Wind and Solar vs Coal, Gasoline, Nuclear

billvon said:
Hmm. So highs of 83-92 degrees mean "staying inside in AC for 3 months?" And lows of 0 to 10 means you need an all wheel drive car? Interesting. I guess people live today very differently than I did a few decades ago.

I lived in Boston for four years. Never needed a four wheel drive car. And the drivers were way worse than any CA drivers.

Well, that's how most people live here, from what i observe. At 4,500 feet, not only does it get hot, but the sun is also so intense in the middle of summer that a white person can get burned in 30 minutes ( and it's mostly white people here ). And actually summer highs are closer to 95-105, these days. If you are lucky, it might cool down to 75 degrees at 3am in the middle of summer.

As for the snow.. you measure your snow in inches, not feet like we do. In addition, our terrain is like a rollercoaster. There are plenty areas of the valley where even 4 wheel drive vehicles won't go in winter. I have a front wheel drive car but still limit where i go all winter.

But what i was getting at is that California's coast is a small part of this continent.

The interior of the country chugs energy because of the very different weather + the standard of living most people expect..
 
I ride at 100 mpg everywhere. Did my IronButt 1,000 from Syracuse, NY to Birmingham, AL for a business trip. I sleep in a tent or under a tarp.
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None of all this matters. We have at least 150 years of nat gas, more oil reserves than Saudi Arabia, fossil fuel is cheap. Get over your tree hugger mentality. Stop spending tax payer money reimbursing Elon Musk and all the other cons that use your money to get rich. Wake up, its a scam.

Signed,

Al Gore

P.S.

I'm a multi-millionaire, and I scamed you the same way. :lol:
 
solera ebiker said:
None of all this matters. We have at least 150 years of nat gas, more oil reserves than Saudi Arabia, fossil fuel is cheap.
And too many people are surviving to old age! And people in Arizona need shorefront property. Burn baby burn!
 
billvon said:
solera ebiker said:
None of all this matters. We have at least 150 years of nat gas, more oil reserves than Saudi Arabia, fossil fuel is cheap.
And too many people are surviving to old age! And people in Arizona need shorefront property. Burn baby burn!

Just think, Cali goes independent! Now thats a thought that warms most tree huggers. Pssst, don't tell em, it will mean conservative fossil fuel lovers for a generation in POWER. Amen brother; burn baby burn!


Signed,

Al Gore was right, he saw the scam before most of us capitalists. Who knew a knucklehead like that wasnt as dumb as he looked :roll:
 
neptronix said:
Well, that's how most people live here, from what i observe. At 4,500 feet, not only does it get hot, but the sun is also so intense in the middle of summer that a white person can get burned in 30 minutes ( and it's mostly white people here ). And actually summer highs are closer to 95-105, these days. If you are lucky, it might cool down to 75 degrees at 3am in the middle of summer.

As for the snow.. you measure your snow in inches, not feet like we do.
Sounds like an excellent place for solar. I've spoken to several people who have gone off-grid in such places and had great success. At 4500 feet solar radiation is considerably stronger, which means more power for less $$. And with the dropping cost of solar, vertical arrays for winter are becoming more popular, to avoid issues with snow clearing.
 
No matter where you live, if the air is poisoned, it's not going to make any difference if you're a billionaire or broke, if interior surfaces of your home are warm or cold, how much snow or sunshine may be around, or how whatever metrics related to 'economy' may be, because you're dying or dead.

Survivable gas exchange in the life support system is incalculable value beyond all human constructed efforts.

After survivable air supply is a survivable non-poisoned water supply.

The things which degrade these aspects of real value are what is by definition 'too costly/expensive', because there is no price which can replace them, and no value in any other aspects with them missing.

The word 'cost' has been used a lot in this thread by folks who may someday re-assess the nature of real value and cost as their gasping for breath, raising genetically defective children or dying of cancer.
 
