The World Set a New Record For Renewable Power in 2017, But Emissions Are Still Rising (qz.com) 306
In 2017, the world deployed an ever-expanding amount of solar and wind power, setting a new record for renewable-power capacity added to the grid. From a report: In fact, the money spent on renewable installations was more than twice the sum spent on nuclear and fossil-fuel power, according to the annual Global Status Report published by renewables policy group REN21. Over the past 10 years, global installed renewable-power capacity, which includes hydropower, has doubled.
That growth, however, isn't enough to reduce emissions. World demand for energy increased by 2.1% last year, and low-carbon sources could not keep pace. As a result, the word's energy-related carbon emissions rose by 1.7%, the first rise in four years. It's an important reminder that, despite all the talk about the growth of renewables, we still rely heavily on fossil fuels.
That growth, however, isn't enough to reduce emissions. World demand for energy increased by 2.1% last year, and low-carbon sources could not keep pace. As a result, the word's energy-related carbon emissions rose by 1.7%, the first rise in four years. It's an important reminder that, despite all the talk about the growth of renewables, we still rely heavily on fossil fuels.
All fossil fules will be burned (Score:4, Interesting)
Take all proven reserves and extrapolate the new finds, add 25% for extraction methods. All of this will become C02 or methane. No matter how much one tries not to, there will be burning of fossil fuels. since lifetime of CO2 in the atmosphere is longer than the time it will be reuired to burn it all you now know how much CO2 will be in the atmosphere. We will roast ourselves, and acidify the ocean. The real question is are there any positive feedback effects? such as the acidity of the ocean causing a fall off in it's absorption, the build up of oil films decrasing the flux of CO2 into the oceans, the metltng of the tundra releasing methane?
And finally there's the one big one we already have the in sedimentary layers to guide us: forests die, release carbon, and the heat kills more forests. Oddly many people think that is the origin of hysteresis that causes the iceage cylce. It's not proven but the theory says ice ages are triggered by global warming transporting more water to the cold regions.
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perhaps they were produced on the super gas planet and condensed on the moon?
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... Consequently, there are probably wells deeper than life ever lived in the ground, that will never be tapped.
Probably not. Titan is in the cold outer solar system. The inner solar system is not the outer solar system.
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SO what's your point? (Score:2)
we're still burning more coal. In fact we burn more now than all of the 18th century. ANd we literally ran out of whale oil.
so what is your point?
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we're still burning more coal. In fact we burn more now than all of the 18th century. ANd we literally ran out of whale oil.
so what is your point?
But U.S. peak coal use was in 2007. Every year for the last five years coal consumption has fallen from the previous year in the midst of a strong economy (thanks Obama!). U.S. annual coal use is down to mid-1980s levels. By 2021 we should have turned the clock back a full 40 years.
Now I'm confused... (Score:2)
So how does this square with this?
https://news.slashdot.org/stor... [slashdot.org]
Show just a complex topic this is, I guess, and that coordinated action is required at a truly global level if we are to effectively tackle climate change.
However, given our recent track-record on that, and tackling other man-made disasters like war, I'm not holding my breath.
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The carbon bubble/fossil fuel capital abandonment issue is an issue that is looming 10+ years from now (though there are present situations that can be held up as analogies, such as the ongoing conversion of coal plants to natural gas plants https://energynews.us/2017/02/... [energynews.us] which is causing coal capital abandonment). Renewables are near the bottom of the adoption S-curve, where they're just starting to take off, so they're still a small player today even if they're starting to have a visible impact and tha
Bitcoin? (Score:2)
Most of it is probably bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies (and the rest - youtube videos, porn and other "cloud entertainment services").
Speaking cynically... (Score:2)
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A cynic might say the world needs a massive recession or war -- carbon emissions actually went down in the 2008-9 recession.
The world would undergo a massive recession and the accompanying war when the decline in energy production due to the end of fossil fuel will violently meet the growth in energy demand due to a growing population with higher standard of living. The exact date is up to prediction, though.
Carbon taxes would work (Score:2)
But they have to be high enough to start ratcheting down demand for fossil fuels and causing a switch to alternatives.
Government leaders need to have more brains and courage to implement that.
And populations need to be better educated (in systems thinking, how the dots connect, basic science and why it is more valid than random opinion) so that they begin choosing rational, well-informed, physically effective policy.
There are enough effective alternatives now for many applications that a carbon tax should n
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There's nothing more or less tyrannical about a carbon tax than any other tax.
