Solar and Wind Will Not "Save" the Climate

[Sukumar Ray + 52]

11 hours ago, markslawson said:

Sukumar - oh wow! I may quote you elsewhere as I guy who is truly lost in conspiracy theories. But I am sort-of interested on one point, you do know the cold war is over right? Except for the Korean stand-off all the conflicts you cite are pre-1990, but even the Korean thing is now technically not left-right, but hereditary totalitarian state versus every other state. Otherwise Sukumar I'll return to my penury unsupported by any of these shadowy interests you speak off and leave you to you delusions. Careful of what's under the bed now!

Mark- History of earth as 24 hour clock does not move so fast . There are universal laws that does not evolve. So the left right will remain ever -names and explanations may evolve .It is in human genetic make up. What is perceived as totalitarian is basically falls in the left spectrum. Boundaries of the world are not permanent. Just look back world map prior to  WWII (1939-1945) and compare with 2019. New countries , new boundaries are evolving every 10 years basically based on the basic universal laws. Just do a simple trick -try to do similar things with your left and right hand -things will mess up. Left & right brain in a single human not equally active-but that does not mean they do not coexist and they are mutually exclusive -but fools keep playing chicken games !

[Bobby P + 88]

On 2/3/2019 at 7:32 PM, Tom Kirkman said:

Presented without my usual comments, for your consideration.  Excellent article:

We Don't Need Solar And Wind To Save The Climate -- And It's A Good Thing, Too

For 30 years, experts have claimed that humankind needs to switch to solar and wind energy to address climate change. But do we really?

Consider the fact that, while no nation has created a near-zero carbon electricity supply out of solar and wind, the only successful efforts to create near-zero carbon electricity supplies didn’t require solar or wind whatsoever.

As such solar and wind aren’t just insufficient, they are also unnecessary for solving climate change. ...

 

Did anyone actually believe that Solar and Wind would "save" the Earth!?? The Earth can save itself.

[footeab@yahoo.com + 2,132]

11 hours ago, Red said:

Would be good if it bore some semblance to reality.

Your links on climate matters are inept, and your opinions do not bear any resemblance to what is understood from climate science: your scepticism is sheer ignorance as is continuously demonstrated in various threads here.

https://twitter.com/PeterZeihan/status/1092472578218823680   That is your Solar map in reality.  Not make believe. 

Wind reality: https://globalwindatlas.info/area/United%20States%20of%20America  Make sure you turn on the surface roughness overlay and set hub height at either 50m or 100m and frankly the 100m hub height is a joke though we are moving in that direction.  200m is an absolute joke. 

Combined reality: https://twitter.com/PeterZeihan/status/1083747115753451521 https://twitter.com/PeterZeihan/status/1083747115753451521

Now you still have to have energy storage and a massive amount of it.  Last I checked, that would require trillions upon trillions upon trillions to build and here we are assuming pumped hydro storage would work.... Well not many places on earth can do pumped hydro storage...  People live where it is FLAT generally...  Unless you propose daming up every single valley on the planet...  Why?  Because the wind does not blow for upwards of a month at a time.  Sun does not shine for months at a time up north.  This is NOT able to be addressed via batteries. 

[NickW + 2,714]

4 hours ago, Wastral said:

https://twitter.com/PeterZeihan/status/1092472578218823680 That is your Solar map in reality.  Not make believe. 

Wind reality: https://globalwindatlas.info/area/United States of America Make sure you turn on the surface roughness overlay and set hub height at either 50m or 100m and frankly the 100m hub height is a joke though we are moving in that direction.  200m is an absolute joke. 

Combined reality: https://twitter.com/PeterZeihan/status/1083747115753451521 https://twitter.com/PeterZeihan/status/1083747115753451521

Now you still have to have energy storage and a massive amount of it.  Last I checked, that would require trillions upon trillions upon trillions to build and here we are assuming pumped hydro storage would work.... Well not many places on earth can do pumped hydro storage...  People live where it is FLAT generally...  Unless you propose daming up every single valley on the planet...  Why?  Because the wind does not blow for upwards of a month at a time.  Sun does not shine for months at a time up north.  This is NOT able to be addressed via batteries. 

