BoA Merrill Lynch reduces estimates for wind capacity growth

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE63J5GY20100420

While 20% growth year over year is impressive (for any industry) it is just another example that just because wind capacity doubled every 3 years in past doesn't mean it will keep doubling every three years in future.

This is one reason why nobody (at least nobody will influence and power to make it happen) is realistically considering 100% renewable energy in the next 20-30 years. The next two decades are critical for GHG mitigation.

To get 100% renewables would require a staggering amount of production. We live in a capitalistic society. If a wind company builds a new production facility and demand falls they take a loss. So production capacity will grow slowly to take up slack from proven capacity growth. Essentially production growth is a second derivative of current capacity. Companies are conservative, nobody every went bankrupt by expanding "too slow".

Law of large numbers is catch up with wind industry. Nothing grows exponentially forever. The only way we reduce GHG in a material way is "all of the above". In the real world (as opposed to cheerleader fantasy land) there are real limits of growth of wind power and wind growth accounts for 97% of all renewable energy growth. The capacity installs of all other forms of renewable energy are negligible. Sadly I think even CCS needs to be included in that "all of the above" (although coal is still dirty for non-carbon reasons). The numbers are just so big.


This is why any attempt to "kill nuclear" is simply incompatible with reducing GHG. If nuclear goes away then that creates a huge GHG hole over the next 2 decades. Even with Wind Lobby optimistic growth rate it would simply "fill the nuclear hole". All those thousands of MW of wind would simply replace nuclear energy. Low carbon replacing low carbon. Thirty years from now we would go from 20% nuclear and 2% wind to 2% nuclear and 20% wind. Trading one low carbon source for another one does nothing to reduce net greenhouse gases.

Obama understands this and that is why he is a reluctant (realistic) supporter for nuclear energy.

Your claim boils down to:

There isn't policy support for increasing wind generating capacity at a level sufficient to address AGW in a timely manner.

Therefore we should build more nuclear plants.

Even if we rely on market forces nuclear is in far worse shape than wind - it simply will not be built without massive federal support. Considering nuclear power is far more expensive, far dirtier, far slower to build, and far, far, far less accepted by the public, that is an incredibly brainless bit of reasoning typical of what we've come to expect from the nuclear sales force. Less selfishly motivated people might conclude that the better solution is to work harder for the federal renewable energy mandate that BoA doesn't see happening.

Of course, the pronuclear folks would much rather cheer for anything that will slow down renewable deployment because every watt of renewables is one watt that will not be served by nuclear. Therefore we won't look for their support of a renewable energy mandate.

You seem to think the world is a single unified totalitarian state.

Where by mandate one can:
* force adoption of renewable energy at growth rates nobody is predicting.
* force constructions of production facilities that no corporation would risk building.
* build a massive distributed grid overnight (something always eluded to but costs $0 in your 100% renewable energy scam).
* by mandate crush, seize, or destroy any enterprise which may compete with scarce resources necessary for such a massive rollout.
* outlaw use of fossil fuels and force acceptance by global population in a rapid period of time.

Cheerleading is fun but most of us live in the real world. All the wind & solar (and nuclear) production companies are private entities. Utilities have hundreds of billions of dollars invested in existing centralized distribution.

The idea that can all be cast aside the global system (built over decades) and rapidly with minimal cost replace it with a system perfectly aligned to variable distributed resources has no basis in reality.

One example: Say at site X there is a 2000 MW coal plant and that plant is taken offline. Guess what is already there? That's right powerlines capable of handling 2000 MW of peak power. There may be no wind resources in that location capable of delivering 2000 MW. However a 2000 MW nuclear reactor (or natural gas CCS plant) could be built and connected to that existing electrical infrastructure.

When you are God-Emperor of the known world maybe you pie-in-the-sky fantasies will mean something.
Until then any attempt to decarbonize the world will deal with the reality of existing entities and infrastructure.

Your belief that it can all be cast aside easily and brand new system dropped in place in a matter of years is downright foolish.

This is why people who actually have to make hard decisions (and not play blog-warrior) will compromise and push all forms of low carbon energy.

