The Alternative Green Energy Thread

JKenH

ABrass said:

JKenH said:

WIND POWER ECONOMICS
RHETORIC & REALITY

I came across this paper on wind farm economics; lengthy but providing an insight into the costs of operating wind farms, whether you agree with the conclusions or not. What I found particularly interesting was the section on the efficiency of ever larger turbines.

https://www.ref.org.uk/Files/performance-wind-power-uk.pdf

https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Renewable_Energy_Foundation

Gordon Hughes, the author, is a staunch critic of renewable energy in all its forms and a firm supporter of fossil fuels. Which makes sense, if you're a group funded by fossil fuel companies you go to the right person to write your reports.

When you dig through it you find the numbers he relies on are sourced from the Global Warming Policy Foundation in some of his own work. The 'actual' capex he references is an inferred actual capex.

What you say may indeed be correct but a lot of articles quoted on this forum are written by staunch supporters of RE or are from organisations representing RE interests. (If you want an article on how great PV is then where better to look than the PV industry?)

I was interested to read the “Solar stocks finish 2020 on a high note” item posted on the investment thread which just happened to be an article from pv magazine celebrating how well the solar industry was doing. I am wondering whether pv magazine would run an article pointing out the relatively poor performance of solar farms as longer term investments - witness the 20%+ fall in the share price of the Foresight Solar fund over the last 12 months?

https://www.hl.co.uk/shares/shares-search-results/f/foresight-solar-fund-ordinary-npv

I am not anti RE, I just like to hear alternative points of view. 

I am, btw after our last spat, pleased to see that we are now making progress on this forum to looking at the cost of RE plus storage when making comparisons to traditional energy solutions rather than RE on its own. 

Going back to the REF paper, I am pleased you took the trouble to read it. As someone interested in making RE investments, I thought It raised a number of points worthy of consideration. 

Investing in physical assets in a rapidly evolving RE world is fraught with risk as new technology is continually being developed and cheaper and cheaper electricity generation costs brought about by RE make future returns uncertain. As I have said before, it is not only the fossil fuel industry that risks being left with stranded assets. 

I think it is sensible in this environment to listen to the naysayers as well as the fanboys to get a balanced view.

JKenH

Scottish hydrogen-powered train under development

This article won’t appear in CT.

https://www.machinery-market.co.uk/news/28914/Scottish-hydrogen-powered-train-under-development

Solarchaser

Very interesting,  why won't it appear in ct?

JKenH

Solarchaser said:

Very interesting,  why won't it appear in ct?

Go back 3 posts.

edit:  go back 5 posts on this thread. I can’t count.

Solarchaser

Looks like it hits point 1 to me.
These are diesel trains... 

JKenH

Is this the point 1 you were referring to?

• Strong on displacement of fossil-fuel sourced hydrogen for existing industrial uses with green hydrogen powered by renewables.

I wasn’t aware it was displacing fossil fuel sourced hydrogen or that powering trains was industrial use. My understanding is that the project was to power a train using a hydrogen fuel cell - it didn’t specify whether it was blue or green hydrogen. 

The CT article I referenced had this to say about transport/trains

Hydrogen for ground transportation has already lost.

Hydrogen cars are dead on arrival, having been vastly outcompeted by electric cars. Hydrogen buses failed, and battery electric buses are dominant. Tesla is in the S&P 500 and Nikola has been determined to be a complete sham. Every form of wheeled road vehicle is going to be battery electric, not hydrogen.

Rail is vastly electrified already. Every urban rail system, the vast majority of regional rail systems, all high-speed passenger trains, and a great deal of freight rail is already electrified with grid electricity. 30,000 kilometers of high-speed rail in China are fully electric, with another 8,000 pending. Hydrogen fans like to point to a hydrogen train running in Europe, but ignore the vast numbers of fully electric trains that already exist, and the strong growth of battery electric trains. It’s trivial to add a freight car or three full of batteries behind a locomotive when freight trains run up to 2.8 kilometers long already.

Solarchaser

Nope, my apologies I read the point wrong 👐

JKenH

Under the skin: How HD radar may advance self-driving vehicles

I’ve posted this here rather than the BEV thread as the article doesn’t specifically refer to BEVs. This technology may be the Lidar killer as far as autonomous driving is concerned, the cost being a fraction of Lidar.

https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/technology/under-skin-how-hd-radar-may-advance-self-driving-vehicles

JKenH

National Grid have been busy the last couple of days with capacity notices.

https://gbcmn.nationalgrideso.com/

JKenH

£2750 per MWH!