by Russell Schussler (Planning Engineer)
Part I: Renewable energy as a grouping lacks coherence
This series will look in depth at the inherent and emerging flaws within the renewable/nonrenewable framework for classifying generating energy resources. It may have made sense 50 years ago to speak in terms of renewable and non-renewable resources when thinking of future energy needs and plans. That basic conceptualization helped promote change and thinking about the impact of generation resources on the environment. But we are now far removed from the 1970’s. Current calls for major changes in the electric supply system, such as Net-Zero, envision sweeping change. Broad system efforts to address environmental concerns while meeting energy needs call for a more sophisticated understanding than can be supported by a dichotomy between “renewable” and “non-renewable” resources.
Neither “renewables” or “non-renewables” are coherent groupings for an energy resource typology. Similarities between resources in different groupings can be strong and within group differences can be large. Most statements made in reference to generic “renewables” are either trivial or misleading. Policy and legislation favoring renewables over other generation resources can encourage poor resource choices and hinder good resource alternatives.
It might be expected that those who are concerned about C02 emissions, those concerned about nuclear power, and those more broadly identifying with environmental movements might take exception with this proposal. But any serious proponents of net-zero or of major energy transitions should be in favor of more clarity and increased precision when undertaking serious discussions. Many environmentalists have grave concerns with expanded hydro and biomass-based generation, for example. This series will discuss later how “non-renewable” resources might be the cleanest and greenest proposals in many instances. Furthermore, the case against burning fossil fuels is more strongly made based on current environmental concerns, not based on fears that that such resources might run out hundreds of years from now.
Instead of speaking of renewables, let’s talk about how clean resources are, how green they might be, how sustainable they might be, and how well they work for supporting the needs of consumers and the power system. Let’s not lump resources which can be expanded with those that have limited future applicability. We shouldn’t confuse resources that support the grid with those that stress the grid, and pretend they have similar potential. For example, Iceland with abundant hydro and geothermal resources does not provide a renewable model to provide guidance and support for an area rich with wind and solar resources.
Renewable is a Relationship not an Independent Characteristic of Energy Sources
The UN defines Renewable energy as “energy derived from natural sources that are replenished at a higher rate than they are consumed.” Whether something is renewable or not, then is dependent upon the relationship between replenishment and consumption. Are wooden ships “renewable”? Yes and no. Forests in Ireland and Iceland provided “renewable” timber needed for ship building, until consumption increased much faster than the tree stocks could be renewed. Ship timber went from being a renewable resource to limited resources to a tragic environmental loss in a short time frame. At one point whale oil was a viable “renewable resource” which gave light to much of the western world. While many resources are “renewable” for a time, as usage increase their use may prove to be unsustainable.
Such relationships can be observed with present renewable energy sources as well. If you overbuild or over-dispatch generation relative to some geothermal resources, they can be exhausted. Similarly, the use of hydro resources can be depleted. Many areas have “water wars” where various constituencies fight over how water resources are used by recreational, agricultural, aquaculture, navigation and energy production. Past hydro energy usage patterns are not sustainable in many regions. Biomass generation, as did shipbuilding, can lead to resource depletion as well.
What about Non-renewable Resources?
Is the problem with nuclear, natural gas and coal, as suggested by the renewable/non-renewable dichotomy, that we may one day run out of these resources? Or are the concerns better focused on their potential impacts in nearer terms?
Nuclear power is generally not considered renewable. Nuclear waste purportedly could power the US for 100 years. Economically assessable uranium might last 200 years. With breeder reactors we may be able to generate with nuclear power for billions of years. Recognizing all the resources needed to produce electrical energy, based on our current technological abilities it looks like we could generate far more energy for longer time periods with nuclear resources before facing significant resource constraints than we might with renewable resources such as wind and solar. Sustainability based arguments against nuclear power are weak. Arguments against nuclear should be based on considerations beyond whether it is renewable or not.
Now let’s look at coal. The estimates for coal availability span 50 to 500 years or more. Those who oppose the use of coal want it sharply curtailed in the near term because of its environmental impact, not because they want to have it available for future use. Those who favor use of coal generally see coal as a bridge fuel and are not wedded to coal as a fuel choice beyond the life of existing and planned coal plants. Most importantly the arguments around coal use are not around issues of sustainability of supply, but rather the impact of coal plants today. Virtually no one’s position on coal use today will change based upon their understanding of whether we have 50 years or 3 million years of coal availability remaining.
Finally let’s consider natural gas. Because it is “cleaner” than coal, many see it as an excellent fuel choice to transition away from coal. Common estimates of natural gas availability fall between 60 and 120 years. This is far more natural gas than was assumed available before the advent of horizontal fracking. Again, even at the lower ends of availability, there is plenty of natural gas availability to allow for current natural gas facilities and significant future additions. Once again. overwhelmingly concerns around natural gas focus on the impacts of current fracking efforts and CO2 contributions, not the long-term availability of natural gas.
Resource Availability
Mankind depends on many resources for energy and other needs. Most all of these resources depending on demand, may become constrained. Does it make sense to set policies that consider resource availability hundreds of years in the future? As the saying goes, “It’s hard to predict, especially about the future.” If the thinking that dominated the renewable energy debate expanded into other areas, we would look at many resources very differently than we do now. WorldWatch says we could run out of iron ore by 2070. Projections for bauxite suggest it might only last for 25 to 200 years. Scientists from the Global Phosphorous Research initiative estimates that peak phosphorous will be reached by 2030. Gold mining may be uneconomically sustainable by 2050. Supply problems for cobalt may emerge in the next decade. Tungsten sources appear to be very limited. On the other side, it appears that we may have significantly more lithium than previously anticipated.
Many will argue that human ingenuity, changes in technology, alternative ways of doing things, alternative ways to capture resources and such will forestall any severe consequences from such forecasted resource depletions. So far, we have been good at coming up with solutions to anticipated resource problems. We had a close call with nitrogen a little over 100 years ago. Nitrogen for weapons and fertilizer were dependent upon reserves of bird guano built up over ages on remote islands. The supply was precariously dwindling, threatening to bring civilization to a halt. The Haber-Bosch process developed in Germany was able to draw nitrogen from the air and produce ammonia. Nitrogen from the ammonia could then supply the world. As an additional note – the initial process was dependent on osmium, an extremely rare element as a catalyst. Other catalysts and other processes have since been discovered, such that we are no longer dependent on osmium or the Haber-Bosch process. We should also be aware that today’s solution may be tomorrow’s problem. Instead of problems relating to dwindling nitrogen availability, abundant anthropogenic nitrogen creates environmental problems by supporting cyanobacteria and resultant algae blooms.
None of the above is to argue that we should glibly and wastefully use resources, ignoring potential future consequences. But neither should we dogmatically proclaim that resource depletion is just around the corner and that present trends cannot possibly persist. We have no real idea of any resource needs 100 years in the future. As we look at various generation resources ,the question of sustainability will always bring challenges. In considering competent alternatives it will be important to be as evenhanded as possible across resource types.
