For the naysayers-Germany sets solar power record

[Christian Klippel]

Oh, just some examples.

Take a look at the table for wind energy in Germany here.

The second-last row of number will tell you that only about 20% of the nameplate capacity is actually available to feed into the grid.

Here are some numbers for PV. about 24GW peak, which would mean a nameplate capacity of roundabout 210 TWh/year, with a real amount of fed-in electricity of 18 TWh/year, which means less than 9%.

So, now lets assume we want a constant supply of 1MW. With wind, we need to install 5MW, with solar it is over 10MW. But that's not how such things can be calculated at all, since we need storage because wind and sun isn't available 24/7 constantly.

So, what is the overall efficiency of that storage? 60% or somesuch? Including transmission losses, etc. With 60% efficiency, we are at a bit over 8MW capacity for wind and almost 17MW for solar. And that's only the nameplate capacity that needs to be installed.

But that still isn't enough. Because once we have emptied the storage during a period of no wind and insufficient solar, we need to refill the storage. Let's assume the storage is good for supplying the 1MW demand for one day, and we have insufficient wind/solar for one day. Next day win/solar is A-OK again. Now we need to refill the storage _and_ to supply the current demand. Now we are at 16MW for wind and 34MW for solar that we need as minimum installed nameplate capacity.

Of course this is an oversimplified calculation, meant to just show the general problem here. In this scenario we need 16 times as much capacity installed than we have demand, for wind, and 34 times for solar. Plus we need the storage, and the a twice as heavy grid (1MW demand plus 1MW for storage refill). In reality those numbers would be even much worse, since if we want to refill the storages we have to do so during the short time of enough wind/solar, leading to a multiple of installed capacity than what i have calculated here.

Really, it's quite some fun to go through the math of all that, even if simplified and idealized, and then see the resulting numbers. It's really quite an eye-opener.

Greetings,

Chris

 

[DC]

Wow. Call me unimpressed. Is that all you can come up with? A bunch of mostly tiny to small pump storages, and only planned ones at that?

Please, take a few hours of spare time and a calculator. Then consult information sources that will tell you what the current demand is, what generating capacity there is, etc. Then go ahead and calculate what is required as storage _now_, and what is required since the EE frenzy started here.

Once you are done with that sit back and look at the numbers. Then ask yourself why those who profit from the guaranteed 20-year-fixed feed-in tariffs slowly move away from installing new capacity since these tariffs are going down. And then ask you why those same people have spent virtually nothing on that storage and grid.

But i can save you all that work. It is because it's unprofitable. Even with all these obscenely high subsidies for wind and solar. Every storage inbetween makes the final kWh's more and more expensive, since you have losses and the operators want to profit as well. Every new grid section only for EE's will make the kWh's even more expensive then, because most of that part of the grid is used only fractions of the time.

But really, don't trust me about that. Do your own math. Don't be afraid of big numbers. And keep in mind that 1GW generator capacity is the bog-standard-average that every new plant can do. Compare the land/space requirement of a pump storage with 1GW generator capacity to the land/space requirement of a regular plant of the same capacity.

Really, do it. You will be in for a surprise, i guarantee you that.

Greetings,

Chris

right above it there are the stations already operating, also it clearly shows that it was thought about and not just recently wich was the point i didnt buy from you, that they only just started thinking about it, thats not true at all wich is clearly shown by the planning and construction that started several years ago.....

that it isn't enough yet is clear, and in one of my first post i said already Germany has a very long way to go.

 

[quarky]

The argument that conservation (if that is indeed what Quarky is indicating) will solve our problems is just not factual. Consult the chart at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:USEnergyFlow08-quads.png. The two energy sinks on the right are "energy providing services" (42.15 quads) and "rejected energy" (57.07 quads). The rejected energy is energy being converted into useless heat. Most of the wastage is in generation/transmission of electricity and in transportation. Only 2.29 quads (4%) is wasted in residential, and even less in commercial energy use. The only really easy large gain is in localization of power generation to users, to limit transmission losses. Better fossil fuel engines are another possibility; the rest, while good for the feelings, is not very useful.