I don't look at this thread very often any more, because we have the same six people shouting the same six things. Interspersed with Beastie's diatribes, links to crank websites (including NewsCorp) and pointless memes.

Change is happening, investment in fossil fuels is declining and nuclear, despite it's significant role in low-emissions electricity generation, is not growing like it's proponents want it to. Meanwhile solar and wind are dirt cheap to install, while the storage technologies are rapidly being deployed to make it work with demand 24/7. Nation states who can't breathe the air in their cities have declared a ban on ICE vehicles by as early as 2030, and every Auto manufacturer is releasing at least one new EV model every year.

Finally, as people become better educated and women stay in school longer, population growth is levelling off and is likely to settle at 10 billion. We know we have the resources to feed, clothe and house all of us if we stop trying to exploit.

So for all the shouting in this thread, the reality is that it will all pan out as it has in the past, and the most effective technology wins. And it's not looking good for fossilised carbon.

I was chatting with a director of Synergy, our monopoly electricity retailer here in Western Australia. He said something quite pertinent -

"People don't see value in their electricity account. I mean, what does your $1500 a year get you? It gives you refrigerated fresh food, running water, cheap transport, lights for the night, heat in winter and cool air in summer. It cooks your food, allows you to communicate with the world in an instant, and ultimately, allows a civilised society to function. For $1500 a year, that's frocking good value!"
 
jonescg said:
I was chatting with a director of Synergy, our monopoly electricity retailer here in Western Australia. He said something quite pertinent -

"People don't see value in their electricity account. I mean, what does your $1500 a year get you? It gives you refrigerated fresh food, running water, cheap transport, lights for the night, heat in winter and cool air in summer. It cooks your food, allows you to communicate with the world in an instant, and ultimately, allows a civilised society to function. For $1500 a year, that's frocking good value!"
Thats like listening to a car salesman tell you what good value the new Ferrari is.
..and you fell for the sales patter ....
It would be even better value at <$1k per year. , which is what it used to be before all the costs of RE were added on.
... And i doubt many families in Au get away with only $1500 pa ?
 
Hillhater said:
Repeat ..Repeat,.. Again.. :roll:
Majority of the developed world lives in cities, with a high proportion in apartment blocks....with the majority of those renting, not owned.
There is no way in hell you can get enough solar (or wind) generated either for individual residences, or even on a suburb scale for city dwellers....even if they did own the residence and felt it worthwhile to invest more capital into the building...and forget any city outside the "sun belt" !
Home solar is fine for those in a fortunate situation to use it, but it cannot work for the majority of the developed world population.
Centralised generation and grid distribution is essential for urban areas.
I recently visited NYork,..and rode (twice) on the elevated train from JFK to Queens. That is several miles of elevated track with a great view over the roofs of heavily populated suburbs of neat detached houses. Out of interest i tried counting the number of houses with Solar on the roofs expecting to estimate rough % od solar equiped properties.
It was easy ! The first trip i counted ONE ! ,...on the return trip i rechecked and saw one more !
There must be 5-10,000 houses visible during that 20 min trip, and even if i missed several others, it demonstrated to me that the uptake of rooftop solar, even by those that have the space and wealth, is very small.
Agreed, was just looking at a win of a by-election seat in Melbourne and its a inner-city area that went for the first time to The Greens party.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-11-18/greens-win-northcote-by-election/9164644
For those who don't know the Greens Party Australia, they are ultra pro-renewables and ultra intolerant of people with different views (for example they tried to ban Milo from entering Australia https://www.facebook.com/myiannopoulos/ )

When looking at Northcote property prices, the old shacks are all about $1million dollars and a decent old house is around $2.7million.
https://www.realestate.com.au/property-house-vic-northcote-126520174
https://www.realestate.com.au/property-house-vic-northcote-126291006
But if you look at the roofs on googlemaps satellite view its about 2 in 40 houses have solar panel, and a lot of them are little whimpy token sized ones that won't do much. I can't believe with all the subsidies schemes the government has provided over the years that such a lot about of solar has been taken up in these areas. I assume they don't know of any of the negative sides about solar.

