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Renewables In China | Earth Wise

July 28, 2023 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

A couple of years ago, China set an ambitious goal for renewable energy capacity – which includes wind, solar, hydroelectric, and nuclear power – for it to exceed fossil fuel capacity by 2025. According to a recent report by Reuters, China has hit this goal two years ahead of schedule. Renewables now make up 50.9% of the country’s power capacity.

The rapid growth in renewable capacity has largely been driven by investments in wind and solar megaprojects in the sparsely populated west of the country that export power to the manufacturing centers in the east. China’s most recent 5-year plan calls for 570 gigawatts of wind and solar power to be installed over that period, which more than doubles its installed capacity. The plan makes use of what it called “clean energy bases”, which utilize sandy and rocky deserts, other types of barren lands, and wastelands left behind by coal mining. The largest clean energy bases make use of vast deserts in Inner Mongolia and Gansu.

One cautionary note is that power capacity refers to the maximum amount of electricity that a power plant can produce under ideal conditions. Thus, for example, it refers to how much electricity a solar farm can generate at noon on a cloudless day. So, the new figures from China don’t necessarily reveal how much electricity China is actually drawing from renewables. In reality, China still gets a great deal of its power from coal.

China is the world’s largest emitter of carbon dioxide – more than twice as much as the United States, albeit from nearly 4 times the population. The rapid growth of renewables is at least moving that country in the right direction.

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Fossil Fuels Now Account for Less Than Half of China’s Power Capacity

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Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

A Big Year For Rooftop Solar | Earth Wise

July 19, 2023 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

The global capacity of rooftop solar power grew by 49% in 2022. Overall, the installed amount of rooftop solar grew from 79 gigawatts to 118 gigawatts last year and it is projected to reach 159 gigawatts by the end of this year. By comparison, a typical nuclear power plant can produce 1 gigawatt; a gas-powered power plant is typically half a gigawatt.

Rooftop solar constitutes a relatively small fraction of the total global installed solar capacity, which is dominated by utility-scale solar arrays. Total installed solar capacity rose from 950 gigawatts to 1,177 gigawatts last year and is projected to reach 1,518 gigawatts this year. That is enough power to meet more than half the electricity demand of the European Union.

The rapid growth of solar power can only continue if there is more energy storage put in place to manage the peaks and troughs in solar output. Countries will also need to upgrade their power grids to be able to transport excess solar power from where it is generated to where it is needed. Bottlenecks in the grids of most of the leading solar-producing nations are already interfering with further solar development.

The overall potential for rooftop solar is based on the number of rooftops that would be suitable for solar power, which depends on the size, shading, orientation, and location of the roofs. According to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, rooftops in the United States have the potential for more than 1,000 gigawatts of solar capacity. Currently, only about 4% of US homes have rooftop solar.

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Rooftop Solar Grew Nearly 50 Percent Globally Last Year

Photo, posted November 16, 2022, courtesy of Oliver Knight via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Avoiding Blackouts With Renewable Energy | Earth Wise

February 4, 2022 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

There are some people who worry that an electric grid heavily dependent upon intermittent sources like solar and wind power may be more susceptible to blackouts. According to a new study by Stanford University, these fears are misplaced.

The study, published in the journal Renewable Energy, found that an energy system running on wind, water, and solar, when combined with energy storage, avoids blackouts, and lowers energy requirements and consumer costs. In addition, implementing such a system would create millions of jobs, improve people’s health, and reduce land requirements.

The study focused on the stability in all U.S. grid regions as well as individual states based on the requirement that all electricity is provided by clean and renewable sources. No fossil fuel use, bioenergy, blue hydrogen, or even nuclear power were included in the modeling. Critics of such a shift in the energy system point to grid blackouts during extreme weather events in California in 2020 and Texas in 2021 as evidence that renewable sources can’t be trusted. But in both cases, renewable energy was not found to be any more vulnerable than other sources.

The study looked at the costs of the transition – which would be substantial – but found that it would pay for itself fairly quickly based on energy cost savings alone.

