years ago, but now loses one billion tonnes of ice every day. This causes one millimeter of global sea level rise per year, a rate which is much faster than what has predicted only a few years ago.”
https://www.techexplorist.com/chain-reaction-fast-draining-lakes-poses-new-risk-greenland-ice-sheet/12698/
Narsarsuaq, Greenland (61.2N latititude) is 48F right now and warmer than my area which might hit 44F later this afternoon and drop below freezing at night (20 degrees further south). Nighttime lows there will be above freezing.
Icecap melt season just around the corner.
a day’s hi temperature is known as weather not climate..
Yep, if it was only a day and not several decades of warming it would be just a weather example. You don’t see upside down temperature gradients as unusual?
Missed the point again kokoe3. There is 20 degrees of latitude between them and the more northern one is warmer, over several days do far. Been happening a lot over the last few years with even the north pole above freezing mid-winter. The climate is changing, which means the weather is changing.
News from back in the wild days of high efficiency cars and experimental EV’s. How about an ICE car with over 100 mpg or an EV with over 300 mpge?
Now we have EV’s that look just like every other car and ICE’s are stumbling along below the 50MPG mark. No wow, no futuristic look, just a lot more computer jazz and a battery, but still just a car.
https://www.wired.com/2011/11/why-china-could-get-americas-most-fuel-efficient-car-before-us/
Have cars gone the way of computers and Microsoft? Dull and too practical? Where is the pizazz, the frontier, or is it all just marketing now knowing the consumer really wants McDonalds and Howard Johnsons?
But then on to the future, the car as the new womb. We will all be taken care of and it’s all going to be shiny and clean (not overcrowded either).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEr8s1ljpYY
Netflix Series called Dirty Money. The 1st Episode is “Hard Nox” – The VW Diesel Scandal. It’s just mind blowing that Corporations and Government lawmakers could F up on such a scale. It’s clear emissions testing in the US is nonsense. Right foot does not affect emissions? No account for warm up? Many ICE cars emit the majority of pollution prior to warm up. Losers: Carbon based units Health and VW Stockholders, Winners: future EV’s buyers?
From Seeking Alpha “On March 13, Volkswagen AG (OTCPK:VLKAY) announced that it secured $25 billion in battery supplies to begin an aggressive push into electric cars. The automaker plans to equip 16 factories (up from three currently) to produce electric vehicles by the end of 2022.”
Off topic to your post.
How well do grid connected inverters stand up to lightning strikes on supply poles and 110/220 V distribution lines?
NAOM
Yes, looks like most of the auto manufacturers cheat. My car has “sport” mode – it’s pretty much undriveable with that turned off, but it does pass the tests that way.
Some on the VW board were squawking about the capital cost for the battery factories, they were pushing back and tried to make a new push for more Diesels but that wasn’t popular and the battery investments have at least started.
At this rate, it’s going to take nearly 400 years to transform the energy system
Here are the real reasons we’re not building clean energy anywhere near fast enough.
Evolutionary Dead-Ends
The troubling realities of our energy transition
“I recently asked a group gathered to hear me speak what percentage of the world’s energy is provided by these six renewable sources: solar, wind, geothermal, wave, tidal, and ocean energy.
The group was astonished when I related the actual figure: 1.5 percent.
It doesn’t really matter. What matters is the growth rate. Somebody doesn’t understand exponential math.
“The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function.” Dr. Albert Bartlett
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWfTckls59k
Exponential Growth
Khan Academy
Published on Jun 25, 2008
Exponential growth involving bacteria (some calculus in part c)
“The International Energy Agency’s Photovoltaic Power System Programme’s latest report (Snapshot of Global Photovoltaic Markets 2016, PDF) found that 75 gigawatts of solar were installed globally in 2016 — bringing the installed global photovoltaic capacity to at least 303 gigawatts.
That equates to producing 375 billion kilowatt-hours of solar power each year, which represents 1.8 percent of the electricity demand of the planet.”
