Wind and Solar vs Coal, Gasoline, Nuclear

Cephalotus said:

sendler2112 said:

Things will be much smaller and simpler again after oil...

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Ah, doomsday porn, now I understand....

When our oil (coal and gas) has ben burned most of the planet will not be habitable for humans.

Just to show you the scale of the problem and why humankind has to leave fossil fuels before they leave us:

Your very stupid "advice" would lead humankind into global scale genocide. You are a dangerous person. For just a few dollars you are advocating to destroy the future of our (and many other) species. This is not acceptable.

sendler2112 said:

...I've posted several personal essays and dozens of lectures, book recommendations, and web links over the last two years...

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So much work to destroy humankind. Why not contribute something positive?

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How do you misconstrue that I am advocating for continued mass consumption of resources and fossil carbon??? I am just trying to wake people to the false narrative in Green media sites such as Cleantechnica which is leading us to a false hope that we can substitute Green growth for Fossil growth by repeating ridiculous statements like " Australia has 50X renewable resources". I hope I am not the only one here that can see that this is a nonsense statement similar to "The Sun rises every day" (Solar panels are completely covered in falling snow and ice for days at a time where I live). And, The earth is impinged by blah blah TeraWatts of solar energy every day. This does not mean we have the resources or money to build out enough hardware to capture enough of it to transition all of what we are doing to solar and wind. We are completely spoiled by the current carbon energy pulse. You have no clue of the scale of the energy we have grown to demand. Historical precedent judging by the concerted effort that Germany has made shows us that in trying to maintain this same level of affluence in society. Solar and wind will come up way short.
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We need to take a technocratic look at human civilization and decide what it really takes to be happy. Water, Food, Shelter, Social cohesion with a fair distribution of the shrinking social surplus.

sendler2112 said:

Solar panels are completely covered in falling snow and ice for days at a time where I live

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Maybe you should live in Australia instead?

Punx0r said:

Maybe you should live in Australia instead?

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Actually, as things really sort out into a post fossil fuel future, providing electric heat in the dead of winter for 150 million people in big cities in the Northern USA and Canada, and 150 million people in big cities across Northern Europe and Russia will prove impossible without the natural gas that has allowed these great cities. Society will have to organize in such a way that people are free to migrate away from the equator if Global Heating raises heatwave temps to deadly levels. And migrate away from the Northern locations in winter when we can no longer supply enough heat. The whole idea of imperialistic countries with hard borders will cease to function at some point when the peak energy that grew the population and affluent economy to the current level tips back down to real time solar flows and diminishing tech. We must realize we are stuck here together on one planet and learn to share and cooperate.

I am sometimes amused when someone touts nuclear fusion having the potential to provide "abundant power, so plentiful they're giving it away" or similarly, hydrogen fuel cell vehicles - "who cares if the system is 4 times less efficient than battery storage, if the power is free from renewables it doesn't matter".

It's funny because no energy is free. Even if we had a 100 squigawatt fusion reactor, the generation and distribution of that energy calls for equipment and resources which are most definitely not free. Why install 4 x as many solar panels to generate H2 for your fuel cell car when you can store it more efficiently in in a battery?

Efficiency is everything. It kills me to see guys installing >30 kWh of battery storage to their solar homes just so they can keep running the heaters, air-con systems and pool pumps. Surely the cheapest watt is the one you don't need?

So I see the solution for these high northern latitudes being a well integrated electricity grid with generation at more favourable levels. Natural gas heats most of Europe, and will continue to do so for a while yet, but at least shifting to electric heating and building / retrofitting more efficient homes will mean you won't need as much energy to achieve the same level of comfort.

jonescg said:

I am sometimes amused when someone touts nuclear fusion having the potential to provide "abundant power, so plentiful they're giving it away" or similarly, hydrogen fuel cell vehicles - "who cares if the system is 4 times less efficient than battery storage, if the power is free from renewables it doesn't matter".