Sustainability Depends on the Entire Energy Conversion Process
Wind and solar appear not as constrained as some other renewable resources might, since we get fresh quantities daily. It is important though that we look not only upon the direct energy source, but at all resources needed to produce electric energy as well as the complete life-cycle impacts including construction, transportation and support services. To capture energy from wind and solar sources, we rely on many resources that are only available in limited amounts. It is arbitrary (and incorrect) to say that we only care about the renewability of the original energy source itself, and not the resources needed to convert the energy source to electric energy. If you are going to treat all potential resources fairly, it should be considered that the construction of vast solar and wind facilities can deplete critical resources, possibly making their increased use unsustainable. Current technologies do not allow for the replenishment in the foreseeable future of all the resources needed to convert wind and solar energy to electrical energy.
One may argue that wind and solar may not always be dependent on the limited resources that they rely on today, such as rare earth metals. That eventually through currently unknown technologies, they will be able to always meet power needs. As previously discussed, this is a perfectly reasonable hope. However, if you can make that argument, a similar one for nuclear fuel is likely even more well founded. Any dichotomy that places hydro, biomass, wind and solar as sustainable power sources, but sees nuclear power as being somehow less sustainable, should be considered suspect.
Does Renewable Mean Clean or Green? Should We Quickly Retire Non-Renewable Resources?
Environmental groups have been clear for years in their opposition to most all new hydro projects. Many environmental groups strongly oppose the Biomass industry, decrying the environmental impacts of our current approaches. FERC just approved the removal of four existing hydro resources based upon their continuing impacts. Geothermal plants release CO2 and most are carefully monitored to track emissions. Even wind and solar plants are not universally clean and green, as they can have particularly adverse impacts in some environments.
Many fossil fuel plants which could effectively provide backup power are imprudently retired to hasten a transition to support higher levels of renewables. This may provide aggregate numbers which look better to some, but this can be counter-productive. When considering lifecycle impacts of generation resources, retaining old plants for emergency service can be the most environmentally smart move available. Most environmental damage has already happened. Remaining incremental fuel impacts are small compared to the benefits. Considering CO2 alone, building extensive wind and solar or adding batteries to replace the emergency power that such units might provide, may have far greater adverse environmental impacts than prolonging limited fossil fuel generation.
The Line Between Renewable and Non-Renewable is Not Clear and Will Continue to Blur
Energy resources of the future may vary considerably from today’s expectations. It is likely that many might straddle the line between what is considered renewable and non-renewable. Existing technologies already blur the line. Molten salt cores are heated with mirrors to enable solar power to better match the grid capabilities of fossil fuel-based resources. As part of the process in some applications, the “renewable” solar resource was designed to burn supplemental natural gas to make the process more efficient. So far, such plants have not worked as well in practice as in theory. But they have provided hopes to many as a future synchronous “renewable” resource. If in fact they did work as planned, it might well make a lot of sense to be able to effectively tap a lot of solar power with the addition of a little natural gas, even if such a plant was not strictly “renewable”. Without careful attention to actual impacts, future clean plants which fall short of being strictly “renewable” may face undue hurdles.
Final Note
Speaking in terms of renewables and nonrenewable generating resources generally provides more confusion than clarity. Within-group differences are large in many cases. We can’t see the future and know what alternatives might emerge and prove successful. It is, however, clearly emerging that “renewable” and “nonrenewable” are dated terms who have outlived their usefulness. The next part of this series will look at how various generating resources impact the grid. Some “renewables” provide great support for the grid, while others create challenges. Lumping them together in discussion of grid impacts creates misunderstandings and problems that will long term harm any efforts to change the grid.
Environmental impacts are more important than renewability. Renewables are unreliable, intermittent and use a lot of land and materials and so have large environmental impacts. Nuclear is reliable, dependable and use fsr less land and materials and so have much lower environmental impacts.
We should start building thousands of small nuclear reactors. One in every neighborhood for energy independence, reliability and redundance.
https://douglasrmclain.substack.com/p/limits-to-growth
Thorium
ANEEL https://cleancore.energy/news/clean-core-thorium-energys-advanced-nuclear-fuel-design-begins-canadian-nuclear-safety-commission-pre-licensing-review
Useful if wordy observations that could help guide our future energy requirements, but only in the Old World that the west has become. In the New World of Asia, coal mines and modern coal and gas fired power stations are emerging at a rate that far exceeds the savings hoped for by the Old World’s gallop towards Net Zero.
What could be a better example of ‘renewing’
…than CO2 the atmosphere and greening the Earth?
It’s time to do what works. Peace through energy independence is what works in the real world.
‘All other things being equal, everyone would prefer clean over dirty energy. However, all other things are not equal. We need secure, reliable, and economic energy systems for all countries in the world. This includes Africa, which is currently lacking grid electricity in many countries. We need a 21st century infrastructure for our electricity and transportation systems, to support continued and growing prosperity. The urgency of rushing to implement 20th century renewable technologies risks wasting resources on an inadequate energy infrastructure, increasing our vulnerability to weather and climate extremes and harming our environment in new ways.’ ~Judith Curry
“It’s time to do what works.” Clearly, you are not a Democrat.
If one is discussing electricity generation in terms of grid operation, the only terminology should be whether the source is dispatchable or non-dispatchable. They should not be interested in whether it is renewable or not.
For a reliable (and cheap/ inefficient) supply, the vast majority of generation needs to be dispatchable. That is the grid operators can rely on it meeting the amount of generation they have previously said they would. The generator’s bid would be MW and a price for a specific time period. This allows the operators to build a generation stack to meet the expected load. The time before to enter bids should be long enough to allow alternates to be run. With gas turbines or partially loaded coal plants, this is typically 2 hours.
In those terms renewables (solar and wind) are not dispatchable as they are unreliable. The Australian grid operators call them semi-scheduled to fudge the issue. If there is a significant proportion of unreliables on the grid, then the operators have to keep a lot more plant in reserve to fill the gap. Running coal or gas plants at part load makes them inefficient and needing more maintenance. That raises the cost to consumers. It also makes outages more likely when plant doesn’t meet dispatch. The carbon intensity of electricity will increase – something the unreliables were supposed to stop.
Geothermal and hydro – the old renewables – aren’t included, but many progressives don’t want them anyway. Pumped or battery storage isn’t a nett generator, just an energy inefficient method of smoothing.
There is a modified saying very applicable in these cases. For electricity supply, there are options; renewable, cheap, reliable. You can have only have two of the three. Which would you choose? Real world experience has proven you cannot have it all.
Beleive me, I know this this is an important issue which will be discussed in Part II. I’m hoping after I’m done, it wil be better summarized but I want to take my time and make the whole case.
I had no doubt that you would make that case using those points, PE. I just wanted to get in first;-)
“there are options; renewable, cheap, reliable. You can have only have two of the three.”