I heard an interesting fact today: The average person in the US is responsible for the burning of a sphere of coal 10 meters (33 ft) in diameter in their lifetime. Buried within that sphere and dispersed throughout it, is a 37mm (1.5in) diameter sphere of thorium, were it separated out and collected together. Used in a molten fuel reactor, that thorium would provide more energy than the 10 meter sphere of coal.

I checked your link. I'm not against fission power, btw. And conservation isn't exactly what I was referring to. If a refrigerator used 1% of the energy, for instance, of an average fridge today, that isn't exactly conservation...its smart technology. If a building requires no heating or cooling, but the climate inside is pleasant, that's not conservation, its good technology.
The same is true for transportation; lighting; manufacturing; etc.
All this can be done, and if and when it is, our power consumption will fall drastically...maybe enough that renewables will handle it.

 

[DC]

Oh, just some examples.

Take a look at the table for wind energy in Germany here.

The second-last row of number will tell you that only about 20% of the nameplate capacity is actually available to feed into the grid.

Here are some numbers for PV. about 24GW peak, which would mean a nameplate capacity of roundabout 210 TWh/year, with a real amount of fed-in electricity of 18 TWh/year, which means less than 9%.

So, now lets assume we want a constant supply of 1MW. With wind, we need to install 5MW, with solar it is over 10MW. But that's not how such things can be calculated at all, since we need storage because wind and sun isn't available 24/7 constantly.

So, what is the overall efficiency of that storage? 60% or somesuch? Including transmission losses, etc. With 60% efficiency, we are at a bit over 8MW capacity for wind and almost 17MW for solar. And that's only the nameplate capacity that needs to be installed.

But that still isn't enough. Because once we have emptied the storage during a period of no wind and insufficient solar, we need to refill the storage. Let's assume the storage is good for supplying the 1MW demand for one day, and we have insufficient wind/solar for one day. Next day win/solar is A-OK again. Now we need to refill the storage _and_ to supply the current demand. Now we are at 16MW for wind and 34MW for solar that we need as minimum installed nameplate capacity.

Of course this is an oversimplified calculation, meant to just show the general problem here. In this scenario we need 16 times as much capacity installed than we have demand, for wind, and 34 times for solar. Plus we need the storage, and the a twice as heavy grid (1MW demand plus 1MW for storage refill). In reality those numbers would be even much worse, since if we want to refill the storages we have to do so during the short time of enough wind/solar, leading to a multiple of installed capacity than what i have calculated here.

Really, it's quite some fun to go through the math of all that, even if simplified and idealized, and then see the resulting numbers. It's really quite an eye-opener.

Greetings,

Chris

you know there were studies done by poeple far better qualified and better informed than we are.

 

[Christian Klippel]

right above it there are the stations already operating, also it clearly shows that it was thought about and not just recently wich was the point i didnt buy from you, that they only just started thinking about it, thats not true at all wich is clearly shown by the planning and construction that started several years ago.....

that it isn't enough yet is clear, and in one of my first post i said already Germany has a very long way to go.

Since we obviously have not even near enough of a small fraction of storage capacity that we require already _now_ i'm afraid that i stand by my comment that those people obviously did not think about what is required.

If they would have thought about that, they would have built storage and grid alongside the generating capacity, expanding all of that simultanously. But they didn't. It is only since a very few years that the need for storage is really talked about so that the Joe Public starts to notice it.

Up until very recently all they pushed and talked about was to install more PV and wind capacity. More, more, more.

Greetings,

Chris

 

[Christian Klippel]

you know there were studies done by poeple far better qualified and better informed than we are.

Where? Do you mean fantasy stuff like "Der Plan" from Greenpeace? Or Popp's "Ringwallspeicher"?

So far pretty much all that i see from those "studies" is heavily biased and omitting a lot of things. Which isn't really a big surprise given the fact that the majority of those studies is funded by special interest groups who are heavily invested in pushing renewables.

Here is something you might want to watch, i mean the video "Klimapolitik und Atomausstieg" from Hans-Werner Sinn.

Really, so far i see mostly high-gloss advertising brochures that want to tell me how great renewables are, and that everything is so easy and fine, and that the problems are really no problems but that instead the bad energy companies are those who want to paint them as problem.