1.8 percent for the planet just from PV! At the current rate of 40% annual growth that means 836 times current levels or a whopping 1504 percent of current world power in just 20 years. Somewhere in that 20 year growth the total current energy (all forms of energy) for the world will equal the total energy from PV.
The power of exponential growth.
At the current rate of 40% annual growth…
Got a link for that stat?
Text from the Original Post:
“The fastest growing source continues to be solar PV, with the contribution from solar growing by almost 50% for the second year in a row. The contribution from solar in 2017 doubled in comparison to 2015. The more spectacular growth story comes from a ten year view of the growth of solar. Solar contributed a mere one hundredth of one percent to the electricity mix in 2007 and the contribution has grown to 1.92 % in 2017, 192 times as much. Granted, solar was growing from a very small base but, recent trends suggest that the high growth rate should be sustainable for at least another couple of years, since global manufacturing capacity is still growing.”
Ron, these are just projections from current demand growth rate. In reality it will not follow an exponential curve, but might follow a logistic type growth which levels off as production maximizes and market saturation occurs.
Still, the renewable energy market can replace the current world energy by 2050 if we tried. Probably actual replacement will depend more on price and fossil fuel depletion. It’s still too early to predict the actual rate but pricing is getting very attractive and lack of pollution output fits into much of the new world agenda.
Certainly there is no lack of solar energy hitting the planet.
Probably actual replacement will depend more on price and fossil fuel depletion.
Yes, that will definitely be a factor, but not the major factor. That will be battery technical evolution and price. Storage is still the Achilles Heel of renewable power.
And don’t get me wrong. I am all for renewable power and hope it sweeps the world. My son just contracted for solar power for his Boulder Colorado home. What he doesn’t use will feed back into the grid and reduce his power bill. I was very happy about that. But you guys just seem to think that storage will not be a problem. I think you are wrong.
My studies of hourly insolation in my area show that 5 days of storage would more than level out the typical two or three fully cloudy days in a row seen in the NREL records. No days occur without some solar insolation. No one thinks that PV will be the only source of power or that power is needed at all times for all things.
Storage? We have all the technology now to do the storage needed. Battery, chemical, heat, pumped hydro, kinetic, and pressure storage all available now. There is also energy reduction, happening right now.
Maybe we will invent a few new things in the coming decades.
I don’t see energy as a problem in the future. I may see that staying alive in the future could be a problem, but there is plenty of energy and many ways to obtain and store it. We can engineer fantastic new things, but we still are the same as our ancestors 50,000 years ago, no real change. That is the problem, learning to react to non-immediate threats on a long term basis, just not ingrained in human nature.
GF,
If you have the time, it would be fun to see some of your analysis. For instance, what was the average insolation for the lowest 3 day period of the year? What was the average for the year?
Average for the year is about 4.1 kWh/m2/day. The minima will occur near the winter solstice and cloudy days will produce only about 1.3 kWh/m2/day in say a set of three. Peak is around 7kWh/m2/day near the summer solstice.
I have just been gathering the data and examining several years, applying various functions to it to determine carry through needed for low points. Still in the brewing process, not ready yet for public scrutiny. When I get it in an easily understandable form I will present some here.
So the low period was about 32% of the average. That means that 50% overbuilding would give 50% coverage, and a grid that was 50% solar would be down about 25%.
That’s about the amount of demand that would be easy to cover with DSM (say, by not charging most EVs for 3 days).
Do you happen to have wind data as well, to combine into a larger simulation?
I did a simulation a while back with hourly data for wind generation and overall power consumption. The data was from Ontario. It was fascinating – it gave me a real intuition for how the random and cyclical variations worked. It helped clarify that dealing with supply side variance was not that hard to do.
Nope, just working on solar right now.
Not really overbuilding, you just design to your lowest times with lowest use and flow with the seasons where necessary.
