The Remarkable Progress of Renewable Energy

[ralfy]

Behind the Numbers on Energy Return on Investment

 

[lpetrich]

Bernie Sanders has a Green New Deal. Ocasio-Cortez has one. Garcetti too. Here's how they compare - Los Angeles Times -- doesn't really do a comparison, no listing of what contents they share and don't share.

Los Angeles Green New Deal

• Environmental Justice
• Renewable Energy
• Local Water
• Clean & Healthy Buildings
• Housing & Development
• Mobility & Public Transit
• Zero Emission Vehicles
• Industrial Emissions & Air Quality Monitoring
• Waste & Resource Recovery
• Food Systems
• Urban Ecosystems & Resilienc
• eProsperity & Green Jobs
• Lead By Example

New York passes the country’s most ambitious climate target - Vox

In passing bold climate legislation, New York will follow in the footsteps of Maine, Oregon, Washington, Colorado, New Mexico, California, and New Jersey, all of which have passed substantive clean energy policies in the past year or so. (Hawaii has had its 100 percent renewables target in place since 2015.)

And New York accomplished this feat the exact same way all those other states did it: by electing overwhelming Democratic majorities.

New York City’s newly passed Green New Deal, explained | Grist

Making big changes to meet climate goals in New York City is tricky because so much of the city’s day-to-day operation–from public transportation to water, even its ability to ban plastic bags — is controlled by the state government. By focusing largely on local building standards, the city has been able to carve out green legislation within its jurisdiction.

The act’s pièce de résistance is a bill that requires many of city’s buildings to significantly slash their carbon emissions starting in 2024, reducing overall emissions by 40 percent by 2030. Buildings are responsible for almost 70 percent of New York City’s greenhouse gas emissions, according to a 2017 estimate. The Mayor’s Office of Sustainability estimates upgrades needed to meet the act’s emissions caps would cost building owners around $4 billion, according to the New York Times. The measure was vehemently opposed by the real estate industry, which argued the bill is costly, unrealistic and puts an unfair burden on the owners of buildings not exempted from the law.

New York’s powerful real estate lobby has been fighting energy-efficient building legislation as far back as 2009 when then-Mayor Bloomberg proposed a similar rule. So in a city where the real estate industry so often gets its way, today’s vote really stands out.

It contains

• Doing feasibility studies for phasing out oil and gas powerplants.
• Green roofs: roofs to be covered by some combination of plants, solar panels, and mini wind turbines.
• Making school buses electric, like making public-transit buses electric.
• "Dirty Buildings Bill" - cutting energy consumption by 40% in 2030 and 80% in 2050.

 

[lpetrich]

Perpetum to build world’s largest solar carport in Belgium – pv magazine International

Paira Daiza, voted Europe’s best zoo in 2018 and 2019, is home to more than 7,000 animals. Its millions of annual visitors will soon be able to park their cars under the largest PV carport in the world, in Brugelette, Belgium.

The plant’s 62,750 panels will span a surface area of 104,000 square meters, covering 80% of the facility’s 7,000 parking spaces. It is expected to generate around 20 GWh per year, or enough to cover needs of the zoo, which is located in Belgium’s Wallonia region.

Department of Energy shows wind and solar power will dominate fossils – pv magazine USA - good enough to beat natural gas.

Wind power prices now lower than the cost of natural gas | Ars Technica

Good News About Wind Power Dumped On A Friday Afternoon By DOE

In his next breath Menezes hammered home the point with this comment: “U.S. offshore wind is poised to be a significant part of our comprehensive energy portfolio in the coming years.”

...
Natural gas stakeholders should also take the new reports as a warning sign. One of the them is the 2018 Wind Technologies Market Report for utility scale onshore wind. It makes the case for wind competing on cost with natural gas for power generation in some markets.

...
Of the two reports freshly announced on Friday afternoon, the 2018 Offshore Wind Technologies Market Report plants the biggest, reddest flag for fossil energy stakeholders.

That report totes up a potential generating capacity of 25,824 megawatts for offshore wind power projects already in the pipeline among 13 east coast states and the Great Lakes. That includes 30 megawatts for the Block Island wind farm off the coast of Rhode Island, which is currently the only offshore array producing wind power in the US.

