US Climate Change Policy

[nereo]

I view the nuclear waste storage almost as a solution instead of a problem. If only we had a way of storing the pollution generated by burning fossil fuels like we do with nuclear.

That's the carbon sequestration I was talking about upthread.  There are many different methods available to accomplish this ranging from low-tech storage of plant material to chemical reactions to trap CO2 into various liquid or solid states to seeding the oligotrophic regions of the ocean (i.e. the IRONEX experiments).  A great deal of promising tech has yet to be scaled up beyond the bench-top phase to see if it would ever be viable.  The main challenge remains that all solutions involve ongoing and considerable costs, and how that gets paid for is an open question.  A carbon tax is one solution, but has lately fallen out of favor.  Tax dollars is another (unpopular) idea, but it would be much like the continual funding of other infrastructure.  But there's little buy-in from the public, at least not yet.
Personally I'd like to see a lot more funding for research in these methods.

[LennStar]

Have you ever questioned that maybe, just maybe, they are being ultra-conservative in their warnings?

If they were that, they would forbid you eating them at all, like in the first year.
Yes, you may say it is a bit over-safety to not eat wild boars (a small amount of them) because of "too high" radiation, if eating that would be equivalent to one flight across the Atlantic.
But current science is still that every bit of radiation is dangerous.
And as pilots and stewardesses show, the danger is real (double risk to get black skin cancer).

It's kind of odd.  They built a lot of them in the 1960s and early 1970s and they were not so expensive to build then.

You mean at the time when you put soldiers in front of atom bombs to see what the results would be? When you could buy radioactive toothpaste?
Yes, stronger regulation (like: You just can't put the radioactive water in the river, even if the two headed fishes are funny!) have made it more expensive. Both building and destruction. The last one is actually one of the most exensive points. The money the firms put back (tax free in the US too I guess) may only be 1/10th of what is needed, and the other billions have to be paid by us. That alone makes the electricity more expensive than other sources.
And that nobody builds a final waste place is not a surprise. Who wants something in their garden that will be deadly for 100 times longer than known history?


----

I think you are all going into a very common trap: Saying this or that.

Nobody said ONE technology has to make everything.
First of all, wind and solar are not as unreliable as most of you still seem to think. Local, yes. But no wind and sun throughout the USA? Unlikely.
In Germany such a several day long "Dunkelflaute", literally dark calm, is calculated to happen about every 20 years.
Shorter ones already happen - in 2015 there was a day where practically no electricity was generated by regenerative energies.
We could easily do that short time with other power plants - or get energy from other states. A EU wide Dunkelflaute is practically impossible.


Second we may look into different storage technologies. Power-to-gas would be one possibility.
This one would also easily made sure that even a long Dunkelflaute is covered by backup, with estimated costs (only this system) of 0,5 cent per kWh. Or a few percent of the end price. (We still pay a nearly similar sum for e.g. reserve coal power plants)

Another storage is - surprise for many - heat! You can store heat quite easily for days, and you can even generate it with the sun. US states like Texas should be primary spots for this type of power plant. Here is one in the USA, albeit looks like it failed the goals: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivanpah_Solar_Power_Facility
Most of those plants do not as well as expected, and generally the space they use is very big. But in some places they may be perfect.


There are other possibilites, too. And of course you combine those with other stuff. Like Hemp. Hemp is wonderful! And I am not talking about smoking it.
It grows practically everywhere and does not need much work or pesticides. You can make clothes out of Hemp that are better than cotton. You get more out per hectar than with cotton. You can get high quality oil out of it and make ropes for daily use. I am quite sure you could use it as a biogas source.

And there is bamboo. Fine stuff, too. Lots of biomass. And this beautiful video ;)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTejJnrzGPM

tl;dr
Don't think in eithers, think in nets! You can change literally thousands of things to safe CO2!

[bacchi]

fun fact: In Norway they just found 2 nuclear reactors from the 60s.
https://www.nrk.no/ostfold/trodde-de-skulle-avvikle-to-atomreaktorer-_-sa-var-det-fire-1.14447615
google translate: https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nrk.no%2Fostfold%2Ftrodde-de-skulle-avvikle-to-atomreaktorer-_-sa-var-det-fire-1.14447615

Ha.

- How is it possible to overlook two reactors?

- It's a question I've asked myself, too. It is not easy to ignore them. They are quite large.

[nereo]

I'm trying to understand the thought process here, but admit I'm having a bit of a problem following the logic.

As you've said with your 'power-to-gas' example, there are many methods of storing energy, but all add considerable cost to electricity generation and many add environmental concerns, safety concerns (as with power-to-gas) or both.  As said before, I think improvements with energy storage will be an intense area of focus over the next couple of decades.  Syonyk had a good synopsis of the hurdles faced though.

In the US and Canada transmission becomes a large obstacle; we're 27x the size of Germany and we simply don't have the grid capable of effectively powering homes in New England with solar from the SW, or use the proposed offshore windfarms of Cape Cod to help power Florida. AS noted, during calmer winter days (or "Dunkelflaute"?) Germany buys nuclear power from France. It's not that I'm underestimating wind and solar - I'm a very big proponent.  But each faces obstacles and limitations.  Hence the need for additional sources.

Concentrated thermal solar works great in the SW desert, which is where several have been built.  No nearly as efficient in New England.

