Renewables overtake oil

mentalfloss

Prickly Curmudgeon Smiter
Jun 28, 2010
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Oil is Dead

Oil nosedives while renewables rise

U.S. President Donald Trump has proven to have a soft spot for flatterers, quacks, polluters and coal companies. Little wonder, then, that when oil prices plunged in mid-April, Trump tweeted, “We will never let the great U.S. Oil & Gas Industry down” (the random capitals are his).

In a story headlined “Oil Companies Are Collapsing, but Wind and Solar Energy Keep Growing,” The New York Times said renewable energy sources would generate a record 20.7% of electricity in the U.S. this year, up from 18% last year. “While work on some solar and wind projects has been delayed by the [virus] outbreak, industry executives and analysts expect the renewable business to continue growing in 2020 and next year even as oil, gas and coal companies struggle financially or seek bankruptcy protection.”

"We expect that global oil demand in 2020 will fall by 9.3 million barrels a day versus 2019, erasing almost a decade of growth.”

The pain came home to roost when oil giant Exxon last week announced a second-quarter loss of US$1.1 billion, with gross revenues of $32.6 billion underperforming analyst forecasts by a hefty $5.5 billion. Exxon shares have fallen 38% so far this year – and oil prices could tumble again.

Meanwhile, the Times reported that U.S. solar capacity – spurred on by falling prices for solar panels – grew 23% in 2019. “We blew through all of the projections,” said Caton Fenz, CEO of ConnectGen, a Houston-based developer of wind and solar power. “We’re surfing a long-term wave.”

https://www.corporateknights.com/channels/energy/oil-nosedives-while-renewables-rise-15965425/
 

Tecumsehsbones

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Mar 18, 2013
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Yep. As renewable production gets more efficient and cheaper, renewables take some market share away from fossil.

Just like trucks took cargo-hauling market share from railroads.

Part I can't quite figure out is why folks on both extremes of the issue put so much of their emotion and self-worth into one or the other. I do believe they get more upset over this stuff than they would over the deaths of their parents.
 

petros

The Central Scrutinizer
Nov 21, 2008
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Hydro which makes up the lionshare of renewables has been around since Tesla built the first AC hydro turbines in 1895. Hydro hit the ground running as did wind power immediately following and both before coal for power.

WTF happened to vault coal to king in such a short timeframe?
 

Tecumsehsbones

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Mar 18, 2013
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Hydro which makes up the lionshare of renewables has been around since Tesla built the first AC hydro turbines in 1895. Hydro hit the ground running as did wind power immediately following and both before coal for power.
WTF happened to vault coal to king in such a short timeframe?
It was the cheapest power-generation technology at the time.

Times change.

What happened to the armored knight as the invincible master of the battlefield, vulnerable only to another armored knight?

The Welsh longbow and the clothyard arrow, that's what happened. Near a castle called Agincourt in France.

And to add insult to injury, the entire archer corps of Henry V were equipped at less cost than one French knight. When steel's expensive, that's kinda how it goes.
 

Jinentonix

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Oil is Dead

Oil nosedives while renewables rise

U.S. President Donald Trump has proven to have a soft spot for flatterers, quacks, polluters and coal companies. Little wonder, then, that when oil prices plunged in mid-April, Trump tweeted, “We will never let the great U.S. Oil & Gas Industry down” (the random capitals are his).

In a story headlined “Oil Companies Are Collapsing, but Wind and Solar Energy Keep Growing,” The New York Times said renewable energy sources would generate a record 20.7% of electricity in the U.S. this year, up from 18% last year. “While work on some solar and wind projects has been delayed by the [virus] outbreak, industry executives and analysts expect the renewable business to continue growing in 2020 and next year even as oil, gas and coal companies struggle financially or seek bankruptcy protection.”

"We expect that global oil demand in 2020 will fall by 9.3 million barrels a day versus 2019, erasing almost a decade of growth.”

The pain came home to roost when oil giant Exxon last week announced a second-quarter loss of US$1.1 billion, with gross revenues of $32.6 billion underperforming analyst forecasts by a hefty $5.5 billion. Exxon shares have fallen 38% so far this year – and oil prices could tumble again.

Meanwhile, the Times reported that U.S. solar capacity – spurred on by falling prices for solar panels – grew 23% in 2019. “We blew through all of the projections,” said Caton Fenz, CEO of ConnectGen, a Houston-based developer of wind and solar power. “We’re surfing a long-term wave.”

https://www.corporateknights.com/channels/energy/oil-nosedives-while-renewables-rise-15965425/
Numb nut declares oil is dead based on 2020's performance, completely ignoring the fact that there's a pandemic that has caused a large yet temporary global decrease in fossil fuel use.


Yep, oil is so dead Norway is now exploring arctic oil deposits. It's so dead they issued something like 68 oil exploration licences this year alone.


It's so dead it's powering Space X's rockets. It's so dead it's still running the global economy, such as it is at the moment.


“We will never let the great U.S. Oil & Gas Industry down” (the random capitals are his).
What random capitals exactly? The oil and gas industry are often referred to as O&G, not o&g.
 

Jinentonix

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BP Aims to Build 50GW of Renewables by 2030, Cut Fossil Fuel Output by 40%
The oil supermajor lays out further details on its path toward net-zero, keeping ahead of its fossil fuel rivals in its energy transition ambitions.

https://www.greentechmedia.com/arti...-cut-fossil-fuel-output-by-40-percent-by-2030

The die is already cast.
And it will seal our fate. Good-bye mountain tops. Good-bye farmland in South America (and elsewhere). Good-bye to even more habitats. Good-bye fresh water.



Welcome to New Mordor everyone.