So what you're saying is "tax == tyranny at gunpoint".
A radical extreme libertarian viewpoint, in other words.
Tax is how nation-state super-organisms collect and distribute resources for larger-than-the-individual functions. This allows the super-organism to behave in a hierarchically organized and energy efficient manner. Tax is somewhat analogous to blood circulation of nutrients in a body.
You can argue what the appropriate rate
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... In BC, for example, the higher carbon tax is being used to finance carbon emission quadrupling giant hydro dams and LNG projects...
Quadrupling relative to what? And while LNG releases carbon, what trick do those British Columbians have to get hydroelectric dams to emit carbon?
However? (Score:2)
It's like being surprised that total population is still rising even though birth rates are plummeting.
Solar power is growing at exponential rates. And, just because last year set a record doesn't mean that fossil fuels did not also increase.
What we do know is - if this rate of growth continues for another 30-40 years we will be living in a world which does not consum
One problem with the direction we're going (Score:2)
While I applaud the concept of electric vehicles for their emissions-reducing capability, the impact they actually have on greenhouse gas emissions are probably far less than would be assumed. The electricity to recharge them is still mostly generated from coal-fired power plants, so even if the cars themselves aren't emitting as much carbon dioxide, the eplants providing the power for them are.
Also, as the summary states: "The money spent on renewable installations in 2017 was more than twice the sum spent
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While I applaud the concept of electric vehicles for their emissions-reducing capability, the impact they actually have on greenhouse gas emissions are probably far less than would be assumed. The electricity to recharge them is still mostly generated from coal-fired power plants, so even if the cars themselves aren't emitting as much carbon dioxide, the eplants providing the power for them are.
The over all impact of electric vehicles on emissions is negligible for just reasons you listed here. But this will not always be the case. As wind and solar become more widespread electric vehicles will start to make real impacts on environmental standards, for the better.
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These articles require more context. For example, hydro-electric plants generate 7.5% of the total electrical production in the U.S., wind generates 6.3%, and solar power still provides only about 1.3%. So, clean energy only represents about 15% of electrical production. Nuclear could also be considered "clean energy," and it produces 20% of energy. But, coal-fired power plants still produce 30% of America's power and natural gas plants provide 32%. So, fossil fuels still provide the majority of America's electricity.
Really? Are these numbers accurate? I hope you don't mind if I double check these. I actually though the numbers for renewable energy use was actually far lower than what you have here. If these are accurate then my information is out of date, which is good news.
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Thank you for the numbers. The fossil fuel numbers are higher than I would like them to be at 62.7%. But the numbers for wind are up to twice what I thought they would be at 6.3%. Still a long way to go but I'm going to be happy with this.
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It's no wonder your CO2 emissions are so much more than every one elses.
Unless your China. Almost twice as much as the US by some reports.
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Your argument ignore a couple of important facts:
1. Electric cars are far more energy efficient than ICE vehicles.
2. There are a lot of electric vehicles in California (in fact, there may be more EVs in California than all the other states combined), where electricity generation has a higher proportion than the overall USA.
See the maps on this page [ucsusa.org]. Note especially, states such as CA where an electric vehicle has an equivalent MPG of 109.
The math is staggering! (Score:2)
World demand increased by 2.1%, resulting in carbon emissions rising by 1.7%, so that means that new renewable energy only contributed 0.4%? We are truly on the verge of eliminating foss
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World demand increased by 2.1%, resulting in carbon emissions rising by 1.7%, so that means that new renewable energy only contributed 0.4%?
Not necessarily. There could also be shifts in type of fossil fuels.
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It's an engineering problem (Score:2)
It's not just as simple as the number of renewable energy sources used, or total output from those sources, you have to look at the total amount of energy that went into producing that renewable generation source. Solar panels with efficiency better than 10% require a slew of rare earth minerals. A large amount of fossil fuels go into the mining, and then the refining of those minerals. Then there is the mining and refining of the metals and conductors used. Then there is the fuel for the transportation.
Whe
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have read more than once that large wind turbines will be at an energy deficit for nearly 20 years before they are able to reach a net positive in terms of energy produced vs spent in production and transportation
I read it was 6 months on a good location.
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I've already adapted to using less energy by switching my display resolution to 1366x768 instead of 1920x1080, by never going over 4GB of RAM usage out of 8GB available and always leaving 50% of my SSD capacity free of data.
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Perhaps you should be more skeptical of the articles you read. The fossil fuel industry has a lot of money to spend on misinforming people and it was obviously successful with you.