I didn’t realize these parameters were quantized; nonetheless, I would choose renewable and reliable; sacrificing cheap to provide sufficient storage to make renewables (and supporting grid) reliable. I think it is a worthwhile investment, regardless whether the motivation is climatic or simply realizing that the supply of fossil fuels is limited on the centennial timescale (and have better uses).
Cheap and reliable. Also renewable, when it is cheap and reliable.
Your aim might be admirable but reality makes it a quixotic aspiration. Costs of storage are orders of magnitude higher than the cost of generation and these won’t get significantly cheaper. Adding to the storage is also the transmission capital costs plus generation overbuild.
How much extra are you prepared to pay for grid electricity from the renewables? And how much would the average voter pay? Indications are they don’t want their power price to go up at all.
ganon1950,
For your “I would choose…” To be heard, frst you would need to display a knowledge of physics and quanta, so that you used the correct word “quantified” not “quantized”.
But you are then resorting to belief or opinion, when that is not the way that science works. Try measured parameters with proper confidence limits to make your argument.
Geoff S
Question. How do you plan to build weather dependent wind and solar, alongwith the batteries needed to back them up without using fossil fuels given that wind and solar can’t produce enough energy to power the machinery used for their production starting with the mining of the minerals needed which requires the movement of an enormous amount of earth using a lot of very heavy fossil fuel powered machinery. Then you have transport, energy intensive manufacturing, site prep, life cycle maintenance, and ultimate decommissioning and disposal. Every step of the process requires the use of FF powered machinery with the added benefit that the unreliables must be replaced more frequently because they wear out faster than traditional thermal plants. The net is, wind and solar are 100% dependent on fossil fuels from cradle to grave.
I prefer the term Ambient Energy Extraction Device. The energy used to make a solar panel is about 200 KWh. Most solar panels will generate enough energy to cover that in less than 2 years and should go on to produce over 10 MWh over its 20-25 year lifespan. The only thing holding AEED back is cheap storage. I will admit that is a critical shortcoming right now but billions of dollars are being spent to fix that.
How about using another ambient resource to solve that storage problem: Compressed air.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2352152X23019217
jack
You need to correct what you wrote by adding that capitalisation “I will admit that is a critical shortcoming right now but billions of dollars are being spent to TRY TO fix that.” Other than pumped water storage which has been around since the 70s, there has been nothing else in the GWh range. And the real storage needs are TWh. Look at the ratio capital cost to value of the product. That gives a good idea of what the economics would be. As an example, the average cost of battery power supplied to the SA grid was $450/MWh – about three times price of diesel engines.
Compressed air! Anyone who advocates that as a serious storage source instantly shows they don’t have any understanding of the subject. Look at the efficiencies of the process, even before considering the capital costs and leakage.
Transitioning to renewables has attractions, but it’s not clear how far or how fast we can go. California’s experience – periodic rolling blackouts at times of high demand – demonstrates that we still haven’t overcome the problems of intermittency. Add to that mandates (e.g., electric cars) that will increase the demand for electric power. Add to that that the amounts of important metals such as lithium and cobalt and lithium that will be needed exceed known reserves by a factor of 10 to 30 (and some others by even larger amounts). Add to that the shuttering of baseline nuclear and fossil plants. Add to that the trillions of dollars needed for the best current battery technologies. In short, we’re trying to mandate our way to a plan that requires a miracle or two at critical junctures in order to meet arbitrary deadlines.
Oops! Sorry. The second “lithium” should be “vanadium.” My fingers stuttered.
Soft pedalling the requirement for cheap energy is one thing in the developed world, but something entirely different in the developing world. In his book “How the World Really Works”, Vaclav Smil, an acknowledged expert on energy transitions, is unequivocal that achieving Net Zero by 2050 would deny the developing world any chance of meaningful economical progress.
Jay – you comment on denying the developing world a chance for meaningful economic progress is spot on.
Jacobson of 100% renewable electricity fame – in his net zero by 2050 studies has electricity usage increasing in African countries by very minor amounts approximately equal to population growth, ie per capita electric usage in African countries stays essentially flat.
Thank you, Russell.
I share a working paper: “The soft path paradox: Epistemological, theoretical and policy implications of energy sprawl” (2021, 36 p.): https://archive.org/details/energysprawl-paez
I’m in serious sympathy of the criticism our thread author shares. But are we improving things by catagorizing energy by “sustainability”?— another elastic and feel-good term that knows no usable metric beyond CB analysis?
Russell Schussler,
Thank you for this continuation of your excellent, experienced observations.
You write “It may have made sense 50 years ago to speak in terms of renewable and non-renewable resources when thinking of future energy needs and plans.”
As one who was involved with electricity generation in Australia 50 years ago, we were finding world-class mines then in remote locations where stand-alone electricity generation would have been an economic plus. Wind and solar did not get past first base. So no, from what I observed then and there, the term “renewable” was not in currency and would have recieved no serious thought as a concept if it had been publicised.
A common point in your essays seems to be that problems of today were known decades ago, but the promotion of some choices has shunned experience in favour of ambition.
Geoff S
There have been numerous articles, some by PE and me, on the problems Australia is having with its renewables on its grid. A recent post on Wattclarity outlines an issue of unreliability:
“But in particular through this period the total VRE production drops to only ~700MW for a period around 19:00 in the evening of Thursday 19th October 2023. At this time total supply was ~24,500MW:
(a) so ~23,800MW required to come from various forms of firming supply.
(b) which harks back to concerns raised before that ‘We’re not building enough replacement firming capacity’.
So even them, who are advocates for the transition to renewables, recognise that there are major problems that people won’t acknowledge.
The media tell us that solar and wind have become cheaper than Natgas or coal, neglecting that here is a roughly 30/70 cost split for electrical power: 30% generation, 70% transmission. Also, due to the intrinsic intermittency (non-dispatchable) of solar and wind power generation, grids become unmanageable beyond max 30% of solar and wind mix.
victor – the problem runs much deeper. The LCOE is based an average capacity factor – average being a meaningless measurement which generation from renewables is so highly volatile. A simplified example – When wind is blowing at 20% of average capacity, you need 5x wind capacity to meet demand. Then when wind is blowing at 200% average wind capacity, then wind is generating 2x more electricity than needed so the extra 1x gets wasted (flared off is the term in the natural gas industry).
The effective LCOE from wind based on usable electricity generated is 3x-5x greater than the LCOE based on average capacity.
Efficiency is a major factor in any energy production system since reliability follows from such measure. ‘Hydro batteries’ are the best we can do for storage since falling water is a powerful driving force no matter when or where the water was collected from. Nuclear, gas and coal are also efficient generators.
And we are going to need much more electricity in a future in a society ever more reliant upon the internet and computer communication. As data grows the cooling bill for the processors and stores will rise exponentially, as ever more stuff is captured. There is a real sense of net zero in this thinking – net zero attempt being made to join up the dots or having a good look at the empty spaces in the picture we already have.
We seem to have a lot of very mediocre brains at the ‘top’ doing a excessive amount of flag waving or slogan shouting and very little, if anything, else.
I guess that is what happens when everything get politicised, right down to who gets what in their pay packets.