You claim nuclear is preferable, so prove it.

Prove that nuclear is faster, cheaper, less environmentally harmful than renewables.

The entire world believes that renewables are faster, cheaper, less harmful and more popular than nuclear.

In the face of that make the Republican case for nuclear power. Show how, when the existing plants wear out, it will be cheaper, faster, less harmful and more popular to replace them with more nuclear than with renewables.

PROVE IT.

Wind companies are private enterprises. Their production capacity is limited. They won't expand production capacity until demand exceeds current production capacity. You can't FORCE them to grow faster. Are you going to nationalize them, seize them by eminent domain and make them the property of the govt? If not then they will grow at the pace they believes maximizes shareholder value and minimizes risk.

That is why NOBODY (except you and your studies by people not in the position to do anything) are predicting wind will have enough capacity to even replace nuclear (much less all fossil fuels) in next 20 years. It simply will not happen.

Who pays for this massive distributed electrical grid? Who pays for the thousands of miles of high voltage lines to bring wind power from Midwest to population centers on the coasts? It is a necessity of your 100% renewable grid but never included in the cost of renewable energy. Kinda convenient.

Obama supports nuclear power, Congress supports nuclear power, the majority of Americans support nuclear power. The reality is outside your cheerleading fantasy world where you rule by absolute mandate the real world is a little more complex. Replacing the entire existing power infrastructure to one that accommodates vastly distributed and variable renewable energy isn't going to happen.

The system may be modified, some existing infrastructure will be built, the grid will get more distributed and smarter how it will be centralized for decades. Wind & Solar will continue to grow but nowhere near you fantasy predictions of 100% renewable in two decades not even close. So IF in 5 years, 10 years, 20 years the grid is NOT 100% renewable energy which is better renewable + nuclear or renewable + fossil fuels?

Don't both answering I know you don't give a crap about the planet.

Faced with the fact that your assertion is ridiculous on its face and cannot be supported, you continue with your brazenly false assertions.

First let's deal with your standard falsehood - "wind" isn't "renewables". It is one technology in a portfolio of non-fossil, no-nuclear energy sources.

The issue is government policy. If the policy promotes renewables, then private companies will build renewables. If government policy promotes nuclear power, then nuclear power will be built.

You are saying that a lack of policy support for very popular and effective renewables means that there is more policy support for dirty, unpopular and expensive nuclear.

It is a dumb argument.

The pace of building for renewables would be FAR, FAR, faster with renewables than with nuclear and FAR, FAR less costly.

The public strongly supports renewables at a level of 70+%.
The public strongly supports nuclear at a level of 28%.

Any largescale buildout of nuclear power ALSO requires significant upgrades to and expansion of transmission capacity. That isn't calculated into the cost for nuclear either.

You cannot justify building new nuclear power with the argument that it is better than renewables because it isn't.

Not true. If the goal is to expand peak power substantially then yes it will however if the goal is to replace existing fossil fuel plants with nuclear it will not. To the grid there is no difference between a 2 GW coal plant sitting on 10 acres of land and connected by HVDC and a 2 GW nuclear plant sitting on 10 acres of and connected by HVDC.

The govt IS promotion renewable energy. There is a massive (and completely unsustainable) $20+ per MWh credit. That is 30% to 40% of wholesale power rate in this country. It would be like the govt giving GM a $10,000 per car subsidy and then saying the govt isn't promoting car ownership. If anything that subsidy and support will have to decline as capacity increases (Germany cut subidies on solar by 38% for 2010).

Even with this massive support and subsidies corporations will not risk being the one with too much capacity for the market to handle. Wind will grow however it won't be at the pace you predict. The WIND LOBBY optimistic projections is 20% of global capacity in 2030. The "moderate" (realistic) projection is about 12%. The US govt projection is only 8%.

As far as other renewable. Solar is about 4-5 years from even getting to 1% of global electricity. That is even with 50% annually growth without slowing. So solar will grow but it won't even reach parity with wind for a decade. Solar is today where wind was in 2000. It roughly takes 100 GW of solar to equal just 1% of annual consumption (capacity installs in 2009 were 7.3 GW, max production is 9.4GW). Once again even the solar industry isn't projecting the kind of growth you are imagining.