Comedy statements of the week

Wind doesn't blow for upwards of a month at a time 

Sun does not shine for months at a time up north 

I looked at the weather maps for the mid west polar vortex and saw there was plenty of wind and sunny periods.  

http://windmapper.com/MW/forecast

I have said in another thread that for cold northern climates running a BAU economy, in the absence of using fossil fuels will likely need nuclear or large amounts of hydro to provide baseload. However, Hydro / pump storage does not need to be in the location of the population bases. HVDC allows for economical transmission. Other utility scale options for storing electricity are looking to be a viable option. One is using electric trains with regenerative breaking  loaded with something very heavy and cheap like Iron ore. With these systems you can use hills and mountains that wouldn't necessasily lend themselves to pump storage or hydro applications. 

Also you overlook other renewable options that offer huge potential to provide dispatchable power on demand - notable examples are biogas, waste to energy and biomass. 

Edited February 6, 2019 by NickW

[Red + 252]

3 hours ago, Wastral said:

https://twitter.com/PeterZeihan/status/1092472578218823680 That is your Solar map in reality.  Not make believe. 

Wind reality: https://globalwindatlas.info/area/United States of America Make sure you turn on the surface roughness overlay and set hub height at either 50m or 100m and frankly the 100m hub height is a joke though we are moving in that direction.  200m is an absolute joke. 

Combined reality: https://twitter.com/PeterZeihan/status/1083747115753451521 https://twitter.com/PeterZeihan/status/1083747115753451521

Now you still have to have energy storage and a massive amount of it.  Last I checked, that would require trillions upon trillions upon trillions to build and here we are assuming pumped hydro storage would work.... Well not many places on earth can do pumped hydro storage...  People live where it is FLAT generally...  Unless you propose daming up every single valley on the planet...  Why?  Because the wind does not blow for upwards of a month at a time.  Sun does not shine for months at a time up north.  This is NOT able to be addressed via batteries. 

Realities are found by looking at energy generation charts for nations, over time.  The consistent theme is the rapid build of new capacity via renewables.  Although renewables are coming off a low base, their rates of adoption typically far exceed commitments to coal-fired power plants, eg in China where almost 40% of total additional capacity was through renewable energy in 2018.

I'm not exactly sure what you are getting at, but going 100% renewable in some countries will be very easy when storage capacity prices come down.  Studies in Australia show 100% renewables by 2030 would be possible if price were not a major impediment, while 2040 would be a sensible target as cost curves for renewables and storage maintain their rates of decline.

You seem oblivious to some vital facts about energy:

• First, energy distribution grids can transfer electricity across thousands of kilometers, and these would be optimised to mitigate intermittency issues into the future 
• While FF capacity costs are increasing, renewables are continuing to get cheaper as technology improves and scale increases
• Renewable energy become a natural and cost effective solution to FF capacity installations - the evidence is available in LCOE data.  As a result, the trillions of dollars you are talking about for transition are, in net dollar term, going to be less for renewables (with storage) than otherwise needed to install the same FF capacity, in out years 
• While FF generation has made marginal cost/efficiency gains over recent decades, renewables are still advancing their technologies: we have not yet mastered solid state batteries, while flow batteries are still being optimised
• Storage solutions via pumped hydro are not as difficult as you make out.  See my link in this post and realise that Australia is the flattest of the populated continents.

 

[Cowpoke + 70]

On ‎2‎/‎5‎/‎2019 at 3:37 PM, NickW said:

Fair cop - typo - I meant 500 miles. 

Actually I think you meant 530...

[ronwagn + 6,290]

11 hours ago, Bobby P said:

Did anyone actually believe that Solar and Wind would "save" the Earth!?? The Earth can save itself.

True, natural gas can do it without them but they are fine as long as they are not too expensive and do not destroy natural beauty in prime areas. 

[Jason Ericsson + 13]

On 2/4/2019 at 10:51 AM, Tom Kirkman said:

Bonus article from the wags at ZeroHedge:

Winter Is Wreaking Havoc On Electric Vehicles

If there’s one thing electric vehicle owners are learning, it is that extremely cold temperatures are likely going to lead to frustration if they don’t take extra special care of their battery powered vehicles. Look at it as just another added benefit to "saving the world".