Seriously, i can do math. 20% of X is 20% of X. To get 100% in the end, i need 5 times X. And if i have losses along the way, i need to compensate for that. It really isn't rocket science. But yes, it's far easier just to handwave that away and say "others have already thought about that" instead of doing the thinking and calculations yourself.

Greetings,

Chris

 

[mhaze]

Where? Do you mean fantasy stuff like "Der Plan" from Greenpeace? Or Popp's "Ringwallspeicher"?....

If I might draw an analogy, building something that flies, like an airplane, requires much more demanding attention to the numbers across all aspects of the design than, say, building a home.

We all know that. That's a reason there really is something called "rocket science" and the reason people say "well, that's NOT rocket science".

But with various forms of "green energy" there is a belief that it should not be even as critically examined and computed than, say, the engineering issues involved in building a house. Instead, it's okay to go on faith that green is good.

 

[Farsight]

Here's a free downloadable book called Sustainable energy without the hot air by David Mackay. He's worked out the numbers, and worked out that for the UK, renewables just can't meet our energy requirements. Sadly for some I fear the facts will only sink home after they've sat shivering in the dark for a winter or two.

 

[DC]

Where? Do you mean fantasy stuff like "Der Plan" from Greenpeace? Or Popp's "Ringwallspeicher"?

So far pretty much all that i see from those "studies" is heavily biased and omitting a lot of things. Which isn't really a big surprise given the fact that the majority of those studies is funded by special interest groups who are heavily invested in pushing renewables.

Here is something you might want to watch, i mean the video "Klimapolitik und Atomausstieg" from Hans-Werner Sinn.

Really, so far i see mostly high-gloss advertising brochures that want to tell me how great renewables are, and that everything is so easy and fine, and that the problems are really no problems but that instead the bad energy companies are those who want to paint them as problem.

Seriously, i can do math. 20% of X is 20% of X. To get 100% in the end, i need 5 times X. And if i have losses along the way, i need to compensate for that. It really isn't rocket science. But yes, it's far easier just to handwave that away and say "others have already thought about that" instead of doing the thinking and calculations yourself.

Greetings,

Chris

yeah sure they are the only ones doing studies.....

http://erneuerbare-energien.de/files/pdfs/allgemein/application/pdf/leitstudie2011_bf.pdf

 

[Roboramma]

I checked your link. I'm not against fission power, btw. And conservation isn't exactly what I was referring to. If a refrigerator used 1% of the energy, for instance, of an average fridge today, that isn't exactly conservation...its smart technology. If a building requires no heating or cooling, but the climate inside is pleasant, that's not conservation, its good technology.
The same is true for transportation; lighting; manufacturing; etc.
All this can be done, and if and when it is, our power consumption will fall drastically...maybe enough that renewables will handle it.

I support this post.

One of the things I notice here in shanghai is that while there are an amazing number of new buildings going up all the time, there is little invested in them in terms of, for instance, insulation. Single pane glass and poorly insulated walls.

Spending a few hundred kuai (maybe US$50) on getting a second layer of windows installed made a huge difference in how warm I could get my place here in the winter.

But, I suspect that the return on investment in such things suffers from the law of diminishing returns. If you're sitting around a fire outside and someone suggests building a lean to the time/energy/resources necessary for that are pretty minimal compared to the gains. Building a teepee is a step up with, again, minimal investment. Something like a log cabin with a wood burning stove is a pretty big investment, but comfort wise, and if you're living somewhere with harsh winters, probably worth it. But where do you go from there?

Similarly modern homes are already well insulated and heated relatively efficiently. Improvements in efficiency may require either large investments (with their own imbedded energy costs), or sacrifices in other areas (like smaller houses, or perhaps separate thermostats for each room which take in heat at different rates at different times of the day, but which thus means you can't count on every room being comfortable all the time).
I am very much in favour of those sorts of "sacrifices" and lifestyle changes. They likely require giving up very little in exchange rather large savings on energy, particularly if we embraced them on the level of entire societies rather than only fringe sub-cultures.

But it seems such changes are being embraced, if only on a small scale so far.