By comparison, utility scale onshore wind in the US took a good 30 years to reach a total capacity of 96,433 megawatts in 2018.

...
As impressive as the east coast offshore pipeline is, there’s plenty more megawatts where that comes from. The new offshore report also notes that wind power development on the west coast is beginning to take shape, in the form of floating wind turbines designed for the technologically challenging waters of the Pacific states and Hawaii.

 

[lpetrich]

Scandinavia's biggest offshore wind farm is officially open

Horns Rev 3 consists of 49 turbines which stand 187 meters tall. If the turbines’ foundations are taken into account, they each weigh nearly 1,500 tonnes.

The facility has a capacity of 407 megawatts (MW), which Vattenfall says is enough to cover the yearly electricity consumption of around 425,000 Danish homes.

The world's largest all-electric ferry completes maiden voyage

An all-electric ferry capable of carrying roughly 30 vehicles and 200 passengers has completed its maiden voyage.

...
The ship is powered by a battery system with a capacity of 4.3 megawatt hours, which was provided by Switzerland-headquartered energy storage firm Leclanche. In a statement last week, Leclanche described the e-ferry Ellen as the “world’s largest all-electric ferry” due to the capacity of its battery and the distance it can cover.

...
The Ellen is able to sail as much as 22 nautical miles (approximately 25.3 miles) between charges and has, according to those involved in the project, a record-breaking high charging power capacity of 4.4 MW.

No details on what kind of battery. But it's nice to see electric and alternative-fuel watercraft - something that will make fossil fuels less necessary.

Canada's 'largest' solar project gets green light for construction

A 400-megawatt Canadian solar facility, expected to be the largest operating solar energy project in the country, is a step closer after the Alberta Utilities Commission granted approval for its construction and operation.

In an announcement Tuesday, Greengate Power said construction on the Travers Solar project would start in 2020, with commercial operations slated for 2021.

Tidal turbine secures funding from Scottish government

The Orbital O2 will be made up of a 72-meter-long “floating superstructure” supporting two 1 megawatt (MW) turbines on each side. It will have rotor diameters of 20 meters. It’s scheduled to commence operations in 2020 and will be able to power more than 1,700 homes annually.

A charity is helping Apple and others to reach 100% renewable energy

One major project the CDP is involved with is called the RE100, a global initiative made up of some of the world’s biggest companies, all committed to 100 percent renewable electricity. Businesses that are part of the RE100 include Apple, Danone, Goldman Sachs and the Lego Group.

The scheme is led by the Climate Group in partnership with the CDP. “Companies commit to procuring 100% of their electricity from renewable sources,” Nikki Bartlett, director of climate change at the CDP, told CNBC.

Most of my newest links aren't CleanTechnica ones -- it's remarkable how much interest renewable energy is getting outside of RE enthusiasts. It has the sort of vigor and rapid growth that one sees for new technologies.

 

[lpetrich]

Green New Deal for Europe - FAQ — Green New Deal for Europe
What is the GND for Europe?

The Green New Deal for Europe (GNDE) is an ambitious and pragmatic plan to rebuild Europe’s economy, repair its infrastructure, rehabilitate its environment, redress its colonial history, and propel the continent toward a prosperous future.

The proposal calls on Europe’s public investment banks to inject 5% of GDP each year in the transition to net-zero emissions.

In the process, the GNDE will not only create millions of new jobs in industry, infrastructure, agriculture, and scientific research, ending the era of crushing austerity.

The GNDE will also put investment decisions in the hands of communities, municipalities, and citizen assemblies across Europe, shifting power away from Brussels and back toward the people.

Why Europe needs a GND

Europe today confronts two crises.

The first is austerity. A decade of cuts in state spending have gutted essential social services, depreciated basic infrastructure, and impoverished Europe’s citizens. The second is climate. Over a century of extraction, consumption, and pollution has devastated the environment, clogged the oceans, and raised global temperatures to record levels.

These crises feed off of each other. Austerity prevents our governments from preparing for a changing climate. Climate disasters then cripple the resources of our governments. The result of this vicious cycle is the rise of mass discontent — and the far right parties that draw strength from it.