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I'm more than willing to admit I'm wrong and would appreciate being pointed out to an accurate source of information. Perhaps a little bit more respect and less personal attack in responses?
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Really? I should respect your ignorance?
The first link on Google when I searched for
"turbines net energy manufacture"
https://www.scientificamerican... [scientificamerican.com]
""Within a few months, a wind turbine generates enough electricity to pay back all of the energy it took to build it,"
The *very* *first* link.
Unfinished business (Score:2)
The steady CO/CO2 increase plus the mysterious plume of ozone damaging CFCs wafting out of China, exact source yet undetermined, will ensure more damaging climate change in the short and medium terms. But to claudicate now will ensure ruin for our future generations.
America is the bigger problem (Score:3, Informative)
You already know Americans produce more [google.com] CO2 from coal powered electricity than Chinese people.
Chinese coal plants produced 3,573 MT of CO2 in 2017 American coal plants produced 1,056 MT of CO2 in 2017
Per person America (less than 1/4 China's population) produces more CO2 from coal plants than China does...much more...OOPS.
Then on top of that America is t
Nuclear is the only viable solution. (Score:2)
We cannot reduce greenhouse gasses significantly without new nuclear. We have known that for more than 5 decades. Renewables can't even keep up with bitcoin, let alone power our grid 24/7.
Thankfully a company based in Oregon, http://www.nuscalepower.com/ [nuscalepower.com], just completed phase 1 NRC review ahead of schedule. Their reactor is a type of small modular reactor. It can be built on an assembly line like an airplane and then shipped anywhere in the world. The economics of scale will reduce the cost significan
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The same capital used to support the mining, extraction, shipment, processing, security, construction, and removal and storage of nuclear fission plants could build 20-40 times as much in actual renewables which have longer lifespans and far lower negative impacts.
That is total bullshit. Germany has spent $250,000,000,000+ on renewables, and their electricity grid is still 10x dirtier than their neighbor France(France is 75% nuclear btw). The average energy bill in Germany is one of the highest in Europe while France has one of the lowest. And in no way do renewables have a longer life span than nuclear energy.
FTFY : It's all about capital investment. As the capital flows into 4th generation nuclear energy, economies of scale force the market to replace older, l
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Too many people... (Score:2)
And it will continue until coal stops (Score:2)
Re: The fuel is free (Score:5, Insightful)
But the capacity factor is low and the O&M cost is not free. The land required is not free. The capital cost is not free. The owners cost is not free. The cost of T&D is not free. Levelized cost means renewables still cannot compete with natural gas.
You will be using fossil fuel your entire lives. Get over it.
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where do you get your numbers ?
this is the first link I got : https://c1cleantechnicacom-wpe... [netdna-ssl.com]
second link shows solar beating gas in the long term.
https://theconversation.com/wi... [theconversation.com]
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But the capacity factor is low and the O&M cost is not free. The land required is not free. The capital cost is not free. The owners cost is not free. The cost of T&D is not free. Levelized cost means renewables still cannot compete with natural gas.
Capacity factor is irrelevant for levelized cost, O&M is significantly lower for newly built renewables than for most other sources, [eia.gov] and there's no shortage of unused land in the world.
You will be using fossil fuel your entire lives. Get over it.
If you're sixty or more, then maybe. Otherwise...nope.
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and there's no shortage of unused land in the world.
Not all "unused" land is equally useless though. If it gets plenty of sunlight, but also plenty of rain, it's being used as farm land and the value of that land is what could have instead been earned if it were being used for farming. Alternatively if it gets plenty of sun and no rain, it's practically perfect for solar and the land will be cheap unless there are a lot of natural resources underneath of it.
The only other issue to consider is proximity to where the power will be used. Long distance transm
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Seems to me that when I'm driving between cities on the interstate, when I look out my left side window there are vast patches of unused land that are 30 to 50 feet wide. Other than dividing the opposite lanes of traffic this land seems to serve no other purpose than a place for grass to grow. Grass that, for some reason escapes me, we seem to want to spend a great deal of time and energy to mow.
With a little thinking could not some of this land be put to better use? Say a solar farm right down the m
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Unmowed grass is a fire hazard
Good point. I should have realized that.
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I have read studies that show there are kind of grass, switch grass and hemp, that would make far better bio-fuels than anything we currently use. But for some reason, only Cthulhu knows, they want to continue to make it out of corn.
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and there's no shortage of unused land in the world.