 

[mhaze]

I checked your link. I'm not against fission power, btw. And conservation isn't exactly what I was referring to. If a refrigerator used 1% of the energy, for instance, of an average fridge today, that isn't exactly conservation...its smart technology. If a building requires no heating or cooling, but the climate inside is pleasant, that's not conservation, its good technology.
The same is true for transportation; lighting; manufacturing; etc.
All this can be done, and if and when it is, our power consumption will fall drastically...maybe enough that renewables will handle it.

I support this post, too, but feel obliged to point out that tomorrow's refrigerators WILL NOT use 1% of the energy of today's. In fact, additional incremental improvements will each be harder, yield less of a return, and be increasingly expensive. This is easy to understand if you look at refridgerators from 1930-1950, 1950-1970, 1970-1990, and 1990-2010.

So to speak, the "low lying fruit" has already been plucked.

 

[shadron]

I checked your link. I'm not against fission power, btw. And conservation isn't exactly what I was referring to. If a refrigerator used 1% of the energy, for instance, of an average fridge today, that isn't exactly conservation...its smart technology. If a building requires no heating or cooling, but the climate inside is pleasant, that's not conservation, its good technology.
The same is true for transportation; lighting; manufacturing; etc.
All this can be done, and if and when it is, our power consumption will fall drastically...maybe enough that renewables will handle it.

OK, rather than conservation you're looking at better design of technical items. Note from the same drawing where the big gains are to be made - in transportation and electrical generation. Making changes to refrigerators would be great, but as mhaze points out much of the low hanging fruit has been picked (better compressors, better sealing, better insulation), and gains that remain there will be small potatoes compared to the gorillas in the room. It used to be said that electric motors were massively wasteful of energy, and they were. However, in the last 50 years lots of improvements to that category have been made, and further savings are going to be difficult. Same goes for cars - there is still "fat" to be squeezed out, but a lot of it was squeezed in raising gas mileages. The rest, which is going to probably encourage lighter cars and smaller engines, is going to be difficult technically and unpopular economically.

I certainly support what you are saying. Just remember that the law of diminishing returns is out there, and ignorance is no excuse.

 

[Almo]

They must have bought the 44 and the 33.

 

[Christian Klippel]

yeah sure they are the only ones doing studies.....

http://erneuerbare-energien.de/files/pdfs/allgemein/application/pdf/leitstudie2011_bf.pdf

Care to point out where i said that they were the only ones? Can't do that? Thought so...

Regarding the study you linked to. Fraunhofer IWS and IfnE are involved. Not really that independent, i would say. Cute scenarios offered in there as well. Reduction of primary energy demand by over 50%. Similar for the demand of electrical energy. While, of course, at the same time increasing the amount of transportation by electric/hybrid cars to 50% or even 100% overall.

Oh, look! Wonderful! Already in 2020 the installed (!) capacity of EE is projected at 117 GW, more than the 80GW required! Wohoo! Funny how in those studies these systems seem to be able to produce electricity 24/7 just by being installed....

Hey, the even mention storage. Somewhat. A little bit, at least. "Power to gas", cool buzzword! Efficiency numbers for that? Hmmm.... Wow, now comes some meat. "Gestehungskosten" per kWh. That is the amount of money required to produce one kWh profitably. Around 14 Euro-Cent per kWh on average for all newly installed EE systems in 2010. Long term projection between 5 and 9 Euro-Cent per kWh.

Funny, somewhen in the future we have a price tag that roundabout matches that of conventional plants. But wait, that's only for the actually produced energy. That does not include storage. Like that nifty idea to produce hydrogen, then convert that into methane, to finally burn it in a gas plant. Lets see, let's give it some leeway. Assume a crazy 75% efficiency for converting electricity into hydrogen. Lets assume another funny 65% for converting that into methane. Finally, modern GuD gas plants have what, around 55 to 60%, i think. That makes 0.75 * 0.65 * 0.6 = roundabout 0.3. So, to get a kWh out of that i need to put more than 3 kWh into it. Suddenly those "Gestehungskosten" really are more like 15 to 27 Euro-Cent per kWh.

And thats only if we can get the plants that produce hydrogen, convert to methane, store all that, and get all the gas plants for free. And operate them at absolutely no cost. Which is completely unrealistic. Those involved want their share as well, so we are now at what, 25 to 50 Euro-Cent per kWh or somesuch?

