It shouldn't be that surprising as wind and solar recieve 10x and 40x more subsidies per unit energy generated vs nuclear. Hydro is even lower.
https://files.texaspolicy.com/uploads/2020/04/23135621/Benne...
https://files.texaspolicy.com/uploads/2020/04/23135621/Benne...
Renewables are fusion at a distance. No waste storage (solar panels can be recycled, wind turbine composites are feedstock for cement kilns or insulation pellets), no expensive or dangerous failure modes (caveat being a turbine failure on a wind turbine, which is usually remote and the damage is minimal), just cheap, clean power you can install almost anywhere. No need to throw shade on what’s going to mitigate climate change.
No offense to Texas (regarding your “Texas Public Policy Institute” citation), but they are actively fighting utility scale battery storage by Tesla because it’s going to further damage natural gas generator profits (already ailing from enormous wind output in the state, with ERCOT having no substantial interconnectors to other regional grids). A whole lot if entrenched interests who aren’t going to go quietly into the night.
Deaths per TWH for solar and wind have proven much higher than nuclear and that's before including their dependence on natural gas which is higher still.
Utility scale batteries are so far still for peak shaving which is wonderful because the simple cycle plants they displace are super efficient, but won't be replacing combined cycle in our lifetimes. IIRC the issue in texas was due the the way they've separated generation vs distribution responsibilities for their market model but it's been a while since I've taken a close look.
This might have mattered a decade or two ago, but that time has passed. Solar and wind have enormous momentum behind them, and they will only continue to scale up faster. [1] [2]
> Deaths per TWH for solar and wind have proven much higher than nuclear and that's before including their dependence on natural gas which is higher still.
Modern renewables are roughly as safe as nuclear [3].
> Utility scale batteries are so far still for peak shaving which is wonderful because the simple cycle plants they displace are super efficient, but won't be replacing combined cycle in our lifetimes.
Enormous amounts of battery manufacturing capacity is coming online for EV production [4]. Elon said on Tesla's last earnings call that demand for batteries for utility scale storage is tremendous and they can't keep up with demand [5]. I'll take the other side of that bet: overbuilt renewables, hydro, HVDC transmission across long distances, and battery storage will be enough to deprecate natural gas from the grid. South Australia's grid operator is already nervously preparing for distributed renewables generating so much power, there will be times where there is no net demand on the grid ("But it’s the latest “first” that is putting the wind up the state government and the market operator: Within one to three years, they say, South Australia could become the first gigawatt scale grid in the world where the growing amount of rooftop solar effectively eliminates grid demand."). [6]
[1] https://ourworldindata.org/renewable-energy
[2] https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2019/6/18/1868159...
[3] https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy#modern-r...
[4] https://cleantechnica.com/2019/04/14/global-lithium-ion-batt...
[5] https://www.utilitydive.com/news/tremendous-demand-for-stati...
[6] https://reneweconomy.com.au/south-australia-the-first-big-gr...
HVDC grids are also great but IMO less often considered are the risks of relying on continental grids so much such as the increased susceptibility to brittle failure at a system level and vulnerability as a soft target to economic terrorism/hybrid war.
Again, blindly extrapolating from immediate is not helpful. The same logic caused half of HN to claim that datacenters wouldn't use HDD/Tape anymore because SSDs would be so much cheaper than everything else because moore's. And that's before considering Elon's egregious track record and obvious conflict of interest.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23580707
https://gspp.berkeley.edu/news/news-center/the-us-can-reach-...
> The United States can deliver 90 percent clean, carbon-free electricity nationwide by 2035, dependably, at no extra cost to consumer bills and without the need for new fossil fuel plants, according to a study released today from the Center for Environmental Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley. The study also finds that without robust policy reforms, most of the potential to reduce emissions and increase jobs would not be realized. 2035 Report: Plummeting Solar, Wind, and Battery Costs Can Accelerate Our Clean Energy Future is the first study of its kind to show how recent cost declines for solar, wind, and battery storage allow the U.S. to dramatically reduce generation and emissions from existing fossil power plants, while retiring coal and reducing gas generation by 70 percent.
I love that line. What a wonderful way to put it.
It's perhaps a meme in the renewables industry? It needs to spread far and wide.