It really seems to be the thing of those who are the most wealthy and live the deepest in the concreted areas of the city, and that is to be fake environmentalists where they ultimately vote on the taxes of the poor via carbon taxes etc by these Greens politicians to pay for dodgy green schemes elsewhere instead of spending the money themselves on their own houses with solar etc.

South Australia's (SA) big Tesla battery has gone online, the article says its going to store the wind farm generation to make it more useful.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/technology/south-australias-big-tesla-battery-fires-up-for-summer/news-story/22a1c061863bfade582acb6f89ebbe0e
The lithium-ion battery system is designed to store excess power generated from wind energy for later use.
It is designed to supply 129 megawatt hours (MWh) of power at times of acute shortage.

I was really surprised when Tesla officially released their Tesla truck with all the specs in range etc but gave no number in the battery size, obviously it's over 1MWh.
So the way to look at SAs "Worlds biggest battery" is to look at something that can only store the energy for 100 eTrucks of the future.
It could be Elon doesn't want to make it clear for people who don't look at basic numbers that SA's battery project is comparatively pointless meaningless gesture, and really SA is just building for the past and not really being green at all.
Like Zehner said these are just monuments to clean energy than actually being actually clean https://youtu.be/v6uVnyjTb58?t=25m55s

I been thinking about where I have been failing to convince people on my points of view and that's being to fair comparing numbers, I normally use small coal power-stations when comparing it to solar so I came up with this as I think its more in line with the methods used by pro-renewables and that is to compare with a larger power-station
Topaz Solar Farm ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topaz_Solar_Farm ) in the desert of the USA. 25km2 sized. 2016 generation: 1,265,805MWh (great year 2016, 2017 looks to be a lot lower)
Average power 144MW = (1,265,805MWhours / 8760_hours_in_a_year)
Average coal or nuclear power station: average output 3927MW = (34,402,000MWh / 8760)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paluel_Nuclear_Power_Plant
3927MW / 144MW = 27 times more power.

25km2 x 27 = 675km2 of land covered in solar panels to generate the same average power (if you have a super huge battery as well, that will require a lot of land and a lot of energy to dispose of once used)
No real environmentalist who is worth a damn wants to cover that much land to replace a single power-station like this environmentalist is saying https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJ8L9EAWF3E
The other thing that's interesting to note is so many power-stations are surrounded by trees and nature like the Paluel Nuclear Power station https://goo.gl/maps/zRUMTvWEgUD2
Even the roadside is full of lovely green trees https://goo.gl/maps/uqBqFK8GHPk
All the latest studies show co2 sequestration via tree planting is far more helpful to the environment than solar energy generation.
The Paluel Nuclear power station uses less than 1km2 of land that isn't covered in trees using the googlemaps measuring tool including its car par while at the same time providing safe habitat for bird wildlife etc.

The economics of South Australia continues to go down the hill to the point where people frequently say due to so many moving out of the state "the last one out please remember to switch the lights off".
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/opinion/david-penberthy-with-south-australia-teetering-on-the-edge-of-an-economic-abyss-the-state-government-must-take-bold-action/news-story/56e3dfcaf9bce0b387b7db5ac118d2f0

Ironically power went out in the area where the big Tesla battery just went up, like Germany so much money is spent on managing renewable energy that there isn't enough to do basic maintenance to keep things up and running or returning service in an adequate time.
Wild weather in South Australia has brought down power lines and triggered blackouts in the communities around the state’s Tesla battery on the day it was switched on.

Data from SA Power Networks has revealed 208 homes in areas around the battery will be without power until as late as 11pm tonight after wild weather and more than 250,000 lightning strikes overnight felled power lines and cut supply.

