A whopping 80% of new US electricity capacity this year came from solar and battery storage

It's no wonder considering the Federal government is making it impossible and unprofitable to build new natural gas or coal generation. The 20% to 4% that are not renewable are probably in Texas, and they're having trouble getting money and woke corporations to do it. Here's a quote from the Lt. Governor.

“There’ll be pushback on that. That’s the last card you want to play, because we are a free market. But in many ways, the current system isn’t a free market,” Patrick said. He's speaking of the state building and operating the plants themselves.

That’s because federal policy offering incentives to developers of renewable energy has caused renewable development to outpace fossil fuel development in Texas, Patrick said. One such initiative, the Biden administration’s 2021 Inflation Reduction Act, has spurred a spate of new solar and battery projects in the state.

It's not hard to build new solar, etc. when the government and taxpayer is footing the bill instead of the electricity generator or user.

SRB said:

It's no wonder considering the Federal government is making it impossible and unprofitable to build new natural gas or coal generation. The 20% to 4% that are not renewable are probably in Texas, and they're having trouble getting money and woke corporations to do it. Here's a quote from the Lt. Governor.

“There’ll be pushback on that. That’s the last card you want to play, because we are a free market. But in many ways, the current system isn’t a free market,” Patrick said. He's speaking of the state building and operating the plants themselves.

That’s because federal policy offering incentives to developers of renewable energy has caused renewable development to outpace fossil fuel development in Texas, Patrick said. One such initiative, the Biden administration’s 2021 Inflation Reduction Act, has spurred a spate of new solar and battery projects in the state.

It's not hard to build new solar, etc. when the government and taxpayer is footing the bill instead of the electricity generator or user.

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Can't comment directly, but for such a Lone star independent State, seemed to have not spent on the infrastructure on the grid . So grabbing Ferferal help is a boon given grid failure.

All the city councils in my country rarely turn down govt money to improve infrastructure or build cycle lanes that they would struggle to make an economic case for.
On the balance they pay back in jobs, grid security etc is well ahead of a lot of govt spending

Normally the problem is listening to locals, and imposing countrywide conditions that are meaningless in your area, Eg I live in South Island NZ, one coast is short fast moving rivers, other coast split by alps is slow meandering braided rivers. Dairy cow crap in one is a much bigger problem that the other

So then like, how much is new vs old? Because if it's like 99% old and 1% new, then this isn't super impressive.

Adding battery stored power to "new power produced" is deceptive in that those batteries have to be charged. And what is the impact on the environment when those batteries start failing and have to be disposed of/recycled/replaced? It's just kicking the can down the road isn't it? Lot's of problems with this article when you put your critical thinking cap on.

Squid Surprise said:

A bit disingenuous… what percentage of the US electric grid is “new”?

The “old” electricity still powers the vast majority of US stuff… and it’s mostly fossil fuels…

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It's even more disingenuous than that, as these capacity figures don't account for differing capacity factors. A 1GW nuclear plant will supply from 95% to 98% of that rate over the course of a year. Solar and wind run in the 25% to 35% range ... except for say a wind farm in an ultra-ideal location like the coast of Norway, which might top 40%.

Totally misleading stat!

(as well pointed out in the above comments so I will skip duplicating them)

Squid Surprise said:

A bit disingenuous… what percentage of the US electric grid is “new”?

The “old” electricity still powers the vast majority of US stuff… and it’s mostly fossil fuels…

Let me know when they start replacing the old with new… THEN you can say progress is being made.

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Nice story bro, if only it were true. I'd call over 40% from renewables, a far cry from your claims of the vast majority being from fossil fuels. It was 40.6% from renewables over 2 years ago. So yes a long way to go, but 40%+ is impressive and with 96% of the new supply coming from renewables that 40% figure will grow rapidly.

Mr Majestyk said:

Nice story bro, if only it were true. I'd call over 40% from renewables

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He's right; you're wrong.

US share electricity production (2022)
Natural Gas: 39.8%
Coal: 19.4%
Nuclear: 18.5%
Hydro: 6%
Oil: 0.5%

Solar: 3.4%
Wind: 11.1%
Wood: 0.83%

Squid Surprise said:

A bit disingenuous… what percentage of the US electric grid is “new”?

The “old” electricity still powers the vast majority of US stuff… and it’s mostly fossil fuels…

Let me know when they start replacing the old with new… THEN you can say progress is being made.

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Old power generators have been developed over generations and we can reasonably expect for change to happen over generations. As newer technologies are implemented technology improves and becomes more financially feasible as well. In 20 years the battery technology we're deploying and rapidly developing now will still be relatively "new". We'll then better be able to compare the old and new.

I understand your frustration that the change isn't overnight and we can't place the metrics, but I don't think that the article is trying to deceive us, just indicate where the headwinds are taking us.

Squid Surprise said:

A bit disingenuous… what percentage of the US electric grid is “new”?

The “old” electricity still powers the vast majority of US stuff… and it’s mostly fossil fuels…

Let me know when they start replacing the old with new… THEN you can say progress is being made.

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10min Google....

Due to the rise in electricity generated from wind and solar, 20% of electricity net generation in the U.S. came from renewable sources in 2021 (aka new energy). Electricity generated from wind surpassed hydroelectric in 2019 as the predominant renewable source.