The Green New Deal for Europe breaks the cycle. It invests Europe’s idle resources in communities across the continent, building new housing, roads, and railways. It radically reduces Europe’s carbon emissions, constructing resilient and zero-emissions infrastructure. And in the process, it renews faith in the European project, containing the rise of Europe’s far right.

Europe needs a Green New Deal because only a mass mobilization of our collective resources can ensure a prosperous, just future for all.

So Europe is going the way of the US with increasing poverty and economic inequality.

Green New Deal | New Economics Foundation in the UK

A Green New Deal for Canada: What it means | CBC News

Green new light on the hill: An Australian Green New Deal - Honi Soit

The "Green New Deal" notion is spreading all over the world, it seems.

 

[lpetrich]

Form Energy Raises $40M Series B for Super-Long-Duration Grid Storage | Greentech Media - Italy’s Eni joins list of heavyweight backers as Massachusetts-based Form looks to unlock “baseload renewables.”

Today's lithium-ion batteries can shift solar power into the evening for a few hours, but they become prohibitively expensive as a tool for weeks or months of guaranteed power delivery. Form Energy tackled that problem in the lab with an aqueous sulfur flow battery chemistry and an undisclosed electrochemical solution.

Yet another flow battery.

For renewable-energy sources to deliver baseload electricity, they need storage to smooth out their intermittency.

But inventing a radically cheaper storage device is crucial for making that competition viable.

Long-duration storage startups have struggled for years, but the market has heated up in recent weeks. That's in large part due to the growth of renewables pushing a need for more grid storage in the near term.

Earlier this month, SoftBank Vision Fund invested an unprecedented $110 million in Energy Vault, which is building a mechanical storage system using cranes and heavy blocks, with the goal of making renewables dispatchable. And earlier this summer, Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners signed on as a financial backer of a new closed-loop pumped hydro storage plant in Montana.

Liquid-air storage offers cheapest route to 24-hour wind and solar | Recharge
The numbers:

• For 100 MW: $100/MWh LCOS (levelized cost of storage), with $50/MWh feasible 10 years from now.
• Pumped-hydro: $152-198/MWh LCOS
• Li-ion: $285-581/MWh LCOS
• Gas peaker: $156-210/MWh LCOE (levelized cost of energy)
• Wind: $30-60/MWh LCOE
• Coal: $60-140/MWh LCOE

Highview’s technology is surprisingly straightforward. Air is cooled down to -196°C, shrinking its volume by a factor of 700, and stored in low-pressure vacuum-insulated steel tanks — the kind that houses liquefied natural gas (LNG). When this cryogenically frozen air is exposed to ambient temperatures, it turns back into a gas and rapidly expands, with the rush of air from this 700-fold expansion directly driving an electricity-generating turbine.

The round-trip efficiency of the system — ie, the amount of energy that goes in, compared to the amount that comes out — is 60%, although this can be increased to 100% by using waste heat or waste cold from neighbouring facilities, says Cavada.

 

[bilby]

There was a natural experiment globally, just like there was between Germany and France. Between 1965 and 2018 the world spent $2.1 trillion to get 31% more electricity from nuclear than it got for the $2.6 trillion it spent on solar and wind.

And that's WITHOUT including the huge amounts of money spent on backup systems - batteries, pumped hydro, or (most often) gas burning power plants - that are necessary to make wind and solar effective at high (>~15-20%) market penetrations.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2019/09/04/why-renewables-cant-save-the-climate/#2e59e0ba3526

We hear a lot from self-described "environmentalists" about how nuclear is too expensive. But when you compare the actual costs of actual power actually generated, it turns out that nuclear power - even at the massively inflated prices imposed by the NRC's excessive regulatory burden - is somewhat cheaper than wind and solar; And a LOT cheaper than wind, solar and storage.

 

[lpetrich]

How solar is changing the energy market: No pumping at night | RenewEconomy - from nighttime pumping (fossil fuels) to daytime pumping (solar energy)

Solar's stunning win in Europe: Even with storage it beats spot prices | RenewEconomy - "The levellised cost of solar PV has fallen so far that all across Europe it is now beating spot wholesale electricity prices, and even with the addition of two hours’ storage it is still beating spot prices in some countries."

