Green, ethical, energy issues in the news

Martyn1981

Holy Cow!

We've only just gotten over the arrival or near arrival of 9MW and 10MW wind turbines, and now testing is to begin on 16MW nacelles.

The cost reductions for off-shore wind have already been staggering, but monsters like this would further reduce the number of bases needed and access even stronger (and more consistent) higher winds, reducing generation costs again.

Denmark to test nacelles for 16MW offshore wind turbines

Martyn1981

OK it's Cardiff, so I have an ickle bit of bias, but still excellent news:

New £5 Million Climate Change Research Center To Set Up Shop At Cardiff University

The University of Cardiff in Wales will be home to the Centre for Climate Change and Social Transformations, a collaboration between four British universities and charity Climate Outreach to explore ways in which society can tackle climate change and achieve the far-reaching emissions cuts that are necessary.

“So far, emission cuts have mostly been achieved by decarbonising electricity supply,” said Professor Andy Jordan, who will lead the University of East Anglia team involved in CAST. “But if we’re going to tackle demand, and particularly in high-impact but challenging areas like food, transport, heating, and material consumption, we can’t do this by technological change alone. We can only do this by transforming the way we live our lives, challenging norms, and reconfiguring organisations and cities.”

CAST will look to implement a strong practical focus and will experiment with approaches to bring about social change at all levels of society, applying behavior change techniques designed to break people’s habits. The research center will also work with local governments to develop and apply approaches designed to decrease emissions and better engage the public in working out ways to tackle climate change.

silverwhistle

Does anybody actually read GreatApe's posts? Apart from snippets that leap out "wind and PV don't work without subsidy", I find the posts an indigestible mash of figures and of dubious accuracy which I barely even skim read.



Still, somebody has got to buy the stranded fossil fuel assets which more forward looking investors are divesting from.. It will be interesting to look back on these "debates" in ten years time.

Martyn1981

silverwhistle wrote: »

Does anybody actually read GreatApe's posts? Apart from snippets that leap out "wind and PV don't work without subsidy", I find the posts an indigestible mash of figures and of dubious accuracy which I barely even skim read.



Still, somebody has got to buy the stranded fossil fuel assets which more forward looking investors are divesting from.. It will be interesting to look back on these "debates" in ten years time.

I put him on ignore last year.

Funny you should mention 10yrs, as I was thinking the same yesterday, what will be will be, regardless of what we say, debate, guess etc. We can use reasonable and rational assumptions, but that will always be trumped by reality.

I find the 1,000's of arguments about the technology and viability of PV, going back to the start of this decade kind of funny, as all the pro arguments and defence made no impact on the two anti-PV posters, but time has made their arguments a joke.

For this issue, I'm genuinely interested in all the technicalities and potential twists and turns, but I always keep two over-riding facts in the background, on which most of this will became mute anyway:-

1. Gas has to go anyway - FF gas is too CO2 intensive for the UK or any country to meet long term targets, so it has to go anyway, and in the UK we are now down to a point (with minimal coal) that gas generation will start to be impacted from now on thanks to the annual 3%(ish) of RE deployment, and the rising efficiency of households, new build households, and the start (slow start) of heat pumps.

2. Can the industry survive long term - The US is the one that's always touted, yet despite some companies claiming to have made some operational profits, several analysis of different samples of companies values suggested they'd lost $200bn to $280bn, and any profits are more down to creative accounting:

THE FRACKING DEPRECIATION DODGE

So we may find that falling gas demand, and industry viability, make all these discussions mute too in 10yrs, or even much sooner.

GreatApe

Martyn1981 wrote: »

I put him on ignore last year.

Funny you should mention 10yrs, as I was thinking the same yesterday, what will be will be, regardless of what we say, debate, guess etc. We can use reasonable and rational assumptions, but that will always be trumped by reality.

I find the 1,000's of arguments about the technology and viability of PV, going back to the start of this decade kind of funny, as all the pro arguments and defence made no impact on the two anti-PV posters, but time has made their arguments a joke.

For this issue, I'm genuinely interested in all the technicalities and potential twists and turns, but I always keep two over-riding facts in the background, on which most of this will became mute anyway:-

1. Gas has to go anyway - FF gas is too CO2 intensive for the UK or any country to meet long term targets, so it has to go anyway, and in the UK we are now down to a point (with minimal coal) that gas generation will start to be impacted from now on thanks to the annual 3%(ish) of RE deployment, and the rising efficiency of households, new build households, and the start (slow start) of heat pumps.

2. Can the industry survive long term - The US is the one that's always touted, yet despite some companies claiming to have made some operational profits, several analysis of different samples of companies values suggested they'd lost $200bn to $280bn, and any profits are more down to creative accounting:

THE FRACKING DEPRECIATION DODGE

So we may find that falling gas demand, and industry viability, make all these discussions mute too in 10yrs, or even much sooner.