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Yep. I am convinced that the only way we will ever see hydrogen as a significant resource is if we build high temperature gas reactors that can create H2 from direct thermal dissociation of water.

furcifer said:

Hillhater said:

The oceans are ALKALINE and will remain so.
I know you would like to make us all think that they are becoming acidic, as part of your alarmist agenda to scare folk into joining your cult of carbon crusaders,..but its not working.! :wink:

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I'm not sure if you're trolling or if this is the worst case of denial I've ever seen. Are you completely oblivious to the science, or maybe you have a virus that is redirecting your browser? "OCEAN ACIDIFICATION", it's plain as day.

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I dont know what your angle is ,..maybe you just dont comprehend too well ?
..so i will repeat it for you...
The oceans are Alkaline, .. Sure it varies with time, but it always stays Alkaline !
You, bill, Wiki , ( i assume you know where Wiki information comes from ?),.. and all the so called scientists you care to convince, can say ocean acidification is happening, or use any other words you think will scare dumber folk into a panic......
......but they will always remain Alkaline

Punx0r said:

sendler2112 said:

Solar panels are completely covered in falling snow and ice for days at a time where I live

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Maybe you should live in Australia instead?

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Its actually snowing down here today ! :wink:

So here is a new article on roof-solar from ABC, ABC Australia are known to be absolute extreme pro-renewables in news.
But today they have come out with a negative article, probably in the lame hope the problem of solar panels only lasting around 5 years get fixed.
Solar panels deliberately cheaply manufactured to last only about 5 years will never be fixed, as the solar business is the perfect business to scam people, because the entire home solar industry is structured on 3-year warranties and then closing down the solar business and starting up a new one.
This would also be the situation from the manufacturers in China all the way to the installers in Australia, everyone just resets and starts again, this will and can never be fixed, home solar is a flawed model, in every conceivable way.

Australia's obsession with cheap solar is derailing the market
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-05-27/australias-obsession-with-cheap-solar-derailing-market-insiders/11139856
There are an estimated 600,000 solar homes in Australia that have a similar story like this one as quoted from the article.
Rex Leighton spent $8,000 installing a rooftop solar system in 2015, which he expected would last for at least 25 years.
It only lasted four and a half years.
He said a manufacturing fault meant the 20-panel system had been gradually damaged by water.
Mr Leighton said it was "incredibly disappointing, to say the least"
Again, its the raw solar panels that are stuffed, they can not be repaired. I have seen this my self as a friend of mine bought second-hand solar panels (but still quite nice and new looking) and they gave about 25% of their claimed capacity in a PERFECT sunny day, it was just unbelievable how crap they were.
The only places where the widely claimed "25-year-old solar panels" are likely to exist is at industrial solar-parks, and even then we still have to wait 25 years to see if this comes true.
Industrial solar-parks are very likely to have quality long-lasting solar panels on them because they take considerable investment to build (like buying the land) and the people who built them just can't disappear as a casual small biz solar-roof installer could.


ABC keep reporting this now and then, obviously, they hate reporting anything negative about wind/solar but they hope somehow a flawed technology and business model can somehow get fixed
https://youtu.be/V-kfxnhFPyI?t=45

And just like everything with wind/solar/batterys there are scientific studies that claim just as much energy goes into making the product via fossil fuels along with the co2 emitted to make/deploy them than what the technology ever gives back in energy.
I have dug into these as far as conceivably possible and I agree with these studies.
To me there is basically a law with "green tech energy", and that is if it's manufactured via fossil fuels then its at a minimum no different than just burning coal to create the electricity in the first place. To me its almost like slowly peeling off a reality that its a law as something like E=MC2, and its merely a process of waiting for everyone else to be done ripping off other people or other general people learning about the truth of it all.


