Climate Change / Global Warming Discussion

[mspohr]

‘Hypocrites and greenwash’: Greta Thunberg blasts leaders over climate crisis

Greta Thunberg has blasted politicians as hypocrites and international climate summits as empty words and greenwash. Until humanity admits it has failed to tackle the climate crisis and begins treating it as an emergency like the coronavirus pandemic, society will be unable to stop global heating, she said.

In an interview with the Guardian, Thunberg said leaders were happy to set targets for decades into the future, but flinched when immediate action to cut emissions was needed. She said there was not a politician on the planet promising the climate action required: “If only,” said the teenager, who will turn 18 in January.

 

[mspohr]

Revealed: Covid recovery plans threaten global climate hopes

How a Biden presidency plans to lead a global green recovery
Analysis by Vivid Economics shows green spending under Biden growing 14-fold while non-green stimulus shrinks

 

[rays427]

Revealed: Covid recovery plans threaten global climate hopes

How a Biden presidency plans to lead a global green recovery
Analysis by Vivid Economics shows green spending under Biden growing 14-fold while non-green stimulus shrinks

So this shows we will spend more than any other country to go green. What that means is that it will drive up the cost of our products versus other countries especially China. Since our companies will be less competitive they will lose business to companies in other countries. This will result in less being produced in the US which will reduce out emissions but will be more than offset in other countries as they produce more goods. As we lose jobs and become poorer we will also spend less which will also reduce our emissions. As the other countries become richer they will spend more so their emissions will increase. So worldwide emissions may actually go up rather than down because many of the countries that will pick up business us are less green.

 

[JRP3]

That's one interpretation...

 

[mspohr]

That's one interpretation...

It’s Difficult to Make Predictions, Especially About the Future
Niels Bohr? Samuel Goldwyn? K. K. Steincke? Robert Storm Petersen? Yogi Berra? Mark Twain? Nostradamus? Anonymous?

 

[David_Cary]

Arguably we have a bit further to go than other countries - certainly on a per capita basis.
If the US government subsidizes a big solar farm and because of this our electricity costs go down, how does that make it less competitive to make products here?
If our air becomes cleaner, and we save that money on health care costs, how does that make our products cost more?

You can try to make the argument that it costs money long term to go green, but there are a lot of holes in that argument. Mostly, it takes investment, but the long term cost is neutral to negative to minimal depending on the accounting. Add in heath care, and by most analysis, it is a win win.

 

[rays427]

Arguably we have a bit further to go than other countries - certainly on a per capita basis.
If the US government subsidizes a big solar farm and because of this our electricity costs go down, how does that make it less competitive to make products here?
If our air becomes cleaner, and we save that money on health care costs, how does that make our products cost more?

You can try to make the argument that it costs money long term to go green, but there are a lot of holes in that argument. Mostly, it takes investment, but the long term cost is neutral to negative to minimal depending on the accounting. Add in heath care, and by most analysis, it is a win win.

Depends on how much the solar farm is subsidized. So far locations where wind and solar have been pushed the cost of electricity has gone up. Look at California and Germany. The problem is that fossil fuel operations must be kept in reserve for when the wind doesn't blow and the sun doesn't shine. This drives up the overall cost. As we go more and more with solar and wind where we also need battery storage the costs will go up exponentially. If you really want to get rid of fossil fuels the best way would be nuclear. The greens say it will cost too much but that's only because of all the regulations and restrictions they have put in place.

 

[SageBrush]

Arguably we have a bit further to go than other countries - certainly on a per capita basis.

A bit

 

[JRP3]

As we go more and more with solar and wind where we also need battery storage the costs will go up exponentially. If you really want to get rid of fossil fuels the best way would be nuclear. The greens say it will cost too much but that's only because of all the regulations and restrictions they have put in place.

No one is going to build nukes without regulations. Solar plus batteries is already cheaper than NG plants, contrary to your claims.
From a year old article:
"New Solar + Battery Price Crushes Fossil Fuels, Buries Nuclear"
"The solar price is half the estimated cost of power from a new natural gas plant."
New Solar + Battery Price Crushes Fossil Fuels, Buries Nuclear

 

[bruce4000]

People tend to think renewables are more expensive because they checked into it 15 or even 5 years ago so still think it is. As Elon says, go back to first principles: for fossil fuels, you have to build the plant, build the fuel delivery system (build pipelines or upgrade railway tracks for heavy coal trains), Mine and Transport the fuel everyday for the life of the plant, and do maintenance. For renewables, you have to build the plant and do maintenance. With economies of scale kicking in now, wind+ solar + batteries being quoted to utilities are coming in cheaper.

 

[rays427]

No one is going to build nukes without regulations. Solar plus batteries is already cheaper than NG plants, contrary to your claims.
From a year old article:
"New Solar + Battery Price Crushes Fossil Fuels, Buries Nuclear"
"The solar price is half the estimated cost of power from a new natural gas plant."
New Solar + Battery Price Crushes Fossil Fuels, Buries Nuclear

The problem with renewables is that you need to keep a natural gas or coal plant ready to run when the sun doesn't shine or wind blow. When you add this cost especially winter versus summer output the cost for wind and solar soars. The problem with nuclear is the amount of regulations. In addition environmental organizations fight them all the way which delays construction thereby driving up the costs. Let's face it we, and some other countries, are even closing down nuclear plants because of pressure by environmental organizations. As and example just look at the costs and CO2 emissions of Germany versus France.

 

[David_Cary]

Rays - you are making an argument against - solar + batteries. See the batteries store electricity for when the sun doesn't shine...