A significant finding of the study was that long-duration batteries were neither necessary nor helpful for grid stability. That stability could be obtained by linking together currently available short-duration batteries. Interconnecting larger and larger geographic regions would make the power system smoother and more reliable. Overall, intelligent management of the electric grid can result in a reliable and clean power system.

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Stanford researchers point the way to avoiding blackouts with clean, renewable energy

Photo, posted October 17, 2016, courtesy of B Sarangi via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Saving Water At Power Plants | Earth Wise

September 21, 2021 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Nearly 40% of all the water taken from lakes, rivers, and wells in the U.S. isn’t used for agriculture, drinking, or sanitation. It is used to cool power plants that produce electricity by burning fossil fuels or with nuclear reactors. Two-thirds of these power plants use evaporative cooling, which produces huge white plumes billowing from cooling towers.

A new company using technology developed at MIT has the goal of reducing the water needs of power plants and helping to alleviate water shortages in areas where power plants strain the capacity of local water systems.

The technology is relatively simple in principle but developing it to the point where it can be applied at full scale at industrial power plants was a greater challenge.

The basic idea is to capture water droplets from both natural fog and from the plumes from power plant cooling towers. The MIT researchers had to improve the efficiency of fog-harvesting systems, which previously captured only 1-3% of the water droplets that pass through them. They found that water vapor collection could be made much more efficient by zapping the tiny droplets of water with an ion beam, giving them a slight electric charge, thereby making it easy to capture them with the metal mesh of the harvesting system.

The system can essentially eliminate cooling tower plumes and produce large quantities of high-purity water in the process, which has uses at many power plants. The new company, called Infinite Cooling, has arranged to install their equipment on two operating commercial power plants later this year. They expect the system to reduce the overall need for water by 20%.

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Vapor-collection technology saves water while clearing the air

Photo, posted March 5, 2019, courtesy of Sam LaRussa via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Wind Farms Slowing Each Other Down | Earth Wise

July 13, 2021 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Offshore wind is booming in Europe. The expansion of wind energy in the German Bight and Baltic Sea has been especially dramatic. At this point, there are about 8 gigawatts of wind turbines in German waters, the equivalent of about 8 nuclear power plants. But space in this region is limited so that wind farms are sometimes built very close to one another.

A team of researchers from the Helmholtz Center Hereon, a major German research institute, has found that wind speeds downstream from large windfarms are significantly slowed down. In a study published in the journal Nature Scientific Reports, they found that this braking effect can result in astonishingly large-scale lowering of wind speeds.

On average, the regions of lowered wind can extend 20-30 miles and, under certain weather conditions, can even extend up to 60 miles. As a result, the output of a neighboring wind farm located within this distance can be reduced by 20 to 25 percent.

These wake effects are weather dependent. During stable weather conditions, which are typically the case in the spring in German waters, the effects can be especially large. During stormy times, such as in November and December, the atmosphere is so mixed that the wind farm wake effects are relatively small.

Based on their modeling, it is clear that if wind farms are planned to be located close together, these wake effects need to be taken into account. The researchers next want to investigate the effects that reduced wind speeds have on life in the sea. Ocean winds affect salt and oxygen content, temperatures, and nutrients in the water. It is important to find out how reduced winds might affect marine ecosystems.

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Are wind farms slowing each other down?

Photo, posted November 23, 2011, courtesy of David J Laporte via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Record Carbon Dioxide Levels | Earth Wise

June 29, 2021 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

The coronavirus pandemic caused a temporary dip in the burning of fossil fuels around the world as many human activities were diminished or curtailed entirely. Despite this, the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere set a record in May, reaching the highest levels in human history.

Scientific instruments atop the Mauna Loa volcano in Hawaii measured an average of 419 parts per million for the month, according to analysis from both the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

This level is about half a percent more than the previous record of 417 ppm, set in May of 2020. Carbon dioxide is the largest greenhouse gas contributor driving global warming and, according to scientists, there hasn’t been this much of it in the atmosphere for millions of years.

Global emissions of carbon dioxide were actually 5.8 percent lower in 2020 than 2019, as a result of pandemic lockdowns. This was the largest one-year drop ever recorded. But humanity was still responsible for emitting more than 31 billion tons of carbon dioxide last year. About half of that CO2 is absorbed by the world’s trees and oceans, but the other half lingers in the atmosphere for thousands of years, gradually warming the planet via the greenhouse effect.

