Wind and Solar vs Coal, Gasoline, Nuclear

Hillhater said:
Lightning seems to be a major downtime and repair factor for Wind Turbines..

The German electric power company Energieer-zeugungswerke Helgoland GmbH shut down and dismantled their Helgoland Island wind power plant after being denied insurance against further lightning losses. They had been in operation for 3 years and suffered more than US$540,000 in lightning-related damage.

I seen some comparisons of windfarms against built cars, forgot exact numbers but it was something like an average windfarm is the equiv of 40,000 cars in steal/materials and energy to produce them.
But I was thinking about how when I moved place years ago I started leaving my car outside parked on the street and I couldnt believe how quickly my car started to show signs of rust and wear everywhere, it was rapidly aging being left in the elements.
Both cars and windturbines are designed to be in the outside elements but if its anything like cars then its understandable that windturbines lasting even 20 years being subjected to the harshest outside elements possible is a difficult thing to achieve.

Now that summer is over I been watching South Australia still on electricitymap.org and I been surprised to see that SA still elect to using Victorian coal via the interstate grid as much as 35% (yesterday) even on cool days (around 22c).
It seems like if there is no wind then the next choice is Victorian coal via the interstate-grid and then if they have to they use their own gas as a last resort.
2018-03-15 (1).png

I been looking for other countries they have a high reliance on wind with minimal cheating.
South Australias first level cheats is using over 1/3rd of its power from another state.
Germany's main cheat is using 10GW of continuous nuclear of its own, then pulling power from other states, as well as some hydro.

The thing I have discovered is there are no countries who have only 2 sources of electricity such as wind+gas, most have 5 sources minimum. Most countries who have large wind setups also have large amount of nuclear and or hydro on top.

South Australia despite pulling a huge percentage of its power compared to other countries/states from external sources as well as its heavy gas usage is about as pure wind powered as it gets.

One state that does come kind of close is Italy.
It has no nuclear but a large wind installation, it does have hydro but not a huge amount, it does import electricity from as many as 6 other neighboring countries at times.
Overall though its technically less "cheating" compared to other countries where the windturbines are almost just for show or built because of the power of politics and Facebook renewable memes.

Italy using 17% wind which is above average from other days I have looked at it.
2018-03-16.png

Denmark have vary quite alot, sometimes its almost entirely just coal+gas powered, other days are a lot better. But this almost proves as much as Germany has that if these two countries can even come remotely close to France in co2 emissions then no one ever will. (Germany almost always emitting 5times as much co2 than France, but freuqently 10 times as much as France)

Denmark having the most successful company in windturbine technology (Vestas).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vestas
Vestas doing 8billion euros a year in windturbine sales.
When they had the Copenhagen climate summit, I saw it purely has Denmarks chance to push their windturbine business which as it turned out has been very successful for such a small country.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_United_Nations_Climate_Change_Conference
But almost 10 years later its amusing to now look at electrictymap and see them at times more dependent on coal and gas than anyone on top of importing a notable amount of electricity from Germany.
2018-03-09.png

One thing I am still realizing about electrictymap.org is how much is deliberately distorting the co2-grams per KWh in general. For example all of Australia is classed under the same amount of co2 per KWh but everyone knows that Queensland and NSW have export quality black coal with moisture etc that burns about 30% more efficiently than brown coal/lignite coal which is typically used in cooler states/countries.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthracite
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bituminous_coal
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lignite
It would be great if there was a button to turn off rubbish information "no baloney mode" on electricitymap so everything can be looked at in a more accurate way.
2018-03-16 (1).png
sendler2112 said:
Anyone still think megacities in NE USA will still be viable in Winter when liquid fuel for road maintenance runs out in 50 years? Everything we are doing and where we live needs to change.
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BN-GW025_0208sn_P_20150208145915.jpg

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One thing I been wondering about is the battery capacity of the Tesla Semi truck. It was originally speculated to be about 1MW/h as this is where the top of the line ebuses are now at. But since the official announcement of the Tesla Semitruck where you can now purchase but wait years for it to be built, the specs on weight etc on the Tesla semi truck have come out in most areas EXCEPT for the MW/h capacity of the battery pack, a lot of articles say the battery pack weighs around 20tons etc, so this suggests the battery pack is much higher like +3MW/h.
And I think the main reason why Tesla hasn't listed the MW/h of the battery pack is because it undermines "giant" grid storage battery packs like the "giant" South Australia Tesla battery pack, as the SA Tesla grid battery suddenly looks quite small if it can only charge up 30 Tesla trucks rather than the claim it can power 100,000 homes for 30mins etc.
 
