The Alternative Green Energy Thread

shinytop

JKenH said:

Government’s heat pump campaign ‘will cost taxpayers £115bn’

"This money will almost certainly go to the wealthiest households at a time when our primary focus should be on getting bills down for the many. If there’s money available, a wider programme of home insulation would be a better plan and could achieve more in the way of emissions reductions."

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/consumer-affairs/governments-heat-pump-campaign-will-cost-taxpayers-115bn/

"Replacing millions of gas and electric boilers with controversial heat pumps would cost taxpayers £115bn, a new report has warned...."

Couldn't we just have innocuous, inoffensive ones instead?

gefnew

Well said not unlike the news reporting.

QrizB

JKenH said:

• If the grant were offered to the 23 million residential households that do not have an air source heat pump or equivalent, the cost would be £115 billion.

https://www.taxpayersalliance.com/heat_pumps_for_all_gas_powered_homes_could_cost_taxpayers_115_billion

Ah, the TPA. One of the Tufton Street outfits.

(I'm not challenging their maths - 23M x £5k is indeed £115Bn - but I'm not aware of any suggestion that this is a realistic scenario.)

JKenH

QrizB said:

JKenH said:

• If the grant were offered to the 23 million residential households that do not have an air source heat pump or equivalent, the cost would be £115 billion.

https://www.taxpayersalliance.com/heat_pumps_for_all_gas_powered_homes_could_cost_taxpayers_115_billion

Ah, the TPA. One of the Tufton Street outfits.

(I'm not challenging their maths - 23M x £5k is indeed £115Bn - but I'm not aware of any suggestion that this is a realistic scenario.)

I am not going to argue politics with you but I feel it is worthwhile to consider articles from a variety of perspectives and sources. That is how one develops a balanced view. 

The quote you have referenced was provided in clarification in response to a specific question as to how the £115bn in the headline of the article was calculated. The original quote I posted from the article was

"This money will almost certainly go to the wealthiest households at a time when our primary focus should be on getting bills down for the many. If there’s money available, a wider programme of home insulation would be a better plan and could achieve more in the way of emissions reductions."

QrizB

JKenH said:

The original quote I posted from the article was

"This money will almost certainly go to the wealthiest households at a time when our primary focus should be on getting bills down for the many. If there’s money available, a wider programme of home insulation would be a better plan and could achieve more in the way of emissions reductions."

That quote - which I'm not going to argue against - is attributed to Craig Mackinlay, Conservative MP for South Thanet. I'm pleasantly surprised to see an MP campaigning for wider home insulation.

But it's largely unrelated to the £115Bn figure (and, if 23M homes were to be fitted with heat pumps at the Treasury's expense, it would be universal, not just for "the wealthiest households").

JKenH

QrizB said:

JKenH said:

The original quote I posted from the article was

"This money will almost certainly go to the wealthiest households at a time when our primary focus should be on getting bills down for the many. If there’s money available, a wider programme of home insulation would be a better plan and could achieve more in the way of emissions reductions."

That quote - which I'm not going to argue against - is attributed to Craig Mackinlay, Conservative MP for South Thanet. I'm pleasantly surprised to see an MP campaigning for wider home insulation.

But it's largely unrelated to the £115Bn figure (and, if 23M homes were to be fitted with heat pumps at the Treasury's expense, it would be universal, not just for "the wealthiest households").

As you say the comment about the money going to the wealthiest households from Craig Mackinlay is unrelated to the £115bn figure, it refers to the government’s £450m boiler upgrade scheme. The reason the money will go to the wealthiest households is that on top of the £5k grant households still have a substantial sum to find to pay for a heat pump. The argument therefore goes only the wealthiest households can afford them so it is the wealthiest households that get the government money. 

Is that where we should be directing our money or is it not better to spread the money out over more households in improving insulation?

Edit: sorry, I reread your post and we are in agreement about my original quote so my last paragraph is superfluous. 

JKenH

Renewable electricity prices soar as energy buyers seek haven from oil volatility

The war in Ukraine has caused the price of renewable energy in both Europe and the US to spike by around 30 per cent in just one year, a report from LevelTen has found.

The ongoing energy crisis has seen developers struggling to meet demand because of supply chain, interconnection and regulatory challenges.

There is concern that these higher costs could deter demand for green energy at a time when the United Nations has called for rapid expansion of wind and solar in order to avoid the worst effects of a warming climate.

Despite uncertainty in the market, the report found that the high energy prices were spurring developers to build more renewable facilities, especially in countries that are highly dependent on Russian natural gas.

https://eandt.theiet.org/content/articles/2022/04/renewable-electricity-prices-soar-as-energy-buyers-seek-haven-from-volatile-oil/

JKenH

Global environmental cost of using rare earth elements in green energy technologies

I am inserting just one sentence from this paper for impact. The report is too long to quote in full or even paraphrase. Please read the rest of the report for more information.

The calculations indicate that every 1% increase of green energy production causes roughly a 0.18% depletion of rare-earth elements reserves and 0.90% increase of CO2 eq. 

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969722021155

thevilla

JKenH said:

Global environmental cost of using rare earth elements in green energy technologies

I am inserting just one sentence from this paper for impact. The report is too long to quote in full or even paraphrase. Please read the rest of the report for more information.

The calculations indicate that every 1% increase of green energy production causes roughly a 0.18% depletion of rare-earth elements reserves and 0.90% increase of CO2 eq. 

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969722021155

FWIW my take on the conclusions of the paper:

• "Green" energy environmental costs are front loaded so reducing fossil fuel use in mining is essential.
• The paper acknowledges it takes no account of potential recycling of rare earth materials.  Understandable as its hard to quantify but hard to believe there will be zero recycling of rare and presumably expensive resource.
  

Not a reason to turn back to oil.  Phew!

ed110220

thevilla said:

JKenH said:

Global environmental cost of using rare earth elements in green energy technologies

I am inserting just one sentence from this paper for impact. The report is too long to quote in full or even paraphrase. Please read the rest of the report for more information.

The calculations indicate that every 1% increase of green energy production causes roughly a 0.18% depletion of rare-earth elements reserves and 0.90% increase of CO2 eq. 

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969722021155

FWIW my take on the conclusions of the paper:

• "Green" energy environmental costs are front loaded so reducing fossil fuel use in mining is essential.
• The paper acknowledges it takes no account of potential recycling of rare earth materials.  Understandable as its hard to quantify but hard to believe there will be zero recycling of rare and presumably expensive resource.
  

Not a reason to turn back to oil.  Phew!

It's also worth looking carefully at those percentages in context as they could easily be presented in a misleading way.

A 1% increase in green energy production causes a 0.90% increase in CO2 equivalent from the processes used to produce the rare earth elements (not in CO2 emissions in general). If REEs are mainly being used in "green energy" technologies, it's not surprising that emissions from producing them will increase more or less in proportion with the increase in "green energy" technologies. Though longer term, as countries that produce REEs get more of their energy from low carbon sources, you'd expect that linkage to break down.

And yes, recycling will surely be important. If a large wind turbine has several hundred kilograms in it, its not going to be put in the bin like a mobile phone might.