Related. Pushback is forming against many of these Unicorn Climate Doomer policies.
Tires were burning and statues were tumbling outside the European Parliament last week as thousands of angry farmers from across the EU protested against the swathe of climate legislation coming from Brussels, among other things. Today, the Commission will broadly outline how agriculture will have to step up to meet an emissions-cutting goal of 90% by 2040. The new targets will touch on every corner of the economy and entail significant political risk ahead of elections in June, when rightwing parties are already expected to make significant gains against a backdrop of concerns over the cost of the transition. The question is whether the EU can fight that narrative to convince citizens that a rapid green transition is the most cost-effective option and a global economic advantage.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2024-02-06/eu-s-new-climate-targets-are-already-set-to-face-a-backlash
Not a great idea to follow the green energy pied pipers whose objective is to line their pockets at the expense of the average citizen. The European scheme only works if the rest of the world follows their foolish example. If they do not, Europe becomes economically irrelevant.
Mike wrote this:
The European scheme only works if the rest of the world follows their foolish example. If they do not, Europe becomes economically irrelevant.
If the rest of the world follow their foolish example, the world will go back to the dark ages, they will achieve their goals and many will die and population will be limited at a much lower number.
Western academia has become superstitious and ignorant because it sacrificed the discipline of the scientific method in the search for truth on an altar of Leftist-lib political relativism.
‘The best laws cannot make a constitution work in spite of morals; morals can turn the worst laws to advantage. That is a commonplace truth, but one to which my studies are always bringing me back. It is the central point in my conception. I see it at the end of all my reflections.’ ~Alexis de Tocqueville
Wags … thought you might like this:
> In another place in this work, I sought the causes to which one must attribute the maintenance of Americans’ political institutions, and religion appeared to me one of the principal ones. Now that I am occupied with individuals, I find it again and I perceive that it is not less useful to each citizen than to the entire state.
>Americans show by their practice that they feel every necessity of making democracy more moral by means of religion. What they think in this regard about themselves is a truth with which every democratic nation ought to be instilled.
AdT, Democracy in America, Volume Two, Part Two, Chapter 15.
The whole chapter is quotable concerning morals, materialism, etc.
Disclosure: I’m agnostic.
Frederick Nietzsche may not have valued the Bible but did value honesty and truthfulness.
‘Be truthful, nature only sides with truth.’ ~Adolf Loos
People are voting for politicians who lie to their face.
It happens over time as previous global warming believers find the courage to face facts, to stand up to the fraud and corruption that their peers have participated in, embrace truth and admit they were wrong. “Time to catch up folks; global warming alarmism is on its deathbed.” ~Bob Carter
The most difficult thing for a person is to embrace the fact that they have been wrong. When what they’ve been ‘right’ about is some sort of ‘truth’, changing their view is far more difficult.
This is why I value someone like Judith. The courage to change course is not to be taken lightly.
The only renewable energy source that is reliable, sustainable and non polluting is the mainspring in clocks and children’s toys (the old fashioned kind that, of course, wind up. Everything else, as Wesley said in The Princess Bride, “Is trying to sell you something.
Planning Engineer,
Thank you for another fine post. As one commenter mentioned thorium, I will point out the U.S. buried 7 million pounds of thorium nitrate at the Nevada Test Site. Burned in molten salt reactors, that alone would power the entire U.S. for 8-10 years. After that you just scrape the ground, since thorium is prevalent in the crust.
A large swath of the US east coast contains monazite sands. It contains thorium and other rare earths.
Christos,
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/230890888_Milankovitch_Theory_and_Climate
“If man made global warming is indeed real, and it helps to prevent another ice age, this would be the most fortunate thing that has happened to our species since we barely escaped extinction from an especially cold period during the last ice age some 75,000 years ago.” ~Walter Starck
And, what if global warming were to continue for 100 years? But, what if as throughout the 10,000 years of the Holocene, the global warming had nothing to do with humans–still a disaster?
Sun based energy (solar, wind et cet.) is not renewable by definition because the sun is dying. (albeit over a very long time frame) The inaccurate term is used to give a patina of fake efficiency and utility to energy sources such as solar and wind.
Technically correct but something that is beyond the human mind to comprehend, no?
I don’t think so at all. What is now called renewable should be called sun based energy. 100% clear and accurate.
By that logic, with a remaining 5 billion years of the Sun’s life left and oil being formed from 50 and 500 million years, oil is renewable…
jd – In most discussions, hydro and geothermal are regarded as renewables. I note a lot of statistics which puff up the impact of renewables include them. The rain in the rivers may be derived from the actions of the sun, but geothermal isn’t. As PE noted in the main post, Iceland and also 80% of New Zealand run on those sources but they aren’t a world model, just a local solution.
However, both hydro and geothermal are predictable (in grid terms) and dispatchable. As well as this they really are renewable, at least in the century timescale. If the hydro is run of the river, they are both greener with less environmental impact than solar and wind. That is why the latter are best described as unreliables in a system which needs stability.
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Please provide a succinct description of the evidence that supports the argument for catastrophic anthropogenic global warming.
“If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it” – Albert Einstein
Why is anyone surprised that backup power for unreliable energy sources costs money?? ERCOT put in place a program to secure reliable backup power and it cost money! Surprised? I’m not. Better to get rid of the unreliables than this.
That the once-sleepy market for power reserves triggered such fallout underscores just how contentious managing the most closely watched grid in America has become. In many ways, Texas is a microcosm of a global conundrum: Electricity demand is surging at the same time that grids are becoming more reliant on intermittent renewable energy that fluctuates based on weather and time of day. The state has dramatically increased the amount of power reserves it procures each day to protect against this variability. But sometimes those policies come at a cost — one that regulators and politicians are now scrambling to reconcile.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-02-07/abbott-ercot-received-early-warnings-about-texas-power-prices
You do know that the ‘conservatives’ in Texas funnel billions of dollars into the crypto mining scam to overload the system and then pay then to drop off the grid once the grid prices spike.
To bad ERCOT is under the thumb of big oil & gas.
Texas Co-op Launches Affordable Battery Storage Subscription Service
https://www.electric.coop/texas-co-op-launches-affordable-battery-storage-subscription-service
“Bandera Electric Cooperative is enhancing the value of its distributed energy resources portfolio by adding affordable battery storage to the options it offers members who subscribe to its Energy Saver program.
“We launched Energy Saver in 2020, and now have about 663 Energy Saver customers and 553 Distributed Generation customers…
“The Apolloware energy assessment and monitoring application developed by BEC helps subscribers control their energy use. The app provides access to stored electricity it can tap for peak shaving and wholesale power cost control and diverts its full production and output to the subscriber’s systems whenever problems arise with the grid.
BEC officials say the new services offer a meaningful expansion of energy options and improvements initially financed with $35 million in Rural Utilities Service zero-interest loans. The co-op is leveraging tax credits authorized under the Inflation Reduction Act to finance its battery storage subscription program.