Germany has lots of old wind power plants, most of them still running and producing energy.

They will not get any subsiedies from 2021 onward, so there is some discussion what will happen to them:

The wind power lobby made some studies that claimed that production cost of those old wind power plants will be arond 4ct/kWh, while market price for electricity is only around 3ct/kWh.

The motive for that calculation is quite obvious, but you may look ate the data and calculations from those studies:

Sadly in German only

http://www.windguard.de/_Resources/Persistent/58833807034c2efc02a1944c7eb61db774a853d8/Weiterbetrieb-von-WEA-nach-2020-kor2.pdf

http://windenergietage.de/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/11/26WT0811_F7_1545_3_Weiterbetrieb_von_Windenergieanlagen_nach_2010_naturstrom.pdf

The main lesson to learn is that wind power plants do have a long lifetime and because their energy payback time is only around 3 months, wind power plants running for 20 years and longer have a very positive net effect on energy consumption. Matreials used, especially the metals can and will be recycled.

If a (claimed) production cost of 4ct/kWh for an old wind power plant is too high is up to discussion.

My opinion is, that those power plant should not get any subsides, the cheaper one will stay in the market and the other ones will fail and be repowered or put down. new wind power plants do produce energy for less than 4ct/kWh already and they produce electricity with less fluctuations and provide services for grid stability.

Btw, those are the scenarios for 2030 from the German Bundesnetzagentur, respsonible for the electric grid:

Most of it is available in English:

https://www.netzentwicklungsplan.de/en/grid-development-plans/grid-de-vel-op-ment-plans-2030-2017

Lesson to be learned: Renewables will grow significantly in Germany, nukes will shut down in just a few years and while there is some investments needed the grid is stable and reliable (German grid is one of the most reliable in the world, btw, much more reliable than the French grid for example) and it will be so in 2030...

min-lost-per-customer.png
 
As long as the maintenance cost is not too high it would still be worth having those 4c/KWh turbines for spikes in demand when the market price goes up.

Cephalotus said:
The highest point is always the tip of a rotor blade and those are supposed to move...

Slip ring at the hub :wink:
 
Punx0r said:
As long as the maintenance cost is not too high it would still be worth having those 4c/KWh turbines for spikes in demand when the market price goes up....
Those price increases are often the result of lack of wind !

Punx0r said:
Cephalotus said:
The highest point is always the tip of a rotor blade and those are supposed to move...
Slip ring at the hub :wink:
:shock: Brilliant !
Thousands of experienced power/civil engineers, sceintists, etc etc, across the world, working for 30-40 years on the subject, testing, studying the feedback etc, ......and you solve it instantly ! :roll:
 
Hillhater said:
: Brilliant !
Thousands of experienced power/civil engineers, sceintists, etc etc, across the world, working for 30-40 years on the subject, testing, studying the feedback etc, ......and you solve it instantly !
That is one of the methods used to mitigate lighting strikes. Conductive elements in blades, connecting to slip rings at the hub. (Generally they are just backups to the conductive path through the bearings; that's a much better ground.)
 
So if there's not much wind having more turbines would be quite helpful in generating more power from wind. Especially since they'd likely be geographically distributed.

Protecting something from lightening isn't an insurmountable problem that will render wind turbines an unuseable technology.

I'd have assumed they'd want to avoid conducting a strike through the bearing to avoid damaging it, but that's just an assumption. Maybe bearing replacement is easier than blade replacement.
 