Nobody is saying we shouldn't support wind, solar, and other renewable energies however it doesn't take a rocket scientists to look at the growth trend and see relying on them only will take 50 years just to get to 50% of global capacity.

Your projections are so far out of left field they are laughable:
The analogy would be Tiger woods says he will shoot 270 in the Masters.
All the Golf experts having an opinions in the ballpark of 260 to 280.
Then kris comes along with a cheerleader fantasy like he will shoot a 9.
Only to get mad when people point out that is impossible in Golf :rofl:

You can repeat the same foolishness as many times as you want, it doesn't change the facts- renewbles are cheaper, cleaner, faster to rollout and more popular than nuclear.

We're still waiting for you to prove differently.

40% subsidy! $23 per MWh!

I mean how do you improve that? 70% subsidy? 100% subsidy? 1000% subsidy.

Still even IF wind/solar got more subsidies capacity will always be constained. It may be higher than it is now but nobody is going to go from 10GW of production capacity to 500 GW of production capacity overnight. The risk would be enourmous, evenough to bankrupt a company is something changed. There will always be political risk (policy changes), economic risk (lower coal prices, reduced subsidies), technological risk (lower priced competitors) as such companies will cautiously grow capacity at a rate that will ensure they recoup investments.

Two policies that would be great though would be a national renewable portfolio standard and a nationally mandated Feed In Tariff for solar.

Unless you think it should be at national wholesale power rate ~= 6 cents per kWh. Any feed in tarriff higher than wholesale market avoided cost is by definition a tariff.

Just stop the dead end payouts to the nuclear industry and reassign them to a solar F.I.T.

We've been subsidizing nuclear very, very heavily for 50 years and they STILL can't stand alone. If after receiving 96% of all non-fossil energy subsidies during that period they can't stand on their own, they will NEVER be able to stand on their own.

Wind and solar have both returned steady and substantial cost reduction in return for the subsidy scraps they've managed to get after the Republican nuclear hog has been at the trough. Wind is now competitive with new coal, and solar is competitive with natural gas for peaking power. Continued support for those and other renewable technologies is in the public interest. Continued subsidies for nuclear is only in the interest of Bechtel and Halliburton.

You say no more subsidies but at same time say "Reassign them to a solar feed in tariff". That would be a subsidy and a very poor one at what. Germany, Italy, Spain have drastically cut their feed in tariffs. To produce any meaningful amount of power via high priced tariffs is punitively expensive.

Wind & Solar ALREADY have the highest subsidy per MWh that any form of power EVER has and you want MORE subsidies but it isn't a subsidy. :rofl:

Nuclear should be able to stand on its own after 50 years of getting 96% of all subsidies.

WHY CAN'T IT? Can you explain that? Why, after 50 years of getting 96% of all the noncarbon subsidies, is nuclear still unable to even build ONE commercial reactor without massive government support?

It is time to give that money to more effective solutions so that we can END subsidies completely.

Germany is lowering it's FIT, not eliminating it. They are lowering it because the policy worked to reduce the price of solar. New installations are far less expensive than when the policy was implemented, so they are able to reduce the subsidy while maintaining the same level of economic incentive that was originally their target.

Current subsidies for wind/solar 2.3 cents per kWh.

0.1 cents vs 2.3 cents and you want to "shift" more subsidies to solar?

Nuclear currently gets more than 2/3s of the subsidies that are identified as "subsidies" and ethanol gets the lions share of the rest. So yes, I want to shift that 2/3s of current subsidies from nuclear to renewables.

And let's not forget that is just the subsidies that are identified as "subsidies". We should ALSO shift all the money being tied up in nuclear for loan guarantees, insurance against major accidents, and insurance against regulatory delays to renewables.

THEN we can start working on those rate increases that are used to pay for building nuclear plants. You know the ones I'm talking about, the "construction work in progress" charges that go into effect 5 to 10 years before any power is EVER generated by nuclear plants. We should END that policy - period.