Parts of Jamestown, where the Tesla battery is located, and around a dozen surrounding communities including Hornsdale, Caltowie, Canowie Belt are without power, with the network operator putting the outages down to storm activity and equipment breakages.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/south-australia-storms-power-blackouts-as-tesla-battery-is-turned-on/news-story/de20d9518b40191381e9534eca722980

People still don't understand that the main gas they are so desperately trying to suppress is incredibly natural and it's crazy they would rather replace it with toxic gases like SF6 or NF3 via green-energy-tech manufacturing.
When we exhale air we are breathing out a massive 40,000 ppm in co2 as our lungs take the oxygen and emit huge amounts of co2.
This is why in confined spaces like a car you can reach 4,000ppm co2
1*GvZptuCpo6ul_sng7CbPQg.png
 
The CO2 in our breath, or from our compost piles, or that's emitted when we burn wood, is part of a natural closed cycle. It's not the problem. The problem is emitting billions of tons of fossil carbon as CO2 without having a corresponding mechanism to take it back out of circulation. Rising atmospheric CO2 levels are measurable evidence that fossil carbon doesn't have a place in the biosphere's carbon cycle; it can't be sequestered at the same rate it's being emitted.

Nobody's arguing that ppm levels of CO2 are toxic; the problem is its effects on climate and established ecosystems that we rely on to live.

We could all burn fossil carbon gluttonously, if only there were a whole lot fewer of us. It wouldn't be a global problem, though it might still cause localized disruptions (e.g. London fog, acid rain, soot). But since selfish blinkered dickheads keep shitting out more children like it's a good idea, there are way, way too many of us and we must learn to live cleanly and efficiently. Or we have to die out.

I'd rather take the smart approach, but obviously not all of us can agree on this. It's inevitable that those who adopt the philosophy of the cancer cell-- consume and reproduce without limit-- will face the plight of the cancer cell. Either be targeted and eradicated by more rational elements, or kill your host and die along with it.
 
Chalo said:
The CO2 in our breath, or from our compost piles, or that's emitted when we burn wood, is part of a natural closed cycle. It's not the problem. The problem is emitting billions of tons of fossil carbon as CO2 without having a corresponding mechanism to take it back out of circulation. Rising atmospheric CO2 levels are measurable evidence that fossil carbon doesn't have a place in the biosphere's carbon cycle; it can't be sequestered at the same rate it's being emitted.

We could all burn fossil carbon gluttonously, if only there were a whole lot fewer of us. It wouldn't be a global problem, though it might still cause localized disruptions (e.g. London fog, acid rain, soot). But since selfish blinkered dickheads keep shitting out more children like it's a good idea, there are way, way too many of us and we must learn to live cleanly and efficiently. Or we have to die out.
Sure but the carbon cycle is a bit of red herring in the face of having a population of 10billion people and because carbon is the 4th most abundant element in the universe after Oxygen.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abundance_of_the_chemical_elements#Universe
The 3rd most abundant element in the universe is Oxygen.
CO2 is just both of these most abundant elements sticking together, one carbon atom attached to 2 oxygen atoms.
No wonder why it became the core source of plant food due to it being so common in the air.

Humans are frequently referred to as carbon-based https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon-based_life
Nice map of elements in the human body here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Composition_of_the_human_body
So its no surprise humans are spewing so many billions of tons of carbon dioxide from breath from our bodies. Like I have shown the calculations before, the amout of co2 released merely from billions of people breathing out does the millions of tons of co2 from most countries coal-power stations in the world ( except the top 6 biggest countries in the world).
As long as trees get cut down and population rises co2 levels will increase.

