Green, ethical, energy issues in the news

Martyn1981

I'm very surprised at this article's headline, thinking we were 15-20yrs away from a FF peak. Perhaps I've swallowed some of the FF industry spin.

The projection is much more bullish than estimates by the global energy watchdog and oil and gas companies, which mostly expect demand to peak in the mid-2030s. Coal reached its peak in 2014.

Global demand for fossil fuels will peak in 2023, says thinktank

The group, which popularised the notion of a carbon bubble – where fossil fuel assets lose their value in the switch to a low-carbon economy – said the findings spelled disruption for energy firms.

The Bank of England governor, Mark Carney, has already warned that markets face a “huge hit” from the transition.

Carbon Tracker said financial markets faced a “systemic risk” from a reduction in value to the fossil fuel industry’s $25tn (£19tn) worth of assets, due to demand peaking.

GreatApe

pile-o-stone wrote: »

Thanks for posting this article, Mart. An interesting paragraph from the article:

"The share of nuclear in global power production has dropped significantly, from 17.5% in 1996 to 10.3% in 2017. “It is instructive to note that the construction of new nuclear power plants is mostly driven and backed by states, and not by the private sector,” the report further notes. On top of this, most state proponents of nuclear power programs are nuclear weapon states."

What I really find heartening about this statement is the way cheap energy could help prevent nuclear proliferation. If the financial numbers don't add up then states, such as Iran, will find it increasingly difficult to claim that they are building nuclear power stations only for peaceful, energy generation reasons. At the same time, workers who are experienced in nuclear will retire and new employees will be reluctant to join a dying industry, negatively impacting the ability to build new nuclear power and weapons programs due to a skills shortage.

We are hopefully seeing the death spiral not only for nuclear power stations, but also the proliferation and retention of nuclear weapons.

You do not need a nuclear electricity infrastructure to build nuclear weapons
There will be nukes with or without nuclear electricity

And for all the hate nuclear weapons get how often are they used compared to conventional weapons?

GreatApe

Martyn1981 wrote: »

I'm very surprised at this article's headline, thinking we were 15-20yrs away from a FF peak. Perhaps I've swallowed some of the FF industry spin.

Global demand for fossil fuels will peak in 2023, says thinktank

Like most such articles its mostly fluff and nonsense by ill informed 'think tanks'

Just take the first paragraph

Global demand for fossil fuels will peak in 2023, an influential thinktank has predicted, posing a significant risk to financial markets because trillions of dollars’ worth of oil, coal and gas assets could be left worthless.

In what way does peaking fossil fuel demand make oil coal and gas assets or companies worthless?

If in 2023 I have an oil field pumping 1 mbpd you think that will be worthless? These idiots are almost suggesting peaking FF demand means prices fall to 'worthless' when clearly they do not.

Even if demand does peak in 2023 the challenge is to manage supply to meet the demand. That would not be too difficult as these oil/gas/coal mines naturally deplete so you just stop/slow investing in new ones and run down your existing ones.

Oil is also the most profitable of the Fossil fuels and there is so far not much in the way of displacement of oil by wind/solar. Something like 1.4 billion vehicles in the world and the electric fleet while growing fast is still just a rounding error. The world might also trend towards 3 billion vehicles once Africa and India leave abject poverty

Martyn1981

The World's fifth largest economy shocked us when they said they would go carbon free on leccy by 2045, well hold on to your hats cause now they are talking about eliminating net emissions across the whole economy by the same date:

Jerry Brown: Trump's 'gross ignorance' main obstacle in climate change fight

JKenH

Martyn1981 wrote: »

I think that sounds fair, but it would wrong of me not to point to the important saying that 'whilst you are entitled to your own opinion, you are not entitled to your own facts'.

There is no counter argument now to the fact that the planet is warming, the warming is due to CO2 levels rising, and that humans are the cause of the higher CO2 levels.

All alternative reasons/excuses for higher CO2 levels and rising temps have now been discredited fully by science and peer review.

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/09/09/empirical-evidence-shows-temperature-increases-before-co2-increase-in-all-records/

I don’t profess to understand this but arguments continue to be made that the science may be flawed. There may well be a consensus about AGW but history suggests that sometimes the consensus may be wrong.

I remain sceptical about AGW. I am not forcing my view on anyone else. I respect opposing points of view and interpretations of “facts” because I genuinely believe that none of us know for certain quite what is going on.

Martyn1981

JKenH wrote: »

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/09/09/empirical-evidence-shows-temperature-increases-before-co2-increase-in-all-records/

I don’t profess to understand this but arguments continue to be made that the science may be flawed. There may well be a consensus about AGW but history suggests that sometimes the consensus may be wrong.

I remain sceptical about AGW. I am not forcing my view on anyone else. I respect opposing points of view and interpretations of “facts” because I genuinely believe that none of us know for certain quite what is going on.

Hiya, I know next to nothing about the science. I can say the same about brain surgery, or rockets.

So I don't like to argue about the science. Instead I look to the consensus of scientists, and the long running trend of a significant majority position.

If 60%+ of peer reviewed scientific papers from as far back as the 60's conclude with AGW, and that number has grown to around 97% for the last 25yrs or so, and for a more recent period (10-15yrs) is in the 99%+ figure, then who am I to suggest that they are wrong.