Not all "unused" land is equally useless though. If it gets plenty of sunlight, but also plenty of rain, it's being used as farm land and the value of that land is what could have instead been earned if it were being used for farming..
But that farm land is a fine place for wind turbines, and it happens a lot of U.S. farm land in the nation's central "wind belt". And farmers don't complain about wind turbines spoiling their view, and they are delighted to collect a monthly check for simply allowing the turbine to be there.
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Capacity factor is irrelevant for levelized cost,
Completely false. A gas plant that is idled is more expensive LCOE that one that is run a lot. Wind power that is curtailed is more expensive than wind power that is not curtailed. There is a cost under utilization of a asset.
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Capacity factor has no strong connection to LCOE.
You've backed off, but still very wrong. It has a very direct and strong impact on LCOE. Cost of not using and asset is ALWAYS significant. Two windmills curtailed 50 percent of the time will always cost a lot more than one windmill not curtailed at all.
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First, decreased capacity factor is quite rarely due to curtailment.
Wrong again. Natural gas is curtailed quite a bit so that it can serve to make up for wind/solar intermittance. Nat Gas would cost less if it were run full capability.
As penetration of wind and solar grow, curtailment will increase. In Germany, where wind is at about 16 percent of total annual generation, they are just beginning to see an increase in curtailment. In Texas, where it is less, they see occasional curtailment.
Your country's "prices" are not "costs". Price are irrelevant, as they can even
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Wrong again. Natural gas is curtailed quite a bit so that it can serve to make up for wind/solar intermittance.
We were talking about renewables. My country has hardly any gas plant anyway, gas is expensive AS FUCK around here. Only a total idiot would burn gas in a power plant at these prices.
As penetration of wind and solar grow, curtailment will increase.
You're delusional. Norwegians, electric car owners and other opportunistic consumers will slurp it like there's no tomorrow.
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We were talking about renewables. My country has hardly any gas plant anyway, gas is expensive AS FUCK around here. Only a total idiot would burn gas in a power plant at these prices.
You're delusional. Norwegians, electric car owners and other opportunistic consumers will slurp it like there's no tomorrow.
Gas prices in your country are completely irrelevant to the point. Gas is cheap in many places, not so in others. In any place, highly curtailed gas cost more than non curtailed gas. Why is that so hard to understand?
Increasing demand doesn't eliminate the need to curtail high penetration intermittent renewables. Demand doesn't follow wind.
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Re: The fuel is free (Score:5, Insightful)
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Don't leave us hanging. List what these expensive materials are, and how much they add to the cost of each panel?
Are you referring to the dopants that added to the silicon in order create the solar cell? There are the extremely rare and expensive elements of boron and phosphorous. One you dump into your clothes washer (borax) and the other you dump on to your lawn and garden.
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Scientists and engineers disagree with you.
You mean the scientists and engineers predicting $0.01/kWh solar electricity in ten years or less? I'm pretty sure they're not exactly disagreeing with him.
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I know a lot of solar scientists and engineers, and I don't know any of them predicting 1 cent per kilowatt-hour price in ten years. That's a bit of an optimistic projection: a good target to aim for, indeed, but not something to predict.
Cost per kilowatt hour is very location dependent, by the way. Is that a prediction of 1 cent per kilowatt hour in the Australian desert? Or in Norway?
On the other hand, the old ERDA (and later DOE) target for solar panels back in 1978 was a long-term price goal of 50 c
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I know a lot of solar scientists and engineers, and I don't know any of them predicting 1 cent per kilowatt-hour price in ten years.
Thierry Lepercq, head of research, technology and innovation at the French energy company Engie SA, said in an interview at Bloomberg that he sees a potential for the cost of solar electricity to fall below $10-megawatt hour (1/kWh) in the sunniest climates by 2025. [electrek.co]
Re:Agreed (Score:4, Insightful)
Not clean (Score:3)
Nuclear fission reactors are clean and produce continuous power.
They produce little carbon pollution and other particulates but they are decidedly NOT clean. Nuclear waste is the very definition of not clean. Manageable maybe but not clean and certainly dangerous.
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Nuclear fission reactors are clean and produce continuous power.
They produce little carbon pollution and other particulates but they are decidedly NOT clean. Nuclear waste is the very definition of not clean. Manageable maybe but not clean and certainly dangerous.
Solar panels are decidedly not clean either. Chemicals used in production are certainly dangerous and quite nasty. Panels have limited life and no reasonable disposal or recycle method. I'll take the very tiny amount of space for easy to manage, highly inert spent nuclear fuel.