You still hold onto the propaganda that shale is a scam accounting trick even though it has expanded to 1.5TW thermal. :T

And the target is -80% vs 1990 levels
1990 = 593 million tons
2050 = ~120 million tons

That means the uk in 2050 can still use upto ~75GW of natural gas which is more or less how much we use today for non power station needs and with the north sea more or less depleted by that time frame it means we would have to import all of that NG while shale gas can and should fill that gap

So you are also wrong in your assertion that we have to get rid of NG to meet 2050 targets, we dont and probably wont. Large quantities of NG will be required from now to 2050 and beyond

Plus shale is quick payback, you can produce shale gas and if and when renewables take market share the shale drillers will just stop drilling and the existing wells naturally tail off


Even if the target was -100% on 1990 levels and we had to use zero !!!!!! in 2050 that would still be no reason not to do shale gas. in fact it is more reason to do shale because shale gas is largely upfront extraction that means a shale well drilled today wont be producing in 2050 anyway so it will displace other FF sources worldwide. If anything if this shale displaces tar sands, coal mines, offshore !!!!!! etc it is better because those assets might still be producing in 2050 as they have much longer lives much higher capital costs up front but very low marginal costs once in place.

pile-o-stone

silverwhistle wrote: »

Does anybody actually read GreatApe's posts? Apart from snippets that leap out "wind and PV don't work without subsidy", I find the posts an indigestible mash of figures and of dubious accuracy which I barely even skim read.

Talking about dubious accuracy, I read this and laughed:

GreatApe wrote: »

Fracking reduces CO2 the USA CO2 output per capita is down 20% per on the decade while Germany is down only 6%

Junk science along the lines of "My Cat is Black, my cat is deaf, therefore all black cats are deaf".

I once defended this poster as I felt that we shouldn't become an echo chamber of similar views, but I've changed my mind in this case as the user never posts anything on topic or any positive posts about RE. I find it tiresome to scroll past the multi-posts so I'm following Mart and putting this poster on ignore.

Martyn1981

pile-o-stone wrote: »

Talking about dubious accuracy, I read this and laughed:



Junk science along the lines of "My Cat is Black, my cat is deaf, therefore all black cats are deaf".

Actually I like maths tricks, that's to say I enjoy the game, whilst obviously feeling that those that use them to mislead are deplorable.

Here's a fun game, this link shows that in 2017 the US was the highest CO2 emitter per capita, in fact they (and Australia and Canada) are simply in a different league to everyone else.

They were emitting 16.5tonnes per person, v's the 8.9 for Germany. Kinda like a 'rotund' person is capable of shedding more fat than a slimmer person.

But here's the fun bit, look at Somalia at 0.0, I bet the US's reductions in CO2 emissions will simply dwarf those of Somalia going forward, proving how much 'better' the US is when it comes to GHG's than Somalia. :think:

EricMears

For a thread entitled "Green, ethical, energy issues in the news (last 2 weeks)"
this seems to have an awful lot of off-topic posts. Perhaps some of the culprits could start their own thread - perhaps even including their name in the title so that the rest of us know to avoid it ?

GreatApe

Martyn1981 wrote: »

Actually I like maths tricks, that's to say I enjoy the game, whilst obviously feeling that those that use them to mislead are deplorable.

Here's a fun game, this link shows that in 2017 the US was the highest CO2 emitter per capita, in fact they (and Australia and Canada) are simply in a different league to everyone else.

They were emitting 16.5tonnes per person, v's the 8.9 for Germany. Kinda like a 'rotund' person is capable of shedding more fat than a slimmer person.

But here's the fun bit, look at Somalia at 0.0, I bet the US's reductions in CO2 emissions will simply dwarf those of Somalia going forward, proving how much 'better' the US is when it comes to GHG's than Somalia. :think:

Surprising (not) that you did not see it fit to include the French at 4.7 tons / person almost half that of the Germans and actually closer to 4 tons / person when you account for their net electricity exports greening their neighbors grids too

GreatApe

Martyn1981 wrote: »

That is incredible news and goes to show the speed of RE cost reductions. Reading comments on different forums from some American posters, they still complain about how RE will push bills up as it costs twice as much as 'normal' generation - these aren't trolls, they are simply ordinary people who just aren't aware of the rate of change this decade, especially since the middle of the decade. One US state recently passed a law to start subsidising coal generation to save the jobs in the generation and extraction industries - which sounds fair, till we consider RE generation is more labour intensive and cheaper for the bill payers. King Canute (I won't risk the correct spelling) springs to mind.

Since we've been talking about gas this week, other US news (I'll have to try to find an old article*) pointed out that whilst current gas generation capacity could compete against RE (at the moment), no new generation capacity would be able to make back the investment in the plant before RE went cheaper, so we may not see much (or any) new capital expenditure in FF gas generation capacity in the US.

* Edit - here you go, not what I was thinking of, but actually far more thorough:

The Doom Of Fossil Fuel Investments

Some extracts, not cherry picking, it's a big article that needs fuller reading:

so what you are saying is that everything apart from PV and wind is one form of accounting trick or scam or fossil fuel subsidy, please just ignore expanding production that just tells us the accountant found a new way to do more tricks..... thanks for your insight