As long as we keep emitting carbon dioxide, it is going to continue to pile up in the atmosphere. The only way to stop it is for the world’s nations to zero out their net emissions, mostly by switching away from fossil fuels to technologies that do not emit carbon dioxide, such as electric vehicles fueled by wind, solar, or nuclear power.

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Carbon Dioxide in Atmosphere Hits Record High Despite Pandemic Dip

Photo, posted August 7, 2013, courtesy of Gerry Machen via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Progress Towards Carbon-Free Power | Earth Wise

June 3, 2021 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Climate change has driven countries, states, utilities, and corporations to set goals to eliminate power-sector carbon emissions. So far, 17 U.S. states plus Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico have adopted laws or executive orders to achieve 100% carbon-free electricity over the next couple of decades. Forty-six U.S. utilities have pledged to go carbon-free no later than 2050. Adding these together, these government and industry goals cover about half of the U.S. population and economy.

New research from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has analyzed historical trends to determine how much progress the power sector has already made in reducing emissions. The study focused on the 2005 Annual Energy Outlook from the U.S. government’s Energy Information Administration.

If the previous growth in emissions had continued from 2005 to 2020, annual CO₂ emissions would have risen from 2,400 to 3,000 million metric tons. But actual 2020 emissions fell to only 1,450 metric tons. So, by this metric, the U.S. power sector cut emission by 52% below projected levels.

According to the study, total consumer electricity costs were 18% lower than projected values, but meanwhile, the number of jobs in electricity generation was 29% higher.

Among the driving forces for these trends were wind and solar power dramatically outperforming earlier expectations, delivering 13 times more generation in 2020 than projected.

The study shows that dramatic changes in emissions are possible over a 15-year span, but much has to happen over the next 15 years to ensure the progress required to meet the ambitious goals set for emissions reductions.

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U.S. Power Sector is Halfway to Zero Carbon Emissions

Photo, posted April 18, 2020, courtesy of Roman Ranniew via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

The Path To Net Zero | Earth Wise

March 8, 2021 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Reaching net zero emissions is both feasible and affordable, according to researchers at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the University of San Francisco, and consulting firm Evolved Energy Research. The researchers created a detailed model of the entire U.S. energy and industrial system to produce the first detailed, peer-reviewed study of how to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.

The study analyzed multiple feasible technology pathways based on very different assumptions of remaining fossil fuel use, land use, consumer adoption, nuclear energy, and biofuel use. What they had in common was increasing energy efficiency, transitioning to electric technologies, utilizing clean electricity (especially wind and solar power), and deploying small amounts of carbon capture technology.

The decarbonization of the U.S. energy system is an infrastructure transformation. Getting to net zero by 2050 means adding many gigawatts of wind and solar power plants, new transmission lines, a fleet of electric cars and light trucks, millions of heat pumps to replace conventional furnaces and water heaters, and more energy-efficient buildings.

The various pathways studied have net costs between 0.2% and 1.2% of GDP, which is as little as $1 per person per day. The cost variations come from various tradeoffs such as the amount of land given to solar and wind farms as well as the amount of new transmission infrastructure required.

A key result of the study is that the actions required over the next 10 years are similar among all the pathways. We need to increase the use of renewable energy and make sure that all new infrastructure, such as cars and buildings are low carbon.

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Getting to Net Zero – and Even Net Negative – is Surprisingly Feasible, and Affordable

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Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Renewables Are Slowly Taking Over | Earth Wise

August 17, 2020 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

According to data released by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, wind, solar, and hydropower provided 100% of the 1.3 GW in new U.S. electrical generating capacity added in April 2020. Furthermore, the FERC report revealed that renewable sources accounted for 56% of the 9 GW added during the first four months of the year. Apart from renewables, the balance of new generation was almost entirely made up of new natural gas capacity. There have been no new capacity additions by coal, oil, nuclear power, or geothermal energy since the beginning of the year.

Renewable energy sources now account for nearly 23% of the nation’s total available installed generating capacity and continue to increase their lead over coal, which now accounts for only 20% of the nation’s electricity generation.