As we push through the cold that automakers are using as an excuse for poor sales this winter, customers of some companies – notably Tesla – are starting to realize that things are a little bit different with electric vehicles in the winter. Disgruntled owners of Model 3s have been widespread on social media and online forums, talking about numerous issues they’ve had with cold weather on their vehicles. People have complained about battery range draining and Model 3 door handles freezing up. ...

These problems apply to all vehicles not just Tesla's. Efficiency of engines in the cold are affected and door handles freeze up etc. Why does it become such an issue if it's a Tesla?

[Boat + 1,315]

Republicans know the majority of wind production in the US comes from red states.

Thats why Trump couldn’t kill subsidies to renewables and support coal like he promised.

Smoke and mirrors works. Buffet runs oil trains and the Koch Brothers probably do transmission lines. 

[David Jones + 84]

More importantly, denial of a serious global issue will not save anything. What is also certain is that natural gas will not save the climate, it is just a transition source if that. The amount of CO2 from heating with natural gas for instance vs heating oil is accounted for as 2.58t/t vs 3.16t/t in my region. So really, the vaunted "climate friendly" fossil fuel is almost non existent and all it provides is a reduction that will flatten out and possibly already has based on the relaxation of regulations. A more precise comparison in terms of kWh gives about 0.3kg CO2 per kWh for heating oil and 0.23kg CO2 per kWh for natural gas. This difference, in terms of reducing CO2 related climate damages in a meaningful way is negligible. All you get is about 25% reduction.

In comparison, wind is rated at about 0.026kg per kWh in my region. Combining this with a heat pump which has a complete system efficiency of 3.5x means you generate 0.026kg/3.5 = ~0.0074kg per kWh of heating energy which is almost 40x lower than natural gas and more than 40x lower than heating oil. Even if wind was only providing energy 50% of the time during the year or less, you would end up with orders of magnitude lower CO2 emissions. So intermittent or not, wind is capable of reducing emissions substantially in this use case.

Natural gas on the other hand is not a solution unless you plan on extracting this CO2 with carbon capture which is so expensive that you may as well purchase renewables + batteries right now. Even if you extract the CO2 with carbon capture, you'll have to transport it and sequester it (or use it for materials which is probably the best option). Transporting this can lead to leaks and sequestering might fail in the future depending on unforeseen factors in the natural system, releasing major amounts of stored CO2. Fossil fuels, the cause of anthropogenic climate change (only disputed by affected industries and lazy thinkers), are not the solution to anthropogenic climate change.

Solar and Wind, while not perfect, are our best options so far. They are the furthest in development and potential complete solutions are likely within 10-20 years. No other technologies offer such short term potential form what I've seen. You certainly cant cover the world with nuclear reactors, you can't expect fusion to be ready in 10-20 years time (more like 50 years) and you can't "fix" inherent/intrinsic issues in fossil fuels.

Edited February 7, 2019 by David Jones

[David Jones + 84]

I just rechecked the values, looks like I was wrong on the numbers (used the photovoltaic value instead of the wind value), the reduction is even more extreme for wind. Here are the values for electricity generation:

Lignite: 1.396kg per kWh

Hard Coal: 1.274kg per kWh

Gas: 0.48kg per kWh

Nuclear: 0.026kg per kWh

Photovoltaic: 0.096kg per kWh

Wind: 0.026kg per kWh

Only nuclear is comparable to wind in terms of CO2 emissions while wind does not generate nuclear waste. In all cases, renewables are multiple times better at reducing CO2 than any fossil fuel. Wind is orders of magnitude better.

So yes, in the short term the most effective option is to replace coal with natural gas for the periods where solar and wind cannot provide any electricity while at the same time ramping up renewables as high as possible, but in the long run you do not want to have natural gas in your system.

Also, notice how there isn't actually a massive difference between hard coal and lignite. Both are about as bad.

Edited February 7, 2019 by David Jones

[David Jones + 84]

So will renewables save the climate from a rampant destabilization due to our fossil fuel use? If any technology out there can, they can.

[NickW + 2,714]

7 hours ago, ronwagn said:

True, natural gas can do it without them but they are fine as long as they are not too expensive and do not destroy natural beauty in prime areas. 

