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diy solar

Over 100 GW of U.S. solar, wind projects no longer pencil out, says FTI Consulting

Flunkyboi said:
If coal was so inefficient, then why do gozillion tons of it leave Wyoming on very long BSNF trains and is trans-ocean shipped to China?
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That is because there are still plants that were built to burn coal, and they can't be easily /cheaply converted to other fuel. So, they are locked in to burning coal. Lafayette, LA is part owner of a coal fired power plant that is scheduled for decommisioning in a few years ... to be replaced by cheaper natural gas fired generation. I saw plans for the new generating plant recently but construction has not started yet, so the coal trains will continue rolling into Louisiana for at least a couple more years.
 
Q-Dog said:
That is because there are still plants that were built to burn coal, and they can't be easily /cheaply converted to other fuel. So, they are locked in to burning coal. Lafayette, LA is part owner of a coal fired power plant that is scheduled for decommisioning in a few years ... to be replaced by cheaper natural gas fired generation. I saw plans for the new generating plant recently but construction has not started yet, so the coal trains will continue rolling into Louisiana for at least a couple more years.
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I assume you are talking about US plants? The most efficient plants (beside nukey ones) are coal. The move from our ridiculously abundant coal supply to natural gas is mainly from regulatory/environmental pressures. The Chinese are pooping out coal and nukey plants like crazy. Last i heard they had like 16 nuke plants in the works. They are buying our awesome bituminous reserves because it is cheap enough to ship across our widest ocean. Of course they aren't constrained by a CCP EPA.
 
Flunkyboi said:
I assume you are talking about US plants? The most efficient plants (beside nukey ones) are coal. The move from our ridiculously abundant coal supply to natural gas is mainly from regulatory/environmental pressures. The Chinese are pooping out coal and nukey plants like crazy. Last i heard they had like 16 nuke plants in the works. They are buying our awesome bituminous reserves because it is cheap enough to ship across our widest ocean. Of course they aren't constrained by a CCP EPA.
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Yes cause there’s hasn’t been an abundance of dirt cheap supply of gas discovered in the US in the past 10-20 years?
 
Q-Dog said:
How do you come up with this? Define "efficient" in this context.
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I don't know much about coal power plants but this seems pretty efficient? Now keep in mind its new build not decades old.

www.powermag.com

China’s Pingshan Phase II Sets New Bar as World’s Most Efficient Coal Power Plant

Pingshan Phase II, a cutting-edge 1.4-GW ultrasupercritical coal-fired unit, achieves a remarkable net efficiency of 49.37%—making it the world’s most efficient coal-fired power plant. The state-of-the-art
www.powermag.com www.powermag.com
 
Q-Dog said:
How do you come up with this? Define "efficient" in this context.
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Maybe I should have used "cost effective" instead of efficient. We are still loaded with coal. We still mine it by the miles. It's just we don't use it as much because we've shut so many plants down. The Chinese buy the coal we no long use and ship it to their side of the world.

I was at a skyscraper coal tipple structure in WY that was loading three long trains simultaneously. I asked where all that was going. One was going East. The other two were going West, then to China.
 
Michigan Solar and ESS said:
Again, lots of evidence coal lobbies are active in this forum. Cc @Will Prowse
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This plant closing had nothing to do with coal or lobbyists anywhere. A far-left political power swing several years ago in Michigan literally destroyed its fossil fueled power grid (where more fossil fuels are locatedthan a whole lot of states combined in the Midwest) while at the same time forcing its two utilities to embarrassingly be lead around on a leash/waste a whole lot more of our taxes/rates than this pressing national security issue will ever.
I can handle coal lobbyists.
It's the radical leftists who are trying to rewrite any state's present and past history for our kids under the guise of 'we just have to do this while our enemies certainly do not' that I cannot abide by and never will.
We have lost precious time and resources preparing for a fight that we are not likely to now win over some sick 'revulsion' to use not only what we have right here but are literally selling to our enemies in order to strengthen them.