Hemp, you've got me here.  I don't see how this ties in to our discussion.  Yes, lots of manufacturers here use hemp in their textiles, and hemp production is expanding, though federal and state laws are in conflict currently.
Bamboo is non-native and can be highly invasive in a lot of areas, taking over native veggitation.  A lot of money has been spent trying to irradicate bamboo from areas, so I think widespread cultivation is not a good idea, though again how that ties in to the discussion I'm not entirely sure.

I'm not sure what 'nets' or 'safe CO2' mean.

[pecunia]

I'm trying to understand the thought process here, but admit I'm having a bit of a problem following the logic.

As you've said with your 'power-to-gas' example, there are many methods of storing energy, but all add considerable cost to electricity generation and many add environmental concerns, safety concerns (as with power-to-gas) or both.  As said before, I think improvements with energy storage will be an intense area of focus over the next couple of decades.  Syonyk had a good synopsis of the hurdles faced though.

In the US and Canada transmission becomes a large obstacle; we're 27x the size of Germany and we simply don't have the grid capable of effectively powering homes in New England with solar from the SW, or use the proposed offshore windfarms of Cape Cod to help power Florida. AS noted, during calmer winter days (or "Dunkelflaute"?) Germany buys nuclear power from France. It's not that I'm underestimating wind and solar - I'm a very big proponent.  But each faces obstacles and limitations.  Hence the need for additional sources.

Concentrated thermal solar works great in the SW desert, which is where several have been built.  No nearly as efficient in New England.

Hemp, you've got me here.  I don't see how this ties in to our discussion.  Yes, lots of manufacturers here use hemp in their textiles, and hemp production is expanding, though federal and state laws are in conflict currently.
Bamboo is non-native and can be highly invasive in a lot of areas, taking over native veggitation.  A lot of money has been spent trying to irradicate bamboo from areas, so I think widespread cultivation is not a good idea, though again how that ties in to the discussion I'm not entirely sure.

I'm not sure what 'nets' or 'safe CO2' mean.

Pumped hydro may still work in New England as there are some pretty good hills.  It's an expensive but very proven technology.

Hemp has oil so it may be possible to produce biofuels from it.  Not sure about the bamboo unless it is to be burnt directly like wood waste.  It could probably be a good biofuel.  It doesn't grow in all climates.

Lennstar is certainly right about not putting all your eggs in one basket.  In fact, I've wondered if the US is doing that right now with our increased dependence on natural gas.

[Abe]

In the US and Canada transmission becomes a large obstacle; we're 27x the size of Germany and we simply don't have the grid capable of effectively powering homes in New England with solar from the SW, or use the proposed offshore windfarms of Cape Cod to help power Florida. AS noted, during calmer winter days (or "Dunkelflaute"?) Germany buys nuclear power from France. It's not that I'm underestimating wind and solar - I'm a very big proponent.  But each faces obstacles and limitations.  Hence the need for additional sources.

Concentrated thermal solar works great in the SW desert, which is where several have been built.  No nearly as efficient in New England.

I'm not sure that the distribution problem is as bad as we think it may be. Neither wind nor solar are excluded from geographic regions for a few reasons. Neither alone is sufficient to power the country, and I do think CNG will probably be required until the battery problem is solved.

For solar power:
Solar panels can work well in New England. The amount of average solar energy hitting the ground in the NE throughout the year is lower than the SW, but not prohibitively lower (approximately 60-70%):
https://www.nrel.gov/gis/images/eere_pv/national_photovoltaic_2012-01.jpg

For wind power:
Generally any offshore location in the US other than the Gulf of Mexico has good wind power density (similar to the North Sea and the Great Plains, which are well suited with current turbine technology). The consistency of offshore wind is one of the major advantages over land-based turbines. Thus, most of the urban US (and really the entire country) is within reasonable distance of a potential wind power site. The engineering challenges remain, but are addressable.
https://www.nrel.gov/gis/wind.html

The point being that our land size is an advantage a well as disadvantage.

[Syonyk]

Solar panels can work well in New England. The amount of average solar energy hitting the ground in the NE throughout the year is lower than the SW, but not prohibitively lower (approximately 60-70%):
https://www.nrel.gov/gis/images/eere_pv/national_photovoltaic_2012-01.jpg

Is that corrected for snow coverage?  The southwest has the general advantage of it not snowing much in the winter, so you can still collect a lot.  Rooftop solar in the NE is likely to be covered by snow a good bit, and even utility scale stuff will run into problems with snow load/snow shedding (a single axis tracker can dump snow, but it can only build piles so high before you block the panels from being able to rotate and pretty much take the whole array offline until things melt).

[sol]

Is that corrected for snow coverage?

Fortunately, the farther north you go the smaller fraction of your annual solar production comes from the winter months anyway.  It's like mother nature gave us a free work-around for that one, transposing most of the free energy to the snow-free months in the only climates that get snow so that the penalty is minimized.

[Abe]

It is corrected for cloud cover and precipitation. I am not sure how much they account for snowdrifts, etc. there probably is some manual labor needed to keep them clear but the amount this effects overall annual production is probably low.

[Johnez]

^Was reading a chapter in a book last week where solar concentrators flipped upside down to protect the mirrors from hail or snow build up.

[RetiredAt63]

^Was reading a chapter in a book last week where solar concentrators flipped upside down to protect the mirrors from hail or snow build up.