I assume there has been a lot more people jumping in on this thread because of fact Tesla is obviously collapsing (because of the fact it is not an "efficient" green tech company). And of course because of elections around the world which has all the political tribalism that comes attached with green energy.
https://www.tradingview.com/symbols/NASDAQ-TSLA/
I posted some details on metals and their co2 emissions during their production and how it relates to batteries not been "efficient" or green if you take into account their "pre-emissions" during their co2 intensive manufacturing process.
https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=89002&p=1462581#p1462581
https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=89002&p=1460666#p1460666
The reason why the biggest miner in the entire world is getting back into nickel despite the common 100 times its refined weight in co2 emissions, is simply because of the amount of nickel is used on lithium batteries, where nickel is used inside the cell as part of the chemistry as well as coating the cells with nickel merely to prevent corrosion.
BHP wouldn't be doing this unless they were sure there price of battery metals is going to go up, BHP would have spent millions in research on nickel use in batteries to decide to go deeper into the mining operations market, because they are likely to end up spending billions on it, over time.
https://www.afr.com/business/mining/bhp-halts-sale-process-for-nickel-west-20190514-p51n3c
https://www.australianmining.com.au/news/bhp-nickel-west-to-buy-nickel-from-mincors-kambalda-operations/

If you can't be bothered reading any of it just remember this simple general saying on how you really should be looking at green energy tech, over time if you keep looking at it you will be amazed how true it is, even if it looks like a complete joke.. "Lithium batteries are so efficient that it takes at least 10 years worth of gas co2 burning emissions/energy equivalent before its very first use/discharge".

sendler2112 said:

How do you misconstrue that I am advocating for continued mass consumption of resources and fossil carbon???

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What else?

I'm not anti nuclear (in general), but at 2% of the energy consumption (trend falling) and at the extreme high costs (see Hinkley C) and still unsolved watse Problem I am not willing to see the benefit for my rather small Country. If Chin,a Russia, US or Saudi Arabia wants to build nuclear power plants instead of coal this is okay for me.

I have visited Chernobyl some years ago, just before Sarkophag 2 (billions mostly paid by EU, US and not paid by Ucraine or Russia) was put over it with the idea to Keep it there for another 100 years in the hope to find a solution during those 100 years.

It's not perfectly accurate but the new series "Chernobyl" is worth watching. You get a feeling for the Dimension of the Problems. I assume we will see another movie about the disatser of Fukushima and another one, when the next accident happens, whcih is not a question of if, but only a question of when and where.

I am just trying to wake people to the false narrative in Green media sites such as Cleantechnica which is leading us to a false hope that we can substitute Green growth for Fossil growth by repeating ridiculous statements like " Australia has 50X renewable resources".

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Of course there is also some plain stupid "green propaganda". Mainy People have no clue about what they are talking about.
This is not a reason to make some similar stupid "black propaganda"

You have no clue of the scale of the energy we have grown to demand.

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Of course I have. I'm an engineer and political advisor and this exactly my job and what I'm getting paid for, to "know about our energy needs and how to meet them in the future".

Historical precedent judging by the concerted effort that Germany has made shows us that in trying to maintain this same level of affluence in society. Solar and wind will come up way short.

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We have already discussed this in this very topic many times. I will not repeat myself, but I show you a simple graph:

Storage capacity for 100% solar+wind in Germany



https://www.sma-sunny.com/wie-viel-speicher-braucht-die-energiewende/

You could argue that 7TWh is a HUGE, maybe imposisble HUGE amount of storage and you are right. (currently we have around 0.05TWh of electricity storage capacity)
But nobody says that we need to use only solar + wind + batteries for our electricity demand.

Add just 5% of methane and gas peakers to the mix (no matter if from natural gas or biogas or hydrogen or other syn fuels) and the demand on storage energy capacity will shrink by maybe factor of 100. You still need the power capacity, but to install maybe 50GW of battery power will be manageable.
We are talking about 100% renewables there, until 80-90% it is much easier.

So why do you think this is impossible? It isn't.

We need to take a technocratic look at human civilization and decide what it really takes to be happy. Water, Food, Shelter, Social cohesion with a fair distribution of the shrinking social surplus.

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Today people simply refuse to buy an electric car because if you drive at 200km/h at the Autobahn you have to recharge often and you have to wait longer than with your Diesel car. This would run Amok if you force them to an electric car.

Image what would they do if you force them to live the energy live of a German in the year 1950 as you claim is the only possible outcome.
And even the People from 1950 will destroy the planet by burning fossil fuels. It will only take longer.