Punx0r said:
So if there's not much wind having more turbines would be quite helpful in generating more power from wind. Especially since they'd likely be geographically distributed...
Even though the wind farms are distributed around the country...and offshore... Its not uncommon for total output to drop below 3-4% of demand. So even a doubling of wind capacity (think about what that means !) ...would still make SFA difference.!


Punx0r said:
I'd have assumed they'd want to avoid conducting a strike through the bearing to avoid damaging it, but that's just an assumption. Maybe bearing replacement is easier than blade replacement.
Maybe ..... https://www.exponent.com/knowledge/alerts/2017/06/lightning-protection-for-wind-turbines/?pageSize=NaN&pageNum=0&loadAllByPageSize=true
Either way, lightening protection has been employed in various forms since the early days, but lightening strike damage is still a major cause of damage, downtime, and repair cost.
 
I thought I would write up a summary of the current situation/events in South Australia since they are a high wind renewables state.
As they had state elections over this weekend.
The current SA Labor party leader Jay Weatherill said that this election would be a kind of referendum to see if SA voters want to increase renewables capacity to 70%, which is what the Labor leader wanted to do if he won the state election for another term.

Well, instead the Liberal party one power for the first time in 16years unseating the Labor party in South Australia, ruining Weatherill's dream/promise of 70% renewable wind capacity.
Jay Weatherill has repeatedly claimed that South Australia having officially the most expensive electricity prices in the world is purely and entirely due to the changes in the electricity market the Liberal party made in South Australia around 20 years ago, even though the electricity prices have only gone up in recent years. Because of politics uses the most primitive parts of the brain triggering tribal defense mechanisms, a lot of South Australians do of course believe Jays claim.

The first thing to know is the conservative Liberal party in South Australia isn't very conservative compared to the rest of the world like the Republicans in the USA. Because of lack of free media, folks are just as well brainwashed as folks in North Korea/Putin's Russia/Iran to blindly worship specific leaders, and just like North Koreans they wouldn't know they were under a spell if their life depended on it. Oh the power!
The one thing that pushed the Liberals over the line to win the election was the brutally expensive electricity bills.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-03-19/heres-what-steven-marshall-has-promised/9562270
Steven Marshall the SA Liberal leader is apparently going to pull back on the "Free Tesla powerwalls, for specific households" that the Labor party were going to do and replace it with a $2,500 cash back subsidy deal where if you want to pay for the majority of a Tesla powerwall you can, and the state government will give back $2500 of the cost. I can only assume that Tesla powerwalls in Australia will go up in price of around $2500?

The next scheme is to build an interstate interconnector grid power lines all the way to the state of NSW, so they can suck on the electricity of NSW coal power-stations.
To me this was probably also a secret plan of Labors Jay Weatherill's as well as the Liberal party, because if SA is frequently pulling 35% of its electricity from Victorian coal via the interstate grid then having a second link that can do at least 35% again makes a perfect 70%, which is the exact number Jay wanted in renewables, so its perfect renewables by proxy.
The Liberals will tip in $200 million towards an interconnector to New South Wales.
"In many ways, having an interconnector with NSW will improve the viability of [renewable energy projects]


Apparently, the NSW government has absolutely no interest in helping them build an interconnector from their state so they can import coal based electricity, so this might be an interesting battle. If NSW are going to shut down the Liddel power-station and be upgrading other NSW coal-powerstations like Bayswater simply because they have realized they aren't going to have enough power for themselves, then it makes sense that the NSW government has no interest in letting another state siphon off 700MW of its electricity. http://www.news.com.au/national/breaking-news/agl-upgrades-nsw-coalfired-power-station/news-story/6e9d16237c8ab5ac646cfbf028078c1e

To me when I look and windfarm based renewables and the fact that Germany(with wind dependent Italy and Denmark constantly being the same as Germany) is on average emitting around 7times as much CO2 as France, I understand why Jay Weatherill makes claims like he does or promised to just go harder on windfarm building, because it stopped being a logical policy, based instead on ideology.
With the incredible power of bad information like renewable Facebook memes still on his side, he only barely lost power via the state election.