Heating energy should not be PV if possible, it should be a combo of passive and active thermal collection. That reduces a lot of the load off the PV, storage and off the grid. Then PV can concentrate on transportation and electrical devices.
New designed buildings should be producers and not depend upon the grid. It will take a whole new way of thinking and being able to move with the seasonal flow of energy. The grid as we know it might not exist by the end of the century.
Reliability would be higher also, at least around here.
Well, you can design to your lowest supply periods. That would be low cost.
I suspect that most people would be willing to pay more than the minimum though, to have more flexibility. It would still be affordable.
gone fishing,
Anything you have would be of great interest.
Thanks. I believe you have my email address, if not just ask me to contact you on the blog.
Yair . . .
On various internet sites I have been banging on for years about how it all has been done . . .old ways are being forgotten.
There is just a need to modify behavior to suit the weather, make hay while the sun shines so to speak.
Sixty years ago I worked on a Station that had two Dunlite wind generators, a huge bank of glass two volt cells and a back up 5hp Lister diesel.
I seldom ran the engine. The 32 volt cells ran the lights, jugs, toasters, Mixmasters and washing machines and there transformers in the houses that (I suppose) converted the 32 volts to 12 volt because everyone had radios.
The station also had a small ammonia compressor and I ran an identical Lister sometimes two days a week making ice for the ice chests . . . in those days stations were like a small village with perhaps six or eight families living in station houses.
Most towns had a “battery man” who would come out and dismantle batteries and fit new separators and plates.
When I see the technology available now I just shake my head and don’t understand the ‘problem’.
And of course some quite large towns ran on woodgas powered generators.
When I see the technology available now I just shake my head and don’t understand the ‘problem’.
One thing is for sure, there are no technological or any physics or chemistry defying issues. The only problems are related to the fact the people are hell bent on resisting change.
WHAT?! Only make hay when the sun is shining?! Are you fucking insane?! I want to make hay at midnight in the dead of winter. That is my God given right! And there is no way in hell that you will stop me from doing so! I will burn every last drop of oil and destroy the climate and the planet to do it! Then, and only then, will I only make hay when the sun is actually shining…
“Americans can always be trusted to do the right thing, once all other possibilities have been exhausted.”
Winston Churchill
And, to be clear, the changes would be minor for consumers. Charging your EV in the middle of the night when demand is low or early afternoon when the sun is shining is no sacrifice.
The changes are only big for fossil fuel *producers*, who are afraid of losing investments and familiar careers.
Of course, the risks are greater if you postpone change. Change that is carefullly planned and implemented is infinitely better than last minute stupid crash programs.
We are in the exponential phase of the logistic growth curve for solar power. There is no reason to believe that we will exit that phase any time soon, and I am certain we will not exit it before we hit 100% renewable electricity. There is a strong incentive to overshoot 100% of current electricity production — to convert other uses of energy to electricity and to use electricity for additional purposes.
The exponential model is fine. Electricity will be produced by 100% renewable sources by 2030. Coincidentally, all new cars and trucks will be electric by then, though it will unfortunately take longer to replace the existing car and truck fleet; I suspect govrnment policy will finally start helping get rid of gas cars once gas cars are only owned by a minority of poor people (you know how these things work…)
About Studebaker upthread…….
Even the enemy has something to say once in a while that may be worth very serious thought.
He mentioned making a profit as the key to getting the attention of people who aren’t concerned about the environment, fossil fuel depletion and so forth.
It REALLY does pay to look for common ground when dealing with people who may be your political and economic enemies.
And it pays even BETTER when you don’t even MENTION politics, or the environment, if you can manage it. I have given away a couple of dozen LED lights to various people I know who are the sort who tend to vote R for cultural and religious reasons.
And after they see how long they last, and that they don’t get hot, causing the ac to run more, they start buying them.
When one of them tells me me the light from them hurts their eyes, I never point out that all the lights in my house are LED’s, and that their eyes don’t hurt when they come to visit, lol. NOT THEN.