What we need is renewable energies and reneable ressource circles from cradle to cradle, not cradle to grave.

This is possible and should be done. There are no technological reasons why it couln't be done. It's just a matter of (political) will. We all live (thankfully) in democracies, so in the end the People have to decide which path they want to take into the future.

MfG

TheBeastie said:

...probably in the lame hope the problem of solar panels only lasting around 5 years get fixed. Solar panels deliberately cheaply manufactured to last only about 5 years will never be fixed, as the solar business is the perfect business to scam people, because the entire home solar industry is structured on 3-year warranties and then closing down the solar business and starting up a new one.

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German manufacturers of PV modules like Solarwatt do offer 30(!) years warranty for at least 80% of their energy output compared to new moduls.

We have lots of Long time experience with solar PV starting around 25 years ago, we have now millions(!) of installed PV rooftops systems and current estimation and assumption is a usabale lifetime of solar PV for at least 30-40 years. Some may and do fail earlier, but this is the exception, not the rule.

If your PV systems fail after 3 years you are doing something very wrong.

And just like everything with wind/solar/batterys there are scientific studies that claim just as much energy goes into making the product via fossil fuels and this releasing co2 than what the technology ever gives back...

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Of course there are. I remember a paper that claimed that a Hummer does less harm to the invironment than a Prius.

There is also a responses to the article you quoted:

https://www.resilience.org/stories/2016-11-08/another-failure-of-scientific-peer-review-a-completely-wrong-paper-on-the-energy-return-of-photovoltaic-energy-1/

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/312033058_Energy_Return_on_Energy_Invested_ERoEI_for_photovoltaic_solar_systems_in_regions_of_moderate_insolation_A_comprehensive_response

That article claims that your quoted article is wrong by at least one magnitude.

If you google for studies on LCA of solar PV you will see that most recent articles are in the ballpark of an EROI of around 10-20 for solar PV which is good enough. I'm sure that you are able to use Google and I'm sure that yopu know what most publications Quote for solar PV EROEI.
That you quote the one article that has the lowest numbers and has to be proofen wrong on so many assumptions shows to me that you are not interested in a technical discussion on the topic but just want to proof your own agenda, as wrong as it may be.

Maybe Ferruccio Ferroni has his own agenda to spread such stupid "fakes"?
I assume he just wants to promote nuclear energy where he holds some patents? Follow the Money....

https://patents.justia.com/inventor/ferruccio-ferroni

Some years ago Germany did manufacture a significant amount of solar PV Systems. If those needed as much energy as claimed above you would have been able to see that energy demand in our energy bilnces. You didn't and this is because energy needed is not nearly as high as claimed.

Energy payback on a PV panel is about 2-3 years in a sunny latitude - will link the paper in question tomorrow.
Energy payback on a 4 MW wind turbine in a windy spot is about 5 years - likewise will find the paper tomorrow.
Beasty is just trolling.

jonescg said:

Energy payback on a PV panel is about 2-3 years in a sunny latitude - will link the paper in question tomorrow.

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Even lower today for utility solar. Can be even below 1 year in best case scenarios

Energy payback on a 4 MW wind turbine in a windy spot is about 5 years - likewise will find the paper tomorrow.
Beasty is just trolling.

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Rather 6-12 months than 5 years.

This is a meta Analysis from 2010, based on studies even older, data is even better now:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/222703134_Meta-Analysis_of_Net_Energy_Return_for_Wind_Power_Systems

This analysis reviews and synthesizes the literature on the net energy return for electric power generation by wind turbines. Energy return on investment (EROI) is the ratio of energy delivered to energy costs. We examine 119 wind turbines from 50 different analyses, ranging in publication date from 1977 to 2007. We extend on previous work by including additional and more recent analyses, distinguishing between important assumptions about system boundaries and methodological approaches, and viewing the EROI as function of power rating. Our survey shows an average EROI for all studies (operational and conceptual) of 25.2 (n = 114; std. dev = 22.3). The average EROI for just the operational studies is 19.8 (n = 60; std. dev = 13.7). This places wind in a favorable position relative to fossil fuels, nuclear, and solar power generation technologies in terms of EROI.

