Are current renewable energy strategies worth it?

[Trakar]

One "renewable" I am dead set against is using good arable cropland to grow corn and soy for biofuels.

In general, I feel it is bad policy to convert food into fuel for transportation or electrical power, but I'm not very fond of feeding people food to livestock either. It is better than letting the government buy it and then stockpile it into silos until it rots, but just barely.

 

[Trakar]

I'm undecided on wind...I think it should stand on its own now and not be subsidized but that does not seem to be in the cards and lots of places are putting them in including here in Ontario.

Yet wind does not show a very strong efficiency and is hard on the grid. I suppose it all helps but frankly I'd rather see more nukes.

Part of the problem is that there is no storage system associated with wind so it is only utilized, in general, according to need, which is very inefficient. A system that utilized excess energy to produce liquid fuels or pump water into storage reservoirs to power hydroelectric systems when needed, any good form of potential storage, would greatly improve the overall utility of such systems.

 

[Trakar]

This however is what we need more of to shut down coal permanently....



http://www.nei.org/Knowledge-Center/Nuclear-Statistics/World-Statistics

An average of 2-3 new, advanced design, nuclear power plants per US state would go a long ways towards reducing US carbon emissions.

 

[Trakar]

Green energy policy worked out pretty well in Germany. And by "pretty well" I mean it was a colossally expensive failure.

That was politics, not a failure of economics, technology nor application.

 

[Trakar]

So are you going to tell the Chinese and the Indians that they can't live like you?

Until we clean up our house, we have no right telling anyone else that their house is dirty.

 

[Trakar]

Yes.

As I said, a failure in conservative austerity program policy politics, not in technology or application.

 

[Virus]

That "people" bought into an unsustainable frontier mentality to hang their pensions on does not equate with cooking the biome to keep them in unproductive clover.

Gotta be one of the lamer excuses for BAU i've run across yet

We'll kill a hundred thousand of em a year, shorten the life span of the rest and destabilize the climate but keep dem pension dollars rolling from coal ???!!!!!.....what a load of bollux.

I suggest Swedish pensioners and citizens are FAR better off in health and wealth for moving towards a carbon neutral society.

or perhaps you are fine with this...

Obviously the biggest picture and most incoherent rant wins the argument.

 

[Robrob]

Obviously the biggest picture and most incoherent rant wins the argument.

I notice you never post more than a sentence and it's almost always an insult or jibe at the other poster, rather than evidence or logic. Why is that?

 

[Mitchell314]

Up to a point. If it's true that technology improves the lot of man then less procreation should be necessary in order to support the future generations. Is there a fly in that ointment?

The funny thing is that's happening on its own in first world countries, even in the US (if it wasn't for immigration, we'd start shrinking!).

The irony being that one of the methods to slow growth of ecological damage is to increase some of the factors that lead to ecological damage. ie Increasing the perceived standard of living of the many folks around the world, which means more cars, more houses, more stuff, more trash. The world is weird like that.

 

[MattusMaximus]

Bottom line: while we work on developing sustainable sources of renewable energy, we need to build more and better nuclear plants in the U.S. so we can move away from fossil fuels in a more timely manner.

This can have vast implications if it is coupled, say, with the advent of more electric vehicles whose energy source is nuclear to generate electricity on the grid as opposed to coal-fired plants.

 

[wrs]

Bottom line: while we work on developing sustainable sources of renewable energy, we need to build more and better nuclear plants in the U.S. so we can move away from fossil fuels in a more timely manner.

This can have vast implications if it is coupled, say, with the advent of more electric vehicles whose energy source is nuclear to generate electricity on the grid as opposed to coal-fired plants.

I prefer NG as a bridge fuel because it's easier to find and exploit and less difficult to deal with in the long run than nukes. Today's CCNG generators make building and supplying a small generator inexpensive on a comparative basis and operational risks are far lower than for nuclear. The cost and time to build new nukes is prohibitive given the amount of time remaining to solve this energy issue and the rather spectacular recent demonstrations of the dangers/limitations of nuclear in the event of a natural disaster.

 

[Trakar]

Bottom line: while we work on developing sustainable sources of renewable energy, we need to build more and better nuclear plants in the U.S. so we can move away from fossil fuels in a more timely manner.

This can have vast implications if it is coupled, say, with the advent of more electric vehicles whose energy source is nuclear to generate electricity on the grid as opposed to coal-fired plants.

