Study says renewable energy power plants will overtake natural-gas plants by 2035

Gwad

https://www.pghcitypaper.com/pittsburgh/study-says-renewable-energy-power-plants-will-overtake-natural-gas-plants-by-2035/Content?oid=15834618

According to the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI), it will be more expensive to run 90 percent of natural-gas fired power plants compared to the costs to build wind and solar farms with storage systems by 2035. The institute analyzed the construction costs, fuel prices, and operation costs of 68 proposed natural-gas power plants across the U.S.

“We find that the natural gas bridge is likely already behind us,” reads the RMI report, “and that continued investment in announced gas projects risks creating tens of billions of dollars in stranded costs by the mid-2030s, when new gas plants and pipelines will rapidly become uneconomic as clean energy costs continue to fall.”

Blu82

Can you also tell me the results of the 3rd race at Hollywood Park tonight?

Sledog

I laughed!

HoustonHusky

Same guys who did the study on peak oil?

CuntWaffle

No

Gwad

Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) is an organization in the United States dedicated to research, publication, consulting, and lecturing in the general field of sustainability, with a special focus on profitable innovations for energy and resource efficiency. RMI was established in 1982[2] and has grown into a broad-based institution with 150+ staff and an annual budget of some $30 million. RMI's work is independent and non-adversarial, with a strong emphasis on market-based solutions. The institute, including recently[when?] merged Carbon War Room, operates on 9 initiative areas: Electricity Platform, Renewables Solutions, Buildings, Reinventing Fire: China, Smart Island Economies, Mobility Transformation, Shipping Efficiency, Sunshine for Mines, Sustainable Aviation, and Trucking Efficiency.[3] The work of RMI has benefited more than 80 Fortune 500 companies in a diverse range of sectors.[4][non-primary source needed] RMI is headquartered in Basalt, Colorado, and also maintains offices in Boulder, Colorado, New York City, Washington D.C. and Beijing, China.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocky_Mountain_Institute

HoustonHusky

What is that supposed to mean? It’s a bunch of liberal academic types who’s entire goal is minimizing carbon and who is funded by folks like Tom Steyer. You think they would have any other opinion except natural gas is bad and some future technology that doesn’t exist yet will magically make it go away?

Gwad

HoustonHusky said:

What is that supposed to mean? It’s a bunch of liberal academic types who’s entire goal is minimizing carbon and who is funded by folks like Tom Steyer. You think they would have any other opinion except natural gas is bad and some future technology that doesn’t exist yet will magically make it go away?

That is not how I interpreted the information.

RaceBannon

Is the science settled?

Consensus?

Gwad

RaceBannon said:

Is the science settled?

Consensus?

I don't know you're the man of science. I just post articles.

UW_Doog_Bot

Well if economics are going to drive it then I guess we can remove any government subsidies for the sector.

HoustonHusky

Gwad said:

HoustonHusky said:

What is that supposed to mean? It’s a bunch of liberal academic types who’s entire goal is minimizing carbon and who is funded by folks like Tom Steyer. You think they would have any other opinion except natural gas is bad and some future technology that doesn’t exist yet will magically make it go away?

That is not how I interpreted the information.

What part? That their charter is that carbon is bad, or that Tom Steyer and a bunch of environmental activists like him fund it? Or both of those are true, but it’s a completely unbiased opinion of theirs that natural gas is bad and some as of yet nonexistent technology will make it economically obsolete?

PurpleThrobber

UW_Doog_Bot said:

Well if economics are going to drive it then I guess we can remove any government subsidies for the sector.

Jerry Jones just pushed in a billion dollars on natural gas.

WestlinnDuck

So what happens when the wind doesn't blow? These bogus studies ignore the cost of getting wind power from nowhere to somewhere. They also ignore the cost of having base load production. Get the government out of the energy subsidy business and then see what happens. If you leftards were serious about reducing CO2 production then we would be building nukes and building LGN export facilities to send our fracked natural gas to Europe and Asia. But then, you love to be Putin's bitch.