Yeah I haven't looked for more recent data, but it's quick. The study I had in mind was including a new substation, but will confirm the details tomorrow. Not that it matters for some, but the information is there.

Cephalotus said:

If you google for studies on LCA of solar PV you will see that most recent articles are in the ballpark of an EROI of around 10-20 for solar PV which is good enough.

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So the rebuttal article you linked to carefully re-examines the question of ER/EI for solar pv located in Switzerland using modern data and concludes "3795/1340 = 2.83" ER/EI.
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This will be accurate pretty much all across the global North above 40* North. The well documented capacity factor for solar pv in Germany is 11%. With more than twice as much in Summer and less than half as much in Winter with many days of near Zero when heat demand is the highest when it is snowing. NY USA averages 13%.
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AN ER/EI value as high as 10 will be possible only when the panels are located in more optimum desert locations. And this is based on current production fossil fueled mining/ refining, transport, and installation infrastructure. It remains to be seen if a solar panel can really create and install a solar panel at all with no liquid fuel. And we are reaching a battery bottleneck already for just a few hundred thousand cars and buses per year and haven/t even begun to install the 50 TWh of storage that is required to store 20 hours of just half of the primary energy we are using.
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Cephalotus said:

Of course I have. I'm an engineer and political advisor and this exactly my job and what I'm getting paid for, to "know about our energy needs and how to meet them in the future".

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Then I implore you to reconsider adding the new knowledge that I am trying to present to you to your quiver so that you may have a more complete view of how the scale of total energy/ resource consumption correlates to human well being and what is happening around the world as we see the limits to growth begin to play out. Green growth at the current scale of the human endeavor is a complete myth. There will be a contraction. Green replacement for all electrification of total energy at 1:1 of the current scale is unrealistic even via a Democratic Ecosocialist/ Technocracy focused WWII style austerity and take over of all production at a coordinated world level. Which as you say "Nobody is going to vote for" ahead of a collapse. Because they do not have the complete information. And humans are born to be selfish.
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Because you (media, educators, politicians) are only half informed by willfully ignoring the painful half of the truth. There are limits to growth in a finite system and we will see them tip over the top for humans in the next 10- 20 years.

sendler2112 said:

AN ER/EI value as high as 10 will be possible only when the panels are located in more optimum desert locations.

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This is not true.

Here is actual data on PV systems, incl EROEI:

https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/content/dam/ise/de/documents/publications/studies/Photovoltaics-Report.pdf

multi-Si PV systme in southern Europa have an EROEI of 20 and better.

anual production of energy is lower in Germany, but lifetime is also longer. 30-35 years is to be expected, maybe 40+ years are possible. This is for the modules. Aluminium mounting Systems can last for 100 yaers and even after that Recycling auf Aluminium saves 90% of the initaial energy Needs.

And this is based on current production fossil fueled mining/ refining, transport, and installation infrastructure. It remains to be seen if a solar panel can really create and install a solar panel at all with no liquid fuel.

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Hu? Why not? The fuel needed for global ship transport can be made from biomass or synthetic fuel. Solar panals have a value to weight ratio somewhere around 5 USD/€ per 1kg. You can use ANY fuel to transport them.
Compare that to other shipped goods like hard coal or wheat or plastic waste...

And we are reaching a battery bottleneck already for just a few hundred thousand cars and buses per year and haven/t even begun to install the 50 TWh of storage that is required to store 20 hours of just half of the primary energy we are using.

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Who in the hell needs 50TWh of storage capacity? This is nonsense.

For most nations a battery storage capacity of maybe 2 hours will be perfectly fine, for everything else you use other technologies. Batteries are quick reacting storage Systems, not Long term storage systems and you don't have to store 100% of your demand.

Then I implore you to reconsider adding the new knowledge that I am trying to present to you to your quiver so that you may have a more complete view of how the scale of total energy/ resource consumption correlates to human well being and what is happening around the world as we see the limits to growth begin to play out.