Space age solar solution moves toward production – pv magazine International - "A consortium of European research institutes has received €10.6 million in EU funding to establish pilot production of a high efficiency module concept developed by Swiss startup Insolight. The module combines high efficiency multijunction cells with a solar concentrator lens and has previously demonstrated 29% efficiency."

New Zealand’s largest solar farm to be built on water – pv magazine International

Food crops do better in the shade of solar panels – pv magazine International

 

[lpetrich]

Researchers develop a better way to harness the power of solar panels | EurekAlert! Science News

The new algorithm enables controllers to better deal with fluctuations around the maximum power point of a solar PV system, which have historically led to the wasting of potential energy collected by panels.

"Based on the simulations, for a small home-use solar array including 12 modules of 335W, up to 138.9 kWh/year can be saved," said Farsi, who undertook the study with his supervisor, Professor Jun Liu of Waterloo's Department of Applied Mathematics. "The savings may not seem significant for a small home-use solar system but could make a substantial difference in larger-scale ones, such as a solar farm or in an area including hundreds of thousands of local solar panels connected to the power grid.

Rather ingenious. How well will it work in practice?

Crops under solar panels can be a win-win | Ars Technica - "In dry places, photovoltaic shade can even reduce water use."

Solar panels might seem like they’re in direct competition with plants. One is catching sunlight to do photosynthesis, the other wants to take it to push electrons. Surely Highlander rules apply, and there can be only one on a plot of land, right?

In reality, it’s not a zero-sum game. Some plants will burn in direct sun, after all, and so there are plenty of food crops that would be happy to share their space with panels. And as a new study led by the University of Arizona’s Greg Barron-Gafford shows, the combination isn’t even necessarily a compromise—there are some synergies that can bring significant benefits to a solar-agriculture.

From Agrivoltaics provide mutual benefits across the food–energy–water nexus in drylands | Nature Sustainability

Yet more of how solar panels need not be a complete obstruction.

Why Solar Execs Say the Game Is Already Over for Non-Renewable Energy | Fortune

“What’s important is new [energy] generation, and in the US, renewables are 70% of new generation. It’s game over,” said Tom Werner, CEO of SunPower, the California-based solar company, speaking at the Fortune Global Sustainability Forum on Thursday in Yunnan, China. “That’s why big companies in electric distribution, oil and gas are flooding into renewables.”

That's great news. We need more and more of it.

 

[fromderinside]

Here's a report comparing technologies between 2013 and 2016

Updated Capital Cost Estimates for Utility Scale Electricity Generating Plants https://www.eia.gov/analysis/studies/powerplants/capitalcost/

Table 3 classifies the status of each technology and component as modeled in AEO2016 https://www.eia.gov/analysis/studies/powerplants/capitalcost/xls/table3.xls

Probably get more from Full Report https://www.eia.gov/analysis/studies/powerplants/capitalcost/pdf/capcost_assumption.pdf and addendum https://www.eia.gov/analysis/studies/powerplants/capitalcost/pdf/eiatasks_10388_10687addendum.pdf

 

[lpetrich]

fromderinside, can you summarize what you discovered?

A decade of renewable energy investment, led by solar, tops USD 2.5 trillion

• The decade of investment (2010-2019) quadruples renewables capacity from 414 GW to about 1,650 GW
• Solar capacity alone will have risen to more than 26 times the 2009 level — from 25 GW to an estimated 663 GW
• 2018 capacity investment reached USD 272.9 billion, triple the investment in fossil fuel generation
• Renewables generated 12.9 per cent of global electricity in 2018, avoiding 2 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions

Global investment in new renewable energy capacity over this decade — 2010 to 2019 inclusive — is on course to hit USD 2.6 trillion, with more gigawatts of solar power capacity installed than any other generation technology, according to new figures published today.

Gas Plants Will Get Crushed by Wind, Solar by 2035, Study Says - Bloomberg

Natural gas-fired power plants, which have crushed the economics of coal, are on the path to being undercut themselves by renewable power and big batteries, a study found.

