The Remarkable Progress of Renewable Energy

[Angra Mainyu]

There's no denying that wind and solar are very popular ways to give the appearance of caring about climate change.

You're getting your opponents wrong. They do care about climate change, and about air pollution, ground pollution, etc. At least, nearly all do. They are not lying, and believe what they say. They happen to have an anti-nuclear ideology, and a pro-renewable ideology. Like other ideologies (religions or not), they hold to it irrationally.

The problem is, that no matter how popular they are, or how many installations get built, they don't reduce carbon emissions.

That depends on what they replace, and how they are used. For example, massive solar + natural gas as backup (at night or when there isn't enough sunlight for a while) would likely reduce emissions with respect to only coal, or only natural gas. Obviously, nuclear would be much better. But you're facing an ideology, not evidence-driven thought.

 

[lpetrich]

The problem is, that no matter how popular they are, or how many installations get built, they don't reduce carbon emissions.

Renewables successfully driving down carbon emissions in Europe — European Environment Agency

Without the deployment of renewable energy since 2005, greenhouse gas emissions in 2012 could have been 7% higher than actual emissions, according to the EEA report 'Renewable energy in Europe – approximated recent growth and knock-on effects'.

Renewable technologies also increase energy security, the report found. Without the additional use of renewable energy since 2005, the EU's consumption of fossil fuels would have been about 7% higher in 2012. The most substituted fuel was coal, where consumption would have been 13% higher, while natural gas use would have been 7% higher, at a time when European gas reserves are dwindling.

 

[bilby]

The problem is, that no matter how popular they are, or how many installations get built, they don't reduce carbon emissions.

Renewables successfully driving down carbon emissions in Europe — European Environment Agency

Without the deployment of renewable energy since 2005, greenhouse gas emissions in 2012 could have been 7% higher than actual emissions, according to the EEA report 'Renewable energy in Europe – approximated recent growth and knock-on effects'.

Renewable technologies also increase energy security, the report found. Without the additional use of renewable energy since 2005, the EU's consumption of fossil fuels would have been about 7% higher in 2012. The most substituted fuel was coal, where consumption would have been 13% higher, while natural gas use would have been 7% higher, at a time when European gas reserves are dwindling.

My apologies.

They don't SIGNIFICANTLY reduce emissions.

7% is frankly pathetic, particularly given the amount of money that has been spent to achieve this tiny reduction.

A lesser sum invested in nuclear power would have reduced emissions by close to 100% in the electricity generation sector, as demonstrated by France and Sweden.

Wind and solar are thoughts and prayers. Nuclear power actually delivers worthwhile emission reductions.

 

[steve_bank]

According to Trump wind turbines cause cancer. In other news the world has been found to actually be flat, and the universe does revolve around the Earth.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The problem is, that no matter how popular they are, or how many installations get built, they don't reduce carbon emissions.

Wind and solar are the thoughts and prayers of climate change mitigation - they are cheap, easy to do, and make everyone think that you are caring and virtuous. But they don't actually do anything to fix the problem.

Huh? The fossil fuel plants still need to be built but they aren't going to use as much fuel. CO2 emissions don't drop because the windmills and solar plants take a lot of power to build the materials.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The problem is, that no matter how popular they are, or how many installations get built, they don't reduce carbon emissions.

Renewables successfully driving down carbon emissions in Europe — European Environment Agency

Without the deployment of renewable energy since 2005, greenhouse gas emissions in 2012 could have been 7% higher than actual emissions, according to the EEA report 'Renewable energy in Europe – approximated recent growth and knock-on effects'.

Renewable technologies also increase energy security, the report found. Without the additional use of renewable energy since 2005, the EU's consumption of fossil fuels would have been about 7% higher in 2012. The most substituted fuel was coal, where consumption would have been 13% higher, while natural gas use would have been 7% higher, at a time when European gas reserves are dwindling.

Note what they are saying--less than they would otherwise have been.

In other words, emissions increased but not by as much as if they hadn't built the renewables.

Never mind that had they built nuke plants instead the atmosphere would be better off.