Good job gas, especially fracked gas has such a low environmental impact in the areas it is exploited.....

 

 

[NickW + 2,714]

If a Countries wind resources are spread out wide enough and it starts to utilise offshore in meaningful quantities then increasingly the appearance of wind power is more like that of baseload, especially in winter. Furthermore demand for electricity tends to go up hand in hand with wind speed due to wind chill factors.

The screenshot below is from the UK Grid last 48 hours.

 

[David Jones + 84]

There's also another issue with natural gas as a mitigating energy source for tackling anthropogenic climate change.

With renewables, batteries and other alternatives improving their cost profiles as well as their capabilities, the need for such baseload will be reduced. As mentioned, natural gas is at best a transition fuel and this transition would be about 10-20 years in duration, at most 30 years. That means that the creation of a major natural gas industry in order to tackle this relatively short period of time will result in a large workforce becoming obsolete before the end of their natural career life.

This is a serious socio-political issue in the making today much as coal has become due to a lack of controlled multi decade structured unwinding of this industry. It would be best to avoid this by focusing on industries that have a long term future instead while gradually ramping down fossil fuel related activity in order to reduce the shock factor this change could have in a few decades.

It may have been acceptable to just leave all this to nature during the last century but this century will experience rapid changes both technological and environmental. I doubt that we have the option to just let things come as they will and plan mainly quarter to quarter based solely on profit any longer, that sort of attitude will likely result in major unrest and destabilization across the board in just a few decades time.

[NickW + 2,714]

57 minutes ago, David Jones said:

There's also another issue with natural gas as a mitigating energy source for tackling anthropogenic climate change.

With renewables, batteries and other alternatives improving their cost profiles as well as their capabilities, the need for such baseload will be reduced. As mentioned, natural gas is at best a transition fuel and this transition would be about 10-20 years in duration, at most 30 years. That means that the creation of a major natural gas industry in order to tackle this relatively short period of time will result in a large workforce becoming obsolete before the end of their natural career life.

This is a serious socio-political issue in the making today much as coal has become due to a lack of controlled multi decade structured unwinding of this industry. It would be best to avoid this by focusing on industries that have a long term future instead while gradually ramping down fossil fuel related activity in order to reduce the shock factor this change could have in a few decades.

It may have been acceptable to just leave all this to nature during the last century but this century will experience rapid changes both technological and environmental. I doubt that we have the option to just let things come as they will and plan mainly quarter to quarter based solely on profit any longer, that sort of attitude will likely result in major unrest and destabilization across the board in just a few decades time.

Offshore Wind is the natural new home of offshore oil and gas workers. The skills sets are quite transferrable in many cases.

[BuddaonTiger + 12]

On ‎2‎/‎3‎/‎2019 at 8:59 PM, Red said:

The linked article is a crock of cobblers.

It says:

"Sunlight and wind are inherently unreliable and energy-dilute. As such, adding solar panels and wind turbines to the grid in large quantities increases the cost of generating electricity, locks in fossil fuels, and increases the environmental footprint of energy production."

Whereas the facts are:

• Weather patterns are very predictable, so the unreliability claim is a nonsense.
• The "energy-dilute" nature of wind and solar is accounted for in capacity ratings - it's a meaningless sense in the context of electricity generating markets.
• "Adding solar panels and wind turbines to the grid in large quantities" does not increase the cost of generating electricity.  He clearly has no idea of the concept of LCOE.  Adding any new capacity to the grid will increase the cost of the distribution network.
• Grid-scale wind and solar are cheaper without incentives than coal, and depending on circumstances match or better CCGTs.
• The claim that fossil fuels are locked in is total rubbish.  Look at every nation's chart where wind and solar are now critical additions and the incontrovertible fact is that fossil fuels are a diminishing proportion of total energy.
• Finally, the wonderful red herring of Germany is always tossed in by the ignoranti.  If the idiot writer knew what he was talking about then the price of electricity in Germany should be increasing markedly.  Instead, over the past 4 years it is unchanged despite a massive increase in renewables capacity.  In fact Europe as a whole has seen relatively stable electricity costs since 2010, clearly showing the writer's ineptitude.