Never mind the costs for the grid, etc. At least they openly admit that they compare the EE projections to a fictive scenario of regular energy generation. And they also admit that the cost difference does not include the money required to integrate the EE's into the power supply system.

And again, all their funny projections and calculations require the energy demand to be lowered by 50% in total. Oh, look at page 37. they just said there that the structure of the required storage is yet to be determined. So much for "talking about that for the last 10 years".

And it goes on and on like that. Fantasy projections compared against fictive scenarios, oh, and our population is also projected to shrink by about 10 million by 2050. Look at page 57. Just what i said. They state that the energy required to produce hydrogen, then methane, the storage losses, etc. are all not included in the projected energy demand (EEV). Wonderful! Yes, just on the next page they state the other one (BEV) would indeed include that. But funny how it is projected to initially go down, and then go up again to little more than that of 2008.

Did they forget about the losses they just mentioned? How else can one explain that by 2050 we are supposed to have only slightly more BEV than we had in 2008, while at the same time more EE, and thus storage, is supposedly installed?

Etc, etc, etc....

Sorry, doesn't really impress me. It's just more of the same that i already complained about. Too much important stuff is virtually left out, mentioned only in some footnotes or a few words here and there. I see little about what amount of space/area is required for all that, generating systems as well as storage.

Greetings,

Chris

 

[OMGturt1es]

Don't tell me how to live my life or how to spend my money.

Sorry, but we live in reality. In reality, we are told how to live (e.g., don't shoot other people's faces) and how to spend money (e.g., pay your income tax). In both cases, these encroachments of freedom are obviously, clearly beneficial. This emotional reaction to defend all forms of personal liberty against any centralized planning, no matter how small or how necessary, is simply foolish, because we live in a reality where we benefit from rules.

Specifically, we live in a reality where our CO2 emissions are increasing global hazards, especially among the poorest of humankind. When these people are subjected to an increasing frequency and severity of floods, droughts, heat waves, etc., they don't have the resources to easily avoid death. And so many more die than otherwise would. The bottom line is that your "right" to cheap energy is paid for by an increasing supply of blood, and the scientifically-tenable bad-case (not worst-case) projections indicate this supply is likely to grow considerably in the coming decades. And when we factor in longer term projections (e.g., beyond 2100), when Earth finally reaches energy balance, the blood-supply has the potential to grow almost unimaginably.

There's some uncertainty, of course. And that's fine. But you are gambling with the livelihoods of other people. You are advocating that others risk their and their loved ones' lives so that you may have more disposable income at the end of the month. You are leveraging the hopes and aspirations of future generations over the next hundreds to thousands of years. My guess is that if the revolver were pointed at your head, and you knew there were between 2 and 5 bullets in the chamber, you wouldn't be so quick to condemn such subtle, benign, advances in energy deployment as attacks on liberty.

This is all about risk management. Absent deployment of clean energy solutions, the cost and likelihood of experiencing of the brunt of climate change are very high. Comparatively, the cost of avoiding the brunt of climate change is very low. If humanity can't get this one right, then it deserves what it gets. The problem is that those getting it wrong (you) aren't those paying the costs (others). And that's not fair.

 

[not_so_new]

Sorry, but we live in reality. In reality, we are told how to live (e.g., don't shoot other people's faces) and how to spend money (e.g., pay your income tax). In both cases, these encroachments of freedom are obviously, clearly beneficial. This emotional reaction to defend all forms of personal liberty against any centralized planning, no matter how small or how necessary, is simply foolish, because we live in a reality where we benefit from rules.

Specifically, we live in a reality where our CO2 emissions are increasing global hazards, especially among the poorest of humankind. When these people are subjected to an increasing frequency and severity of floods, droughts, heat waves, etc., they don't have the resources to easily avoid death. And so many more die than otherwise would. The bottom line is that your "right" to cheap energy is paid for by an increasing supply of blood, and the scientifically-tenable bad-case (not worst-case) projections indicate this supply is likely to grow considerably in the coming decades. And when we factor in longer term projections (e.g., beyond 2100), when Earth finally reaches energy balance, the blood-supply has the potential to grow almost unimaginably.