FERC data also suggests that renewables’ share of generating capacity should increase significantly over the next three years. So-called “high probability” generation capacity additions for wind, minus anticipated retirements, project a net increase of nearly 27 GW, while solar is projected to grow by 24 GW. By comparison, net growth for natural gas is expected to be just over 20 GW.

Hydropower, geothermal, and biomass are all expected to experience net growth while the generating capacity of coal and oil are expected to plummet. Nuclear power is forecasted to remain essentially unchanged.

In total, over the next three years, the mix of all renewables is predicted to add more than 50 times the net new generating capacity added by natural gas, coal, oil, and nuclear power combined. Renewables are truly on the rise.

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Renewable Energy Provides All New US Generating Capacity in April – Forecast to Add Almost 50x More Than Coal, Oil, Gas & Nuclear Over Next Three Years

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Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Renewable Energy And The Post-COVID World | Earth Wise

June 2, 2020 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

As is the case for virtually all sectors of the global economy, the short-term prospects for wind and solar power look pretty grim. Lockdowns, social distancing requirements, and financial upheavals have put many new projects on ice and have halted production at factories making solar panels and wind turbines. Sales of home solar have struggled as people have put off spending during the economic slowdown.

Ironically, the shutdowns aimed at reducing the spread of the Coronavirus have led to renewable sources accounting for an increased share of power generation. Global energy demand has plummeted and, because of the low cost of solar and wind power, sources like coal and nuclear power have been curtailed in favor of the renewables. The dramatically reduced demand has pushed oil and gas prices to historic lows and has left fossil fuel companies struggling to find storage space for the glut of product.

When the world emerges from the pandemic, the question is whether renewable energy will end up on a faster track than before or will end up in a long-term slowdown. The answer will depend to large extent on the choices political leaders make.

Leaders will unquestionably be designing economic recovery packages. Such packages could accelerate the shift towards wind and solar power, or they could prop up the fossil fuel economy. Unfortunately, leaders are prone to be motivated by lobbyists more than by the greater needs of society. The global economic upheaval represents a real opportunity to change the pace of efforts to address climate change. Whether that change is a positive one or a negative one is just another looming question facing society when we emerge from the pandemic.

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How Renewable Energy Could Emerge on Top After the Pandemic

Photo, posted April 12, 2020, courtesy of Jeremy Segrott via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Small-Scale Climate Solutions | Earth Wise

May 18, 2020 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

In order to meet international climate targets, we need to cut greenhouse gas emissions in half over the next decade and reach net-zero by mid-century. Achieving this will require unprecedented and rapid changes in how energy is supplied, distributed and used.

Researchers at several European universities collected data on a wide variety of energy technologies at different scales and tested how well they performed in accomplishing an accelerated low-carbon transformation.

Large-scale, costly, non-divisible or so-called lumpy technologies, such as utility-scale generation, nuclear power, carbon capture and storage, high-speed transportation, and whole-building retrofits are often seen as the most effective way to achieve emission-reduction goals. A key finding of their study is that low-carbon technologies that are smaller scale and can be mass deployed are more likely to enable a faster transition to net-zero emissions.

So-called granular options include solar panels, electricity storage batteries, heat pumps, smart thermostats, electric bikes, and ride-share services. These options scale not by becoming larger but by replicating.

Small-scale options are quicker to deploy, their technologies have shorter lifespans and are less complex, so innovations and improvements can be brought to market more rapidly. They are also more widely accessible and help create more jobs, giving governments a sound basis for strengthening climate policies.

However, smaller-scale technologies are not a panacea. There are no small-scale replacements for industrial plants and other kinds of major infrastructure, but in many different contexts, they can outperform larger-scale alternatives as a means of accelerating the low-carbon transformation.

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Smaller scale solutions needed for rapid progress towards emissions targets

Photo, posted April 8, 2019, courtesy of the City of St Pete via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

More Solar And Wind Power In The U.S.

January 2, 2020 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, both wind and solar power are contributing more and more to total electrical generation in the United States. For the first 8 months of 2019, the combination of wind and solar power accounted for almost 10% of U.S. electrical generation.