Tom is right in that it is an excellent article, but only in relation to getting almost every pertinent fact wrong.

What you've been told is wrong.  The only reason this so-called "green" energy looks to be viable is due to the massive amounts of subsidies the "industry" receives.  The physics is against it as well.  The absolute nasty pollution it takes to produce the exotic metals to harness the energy is an enviromental disaster.  If solar/wind were so profitable, then the majors would have already built these plants. 

[BuddaonTiger + 12]

If one wants a great book to bolster one's argument for oil, then read the book,"A Moral Case For Fossil Fuels" by Alex Epstein. 

[David Jones + 84]

9 minutes ago, NickW said:

Offshore Wind is the natural new home of offshore oil and gas workers. The skills sets are quite transferrable in many cases.

If this is the case then that at least that would be some good news. Still, this should be managed in a way to effectively reduce CO2 and maintain employment where nobody is stuck in the fossil fuel industry. Maybe by having a requirement of at least some level of split work setup with jobs in both sectors if the sectors are sufficiently interchangeable? Not sure if this could be done efficiently but it would allow for a gradual shift of focus over time without having to do any substantial retraining later. The industry should focus on structuring this transition properly for their workforce sooner rather than later.

[David Jones + 84]

3 minutes ago, BuddaonTiger said:

If one wants a great book to bolster one's argument for oil, then read the book,"A Moral Case For Fossil Fuels" by Alex Epstein. 

Alex Epstein is a fossil fuel industry lobbyist. I wouldn't trust him further than I can throw him. From what I've seen and hear, he makes all the cases that have been circulating since decades. None are very convincing.

[NickW + 2,714]

2 hours ago, BuddaonTiger said:

What you've been told is wrong.  The only reason this so-called "green" energy looks to be viable is due to the massive amounts of subsidies the "industry" receives.  The physics is against it as well.  The absolute nasty pollution it takes to produce the exotic metals to harness the energy is an enviromental disaster.  If solar/wind were so profitable, then the majors would have already built these plants. 

Meanwhile in the real World..........

In many parts of the World onshore wind is now subsidy free or only benefits from very low subsidies. the costs of offshore wind are falling rapidly and heading towards not needing subsidies by the mid to late 20's.

Likewise Solar in the sunnier parts of the World is at grid parity with retails and in many cases wholesale prices. Installation costs continue to fall

The majors are raising investment in renewables. A few examples below:

Royal Dutch Shell

Shell holds 50% of Raízen, a joint venture with Brazilian sugarcane producer Cosan which is the third-largest Brazil-based energy company by revenues and a major producer of ethanol.^[11]

In December 2016, Shell won the auction for the 700 MW Borssele III & IV offshore wind farms at a price of 5.45 c/kWh, beating 6 other consortia.^[109

In November 2017, Shell's CEO Ben van Beurden announced Shell's plan to cut half of its carbon emissions by 2050, and 20 percent by 2035. In this regard, Shell promised to spend $2 billion annually on renewable energy sources. Shell began to develop its wind energy segment in 2001, the company now operates six wind farms in the United States and is part of a plan to build two offshore wind farms in the Netherlands.^[110]

 

BP

Six years after closing down BP Solar, BP announced its return to the solar sector with an investment of $200 million to Lightsource Renewable Energy (Lightsource BP). Differently from BP Solar, Lightsource BP focuses on the managing and maintaining solar farms instead of manufacturing solar panels.^[138] As of 2017, Lightsource has commissioned 1.3 GW of solar capacity and manages about 2 GW of solar capacity. It plans to increase the capacity up to 8 GW through projects in the United States, India, Europe and the Middle East.^[240]

BP has invested $20 million in Israeli quick-charging battery firm StoreDot Ltd.

Statoil

Equinor owns and operates the 30-MW Hywind Scotland floating wind farm 29 kilometres (18 mi) off Peterhead, Scotland.^[45][46][47] Equinor owns 50% stake in the Polish 1,200-MW Bałtyk Środkowy III and Bałtyk Środkowy II offshore wind farms.^[48] It also owns 50% stake in the 385-MW Arkona wind farm offshore Germany.^[58] Equinor operates the Sheringham Shoal Offshore Wind Farm with 40% stake in the project and has 50% stake in 50% each in Creyke Beck A and B and Teesside A wind farms of the Dogger Bank Wind Farm development in the United Kingdom

--------------------------------

The issue of pollution from exploitation of minerals is not unique to renewables. Plenty of equipment made for oil, gas and coal has the same environmental legacy. The answer is to better regulate companies to minimise emissions.