While EVs typically half the co2 emissions over their lifetime cycle vs combustion cars, the twisted facts around windfarms are the opposite compared to conventional energy sources like Nuclear. If there were two type types of "green cars" on the road and one of them typically emitted 7-10 times (700%-1000%) the amount of co2, like wind states do, it would instantly be dismissed as a complete joke. It just becomes the Chewbacca Defense https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clKi92j6eLE
But this is where windfarms sit against nuclear, and if you include South Australia having the most expensive electricity in the world they lost on every metric possible.
2018-03-12 (11)abb.png
 
Lets come back to South Australia in 4 years time and see what's happened shall we?

As I understand it, Labor was promising an effective interest free loan to install thousands of solar+battery setups in SA homes, with a particular focus on low income earners. The installation would be paid for through the tariff structure. The incoming Liberals have promised to scrap that plan, and are instead promising $2500 subsidies for batteries which will go to homes which already had the resources to put solar on the roof. So they are gifting batteries to those who can already afford them...

I am also at a loss as to why they want another interconnector into NSW - a state who imports more energy from Queensland than they can produce.

I think the outgoing premier was one of a very small group of politicians who has shown leadership of any flavour, and in particular, in energy management. The state of SA had to take responsibility for its own power, and they were progressive enough to use renewable energy to achieve that end. I am saddened that the incoming Libs will simply toe the federal line, and we'll see emissions rise as the state signs up to more fossil fuels.
 
Come on Jonescg, how can you possibly pork barrel if you implement a scheme that reduces energy costs for low income earners? Politics 101 tells us any scheme should target your voting demographic.

Jokes aside, I agree the fall out will take years to measure and the benefit realisation of the connector and subsidy scheme will not be measured. For all the strong opinions in this thread I think those on either side forget that the benefits of objective post implementation study is massively understated and a failure of good government. I suppose that I'm idealistic.
 
jonescg said:
...I am also at a loss as to why they want another interconnector into NSW - a state who imports more energy from Queensland than they can produce.
SA needs the NSW interconnector to give them more opportunity to "balance" their highly variable generation output....both ways import and export.
There are frequent periods where they max out the Vic interconnector for imports, and other times when they urgently need to export surplus generation, and both situations will get more frequent and larger scale , as SA installs more RE sources.
At the same time, Victoria is on program of coal plant (base load) reduction, so in future its more likely that they will not have the generation or transmission ability to support SA.
Also, NSW does have sufficient generation capacity for its own use ..and extra, however it has to import powe from QLD in order to relay that power to Victoria, who themselves relay it on to SA.
In 4 years time things will be very interesting as more base load coal is "retired" in Victoria and NSW, and no significant ne capacity is introduced, so everything is going to tighten up...a lot !
 
The fleet of French nuclear reactors is aging quickly. There is no money left to pay for rebuilding those nukes, I'm not even talking about waste managment.

It's not a question of if, but when the next nuke will "explode". What's all the talk about a few cent more or less in electricity prices if there is the risk of destroying entire cities after one single accident? Japan has been extremly lucky with their wind situation in March 2011.

German companies have put aside (by force) dozends of billions of Euro, but even this is not enough and the tax payer will Pax billions for rebuildig the nukes and waste management.

The electric system in France is a financial and ecological time bomb.

You can go nuclear, but it will cost 3-4 times more than wind+solar plus insurance costs. See Hinkley C for example or that reactor in Finland, that I can't spell. Contrary to wind+solar the main costs of nukes are not investment costs at the beginning.

If Germany is able to shut down all reactores by 2022 and no large accident happend until than we can count us very lucky. The danger of our nukes will persist for years even after shutdown, but at least you don't have to cool several Giga- or Megawatts from an active reactor in case of an emergency.
 