My area has solar farms. I have no idea if they do that, but in winter it would be a really bad idea, there would be snow/ice (from freezing rain) stuck in the mechanism.  I think ours are at a steep enough slope that most stuff just slides off.  And we do get thunderstorms and hail. 

[nereo]

We have a lot of solar in our part of New England, in part because they've allowed community solar farms in an area where there's lots of land, so  economies of scale can be leveraged (vs individual homeowners just plopping some on their roof or yard).  My own workplace has a 84kW array.  I've never seen solar panels inverted or turned upside down.  Occasionally you'll see a guy with a snow-broom wiping them off, but for the most part they are at a steep enough angle that within a day or so the snow just falls off.

[RetiredAt63]

One of the best solar panel ideas I have seen was at a facility in the Coachella Valley.  Perfect area for solar anyway, and the panels were installed over a parking area - the panels generated all the electricity for the facility, and employees and visitors were able to park their cars out of the sun.

When I think of all the parking lots around here, that are bare and so hot in summer, this would be perfect.  It wouldn't generate all the electricity for a mall, because in winter the days are so short, but it would be a big help.  Same for schools, hospitals, etc., they have lots of surface area that could generate a lot of their electricity needs.

[ncornilsen]

One of the best solar panel ideas I have seen was at a facility in the Coachella Valley.  Perfect area for solar anyway, and the panels were installed over a parking area - the panels generated all the electricity for the facility, and employees and visitors were able to park their cars out of the sun.

When I think of all the parking lots around here, that are bare and so hot in summer, this would be perfect.  It wouldn't generate all the electricity for a mall, because in winter the days are so short, but it would be a big help.  Same for schools, hospitals, etc., they have lots of surface area that could generate a lot of their electricity needs.

Not to mention that the black asphalt won't absorb all the sunlight and contribute to urban heat gain.

[RetiredAt63]

One of the best solar panel ideas I have seen was at a facility in the Coachella Valley.  Perfect area for solar anyway, and the panels were installed over a parking area - the panels generated all the electricity for the facility, and employees and visitors were able to park their cars out of the sun.

When I think of all the parking lots around here, that are bare and so hot in summer, this would be perfect.  It wouldn't generate all the electricity for a mall, because in winter the days are so short, but it would be a big help.  Same for schools, hospitals, etc., they have lots of surface area that could generate a lot of their electricity needs.

Not to mention that the black asphalt won't absorb all the sunlight and contribute to urban heat gain.

True.  3 wins for one action!

[Syonyk]

Fortunately, the farther north you go the smaller fraction of your annual solar production comes from the winter months anyway.  It's like mother nature gave us a free work-around for that one, transposing most of the free energy to the snow-free months in the only climates that get snow so that the penalty is minimized.

Yes, but people in general get unhappy if the lights don't work in the winter.  And having lived in the snow belt for many years, there are plenty of good clear days in the winter.  Living in "not the snow belt but still gets some snow" now, winter solar production on clear days is quite impressive, if you have the panels aimed for it.

^Was reading a chapter in a book last week where solar concentrators flipped upside down to protect the mirrors from hail or snow build up.

Mirrors?  That's not a flat PV panel setup, then.  PV panels are designed for impacts from the front, so you'd want to keep them facing up in the snow/hail.

Based on experiments I've done (my office panels can swing), if the panels are more than about 30 degrees from vertical, they won't self-shed snow very well, but if they're more vertical, they'll dump snow off as soon as there's any sun at all - they can't build up a thick layer of snow, and what does build up is thin enough that the sun can punch through, heat the panel, and the whole thing goes sliding off.  It's actually really fun to watch...

The 45 degree A-frames I'm building won't self shed as easily, but since they're ground mount, they won't be hard to manually clear.

[Johnez]

^You're right, not PVs, but part of a solar concentrator array. A different and fascinating use of the Sun's thermal energy that doesn't require batteries to store energy.

[Syonyk]

Far less useful in large parts of the country, though.  The solar concentrators basically fall off a cliff in collection if there's even light haze, whereas PV can produce on quite dark days.  Not much, of course, but they'll produce useful energy on pretty grey days.

[LennStar]

52-47 The #Senate CONFIRMED Andrew Wheeler to be Administrator of the EPA.

So the ex coal lobbyist is no iffcial head of protecting the nature. You don't need to know more about Trumps politics.

[Boofinator]

52-47 The #Senate CONFIRMED Andrew Wheeler to be Administrator of the EPA.

So the ex coal lobbyist is no iffcial head of protecting the nature. You don't need to know more about Trumps politics.

What does it say about the state of things that he is an improvement on his predecessor?

[RetiredAt63]

Interesting article
https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/climate-change-co2-emissions-cut-in-18-countries-with-strong-policies-study-finds-1.5032468?cmp=rss

[pecunia]

Interesting article
https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/climate-change-co2-emissions-cut-in-18-countries-with-strong-policies-study-finds-1.5032468?cmp=rss

Wow!  Even the US emissions went down.  Maybe this CO2 reduction stuff is actually easy.  We weren't trying very hard.

[RetiredAt63]

Interesting article
https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/climate-change-co2-emissions-cut-in-18-countries-with-strong-policies-study-finds-1.5032468?cmp=rss

Wow!  Even the US emissions went down.  Maybe this CO2 reduction stuff is actually easy.  We weren't trying very hard.