HoustonHusky

WestlinnDuck said:

So what happens when the wind doesn't blow? These bogus studies ignore the cost of getting wind power from nowhere to somewhere. They also ignore the cost of having base load production. Get the government out of the energy subsidy business and then see what happens. If you leftards were serious about reducing CO2 production then we would be building nukes and building LGN export facilities to send our fracked natural gas to Europe and Asia. But then, you love to be Putin's bitch.

By then they will have this amazing energy storage technology that doesn't yet exist but will because they are sure it will happen, and not only that but it it will be much cheaper than Natural Gas.

I think part of the storage technology involves capturing the energy of rainbows...

USMChawk

WestlinnDuck said:

So what happens when the wind doesn't blow? These bogus studies ignore the cost of getting wind power from nowhere to somewhere. They also ignore the cost of having base load production. Get the government out of the energy subsidy business and then see what happens. If you leftards were serious about reducing CO2 production then we would be building nukes and building LGN export facilities to send our fracked natural gas to Europe and Asia. But then, you love to be Putin's bitch.

A simple way to store the energy is to use the solar and wind power to pump water, uphill, to a reservoir and the let the water flow down through a turbine, as needed. It’s been done and is more environmentally friendly than batteries.

https://theconversation.com/how-pushing-water-uphill-can-solve-our-renewable-energy-issues-28196

Kaepsknee

USMChawk said:

WestlinnDuck said:

So what happens when the wind doesn't blow? These bogus studies ignore the cost of getting wind power from nowhere to somewhere. They also ignore the cost of having base load production. Get the government out of the energy subsidy business and then see what happens. If you leftards were serious about reducing CO2 production then we would be building nukes and building LGN export facilities to send our fracked natural gas to Europe and Asia. But then, you love to be Putin's bitch.

A simple way to store the energy is to use the solar and wind power to pump water, uphill, to a reservoir and the let the water flow down through a turbine, as needed. It’s been done and is more environmentally friendly than batteries.

https://theconversation.com/how-pushing-water-uphill-can-solve-our-renewable-energy-issues-28196

Not sure if a whoosh, but The physics don’t seem to add up there unless you’re also tapping underground springs higher up the Hill.

But maybe off River is feasible. I do wonder how long the pipes will last due to them being at grade and generally on unstable ground due to that? I’m guessing there would be a ton of repair costs?

HoustonHusky

There have been a lot of ideas like that...another one I saw was to compress air into underground caverns and then have the compressed air drive turbines when needed.

Not horrible ideas, but hard to pull off at a massive scale and still not competitive economically.

BennyBeaver

The oil/gas industry never received government subsidies.

Staff! True?

2001400ex

HoustonHusky said:

There have been a lot of ideas like that...another one I saw was to compress air into underground caverns and then have the compressed air drive turbines when needed.

Not horrible ideas, but hard to pull off at a massive scale and still not competitive economically.

It's not competing economically so we should just bag the idea. Imagine if we did that with the first computer or cell phone.

USMChawk

salemcoog said:

USMChawk said:

WestlinnDuck said:

So what happens when the wind doesn't blow? These bogus studies ignore the cost of getting wind power from nowhere to somewhere. They also ignore the cost of having base load production. Get the government out of the energy subsidy business and then see what happens. If you leftards were serious about reducing CO2 production then we would be building nukes and building LGN export facilities to send our fracked natural gas to Europe and Asia. But then, you love to be Putin's bitch.

A simple way to store the energy is to use the solar and wind power to pump water, uphill, to a reservoir and the let the water flow down through a turbine, as needed. It’s been done and is more environmentally friendly than batteries.

https://theconversation.com/how-pushing-water-uphill-can-solve-our-renewable-energy-issues-28196

Not sure if a whoosh, but The physics don’t seem to add up there unless you’re also tapping underground springs higher up the Hill.

But maybe off River is feasible. I do wonder how long the pipes will last due to them being at grade and generally on unstable ground due to that? I’m guessing there would be a ton of repair costs?

It can be a closed loop system so an outside source of water is not required. Although, to get a reasonable large scale, an open loop may be preferable (water tower vs. in-ground reservoir).