[Red + 252]

6 hours ago, BuddaonTiger said:

What you've been told is wrong.  The only reason this so-called "green" energy looks to be viable is due to the massive amounts of subsidies the "industry" receives.  The physics is against it as well.  The absolute nasty pollution it takes to produce the exotic metals to harness the energy is an enviromental disaster.  If solar/wind were so profitable, then the majors would have already built these plants. 

Get some facts together before you shoot yourself in the foot.

It seems you have no idea of the concept of levelised cost of energy LCOE.

The fact that the majority of new capacity investment is now occurring in renewables is due to the fact it is more profitable.

 

[BuddaonTiger + 12]

9 hours ago, David Jones said:

I just rechecked the values, looks like I was wrong on the numbers (used the photovoltaic value instead of the wind value), the reduction is even more extreme for wind. Here are the values for electricity generation:

Lignite: 1.396kg per kWh

Hard Coal: 1.274kg per kWh

Gas: 0.48kg per kWh

Nuclear: 0.026kg per kWh

Photovoltaic: 0.096kg per kWh

Wind: 0.026kg per kWh

Only nuclear is comparable to wind in terms of CO2 emissions while wind does not generate nuclear waste. In all cases, renewables are multiple times better at reducing CO2 than any fossil fuel. Wind is orders of magnitude better.

So yes, in the short term the most effective option is to replace coal with natural gas for the periods where solar and wind cannot provide any electricity while at the same time ramping up renewables as high as possible, but in the long run you do not want to have natural gas in your system.

Also, notice how there isn't actually a massive difference between hard coal and lignite. Both are about as bad.

CO2 is not a green house gas.  It is the stuff plants breathe.  I want more CO2.  I want bigger and healthier plants, which will produce more oxygen.  I like oxygen. 

[BuddaonTiger + 12]

18 minutes ago, Red said:

Get some facts together before you shoot yourself in the foot.

It seems you have no idea of the concept of levelised cost of energy LCOE.

The fact that the majority of new capacity investment is now occurring in renewables is due to the fact it is more profitable.

 

Boy, all you socialists are the same.  Your argument is so weak you need to attack the character of people instead of their facts.  I call B.S. on your assertion that any new capacity is coming from the private sector.  I know how the govt. works.  It uses companies as fronts and gives them money at the expense of people, who are forced to pay due to taxes.   You are probably being paid by the thieves promoting the inferior power source. 

They built one of these solar plants outside Tonopah, NV.  It is an abomination.  It does not produce enough electricity to power a Christmas Tree.  It cost over 1.2 billion dollars.  It will never recoup the investment, because the life of the solar cells only last about 25 years.  The land it occupies is 3 times larger than a normal power plant.  It has killed thousands of birds as they are incinerated by the mirrors.  The power plant consumes scarce water instead of going to valuable vegetation, wildlife and people. 

I can see the subsidy on my power bill.  There is a tax placed on my bill in order to fund these solar projects.  Also, they charge me more for electricity due to govt. forcing companies to use solar energy.  You may be able to fool people who don't pay attention but your argument falls on deaf ears here.  People pay attention here. 

[jaycee + 348]

On 2/4/2019 at 4:59 AM, Red said:

Weather patterns are very predictable, so the unreliability claim is a nonsense.

Sorry coming to this thread late the comment above made me laugh to be honest.

So you are saying the weather patterns of global warming are 'very predicable'? Wow now that's a statement I thought scientists were predicting they would be very unstable not predictable. Changing to wind and solar when the world is about to have its weather patterns turned on their head seems rather risky no?

Only following your logic here, as with most of the renewables lobby it is not well thought out as I repeatedly try to get you to and others here to face upto. Everything will work first time and cost no money seems to be the renwables point of view logical thought and counter argument is frowned upon.