I would guess that some of Canada's decrease is the drop in oil prices and lower production from the tar sands.  How is the energy-intensive manufacturing section of the US economy?

I know that better methods can produce amazing results.  For example, cement production is a high CO2 producer (it can't be anything but, given you have to cook the limestone at high temperatures), but if you use the warmth from the oven chimney to prewarm the crushed limestone,you can decrease the amount of fuel needed to make the cement by a large %.  And if you are careful about fuel choices you can also reduce the amount of acid rain-producing emissions.  Of course to do this you need a government that has tight air emission standards.  I see this because Ontario has easier standards than the US and the EU - and of course that was before we elected a Conservative government that wants to strip environmental protections to make things easier/cheaper for businesses.

[pecunia]

Interesting article
https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/climate-change-co2-emissions-cut-in-18-countries-with-strong-policies-study-finds-1.5032468?cmp=rss

Wow!  Even the US emissions went down.  Maybe this CO2 reduction stuff is actually easy.  We weren't trying very hard.

I would guess that some of Canada's decrease is the drop in oil prices and lower production from the tar sands.  How is the energy-intensive manufacturing section of the US economy?

I know that better methods can produce amazing results.  For example, cement production is a high CO2 producer (it can't be anything but, given you have to cook the limestone at high temperatures), but if you use the warmth from the oven chimney to prewarm the crushed limestone,you can decrease the amount of fuel needed to make the cement by a large %.  And if you are careful about fuel choices you can also reduce the amount of acid rain-producing emissions.  Of course to do this you need a government that has tight air emission standards.  I see this because Ontario has easier standards than the US and the EU - and of course that was before we elected a Conservative government that wants to strip environmental protections to make things easier/cheaper for businesses.

Well - A lot of coal plants closed down in the US to switch to natural gas (methane).  Gas plants have more efficient thermodynamics due to higher operating temperatures and cogeneration.  The economics of cheap natural gas helped the US to lower emissions.  All those wind farms didn't hurt either. 

Should we wait for market forces to alleviate global warming?

[Johnez]

Far less useful in large parts of the country, though.  The solar concentrators basically fall off a cliff in collection if there's even light haze, whereas PV can produce on quite dark days.  Not much, of course, but they'll produce useful energy on pretty grey days.

Well, PVs are practically useless  in the PNW. Huge swaths of the SW US are perfect for this tech. It's already being done, requires less exotic materials and tech to achieve decent efficiencies. Does require more land area (cheap tho) and materials and machinery (turbines, generators, etc) however. Dude, building one of these things seems right up your alley! I've built one in my spare time, quite satisfying in a way boring old PVs just can't touch.

Just watched this video as a class assignment, if anyone's got an hour to burn I suggest Building Below Zero (PBS special)

It's amazing how a-political being environmentally concious is. It's about saving money, energy independence, stability, and responsibility. Entire buildings and facilities can reduce energy usage and can produce more energy than they consume, today-right now. None of these techniques requires space age tech, mostly common sense approaches to building and awareness of energy use.

[sol]

Well, PVs are practically useless  in the PNW.

My roof disagrees with you.

[Syonyk]

Dude, building one of these things seems right up your alley! I've built one in my spare time, quite satisfying in a way boring old PVs just can't touch.

I like my energy systems boring.  I have access to a vintage satellite TV dish if I want, and could easily build a quite powerful steam generator with it.

I quite don't trust myself yet to build a steam based system that doesn't blow up and injure or kill myself.  Dealing with a couple hundred volts and a couple hundred amps is quite safe, as far as I'm concerned, compared to 500 psi steam.

It's amazing how a-political being environmentally concious is. It's about saving money, energy independence, stability, and responsibility. Entire buildings and facilities can reduce energy usage and can produce more energy than they consume, today-right now. None of these techniques requires space age tech, mostly common sense approaches to building and awareness of energy use.

No, they just require either a rather tolerant power grid of random rogue generators, or massive piles of money.

[Johnez]

I'll keep my eye on the blog in case you get the urge ha.

Video goes over a lot of things, bit long but hey Ted Danson's narrating ha. I'm a bit invested in this stuff as my career in HVAC/Refrigeration is changing right in front  of me, gotta keep up here. With regards to the tolerant grid, these practices are helping power plants by reducing power usage during peak electrical demand. We have alerts here in California where we are told we need to cut our power usage to preserve continual uninterrupted power for everyone (to avoid rolling blackouts or brownouts). In these NetZero buildings, this can be done tons of ways, from dimming lights to running systems on battery power instead of grid till the peak usage time passes. There are a TON of really boring ideas that simply reduce power usage, some cheaply.

 I get the concern for the grid though. People hooking up PV panels and expecting the power company to pull them through when they themselves  need or expecting  the Utility to pay  for "excess" power at market rates reduces their resources. Rogue generators? Skepticism is fine, but business is already moving forward in the name of profit with some of this tech. Building controls, building design, strategic use of things like waste heat have been moving along for YEARS, albeit very slowly. Optimizing efficiencies alone can go a long way here. All this requires a concious effort though. People didn't care about fuel efficiency in the '60s, it took a kick in the pants to get things going in the right direction. Them old boats are neat to look at, but they aren't as safe, fuel efficient or reliable as a base model Kia these days. Come a long way with cars, bout time buildings catch up. Buildings contribute 40% of green house gas. Designing new buildings and retrofitting old ones will probably make a bigger dent environment-wise then buying a Tesla.

