The Alternative Green Energy Thread

QrizB

Verdigris said:

There's the little matter of us having had the first industrial revolution and that we've been ****ing up the planet for longer than anybody else, for starters.

... plus the rich countries (which we still are) are better placed to start this off than the poor ones are.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita

JKenH

Verdigris said:

There's the little matter of us having had the first industrial revolution and that we've been ****ing up the planet for longer than anybody else, for starters.

Well you could say that (indeed it is quite a popular perspective from those at the extreme end o& the climate change debate) or you could take a more balanced view and look how our lives have improved as a result of the industrial revolution. Industrialisation increased productivity, by replacing the exploitation of physical human energy with fossil fuels, which increased national wealth and per capita income and enabled the development of taxation and public spending for the greater good. 

Just a few examples of how life has improved as a consequence of the industrial revolution. 

Life expectancy has more than doubled from below 39 in 1765 to 81 now thanks to medical advances brought about by industrial development. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1040159/life-expectancy-united-kingdom-all-time/

If you got seriously ill 300 years ago you died. In pre-industrial times only around half of those born survived childhood with the infant mortality rate around a quarter. Now globally the infant mortality rate is 2.9% and 4.6% die before reaching the age of 15. Mortality in the past – around half died as children - Our World in Data

Without the industrial revolution how many people (except the rich) would have been able to get away only working 35/40 hours a week, would have had paid holidays and pensions or any meaningful leisure time or been able to travel even to the next town let alone fly to the other side of the world? 

The modern climate warriors like to forget (but not forego) the conveniences of modern life - the ample supply of food, clothes, sanitation, heat and light and not least medical intervention. All these things we take for granted as though they have always been there. Is that because we teach our children so little about the past, filling their heads with the evils of modern industry and not the benefits? 

Perhaps because of my age I have had the chance to see some of the changes first hand that others take for granted.

Mains water came to our village in 1950 and electricity a year later and mains sewage around 1960 all benefits of increased national prosperity. Before that, growing up, if you wanted the toilet on a dark evening you had to take a torch (or a paraffin lantern) and walk down a passage to an outside privy, where after taking the lid off the wooden bench you would sit and enjoy the pungent odours of those who had gone before you. 

If you were lucky the dilly man would come and take away the mess. Not everyone enjoyed that luxury. My grandad’s house had a board to sit on but nothing but earth beneath and at weekends he would have to shovel away the week’s business - I used to watch him doing this - into a ditch. As kids we would float matchstick boats on the water in that ditch. 

Before electricity my grandad used to have to make a fire to boil a kettle or cook a meal on the range. In my childhood washing  took all day, starting off by lighting a fire underneath the copper boiler then transferring the hot water to a dolly tub, agitating the wash, rinsing then wringing most of the water out through a mangle then hanging clothes and sheets out on a clothes line to dry. I remember many a time helping my mum take rigid frozen sheets off the line. If you don’t believe me look at this. Washboards and mangles; laundry in the 1930s - 1939 Register | findmypast.com

Have a think about what life was like at night before the electric era (or before there were gas lights). Candles and paraffin lamps were a luxury and the poor would have to use them sparsely. The poor didn’t have books or papers to read even if they had light. Inevitably birth rates were high and overcrowding existed to the detriment of children’s health hence the high mortality rates. It was not unusual in my parents’ generation for 2 adults and 10 children to live in a 2 bedroomed house. Birth control to any meaningful extent couldn’t be practised before rubber vulcanisation, another product of industrialisation.

These are just a few of the more basic changes that we take for granted. 

Now have another think, please, about your statement and tell me again that you really believe that. 

thevilla

So progress is progress. It stops when "someone" says stop. It must be fossil fuel based (until it eventually runs out).  It must be blind to the known environmental issues which may make the world uninhabitable by humans.

China have lifted a billion out of poverty but they recognise we can't keep on the same path.

JKenH

thevilla said:

So progress is progress. It stops when "someone" says stop. It must be fossil fuel based (until it eventually runs out).  It must be blind to the known environmental issues which may make the world uninhabitable by humans.

China have lifted a billion out of poverty but they recognise we can't keep on the same path.

I agree, it is time to stop but it needs to be done in a practical productive way. The last 10% of our emissions are going to be the hardest to get rid of. For what we spend eliminating that last 10% of UK emissions we could get a much better return spending that money on, say, solar projects in Africa. 

It’s a bit like trying to cut electricity use in your house. There is the easy stuff like LED lightbulbs and solar panels that make a big difference. You can then add batteries but to get down to zero import the amount of battery capacity you need becomes massively, disproportionately expensive. Is it not better that you help your family do the easy stuff in their house like getting solar panels and a battery as the returns will be better there or spend the kid’s inheritance on your own virtue signalling zero import project?