Acid rain doesn't come from co2 but from other emissions from burning fossil fuels like nitrogen oxide which can be converted into co2 with a catalytic converter, there are converters put on modern coal power-stations to clean all that crap up so it's putting out little than what comes out of peoples mouths.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalytic_converter
Chalo said:
Nobody's arguing that ppm levels of CO2 are toxic; the problem is its effects on climate and established ecosystems that we rely on to live.
But like I was saying before there seems to no effort in lowering super warming potent greenhouse gases emitted such as NF3,SF6,C2F6 in the manufacturing of solar and wind renewable products.
All we seem to be doing is replacing co2 with these other far more nasty GH gases which stay in the atmosphere for 1000s of years because they can't be absorbed by plants like co2. https://youtu.be/v6uVnyjTb58?t=12m48s

10,000tons_SF6_annually x 23,900 = 239,000,000co2 equivalent gas while all of Australias coal-power stations for example emit only around 150million tons of co2 annually. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrogen_trifluoride#Greenhouse_gas
And they seem to be accelerating more than co2 https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/dv/iadv/graph.php?code=MLO&program=hats&type=ts
hats.MLO.sf6.7.none.monthly.all.png

Like this co2 from the same site shows of the zigzag effect that plants/trees absorb this co2. https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/webdata/iadv/ccgg/graphs/ccgg.MLO.co2.1.none.discrete.all.png
If forests weren't burn down and more forestry was implemented a massive decrease can be implemented but instead 99% of solar farms are placed on areas where trees can grow where forestry could take place. Most solar farms are in fact placed in places on farmland perfect for trees. https://phys.org/news/2017-10-nature-vital-climate.html
Australias largest new solar farm is being placed between two koala inhabiting national park state forests
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lower_Wonga_Solar_Farm
Solar farm spot https://goo.gl/maps/mhaHUigfhNP2 the state forest right next to it https://goo.gl/maps/LfA8jW97LkC2

These "monuments" to trying to achieve clean energy are now at the point of serious mindless environmental destruction as Zenher points out here https://youtu.be/v6uVnyjTb58?t=27m36s

Chalo said:
I'd rather take the smart approach, but obviously not all of us can agree on this. It's inevitable that those who adopt the philosophy of the cancer cell-- consume and reproduce without limit-- will face the plight of the cancer cell. Either be targeted and eradicated by more rational elements, or kill your host and die along with it.
I can't help but believe there is the "unsaid" goal of hardcore renewables only futurists that a massively lower population is at the heart of their plans because I can't see 10billion people living in 1st world standards of living under pure renewables as suggested by my 675km2 solar farm + battery calculations etc to replace a single conventional power-station.
I wouldn't mind hearing how they hope to achieve this and how long will it take.
 
TheBeastie said:
Sure but the carbon cycle is a bit of red herring in the face of having a population of 10billion people and because carbon is the 4th most abundant element in the universe after Oxygen.
Definitely true; much of our planet is made of carbon. And if we as a society decide to leave it in the ground rather than putting it into the air by the gigaton, then we're good.
So its no surprise humans are spewing so many billions of tons of carbon dioxide from breath from our bodies.
Yep. And our biosphere has evolved to be able to reprocess that. It has not evolved to be able to reprocess the far greater quantities of CO2 from burning fossil fuels.

Consider it this way. Your body deals with trace amounts of arsenic just fine; it's part of your body's makeup. But put 10 or 100 times the concentration in there and you'll die. It doesn't work to say "hey, what are you worried about? Arsenic is TOTALLY NATURAL and your body is FINE with it!" The concentration matters.
Acid rain doesn't come from co2 but from other emissions from burning fossil fuels like nitrogen oxide which can be converted into co2 with a catalytic converter
Actually the bigger problem comes from SO2 which cannot be converted to CO2 by a catalytic converter. SO2 plus water becomes sulfuric acid, which you generally don't want in your lungs.
But like I was saying before there seems to no effort in lowering super warming greenhouse gases emitted in the manufacturing of solar and wind renewable products such as NF3,SF6,C2F6
There is already a lot of effort put into that.