Rube said:
......I agree the fall out will take years to measure and the benefit realisation of the connector and subsidy scheme will not be measured. ?.......
Fall out from what ? ..a change of government ?
The benefits of the connector scheme are obvious, ..
It allows SA to continue with its experiment of High % RE generation , whist knowing that they can fall back on to cheap imported power if the RE falls short (as it commonly does)
In effect , it disperses the cost impact of RE in SA , across the rest of the grid connected states.
Even without SA's "virtual Power Plant" plan..... (guessing thats the subsidy scheme you are refering to, Queensland alone pays approx $350m to SA every year in RE subsidies .
If you want to understand the real "benefits" of RE in Australia,.......follow the money !
 
Interesting article on SA's new subsidy scheme from the new Liberal party. It seems to be written by someone who lives in South Australia, as he talks about why "we" voted the way they did. But he doesn't like the Liberal party either.
http://catallaxyfiles.com/2018/03/19/david-bidstrup-is-it-a-new-start-in-sa-or-just-more-of-the-same-bullshit/
Applying $100 million over 40,000 properties gives a “subsidy” of $2,500.00 per house. A 5 KW solar system coupled with a 10 KWh battery costs about $24,000.00 upfront, so those who receive the “subsidy” need to provide another $21,500.00. The total cost for the 40,000 house system is $960 million; $100 million from government “subsidy” and $860 million from punters pockets.

One of the baloney things I here is "SA is out of coal" but I seen a lot of "coal maps of Australia" that show about 20% of anywhere you dig in South Australia has good usable coal, SA even has some areas of premium black coal, as well as more generic brown coal which is typically the only coal used in Europe.
http://www.ga.gov.au/__data/assets/image/0003/17904/3708.jpg
13-7856-1.jpg


One of the things I don't like about mainstream media in Australia is they never play stuff that should be basic common knowledge like NASA co2 ppm maps of the world. When TV stations sell their spectrum to 5G mobile carriers, the world is going to be a much better place to live. The 5G mobile spec now officially can use digital TV spectrums.
As this map shows you, a massive amount of co2 gets absorbed by trees during the northern hemisphere summer the via photosynthesis.
The red/orange which highlights high concentrations of co2 is very visible because there is more co2 in the northern hemisphere because there is more land and people living there emitting co2, it disappears during the summer because its warmer with much more sunlight allowing photosynthesis to activate, this is the process of trees and plants sucking co2 out of the air to grow, plants straight out die with no co2 they need it JUST AS MUCH/EQUALLY AS MUCH as sunlight to grow.
Secondly there just isn't as much co2 in the southern hemisphere period, and this is for the same reason, far fewer people live down there (many billions less). So South Australia is killing their own state financially with absolutely no possible change to the environment,
https://youtu.be/dm8AR_D3bNM

[youtube]dm8AR_D3bNM[/youtube]
https://youtu.be/x1SgmFa0r04?t=1m
[youtube]x1SgmFa0r04[/youtube]

co2wx_hammer-glb_20090320.png


If more of the worlds co2 could somehow be pumped down to Australia it would actually be beneficial as it would help more plant life and thus general habitat survive in Australia.
[youtube]0C9yLPbqTVw[/youtube]

Cephalotus said:
It's not a question of if, but when the next nuke will "explode". What's all the talk about a few cent more or less in electricity prices if there is the risk of destroying entire cities after one single accident? Japan has been extremly lucky with their wind situation in March 2011.
No one died from Fukushima, period.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_and_radiation_accidents_by_death_toll#Fukushima_disaster

I think this video best most easily absorbable way to understand the dangers of nuclear radiation.
The thing people have to remember is the Sun is a giant nuclear reactor and the reason why people can sit inside all day in front of a heater and not receive even remotely comparable barbecuing effects as they would receive if sitting in the Sun all day is due to the fact that people are quite literally receiving a spectrum of nuclear radiation from the sun. If you are afraid of nuclear then don't go in the sun ever again or else your being a hypocrite.

