The Alternative Green Energy Thread

JKenH

@Solarchaser, @ABrass, in all seriousness I welcome your comments and the links posted. Although they may be intended as provocative (apologies if that was not your intention) they do actually inspire me to go off and do some (online) research to establish what is fact and what is spin. Most articles are based on a degree of truth/fact so rarely is my time wasted. So today I have read quite a few articles about hurricanes, wild fires and and their relationship with climate change and I feel better informed from it.  I hope you also have gained something from the articles I have shared with you. Thank you, most sincerely. Ken

Solarchaser

Provocative,  no.
A wee bit of banter while providing info, absolutely. 

Its very very rare i will dismiss an article out of hand.

I did actually look for a tory graph article, as you have an affinity to right wing / Conservative news sources, so I wanted to provide a source you would feel comfortable with.

On my phone I can't see who "likes" posts (only a cumulative number), if you can, you will notice that I quite often "like" your posts.

JKenH

Solarchaser said:

Provocative,  no.
A wee bit of banter while providing info, absolutely. 

Its very very rare i will dismiss an article out of hand.

I did actually look for a tory graph article, as you have an affinity to right wing / Conservative news sources, so I wanted to provide a source you would feel comfortable with.

On my phone I can't see who "likes" posts (only a cumulative number), if you can, you will notice that I quite often "like" your posts.

My phone is like that but my iPad isn’t. I don get many thanks/likes so it isn’t a problem I encounter very often.😭 Similarly I post Guardian links where available. I usually avoid partisan/trade websites and publications but as @ABrass mentioned GWPF I thought I would see what they were up to. 

JKenH

JKenH said:

It’s a lovely September day and coal is currently providing 6.4% (2.3 GW) of our generation and wind is in the Doldrums. 

Security of supply is going to be an issue soon. Even at 2030 levels of wind generation it would be insufficient to fill the gap. We need to move the RE focus away from new turbines and solar farms and focus on storage if we are going to make any progress. To maintain today’s generation without coal and gas we would need 20 x our current wind generation capacity. We currently have the capacity to produce up to 17 GW when conditions are favourable or in the region of half our electricity needs on a typical day. If we increase wind by a factor of 20 we will at times only be using 10% of capacity.  Is it economic to use wind turbines at that level of utilisation? How does the cost then compare to gas or storage?

Drax in their Electric Insights report predict we will need 30GW (sic) of storage by 2030.

https://electricinsights.co.uk/#/reports/report-2019-q3/detail/how-much-energy-storage-will-we-need?start=2020-09-15&_k=jau8uo

 In the last 12 hours we have used 220GWH from gas and generated 10GWH each by wind and solar. If we are assuming we will have doubled our wind and solar generation by 2030 we will have had another 20GWH of VRE available but we still need to make up 200GWH of gas generation from storage or some other source. Let’s assume that by midnight last night our storage capacity was full (30GWH) we would have had a shortfall by noon of 170GWH. (The reality is of course that last night there was little wind and after sundown whatever was in storage would have been used up.) Imports have provided less than coal in case anyone thinks they are the answer. What if we get several days in a row like this?

While I would love to get to 95% RE generation I just don’t see how we are going to do it with the assumptions currently in place. Everyone looks at totals and averages of RE generation but ignores the lows and the big gaps they cause that we just won’t be able to fill. We need massive investment in storage.

Update on the above. 

We came pretty close to running out of electricity at teatime on the 15th September with prices of over £500/MWh. Coal generation exceeded wind on that day. 

An alert was issued by National Grid for 5.30pm then cancelled.

If you are that interested you can subscribe to National grid to receive Capacity Market Notices here:
https://gbcmn.nationalgrid.co.uk/

joefizz

JKenH said:

We came pretty close to running out of electricity at teatime on the 15th September with prices of over £500/MWh. Coal generation exceeded wind on that day. 

Panic buttons were hit during the week when President Macron said they might shut off the interconnect (albeit temporarily) if theres a no deal Brexit.
Imagine what would happen in that case if it coincided with a winter lull in wind.
The UK is still in a transition phase and its no coincidence that coal stocks are being supplemented just in case....

JKenH

Coastalwatch said:

Good news for workers in the States at a time when Renewables featured on the Presidential debate fo rthe first time in history. Probably not sufficient incentive to encourage the average Redneck to vote along those lines but useful information toshare in the public domain all the same! 

Clean energy jobs pay more

Clean energy jobs paid 25% more than the national median in 2019, according to a new report, released by BW Research Partnership for Environmental Entrepreneurs (E2), the American Council on Renewable Energy, and the Clean Energy Leadership Institute.

According to the report, workers in renewable energy, energy efficiency, grid modernization and storage, clean fuels and clean vehicles earned a median hourly wage of $23.89 in 2019 compared with the national median wage of $19.14. The median hourly income in the solar industry was actually higher than the clean energy average, coming in at $24.48/hour, 31% higher than the national median.