There's some uncertainty, of course. And that's fine. But you are gambling with the livelihoods of other people. You are advocating that others risk their and their loved ones' lives so that you may have more disposable income at the end of the month. You are leveraging the hopes and aspirations of future generations over the next hundreds to thousands of years. My guess is that if the revolver were pointed at your head, and you knew there were between 2 and 5 bullets in the chamber, you wouldn't be so quick to condemn such subtle, benign, advances in energy deployment as attacks on liberty.

This is all about risk management. Absent deployment of clean energy solutions, the cost and likelihood of experiencing of the brunt of climate change are very high. Comparatively, the cost of avoiding the brunt of climate change is very low. If humanity can't get this one right, then it deserves what it gets. The problem is that those getting it wrong (you) aren't those paying the costs (others). And that's not fair.

Great post....

I will point out that your argument only works if the person receiving the message believes global warming is man made or in fact is even real (sad but true).

I personally feel the evidence for man made global warming is incontrovertible but if you look at it from the eyes of a denier then they are not gambling with anyone's lives and they are not holding a gun to anyone's head. In fact there is no gun at all, they just want cheap energy at all costs damn the ramifications.

It seems extremely wasteful and selfish to me which is my biggest problem with the denier stance.

- If I am wrong and global warming is false then I have cost a small minority of the human population some money.

- If I am right the deniers saved a few bucks for a minority of the human population at the price of a LOT of pain and suffering, mostly for others not themselves. On top of that, depending on how things shake out, they could see all their cost savings from cheap energy completely erased (perhaps many times over) by the cost of global changes in food supplies, habitability of coastal areas, storm patterns, etc.

Again, the thing that really gets my goat is the shortsightedness of it all. We live in the decades soon to be centuries yet we only plan for the next business quarter at best.

 

[mhaze]

Care to point out where i said that they were the only ones? Can't do that? Thought so...

Regarding the study you linked to. Fraunhofer IWS and IfnE are involved. Not really that independent, i would say. Cute scenarios offered in there as well. Reduction of primary energy demand by over 50%. Similar for the demand of electrical energy. While, of course, at the same time increasing the amount of transportation by electric/hybrid cars to 50% or even 100% overall.

Oh, look! Wonderful! Already in 2020 the installed (!) capacity of EE is projected at 117 GW, more than the 80GW required! Wohoo! Funny how in those studies these systems seem to be able to produce electricity 24/7 just by being installed....

Hey, the even mention storage. Somewhat. A little bit, at least. "Power to gas", cool buzzword! Efficiency numbers for that? Hmmm.... Wow, now comes some meat. "Gestehungskosten" per kWh. That is the amount of money required to produce one kWh profitably. Around 14 Euro-Cent per kWh on average for all newly installed EE systems in 2010. Long term projection between 5 and 9 Euro-Cent per kWh.

Funny, somewhen in the future we have a price tag that roundabout matches that of conventional plants. But wait, that's only for the actually produced energy. That does not include storage. Like that nifty idea to produce hydrogen, then convert that into methane, to finally burn it in a gas plant. Lets see, let's give it some leeway. Assume a crazy 75% efficiency for converting electricity into hydrogen. Lets assume another funny 65% for converting that into methane. Finally, modern GuD gas plants have what, around 55 to 60%, i think. That makes 0.75 * 0.65 * 0.6 = roundabout 0.3. So, to get a kWh out of that i need to put more than 3 kWh into it. Suddenly those "Gestehungskosten" really are more like 15 to 27 Euro-Cent per kWh.

And thats only if we can get the plants that produce hydrogen, convert to methane, store all that, and get all the gas plants for free. And operate them at absolutely no cost. Which is completely unrealistic.....

Pretty good analysis there. You have made me think that what we are staring at in the face here is straight up what is called on the JREF forum "woo".

It's "green woo".



But one thing to be noted on gas - to liquid conversions, namely is that ALL of the talk about ethanol from biomass or whatever, the plants have to run continuous process, so they can't use solar or wind energy. Also, ethanol is a couple steps down from producing methanol, and methanol is really easy to make from methane.

Natural gas. So any plant operator that wants to make a profit simply chooses to produce methanol from natural gas.