As the Sun or a nuclear reactor both generate gamma-radiation, and X-ray radiation, both of which are harmful to humans. The Sun is just far away - but enough UV light reaches the earth that protection is needed - Ozone layer, atmosphere, and clothing or sunscreen, and shelter/shade. But that nasty pretty much "invisible barbecuing effect on your skin" is nasty radiation.

https://youtu.be/3ItOIz5gJiQ
[youtube]3ItOIz5gJiQ[/youtube]
 
TheBeastie said:
No one died from Fukushima, period.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_and_radiation_accidents_by_death_toll#Fukushima_disaster

170,000-200,000 people were evacuated in just over 1 day from the start of the emergency at the plant

TheBeastie said:
I think this video best most easily absorbable way to understand the dangers of nuclear radiation.
The thing people have to remember is the Sun is a giant nuclear reactor and the reason why people can sit inside all day in front of a heater and not receive even remotely comparable barbecuing effects as they would receive if sitting in the Sun all day is due to the fact that people are quite literally receiving a spectrum of nuclear radiation from the sun. If you are afraid of nuclear then don't go in the sun ever again or else your being a hypocrite.

You have literally no idea what you are talking about. Go read a physics book. Or the Wikipedia page on radiation.
 
sendler2112 said:
Fine, as long as the coal holds out.

So far nuclear was replaced by renewable energies and the same will happen with the last nukes.

In 2000 it was 170TWh of nuclear energy and 38TWh of renewables (mostly water power)
In 2017 it was 76TWh of nuclear energy and 218 TWh of renewables

And btw in 2000 it was 291 TWh of coal power and in 2017 it was 240 TWh of coal power

So renewables are replacing both, coal and nuclear and we already produce more electricity from renewables than we ever did with nukes and it took just a few years beginning with almost nothing.
 
TheBeastie said:
No one died from Fukushima, period.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_and_radiation_accidents_by_death_toll#Fukushima_disaster

Who knows? Cancer does exist and you can not tell the cause for it.

Cost of the Fukushima accident so far climbed to 188 billion USD.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-tepco-fukushima-costs/japan-nearly-doubles-fukushima-disaster-related-cost-to-188-billion-idUSKBN13Y047

I assume that it will end up at more than 500 billion USD.

And they have been VERY lucky that the radioactive cloud didn't hit the Tokyo region.

So one nuclar accident in densly populated Europa will cost as much as repowering the entires countries electricity system with solar, wind and storage systems. And instead of several 100.000nds of people that have to flee their homes all people have to live is to watch some solar and wind power plants.
Guess what they would prefer.

Thankfully we can all chose our own way, if Asurralie wants to build nukes thats perfectly fine for me, because your contry is not desnily populated, i assume that you will finde some place to dig the waste and if you have an accident it is your problem, not mine.

it is different with CO2 emissions. World needs to get some rules, that every country has to pay the same amount per kg of CO2 for destroying our ecosystem with emission of CO2.
This will be the end of coal, but we need a global rule for that. As long as coal is cheap as dirt and emitting CO2 into the atmosphere is for free people will burn coal.

The thing people have to remember is the Sun is a giant nuclear reactor and the reason why people can sit inside all day in front of a heater and not receive even remotely comparable barbecuing effects as they would receive if sitting in the Sun all day is due to the fact that people are quite literally receiving a spectrum of nuclear radiation from the sun. If you are afraid of nuclear then don't go in the sun ever again or else your being a hypocrite.

I'm an engineer working in the energy sector, please tell your nonsense to someone else.

I'm not opposing nuclear technologies, but in my opinion they are way to expensive to produce electrcity and the risc of the current reactors is way to high in realation to the benefit.

If people belive different than why in hell has there never ever been a single reactor payed and operated only by a private company and why it is impossible to get real insurance for nuclear reactors.

Even private insurances for cars, buildings etc... always excludes two things: War and and accident in a nuclear reactor.

Worldwide nuclear reactors now produce less than 2% of the worlds energy demand and for this lousy 2% you have to accept the waste, the risc and the prolefartion risc that someday some terrorist will make a Plutonium bomb.

Except for research I call that quite stupid and rather prefer wind and solar energy instead.
 
Cephalotus said:
So renewables are replacing both, coal and nuclear and we already produce more electricity from renewables than we ever did with nukes and it took just a few years beginning with almost nothing.

