13 gigawatts of New Wind power in US in 2012, Renewables Half of all New Energy
by Juan Cole
13 gigawatts of New Wind power in US in 2012, Renewables Half of all New Energy
Michigan voters recently rejected a state constitutional amendment requiring the addition of renewable energy of up to 25% in the future. While the state constitution may have been the wrong place to put it, there does not seem to be much interest in the Republican dominated legislature to tackle renewable energy other than where it is placed. run754411
Juan Cole at Informed Comment writes on Wind generated electricity and how it is quickly becoming a major source (updated 1/27…dan):
The US put in 13 gigawatts of new wind energy capacity in 2012, 5 of it in December alone, according to a Bloomberg study. The Office of Energy Projects report was a bit more conservative, but confirmed the general trend.
h/t Grist
Wind alone now accounts for 6% of US electricity generation!
Even the government figures showed that about half of all new energy generation in the US came from renewables in 2012, mostly wind turbines.
The US also put in about 1.5 gigawatts of new solar power last year.
In some markets, such as Texas, installing wind turbines for electricity generation is now actually cheaper than building natural gas plants! Reflecting this trend toward wind grid parity, more new wind capacity was added to the US electrical grid than natural gas, which was itself no mean shakes. Gas puts out less carbon dioxide than coal, but fracturing it from underground rock formations may release so much methane (a very potent greenhouse gas) that it is a wash with coal. Both coal and gas plants need to be mothballed as quickly as possible.
The bad news is that the US still generated 5 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide in 2012, the highest per capita in the OECD nations! We are poisoning the world and provoking catastrophic climate change, and all the good news about wind and solar doesn’t offset our massive contribution to looming environmental disaster.
Specially bad news is that 1.4 gigawatts of new, dirty coal power was brought online in 2012 in the US. That should be illegal! Coal is poisoning us and our world! Carbon dioxide in the quantities we are producing it is a toxin for the world. Not to mention that we are being mercury-poisoned by dirty coal emissions!
If you care about your children, call your state representative (look him or her up) and demand that building new coal plants be made illegal. Now! We don’t need it. Put in wind and solar instead. In many markets it wouldn’t even be more expensive, and if you count in the cost of nerve poisoning by mercury and loss of seaside real estate, wind is dirt cheap compared to coal!
Likewise, call your city council representative and demand that your city generate its own electricity with wind and solar, taking it off the coal grid (this is especially important in the Midwest, where typically 65 percent of electricity generation comes from coal). And if you can afford it, put solar panels on your roof. You can cut your electricity bill 20-40% even in the Midwest. And invest in crowdsourcing solar projects (Warren Buffett is investing in solar, why shouldn’t we?)
We can do this from the bottom up. We can’t wait for the backward Neanderthal tea partiers in our Congress, who practically eat lumps of coal for lunch and wash it down with a petroleum martini. There isn’t much time to bring the carbon down, America. 2020 is a deadline, and it is only 7 years off. Goals of being 20% green by 2020 won’t do it. We need a major national movement and transformation, on the scale of the Civil Rights movement. Because clean energy and a non-warming world are a basic civil and human right that we deserve and will only get it if we demand it.
With an utilization factor of around 30%, 13 GW of wind generation capacity compares to little less than 4GW of conventional generation (you know, that kind that could operate at full power output 24/7, if necessary).
Thus, if 50% of new capacity is renewable, we are saying that less than 25% of the new energy will be coming from renewables.
It is very misleading to confuse nominal capacity with energy.
Leonardo:
I am going to disagree. The point here is ~50% of the power coming on line is due to the addition of wind generated electricity. The other side of the coin is to say the other sources of electrical power are operating and efficient at 100%? Not likely . . .
Rather than look at power (MW), why not look at production (MWH)? A wind mill make not replace a coal or gas unit generating electricity. For every MWH produced by a wind mill, one MWH from another type of generator is replaced which means less pollution in the air and fossil fuel used. In terms of obvious and hidden cost, this is significant.
Thermal plants have an efficiency level of ~35% (heat loss) whereas Wind Mills operate at 92%. There is a trade off. Univ of Mass does a nice study of my brief notes here: http://www.umass.edu/windenergy/publications/published/communityWindFactSheets/RERL_Fact_Sheet_2a_Capacity_Factor.pdf
Here is some stuff our fellow world citizens are doing:
http://real-economics.blogspot.com/2013/01/windpower-still-on-roll.html
Germany generate nearly all of its electricity from renewable sources and virtually eliminate its use of fossil fuels by 2050.
Belgium plants to build a horseshoe-shaped artificial island off its North Sea coast to store energy generated by its wind farms. …The country had just 1,078 megawatts of wind power connected to the grid in 2011, but the output is expected to expand to more than 4,000 megawatts by 2020, according to a European Wind Energy Association report.
Japan is to start building its ambitious wind farm project off the Fukushima coast in July. The farm is expected to become the world’s largest and produce 1GW of power once completed in 2020…The project is also part of the prefecture’s plan to become completely energy self-sufficient by 2040, using only renewable sources.
And to add to the US story: Solar came in fifth (behind nuclear) with 1,500 mw in new facilities.
American-based wind manufacturers remain undercapitalized — with the exception of towermaker Trinity Energy, which saw an explosive +60% 2H2012 — so it’s a bit difficult to trade on the trend.
The big gust in new wind capacity was partially attributable accelerated installation ahead of the “wind cliff” manufacturers were facing — the government’s tax credit was set to expire.
Thus, other nations are flat out saying no to carbon and implimenting their plans to get there. We on the other hand are slapping ourselves on our backs for having a banner year that appears to be the results of policy not truly related to getting the job done. Typical US short term highs from taking some happy juice.
We spent $5 trillion in today’s dollars to build the railroads only to let them go to hell. Our competitors have instead maintained and improved their early last century investments and are reaping the efficiency rewards which are part of their overall carbon reducing and thus cost of living reduction strategies. Are we going to keep thinking we can just keep wasting capital as our stratege for having an inclusive, infinately viable economy that ultimately reduces the risks of life for all our citizens?
come back in 30 years, Dan, and you’ll be living in a third world country…