No need to even talk about that road, waste of time.

 

[Christian Klippel]

Pretty good analysis there. You have made me think that what we are staring at in the face here is straight up what is called on the JREF forum "woo".

It's "green woo".

Well, frankly, i would not call that woo. After all, this is not some impossible stuff that can't ever work. Wind and solar can be used to generate electricity. Producing hydrogen is an old thing. Converting it to methane is a reality. Gas plants exist all over the world.

So no, it's not really woo, i think. It's more like a daydream. It all looks nice on paper, as long as you don't think about scaling it up. If you try that you run into all sorts of problems. To which they offer rather absurd solutions, if any at all. It's just a simple fact that you need a certain amount of resources, energy and space to install things like wind- and solar-farms. That's what makes the raw cost per kWh produced what it is.

On top of that, however, you also need lots and lots of storage and massive grid expansion. Sure, it's nothing impossible. But the other side of the coin is that it will become a really expensive thing to do. Given the fact that nuclear can provide that at a much lower price tag, using less resources and space, it simply becomes a stupid thing to do in the long run. And no, i'm not talking about the current reactor design, but instead of LFTR and TWR reactors. Imagine if just half the money they spent on wind and solar here in Germany would have been used to develop "production ready" LFTR or TWR reactors. After all that technology isn't something new. It just wasn't used because, well, it's rather hard to use them to produce material that can be used in weapons.

And please, don't even get me started on that bio-fuel crap. Sure, if you can use bio-waste and turn it into fuel, go for it. That's just great. Gets rid of the waste and gives fuel. However, planting massive amount of mono cultures, like corn, just to then turn them into fuel and burn them? That's just stupid. It destroys the land, it literally burns food. It takes away a lot of land that could otherwise be used for producing, well, food!

Use EE's wherever possible, but please, not at all costs. Daydreaming about what-could-be-if-just is stupid. Making up scenarios that not only demand things like 50% less energy demand, but that also neglect the consequences and requirements of such a system make no sense.

Oh, and look at how solar cells are produced. Look at what materials you need to produce efficient generators for wind turbines. Consider how _much_ of all that you need, where that comes from, what impact it has to get the final materials. And how long the panels and windmills can be used until they need to be replaced. Suddenly it doesn't look that green anymore. But those are things you rarely, if ever, find in any study.

It's like powering your microwave oven by a bunch of AA cells. Yes, you can connect them to an inverter to which in turn you connect the microwave. Yes, you can use a lot of them to last long enough to cook one meal. But does it make sense on a big scale?

Greetings,

Chris

 

[quarky]

I have too much to say on this subject. The sacrifices we make are in the realm of retarded technology. Sitting in traffic jams, paying bills for power that enables absurdity.

The refrigerator I mentioned already exists. The building that requires no heating or cooling already exists. The transportation system; all of it...already exists. This isn't like traveling to Mars. No sacrifice is implied. Life gets better as we address our idiocy.

Projections of energy useage are based on pathetic technology and absurd lifestyle fetishes.

Its odd to be the voice from the wilderness on this stuff. It should be exciting; right up our alley. Has our imagination run dry? Are we selling power? Will we reject a vehicle that gets 2000 mpg, just because we still love our fuel-injected 427 hemi, because chicks dig it?

I think I'll start a new thread. This one is polluted by engineers that have evidently gone dry.

 

[Bikewer]

To continue in the same vein as Quarky...
Is it the opinion of those here pooh-poohing everything that GW is just "green propaganda"? That the consensus statements of the scientific community on this are nonsense or worse, some sort of cabal against fossil fuel?
Or, that there's simply nothing to be done? That GW is here and nothing we could reasonably do affect it anyway, so we should just keep burning coal and oil and cope with the results?
It won't bother me; I'm 65 years old. Chances are i won't live long enough to see any severe effects anyway.
Sure, the effects might not be nearly as "hysterical" as some maintain. Maybe there won't be huge disruptions of coastal communities and weather patterns and all that.
Maybe all those inconvenient people living marginal existences will just die off and those of us living in affluent countries won't have to wring our hands over them any more.
Seems to me there's sufficient evidence of human-affect.
That we have some responsibility to future generations.