Solar, including small-scale PV systems on home rooftops, grew by almost 14% compared to the first eight months of 2018 and accounted for more than 2.7% of total electrical output. In fact, small-scale solar generation increased by 19% and provided nearly a third of all the solar power in the country.

Wind energy in the U.S. increased by 4.4%, accounting for almost 7% of the country’s electricity.

Overall, renewable energy sources – which include biomass, geothermal, hydropower, solar, and wind – accounted for 18.49% of net domestic electrical generation during the first 8 months of 2019. The non-hydro renewable sources actually accounted for over 11% of total electricity production and saw a year-over-year growth of 6%.

Outside of renewables, nuclear-generated electricity declined by 0.6% and coal power dropped by almost 14%. Much of the coal generation was replaced by natural gas, which grew by 6.5% compared to the previous year.

Renewables now accounting for nearly 20% of overall electricity generation in the US represents significant progress. But the variations by state continue to be substantial. For example, while Vermont gets 99% of its power from renewables, Ohio gets only 2%.

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Solar and wind energy provide almost 10 percent of total generation in the US in 2019

Photo, posted April 8, 2019, courtesy of City of St. Pete via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Shutting Down Minnesota Coal Plants

July 8, 2019 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

One of the largest utilities in the United States, Xcel Energy Inc., announced that it will close its remaining coal-fired power plants in the Upper Midwest a decade ahead of its previously-announced schedule. In addition, the company will add 3,000 megawatts of new solar capacity by 2030.

The Allen S. King plant in Oak Park Heights, Minnesota and the Sherburne County Generating Station in Becker, Minnesota are the plants in question. The transition away from coal is a difficult challenge for such small communities. The plant in Becker, for example, employs 300 people in a town of 4,500 and provides 75% of the city’s tax base. Towns like this realize that coal is inevitably going away and must find ways to move beyond their dependence upon it. The Becker plant will not completely close until 2030, but parts will now only run seasonally, and one of the 3 units will close permanently in 2023

Xcel Energy, based in Minneapolis, serves more than 3.3 million electricity customers in 8 states. Last December, the company announced that it would deliver 100% clean, carbon-free electricity by 2050 and would achieve an 80% carbon reduction from its 2005 levels by 2035. It is the first major US utility to set such a goal.

Xcel will increase its investment in energy efficiency measures, bring 1,850 megawatts of new wind capacity online in Minnesota by 2022, and keep its Monticello Nuclear Generating Station operating until 2040, a decade later than planned. The company’s stepped-up clean energy strategy is part of a new legal settlement between the company, environmental organizations, and labor groups that involves Xcel’s proposed $650 million purchase of a 760-megawatt natural gas plant.

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A Major U.S. Utility Is Closing Its Coal-Fired Power Plants a Decade Early

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Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Lots Of Renewable Energy In Germany

April 29, 2019 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

As the contributions to the electrical grid from renewable sources continue to rise, people have expressed concerns about what might happen as sources like wind and solar energy become dominant. Not many years ago, there was a common concern that if wind and solar contributed more than about a quarter of the energy mix, the grid might become unstable or unreliable. Theoretical models looked at this situation but there hadn’t been much real-world data to look at.

One place where there is now real-world data on a large scale is Germany. Germany has been aggressively deploying both wind and solar energy for years as part of a national initiative called the Energiewende or energy transition. Germany recently increased its renewable energy goal from 55% to 65% by the year 2030. The increased share of renewables takes into account the decommissioning of aging nuclear and coal power plants.

A demonstration of the feasibility of such a goal occurred in the first week of March when renewable sources actually supplied nearly 65% of Germany’s electricity. Wind power alone provided nearly half of the country’s power. As a result, fossil fuel plants ran at a minimum output and nuclear facilities were shut down at night.

Germany has a very large domestic coal industry and indeed lignite coal generated an average of 24% of the country’s power last year. However, recently that share was down to just 12%. During that first week of March, solar power contributed more than 5% of Germany’s electricity, biomass 7.6%, and hydropower 3.5%.

While the week with 65% renewable set a record, the ongoing trend is very positive as well. In 2018, renewable energy generated an average of more than 40% of Germany’s electricity.

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