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As someone who has be Aware to either the Peak oil and the prepper community I'm well used to those doomsdays scenarios...

From a technological point tose are very easy to avoid.

But the future is unknown to all of us. It is very possible to destroy our ecosystems and people like you are advocating for it and spread fear.
Just read about the history of the ozone layer and the Montreal protocol. There was a significant amount of pure luck involved, it could have easily ended much, much worse

Green growth at the current scale of the human endeavor is a complete myth. There will be a contraction. Green replacement for all electrification of total energy at 1:1 of the current scale is unrealistic even via a Democratic Ecosocialist/ Technocracy focused WWII style austerity and take over of all production at a coordinated world level.... There are limits to growth in a finite system and we will see them tip over the top for humans in the next 10- 20 years.

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I say that it is possible. On a global scale energy consumption will even grow further.

Why not try?

What you do is only sabotage. This is hardly helpful.

What's your motiviation? What do you fear? High energy prices? But on the other Hand you promote a medieval lifestyle??? As you claim to be so well informed you will easily anticipate what a planet with scarce resources and no plan B would mean: Wars over wars...

So you prefer doomsday and war over paying 10ct/kWh more for electricity?

I call that stupid. Very stupid.

USA has a per capita CO2 emission of 15.7t per year.
Sweden has a per capita emission of 5.1t per year.
Sweden is a ighly industrialised Country with no trade deficit (vs. USA)

So you think living in Sweden is impossible? Doesn't it exist, because it just can't happen?

What Sweden has doen was to build a low CO2 electricity System (they used water and nuclear, but you can also do it with wind and solar) and they drive halfway efficient cars and they have very efficient buildingd and an efficient industry.

This is because they started doing this a long time ago instead of whining about the "impossible".

Germany produces more power from wind and solar than from nuclear power plants and just 15 years ago people would have told you that this is completly impossible.

Tesla has selling more cars in ist segment in some countries than Audi, BMW and Daimler together.
Another "impossibility" that just happend.

Hillhater said:

I dont know what your angle is ,..maybe you just dont comprehend too well ?
..so i will repeat it for you...
The oceans are Alkaline, .. Sure it varies with time, but it always stays Alkaline !
You, bill, Wiki , ( i assume you know where Wiki information comes from ?),.. and all the so called scientists you care to convince, can say ocean acidification is happening, or use any other words you think will scare dumber folk into a panic......
......but they will always remain Alkaline

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Yah, expect nobody said that. All you're doing is showing your lack of understanding basic chemistry and complete unwillingness to learn. It's a textbook case of Dunning-Kruger.

Whether you like, understand, or continue to say otherwise, the CO2 from fossil fuels being dissolved in the oceans is causing acidification, because that's what the process is called. It doesn't mean the ph will ever go to 7 (that would be called neutralization)
The oceans are 25% more acidic today than they were 200 years ago.

I'm pretty sure you know this and are just playing the fool to make climate change skeptics look like idiots. Your satire is strong, but you may want to tone it down a bit, this is just over the top foolish.

Cephalotus said:

USA has a per capita CO2 emission of 15.7t per year.
Sweden has a per capita emission of 5.1t per year.
Sweden is a ighly industrialised Country with no trade deficit (vs. USA)

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We keep being told it's impossible to live in the Northern latitudes without burning huge amounts of fossil fuel for heating, that people will freeze to death in their homes otherwise. Yet, correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Sweden, in addition to having a high standard of living, also pretty damn cold in the winter?

Punx0r said:

We keep being told it's impossible to live in the Northern latitudes without burning huge amounts of fossil fuel for heating, that people will freeze to death in their homes otherwise. Yet, correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Sweden, in addition to having a high standard of living, also pretty damn cold in the winter?

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Nuclear, oil, wood, and hydro.
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And a total population in the whole country of a single large city. NY, Boston, or Moscow.

sendler2112 said:

And a total population in the whole country of a single large city. NY, Boston, or Moscow.