When Trump talks sedition?
I would like the history books to extend said courtesy to every single person fighting to shut down what we desperately needed (fossil fuels) at the most critical energy juncture in this nation's existence quite some time ago leading up to today. This crap was intentional from day one.
 
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740GLE said:
It’s not just old inefficient coal that’s being given a subsidy “to keep the lights on”.

It’s also older natural gas/oil plants as well.
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I've got to just laugh at the guy claiming that our biggest forum threat up here are 'coal lobbyists'....while a good share of you would just as soon stick a fork in us via so many other means chasing this subsidy or that at 30 some odd trillion in the hole.
We should have never given a dime to anyone for any non-fossil fueled product or project (period) given what we have right under our feet. Thank God that China didn't immediately have that advantage or we'd all be speaking Mandarin by now (if we were even allowed to exist) no doubt about it.
 
Flunkyboi said:
Maybe I should have used "cost effective" instead of efficient. We are still loaded with coal. We still mine it by the miles. It's just we don't use it as much because we've shut so many plants down. The Chinese buy the coal we no long use and ship it to their side of the world.

I was at a skyscraper coal tipple structure in WY that was loading three long trains simultaneously. I asked where all that was going. One was going East. The other two were going West, then to China.
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Having a lot of something does not necessarily make it cheaper. Coal is more expensive than natural gas for generating electricity. This is not in dispute and the reasons are simple.

It costs money to dig up coal. It costs money to transport it (coal trains don't run for free, and the return trip is empty). It costs money to store. It costs money to deal with the waste and to deal with the cleanup when the containment fails (coal ash is toxic).

With natural gas, once you drill a well the costs to get it out of the ground are minimal. Natural gas has lower fuel transport costs. No storage costs. No waste to deal with. There are pipelines everywere so siting a plant near a pipeline is trivial.

More than 50% of the coal the US exports is for metallurgical use, not for making electricity. As of a couple of years ago China is 4th or 5th largest importer of US coal (I think Japan was largest ... you can look it up). But things have changed since the tarriffs and China has reduced their coal imports from the US this year (you can look that up too).

It takes years and $$$s to build new power generating plants, and their lifespans are between 30 and 50 years. And it takes decades to pay them off. Of course there are still plants that burn coal, because the cost to replace or convert them to other fuels is not viable. "Cheaper to keep her" applies here.
 
Q-Dog said:
With natural gas, once you drill a well the costs to get it out of the ground are minimal. Natural gas has lower fuel transport costs. No storage costs. No waste to deal with. There are pipelines everywere so siting a plant near a pipeline is trivial.
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You had me until this.

While the glut of cheap natural gas has changed the generation fleet of the US and reduced the profitability of coal, PA natural gas is far from as simple as you put it.

IMO the fracking fluid isn’t pleasant stuff, everything has trade offs. I guess it is better the coal mining (just as long as I can’t light my tap water on fire).

Also come to New England, they built the plants without an issue, but don’t build the pipelines to support those plans so about 4-5,000mw of generation goes away soon as people turn on their gas fired furnaces.
 
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740GLE said:
You had me until this.

While the glut of cheap natural gas has changed the generation fleet of the US and reduced the profitability of coal, PA natural gas is far from as simple as you put it.

IMO the fracking fluid isn’t pleasant stuff, everything has trade offs. I guess it is better the coal mining (just as long as I can’t light my tap water on fire).

Also come to New England, they built the plants without an issue, but don’t build the pipelines to support those plans so about 4-5,000mw of generation goes away soon as people turn on their gas fired furnaces.
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We have a house in Boston ... heated with natural gas. I grew up in the oil and gas business, and I'm not a fan of fracking either.Natural_gas_infrastructure_in_the_United_States.jpg
 
And the que
Q-Dog said:
We have a house in Boston ... heated with natural gas. I grew up in the oil and gas business, and I'm not a fan of fracking either.View attachment 352659
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And the question begs how will you heat your house when the grid goes down 🤷‍♂️

Only 3-4 lines into New England, one from the Maritimes one to Montreal. Two LNG imports facilities, but guess what those LNG import terminals have to import LNG from out of country (aka Europe) due to no US flagged LNG tanker ships and the Jones act.