 

[Elixir]

Note what they are saying--less than they would otherwise have been.
In other words, emissions increased but not by as much as if they hadn't built the renewables.

So... it's a subjective call whether it's better to drive the human species into extinction very quickly or very slowly...

Never mind that had they built nuke plants instead the atmosphere would be better off.

Again, it's the same quality of life issue. Do you want your progeny to live out their days in sheer terror of the invisible menace that is nuclear energy? [/sarcasm]
The fossil fuel interests will spend whatever it takes to ensure that people blanche and drop dead at the mention of nuclear energy, long before they relinquish their cash cow.[/cynicism]

I believe there will be a precipitous drop in the global human population level in the next couple hundred years. (If anyone here or their kid lives to see it, remember: I told you so!) It probably won't reduce our numbers to below post-Toba levels (<100k), but it might be a big enough hit to set technology back to early 20th century levels. If there are fewer than 2 billion but more than a half billion people left, I think they'll be pretty well off after a few generations - until they overrun themselves again.

 

[lpetrich]

Huh? The fossil fuel plants still need to be built but they aren't going to use as much fuel. CO2 emissions don't drop because the windmills and solar plants take a lot of power to build the materials.

How much is "a lot"? I've seen estimates of the energy-payback times for recent wind turbines and solar panels, and they are surprisingly short. Less than a year for wind turbines and around a year for photovoltaic cells.

 

[steve_bank]

One of the problems with nukes in the USA is the time to ROI. They take a long time to plan and build. Profit is based on future electricity prices.

I have driven by an abandoned nuke project on the way to the Washington coast. A cooling tower was built. Tecnicaly the site was mothballed.

Cost projections kept going up against not enough anticipated profit.

For nukes to work here it would have to be a federal utility project. Like the initial rural electrification project.

 

[lpetrich]

One of the problems with nukes in the USA is the time to ROI. They take a long time to plan and build. Profit is based on future electricity prices.

While wind turbines and solar panels are much quicker to build, especially small installations.

Renewables Generate 33% Of Britain's Electricity In First Quarter | CleanTechnica - 20% wind, 3% solar, 40% natgas, 16% nuclear, 4% coal

Want To Limit Global Warming? Electrify Everything, Finds Study | CleanTechnica - that will mean making synfuels, a gap in renewable-energy development

European Wind Overtakes Hydro For Second Quarter In A Row | CleanTechnica

China's Solar Industry Expected To Be Subsidy-Free In 2021 | CleanTechnica

Can Indoor Farming Solve Our Agriculture Problems? | CleanTechnica - about an indoor farm in New Jersey. It does mostly leafy vegetables, but its operators hope to branch out into root vegetables like turnips.

Rural Electric Co-ops Dive Into Gas-Killing Solar Panles + Farmland Fray - elevated solar panels can be beneficial to some vegetation, by shading it.

 

[steve_bank]

http://ballard.com/

Ballard has been making fuel cells for transportation and power generation for decades.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

The problem is, that no matter how popular they are, or how many installations get built, they don't reduce carbon emissions.

Wind and solar are the thoughts and prayers of climate change mitigation - they are cheap, easy to do, and make everyone think that you are caring and virtuous. But they don't actually do anything to fix the problem.

Huh? The fossil fuel plants still need to be built but they aren't going to use as much fuel. CO2 emissions don't drop because the windmills and solar plants take a lot of power to build the materials.

I see. And coal plants, natural gas plants and nuclear plants don't need a lot of energy and materials to build them.

 

[bilby]

The problem is, that no matter how popular they are, or how many installations get built, they don't reduce carbon emissions.

Wind and solar are the thoughts and prayers of climate change mitigation - they are cheap, easy to do, and make everyone think that you are caring and virtuous. But they don't actually do anything to fix the problem.

Huh? The fossil fuel plants still need to be built but they aren't going to use as much fuel. CO2 emissions don't drop because the windmills and solar plants take a lot of power to build the materials.

I see. And coal plants, natural gas plants and nuclear plants don't need a lot of energy and materials to build them.

