Dispelling some myths about renewable energy

Six Myths About Renewable Energy WSJ, By KEITH JOHNSON 22 Sept “……….MYTH NO. 1: Renewables Are an Insignificant Source of Power ……. Conventional hydroelectric power, such as the Hoover Dam, is also renewable energy. Taken together, hydroelectric and other sources—biomass, geothermal, solar and wind—combined to account for 12% of U.S. electricity production last year, and close to 14% so far this year………It’s also important to remember the scale of the country’s renewable efforts. The U.S. has the second-biggest electricity system in the world, accounting for about 20% of the entire world’s generation capacity. Wind power’s 5% of that pie is a big slice. The 60-odd gigawatts of wind power installed in the U.S. amounts to more electricity-generation capacity than in the entire country of Australia or Saudi Arabia, and as much as all of Mexico…….

The seemingly small share of power produced by renewable energy at the national level also reflects the fact that some states have a lot of green power and some have practically none. Texas has the biggest electricity system in the country, and gets 11% of its juice from renewables, nearly all from wind. ……..MYTH NO. 2: Renewables Are Too Expensive

Forget about problems down the road. Another criticsm of renewables in the here and now: They’re expensive ways to generate electricity…...

here are two big issues to bear in mind. First, costs are falling fast—thanks largely to technological advances such as larger wind turbines and cheaper components for solar-power arrays—so in some places, solar and wind power can cost even less.

The latest price data for wind-energy power-purchase agreements, released by the Department of Energy last month, showed that nationwide, the price of wind-generated electricity fell to just over 4 cents per kilowatt-hour nationwide, not counting the 2.2-cent federal tax subsidy. In some regions, well-sited wind farms produce electricity for closer to 2 cents.

Likewise, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory just released its latest report on the costs of installing solar power. Costs for small-scale solar residential arrays fell by about 13% in the past year, driven largely by cheaper solar components due to a global supply glut. Utility-scale prices also fell…..

There’s also the question of hidden costs. Coal-fired electricity, for instance, has nasty side effects, including air pollution, health impacts and carbon-dioxide emissions that contribute to global warming (all of which factored into the Obama administration’s proposal Friday for new limits on coal emissions)—and those don’t show up in coal’s price tag. If coal and other fossil fuels had to tally the total costs their use imposed on society, coal wouldn’t be the cheapest source of electricity, and clean-burning renewables wouldn’t look nearly so pricey.

Add all the hidden costs together, and the total cost of different power sources looks quite different, according to that recently published study……..

MYTH NO. 3: Variability Dooms Renewable Energy
The sun doesn’t always shine, and the wind doesn’t always blow,……..Consider the situation with wind power. Curtailments have fallen steadily in recent years as system operators have gotten better at using forecasting and integrating wind power. Investment in new transmission lines has also picked up pace, enabling wind farms in isolated locations to offer power more readily to a wider area.

That is the key to overcoming the natural variability of renewables such as wind and solar power. Individual wind farms may be very volatile. But scores of wind farms over thousands of square miles show less volatility—the wind is always blowing somewhere. As grid operators have added more wind in more locations to their systems, as well as the lines to carry that wind, integrating wind power into the electricity system has become easier.

Take Texas. Four years ago, facing severe transmission constraints, the state was dumping 17% of all the wind power it produced. In 2012, after adding more wind farms and almost 2,600 miles of transmission lines, curtailments were below 4%, and wind power provided 10% of the electricity in the nation’s biggest power market.