But at some point, SOME OTHER TIME, when talking about money, I casually mention that since I switched out to all led lights, my electricity bill dropped ten bucks…….. they get it, WITHOUT LOSING FACE.
The way to talk about wind and solar electricity with such people, if they ‘are at least somewhat aware of the way markets work, is to point out to them that as wind and solar generation grow, the market for coal and gas SHRINKS….. meaning that everything they buy that involves the use of coal and gas during manufacture or shipping gets a little cheaper.
Leave the politics out, in dealing with such people, and plant a few little seeds of subversion in their minds, which will grow, eventually, in some cases at least, into understanding that fossil fuel depletion is a very real thing, and that eventually, it’s either renewable electricity or DO WITHOUT.
THE KEY to success is to provide the information, casually, and let them FIGURE IT OUT FOR THEMSELVES.
Telling people they are wrong, ignorant, superstitious, backward, selfish, whatever, NEVER WORKS. It simply hardens their attitudes.
I would like to hear the opinions of any and all the regulars here about where birth rates are headed in the USA.
I’m thinking they may fall off a LOT faster than expected by most demographers.
https://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/27/baby-bust-millenials-birth-rate-drop-may-signal-historic-shift.html
The US had 1.84 births per woman in 2015 and now it is falling further.
“Yes, it’s below replacement level, but not dramatically so,” Dr. Brady said. “We have a high level of influx of immigrants that compensates for it.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/03/health/united-states-fertility-rate.html
The boom is over. According to the US Census data the under 18 group was 35% of the population in 1960 and in 2010 it was 24 percent.
At 1.5 births per woman the population declines to about 20 percent in about 100 years. Plenty of replacement units out there ready to take over this “great country”.
Hi GF,
From the link I posted:
“We calculate that in 2012, women in their twenties had births at a pace that would lead to 948 births per 1,000 women, by far the slowest pace of any generation of young women in U.S. history,” the report said.
“If these low birth rates to women in their twenties continue, the U.S. might eventually face the type of generational imbalance that currently characterizes Japan and some European countries, but it is too early to predict or worry about that eventuality.”
“This is really quite big,” said Nan Marie Astone, one of the report’s authors.
However, because the big plunge in the birthrates coincided with Great Recession and the following years, “it’s hard to think that [the economic decline] wasn’t the reason,” Astone said.
Still, while every previous major economic decline has also been followed by a decrease in the birthrate among young women, “it’s not been this big” as the one identified by the new study”.
As Yogi so famously said, predictin’s hard, ‘specially the future.
I have very casually polled all the really young women I have encountered personally for the last couple of years, just asking them how many kids they THINK, off the top of their head, that their two or three best friends will have. That keeps it from being too personal.
My impression is that the birth rate here in the USA is likely to drop to well under one point five per.
Of course this could and will play hell with all the various programs and policies we have that provide for older people such as myself, a few decades down the road.
But on the other hand, the younger generations are set to inherit what’s left of the land and the natural landscape, with plenty of built infrastructure. With a falling or stable population, there will be little to no need for new highways, water and sewer systems, more of every thing.
The first house I ever bought was a cracker box built in 1955, one of the first so called tract houses in Richmond. I remodeled and upgraded it, and it will still be in great condition fifty years from now, maybe even better, if it’s cared for.
So all things considered, my own opinion is that we will be collectively way better off, in every respect, with a falling population.
Now as to whether the political mood will be such that the USA allows in a lot of immigrants to supply cheap labor and pay taxes to support old farts like me……. my guess is that this is probably going to happen.
But depending on how properous we are, how well educated we are, the people of this country fifty years from now may come to realize, or at least BELIEVE, that their OWN children, no matter how few they may be, will be way better off WITHOUT a lot of new people, and resist immigration.
There’s plenty of reason to argue both sides of the question. Lots of immigrants means the welfare state that supports me ( in part, I’m not sick and collect only a very modest SS check, and nothing else) can continue to function, at some level at least.