I know you know that but you neglect to mention it. The reality is that costs have gotten so low even with the intermittent nature brought in. Just like with consumption, if you wire enough area together, it smooths things out.

Wind blows strong in the winter especially near the coast.

Nuclear just doesn't pencil out very well. I agree that existing ones often should not be closed but it just doesn't make financial sense anymore. Yes - if you really streamline the regulations, it may get closer. But that isn't going to happen and it still isn't likely to make it cheaper than wind/solar/batteries/grid improvements.

You complain about needing peaker plants but nuclear has the same problem. Try ramping up a nuclear reactor for a cold snap in the South.

And car charging (especially with long range EVs) and some software can really smooth things out. Cars become the number one residential electricity users and can be charged whenever they want. With batteries 10X the average daily use, that covers a lot of intermittent generation.

I have a solar house/2 EVs. No NG for heat/hot water. Cars represent 40% of our use for relatively average commuting patterns. And ranges are 320 and 220 for our daily use of 25 miles or so. Now imagine 10 million of those which we will hit in a few years, or 100 million in a decade.

 

[SageBrush]

Just like with consumption, if you wire enough area together, it smooths things out.

Right, and until now there has been very little use of this strategy.

However,
I recently read that Avangrid renewables is going to buy PNM, the IOU that supplies most of New Mexico. I'm pretty sure that their intent is to develop the wind and PV resources in the southeastern part of the state for export to California. California in turn will develop off-shore wind. Between PV and wind and geographic sharing, intermittency is markedly mitigated for the entire southwest and California. Batteries are the cream on the cake.

 

[mspohr]

Five post-Trump obstacles to a global green recovery

 

[juliusa]

Solar plus batteries is already cheaper than NG plants, contrary to your claims.

I have heard that, and read about it. What I don't understand is why we are building NG plants when solar plus batteries is cheaper. Why not install solar+battery plants instead?

 

[JRP3]

Established industries stick to what they know, until they can't.

But a curious thing recently happened in Southern California. One of the largest utilities in the country scrapped a proposal to build a new peaker plant, opting instead to build a battery system that could store excess electricity from solar and wind when conditions are good and cleanly dispatch it when needed.

https://www.usnews.com/news/nationa...natural-gas-power-plant-in-favor-of-batteries

 

[juliusa]

Established industries stick to what they know, until they can't.



https://www.usnews.com/news/nationa...natural-gas-power-plant-in-favor-of-batteries

Batteries do not generate electricity. I am curious why if solar+battery is cheaper than NG, why would anyone build a NG generation facility instead of a solar+battery facility?

 

[SmartElectric]

Solar + battery doesn't work in Ontario to completely supplant the need for flexible production in all conditions, as our winter solar is a fraction of summer production.

Thankfully we have lots of Hydro (and some pumped hydro) and most of it is flexible (except Moses-Saunders Power Dam - Wikipedia which is "always on").

Sadly Ontario built out 7GW of gas to back up the 11GW of nuclear, this added 4c/kWh to the cost of electricity in Ontario sitting idle most of the time, we pay for the cost no matter what.

 

[SageBrush]

Established industries stick to what they know, until they can't.
https://www.usnews.com/news/nationa...natural-gas-power-plant-in-favor-of-batteries

SCE did not 'nix' NG -- the PUC refused to approve the SCE NG choice.

USNews is not a trustworthy news site.

 

[rays427]

Rays - you are making an argument against - solar + batteries. See the batteries store electricity for when the sun doesn't shine...

I know you know that but you neglect to mention it. The reality is that costs have gotten so low even with the intermittent nature brought in. Just like with consumption, if you wire enough area together, it smooths things out.

Wind blows strong in the winter especially near the coast.

Nuclear just doesn't pencil out very well. I agree that existing ones often should not be closed but it just doesn't make financial sense anymore. Yes - if you really streamline the regulations, it may get closer. But that isn't going to happen and it still isn't likely to make it cheaper than wind/solar/batteries/grid improvements.

You complain about needing peaker plants but nuclear has the same problem. Try ramping up a nuclear reactor for a cold snap in the South.

And car charging (especially with long range EVs) and some software can really smooth things out. Cars become the number one residential electricity users and can be charged whenever they want. With batteries 10X the average daily use, that covers a lot of intermittent generation.

I have a solar house/2 EVs. No NG for heat/hot water. Cars represent 40% of our use for relatively average commuting patterns. And ranges are 320 and 220 for our daily use of 25 miles or so. Now imagine 10 million of those which we will hit in a few years, or 100 million in a decade.

The problem with batteries they are still relatively expensive. Having enough battery capacity for summer to winter operation is a big problem. My solar system averages 8 times more during the summer peak month than the winter.minimum month. We average about about 58kwh per day during the summer and under 7 kwh in the winter. Our highest daily output has been 62 kwh and our lowest has been 1 and we live in California. I know that large scale systems are better but it's still at best about 50 % less in winter than in summer.. Another problem is that if we convert all heating to to electric the need for electricity will end up being higher in the winter than summer. We currently use as much or more electricity in the winter months even though we have propane heat. So if we go total electric our electric use would go way up just when our solar output is at it's lowest.

Cars can be scheduled to charge during the day but most folks would probably rather charge at night when they are not using their cars.

Nuclear plants don't have the problem of having their output go from 100% output to almost zero from day to day. They also don't drop in output from summer to winter like solar. So with solar and wind you need to have some form of backup for day to night operation and day to day, and month to month variations. Batteries can handle day to night and maybe even some day to day variations but would be difficult to handle the winter to summer requirements. I guess you could overbuild the solar and wind so that it could handle the worst day but it would be very expensive.