[Johnez]

Well, PVs are practically useless  in the PNW.

My roof disagrees with you.

My mistake!  I should not have assumed. 

[pecunia]

Well, PVs are practically useless  in the PNW.

My roof disagrees with you.

My mistake!  I should not have assumed.

Maybe, the East side of Washington state is even better.  Some places only get 5" of precipitation.

[sol]

Maybe, the East side of Washington state is even better.  Some places only get 5" of precipitation.

I agree that the east side is much dryer, though they typically get snow for months on end.  The west side only sees a few days of snow cover per year.

Even though western Washington is known for being gray and drizzly, my roof by Puget Sound produces more power than my house uses each year by a comfortable margin, including powering my electric car and my heat pump.  My solar array paid for itself in four years, thanks to state tax incentives for supporting local manufacturing, so from here on out it's just free zero-emission power forevermore.

People like to complain that solar doesn't work in northern latitudes, but this thread has already discussed how much solar is currently running in Germany.  Germany and Washington are at the same latitude.  PV panels produce electrons from light, not from heat, so even on cold and overcast days they work.  If it's light enough for you to drive without headlights, they're making power.

[pecunia]

Washington is a tad South of Germany in terms of latitude.

I used to live in Eastern Washington.  It didn't get much snow where I lived.  Solar panels would do well there.  It is some distance from major loads, however.

[sol]

Washington is a tad South of Germany in terms of latitude.

A teensy bit, yes.  But doesn't that just prove my point?  If solar works well in Germany, and Washington State is even lower latitude than that, then shouldn't solar work in Washington too?

[ncornilsen]

Washington is a tad South of Germany in terms of latitude.

A teensy bit, yes.  But doesn't that just prove my point?  If solar works well in Germany, and Washington State is even lower latitude than that, then shouldn't solar work in Washington too?

That's a bit simplistic, doesn't cloud cover have a lot to do with that? And might that vary depending on jet stream currents and other region specific phenomenon?

Not that it matters... studies have been done for where solar panels are economical and have a reasonable ROI, I believe. If it pencils out, it pencils out.

[Johnez]

With regards the the PNW, man I wish I didn't shoot off with my typing fingers there, lol.  I had just finished reading a chapter in the book "Earth the Sequel" on solar energy.  This book is 10 years old, so a bit out of date, fascinating history on solar tech coming up though, some of which is still being developed, some it seems shelved or hard to find info on (Is DuPont still developing the acquired Innovalight solar ink tech?).  Anyway, this passage is kind of what made me doubt PNW solar energy being viable:

If your rooftop panels lasted thirty years, your price per kilowattphour would be 11 cents in Vegas, 21 cents in Fairbanks, Alaska.  That might be cheaper thann the electricity you buy from your utility, but againt that depends on where you live.  Analysts for the French brokerage Credit Agricol estimate that in Tokyo, where retail electricity prices are extremely high and there is moderate sunshine, "solar is cost competitive at $5 a watt, $8 installed].  Los Angeles is close behind (even more sunshine; nearly as costly energy), while solar will not become cost competitive in Portland [Oregon] any time soon."

Interestingly, the book points out the incentives in Germany that kicked off the solar boom actually had some perverse outcomes as well.  One fact that gave me pause was that in Germany, a place not known for it's sunniness, it takes up to 6 years for a photocell to generate the amount of energy that it took to actually produce it.  I'm not sure how accurate that statement is, but it's useful to consider ALL of the factors here in what is actually affecting climate change.  Perhaps there are better more efficient technologies that are being ignored in favor of solar that could have taken climate change more effectively.  At the time the book was published, not a single coal plant had been eliminated, and electric prices have risen substantially.  Who does that affect?  The poorer, and those that are stuck paying for conventional electricity.  Those coal stacks are still going, and customers are paying more, for what outcome?  There's a bit of unrest in Germany right now over the solar situation related to this.  Another thing is huge incentives and having them disappear also gets companies pouring resources into manufacturing *current* tech to take advantage of incentives while they can.  I wonder how many resources were diverted from R and D to manufacturing something now for a quick and easy profit?  How much capital is being burned up by companies that are going to wither away without subsidies that could have otherwise gone to some more innovative, but slower to market tech companies?  While incentives definitely get the ball rolling on new tech, I'm not sure they are the best way forward and may end up skewing market forces toward inefficiency and waste.

[Syonyk]

If the book is 10 years old, the numbers on solar are so ancient as to be worthless.

Modern "screw the customer" installers will do solar for $4/W installed, and you can do it for far less if you do the work yourself ($1.50/W or so).

[MasterStache]

If the book is 10 years old, the numbers on solar are so ancient as to be worthless.

Modern "screw the customer" installers will do solar for $4/W installed, and you can do it for far less if you do the work yourself ($1.50/W or so).

Right before I installed my own array a few years back, I talked with a guy living not too far from me who actually started his own solar company. He charged a nominal consulting fee (I think it was like 1K) to help a homeowner through the process of layout, component selection and purchase, permitting process, all the way through installation. He generated a lot of business this way. Saved homeowners a lot of money and he had a nice little side business going in retirement.