By 2035, it will be more expensive to run 90% of gas plants being proposed in the U.S. than it will be to build new wind and solar farms equipped with storage systems, according to the report Monday from the Rocky Mountain Institute. It will happen so quickly that gas plants now on the drawing boards will become uneconomical before their owners finish paying for them, the study said.

This is so remarkable to see. So so remarkable to see. Fixes both fossil-fuel depletion and global warming.

Tomatitos y Chiles Jalapeños ¡Fotovoltaicos! – pv magazine Mexico

Tomatitos y Chiles Jalapeños ¡Fotovoltaicos!
Cuando la investigación multidisciplinaria une talentos para potenciar la generación de energía solar y la producción de alimentos

Tomatitos and Chiles Jalapeños Photovoltaic!
When multidisciplinary research unites talents to enhance solar energy generation and food production

The article has a picture of some people with clipboards underneath some solar panels at a vegetable farm.

Cocaína, marihuana y el factor fotovoltaico – pv magazine Mexico

Cocaína, marihuana y el factor fotovoltaico
El trasiego de drogas conoce de la utilidad de la energía solar

Cocaine, marijuana and the photovoltaic factor
Drug transfer knows about the usefulness of solar energy

Drug traffickers who use solar panels to help build tunnels and maintain them, like pumping water out of them.

 

[bilby]

For $2.5 Trillion, you could buy 100 Hinkley Point C nuclear power plants, each with a generating capacity of 3.2GWe, a Capacity Factor above 90%, and a design life of 60 years. Apparently, Hinkley Point exemplifies how expensive, and therefore unaffordable, nuclear power plants are today - it's ten times as expensive per GW as recently built South Korean and Taiwanese nuclear plants.

But spending $2.5 Trillion on 1200 GWe nameplate capacity of solar power, which with at best a 25% Capacity Factor, will generate a touch less than the same total electricity per annum, but which will do so intermittently, requiring storage (that doesn't currently exist, and won't be free of charge when it does - it would easily cost more for the storage than the cost of the generating equipment), and which will only last twenty years, is apparently a great investment.

Can anybody spell "double standard"?

The lifetime cost of the (most expensive) nuclear option is one third the cost of solar without storage; and more likely less than one tenth the cost of solar when storage (or more likely natural gas backup) is included. Of course, if you build a hundred standardised nukes all of the same design, you are likely to see costs fall into the Taiwanese range, making solar about thirty to a hundred times more expensive.

And unlike Solar+Gas, the nuclear option is low carbon 24x7.

 

[bigfield]

Today the news trumpeted the fact that South Australia now supplies 50% of its energy from renewables.

Taken alone, that seems to indicate that renewable energy is making remarkable progress. However, South Australia is part of the National Energy Market, an energy grid supplying Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania and the ACT. The NEM's progress on renewables is not so much remarkable as it is dismal:



If there wasn't a climate emergency threatening to cause a global catastrophe, this would be good progress and we could feel pretty comfortable. But under the circumstances, this is like watching a ship run into an iceberg in extreme slow-motion while the captain insists he'll got plenty of time to turn invent a better rudder.

 

[lpetrich]

JCB Electric Excavator / Mini Digger JCB 19C-1E E-TEC zero emissions electric digger | Fully Charged - YouTube - it worked very well. It was not nearly as loud, and it did the job.

Another massive solar project moves Hawaii closer to its green energy goal

Combined, the more than 800,000 solar panels will produce up to 110 megawatts of clean energy a day. That power will feed into the Hawaiian Electric grid, and is enough to power about 18,000 Oahu homes each year.

...
The projects will help the state meet its 100 percent clean energy goal by 2045.

Oshima says by 2022, the state will be home to over 4 million solar panels feeding the Hawaiian Electric grid.

On a sunny day this German factory runs on solar power | Sustainable Energy - YouTube

Neoen unveils 2.7GW hybrid giant in Oz - reNews - Renewable Energy News - 1.2 GW wind, 0.6 GW solar, 0.9 GW storage - in South Australia

Solar-storage combo makes waves in Caribbean - reNews - Renewable Energy News

The 35.6MW solar plant and 44.2 megawatt hour battery storage facility will serve energy consumers on the twin islands of Saint Kitts and Nevis.