But with fewer people, the biosphere would be infinitely healthier.
I won’t be here, I’m old already, but if it were up to me, I would counsel younger people to bite the bullet and pay whatever they must to look after their old people, and keep the population as low as they can, because that in the long run would be the best thing for the country, and the people in it, and the biosphere.
Of course it’s politically risky to point out such things these days, because the R party, which is wrong about just about everything, is against immigration, which means the D party is more or less automatically FOR immigration, so long as the number of new immigrants admitted is modest.
I’m sure somebody will flame me for pointing out that while the D party is light years ahead of the R party on environmental issues, just about every biologist I ever met is in favor of shrinking the population……… in principle, so long as political questions aren’t brought up.
THEN they freeze up like a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming car.
It’s a knotty problem.
My own thinking is that maybe the best way to look at such issues is to think of one’s country as a LIFEBOAT, at sea. You can afford to pick up SOME people from the water, but not too many, or you may sink your own boat, or run out off food and water before making it to port.
This follows from my personal interpretation of the way overshoot will play out. It could be that the entire world wide ecology and economy crashes and burns, but it seems far more likely to me that the coming crash will be piecemeal in time and in place, with some places turning into hell on earth within the next half century, with some other places pulling thru more or less whole, but with everybody having to get by using a lot less energy and raw materials.
The distribution of age population is a cylinder with a tapered top now, sort of like a short Crayola crayon. The gray end, the elders will be gone in a generation. But future numbers of working people will not matter as the march of automation and AI takes most of the jobs away, reworks medicine and just about everything else. Governments will learn to tax production instead of individuals and their property, or go bust. If property is taxed, all that excess property will be taken by the state and crumble into the ground or be temporarily turned into state run housing for a diminishing demand.
. What good is unneeded infrastructure, it’s a liability, a cost with no use or reward. Luckily the slow reduction of infrastructure by rising seas and increasing storms will counter some of the diminishment in demand.
There is no future problem with social programs because the whole society will restructure within a generation or fail from stupidity.
Also falling population is not very important in a world being taken over by the machine, education and flexibility are important. Less people, less problems, less material and food/water demand.
There is no future problem with social programs because the whole society will restructure within a generation or fail from stupidity.
What with the growing current trends toward ultra nationalism, authoritarianism, xenophobia, being anti things like social safety nets, universal basic income, universal basic income, anti science ideologies, etc… etc…
I’m putting my money on: “failing from stupidity“.
I’d just be guessing about the birthrates, but on a related topic- it appears to me that the majority of American born peoples would rather do just about anything but work at a low paying job (such as manual ag labor). This has given rise to the ‘disability’ culture, and is hand in hand with the drug culture in many ways.
What would it take for the motivation to work to equal that of immigrants?
I think more and more will need to adjust to the reality of a lower income, especially as automation capability continues to accelerate, and if energy shortage comes to bite the economy.
Census Bureau just released these United States population projection tables last week.
2017 National Population Projections Tables
https://www.census.gov/data/tables/2017/demo/popproj/2017-summary-tables.html
Projections for the United States: 2017 to 2060
The 2017 population projections for the United States are the third set of projections based on the 2010 Census. Prior series based on the 2010 Census were released in 2012 and 2014.
The 2017 population projections series updates the prior series released in 2014, which was the first to incorporate separate assumptions about the fertility of native and foreign-born women living in the United States, since the latter tend to have higher fertility rates. The 2017 series extends this work and for the first time accounts for the generally lower mortality rates and longer life expectancy of the foreign-born. By including assumptions about the mortality of native and foreign-born people, the 2017 projections better account for the effects of international migration on the population of the United States.
This projections series uses the official estimates of the resident population on July 1, 2016 as the base for projecting the U.S. population from 2017 to 2060. The series uses the cohort-component method and historical trends in births, deaths, and international migration to project the future size and composition of the national population.