Solar panels are pretty clean [Re:Not clean] (Score:4, Insightful)
If we switched to GaAs-based or CdTe based solar panel technologies, you might have had a point. But silicon cells? Nothing really dangerous about them.,
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https://www.chemservice.com/ne... [chemservice.com]
I'm not worried about those either. Just like I'm not worried about spent fuel. A little education goes a long way to quell fears.
Scary! But I'm not afraid [Re:Solar panels are...] (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not worried about solder. But clearly you didn't even take time to google PV production chemicals before responding.
I don't need to, because I actually know the technology. You seem to be not afraid of nuclear waste because it is "easy to manage, highly inert". Well, in turn, I'm not afraid of the chemicals named in that site
Let me help;
No, let me help. As I said, I actually know the technology. The chemicals named in that site are: "Hydrochloric acid, copper, trichlorosilane gas and silicon waste."
Hydrochloric acid: Wow, sounds scary! Acid! Well, uh, except just mix the waste with dilute sodium hydroxide, and it turns into salt and water.
copper: You know what? I'm not afraid of copper. Sorry. I even have it in my house-- it's in the wires!
trichlorosilane gas: Solar production don't want to waste the silane-- it's your feedstock-- but if there is waste? Burn it. It turns into silicon dioxide (sand), water, and hydrochloric acid (see above).
and silicon waste: Silicon is pretty inert.
Really. If you are not scared of nuclear waste, you should really really not be scared of solar array production waste. Use the same standards of "scaryness" for both.
(Several other chemicals are named later on in the article... which are not used in current technology panels.)
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I'm not worried about solder. But clearly you didn't even take time to google PV production chemicals before responding.
I don't need to, because I actually know the technology. You seem to be not afraid of nuclear waste because it is "easy to manage, highly inert". Well, in turn, I'm not afraid of the chemicals named in that site
Let me help;
No, let me help. As I said, I actually know the technology. The chemicals named in that site are: "Hydrochloric acid, copper, trichlorosilane gas and silicon waste." Hydrochloric acid: Wow, sounds scary! Acid! Well, uh, except just mix the waste with dilute sodium hydroxide, and it turns into salt and water. copper: You know what? I'm not afraid of copper. Sorry. I even have it in my house-- it's in the wires! trichlorosilane gas: Solar production don't want to waste the silane-- it's your feedstock-- but if there is waste? Burn it. It turns into silicon dioxide (sand), water, and hydrochloric acid (see above). and silicon waste: Silicon is pretty inert.
Really. If you are not scared of nuclear waste, you should really really not be scared of solar array production waste. Use the same standards of "scaryness" for both.
(Several other chemicals are named later on in the article... which are not used in current technology panels.)
Can you not read? I never said I was scared of chemicals used in PV tech. And, BTW, most of those chemicals are still used, they are just used in lesser amounts. Why are you scared of nuclear waste? You, nor anyone else with no business near it, are never likely to get anywhere near it. Can you say that for other toxic wastes that you don't fret about?
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Chemicals used in production are certainly dangerous and quite nasty.
They always are. You can go back into the jungle if you don't like our civilization.
An irrelevant comment. I can accept the need for chemicals, just as I can for nuclear waste. Education about risks helps.
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Nuclear fission reactors are clean and produce continuous power.
Nuclear is one of the key tools we have at our disposal to combat rising CO2 emissions. Some people have decided they don't want to use all the tools at our disposal because they hold their vision of "green power" as more important than actual CO2 reduction progress.
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We definitely *should* be using a lot more nuclear, but remember, since nukes are not at all responsive, they're only good for base load...
It looks like China and India are going to wind up leading the way in next-generation nuclear power (pebble bed, etc, maybe even thorium), since the West (and especially the US) is stuck on WWII-vintage steam nuke (PWR) technology. In addition to being more open to newer technologies, they've reduced the bureaucratic costs (licensing, permitting, approvals, dealing with
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Try telling that you the people who used to live near the Fukushima or Chernobyl reactors. Of the people who live near Sellafield (or whatever it is called now), which has had numerous accidents that involved release of radioactive materials, and the many others:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re:Agreed (Score:4, Funny)
Ah yes, lines from 1979 by the great physicist, Dan Fogelberg.
Re: Agreed (Score:3)
I hear the thunder three miles away.
The Island's leaking into the bay
The poison is spreading
The demon is free
And people are running from what they can't even see
lol.