BTW, the link you gave is to a climate denial website. Again, I'm not interested in arguments for or against, I'm going with the overwhelming scientific position, and to suggest or assume that this should be ignored today because 'they may be wrong tomorrow' is not a rational decision unless you know something that science doesn't. So be careful reading opinion sites, or even just opinions (like mine), you should instead be focusing on the peer reviewed science.

Far better to go with the long standing and majority (near unanimous) position for now, then change your stance if it is later found to be wrong. For instance, let's say you have a house party and have packed 100 people in. 97 of those people are telling you that they think there is a small fire in, say, a cupboard, but 3 people tell you not to worry - wouldn't you logically try to deal with the problem just in case, and before it gets too big and expensive. In fact, if only 3 people out of 100 told you there might be a problem, wouldn't you still want to sort it out 'just in case?'

After all, what's the downside of dealing with CO2 and air pollution?

What If We Create a Better World For Nothing?

JKenH

Martyn1981 wrote: »

After all, what's the downside of dealing with CO2 and air pollution?

What If We Create a Better World For Nothing?

I entirely agree that we should reduce pollution wherever possible and conserve our resources when there is no down side. This is why I am a supporter of RE where it does not require subsidy.

Green policies and green levies have however undermined the competitiveness of Britain’s industrial sector.

UK Steel said in 2015 that without Westminster acting, policies to promote green energy will increase its members’ electricity bills by £37 per megawatt hour (MWh) by 2020, accounting for a third of the total electricity price.
However, green power levies on electricity bills in Germany were expected to be £13 per MWh, £17 in Italy and almost zero in the US.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/industry/11455982/Green-power-levies-making-British-steel-uncompetitive.html

We have seen what has happened to our steel industry since then.

Green levies have also put up energy bills for many of those least able to afford them. Those of us lucky enough to be able to afford solar panels are doing very nicely out of green policies, thank you, but the money for FiT payments has had to come from somewhere. It is in fact part of everybody’s electricity bill along with the Renewable Obligations charge and CfDs.

Martyn1981

JKenH wrote: »

I entirely agree that we should reduce pollution wherever possible and conserve our resources when there is no down side. This is why I am a supporter of RE where it does not require subsidy.

Green policies and green levies have however undermined the competitiveness of Britain’s industrial sector.

UK Steel said in 2015 that without Westminster acting, policies to promote green energy will increase its members’ electricity bills by £37 per megawatt hour (MWh) by 2020, accounting for a third of the total electricity price.
However, green power levies on electricity bills in Germany were expected to be £13 per MWh, £17 in Italy and almost zero in the US.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/industry/11455982/Green-power-levies-making-British-steel-uncompetitive.html

We have seen what has happened to our steel industry since then.

Green levies have also put up energy bills for many of those least able to afford them. Those of us lucky enough to be able to afford solar panels are doing very nicely out of green policies, thank you, but the money for FiT payments has had to come from somewhere. It is in fact part of everybody’s electricity bill along with the Renewable Obligations charge and CfDs.

If you include externalities - pollution and CO2 related costs, then the true cost of our energy was far more than we paid for it, and RE is already cheaper than coal + externality costs.

RE is cheaper when you place it in context.

Also the green levies you say have pushed up bills, are not really for green energy, they are to move us away from FF industry as that is simply too expensive a route to follow anymore. So the green subsidies are due to FF's.

A thought for you - if FF + externalities was the cheaper option, would any government anywhere choose RE at the risk of losing the next election on the grounds of increasing household costs?

Take a look at California's economy, they are well ahead of the US average in terms of 'green' measures, and also economic growth.

EricMears

GreatApe wrote: »

In both cases you are wrong

Your EV is still marginal load the fact that you have PV panels does not change that (unless you are off grid which almost no one is.)

Likewise during economy 7 hours the UK is still not at 100% green so you are still using marginal production which is either gas or coal in the UK

What utter nonsense ! If I'm generating 3kW and using 2.5kWh to charge my EV, the grid would be completely unaware of that. Admittedly, I wouldn't be uploading the 2.5kWh that I would have been but neither would I be if I was doing a load of washing or even switching the system off whilst changing consumer unit.

And any use of E7 is during a period when we're encouraged (by lower prices) to use the otherwise un-needed baseload.

Martyn1981

Another article/report talking about peaks, this time an energy peak by 2035.

At first I thought that sounded odd, but I assume it's down to efficiencies since our energy consumption is measured gross, not net, so it's the oil, gas, coal etc that goes in, not the much lower amount of energy that comes out (gas generation 50% efficient, petrol cars about 25% efficient, etc).

DNV GL Predicts Global Energy Demand To Peak In 2035

The world’s energy demand is expected to decline from 2035 onward, according to global quality assurance and risk management company DNV GL, which published its most recent Energy Transition Outlook 2018 recently, and which predicts that this will result in a reshaping of energy investment trends.

DNV GL published its new Outlook last week and set about highlighting several aspects of its mammoth report, including its findings of how the decarbonization of the global energy mix will impact global spending on energy. Specifically, according to DNV GL, global spending on energy — as a proportion of economic output — will slow dramatically as the world’s energy demand peaks in 2035 and slows thereafter, while GDP will continue to increase.

Specifically, DNV GL expects that the world will be spending 44% less on energy by 2050 as a percentage of GDP due in large part to the rapid electrification of the energy mix due to the increase in renewable energy technologies, and the inherent increase in efficiency that stems from these new technologies.