There must be an accepted rule of thumb, or perhaps theory, in economics, that is used to predict the time when a fast growing industry must thereafter grow only very slowly due to market saturation.
So. figuring this out for the INSTALLATION of wind and solar power infrastructure wouldn’t be too hard, for any given locality or country. Once the amount of renewable electricity is about as high as the end user and or the grid can accommodate, the fast growth is at an end, barring cheap storage coming on line leading to another increase in demand for it.
BUT how about the manufacturing industry ?
How far along will we be , in years or installed capacity, when the people making the decisions to spend money on new manufacturing capacity start thinking that by the time they get that new capacity online, they won’t be able to sell enough product to justify the investment?
How long would the NO GO investment time frame be? I’m guessing not over five years or so. Hitting pay out within five years would likely be a big gamble. Seven or eight years sounds more reasonable. New manufacturing machinery would be half way to the scrap yard within ten years in almost any industry.
Assume for simplicity that the new plants won’t produce better or cheaper product.
This is reasonable for discussion purposes, and in the real world, it’s likely that the prices of such things as solar panels and wind turbines will eventually bottom out and start rising due to inflation if for no other reason.
The law of diminishing returns probably applies at some point. Better may not always be more economic.
There must be an accepted rule of thumb, or perhaps theory, in economics that is used to predict… market saturation
If you could develop that, you’d be rich.
The basic rule is: saturation occurs when people have as much as they’re willing to buy. And, of course, that’s not very helpful: who knows what people will be willing to buy when you don’t know future prices, you don’t really know the Demand Curve, you don’t know what substitutes will be available, you don’t know how fashion and marketing will proceed.
For instance: no one in the utility industry predicted that US power demand would stagnate for the last 10 years. It came as a big shock.
No one knew that Tesla would be sold out for 4 years out, but that hybrid sales would flatten out (Toyota is having fits about declining Prius sales).
The head of IBM predicted in the 50’s that the total computer market would be tiny – in the hundreds.
IBM expected in 1982 that PCs would only sell to hobbyists.
So…wind and power capacity in the future? It’s entirely a social choice. OTOH, as you know, prices are falling with ASTONISHING speed. Home PV is taking off and can be justified purely on savings. PV is cheaper than existing, depreciated coal & nuclear generating plant. NO ONE PREDICTED THAT.
“PV is cheaper than existing, depreciated coal & nuclear generating plant. NO ONE PREDICTED THAT.”
Michael Liebreich predicted this in the 1990s, which is why he founded New Energy Finance (now sold to Bloomberg and known as BNEF). He knew it would take decades from the time he predicted it… and he predicted when it would happen based on curve-fitting.
He’s explained why he figured it out: solar panels follow manufacturing economics with declining costs, while coal (like oil) follows resource economics with rising costs. Meanwhile nuclear has a history of a “negative learning curve”.
Being able to look at the very big picture is a rare skill, but he had it.
If the total time it takes to bring wind power to “saturation” is significantly greater than the replacement rate of worn out turbines, the system follows a logistic curve with the final rate being the replacement rate. It approximates an exponential as manufacturing capability increases then rises almost linearly, finally reducing to a rate of replacement.
Since there are competing or complementary systems as well as legacy infrastructure that needs to decay or be shut, the function is complex. Add in varying subsidies, government and political demands, and decreasing sites for profitable placement over time and the function becomes a hydra.
Best to keep it simple and assume the fast expansion will occur until 2030, the steady rise until 2040 and the reducing period until 2050. Give or take a few years here and there.
So new capacity would peak in the early 2030’s but do fine because even though new installations will fall off in the 2040’s the huge final base of wind towers will need steady replacement parts and eventually total replacement of towers and such. So the actual manufacturing base might never get below it’s 2030 value. Plus new developments in technology will encourage further installations as well as early upgrades of existing ones.