Total dead
Zero
The poison that spread
The demons you dread
As substantive as the fiddling of Nero
Just goes to show that fucking drama queens have always handwaived about stupid shit rather than doing something about the things which actually matter.
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No easy answers (Score:3, Insightful)
High-level waste is compact and mostly solid -- shield it, store it, and don't freak out about it.
Tell that to the folks who used to live near Fukushima. Or Chernobyl. Nuclear power is very safe... until it isn't. Nuclear waste is mostly manageable but incredibly toxic and nobody wants it nearby.
Far better than pumping tons of pollutants into the air from burning fossil fools.
Probably true but definitely not without problems. And people are a lot less scared of fossil fuels even if they shouldn't be.
Re:No easy answers (Score:4, Informative)
You mean the folks that received between 1 and 15 mSv for the inhabitants of the affected areas? Note that the average annual dose for Japanese citizens is around 4mSv. So for the most severe case of residents, they got a 4 year dose. Current residual radiation is lower than many cities natural background radiation.
http://www.pref.fukushima.lg.j... [fukushima.lg.jp]
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That's kind of my point. Nuclear power and the meltdown didn't really cause much in the way of damage and effects. The damage and effects were due to poor planning, government incompetence and panic created by the media. For some reason Fukushima took all the headlines despite even under the worst case and including the evacuation damages and deaths still pales in comparison with the actual earthquake and tsunami that caused the nuclear problem in the first place.
An estimated 1600 deaths due to the nuclear
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We should use it.
Designs exist for reactors that would enable you to burn it all down to practically a chunk of lead, all while extracting energy.
Re:Agreed (Score:5, Interesting)
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A recent case study showed they were able to save $35mil in fuel over a 6 month period from a $55mil battery bank. Seems to me that batteries pay for themselves.
Are you going to cite this wonderful study or just claim it exists?
Clouds [Re:Agreed] (Score:2)
You don't need direct Sun light. Solar panels can generate around 80% of peak during dismal overcast days.
No.
Solar panels do still work on cloudy days, but nothing like 80%. Here's a typical graph of power production on a partly-cloudy day, notice the dips in output when clouds block the sun: power indeed doesn't go down to zero, but it does drop significantly:
http://uk-solarpanels.blogspot.com/2012/05/solar-panels-low-peak-output.html
or this one; https://www.transgrid.com.au/n... [transgrid.com.au]
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This is just utter and complete bullcrap.
I built the worlds largest distributed solar PV panel monitoring system (wireless monitors for each panel in large arrays), and I can tell you categorically that for all practical purposes, solar panels DO only work in direct sunlight. Even very high, thin cirrus clouds can easily cut 20-30% or more off a PV plant's output. (Heck, a blob of bird crap or a leaf can slash a panel's output by 33%, frequently leading to the inability of the string to maintain bus volta
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"Solar needs 1,600 tons of steel per MW,
Uhhhh...since when? 1 MW is something like 3500 ordinary solar panels. One weighs about twenty kilograms. Where do 460 extra kilograms of steel per panel step in?
Re: The fuel is free (Score:3)
They're competing successfully because they don't have to worry about base load generation. Even better (for them) as you increase the penetration of renewables, the price of other forms of energy increase due to more time spent idling, so renewables look even more attractive to the ignorant layman.
To use a loose analogy, people who recieve food stamps have to earn less to get by. But the more people there are on food stamps, the more everyone else has to pay in order to make up for it. That doesn't mean
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the fuel is free
But unreliable.
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Firstly, tens of thousands of wind turbines seems easy. It's a well established technology and business, and cheaper per kWh than most other energy technologies.
Wind and solar together, at scale, is slightly more effective, since the timing of their power generation often complements each other.
If we were serious about eliminating the fossil fuel use in power generation, we would combine more wind and solar with pumped hydro storage, compressed air storage including possibly under-lake storage, and possibly
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Here in Ontario emissions from power generation have been going up despite the government going mad with wind and solar. Yes, the remaining coal plants have been shut down -- and the nukes (60% of power) and hydroelectric have been dialed back to provide space on the grid to accommodate the mandated 'first to the grid' rule for this stuff. But to fill in the fluctuations and sags in wind they have also been aggressively adding gas turbines -- so overall emissions are rising.
Never trust an AC without links. From this site [canada.ca] it appears that Ontario's carbon emissions fell from 2005 to 2016. And all of Canada [canada.ca] is down from 2006 despite economic and population growth.