...
When operational the solar-plus-storage plant will be the first asset of is kind to provide base load power for a utility on a Caribbean island.

The system will provide between 25-30% of the nation's current power generation needs, while displacing the same amount of diesel-generated capacity.

 

[lpetrich]

Is the Trump Administration blocking the science on a renewable-powered future? – pv magazine USA - "A study on reaching high levels of renewable energy has been removed from the NOAA website, and an energy writer says that the release of another study has been blocked."

The Trump Administration has also attempted to suppress information on the Climate Crisis, including removing the page on climate science from the EPA website and removal of references to climate change on other parts of the EPA website and documents.

However, the Trump Administration now appears to have taken this another step further, and removed a study showing that the United States can get the large majority of its electricity from renewable energy from the website of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Seems like Lysenkoism.

How solar power operations and maintenance costs fell 50% – pv magazine USA - "Robb Wilson of sPower has seen the field evolve along with technology, and shared some of the institutional knowledge he has gained over the years."

Shows how vigorous the field is -- and how it has become economically viable in the nick of time, when we started getting lots of heatwaves.

Los Angeles says “Yes” to the cheapest solar plus storage in the USA – pv magazine USA - "Los Angeles’ municipal utility has voted 5-0 to approve a 25-year contract with a 400 MWac solar plus 300 MW / 1.2 GWh energy storage facility, with the aggregate price of the electricity from the project at 3.962¢/kWh." - it's well to the east of LA - the company: 8minute Solar Energy - from how long sunlight takes to get here from the Sun's surface. - the solar panels will be single-axis-tracking, to make them approximately face the Sun with a simple pointing mechanism.

 

[lpetrich]

Can Renewable Energy Power the World? Mapping 10 Years of Progress

... This April, for the first time ever, renewable energy supplied more power to America’s grid than coal—the clearest sign yet that solar and wind can now go head-to-head with fossil fuels. In two-thirds of the world, they’ve become the cheapest forms of power.

Solar and wind will power half the globe by 2050, based on BloombergNEF forecasts. By that time, coal and nuclear will have all but disappeared in the U.S., forced out by cheaper renewables and natural gas.

The market triumph of renewable energy marks the biggest victory yet in the fight against global warming. Solar and wind are proliferating not because of moral do-gooders but because they’re now the most profitable part of the power business in most of the world. An industry that once relied on heavy subsidies and was propped up by government mandates is now increasingly standing on its own.

As a recent United Nations report put it: The renewable energy sector is “looking all grown up.”

That is because those subsidies helped it grow and accumulate experience and economies of scale. Which is what subsidies can be good for -- creating new industries. Or in this case, effectively new industries.

The main barrier to quicker adoption is now capital costs. It's necessary to go over the initial hump of investment.

 

[lpetrich]

Solar and Wind Power So Cheap They’re Outgrowing Subsidies - Bloomberg - I couldn't read much because of its paywall, but it is very welcome that that is happening. Given the heatwaves that have been happening, it's in the nick of time.

GSI on Twitter: "Governments spend $526 billion a year to support #fossilfuels while the world is facing a #ClimateEmergency. We asked @AOC @RepAOC what she thinks about it. Here’s what she says #StopFossilSubsidies [url]https://t.co/K5vp8KPJIx https://t.co/ludMIFnlwA" / Twitter[/url]

IISD | The Knowledge to Act - the International Institute for Sustainable Development
Global Subsidies Initiative - at the IISD
Stop Fossil Fuel Subsidies Campaign | GSI
with videos from:

• "Invest in our future" -- United States Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
• "We are in a battle for our lives" -- UN Secretary General, António Guterres
• "End the free ride" -- Actor and Climate Change Activist, Leonardo DiCaprio
• "Makes no sense" -- Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General and CEO of Sustainable Energy for All, Rachel Kyte
• "No more business as usual" -- CEO, Aviva plc, Maurice Tulloch
• "It has to stop" -- Founder of 350.org, Bill McKibben
• "The time is now" -- New Zealand Prime Minister Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern

The videos have short text statements from all of these people.