Until fusion power comes along to take the wind out of the sails. 🙂
….actually, it’s normal for a growing industry to overshoot: to produce MORE than the replacement rate before having to retrench upon realizing that they’ve hit saturation.
Happened to the US car industry in the 1950s.
SEA LEVEL FEARS AS MORE OF GIANT ANTARCTIC GLACIER FLOATING THAN THOUGHT
“More of a giant France-sized glacier in Antarctica is floating on the ocean than previously thought, scientists said Tuesday, raising fears it could melt faster as the climate warms and have a dramatic impact on rising sea-levels… The findings are important because recent studies have shown the Totten Glacier’s underbelly is already being eroded by warm, salty sea water flowing hundreds of kilometres inland after passing through underwater “gateways”.”
https://phys.org/news/2018-03-sea-giant-antarctic-glacier-thought.html
Antarctica has a lot of catching up to do if it wants to be the melt winner. It needs to increase it’s melt by about 3 times just to match Greenland.
I say that sea level rise will come in well back in the pack compared to ecological/food crashes and drought/flood/storm damage to regions.
They say that “they aren’t making more real estate” which is mostly true but now we have a new way to “unmake real estate” along the shorelines.
Amazon just passed Alphabet to become the world’s second most valuable company
Ari Levy | @levynews
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/20/amazon-just-passed-alphabet-to-become-the-worlds-second-most-valuable-company.html
Amazon has passed Alphabet and now trails just Apple among the list of the world’s most valuable companies.
The e-commerce giant rose 2.7 percent on Tuesday lifting its stock market value to $768 billion. Alphabet, the parent of Google, fell 0.4 percent and is now valued at $762.5 billion.
Investors have been piling into Amazon, betting that the company’s growing and very profitable cloud computing business will provide the cash needed for investments in original content, physical stores and continuing to build data centers and warehouses.
The future?
Amazon is opening a new front in its bid to grow its grocery business, launching a brick-and-mortar store that has no cashiers and no checkout lines.
The Amazon Go store opened Monday in Seattle. Shoppers enter the store by scanning an app on their mobile phones, and then can simply put their groceries in bags and carts and leave the store.
The convenience store is equipped with cameras and sensors to detect what groceries have been purchased. Customers then are billed through their Amazon accounts when they leave.
“We want it to be effortless and magical,” Gianna Puerini, vice president for Amazon Go, told USA Today.
Meanwhile, there are more signs of serious growth in what is becoming a bigger part of Amazon’s business — shipping groceries to homes.
https://www.aarp.org/home-family/your-home/info-2018/amazon-grocery-shopping-fd.html
I expect soon that robots and machines will fill your orders and eliminate many human workers from stores and most distribution centers. I won’t drone on about this.
Disclaimer: I have no interest in Amazon, in fact avoid giving them a penny.
OFM- about two weeks ago you asked a question about the long term effect of massive government social spending on the economy, or something close to that. Despite HB’s infantile response, I think that’s an important question, and that if the spending is too high it could be seriously damaging to the economy. For example, too much could be spent on nursing home care and not enough on education of the young. I think we are already far down that that road with medicare spending. Any elderly can get dialysis, a pacemaker, or hip joint replacement, but what young person can afford college?
What I see as a bigger problem is- how much sequestration of wealth by the super rich can the economy handle? This diversion of wealth is not put to productive use (generally), and has grown to obscene levels. Its a poisonous trend.
Hi Hickory,
The accumulation of most of the wealth of the world into the hands of only a few people may not be a really big problem, in principle, because the super rich don’t actually consume very much, in relation to their riches. Most of what they do spend winds up as income going to people who cater to them, from the waiters in four star restaurants to the carpenters who build their mansions.
But as a practical matter, it’s obviously very very bad, because their money gives them power to control politicians, to BUY politicians, just like buying real estate or stocks, in effect, and that means we have bad laws, and bad public policies.