For a given energy output, no, they don't.

Wind and solar are very diffuse. You need a SHITLOAD of infrastructure to collect large amounts of energy. Coal, gas, and particularly uranium are much more energy dense, and need correspondingly less.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I believe there will be a precipitous drop in the global human population level in the next couple hundred years. (If anyone here or their kid lives to see it, remember: I told you so!) It probably won't reduce our numbers to below post-Toba levels (<100k), but it might be a big enough hit to set technology back to early 20th century levels. If there are fewer than 2 billion but more than a half billion people left, I think they'll be pretty well off after a few generations - until they overrun themselves again.

I don't believe humanity can survive a crash of this scale. Our system is too intertwined, punch that many holes in it and I expect a total grid collapse. That will in turn crash the population far below your levels and I don't believe recovery is possible at that point.

 

[steve_bank]

I agree that a reduction in population is coming.

Hum amity will survive, it always has. The Dark Ages, The Plague. As long as knowledge of technology survives humanity will evolve into a new system or paradigm.


Wind and solar could support a smaller global population quite well.

 

[steve_bank]

Cost to manufactore is reflectednin codt to build. A nuke is far motre expensive in blabor, mterials, and design.

Nukes require special materials. Welding requirents are higher. Waste storage.

The business term is total cost of ownership.

Contraction costs
Materials cost
Labor costs
Recurring costs-maintenance and any waste
Decommissioning costs--nukes have limited life

Saying materials for nukes and solar-wind both have to be manufactured is a false equivalence. If nukes were as cheap as solar and wind there would be a nuke in every town.
\
Solar power can be used to make solar cells. The obvious observation.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

I see. And coal plants, natural gas plants and nuclear plants don't need a lot of energy and materials to build them.

For a given energy output, no, they don't.

Wind and solar are very diffuse. You need a SHITLOAD of infrastructure to collect large amounts of energy. Coal, gas, and particularly uranium are much more energy dense, and need correspondingly less.

View attachment 21095

How much does a nuclear plant cost to build? How much for a modern day wind turbine?

 

[steve_bank]

Total cost of ownership. How much does it cost to refuel a nuke? Not just the raw fuel costs. If including the total cost of ownership nukes were truly cost competitive it would dominate. Simple free market economics.

Currently in the USA operating licenses are being extend to 60 years.

https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=19091

https://thebulletin.org/2014/04/the-rising-cost-of-decommissioning-a-nuclear-power-plant/

“The most reliable estimate of the cost of decommissioning [a nuclear power plant] is 10-15 percent of the construction cost, contrary to some highly inflated estimates … Modern serious studies of the disposal problem indicate that satisfactory isolation is technologically feasible, even for the long term.” So wrote MIT nuclear engineering professor David Rose in the November 1985 issue of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

How misguided that view seems now, with the advantage of decades of experience. The Yankee Nuclear Power Station in Rowe, Massachusetts, took 15 years to decommission—or five times longer than was needed to build it. And decommissioning the plant—constructed early in the 1960s for $39 million—cost $608 million. The plant’s spent fuel rods are still stored in a facility on-site, because there is no permanent disposal repository to put them in. To monitor
them and make sure the material does not fall into the hands of terrorists or spill into the nearby river costs $8 million per year. That cost will continue for an unknown number of years. David Lochbaum of the Union of Concerned Scientists estimates that even without the ongoing costs of monitoring and security, the average reactor now costs about $500 million to deactivate.

 

[bilby]

Nuclear plants don't require special materials any more than wind turbines do.

If you want either to be safe, efficient, and effective, you need special materials. If you just want to get some power and don't give a shot about properly engineering your power source, you can be very low-tech.

Windmills have been around for at least a thousand years. Nuclear reactors are so simple that they have occurred naturally.

Everything more advanced than that requires advanced engineering.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I agree that a reduction in population is coming.

Hum amity will survive, it always has. The Dark Ages, The Plague. As long as knowledge of technology survives humanity will evolve into a new system or paradigm.


Wind and solar could support a smaller global population quite well.

It's not just power, but resources.