Seriously Hoid, if you read anything at all this year, read this. It's titled ' The Limits of Clean Energy'. https://getpocket.com/explore/item/the-limits-of-clean-energy?utm_source=pocket-newtab


To keep energy flowing when the sun isn’t shining and the wind isn’t blowing will require enormous batteries at the grid level. This means 40 million tons of lithium—an eye-watering 2,700 percent increase over current levels of extraction.
40 MILLION tons of lithium multiplied by 500,000 gallons of water/ton. And yet one of the "problems" with global warming is it's supposed to cause water shortages. But destroying millions of gallons of water won't have any effect at all on water supplies cuz lithium and other elements that need to be mined and processed powers "green" energy, or some bullshit reasoning for it.


And for the sake of balance, the article isn't pro-oil, far from it. However it does recognize that the drive to go net zero by 2050 isn't the panacea cure-all that people like you seem to believe it is.
 
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Hoid

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Oct 15, 2017
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European Renewables Just Crushed Fossil Fuels. Here’s How It Happened

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidr...sil-fuels-heres-how-it-happened/#5006845315df

It’s official: in the first half of 2020, and for the first time, Europe generated more electricity from renewable sources than from fossil fuels. Not only that, but electricity is proving cheaper in countries that have more renewables.

From January to June, wind, solar, hydro and bioenergy generated 40% of the electricity across the EU’s 27 member states, while fossil fuels generated 34%. In the United States, by way of contrast, fossil fuels generated more than 62% of electricity last year, while renewables accounted for less than 18%.

The EU figures, gathered and analyzed by U.K. climate think-tank Ember, represent a rapid acceleration in the decarbonization of the bloc’s electricity supply. Just five years ago, Europe generated twice as much electricity from coal as it did from wind and solar. Now, coal makes up just 12% of the EU-27’s electricity generation, while wind and solar alone provide 21%

The rosy results for green energy are in part a result of unique conditions: a reduction in activity caused by the coronavirus crisis caused a 7% drop in energy demand, while plenty of sunny and windy weather in the first half of the year benefited solar and wind generation.

The rosy results for green energy are in part a result of unique conditions: a reduction in activity caused by the coronavirus crisis caused a 7% drop in energy demand, while plenty of sunny and windy weather in the first half of the year benefited solar and wind generation.

What did the countries that performed best on renewables have in common? Jones says the key is consistency.

“Denmark is by far the most advanced because it started building early, and continued building, and has a plan to 2030 to build more. The amount of investment needed is so big that companies need to know there is a market for the next half a decade or more, to transform themselves,” he said.

On the other hand, Jones explained, inconsistency can lead to high energy prices—as has happened in the Czech Republic. “There they built a lot of renewables in one to two years very expensively, because they didn't attract companies to invest for the long-term,” he said.

The second commonality among the best-performing countries is to play to your strengths. Jones pointed to the U.K. Conservative government’s commitment to build 40 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2030, to capitalize on Britain’s windy coasts (total peak winter demand in the UK is only 55 gigawatts). “In Spain, where it’s obviously sunny, they stepped up to be Europe’s biggest installer of solar last year, and have big plans to increase that by 2030,” he added.

Some European countries, however, are doing less well when it comes to decarbonizing electricity—most obviously Poland, which for the first time this year produced more electricity from coal than did Germany. Jones said Poland was “really lacking a plan of ambition … you need a route off coal, to be able to plan for the coal regions so that no-one is left behind, and work on that is just starting.”

While the overall figures will be encouraging for renewable energy proponents and environmentalists, they also reveal weaknesses that will need to be addressed as Europe’s energy grids decarbonize still further.

One of the major challenges is that of flexibility—most particularly when renewables are generating too much electricity at times of low demand. This creates negative energy prices, which are costly for operators engaged in trying to find ways to balance their grids. “Flexibilities are complicated to address,” Jones said. “You need more storage, to change market design, make power plants more flexible, and bring in incentives for customers to shape their demand. Perhaps the most underused flexibility in Europe is to find a way to simply turn off wind and solar when it’s not needed.”

As to the bigger picture, Jones said the figures show just how rapidly the transition to renewables is taking place, and that Europe is in essence acting as a large-scale laboratory to show the world what can be done.

“Europe gets over double the global average of its electricity from wind and solar, so it’s a great test bed, and so far the results are very good,” he said. “Countries shouldn't be afraid to step up investment to transition from coal into wind and solar.”

Looking ahead, the message that the EU energy data sends is clear: to achieve a low-carbon future, plan and invest now. That means using COVID stimulus and recovery packages to decarbonize infrastructure and build flexibility into the system by means of energy storage and smart grids. In the EU, the €40 billion ($46 billion) Just Transition Fund is intended to help achieve that. Britain, despite sailing away from the EU into uncharted waters, is kind of, sort of making the right noises about a green recovery.

But climate change is a global problem, and it won’t be solved by Europe alone. If the EU is to be the test bed for low-carbon economies, the international community needs to pay close attention.
 

Dixie Cup

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Sep 16, 2006
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We'll always have a use for fossil fuels considering we need them to make "stuff" as well as fueling vehicles & equipment. Since Climate Change isn't really an issue, (it's been changing for 1000's of years), we'll simply adapt as we always have.

As technology develops and gets better, maybe we'll have enough nuclear power that we can reduce the use of said fuels for heating and powering our homes. Nuclear is the best way to go rather than having ugly windmills (that aren't recyclable) and solar panels (which would take up 1000's if not hundreds of thousands of acres to power any size of cities) thus using up land where critters roam and it too is ugly as hell. And, as batteries get better and improvements to their construction that isn't detrimental to the environment which is really a concern now, maybe all vehicles will eventually be fossil fuel free. But as it stands, fossil fuels will still be very much in play for awhile yet.
 
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