Read the last paragraph again to see what's already been replaced.

trents said:

Adding battery stored power to "new power produced" is deceptive in that those batteries have to be charged. And what is the impact on the environment when those batteries start failing and have to be disposed of/recycled/replaced? It's just kicking the can down the road isn't it? Lot's of problems with this article when you put your critical thinking cap on.

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Battery stored power comes from renewables, since it's not always sunny or windy.

And I am very happy about it for as long as it does not rise electricity cost.

Who's paying for it? Tax payer?
Good investment seeing as Bill Gates wants to block out the sun to cool the earth, there goes your 80% down to 5%

NEW CAPACITY......

Otherwise, there is no story here and quaint words. What they do not talk about is sustainability and maintenance. Nuclear for State/Government and solar/wind for home user, to deal with flux.

This is not really good news. Just a re-enforcement of generational ignorance.

So if I understand correctly the total energy consumption increases.
And from this increase 80% is sustainable, while 20% is additional fossil fuels?
So net fossil fuel usage still increases compared to previous years?

Whoppingly staggering quaint indeed.

This is nothing to brag about, since that number indicates that reliable forms of energy production are getting older without being replaced. Does not bode well for the future, unless you like rolling blackouts on cloudy windless days.

m3tavision said:

NEW CAPACITY......

Otherwise, there is no story here and quaint words. What they do not talk about is sustainability and maintenance. Nuclear for State/Government and solar/wind for home user, to deal with flux.

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Nuclear has three issues that need to be resolved:

1: Cost: Spending several Billion per plant is not a long-term solution. And of course, the first planned micro-plant is overrunnig its budget.

2: Safety: The worst-case outcome for any user action from within the control room *must* be "safe shutdown". The problem with most nuclear designs is that they themselves require power in order to cool the core.

3: Disposal: Spent nuclear fuel needs to be safely stored, ideally in one centralized location, until no longer dangerous (EG: Several hundred thousand years). Yuka Mountain is *not* a valid site; limestone is notoriously leaky, it's near a heavily used source of drinking water, and it's tectonically active. It's selection is the result of making requirements to justify the site selection.

Address all three, and I'm good with nuclear.

And yes to per-site power generation, backed by batteries for off-peak use, backed by the grid as necessary.

trents said:

Adding battery stored power to "new power produced" is deceptive in that those batteries have to be charged. And what is the impact on the environment when those batteries start failing and have to be disposed of/recycled/replaced? It's just kicking the can down the road isn't it? Lot's of problems with this article when you put your critical thinking cap on.

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As has been noted *many* times here, the worst-case environmental damage caused by battery production/use/destruction is several orders of magnitude less damaging then the alternatives.

And when we get away from Lithium, those will be even less.

hahahanoobs said:

Due to the rise in electricity generated from wind and solar, 20% of electricity net generation in the U.S. came from renewable sources in 2021 (aka new energy).

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False. Hydroelectric may be 'renewable', but all the hydroelectric power generated in the US are from dams built decades ago -- it's not "new energy". And the "green" movement despises hydro power even more than they do nuclear.

gamerk2 said:

Nuclear has three issues that need to be resolved: Cost, Safety, Disposal.

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All these issues were resolved long ago.

Safety. Nearly all the commercial reactors in operation worldwide are based on designs from the 1960s. But there are multiple designs that are passively cooled and require no external power. Some don't even require human operators at all, much less a "control room".

Disposal. This has been a non-issue for decades; the "problem" exists only in the minds of the scientifically illiterate. The easiest solution of all is simply to vitrify the waste and drop it in the deep sea -- the Marianas Trench is particularly nice -- where plate subduction will draw it naturally into the earth's mantle. Even if it didn't, the amount of waste we'd add -- compared to the trillions of tons of radioactive radium, thorium, uranium, and K-40 already found naturally in the sea -- is infinitesimal; we could dump waste for tens of thousands of years and not appreciably raise oceanic background radiation levels.

And stop the disinformation about Yucca Mountain. The site is composed of volcanic ignimbrite (not limestone) and was specifically chosen as one of the least geologically active regions in the entire country:


And the reasons for cost overruns on these projects are well-documented. Every site since the 1970s has been hit by dozens of lawsuits, repeatedly blocking construction for years. When construction resumes, the NRA has modified one or more regulations and demands the site conform, resulting in major portions of construction having to be torn out and reworked, further delaying completion. The cycle repeats itself many times, stretching the project out decades ... decades in which financing costs continue to escalate.

hahahanoobs said:

Battery stored power comes from renewables, since it's not always sunny or windy.

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It does, but it's grossly misleading. On those days when it's not sunny or windy, it's only sharing back into the system capacity that is already accounted for in the capacity of the new builds.

The whole thing is a fairly meaningless, fake metric. Capacity != Delivered. If a company takes their government-funded gift and builds a solar array with "100 gigawatt capacity" in Maine, it's unlikely to ever _generate_ anything approaching that 'labeled' capacity.

Bragging about capacity is, to put it bluntly, stupid. What matters is the actual delivered Watts.

It takes fossil fuel to make clean energy...