The Alternative Green Energy Thread

JKenH

michaels said:

We know it is possible but expensive to use excess RE to produce hydrogen than can be stored and burned when RE generation is low.  Massively expensive but perhaps cheaper than frying the planet?

A little hyperbolic, perhaps?

JKenH

Netexporter said:

We should have been building more storage, of all durations, long ago. But there's no way dim-witted public school politicians are going to understand that.

I have long argued that any new weather dependent renewables should only go ahead if linked with storage. If it made economic sense it would be happening. I am a free marketeer and believe if a technology is viable it should be able to stand on its own feet economically. We have been subsidising wind generation for 20 years and still, despite all the claims about how cheap it is very little gets built without guarantees/subsidies. We need to be honest about wind - it is good for our climate objectives but it comes at a cost - we still need to maintain virtually the same levels of gas capacity to support it. Once renewables reach a certain level of penetration the returns in future investment in capacity produces ever diminishing returns - long before 100% is reached. You only have to look at California’s experience.

Netexporter

You seem to overlook the subsidies given to fossil fuels, they dwarf those given to renewables.

thevilla

You have to acknowledge past and ongoing subsidies of oil and gas exploration if you are going to claim no renewable energy generation is subsidy free.

I may be wrong, but I think Ripple's projects are subsidy free.  They plan to compensate local communities for their presence too.

JKenH

Netexporter said:

You seem to overlook the subsidies given to fossil fuels, they dwarf those given to renewables.

thevilla said:

You have to acknowledge past and ongoing subsidies of oil and gas exploration if you are going to claim no renewable energy generation is subsidy free.

I may be wrong, but I think Ripple's projects are subsidy free.  They plan to compensate local communities for their presence too.

I think you may be confusing tax allowances with subsidies. You only get tax allowances if you make a profit. You can make a loss and still get a subsidy just as you can get a subsidy and still make a loss. 

However, the so called “subsidies” given to oil companies are not really relevant to the economics of generating electricity by burning gas. Tax allowances are indeed given to oil companies for exploration and decommissioning. (Other industries may attract different tax allowances). The oil companies, though, are not the ones generating electricity. Gas fired electricity generators are customers  of the oil companies. Gas is an international commodity and its price is set on the open market. In the absence of any UK domiciled oil companies generators would still pay the same for gas. Oil companies do not sell their gas cheaper to UK electricity generators because it is “subsidised” by HMG so any “subsidies” have no bearing on the economics of gas fired generation. When comparing renewables with gas generation, one receives subsidies/guarantees and the other takes its chances with market forces. That in itself is an indication that the business of renewable generation is deemed inherently unprofitable. 

I believe you are correct about Ripple and indeed I specifically had them in mind when I said “very little gets built without guarantees/subsidies”. It is an entirely different business model. It is a cooperative where the members stake the company and hope to get a return of their investment and a bonus. The initial Ripple wind farm, Graig Fatha, has worked out very well due to a significant increase in the price at which electricity can currently be sold. One would expect its success to be replicated by commercial wind farms but despite the current healthy prices very few, if any, investors see a sufficiently sound long term business case to develop a wind farm without a CfD contract.

michaels

I would have thought not having a planet to live on would be extremely costly and should probably be factored into the cost of fossil fuel burning at which point renewable sat pretty much any cost look the better investment for those who care about their offspring/intend to be around for more than a decade or so....

JKenH

michaels said:

I would have thought not having a planet to live on would be extremely costly and should probably be factored into the cost of fossil fuel burning at which point renewable sat pretty much any cost look the better investment for those who care about their offspring/intend to be around for more than a decade or so....

Resorting to hyperbole (again) does tend to diminish your argument. The planet will be here for a while although humans may not. There are many existential risks to humanity, (some we can’t yet even imagine) could wipe out human existence in the next century. Climate change isn’t one of them. 

Yes, we need to act to reduce our emissions but not at any cost. I am interested in seeing a sensible alternative to dispatchable gas generation but I don’t believe weather related renewables on their own or are the answer. 

Please set out some figures as to what you believe a 100% renewables solution involves. 

JKenH

On the subject of not having a planet to live on, I thought this was interesting. 

The incredible vanishing U.S. tornado losses

The authors summarize their findings as follows:

“Our findings suggest an overall national significant decline in normalized losses from tornado events. At the country level, both the severity of damage from individual events and the total annual losses from tornadoes are seen to have reduced over time.”

Pielke Jr. notes that the new study agrees quite closely with his own work, and comments:

“There is simply no evidence to support claims that tornadoes are getting worse or causing more damage. In fact, the evidence indicates the opposite and peer-reviewed research is strongly in agreement.”

But, he warns, in this age of misinformation don’t expect to learn about this from the usual government agencies:

“However, despite all this these studies are all but comprehensively ignored by the media and the scientific assessments of the IPCC and US National Climate Assessment.
Why is this literature ignored?
Misinformation on extreme weather and disasters sits out in plain sight, and is easily refuted – yet there seem to be exceedingly strong social norms and political pressures to simply not call things straight. It is really remarkable.”

https://climatediscussionnexus.com/2023/11/22/the-incredible-vanishing-u-s-tornado-losses/

JKenH

michaels said:

I would have thought not having a planet to live on would be extremely costly and should probably be factored into the cost of fossil fuel burning at which point renewable sat pretty much any cost look the better investment for those who care about their offspring/intend to be around for more than a decade or so....

I suspect the almost universal view of the impending doom descending on our planet stems from the sources of (mis)information  which we are daily exposed to - not least the BBC.

This article from the much unloved (on here) NetZero Watch details much of the exaggeration that the BBC has had to backtrack on.

https://www.netzerowatch.com/content/uploads/2022/06/Homewood-BBC-ClimateComplaints.pdf

Unfortunately, like most apologies and retractions in the media, the corrections don’t make it as far as the general public. Hence we are left with an unnecessarily depressing view of the world. 

thevilla

JKenH said:

michaels said:

I would have thought not having a planet to live on would be extremely costly and should probably be factored into the cost of fossil fuel burning at which point renewable sat pretty much any cost look the better investment for those who care about their offspring/intend to be around for more than a decade or so....

Resorting to hyperbole (again) does tend to diminish your argument. The planet will be here for a while although humans may not. There are many existential risks to humanity, (some we can’t yet even imagine) could wipe out human existence in the next century. Climate change isn’t one of them. 

Yes, we need to act to reduce our emissions but not at any cost. I am interested in seeing a sensible alternative to dispatchable gas generation but I don’t believe weather related renewables on their own or are the answer. 

Please set out some figures as to what you believe a 100% renewables solution involves. 

It's likely gas will always have a role. I believe we'll need oil even if we don't burn it (for plastics etc) and methane is a bi product of oil production.  Better burn it than release it.  That's where net zero rears it's head.  Carbon capture? More trees or whatever.  I don't know.

I personally don't know how we achieve net zero but I'm glad we're striving for it.

Turning the question around, how would you mitigate the effects of continuing say on a 50% reduction in co2 global emissions?  There are no easy answers and some answers will arrive late to the party.