this post was submitted on 26 Aug 2024
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Wait they're still adding natural gas? Geez.
This was my first thought. I guess if you're replacing a coal plant it's not completely terrible, but be prepared to turn it off in 10 or 20 years.
A Climate Town video convinced me natural gas actually manages to be worse.
Natural gas is methane, and it's extremely hard to handle that without having any leaks, ever. And since methane is a very powerful greenhouse gas, it doesn't take that much leaked gas to cross the line into "worse than coal".
And there are lots of leaks.
The moment you realize that any clean energy we produce and have been producing for the last 20 years, that the renewable industry boomed exponentially, only serves as additive energy and not as a replacement for non-renewables, because our demands in energy have been exponentially ever-increasing since the 1950s and that the economy doubles in size every 20 years since then. So no matter the remarkable advances in solar and wind, we still needed more energy than that, because that's how exponents work.
But yeah, let's continue doing business as usual, this will definitely work.
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Batteries and gas aren't really comparable so I'm guessing this means batteries are expanded at a rate 10x higher than natural gas is being expanded, which makes sense because natural gas is such a mature staple that it doesn't have that much opportunity growth.
Batteries are also not an energy source, but storage.
(Yeah I guess that's technically true of all energy sources, but batteries are more like a tank than a consumable...)
Of course adding batteries to store energy from off peak renewables to ready them for the peak is the point of this, but I would point out I don't think anything prevents charging batteries from fossil-fuel generated electricity. I wouldn't be surprised if an economic equilibrium dictates this to be the case, even.
I think batteries will be highly valued equipment as a smoothing function to help reduce heavy load wear on any kind of generating equipment to help with peak loads, regardless of what's charging them... possibly allowing fossil burning plants to run closer to a base load level at all times.
I guess my point is that I don't think batteries necessarily compete with natural gas, but they do help make renewables slightly more competitive with natural gas.
Also at least in my country, new natural gas installs on new construction are banned
Per the article.... Yes. Batteries are counted as a source by the EIA, not just the writer's opinion. They can supply power on demand, so it counts. It doesn't seem that gas is slow because it's mature, but rather it's just not as enticing. It says one single gas plant was added and provided just 2% of the increased energy production whereas wind was 7, batteries were 20, and solar was more than all of that.
Ill stick with natural gas, its cheaper, clean burning, and doesn't require being reliant on the electrical grid.
Yeah...none of that is true. Onshore wind is the cheapest power generation. Photovoltaic is second cheapest. Methane is leaky and raises your risk of asthma and cancer. You do not need to be tied to an electrical grid for anything with solar panels and batteries for energy storage.
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We put in 10kwh of batteries in Feb of this year with our solar panel installation. So I suppose I might be part that headline's statistic. April was the last time we had a monthly electrical bill. Last month we ripped out our aging gas furnace and put in a cold climate heat pump. One week after we had the natural gas disconnected permanently from the house. Our cars are charged on sunlight. We're doing what we can do de-carbonize.
I'm jealous! I'd love to do all those things to my house. Unfortunately, I'm priced out of homeownership in my area. So I rent and all the money I'd otherwise be spending on climate-friendly upgrades are instead financing my landlord's wealth accumulation.
I'll be the first to say de-carbonizing a home isn't cheap to do and the de-carbonization (or the home ownership for that matter). I'm doing what I can by buying and implementing the de-carbonized solutions today to increase market demands driving the technology and solutions lower for everyone else.
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This is even more impressive when you realize that in some regions of the country, power companies are adding zero renewables. TVA, the biggest power provider in the country, is all-in on natural gas, allegedly because its board members get incentives from natural gas providers and refuse to expand predicted demand with solar, wind, or forced geothermal.