That is indeed, "the ticket." One issue with this is that even advanced design nuke systems require a large lead time. I don't disagree with this, impact studies, and redesigns to assure safety and security at such sites are a necessity. But it means that any decisions made now are at least ten years away from feeding current into the grid. And to be frank, a major expansion of nuclear power would probably take closer to double that, just in laying the groundwork for such an expansion, public education, a revamped oversight and regulatory structure, design and testing for finalizing the standards for a new generation of advanced design systems, etc.,. All of that would have to occur long before the first spade of dirt was overturned.

Immediate actions would be to declare a moratorium on all new coal-fired and oil/diesel/petrol generation systems, and begin phasing out all existing such plants and replacing them with advanced NG turbine systems. At the same time we need to push for renewable development and expansion. With these steps in place we would be able to quickly cut large amounts of our current emissions and be building for a greatly reduced carbon footprint in our near future.

 

[Trakar]

I prefer NG as a bridge fuel because it's easier to find and exploit and less difficult to deal with in the long run than nukes. Today's CCNG generators make building and supplying a small generator inexpensive on a comparative basis and operational risks are far lower than for nuclear. The cost and time to build new nukes is prohibitive given the amount of time remaining to solve this energy issue and the rather spectacular recent demonstrations of the dangers/limitations of nuclear in the event of a natural disaster.

With advanced design nuclear systems the "dangers/limitations" issues, while not nonexistent, are reduced to the point where they are not major issues or concerns. The time issue is a problem and as you speak, I too have come around to using NG generators as a bridge technology, but not instead of nuclear, merely to help us begin immediately removing the other types of fossil fuelled systems. Even though NG emits less previously sequestered carbon into our atmosphere per joule of generated power, it is still a source of previously sequestered carbon, and thus problematic, especially when we start looking at using it to replace not only all other fossil fuelled energy generation systems but existing nuclear systems, and growing national energy requirements. I do agree that as soon as advanced design nuclear systems come on line, all older design nuclear systems should be decommissioned and deconstructed.

 

[Red Baron Farms]

In general, I feel it is bad policy to convert food into fuel for transportation or electrical power, but I'm not very fond of feeding people food to livestock either. It is better than letting the government buy it and then stockpile it into silos until it rots, but just barely.

In my opinion worse actually. All the options you stated are bad.

 

[Dr. Keith]

Well I can say one thing about electric cars, forget trying to use them to get across the trip I was referring to.

They are clearly not the best tool for cross country travel, but then ICE cars aren't really that great either when compared to planes.

I love ICE cars, but their flexibility in application is no longer as necessary as it once was. We don't all need a single vehicle that meets all of our transportation needs. Oddly, this has long been true, but smart phones and services like Uber and CityCar are really making it easier to live a flexible vehicle lifestyle.

 

[Trakar]

They are clearly not the best tool for cross country travel, but then ICE cars aren't really that great either when compared to planes.

I love ICE cars, but their flexibility in application is no longer as necessary as it once was. We don't all need a single vehicle that meets all of our transportation needs. Oddly, this has long been true, but smart phones and services like Uber and CityCar are really making it easier to live a flexible vehicle lifestyle.

The primary issue with alternative powered personal vehicles is primarily energy storage density. To produce a personal vehicle that has the full range of capabilities that people expect from even a compact car (4 people with baggage/stuff and a 400 mi range in freeway traffic with the capacity for refueling in under 5 minutes), is probably technologically a bit beyond the current state of battery storage. Hybrid systems that use a small gas turbine generator to supplement the batteries might be the best compromise we can do for now for these types of applications. For applications like heavy equipment, construction equipment, farm equipment and even long-haul trucking and busses, there is nothing wrong with plug-in electrics completely replacing ICE systems.

 

[annnnoid]

The biggest cost is going to be a smart grid.

In Australia for instance it is illegal to use solar power in a home directly as there have been way too many issues.

Solar tech is accelerating like crazy....into computer chip turf..

Researchers from North Carolina State University and the Chinese Academy of Sciences have found an easy way to modify the molecular structure of a polymer commonly used in solar cells. Their modification can increase solar cell efficiency by more than 30 percent.

over 50% of the world lives in cities now - arcologies are not adaptable to home brew systems.
And the uban conglomerates are the focal point for solving fossil fuel traffic congestion likely with a mix of better public transit and hybrids and full electrics.