Thankfully we have objective data from electricity map .org. Germany has been over 400gm/kWh carbon all winter. Often times over 500. It still gets the vast majority of electricity from brown coal during the winter when the sun and wind are consistently bad.
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https://www.electricitymap.org/?page=country&solar=false&remote=true&wind=false&countryCode=DE
.
 
TheBeastie said:
As this map shows you, a massive amount of co2 gets absorbed by trees during the northern hemisphere summer the via photosynthesis.
The red/orange which highlights high concentrations of co2 is very visible because there is more co2 in the northern hemisphere because there is more land and people living there emitting co2, it disappears during the summer because its warmer with much more sunlight allowing photosynthesis to activate, this is the process of trees and plants sucking co2 out of the air to grow, plants straight out die with no co2 they need it JUST AS MUCH/EQUALLY AS MUCH as sunlight to grow.
Yep. And back before 1850 that effect kept the CO2 levels in the atmosphere under control. Now we emit so much that the plants can't keep up.
Secondly there just isn't as much co2 in the southern hemisphere period, and this is for the same reason, far fewer people live down there (many billions less). So South Australia is killing their own state financially with absolutely no possible change to the environment.
So you believe that gases from the Southern hemisphere stay in the South and vice versa.

You know, that big line all around the middle of the globe really isn't there. They just draw it on. If you took a ship there you wouldn't see a line or a magical wall that keeps gases on one side.

No wonder you're confused about this.
 
sendler2112 said:
Thankfully we have objective data from electricity map .org. Germany has been over 400gm/kWh carbon all winter. Often times over 500. It still gets the vast majority of electricity from brown coal during the winter when the sun and wind are consistently bad.

This does not contradict what I wrote.

400-500g CO2/kWh is not super bad and an improvement compared to 15 years ago.

I don't understand why you show Germany as a negative example for wind and solar. We are coming from a very high percentage of burning lignite and for that our actual emission including significant amounts of wind and solar 8and less nukes) is not so bad comapred to other nations.

Look at Australia for example, this is a coal burning conutry without significant wind and solar production:

electricitynationality.gif


data is a bit outdated, but I couldn't find something newer

It's also only half of the story. Cheap electricity leads to huge consumption rates. See comparison of household electricity consumption:

household1.gif


Official data for electricity production in Germany: https://ag-energiebilanzen.de/index.php?article_id=29&fileName=20171221_brd_stromerzeugung1990-2017.pdf

In 2017 Germany exported 55 TWh of electricity, that's 55 billion kWh and enough to power half of Germans car fleet when if they would be elctrified (16.000km/year, 17kWh/100km, 20 million cars)

Goal for 2030 is to have 60% renewables in the grid, 0% nuclear and the rest obviously will still be gas and coal.

Changing your electricity system is not done within just a few years, it takes decades, but it can be done.

That's why it is important to start now and why it is important to NOT build new coal and nuclear power plants. (if you are happy with the true cost of nuclear do it)
 
Hillhater said:
Fall out from what ? ..a change of government ?.....
The benefits of the connector scheme are obvious, .. If you want to understand the real "benefits" of RE in Australia,.......follow the money !

Hi, by fallout I'm referring to dumping a mostly privately funded install of solar plus home storage for low income earners, and replacing the scheme with a subsidiary for people with more wealth. Also, the awkward contradiction that Marshall argued renewables increase prices but is now justifying the interconnector by arguing that these energy sources will put downward pressure on national prices.

Benefits are not only monetary, although society seems to think it can easily price on human health and wellbeing. Each of the energy sources discussed in this thread impose negative externality but the 99% of the discussion is energy price.
 
Marshall is like any other politician, he will say what ever is advantageous to his cause at the time,...without concern as to its factuality.
Most of my discussion is focussed on financial aspects because that is the most directly obvious result from the RE policy in most countrys/states that have implimented a high % RE plan.
Apart from the direct consumer cost impact, the national economic repercussions are ultimately disastrous.
 
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