The New England does get around the Jones Act but importing gas from St John’s NB and their LNG facility.
 
740GLE said:
And the que

And the question begs how will you heat your house when the grid goes down 🤷‍♂️

Only 3-4 lines into New England, one from the Maritimes one to Montreal. Two LNG imports facilities, but guess what those LNG import terminals have to import LNG from out of country (aka Europe) due to no US flagged LNG tanker ships and the Jones act.

The New England does get around the Jones Act but importing gas from St John’s NB and their LNG facility.
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When you dig into NY states big push to ban natural gas hookups for new construction from start of 2026, they actually admit that due to cheaper natural gas prices in the north east it will actually cost more to use heat pumps.....but saving citizens money isn't the goal its to get away from the evil fossil fuels....
 
Brucey said:
When you dig into NY states big push to ban natural gas hookups for new construction from start of 2026, they actually admit that due to cheaper natural gas prices in the north east it will actually cost more to use heat pumps.....but saving citizens money isn't the goal its to get away from the evil fossil fuels....
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This needs a Dr evil air quotes meme.
 
Brucey said:
When you dig into NY states big push to ban natural gas hookups for new construction from start of 2026, they actually admit that due to cheaper natural gas prices in the north east it will actually cost more to use heat pumps.....but saving citizens money isn't the goal its to get away from the evil fossil fuels....
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Dont worry, I can’t think of anything that can go wrong

www.utilitydive.com

New York faces ‘significant reliability shortfalls’: NYISO

The report doesn’t identify actionable reliability needs, but NYISO warned that this doesn’t guarantee long-term system adequacy and suggested changing its procedures for identifying reliability needs.
www.utilitydive.com www.utilitydive.com

What I love is Maine tossing heat pump rebates at people, only if they fully remove heating oil/fossil fuel furnaces. No way in heck am I single sourcing my heating system!
 
740GLE said:
Dont worry, I can’t think of anything that can go wrong

www.utilitydive.com

New York faces ‘significant reliability shortfalls’: NYISO

The report doesn’t identify actionable reliability needs, but NYISO warned that this doesn’t guarantee long-term system adequacy and suggested changing its procedures for identifying reliability needs.
www.utilitydive.com www.utilitydive.com

What I love is Maine tossing heat pump rebates at people, only if they fully remove heating oil/fossil fuel furnaces. No way in heck am I single sourcing my heating system!
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When there was the real bad Buffalo snowstorm a couple years back where people died in the street from lack of visibility, and power was out, many only survived because they could run their gas stoves for some emergency heat.

In the glorious all electric future that these vegetables have conjured up in their minds, many more would have frozen to death. The rich can afford generators ....the poor oops too bad .....
 
Brucey said:
In the glorious all electric future that these vegetables have conjured up in their minds, many more would have frozen to death.
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It seems that many have been brainwashed in to believing for decades now that any 'necessary casualties for the cause' (and yes they will intentionally number hundreds of millions if not billions in a relatively short period of time without some type of a fossil fuel backbone/backup system left in place) are mere cannon fodder.
Throw in their stupidity involving water and any similar need to be daily involved in the politics of both from a #1/#2 life/country priority focus centered on what we have/where/how...'game over' in terms of ever necessarily competing with those who did...and who cleverly supported their obviously ridiculous (yes) treasonous/subsidized energy strategies in the first place.

What still gets me today as I'm just as guilty as the next:
Where did we all buy 99.9% of this stuff that we're talking about up here...and who has the power to basically switch it all off at the snap of a finger?
 
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Michigan Solar and ESS said:
I'm okay with nukes in my backyard.
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I'm not as 'giddy' when you've (still) got the same ancient nuke plant plagued with issues for decades being 'reused' with very old parts still in play...and all of that plant's spent still highly dangerous fuel from all those years stacked right next to it/frankly highly vulnerable to (?) on that lake side.
Nobody wants to hear any of that, doesn't rememberer or was never alive when the plant was operating/being shut down for obvious reasons in the past.
 
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