All those will see electric power demand soar.
Now certainly home solar could be a player in charging vehicles - but the apartment and condo dweller cannot and should not try and use panel output directly

Even for public transit - trains like Frances and Japan's high speed systems require stable base power ....in France 80% or more is nuclear so they have a big leg up on low carbon.

I’m curious about the state of solar…and about the development referred to in your quote. I’ve been following, rather loosely, changes in the renewable energy sector for some time. Another notable one was software created by a Harvard group that provided a detailed map, by date, location, and a number of other variables, of the solar power potential of every square meter of rooftop in Boston. They claimed it could be scaled for any location in the world.

Question: I’ve heard of incremental increases in efficiency (single digits and, occasionally, double digits)….but 30% !?!?!? Assuming the research you quoted can be applied, does that represent what might be regarded as a tipping point? Does solar then become not just more viable than conventional…much sufficiently more viable as to make the investment a no-brainer?

IOW…I have a business with a warehouse in Southern Georgia or Northern Alaska or Shanghai or Timbuktu… and I can go to a bank and say ‘this will cost me ‘x’ dollars, …based on these conservative calculations I will get my investment back (in energy savings) in 3 years…lend me the money!’

 

[Mikemcc]

I’m curious about the state of solar…and about the development referred to in your quote. I’ve been following, rather loosely, changes in the renewable energy sector for some time. Another notable one was software created by a Harvard group that provided a detailed map, by date, location, and a number of other variables, of the solar power potential of every square meter of rooftop in Boston. They claimed it could be scaled for any location in the world.

Question: I’ve heard of incremental increases in efficiency (single digits and, occasionally, double digits)….but 30% !?!?!? Assuming the research you quoted can be applied, does that represent what might be regarded as a tipping point? Does solar then become not just more viable than conventional…much sufficiently more viable as to make the investment a no-brainer?

IOW…I have a business with a warehouse in Southern Georgia or Northern Alaska or Shanghai or Timbuktu… and I can go to a bank and say ‘this will cost me ‘x’ dollars, …based on these conservative calculations I will get my investment back (in energy savings) in 3 years…lend me the money!’

That 30% is for that particular type of solar cell using polymers. They've managed to tweak the compounds usd so that they,ve increased the output voltage from the cell and made it easier and cheaper to manufacture. Compared to other types of cells thay are not overly efficient in terms of energy output compared to incident energy, but they look like the will be significantly cheaper to make.

Like most renewables the issues are driving down outlay to get the capacity cheap (which that research does) and also to develop cost effective storage and smart grid connections so that it doesn't de-stabilise the grids. For domestic use there thermal storage, batteries, and (possibly) super-capacitors. For industrial plants there are flywheels, pneumatics, molten salt, battery farms, hydrogen, etc. The storage systems are, at present, still in development stages. They will mature though.

 

[Cuddles]

There is a limit to how effective throwing money at a research problem is. We don't just need advancements in current tech for renewables to take over fossil fuels. We need major breakthroughs that cannot be predicted.

We really don't. With current technology, we are entirely capable of powering the entire world solely on renewables. Throw in nuclear as well and you don't even need to worry about setting up storage and smart grids, you could just do it. The issues preventing it are entirely economic and political. If the costs of fossil fuels rise, renewables become more attractive. If we reduce the cost of building renewables through economy of scale, they become more attractive. If the problems associated with fossil fuels cause more societal and political pressure against them, renewables become more attractive. We don't need to rely on a sudden unpredictable scientific breakthrough for renewables to overtake fossil fuels, we just need the various factors weighing them against each other to shift a bit, and there are all kinds of different ways that could happen.

 

[Trakar]

We really don't. With current technology, we are entirely capable of powering the entire world solely on renewables. Throw in nuclear as well and you don't even need to worry about setting up storage and smart grids, you could just do it. The issues preventing it are entirely economic and political. If the costs of fossil fuels rise, renewables become more attractive. If we reduce the cost of building renewables through economy of scale, they become more attractive. If the problems associated with fossil fuels cause more societal and political pressure against them, renewables become more attractive. We don't need to rely on a sudden unpredictable scientific breakthrough for renewables to overtake fossil fuels, we just need the various factors weighing them against each other to shift a bit, and there are all kinds of different ways that could happen.

As long as we qualify that nuclear would probably need to be the major component, at least initially, that sounds about right to me.