“As a nonprofit, our goal is always to earn more than we spend so we can return the savings to our members,” Padalino said. “Our Apolloware platform gives them a bill credit to make sure that they’re made whole and that we incur the cost to charge the battery.”
OK, jack. I don’t see any evidence “conservatives” are fueling cryptomining. I know it happens in Texas, but it also happens elsewhere. And having miners drop off the grid when electricity is scarce simply makes sense. I don’t see what your complaint is. Do you also think AI is some sort of “conservative” scam to consume electricity? It does require a lot of it.
Look harder jim2,
“Texas will be the crypto leader,” tweeted Gov. Greg Abbott (R), who also hosted the Texas Blockchain Council at the governor’s mansion. ERCOT’s former chief declared himself “pro-Bitcoin.” For the Bitcoin miners, “the main attraction is cheap wholesale electricity prices,” said UT’s King.”
How voracious Bitcoin mining is messing with Texans
https://ntreg.groups.io/g/main/message/5443
Actually, Nebraska is #1. Texas is #10.
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/07/18/these-are-the-10-states-leading-americas-crypto-industry.html
My mistake. I confused conservatives with MAGA republicans. You do know it was a Trump appointed judge that overruled the SEC and forced them to approve bitcoin ETFs. All the pro crypto legislation is sponsored by republicans that just happen to be 100% MAGA loyalist. Heck, even Trump owns crypto he earns by selling is ‘special’ NFT digital trading cards.
That was pretty stale data jim2. Looks like we might finally get a handle on how much those crypto leaches are bleeding our gird.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/02/large-cryptocurrency-miners-in-us-now-have-to-report-energy-use-to-government/
“137 mining facilities in the US account for 2.3 percent of electricity demand.
It’s a similar situation in Texas, said Ben Hertz-Shargel, who leads grid electrification research at the global energy consultancy firm Wood Mackenzie. Besides energy-intensive crypto mining straining the state’s already fragile energy grid, he said, ratepayers are also seeing increased electricity costs.”
“Nearly all hours of the year, power demand from bitcoin mines pushes up the real-time cost of electricity in Texas, which is determined every 15 minutes based on supply and demand,” Hertz-Shargel said in an email. “This raises electricity costs $1.8 billion per year on homeowners and businesses in the state, a 4.7 percent increase on what they currently pay.”
I was wrong, looks like Georgia actually has the highest bitcoin production.
https://news.climate.columbia.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/bitcoin-hashrate-foundry-usa.jpg
The states role in the grid should be to ensure a reliable, stable supply as cheaply as possible. Not telling us what to use electricity for or cutting us off if there isn’t enough supply. They do work for us after all (but not really it seems lately).
What If…
What if you had pay in advance for the electricity you think you will use tomorrow? Under estimate your demand and you get to pay a extra fee of $1 for every extra kilowatt you use. Over estimate your use and you can get 95% of your money back but no rollover for unused electricity. I bet we would see a big drop in demand.
It ain’t easy bein’ green.
The European Union issued its most ambitious climate roadmap just as the bloc is facing severe headwinds from angry farmers and an ailing industrial base increasingly alarmed about the high costs of a rapid green transition.
The farmer protests and concerns over a backlash from voters have already led to a softer tone of the climate roadmap than originally considered, according to people familiar with the matter. Still, in heated talks over past days the 90% target remained untouched.
Sylvia Limmer, a German lawmaker in the European Parliament and a member of far-right Alternative fur Deutschland party, called it “political climate madness,” saying the bloc’s green policies mark “pretty much the worst economic meltdown that we have seen in the history of the EU.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-02-06/eu-s-von-der-leyen-risks-green-backlash-with-plan-for-deeper-emissions-cuts
The EU population is angry now, but just wait if the U.S. Left manages to lead the country down the path of EU’s footsteps.
EU soft socialism seems to have worked, the Left believe, but it’s only because the EU had the largest consumer market in the world to sell into; the U.S. Also the U.S. has subsidized EU defense for decades, since post WW2; the EU subsequently funneled what would otherwise have gone into their own defense into expansive social programs. Indirectly, in this way, the U.S. has subsidized EU social programs. But take away much of the EU’s economic engine, the U.S.; with its continued piling on of debt, and assuming the U.S. follows the same path of EU soft socialism; such will eventually crush U.S. consumerism, resulting as a consequence, a dramatic collapse of global living standards. To create global GDP there must be large markets to sell into, this improves standards of living; facilitating consumerism creates economic growth.
Anecdote: Per earnings report, Ford is losing money on every EV sold. Losses are increasing, not narrowing. They’ve slashed production for certain EV lines by 50%.
Currently the U.S. still remains the global economic engine, yet the U.S. Left stays fixated on irrational idealism, like the EU has, they fail to see that capitalism is responsible for much of what they actually have always loved about the EU’s soft socialism; that for which the EU still hasn’t paid for, and can’t. And the U.S. can no longer afford to myopically fund extravagant global altuistic ventures, Leftist globalism, also referred to as democracy by the Left. This will eventually land with a very ugly realization. That’s what neo-Marxist college educated gaslighting buys these days. It’s how Merkel was educated too, she was in recent years referred to as the “new world leader”, by Leftist organs, of course, but she nearly bankrupted Germany.
Jt
“… with its continued piling on of debt, ..”
There have been comparisons between the growth of debt since 2001 and that debt accumulated during WWII. Not even close. Thirty five years after WWII, the debt to GDP ratio had dropped by 75%. Had the same drop continued for another 35 years, the ratio would have been cascading to 1% of GDP.
Debt has gone from ~$3 T to close to $30 T in a couple of years. Increase that rate for another 25 years and you get $300 T. Another 25 years at that rate and….there aren’t enough zeros in my Texas Instrument calculator.
GDP growth isn’t keeping up with the growth in Debt. That is all that we need to know. It’s just a matter of time until net interest eats up the entire budget, if we continue on the same trajectory.
This graph shows how fast interest costs are growing. Tax Revenue is growing at just a fraction of that rate.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/F8ksTn-WsAAR0qO?format=jpg&name=large
The Congressional Budget Office issued a report today on the economy and 10 year budget forecast. While they are not assuming the same growth in Debt as we experienced since 2001, their baseline envisions a $20 T increase in Debt. Somehow $50 Trillion in debt has a nice ring to it.
cerescokid, the CBO notoriously underestimates, I don’t recall them ever being right about any program cost projection.
Today the U.S. is adding about $2 trillion a year in debt. The CBO is simply assuming that the yearly addition of debt will remain the same within their 10 year projection, but it can’t stay the same. Their math doesn’t compound interest among other things. Only a fool buys into CBO math. But inflation is the debtors best friend as long as the debtor has the ability to service debt. The biggest debtor is the Federal government, they’re essentially transferring citizen retirement accounts to government coffers via inflation, because inflation devalues savings assets. The government benefits from ever increasing tax receipts from inflation, and they can choose to print more money if they need to further juice inflation to service debt. It’s a wicked formula that legally, indirectly robs value from savings accounts that very often earn much less than the cost of inflation over time.
