Albania, Bhutan, Nepal, Paraguay, Iceland, Ethiopia and the Democratic Republic of Congo produced more than 99.7 per cent of the electricity they consumed using #geothermal, #hydro, #solar or #wind power.
In May, a team at the University of Massachusetts Amherst published a paper declaring they had successfully generated a small but continuous electric current from humidity in the air.
“To be frank, it was an #accident,” says the study’s lead author, Prof Jun Yao. “We were actually interested in making a simple sensor for humidity in the air. But for whatever reason, the student who was working on that #forgot to plug in the #power.”
Nuclear power was sold to the world as a safe, clean, and economically viable source of electricity. We were told that it would be "too cheap to meter"1. Even the most ardent proponent of nuclear power will have to admit that hasn't come to pass. Construction costs for nuclear power stations are dwarfed only by their decommissioning costs. Yes, politics and regulation conspire to increase the price - but nuclear hasn't made electricity particularly cheap. Indeed, we mostly seem to be paying more than ever for our power.
Well, not quite.
On Christmas Eve, my electricity company emailed me to say that I would have several hours of free electricity. They would charge me £0.00 per kWh. More than that, at a few specific times they would pay me for my electricity use!
Most factories and heavy industrial plants weren't running the day before Christmas. UK power usage spikes when everyone boils a kettle at the end of a football match or other similar event - but there was nothing so momentous happening at 3AM. So supply outstripped demand.
Anyone with a smart-meter could have been paid to charge their car, run their tumble dryer, or stay up until the wee hours playing on their console.
It wasn't mined uranium which gave us power which literally had to be given away; about 62% of the electricity came from wind.
At this point, the nuclear lobby will start whinging about subsidies (both nukes and renewables are generously subsidised) and how wind can't provide a base load (which is fair). But although sticking a bunch of turbines in costal waters is an engineering marvel - it's pretty cheap compared to building and maintaining a nuclear power station.
Wind - and other renewables - have done what nuclear couldn't. They have provided such an abundance of electricity that consumers are paid to use it.
Because home appliances are increasingly efficient, domestic energy use is falling - it's down 19% since 2010. Electricity use by domestic properties was about 96.2 TWh in 2022 and 135 TWh was generated by renewables.
Yes, electricity is fungible, but you can convincingly make the case that every home in the UK was powered by renewables.
Solar panels don't work at night, and wind-turbines don't work when there's no wind. We'll always need something to be able to provide a base-load of electricity. That might be nuclear, or fossil fuels, or it might be storage from the excess power from renewables.
Sadly, the world is still filled with war, famine, and disease. But, for a few moments on a winter's evening, wind power genuinely became too cheap to meter.
If you want to move to a time-of-day electricity tariff, you can join Octopus Energy - if you use that link, we both get £50 bill credit.
There is a lot of contention about that phrase. It was (probably) about the future prospects of nuclear fusion - but it became attached to nuclear fission. You can read more at the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission↩
I wrote about our plans for a #summer#vacation to #Greece without airtravel a while ago. I'd said I wanted to put my money and effort where my mouth is.
Now I wanted to add a follow-up, but the original post is already gone. My fault for setting auto-deletion to 3 months.
Two adults and two children travelled from #Vienna 🇦🇹 to #Corfu 🇬🇷 and back via #Italy 🇮🇹 , with some sightseeing in #Ancona, Corfu Town, #Brindisi, and #Rome without using any cars or airplanes. I had bought additional travel insurance for missed connections, but we didn't need that.
Itinerary: Tram, #Nightjet sleeper, bus, #ferry, bus, bus, (hotel stay with occasional outings by bus), bus, bus, ferry, shuttle bus, bus, (hotel), #Frecciargento train, (hotel, metro and bus for #sightseeing), #Frecciarossa train, Nightjet sleeper, metro. (Busses means regular public transit busses on numbered lines that the locals also take.)
Every single vehicle everywhere had working air condition. They were clean and on time, and all the longer trips had tasty food. There's power outlets everywhere. The Frecciarossa (red arrow) between Rome and #Bologna only got to 250 km/h, not the 300 we were hoping to see, but that was the only slightest disappointment.