Right now the "forcings" (the new sources that are causing warming) look like this: (in watts per square meter)
CO2 1.5-2
CH4 (methane) .5
N2O .2
Halocarbons from refrigerants .2
Halocarbons from all other sources .01

That means that CO2 is having 10x the effect of halocarbons from all sources, and 200x times the effect of halocarbons from "other sources" (which includes manufacturing processes like silicon processing.)
If forests weren't burn down and more forestry was implemented a massive decrease can be implemented but instead 99% of solar farms are placed on areas where trees can grow where forestry could take place.
So grow grass under them. Grasses process far more CO2 per pound than trees do, and they are quite happy under solar arrays (check out any solar farm that's been there for a while.)
 
Plants fix CO2 from the atmosphere and convert it to tasty bananas. If the bananas go uneaten the fruit decomposes and CO2 returns to the atmosphere. If people eat all the bananas instead they metabolise them, releasing CO2 to the atmosphere.

This is simple, common-sense stuff.

But if you start with a preferred conclusion and try to conjure up evidence to try and support it, then I guess it's not so easy.
 
Dispite retaining 100% thermal backup capacity , for thier much vaunted leading RE power generation program, Germany is learning that it takes more than just surplus capacity to maintain a reliable grid supply....
Over the past years the German state of Hesse has been plagued by power outages, Hessen public television (HR) reported here, as it pondered why Hesse has become so prone to blackouts. HR cites the Bundesnetzagentur (Federal Grid Agency), which says there are over 172,000 power outages annually, which is some 470 daily, and that last winter multiple power plants had to be switched simultaneously because “the German grid was on the brink of collapse.”...
http://notrickszone.com/2017/12/01/germanys-national-power-grid-mess-country-seeing-whopping-172000-power-outages-annually/#sthash.hSBKYJ5Y.dpbs
 
Over the past years the German state of Hesse has been plagued by power outages, Hessen public television (HR) reported here, as it pondered why Hesse has become so prone to blackouts. HR cites the Bundesnetzagentur (Federal Grid Agency), which says there are over 172,000 power outages annually, which is some 470 daily, and that last winter multiple power plants had to be switched simultaneously because “the German grid was on the brink of collapse.”...

?? The German grid is pretty reliable, and in 2017 had a power quality index that was the same as the US (6.9) per Statista. Germany had an average of 23 minutes of outages per year per customer; the USA had 240, indicating that on average availability is higher in Germany than in the US. Those facts support this statement in a Fortune article:

From a purely technological perspective, the energy transition has already been a stunning success. It has shown that German engineering can manhandle Mother Nature and power a major chunk of an industrial economy with clean energy from the sky rather than dirty energy from the ground. Enough renewable energy was produced in Germany in 2016 to cover 32% of the country’s electricity consumption, a staggeringly large proportion by global standards.

In doing that, Germany has demolished one of the most fundamental reservations about alternative energy: that wind and solar power are too flaky to be relied on. A breezeless day or sudden clouds can interrupt them, making them, critics said, too unreliable to supply more than a token portion of a nation’s energy supply. But even with all that erratic wind and solar energy stuffed into the system, Germany continues to operate one of the most reliable electricity grids in the world. Blackouts remain as rare in the world’s fourth-largest economy as late trains or bad beer.

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/plugged-in/data-show-that-germany-s-grid-is-one-of-the-world-s-most-reliable/
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/response-rick-perry-regarding-renewables-grid-stability-daniel-shugar/
http://fortune.com/2017/03/14/germany-renewable-clean-energy-solar/

Note that (as the Fortune article mentions) this does not come cheap; Germany is spending a huge amount on renewables, and it's questionable whether they will be able to continue that expenditure. If they do, and their grid continues to move towards 100% renewables, then they will be seen as the pioneers in the field, and the world will reap the rewards in three ways - less pollution overall, lower prices (since the first one to do anything always pays a premium) and lessons on how to do it right. If they fail, the benefits will be fewer - namely, lower prices and what NOT to do.

But there's no indication that any of this has hit grid reliability; in fact, the opposite has occurred. As in the US, the buildout of the smart grid (largely to handle renewables) has improved reliability and reduced downtime.