The U.S. relies on other countries to purchase our debt, I’m sad to say there will be a breaking point.
Jt
“The U.S. relies on other countries to purchase our debt, I’m sad to say there will be a breaking point.”
Yes, and what I should have mentioned but forgot was that the share of debt held by the Fed and Foreign interests has gone up over the last several years. China has reduced their exposure recently and who knows if other countries will follow suit. Also, the Fed is going to trim their holdings eventually. That means the domestic investors will be taking on more of the burden in the coming years. Each year the refinancing will be higher than current costs, thus the slope of the graph just keeps going up.
All of this at unprecedented rates and no one has the guts to take it on with some honesty.
“All of this at unprecedented rates and no one has the guts to take it on with some honesty.” Exactly.
The Left believes they must break the back of the U.S. economy first before they can reach their utopian dream of a UN run world government. Short sighted intellectually inbred ideologues are incapable of considering the importance of nation state separation of powers protection against a global dictatorship.
Leftists need to reconsider, they need to have an answer to how they will unseat a global dictator before they collude and extort their way towards their UN world government objective. Power mongers always find a way of rising to the top. Imagine Third Reich socialist leadership running the world and have an answer for how to stop their draconian measures to control the world population before dreaming of a world governance utopia. Nation states is the only deterrent—it’s been demonstrably proven over, and over again.
It’s important to reiterate that the U.S. is the largest consumer market in the world; break this market and the world goes dystopic. The EU has the 2nd largest consumer market, but it’s less than half that of the U.S.; China has the 3rd largest consumer market, but it’s less than 1/3 the size of the U.S. market.
It’s simple, consumerism is what makes the world go around. Globalism can be defined in different ways, facilitating global commerce is a good thing; global governance is a bad thing.
For Mr. Schussler:
I wonder if you might consolidate the essence of all your postings in a book. It would be highly educational to anyone who is receptive to and eager to learn from your grid focussed background. You might add pertinent subjects from other authorities. Finally, keep an optimistic flavor in the summary, rather than gloom for the future.
Thanks for the compliment and suggestion. I am a retired guy and spend a lot of time playing and trying new things. Cranking out a posting here and there is about all solitary the sit at a computer time that works for my lifestyle now. A while back I was contacted with an offer for editing and combining my writings together. The group tied religion, environment and energy together. I’m not big on mixing issues like that and probably for that reason nothing came of it. But I would welcome an opportunity like that to work with anyone with a grid focus or share what I’ve got and consult.
Thank you for your essay.
I have a behind-the-meter question and I wanted to get your expert opinion on smart main electrical service panels. If you were upgrading your electrical service and had a choice between a Leviton smart breaker design or the new SPAN smart panel that uses relays on the panel buss bar to control circuits which one would you choose?
The Leviton costs a little less but uses a proprietary breaker design. If you only need to control and monitor a couple of circuits it seems a bit more flexible.
https://www.leviton.com/en/products/residential/load-centers
My neighbor just installed this:
https://www.span.io/
This is the most expensive panel I have ever seen but it takes ‘smart panel’ to the next level.
My experienc when the voltage gets below 46,000 Volts is not good. My opinion here may be worth less than your average old guy.
The ability to make sane and rational decisions pays of in the form of a mountain of cash!!
Toyota said Tuesday the company will see an annual profit of $30 billion at the end of the fiscal year in March, and it’s probably down to one big decision.
The Japanese car giant suggested that its decision to avoid going fully electric within its fleet of vehicles, and instead emphasize hybrid machines, is likely why it’ll end the fiscal year on such a high, according to Axios. Shares in Toyota rose nearly 50% in the last 12 months, while electric vehicle manufacturers struggle to deal with the fact that no one wants their stupid cars.
Ford was forced to cut the price of the electric version of its iconic F-150 pickup truck by around $10,000 because no one wanted to buy them. Models were piling up at dealerships, despite the lower-cost, because common sense consumers know that electric vehicles (a) don’t really help the planet as they are still fueled by electricity from traditional power plants, and (b) are often junked over the most minor of damages.
https://dailycaller.com/2024/02/07/toyota-2023-fiscal-year-30-billion-profit-avoiding-electric-vehicles-hybrids/
The cost of regulation can be more than the benefit.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized its update to the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) for PM2.5, imposing stringent restrictions despite warnings from industrial executives that tightened NAAQS could severely impact America’s industrial sector. The agency is reducing the annual PM2.5 standard from 12 micrograms per cubic meter to nine micrograms per cubic matter, or by about 25%.
The agency says that the revised rules will prevent up to 4,500 premature deaths and 290,000 lost workdays, and that it will produce up to $46 billion in net health benefits in 2032. However, more stringent standards could also reduce U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) by about $87 billion and imperil up to 311,000 jobs, according to a May 2023 study conducted by Oxford University and commissioned by the National Association of Manufacturers
https://dailycaller.com/2024/02/07/biden-epa-particulate-matter-rule-final/
Earth is warmer than Moon, because Earth rotates faster.
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At the same distance from the sun, Earth receives 28% less solar energy (higher Albedo), but Earth rotates
very much faster…
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https://www.cristos-vournas.com
How fast would we need to spin the moon so we could boil water on the surface or is there a self limiting factor?
Earth is warmer than Moon on average surface temperature ~+68 oC. Because Earth rotates faster and because Earth is covered with water.
Yet there are not places where we can boil water (100 oC) on Earth’s surface.
Earth’s average surface temperature is +15 oC (288 K).
–
Now, if you asking how fast should Moon rotate to achieve +100 oC the average surface temperature.
When a planet rotates faster, its surface absorbs more solar energy. Thus the planet becomes on average warmer.
But when a planet rotates faster, its maximum temperature lessens and the minimum temperature rises. And it is the self limiting factor.
–
Thank you.
–
https://www.cristos-vournas.com
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This is why a “smart” grid is incredibly stoop id.
The Chinese Volt Typhoon cyber-espionage group infiltrated a critical infrastructure network in the United States and remained undetected for at least five years before being discovered, according to a joint advisory from CISA, the NSA, the FBI, and partner Five Eyes agencies.
Volt Typhoon hackers are known for extensively using living off the land (LOTL) techniques as part of their attacks on critical infrastructure organizations.
They’re also using stolen accounts and leverage strong operational security, which enables them to avoid detection and maintain long-term persistence on compromised systems.
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/chinese-hackers-hid-in-us-infrastructure-network-for-5-years/
Air travel will become more expensive due to “green” energy policies. It’s bad enough governments are spending tax money on “green” policy, on top of that, they also make things more expensive.
