Green, ethical, energy issues in the news

Martyn1981

EMEC signs deal to support Welsh marine

The Scottish and Welsh ocean energy test centres have strengthened ties to expand the UK’s test centre network.

The European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC), based in Orkney, Scotland, has signed an agreement with Marine Energy Wales to provide further support to the Marine Energy Test Area (META) in Pembrokeshire, Wales.

META consists of eight pre-consented, non-grid connected sites located in and around the Milford Haven Waterway, de-risking the development of marine energy projects by providing the opportunity to test scaled devices, sub-assemblies and components.

The sites are accessible yet still representative of real sea environments with phase 1 of the project launched in September 2019.

Martyn1981

markin said:

Have you all watched Michael Moore's  Planet of the Humans ? I expect 2000 words on it by the end of tomorrow. 

Been reading and watching many reviews of this film from environmentalists and those interested in green energy. But I'm still being surprised by the large number of lies and misinformation/misdirection that appears to have been used deliberately to paint a false picture. In George Monbiot's  '2000 words' this was the latest shock:

Planet of the Humans also claims that you can’t reduce fossil fuel use through renewable energy: coal is instead being replaced by gas. Well, in the third quarter of 2019, renewables in the UK generated more electricity than coal, oil and gas plants put together. As a result of the switch to renewables in this country, the amount of fossil fuel used for power generation has halved since 2010. By 2025, the government forecasts, roughly half our electricity will come from renewables, while gas burning will drop by a further 40%. To hammer home its point, the film shows footage of a “large terminal to import natural gas from the United States” that “Germany just built”. Germany has no such terminal. The footage was shot in Turkey.

There are of course still far more funny bits, such as PV being 8% efficient (hmm I wonder if this is old footage), and EV's covered by footage of the launch of the Chevy Volt (yes that's V for Volt, not a typo) so circa 2010?

No wonder this film is being well received by certain groups ......

How did Michael Moore become a hero to climate deniers and the far right?

Denial never dies; it just goes quiet and waits. Today, after years of irrelevance, the climate science deniers are triumphant. Long after their last, desperate claims had collapsed, when they had traction only on “alt-right” conspiracy sites, a hero of the left turns up and gives them more than they could have dreamed of.
Planet of the Humans, whose executive producer and chief promoter is Michael Moore, now has more than 6 million views on YouTube. The film does not deny climate science. But it promotes the discredited myths that deniers have used for years to justify their position. It claims that environmentalism is a self-seeking scam, doing immense harm to the living world while enriching a group of con artists. This has long been the most effective means by which denial – most of which has been funded by the fossil fuel industry – has been spread. Everyone hates a scammer.

Martyn1981

For anyone who has seen the recent video of an off-shore wind crane failing during load testing (prior to delivery, here is some info on the reason for said failure. Sadly several people were injured, two seriously, and the crane's failure could delay some off-shore wind deployment.

Liebherr says load hook failure caused collapse of giant offshore crane

At this stage in the investigations, the responsible authorities and experts unanimously agree that a broken crane hook was the cause of the accident. The exact reasons as to why the hook did not withstand the load are unclear at this stage of investigations. The design and manufacture of the crane hook was purchased from an external supplier. A design or production error of the Liebherr crane can therefore be excluded.

The overload test for the HLC 295000 was planned for a load scenario of 5,500 tonnes. The lift should have been carried out through the hoisting of a barge. Carrying out an overload test is a typical procedure for the industry, whereby the crane is tested for its maximum lifting capacity. Currently known facts indicate that the incident occurred at a load of around 2,600 tonnes causing a chain reaction which led to the accident.

ASavvyBuyer

A whole 26 days without coal!

https://www.nationalgrideso.com/news/whole-26-days-without-coal

Martyn1981

Big storage (3GWh) contracted for California, and due in just over a year.

Southern California Edison Signs Up For 770 Megawatts Of New Grid-Scale Energy Storage

“These new emissions free projects will help us ensure the reliability of the grid for our customers and integrate an ever-increasing amount of clean renewable energy over the next decade,” William Walsh, SCE VP of energy procurement and management, tells PV Magazine. Remarkably, SCE wants these energy storage resources online by August 2021, an aggressive timeline unthinkable for any type of thermal generation project of this size. Once completed, the total energy storage package will allow 4 coastal thermal plants to go offline.