The article you posted claimed the opposite. So where did that stat come from? I checked the sources from the story. Here's one claim:

"To illustrate how far along the road to disaster Germany’s once impeccably stable grid has come, the online hessenschau.de here reports that for the second time in a just few days the central city of Wiesbaden has seen its power black out. "

I checked the source. It's a story about how 3500 people lost power for 2 hours in Weisbaden due to a short circuit in a substation; nothing to do with renewable energy. Weisbaden has a population of 275,000. So 1.2% of a city lost power for 2 hours due to a short. Doesn't seem like much of an indictment against renewable energy.

Next claim.

"Over the past years the German state of Hesse has been plagued by power outages, Hessen public television (HR) reported here, as it pondered why Hesse has become so prone to blackouts. HR cites the Bundesnetzagentur (Federal Grid Agency), which says there are over 172,000 power outages annually, which is some 470 daily, and that last winter multiple power plants had to be switched simultaneously because “the German grid was on the brink of collapse.” "

Let's look at the original article:

"Although the German electricity grid is considered one of the best in the world, the Federal Network Agency registers 172,600 interruptions each year."

No mention at all that the "the German grid was on the brink of collapse."

Those were the only two sourced claims in the article, and both said pretty much the opposite of what the article suggests - that "no one knows if [their grid] is going to work at all. It is wild experimentation, and not engineering." That Germans "would be left out in the cold. This is the utopia that green bureaucrats are bringing to Germany." Indeed, one quoted article mentions that the German grid is considered one of the best in the world.

So it's pretty clear that the author posted links to the original articles (in German) hoping no one would check. But why do that?

Then I checked into the "notrickszone" webside. It's a website that promotes climate change denial. The current top-page article includes the following conclusion:

"The manipulative character of the agitation is demonstrated by the fact that the most important arguments held by climate skeptics find no mention whatsoever, for example the fluctuating long-term solar activity in combination with the amplification mechansim as to Svensmark, the oscillating ocean currents on decadal scales , the obviously hyped CO2 climate sensitivity in the IPCC models, the refuted water vapor feedback and – last but not least – the inability by the CO2 alarmists to successfully model the strong natural variations of the Holocene climate."

So now the slant in the article makes sense. Renewable energy is one way to mitigate climate change; spread misinformation about how dangerous renewable energy is and you can "strike a blow" against climate change science, or at least weaken the world's ability to fight it. And that, apparently, was the goal of the article, and why they were "loose" with their interpretations of the quoted articles.
 
A unlikely comparason, the German power grid , to the USA...
USA has 700,000 km of HV grid alone ...Germany has 20,000 !
And the US has approx 4 times as many consumers spread over a 10x bigger area. !
So its surprising the USA doesnt have more issues with power failures.
But either way the figures are surprising if true ..172,000 power failures of any type or duration.
The number seems genuine, but the root causes will be difficult to identify.
A substation transformer "short" could have multiple possible causes, amoungst them, supply voltage or frequency variations.
That figure of 23 min/yr per customer is significant increase on the 15.3 mins/yr for 2013 quoted in the Fortune article, which would suggest things are getting worse not better.
And this in a country with not only a huge surplus of generation capacity , but also one of the most "supported" grids in the world with multiple interconnects to its surrounding countries grids that provide in effect a giant "Battery" for Germanys massive (-+ 50 GW ?). fluctuations in RE generation. They are constantly exporting and importing power in order to balance their generation and consumption at the expence of their neighbours..
http://www.power-technology.com/features/featureovercapacity-and-the-challenges-of-going-100-renewable-5872868/
Without that export balancing ability, Germany would have a much bigger problem than they currently have.
Germany is currently in the middle of a massive , 10 year, 20+ billion Euro, upgrade of their primary grid, to overcome issues due to the remote locations of their major RE generators (North and East wind farms) and the southern consumer base.
https://www.reuters.com/article/germany-energy/update-1-germany-in-20-bln-euro-grid-upgrade-as-it-quits-nuclear-idUSL5E8GT5L920120529
 