CO2 electrolysis isn’t widely used today, though a study published last year in Joule found the technology is maturing and that it will be a “critical step” to cutting CO2 emissions for the fuel and chemical industries. SAF is also a long way from being cost competitive with traditional jet fuel, but airlines are under increasing pressure from governments and their own net zero commitments to integrate SAF into their fuel mix. The European Union has mandated that regional SAF usage needs to reach 2% by 2025, with the percentage rising to 70% by 2050. As of 2022, SAF accounted for 0.1% of the world’s jet-fuel supply, according to BloombergNEF.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-02-08/microsoft-backed-clean-jet-fuel-startup-in-berkeley-fires-up-co2-converter
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While Marxist Democrats in the US throttle fossil fuels, like the recent hold on LNG projects, India makes a deal with Russia for crude. Marxist Democrats want to tear down America’s traditional freedoms.
All three of India’s state oil refiners are in talks with Rosneft Oil Co PJSC to secure long-term supplies of Russian crude, an effort to move away from one-off purchases that have left them vulnerable to competition.
Indian Oil Corp, Bharat Petroleum Corp and Hindustan Petroleum Corp are in discussions, said people familiar with the matter, but talks have been drawn out as the buyers are seeking clauses to protect them from exits and penalties, should payment issues delay cargoes.
In total, Indian refiners want to lock in about 500,000 barrels per day of Russian crude supplies, said the people, who could not be identified as negotiations are private.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-02-09/india-s-state-oil-refiners-in-talks-with-rosneft-over-term-deals
The sun is setting on Germany’s once-prolific industrial base as the country continues to grapple with a lingering energy crisis and wider economic malaise, Bloomberg News reported Saturday.
Many German manufacturing and industrial companies are looking to make future investments elsewhere, eliminating jobs and closing plants, thanks in large part to higher energy costs induced by the country’s embrace of green energy. Germany was once widely considered to be the economic powerhouse of Europe, but the years-long trend of decline in its manufacturing sector is now accelerating quickly as high energy costs, red tape and elevated inflation are blunting the sector’s competitive edge, according to Bloomberg News.
https://dailycaller.com/2024/02/10/deindustrialization-germany-full-swing/
Wind and solar simply gobble too much land and ocean. It can create problems like this.
Both sides see larger stakes. California officials say they need offshore wind to reach the state’s goal of eliminating carbon emissions by 2045. But huge swaths of the coast are already shielded by a string of federal ocean sanctuaries. Even if it excludes Morro Bay, the proposed Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary would extend that protected zone another 134 miles, blocking most wind development from Santa Barbara to north of San Francisco.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-02-09/california-offshore-wind-power-goals-threatened-by-ocean-conservation-areas
Climate Doomer Unicorn dreams, actually nightmares, aren’t coming true.
FirstEnergy Corp. abandoned its 2030 target for slashing greenhouse-gas emissions because coal plants can’t be replaced in time, marking a major about-face in the movement to protect the climate.
Utilities across the US have announced a slew of carbon-reduction goals in recent years in response to regulatory pressure to clean up power-generation fleets and meet green investor goals. Most utilities, however, are failing to make significant progress toward long-term carbon-neutrality targets, the Sierra Club found in an October report.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-02-09/firstenergy-scraps-2030-climate-goal-in-rare-embrace-of-coal
What the article glosses over is the strain on the electricity system created by “green” energy. Germany has been aggressively closing coal plants and putting in place wind and solar. Now those chickens are coming home to roost.
The sad thing is, as we in the US listen to the Marxist Democrats, are going headlong down that same cliff.
Amid the flickering of flares and torches, many of the 1,600 people losing their jobs stood stone-faced as the glowing metal of the plant’s last product — a steel pipe — was smoothed to a perfect cylinder on a rolling mill. The ceremony ended a 124-year run that began in the heyday of German industrialization and weathered two world wars, but couldn’t survive the aftermath of the energy crisis.
There have been numerous iterations of such finales over the past year, underscoring the painful reality facing Germany: its days as an industrial superpower may be coming to an end. Manufacturing output in Europe’s biggest economy has been trending downward since 2017, and the decline is accelerating as competitiveness erodes.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2024-02-10/why-germany-s-days-as-an-industrial-superpower-are-coming-to-an-end
In the last hour, a true test of the supply mess under stress has occurred in the Australian State of Victoria. Initial reports put about 0.5 million without power, with one of the major coal-fired suppliers forced offline with the immediate loss of 4 units. A combination of stupid dispatch decisions have created this, now tested by some bad weather. This has affected Melbourne populations for the first time since the “transformation” began, significant because there are many votes now in play.
We will now see humungous amounts of gaslighting over the causes, with the truth becoming more and more buried over the next week or so. Anyone with a real interest in outcomes from factual combinations rather than arm waving will watch this with the greatest care
I read Victoria needs more locally produced electricity as they rely on long distance transmission. The transmission lines are vulnerable to storms. Note how this relates to the Climate Doomer wish for a nationally connected grid in the US. Local electricity is better.
Green disaster.
Farmers’ Revolt Threatens Election Year Upsets Around the World
…
Foucault and his fellow protesters are restless, their list of grievances long: soaring costs, increasing bureaucracy, new European Union regulations in its Green Deal and imports diluting their markets. “He who sows misery reaps anger,” says one of their placards.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2024-02-13/french-farmer-protests-global-spread-of-unrest-threatens-elections
EVs are much heavier than ICEVs.
State of play: Electric vehicles can be anywhere from hundreds to thousands of pounds heavier than similarly sized gas vehicles because EV batteries are so much heavier than engines.
For example, the 2023 GMC Hummer EV, a full-size pickup, weighs more than 9,000 pounds, sporting a 2,900-pound battery. In comparison, the 2023 GMC Sierra, also a full-size pickup, weighs less than 6,000 pounds, according to Kelley Blue Book.
The average weight of U.S. vehicles has already increased from about 3,400 pounds to 4,300 pounds over the last 30 years as Americans have ditched passenger cars for pickups and SUVs, according to Evercore ISI analysts.
Threat level: Safety watchdogs are raising concerns after the recent deadly collapse of a parking garage in New York City called attention to the challenge of creaking infrastructure.
Traffic safety is particularly concerning. In crashes, the “baseline fatality probability” increases 47% for every 1,000 additional pounds in the vehicle — and the fatality risk is even higher if the striking vehicle is a light truck (SUV, pickup truck, or minivan), according to a 2011 study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research.
“Since we’re seeing pedestrian and roadway fatalities at record levels, the introduction of more weight into crashes via EVs will complicate any attempts to reduce the ongoing fatality crisis that has showed no signs of abating,” Center for Auto Safety acting executive director Michael Brooks tells Axios in an email.
https://www.axios.com/2023/04/28/evs-weight-safety-problems
The fact-checking industry is exposed as a covert arm of the political left.
Who fact-checks the fact-checkers?
An industry that started in the 1990s by fact-checking chain emails and Bigfoot sightings has evolved over the past decade into the American political left’s strongest tool in justifying the censorship of their political opposition and shaping the national narrative in their favor.
There may have been a brief era where the fact-checkers fact-checked facts—now they fact-check reality itself.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1637588208
Climate Doomer inspired id eeee ots are triple counting emissions. Really, really stoop id.
Scope 3 emissions are those produced by a company’s customers and supply chain. They typically account for more than 80% of a company’s carbon footprint. In some of the most polluting industries such as oil and gas, the number can be even higher.