My wife and I were just talking about our next home purchase when she finally decides to join me in retirement and the kids are gone. I told her absolutely it has to have excellent solar potential.

[LennStar]

Interestingly, the book points out the incentives in Germany that kicked off the solar boom actually had some perverse outcomes as well.  One fact that gave me pause was that in Germany, a place not known for it's sunniness, it takes up to 6 years for a photocell to generate the amount of energy that it took to actually produce it.  I'm not sure how accurate that statement is,

I don't know if it is a "real" book or propaganda of the coal industry. They did their usual thing and there are still people believing solar takes more energy to produce than you can make with it. Or the book is just stone age old, and with 10 years I guess it is. It probably has the numbers of 2000.
But after that a huge boom happened because of the EEG (the "make more regenerative energies law") and solar dropped in prices like a stone while effectiveness rose by 1/4 at the same time.

The problem was - the "perverse outcome" you say? - that the law was too slow for this vast success. Prices (always for 20 years to ensure saftey of investation) were set every few years while the production got cheaper by several % every quater.
That meant that the guaranteed prices were not only high (to subsidize new tech), they were also a lot higher than it was needed. It was a real bubble. (Which, factory wise, burst when the Chinese jumped onto it, but that is a different story.) 
At the same time general prices (not least because of the new reg. energy production and despite the closing of nuclear after Fukushima) were dropping too. Since the people have to pay the difference price between market rates and subsidized prices, that number rose heavily in a few years.
And since every bigger company does not need to pay that price (for competetive reasons), but only a more symbolic 0.15 cent I think, the EEG costs 6 cent per KwH for me. It does no longer rise, but it will take a few more years to drop, when the first (and very expensive) solar and wind fall out of the 20 years.

Germany made solar a valid energy source for nearly the whole world, and often the cheapest, and as a thank you we are nearly the only ones paying the invention -> feasability costs. (solar now is 6 times or even more cheaper than when the EEG was initiated)
It's a bit unfair, but in sight of what climate change does, I just shrug. Also it still costs less than nuclear power feasability has cost us (not to mention the waste, which is still open).

On the other hand it shows that if you really want it politically, you could even now reach the 1.5 degree goal of the IPCC.

[nereo]

On the other hand it shows that if you really want it politically, you could even now reach the 1.5 degree goal of the IPCC.

Of this I have no doubt, though politically (and practically) it seems like a pipe dream.  Entire national economies are based on petroleum sales, and even as wind and solar become less expensive to produce when all factors are considered incentives remain to continue drilling. 
How to get from there to here, and quickly?

[CheezM]

On the other hand it shows that if you really want it politically, you could even now reach the 1.5 degree goal of the IPCC.

Of this I have no doubt, though politically (and practically) it seems like a pipe dream.  Entire national economies are based on petroleum sales, and even as wind and solar become less expensive to produce when all factors are considered incentives remain to continue drilling. 
How to get from there to here, and quickly?

Have you seen this article yet?  It's notable because of who wrote it.

https://quillette.com/2019/02/27/why-renewables-cant-save-the-planet/

I thought this one was interesting, too:

https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2019/3/4/18216045/renewable-energy-wood-pellets-biomass


Is renewables really the answer to climate change or should we be much more focused on nuclear?

[nereo]

Have you seen this article yet?  It's notable because of who wrote it.

https://quillette.com/2019/02/27/why-renewables-cant-save-the-planet/

What are you trying to say here, @CheezM?  That article was written like someone with ADHD who had mistakenly taken cocaine instead of Ritalin - jumping randomly from topic to topic. It (falsely) suggests all sorts of correlations are cause-and-effect, and brings in too many straw men to count.
 

[Boofinator]

Have you seen this article yet?  It's notable because of who wrote it.

https://quillette.com/2019/02/27/why-renewables-cant-save-the-planet/

What are you trying to say here, @CheezM?  That article was written like someone with ADHD who had mistakenly taken cocaine instead of Ritalin - jumping randomly from topic to topic. It (falsely) suggests all sorts of correlations are cause-and-effect, and brings in too many straw men to count.
 

Nereo, I think you're being unfair to the article writer (and poster by proxy). The article perhaps wasn't the most focused, but it brought up a lot of good points that should be discussed in a rational manner rather than being dismissed out-of-hand. (I don't expect a rebuttal from you point-by-point, but maybe reference to an article that makes the case for renewables regarding some of these issues.) Renewables do have serious issues which he brings up fairly thoroughly. And nuclear, in my mind, is one of the most environmentally-friendly power sources we have (though we need to grow up and decide on where to dispose of the waste).

From my perspective, the biggest point of the article I do not agree with is that rising energy costs are necessarily a bad thing. Cheap energy is one of the problems, not the solution.

[nereo]

Nereo, I think you're being unfair to the article writer (and poster by proxy). The article perhaps wasn't the most focused, but it brought up a lot of good points that should be discussed in a rational manner rather than being dismissed out-of-hand. (I don't expect a rebuttal from you point-by-point, but maybe reference to an article that makes the case for renewables regarding some of these issues.) Renewables do have serious issues which he brings up fairly thoroughly. And nuclear, in my mind, is one of the most environmentally-friendly power sources we have (though we need to grow up and decide on where to dispose of the waste).

From my perspective, the biggest point of the article I do not agree with is that rising energy costs are necessarily a bad thing. Cheap energy is one of the problems, not the solution.

