I do hope that I do not really have to address this issue anymore. Numerous studies have already confirmed that even with the existing energy mix in the US grid a few years ago Electric Cars were much cleaner than ICE ones on the full life cycle. From lithium battery making including the production of lithium to the electricity to charge this battery. Now they are getting even cleaner with the energy mix of the US grid taken over by the renewables.
What is very important to note today is that renewable energy is breaking records every single month this year even in the US. Energy Storage with lithium batteries will be next to grow exponentially and will consume even more lithium batteries capacity and lithium than EVs. Fossil Fuels are consumable resources and renewables are technology. The functions for the progress of development for Solar Power and Lithium Batteries are not the same as the famous Moore's, but still very impressive with prices going down dramatically over the period of time with mass volume production. Particularly in the case with Solar Power, we are getting into the stage when the dramatic decrease in cost have made Solar the cheapest source of energy ever already. Cheap lithium batteries change everything and now we can store electricity, the most efficient form of energy known to us, and use it when we want it.
Report 2015.
How Electric Cars Beat Gasoline Cars on Lifetime Global Warming Emissions
The Energy Collective.
Energy rEVolution: McKinsey&Company - The New Economics Of Lithium Batteries And Energy Storage.
"It is time to study the "The new economics of energy storage" from McKinsey&Company - they will be pitching it now to their clients. A small note to the authours: Elon Musk has already announced that lithium battery packs at Tesla produced now at $190 per kWh. And mass production of lithium batteries at Tesla Gigafactory will bring this cost down to $100 per kWh by 2020. Energy storage is the missing link between renewables and the old grid, it will consume even more lithium batteries than exponentially growing electric cars.
In places like China, India and Africa trillions of dollars will be saved on infrastructure going with smart grids empowered by Solar and energy storage. There is no need for the fixed telephone lines if you have mobile networks. The same is happening with Energy Generation and Utilities right now. In this case, we are talking about the disruption of $8 trillion dollars Energy industry compare to $4 trillion dollars of transportation. Below you can find links to the report and more information on this fast-growing energy sector. Welcome to the Energy rEVolution: now we can store energy and use it when we want it!
If you think that there is too much hype about Energy Storage now, the anecdote from Tony Seba will be timely: In the mid-1980s AT&T hired McKinsey&Company to forecast cell phone adoption by the year 2000. They have estimated 900,000 cell phones and were off ... by a factor of 120X grossly underestimating the growth in the market and adoption of that new disruptive technology. There were 109 million cell phones by 2000.
"Battery technology, particularly in the form of lithium ion, is getting the most attention and has progressed the furthest. Lithium-ion technologies accounted for more than 95 percent of new energy-storage deployments in 2015.5They are also widely used in consumer electronics and have shown promise in automotive applications, such as plug-in hybrids and electric vehicles. Prices for lithium-ion batteries have been falling and safety has improved; moreover, they can work both in applications that require a lot of energy for a short period (known as power applications) and those requiring lower amounts of energy for longer periods (energy applications). Collectively, these characteristics make lithium-ion batteries suitable for stationary energy storage across the grid, from large utility-scale installations to transmission-and-distribution infrastructure, as well as to individual commercial, industrial, and residential systems.Our model confirms the centrality of lithium-ion batteries to utility-scale energy storage, but with two important caveats. First, it is critical to match the performance characteristics of different types of lithium-ion batteries to the application. For example, we looked at two major lithium-ion-battery providers that were competing to serve a specific industrial application. The model found that one company’s products were more economic than the other’s in 86 percent of the sites because of the product’s ability to charge and discharge more quickly, with an average increased profitability of almost $25 per kilowatt-hour of energy storage installed per year. McKinsey&Company." Read more.
The Energy Collective:
Electricity generation from wind, solar, and other renewable energy technologies have set monthly records every month so far in 2016, based on data through June released by the U.S.Energy Information Administration yesterday.
“Both hydroelectric and nonhydroelectric renewables have contributed to this trend, but in different ways. After a lengthy West Coast drought, hydro generation has increased and is now closer to historical levels. Nonhydro renewable generation continues to increase year-over-year and has exceeded hydro generation in each month since February 2016,” the EIAsaid in a statement.
According to EIA’s data, net U.S. electricity generation from non-hydroelectric, utility-scale renewables (biomass, geothermal, solar, and wind) through June 2016 was 17 percent higher than in the first half of 2015. Electricity generation from conventional hydropower also rose, by nearly 12 percent. Combined, production from all utility-scale renewable sources was up 14.5 percent compared to the same period in 2015.
Not only has electricity generated by renewables exceeded previous levels in every month so far in 2016 — in other words, more renewable energy was produced in January 2016 than any other January on record, more renewable energy was produced in February 2016 than any other February, and so on — but renewable utility-scale electricity generation hit an all-time high of 16.55 percent of total domestic generation.
Those weren’t the only records broken, either. Utility-scale wind rose 23.5 percent in the first half of 2016, setting a new six-month record of 5.96 percent of total generation.
Meanwhile, generation from utility-scale solar thermal and photovoltaics grew by 30.3 percent and accounted for 0.87 percent of total utility-scale electrical output. The EIA also estimates that distributed solar photovoltaics, or rooftop solar systems, expanded by 34.3 percent. Combined, utility-scale and distributed solar comprised 1.26 percent of total generation. A year ago, solar was responsible for just 0.94 percent of electricity generation.
Together, wind and solar grew by nearly 25 percent over the first half of 2015 and now provide almost as much electricity as conventional hydropower. Biomass and geothermal were the only renewable sources tracked by the EIA that have experienced declines so far in 2016.
Of course, renewables aren’t the only record-breakers out there. July 2016 was the 15th record-breaking month in a row in terms of global temperatures, data from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) showed. And Gavin Schmidt, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, reported that July 2016 was also “absolutely the hottest month since the instrumental records began.”
Electricity generated from coal plummeted by more than 20 percent and nuclear power stagnated, growing just one percent, per the EIA data. Generation fueled by natural gas, on the other hand, was up by 7.7 percent.
Still, Ken Bossong, executive director of the SUN DAY Campaign, noted that renewable energy has continued to defy projections.
“Renewable energy’s share of net electrical generation for the balance of 2016 may dip a little because electrical output from wind and hydropower sources tends to be highest during the first six months of each year,” Bossong said in a statement. “Nonetheless, the data thus far is swamping EIA‘s earlier forecast of just 9.5% growth by renewables in 2016.”
Image Credit: Nellis Solar Power Plant located within Nellis Air Force Base, northeast of Las Vegas, Nevada, United States. The power plant occupies 140 acres, contains about 70,000 solar panels and generates 14 megawatts of solar power for the base. Photo via Wikimedia Commons.
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