It’s not just higher wages that clean energy industries have to offer, as the report also finds that the unionization rate across all clean energy occupations came in at 9%, which is slightly higher than the national private-sector average of 6%. This is not true of solar, however, with an average unionization rate of 4%, which is lower than the national private-sector average.

Additionally, clean energy jobs are more likely to come with health care and retirement benefits than the rest of the private sector.

“These jobs pay better, come with better benefits – and they’re also helping fight climate change and the growing economic costs that come with it,” said Bob Keefe, executive director at E2. “We need policies that ensure these good-paying jobs continue to grow and are available to every American in every state.”

The comparison would not be complete without looking at how renewable generation jobs compare to jobs in fossil fuels. The report found that jobs in wind and solar combined for a $24.85 median hourly wage, while jobs in coal, natural gas and petroleum fuels registered at $24.37 an hour.

While that gap might not be as significant as some may hope, a key consideration is that clean energy industries employed about three times more workers than fossil fuels did in 2019 and that clean energy jobs are available in every state, regardless of geology or geography.

https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2020/10/22/clean-energy-jobs-pay-more/?utm_source=pv+magazine+USA&utm_campaign=31599744b8-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_80e0d17bb8-31599744b8-159341337

I just thought I would post this as a comment on the above post from the G&E News thread. It all depends where one goes for information. An awful lot of posts are quotes from organisations with vested interests and may not be altogether objective. I am not saying the quote below is any more true than the one referenced above - it serves purely as a reminder that one shouldn’t take everything as gospel particularly if it is from an industry source. 

Clean energy jobs pay better than the typical U.S. job, up to 25% more or some $2-$5 more per hour, according to recent research from Brookings and an new reportcommissioned by a group of clean energy organizations.

But petroleum jobs pay more like 40% over the median, according to the U.S. Energy and Employment Report — and extraction jobs on drilling sites pay nearly double the national median, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

https://www.npr.org/2020/10/21/925504343/oil-jobs-are-big-risk-big-pay-green-energy-offers-stability-and-passion

JKenH

Scientists concerned by ‘record high’ global methane emissions

We have all read that methane is 84 times as potent a greenhouse gas as carbon dioxide but I have struggled to find a source that tells me how much of the global warming that is being caused by GHGs is down to methane compared to CO2. It does seem we are very focussed on CO2 but less so on methane.

I looked at Wikipedia to see that methane levels were at 1866 ppb (1.866ppm) in 2019 compared to 722ppb in the pre industrial era. Meanwhile CO2 levels have risen from 280 ppm pre industrial to 410ppm now. 

Taking into account methane is 84 times more potent than CO2 the current levels of methane have the same impact as 157ppm of CO2. 

CO2 levels have risen by 130ppm since preindustrial times, meanwhile methane levels have risen by 1.144ppm which is equivalent to 96ppm of CO2. If we were to assume for one minute that methane and CO2 were the only significant GHGs, methane would account for 42% of the increase in GHGs over preindustrial levels. 

Had methane remained at pre industrial levels we would effectively now have GHGs at the level they were in the 1960s.

Maybe we need to focus a bit more on methane.

https://www.carbonbrief.org/scientists-concerned-by-record-high-global-methane-emissions

P.S. This was my first shot at this so please feel free to shoot the figures down. 

Cardew

A quote from the link above states:

'The work also shows “no evidence to date for increasing methane release from the Arctic'

Yet a google for 'Artic Tundra warming releases methane' gives numerous websites from respected organisations(NASA National Geographic etc) that paint a different picture.

It ties in with your earlier post about where we source information.

ed110220

joefizz said:

JKenH said:

We came pretty close to running out of electricity at teatime on the 15th September with prices of over £500/MWh. Coal generation exceeded wind on that day. 

Panic buttons were hit during the week when President Macron said they might shut off the interconnect (albeit temporarily) if theres a no deal Brexit.
Imagine what would happen in that case if it coincided with a winter lull in wind.
The UK is still in a transition phase and its no coincidence that coal stocks are being supplemented just in case....

I wouldn't worry too much about it. Perhaps counterintuitively, the times at which the direction of flow through the interconnector is from the UK to France are more often to be in winter when France's electricity demand is very high. As France's generating capacity is more than its average demand, but less than its peak demand it must import in these conditions (even though it is a net exporter). In these conditions thermal power stations in neighbouring countries can be profitably brought on line to cover the shortfall. This would suggest that the effect here of the interconnector being closed would be higher prices and higher GHG emissions but not blackouts.

JKenH

Tesla (TSLA) has launched its new ‘Tesla Energy Plan’ to offer new low charging tariffs to customers in the UK by creating a virtual power plant with solar and Powerwall.

In fact, Tesla is offering lower electricity rates in the virtual power plant for vehicle owners:

You are eligible for the £0.08/kWh tariff if you have:
• A Tesla vehicle
• Electric Vehicle Charger installed at your home or are able to have one installed
• Solar panels and Powerwall (Or a home suitable for this)
• Residential electricity supply

You are eligible for the £0.11/kWh tariff if you have:
• Solar panels and Powerwall (Or a home suitable for this)
• Residential electricity supply