Perhaps I should have been more thorough of my criticism, and avoided colorful school-yard insults.

About the article specifically, the biggest complaints I have is that the author states as fact a number of misleading points.  among them are that solar and wind farms require huge amounts of land, that newer turbines kill millions of birds, that resevoirs are the only method for mechanical storage of energy, that enviornmental mitigation is somehow a bad thing or doomed to failure, that a decrease in solar panel cost somehow caused an increase in rate-payer electricity, that transmission lines are not figured into the cost of wind or solar farms (yet somehow are for new nuclear plants), that the 'dangers' of any potential source should only be tied how many people have directly been killed, that community resistance to wind & solar should not be ignored while we must ignore even greate community-level objection to nuclear, and (perhaps most egregious of all) - that the choice between wind and solar OR nuclear are somehow diametrically opposed.

As for my question for CheezM - I think it still stands.  If you're going to link some articles and say "it's relevant..." some commentary is warranted.

Quite frankly I think the article is from a shill seeking to support nuclear at the expense of solar and wind. As I said, it's not an either/or proposition. In the article, the author obfuscated a number of key strengths of wind and solar - for example smaller PV arrays exist, whereas as discussed upthread small nuclear reactors are not economically viable - with nuclear you need very large plants on a sizable chunk of land. The most productive wind farms aren't on land at all, and turbines are frequently built along ridge-tops and in fields (ie they are not as big a loss of land as the author claims).  Finally the challenge of spent nuclear fuel is not as rosy as the author suggests.  It doesn't matter that the material itself might fit into a dump-truck.  As we have no central repository in the US all spent fuel is stored on site and for centuries after powerdown.  The relevant area isn't the fuel itself but the footprint of the entire plant, and the security needed to keep these secure.

I'm on record in this thread suggesting some new large (>1MW) Gen IV reactors could help move us away from fossil fuels over the next two decades, but throwing shade and erroneous 'facts' at PV and wind turbines just pushes us inevitably in the wrong direction, as any new nuclear will take a decade+ to come online (best case scenario) - meanwhile the 'renewable skeptics' will just use this to anchor their resistence against new plans.

[LennStar]

On the other hand it shows that if you really want it politically, you could even now reach the 1.5 degree goal of the IPCC.

Of this I have no doubt, though politically (and practically) it seems like a pipe dream.  Entire national economies are based on petroleum sales, and even as wind and solar become less expensive to produce when all factors are considered incentives remain to continue drilling. 
How to get from there to here, and quickly?

Have you seen this article yet?  It's notable because of who wrote it.

https://quillette.com/2019/02/27/why-renewables-cant-save-the-planet/

I thought this one was interesting, too:

https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2019/3/4/18216045/renewable-energy-wood-pellets-biomass


Is renewables really the answer to climate change or should we be much more focused on nuclear?

As Nereo said, both articles are extremely one sided. Yes, those problems exist. But they are small in comparison. For example here most solar "fields" are build on old industrial land that is no longer used and cannot be used to live on or grow on because of the former industry's pollution. In other countries like Spain there are often build on unused land - too stony to grow somethign on for example, or too dry.

And that large masses of wood are transported across the ocean is something new for me. I don't even know a single (big trunk) wood using biogas plant. All I know work with either cow and pig shit or plants from fields (which in itself is problematic, but that is a different point).
There was a lot of research going into using wood waste (unusable for buildings, furniture, paper), that I know. But afaik they still haven't solved the problems with those gen 2 fuels, mainly the low speed of the gassing process.
I would say the devastation of tar sands oil extraction are far worse than this could ever be.

[pecunia]

You guys are all pretty smart.  It is not either / or.  Each energy situation has it's own solution.

So - How about geothermal?  I had a short course in this a few months back.  As you go deeper in the Earth, the temperature rises.  We have been putting a lot of pipes in the earth as we drill for oil and gas.  We have been putting horizontal pipes in the earth to get to the oil and gas and for fracking.  The connection was made in the class that with today's drilling technology geothermal heat may be extracted from the depths of the Earth even in non-volcanic rock.  Water pumped into the earth will boil.  The steam can be used to turn a turbine.

This heat is nuclear heat.  It results from the radioactive decay of isotopes within the Earth.

It seems like this form of energy although not titled as renewable could be just as good for emissions if not better.  It would be available 24 hours a day and would not take up a lot of land.  It may be like hydroelectricity and wind as all sites will not provide geothermal heat.

I'd be curious to hear some thoughts.  It seems like geothermal energy could be developed / improved much quicker than nuclear fusion.

[Glenstache]

You guys are all pretty smart.  It is not either / or.  Each energy situation has it's own solution.

So - How about geothermal?  I had a short course in this a few months back.  As you go deeper in the Earth, the temperature rises.  We have been putting a lot of pipes in the earth as we drill for oil and gas.  We have been putting horizontal pipes in the earth to get to the oil and gas and for fracking.  The connection was made in the class that with today's drilling technology geothermal heat may be extracted from the depths of the Earth even in non-volcanic rock.  Water pumped into the earth will boil.  The steam can be used to turn a turbine.

This heat is nuclear heat.  It results from the radioactive decay of isotopes within the Earth.

It seems like this form of energy although not titled as renewable could be just as good for emissions if not better.  It would be available 24 hours a day and would not take up a lot of land.  It may be like hydroelectricity and wind as all sites will not provide geothermal heat.