I’m not sure China has recognised we can’t keep on the same path. It is still building coal plants and investing in fossil fuels around the world. We are at least scaling back our fossil fuel usage. 

thevilla

Targets are rarely achieved, especially ambitious ones. I worry that aiming lower leads to even lower achievements.  Give a politician 10% wiggle room and they'll claim to have met the target with 50% to go!

Cardew

thevilla said:

China have lifted a billion out of poverty but they recognise we can't keep on the same path.

China might recognise 'we can't keep on the same path' but they don't intend to take really significant steps to 'do their bit'. There are scores of coal mines and coal fired power stations planned over the next decade - 'Google it'

As said previously if the UK reached zero emissions today, within a year just the increase in emissions from China would wipe out the UK's savings.

China's priority for spending is their Armed Forces and Space.

JKenH

World's largest offshore wind farm 'unprofitable' for Equinor, say government-funded researchers

We see considerable enthusiasm for renewable energy and the hope that it will solve our energy problems. However not everything in the garden is rosey as a recent report for the Norwegian government found. 

“In our estimate, Dogger Bank is unprofitable,” said University of Stavanger professor Petter Osmundsen. "The project has to compete with alternative investment opportunities."

Equinor has not disputed the study's conclusions, but emphasised that it had benefited from selling stakes in the project.

Costs have indeed come down for the bottom-fixed Dogger Bank and other offshore wind projects, but not at the same pace as strike prices have fallen in UK offshore wind auctions, according to the study.

The researchers calculated the Dogger Bank project's expected net present value (NPV) at minus £970 million (minus $1.3 billion). A negative NPV indicates that the value of the investment is below the rate of return which the company should require from its investments.

Equinor's bigger wind turbines, low prices for raw materials and limited competition helped the company generate solid profit from its larger early offshore wind projects.

That climate has since changed, as the world's largest player in the segment, Orsted of Denmark, has warned about supply-chain blockages and higher raw material prices. Increased competition for new licences also has significantly reduced strike prices in auctions.

https://www.upstreamonline.com/exclusive/worlds-largest-offshore-wind-farm-unprofitable-for-equinor-say-government-funded-researchers/2-1-1098012

QrizB

JKenH said:

World's largest offshore wind farm 'unprofitable' for Equinor, say government-funded researchers

https://www.upstreamonline.com/exclusive/worlds-largest-offshore-wind-farm-unprofitable-for-equinor-say-government-funded-researchers/2-1-1098012

Unprofitable =/= lossmaking, as the article makes clear in some paragraphs that seemed to have been missed from the quotes above.

One of the study's authors told Upstream that the massive project's rate of return does not exceed Equinor's rate of return requirement, so the researchers deem the project to be unprofitable.

“In our estimate, Dogger Bank is unprofitable,” said University of Stavanger professor Petter Osmundsen. "The project has to compete with alternative investment opportunities."

and

They calculated the expected internal rate of return (IRR) on total capital in the Dogger Bank project at 3.6%, in real terms, with a payback period of 17 years. IRR is a method used to compare relative profitability of projects.

Oil and gas projects' internal rates of return often are much higher than for offshore wind, which is not exposed to the volatility of oil prices because of power price guarantees.

and

“We do not communicate net present value on project basis. However, at our capital markets day we gave an interval for expected returns," an Equinor spokesperson wrote.

"We expect project base-returns between 4% and 8% real with mature markets such as the UK at the lower end of the range and emerging markets at the higher end.”

Equinor has long stressed that offshore wind has a very different risk profile than oil and gas, with more stable revenues.

It's a risk-reward balance, the same trade-off we all take with our SSISAs and SIPPs. Building a wind farm with a guaranteed strike price is a much lower risk than eg. oil & gas exploration where you don't know what you will find or what it will be worth. As a result the returns are lower.

JKenH

The point of the report is that the analysis reveals the Dogger Bank wind farm does not offer an attractive return on capital and as such is not considered a worthwhile long term investment. Equinor have made money selling off wind farm assets to parties who want to add them to their portfolio, the likes of oil companies who are happy to pay and perhaps take a loss as part of their greenwashing strategy. As long as green assets are in demand their value will rise so there is profit in developing wind farms but not necessarily in operating them.

JKenH

The economics of solar aren’t that great either.

UK investor hit by more big losses from Australia solar farms, sales delayed

https://reneweconomy.com.au/uk-investor-hit-by-more-big-losses-from-australia-solar-farms-sales-delayed/

The returns for the private investor in solar haven’t been great either.

https://www.hl.co.uk/shares/shares-search-results/u/us-solar-fund-plc-ord-usd0.01-gbp

https://www.hl.co.uk/shares/shares-search-results/b/bluefield-solar-income-fund-limited-ord-npv

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

https://www.hl.co.uk/shares/shares-search-results/n/nextenergy-solar-fund-ltd-ordinary-npv