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lol, small enough to share body heat in the winter

Part of climate change going to be the move towards urbanization. Everyone sees that, but they don't seem to understand certain industries like farming, mining, lumber etc. are still going to require rural areas that require substantially more energy.

sendler2112 said:

Actually, as things really sort out into a post fossil fuel future, providing electric heat in the dead of winter for 150 million people in big cities in the Northern USA and Canada, and 150 million people in big cities across Northern Europe and Russia will prove impossible without the natural gas that has allowed these great cities. Society will have to organize in such a way that people are free to migrate away from the equator if Global Heating raises heatwave temps to deadly levels. And migrate away from the Northern locations in winter when we can no longer supply enough heat. The whole idea of imperialistic countries with hard borders will cease to function at some point when the peak energy that grew the population and affluent economy to the current level tips back down to real time solar flows and diminishing tech. We must realize we are stuck here together on one planet and learn to share and cooperate.

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This is true, but to be honest I have a problem with this. My ancestors were smart enough to find a large body of fresh water, good soil, moderate climate etc. and settle in for the long haul.
At the same time other people moved into the desert, built houses in the sand or on unstable rocks because they were lazy and wanted a "nice view".
For the most part fossil fuel made it possible, when it never should have happened. Now when push comes to shove everyone wants to be all kumbaya and share the planet equally. Especially all the hippies that moved to the West Coast that drove their stinking VW's out there and stopped people from building nuclear plants.

Poor choices in the past aren't properly factored into all of this. It's going to be extremely hard to get people to cooperate until someone takes full account of the way things are and the way they need to be.

/rant

sendler2112 said:

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Cool. So ~30% of total primary engine is renewable. Add in nuclear for low-carbon and that jumps to over 60%. And that's 10 years out of date. Good for you, Sweden.

Punx0r said:

Cool. So ~30% of total primary engine is renewable. Add in nuclear for low-carbon and that jumps to over 60%. And that's 10 years out of date. Good for you, Sweden.

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Yes. If you like to call burning wood for heat as "renewable energy". Afghanistan is 90% "renewable energy" since they have little else.

It's not good for local air pollution but it is carbon neutral if harvested correctly. It's certainly not release fossil carbon into the atmosphere. But OK, so you don't like it, so increase the other renewable/low-carbon mix by 50% and eliminate it. It's not hard - Sweden has hardly bankrupted itself or already completely utilised every spare square-foot it has for renewables. It almost seems too easy, which I guess is why you don't like it. Somehow it doesn't count cos x,y,z...

I do like burning wood for heat a great deal. This is where we are headed back to. The farmers in Afghanistan will have to change their way of living very little.
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I don't like it when people try to mislead the conversation by saying "Oh good. Sweden gets 30% of it's energy from "renewables". Implying that that means wind and solar when they are just a small rounding error shown by the dark line at the top of the chart. And 3/4 of their "renewable energy" is wood for heat and the rest is hydro which probably has very little untapped resource to grow.
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The entire UK and large parts of the upstate areas of the USA Eastern seaboard were almost completely denuded of forests for heat in 1800 and the populations were 1/6th of what they are now.
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It is not possible to heat great cities like Moscow in the dead of winter with enough wood or solar panels.

It's actually not that hard. I did a capstone project on power generation and residential heating under a low carbon emission CHP scenario. All it takes is planning. You can get very high efficiency if you plan properly. I was looking at running a cogeneration plant, with waste steam going to heat residential and commercial buildings, as well as on site greenhouses. You can supplement that with solar and wind on site. As well as gassifying the waste from the greenhouses, and residential waste from the surrounding area.

I forget my numbers but I think with proper planning you can get upwards of 80% efficiency if you tune it all in. I was looking at 100MW facility supplying 50-75K homes and local businesses, in addition to basic staples like tomatoes or green peppers (that's what we grow around here)

The catch is it takes planning and a government that doesn't listen to moron voters. Here in Ontario we lost 1/4 billion dollars because voters decided they didn't want cogeneration in their neighborhood. Just scrapped a clean energy project that would have provided several very well paying jobs because voters don't know the difference between steam and smoke.