If you believe as I do that we have already promised out WAY WAY more in the line of supposedly paid for benefits to people who will be retiring over the next few decades, plus benefits to working people who are still working, such as subsidized housing, health care, education, etc, than we will be able to pay for, then you ought to be having trouble sleeping for thinking about it. It keeps me awake sometimes, lol.
Considering resource constraints and demographics, I just can’t see the country being able to pay the promised benefits, which are nearly all ” off the books” in terms of the public debt.
I foresee political upheaval on the grand scale….. a literal economic war will likely be waged between the old and the young at some point.
If we would get off oil, we could shrink the military and huge government spend overseas relating to oil, the budget would balance easily. Military, civilian contractors and the huge security system that doesn’t seem to function well are the reasons for the budget gap. Taxes easily cover the social programs.
Anyone with a brain and a computer can see that the federal government spends only 20 billon on TANF (welfare) and 76 billion on SNAP programs. Just a few cents of the tax dollar is spent on “welfare” programs. The repug assholes are fighting over the nickel and wanting to give a quarter to the rich and add a dime to the total cost.
Go ahead, take away the pittance given to the poor, the disabled, the sick and the impoverished young. We need a new fascist state with starvation and homelessness instead of gas chambers. Let’s make America a wasteland again.
“Considering resource constraints and demographics, I just can’t see the country being able to pay the promised benefits, which are nearly all ” off the books” in terms of the public debt. ”
Money is becoming independent of population through automation and AI, so not a problem. The benefits are now covered by taxes on individuals, the tax structure will change toward production and use of materials.
Agree, except that the removal of wealth from the general economy by the super rich does leave much less for the average person. This is a colossal phenomena. The top 60 or so wealthy people have as much wealth as the poorer half (3.7 B).
“Despite HB’s infantile response”
Hickory,
Cowardly is talking behind someones back. So please explain ? I will address your issues. A fool is someone who believes a trillion dollar tax cut for the rich needs to be off set by a cut in Social Security and Medicare for retirees, who paid into the fund and earned it. Second, the United States is the riches country in the world and can afford to educate it’s youth and care for it’s elderly.
HuntingtonBeach
03/04/2018 AT 12:06 PM
“How much more discretionary income would a typical working person have if we weren’t paying the taxes that support old farts like me”
Trumpster, the simple fact that you are asking this question shows you are drinking the conservative right wing mantra, that favors the rich 5% business owners. Half your Social Security and Medicare contributions are paid by your employer. Do your really think that if that contribution tax was eliminated. Your employer would put it all into your pay check pocket? Social Security is designed to pay a large proportion to low income contributors than high income. Another example of poor government haters shooting themselves in the foot(but we all know your poor friends enjoy hurting themselves with guns) with Conservative anti government values.
“What would we be spending it on?”
If you need to ask this question, it’s another reason why the American people need Social Security. You shouldn’t be spending the money. You should be saving the money for future old age. Social Security is an annuity insurance government program with lower overhead costs then the private sector can’t match. It’s not an investment. There are personal 401K and Roth’s vehicles for that purposes.
“The last couple of hundred grand we spent on my mother to keep her with us for the last two or three years”
Again Trumpster you are looking a gift horse in the mouth. But clearly at the time, you didn’t stand up and refuse health care for your mother for a social benefit. Why would you ask others to do something you couldn’t do yourself ?
“I would like to hear the the thoughts of the regulars here about what the economy would look like if we DIDN’T have the welfare state.”
There would be a lot of elderly like yourself living in cardboard boxes. This country is wealthy enough to support health care for all(just ask your buddy Bernie). Trumpster, you are a good example of right wing media and religion indoctrination mantra.
If it makes you feel better. Your more than welcome to reply with an HRC hate rant.
New posts
GOM by George Kaplan
http://peakoilbarrel.com/gom-production-2017-summary/
and Open Thread Non-Petroleum
http://peakoilbarrel.com/open-thread-non-petroleum-march-21-2018/