One of the issues that opponents of renewable energy like to harp on is that problem of connecting wind and solar generation facilities to batteries and connecting batteries to the utility grid. In virtually all cases, the new storage projects will be located next to existing or soon to be built solar installations, so adding storage will not incur a massive investment in new transmission infrastructure. SCE claims these solar-plus-storage projects, located at the same point of interconnection, will be the first of their kind on California’s grid.

markin

Martyn1981 said:

markin said:

Have you all watched Michael Moore's  Planet of the Humans ? I expect 2000 words on it by the end of tomorrow. 

Been reading and watching many reviews of this film from environmentalists and those interested in green energy. But I'm still being surprised by the large number of lies and misinformation/misdirection that appears to have been used deliberately to paint a false picture. In George Monbiot's  '2000 words' this was the latest shock:

Planet of the Humans also claims that you can’t reduce fossil fuel use through renewable energy: coal is instead being replaced by gas. Well, in the third quarter of 2019, renewables in the UK generated more electricity than coal, oil and gas plants put together. As a result of the switch to renewables in this country, the amount of fossil fuel used for power generation has halved since 2010. By 2025, the government forecasts, roughly half our electricity will come from renewables, while gas burning will drop by a further 40%. To hammer home its point, the film shows footage of a “large terminal to import natural gas from the United States” that “Germany just built”. Germany has no such terminal. The footage was shot in Turkey.

There are of course still far more funny bits, such as PV being 8% efficient (hmm I wonder if this is old footage), and EV's covered by footage of the launch of the Chevy Volt (yes that's V for Volt, not a typo) so circa 2010?

No wonder this film is being well received by certain groups ......

How did Michael Moore become a hero to climate deniers and the far right?

Denial never dies; it just goes quiet and waits. Today, after years of irrelevance, the climate science deniers are triumphant. Long after their last, desperate claims had collapsed, when they had traction only on “alt-right” conspiracy sites, a hero of the left turns up and gives them more than they could have dreamed of.
Planet of the Humans, whose executive producer and chief promoter is Michael Moore, now has more than 6 million views on YouTube. The film does not deny climate science. But it promotes the discredited myths that deniers have used for years to justify their position. It claims that environmentalism is a self-seeking scam, doing immense harm to the living world while enriching a group of con artists. This has long been the most effective means by which denial – most of which has been funded by the fossil fuel industry – has been spread. Everyone hates a scammer.

Even stranger when they could have picked on Nord Stream 2 that will double germanys gas import.

The unclear future of Nord Stream 2, Russia's controversial gas pipeline

https://www.dw.com/en/the-unclear-future-of-nord-stream-2-russias-controversial-gas-pipeline/a-52357665

Or they just jumped the gun on it being built, or when to release the film.

German LNG terminal plans fuel anger among environmentalists 14.02.2020

EU votes for more gas infrastructure, angering climate activists 12.02.2020

Poland's Baltic Pipe project pumped full of EU cash 15.04.2019

Solarchaser

First time I've ever seen 100% wind.
North Scotland 

markin

Solarchaser said:

First time I've ever seen 100% wind.
North Scotland 

It can't actually be true can it? The must be some Gas plants idling just not making power. Or would they just use England as its reserve? Or in this case South Scotland.

I cant find any displays on the website, is that an app?

Dave_Fowler

markin said:

Solarchaser said:

First time I've ever seen 100% wind.
North Scotland 

It can't actually be true can it? The must be some Gas plants idling just not making power. Or would they just use England as its reserve? Or in this case South Scotland.

I cant find any displays on the website, is that an app?

It's the NG ESO app available on Android. 

Solarchaser

Dave_Fowler said:

markin said:

Solarchaser said:

First time I've ever seen 100% wind.
North Scotland 

It can't actually be true can it? The must be some Gas plants idling just not making power. Or would they just use England as its reserve? Or in this case South Scotland.

I cant find any displays on the website, is that an app?

It's the NG ESO app available on Android. 

Yeah as Dave says, its the app.
Southern Scotland was on around 75% wind at the same time iirc