Leonardo DiCaprio has been ridiculed for flying to lots of places, but he has put his money where his mouth is about his residential electricity and installed solar panels on his mansion.

That would be much harder for AOC since she lives in apartment buildings in NYC and DC. However, she has gone on road trips to upstate NY, Maine, and California.

 

[lpetrich]

In addition to upstate NY, ME, and CA, AOC also did a road trip to the Standing Rock Indian Reservation in North Dakota, near Bismarck. That was to visit the DAPL protesters.

I checked on energy efficiencies, and cars, airplanes, and diesel trains (most of Amtrak's) are roughly the same. Intercity buses are something like 3 times better, at least with similar load fractions.


Logic supports renewables, not nuclear – pv magazine International

The latest edition of the World Nuclear Industry Status Report gives the energy source little hope in the race against fast, widespread, job-friendly, popular renewables. The report reiterates clean power is taking the lead in the world’s energy system and nuclear is not only too costly a remedy for carbon emissions but too slow to deploy. Nuclear output grew only 2.4% last year while solar and wind power volumes grew 18% and 29%, respectively.

...
One of the biggest hurdles facing new nuclear is the time it takes to deploy the technology, according to the report. New plants take 5-17 years, much longer than the timescale for deploying utility scale solar or onshore wind. That means fossil-fuel plants continue to emit far more CO2 while awaiting nuclear replacements.

“Nuclear new-build thus costs many times more per kilowatt-hour so it buys many times less climate solution per dollar, than these major low-carbon competitors,” states this year’s WNISR. Renewables have a lower carbon cost per dollar and per year, the report concludes.

They state what I have long suspected -- nuclear reactors take much longer to build compared to wind and solar farms.

Live fast, die young: MIT study proposes use of 10-year panels – pv magazine International - not much value unless they are cheaper per year than long-lived ones and are easy to replace and recycle.

The rise of solar power

The industry has been growing exponentially thanks to plain old solar panels. You can see the evidence both on people’s rooftops and in the desert, where utility-scale solar plants are increasingly popping up. Here in the U.S., of all new power capacity added to the grid in 2018, about 30% was from solar.

That's very good.

In Squamish, British Columbia, there’s a company that wants to stop climate change by sucking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.

It’s called Carbon Engineering, and it uses a combination of giant fans and complex chemical processes to remove carbon dioxide from the air in a procedure known as Direct Air Capture.

That's also very good, because this captured CO2 can be used as a feedstock for synthetic fuels. That's a gap in renewable-energy development, and it's nice to see it getting filled.

 

[bilby]

Of course, the meme makes the common error of taking a Reserve and calling it the entire world supply - actually it's just the stuff that's been thoroughly assayed and surveyed. The total resource is far larger - but nevertheless, these figures demonstrate the huge scale of environmentally disastrous mining required to make even a tiny fraction of the storage demanded by 100% renewables - and that's just for the OECD nations.

The fact that the wind turbines and solar panels to feed this impossible volume of storage would also require insane amounts of materials and land is further illustrative of the insanity of attempting this pointless, polluting, and dangerous non-alternative to clean, reliable and safe nuclear power plants.

 

[Fentoine Lum]

View attachment 24019

Of course, the meme makes the common error of taking a Reserve and calling it the entire world supply - actually it's just the stuff that's been thoroughly assayed and surveyed. The total resource is far larger - but nevertheless, these figures demonstrate the huge scale of environmentally disastrous mining required to make even a tiny fraction of the storage demanded by 100% renewables - and that's just for the OECD nations.

The fact that the wind turbines and solar panels to feed this impossible volume of storage would also require insane amounts of materials and land is further illustrative of the insanity of attempting this pointless, polluting, and dangerous non-alternative to clean, reliable and safe nuclear power plants.

Anything to be able to cling to the illusion of economic growth to infinity. And we can always keep dumping the uranium tailings upon the indigenous and unsubstantial people of our internal colonies. The entitled predator class must concentrate and redistribute more wealth.