Some of my thought today. The Carbon pulse is inherently temporary and creating hockey sticks everywhere we look. Population, economy/standard of living, food production, marine life depletion from over-fishing. acidification, warming.
Acidification and warming have positive feedbacks which can kick in.
Do we care about future generations at all? Wouldn't some crude oil be useful to them in 1,000 years. Metals? A living ocean? 100,000 years? Wouldn't they enjoy seeing diverse wildlife? These are your children.
The carbon pulse is not just about warming. Or not to warm. As carbon availability tips over the top this century, the economy will follow. This is a huge blind spot. There will be an end to growth like it or not. The current Ponzi scheme will end. It would be much more humane to accept this and start planning for it. Economy/ standard of living and food production will follow it down. Phosphate fertilizer reserves may be depleted before crude oil. Growing corn to feed it to cars or beef will one day become too calorie inefficient.
1 barrel of oil contains the same energy as many years worth of hard human labor. Economists and politicians have no inkling of this relationship with our fossil slaves. All of the economic models we use to guide us were formed during this magic, one time carbon pulse and will soon no longer apply.
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Reduce, reuse, recycle, simplify, eat vegetable proteins.
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Think, learn, talk.
 
Hockey stick charts related to fossil carbon consumption are all around us in several seemingly unrelated things. Just a few.
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enerconics1_html_m68263661.gif

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640px-Historic_population_growth.png

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co2_1850.gif

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Cxm7sezUoAETkvG.jpg

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22489773_1474844895927951_2909500576190434907_n.jpg

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Coal, oil, and gas up from the bottom. Anybody really think we will make the sacrices to our economy necessary to drastically change the look of this? Before it just plain runs out of reach and the changes are forced on us?
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WorldPrimaryEnergy2016_pies.png

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Surexploitation_morue_surp%C3%AAcheEn.jpg

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"A" is when all of our modern economic theories were developed which is a very warped view compared to how things always were and how they will be again.
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22467545_1475056822573425_3164139082063497167_o.jpg

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sendler2112 said:
Some of my thought today. The Carbon pulse is inherently temporary and creating hockey sticks everywhere we look. Population, economy/standard of living, food production, marine life depletion from over-fishing. acidification, warming.
Acidification and warming have positive feedbacks which can kick in.
Do we care about future generations at all? Wouldn't some crude oil be useful to them in 1,000 years. Metals? A living ocean? 100,000 years? Wouldn't they enjoy seeing diverse wildlife? These are your children.

Human children are one of those inherently temporary problems you're talking about.
 
Way too many people right now. Women's education is the greatest aid we can give any country. Would be nice to still have a viable human population running around 100,000 years from now.
 
Tesla's, "worlds biggest battery" is up and running in Australia.. (probably just testing i assume),.. but its discharge times and power levels can be viewed online here ...
http://nem.mwheeler.org/stations#HPRG1
it has delivered several 30MW discharges for periods of 30+ mins and at least one 100MW "pulse" for 10 mins.
here is a screenshot..
qadlDP.jpg

But, the output of the Wind-farm it is embedded in can also be seen on the same site, and it highlights the insignificance of this battery for "smoothing" the power feed to the grid.
Remember , the battery could, at absolute max, only supply 100MW for 1.2 hrs, and there seem to be daily periods when this windfarm ( one of 3 similar farms in the same area) is outputting zero power for many hours at a time ?
This is the Wind farm over the same period..
M4yryo.jpg

Obviously even if it was fully cycled every day, the battery is never going to operate as a backup for the power supply, and can only ever be useful as a FCAS facility of some limited ability.
 
It's a small-scale pack for grid.

How awesome someone is taking a step towards an energy supply that doesn't ensure extermination of our species by continued use.
 
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