UK now has more renewables capacity than fossil fuels

[NeoGreen]

https://www.treehugger.com/renewable-energy/uk-now-has-more-renewables-capacity-fossil-fuels.html

UK now has more renewables capacity than fossil fuels
Sami Grover, November 7, 2018


The country's onward march of low carbon energy shows no signs of stopping.

We've seen plenty of headlines about the UK driving down emissions to Victorian-era levels, thanks in large part to the continued onward march of wind and solar energy.

Still, the latest milestone on this front is one worth celebrating: the UK energy grid now has more renewable energy capacity than all fossil fuels combined. (Note: We're talking about installed capacity, not actual generation.)
That's the conclusion of a new report published by energy production giant Drax:

This quarter, Britain’s power system hit a major green milestone that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago. The installed capacity of renewables has overtaken that of all fossil-fuelled technologies combined. A third of Britain’s coal, gas and oil capacity has retired over the last five years, while the capacity of wind, solar, biomass, hydro and other renewables has tripled. Now standing at a combined 42 GW, renewables now dominate Britain’s electricity generating infrastructure.

[OnlinePoker]

1. I disagree with labelling biomass a green energy source

As of this writing, looking at UK gridwatch, 6.9% of the generation is coming from biomass. This is coming from imported timber, much of it the U.S. This is taking carbon sequestered in trees and putting it immediately into the atmosphere as CO2 as well as particulate matter. You also have to take into account the CO2 generated in the harvest, processing and transport to the UK plants.

As well, "capacity" may be over that of fossil fuels, but 49% is currently being generated by fossil fuels and (not counting the biomass), just under 24% by renewables.

http://gridwatch.templar.co.uk/

[NNadir]

2. Year after year after year, decade after decade after decade, as we surge well over 400 ppm...

...toward oblivion we hear this Trump scale lie that confuses peak power with energy

A watt of power at noon on a cloudless windy day is not the same as a joule of energy produced on a sweltering windless midnight.

In terms of energy on the whole damned dying planet, wind and solar combined don't produce 2% of the world's energy. The fastest growing source of energy on this planet, measured in units of energy which airheads can't understand or refuse to understand based on their willingness to show contempt for reality, was dangerous fossil fuels. Overall, since the year 2000, as recorded in 2016 - the last year for which comprehensive data was available, the use of dangerous fossil fuels grew on an annual basis to 466.83 exajoules out of 576 exajoules consumed by humanity overall. Overall, the use of dangerous fossil fuels grew by 129.73 exajoules. Combined, the solar and wind industry, assembled along with mindless cheering over half a century of wishful thinking, didn't produce 10% of the amount of energy, the unit of which is the Joule, not the Watt, by which dangerous fossils grew.

The only form of so called "renewable energy" that is significant on scale is "bioenergy," - particularly "traditional bioenergy," used by poor people about whom bourgeois airheads couldn't care less - which is the second largest contributor to particulate air pollution, and thus the second largest contributor to the 7 million deaths that take place each year as a result of particulate air pollution. Predictably, the bourgeois airheads who want to take everyone on earth back to the early 19th century, couldn't care less about these deaths, tens of millions of them in the last ten years alone.

The reason that the planetary atmosphere is collapsing at an accelerating rate, is because this anti-science bullshit is allowed to be hyped and is never subject to critical thought.

So called "renewable energy" - which isn't even "renewable" - has not worked, it is not working and it will not work. The reason is physics.

For the week ending October 28, 2018 after decade after decade of bullshit "percent" talk, the concentration of the dangerous fossil fuel waste carbon dioxide was 406.48 ppm. Ten years ago, and 2.3 trillion dollars ago squandered in the last ten years alone on the consumer bullshit solar and wind daydream, it was 383.96 ppm.

One to be very, very, very, very bad at math, and as delusional as Donald Trump and as willing to spread lies and falsifications as he is to actually declare this some kind of victory.

It's no victory. It's a grotesque failure for which history will not forgive us, the consequence of "no nukes" and "nuclear free" types' ignorance and contempt for science and scientists.

Have a wonderful Friday.

[Finishline42]

3. Some people will complain that any progress is still not enough

While that might be true that it's not enough it still is heading in the right direction.

I like this part of the OP:

A third of Britain’s coal, gas and oil capacity has retired over the last five years, while the capacity of wind, solar, biomass, hydro and other renewables has tripled.

Especially the part about a third of the old capacity being retired. Who wants to complain about that and why that happened?

But what the OP says about the real problem behind climate change is that it's population growth. Emissions are down to Victorian levels? When almost all energy was from burning coal? That's the scale of the problem. In 1750, at the dawn of the industrial age, there were 750 million people on our Earth. Now there's 10 times that and while our average energy use per person is anybody's guess, it's probably well over 1000 times that in 1750.

Every time the grid pulls power from renewables it drives up the cost of coal, gas, oil and nuclear plants to generate power. Every new wind farm brings down the price of new windmills and generates revenue for R&D to make bigger and more efficient windmills (double the diameter of the blades and you cube the output).

I will again note that Texas went from less than 1% of it's electricity from wind to over 17% in about 15 years. It's a process and now they are building solar farms in West Texas for when the wind doesn't blow. They didn't do this out of ideology, they did it because that what the numbers supported.

[NeoGreen]

4. And, another point to be made...

...where is nuclear? That old capacity didn't retire because of a surge in nuclear.

[Finishline42]

5. From the graph from your link

Nuclear is plugging along at a fairly stable 8 GW from approx 30 GW or about 25%.