I'd be curious to hear some thoughts.  It seems like geothermal energy could be developed / improved much quicker than nuclear fusion.

Geothermal is intriguing but not market competitive away from specialized locations. Those locations are generally near near-surface thermal anomalies (aka volcanoes and faults) and also close to transmission lines. There are a number of places throughout the west that fit these criteria, but is unlikely to be a game-changer at the current price point. I think that the technology (at least in part borrowed from fracking) is developing quickly and is worth keeping an eye on. Land use restrictions can also be an issue. Here in Washington many of the most promising thermal resources are in remote designated wilderness areas. Some local agencies have looked at pilot holes (Snohomish County did this off hwy 2, for example), but little has been market-competitive.

[nereo]

So - How about geothermal? [...]
This heat is nuclear heat.  It results from the radioactive decay of isotopes within the Earth.

Glenstache gave a pretty good rundown of using geothermal to generate electricity. 

Minor nitpick - the heat within Earth is in part due to radioactive decay, but also/predominately because the earth is slowly cooling from when it was a ball of molton iron (at a rate of ~100ºC/billion years, or -0.00001º/century, so those hoping for natural cooling via this mechanism shouldn't waste their time) as well as the friction form gravity and tectonic activity.)
 
You can use geothermal to heat and cool buildings, but its very costly to set up and works best for larger buildings. It still requires energy to pump fluid through pipes drilled down several hundred feet. As I understand it, modern heat-pumps are more efficient (use less energy) at heating/cooling a properly insulated and sealed single family home in most regions.

[sol]

Geothermal is intriguing but not market competitive away from specialized locations.

In practice, geothermal also suffers from degradation curves that wind and solar do not.  When you start extracting heat from the earth, the earth cools off in the area around your heat exchanger, making it harder and harder to get more heat out if you've built an industrial-scale extraction system.  By contrast, the sun still shines the same amount no matter how many solar panels you put up.

But I do agree that there is potential for site specific geothermal conversion technologies in areas that already have deep holes and fluid recirculation systems in place.  We call those places oil wells, and it does seem kind of shocking that drilling companies aren't all making their own on-site electricity this way.  Maybe it's because they're already awash in energy in those places, causing them (for example) to flare off methane rather than capturing or burning it locally.

The whole petroleum extraction industry is bizarre, when you get up close.  Apparently, something like 30% of the crude oil in the trans-atlantic pipeline system is crude-burned along the way just to generate enough heat to keep the oil flowing through the pipe.  It's terribly inefficient, but since they have a basically unlimited supply of oil at every junction anyway, it's cheaper to just torch it than to heat it up any other way. 

[Boofinator]

On the other hand it shows that if you really want it politically, you could even now reach the 1.5 degree goal of the IPCC.

Of this I have no doubt, though politically (and practically) it seems like a pipe dream.  Entire national economies are based on petroleum sales, and even as wind and solar become less expensive to produce when all factors are considered incentives remain to continue drilling. 
How to get from there to here, and quickly?

Have you seen this article yet?  It's notable because of who wrote it.

https://quillette.com/2019/02/27/why-renewables-cant-save-the-planet/

I thought this one was interesting, too:

https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2019/3/4/18216045/renewable-energy-wood-pellets-biomass


Is renewables really the answer to climate change or should we be much more focused on nuclear?

As Nereo said, both articles are extremely one sided. Yes, those problems exist. But they are small in comparison. For example here most solar "fields" are build on old industrial land that is no longer used and cannot be used to live on or grow on because of the former industry's pollution. In other countries like Spain there are often build on unused land - too stony to grow somethign on for example, or too dry.

And that large masses of wood are transported across the ocean is something new for me. I don't even know a single (big trunk) wood using biogas plant. All I know work with either cow and pig shit or plants from fields (which in itself is problematic, but that is a different point).
There was a lot of research going into using wood waste (unusable for buildings, furniture, paper), that I know. But afaik they still haven't solved the problems with those gen 2 fuels, mainly the low speed of the gassing process.
I would say the devastation of tar sands oil extraction are far worse than this could ever be.

How was the second article one-sided? To me it was very clear on the unintended consequences of not studying the lifecycle of a system before declaring it a carbon-neutral fuel source. By the EPA's logic, fossil fuels are carbon neutral as well because we will regenerate the stores in another half billion years or so.

[sol]

By the EPA's logic, fossil fuels are carbon neutral as well because we will regenerate the stores in another half billion years or so.

This betrays a severe misunderstanding of the geological record. 

The vast majority of commercially known oil reserves are Mesozoic.  It's not like the Earth is constantly making new oil all the time at a constant rate, it only makes it in specific locations at specific times, and under just the right conditions those reserves are naturally processed into useful compositions and then revealed in accessible places.

But if you'll indulge my swing-for-the-fences scientific lunacy for a moment, I suggest that we should be making oil reserves today, artificially.  Oceanic uptake of atmospheric CO2, converted to biomass and then buried in shallow stillwater environments, is still the most effective way to reduce greenhouse gas concentrations.  The only problem is geography.  We no longer have good tropical stillwater basins, thanks to plate tectonics reshuffling everything, and I don't think the folks in the middle east would be too happy if we were to convert the Red Sea into a giant sewage lagoon.