The concept isn’t new, but there’s a renewed urgency among investors to work out the implications for the companies they invest in—as well as their own climate commitments. The urgency comes as regulators from the European Union, Japan, the UK and elsewhere signal mandatory Scope 3 disclosures are on the horizon for corporates. The US Securities and Exchange Commission also has discussed whether big emitters should be required to disclose their Scope 3 emissions.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-02-14/investors-are-being-forced-to-wrestle-with-the-scope-3-conundrum
Of course, any “green” initiative means higher prices. Higher prices mean more poverty.
Steel producers in India are most at risk from Europe’s new carbon tax on imports due to their high sales to the region and mills’ elevated emissions intensity, according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc.
There is a potential for an additional $102 to $190 a ton of tax charges on flows of Indian steel to the bloc over the next decade, analysts led by Emma Jones said in a report. That range — which assumes a carbon price of $70 — is 15% to 28% of current hot-rolled coil prices, they said.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-02-14/india-steel-mills-most-at-risk-from-eu-carbon-plan-goldman-says
If there isn’t a crisis, create one. Food production pretty much goes up every year. There seems to be a dumb-headed focus on CO2 rather than any real problem with food production.
That’s contributed to about 500 billion tons of carbon dioxide equivalent released from soil disturbance, or about a quarter of all greenhouse gases contributing to additional warming today. Further land degradation until 2050 could add another 120 billion tons of carbon dioxide equivalent to the atmosphere, worsening climate change.
Thiaw said focusing attention on land restoration projects could flip this script. “There are no solutions for land degradation that also don’t have benefits for other problems we face,” he said.
Along with curbing emissions, a World Economic Forum report found that investing about $2.7 trillion each year in ecosystem restoration, regenerative agriculture and circular business models could help add nearly 400 million new jobs and generate more than $10 trillion in economic value annually.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-02-13/the-world-is-quietly-losing-the-land-it-needs-to-feed-itself
While Corn Pop hobbles the LNG business in the US, a roundly stoop id move, the EU wants to ensure a good supply of natural gas. Marxist Democrats just don’t get it.
Energy and climate ministers from around the world have asked the International Energy Agency to expand its role in ensuring global gas security in the face of supply disruptions and price volatility.
Officials requested the agency’s governing board to help countries “diversify gas supplies through regular market monitoring and recommendations,” according to a statement after a two-day ministerial meeting in Paris. They said they welcomed the “strengthening” of the IEA’s role.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-02-14/energy-ministers-ask-iea-to-expand-role-in-ensuring-gas-security
Demand for LNG will soon double, and Joe Biden is restricting the US ability to explore, develop and export that commodity.
It may be he is just punishing Texas given how the Marxist Democrats have weaponized the Federal Government against Conservatives.
Given all the above issues, I wonder when the mitigation effort will explode politically.
This is just one more thing that will make the life of the poor more expensive. I thought Marxist Democrats cared for the poor, but alas, it is not so.
The effort harnesses artificial intelligence and mapping expertise from one of the world’s most influential technology companies and applies it to data from a high-powered satellite dedicated to observing some of the world’s most devastating and avoidable greenhouse gas emissions. The goal is to better identify opportunities to reduce emissions and unlock more aggressive climate action from governments and fossil fuel operators, many of which have committed to significant cuts by 2030.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-02-14/google-googl-and-edf-team-up-to-track-methane-emissions-from-space
This appears to be an outright lie. Wind and Solar make the grid less stable, not more stable.
Operators and utilities need to plan ahead to create a more resilient grid, said Allison Clements, a member of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. She cited new technologies that help to resolve some of the issues and the need for increasing transmission capacity.
Solar and storage have also started to play “a huge role” in keeping grids stable, Clements said, adding: “Are they the magical solution? No, but they’re a critical component of getting through these new challenging weather events.”
The technology exists to track grid faults that pose a danger, but it’s “not properly used to take into account this extra data set, which costs extra money or requires investment,” said Saifur Rahman, a professor at Virginia Tech who served as the president of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in 2023. “Until that regulation exists, the power company will not pay any attention to this.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2024-02-15/us-grids-face-unpredictable-power-surges-with-potentially-dangerous-consequences
This article was primarily about how a power surge started a house fire in Waltham, Massachusetts.
Solar panels are about the most dependable piece of technology I have ever owned. My panels have produced over 113 MWh in 14 years. The only thing we are waiting for is cheap storage.
About 10 years ago I lost a microwave and a PC board in my oven to a power surge.
I just installed a whole house surge protector along with my new Leviton 200 AMP smart load panel. With the new smart breakers I can now see every circuit in my house, how much energy it is using and I can turn them off and on via WiFi.
https://www.leviton.com/en/products/residential/load-centers
Next up, something like this EcoFlow Delta Pro Ultra (but cheaper):
https://www.ecoflow.com/us/delta-pro-ultra
I have no problem with home solar and I’m glad you are happy with it. I just don’t want my tax money to pay for other peoples solar installations.
Well, this is nasty. I think companies are beginning to see the catastrophic problems created by phasing out fossil fuels to quickly. The Climate Doomers want it done RIGHT NOW, even though that would definitely collapse the economy, if not civilization itself.
That’s the question the ESG world is asking after JPMorgan Asset Management and State Street Global Advisors quit the world’s largest investor group formed to fight climate change.
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The other way of looking at it is that some large investors only sign up to initiatives like CA100+ when there’s a clear marketing benefit to doing so.
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Others are less generous. Rebecca Self, a former senior green finance banker at HSBC Holdings Plc who now runs a sustainability consulting firm, said the departures lead her to question “if there was ever a real commitment by these organizations to the overall goals of the alliances in the first place.”
Ben Cushing, director of the Sierra Club’s Fossil-Free Finance campaign, is even more scathing. “Asset managers that cave to disingenuous political attacks from climate-deniers are signaling that they will abandon their fiduciary duty to mitigate climate risk for short-term expediency’s sake,” he said.
State Street Global Advisors, which manages $4.1 trillion, said Thursday that a revamp of CA100+ in which signatories are expected to take a more hands-on approach by requesting that companies “move from words to action” was inconsistent with its stance on proxy voting and company engagement.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-02-16/what-s-greenhushing-jpmorgan-s-climate-group-exit-brings-new-term-to-light
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I am not a climate scientist. I am a clinical psychologist. The psychological impact of all of the doomsday scenarios put out by some climate scientists concern me. I see too many lay people who are scared to death by all the doom and gloom from some in the climate science field. I also hate the solar panel and windmill systems as they are currently implemented. I grew up in West Texas. I want to cry every time I drive through the area where I grew up because of the miles and miles of those giant windmills that are visually polluting the scenery that I once loved. There has to be a better solution than putting those gigantic eyesores everywhere.
Nuclear power will be the solution, if you think there is a problem to solve :). Lot’s of Climate Doomers don’t like nuclear either, but governments are slowly realizing that’s the only dependable energy source other than fossil fuels.
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