The ferries are not at all climate-friendly. I have not found a number for how much #CO² for a crossing, but they are similar to cruise ships. The trips are far shorter than cruises of course, but we see and smell the black smoke from the stacks. It's wrong to feel smug about taking a ferry instead of an airplane. All the busses had #combustion engines. All the trains/metros/trams were #electric, so that depends on the grid. The Austrian ÖBB prides itself on using only "green" #electricity.
We enjoyed the trip very much. I am unsure about any future travel. I would totally do this again in terms of comfort and experiences. But my goals for how much I hope to not pollute and damage the world for my pleasure have changed. I have no answers right now.
Nuclear power was sold to the world as a safe, clean, and economically viable source of electricity. We were told that it would be "too cheap to meter"1. Even the most ardent proponent of nuclear power will have to admit that hasn't come to pass. Construction costs for nuclear power stations are dwarfed only by […]
When someone says that it is Israel's fault that there is no water in #Gaza:
Gaza could have water, pumps and water pipes were built with #EU 🇪🇺money. Hamas dug them up and turned them into #rockets for their #terrorist attacks.
• AI's Electricity Use is Spiking So Fast It'll Soon Use As Much Power as an Entire Country
"A recent analysis published in the journal Joule found that by 2027, these server farms could use anywhere between 85 to 134 terawatt hours of energy per year.
"That's roughly on par with the annual electricity use of Argentina, the Netherlands, or Sweden, or 0.5 percent of the entire globe's energy demands."
"""
Nigeria is a case study in a deep electricity paradox. Nigeria has grown to become the host of probably the world’s largest fleet of diesel- and petrol-powered generation capacity that is utilised for baseload supply.
Various figures have been mentioned but it is safe to say that this fleet measures no less that 40,000MW of total capacity.
"""
An illustration of why you don't mess with downed power lines. Over the winter a line went down and hung arcing into the street. It vaporized the asphalt road surface and fused sand into glass. The surface was freshly paved and smooth when winter started; the damage is all caused by the power line. Glad the power got shut off before more damage was done. #electricity
Real (kW), reactive/phantom/imaginary (kVAR) and apparent (kVA) power relationship demonstrated in delicious beer form! #electricalengineering#electricity
Hold on a sec, weren't we all told that privatisation would lead to cheaper electricity prices?
Weren't we told that repealing the carbon tax would lead to cheaper electricity prices?
Weren't we told that sticking with (more expensive) coal and gas power over (cheaper) renewables and storage would lead to cheaper electricity prices?
From the ABC:
"At the heart of the price gouging inquiry, initiated by the ACTU and led by Allan Fels, is determining in a high inflation environment what's general inflation and what else might be influencing pricing behaviour, the main offending price gouging industries, how they do it and how it impacts everyday Australians.
"Part of the problem is Australia is awash with oligopolies, which means there isn't as much price competition as there might otherwise be, which helps explain why real wage growth has been low and why the real prices of so many goods are so high.
"And while most of the media attention has been on Coles and Woolworths, the report will include other sectors accused of customer gouging and breaching trust such as energy, airlines and banks.
"Sydney University professor Lynne Chester, from the school of social and political sciences, supplied the inquiry with a detailed submission ... [which] said electricity prices have been escalating since 2005, largely due to increases in the charges paid for the generation of electricity. She said the charge for electricity makes up a significant component of the electricity price paid for by consumers.
"A key issue was that the regulation was designed for a competitive market, assuming competition would deliver lower prices, but the market was never competitive due to the presence of big powerful generator companies that have been merging with retail companies to create giants such as AGL, Origin and Energy Australia."
Brazil's power sector regulator Aneel has announced that the country installed 514.8 MW of new solar and wind power generation capacity during the month of
Swiss utility switches on 200-meter solar bicycle path (www.pv-magazine.com) German
Swisspower-Stadtwerk SIG says its pilot solar bicycle path in Satigny will pave the way for similar projects in Switzerland.
Brazil adds 515 MW of solar and wind in July (renewablesnow.com) German
Brazil's power sector regulator Aneel has announced that the country installed 514.8 MW of new solar and wind power generation capacity during the month of