Wind and Solar vs Coal, Gasoline, Nuclear

[sendler2112]

.if you look at figure 6 on that report, it shows the conversion efficiency from heat store (kWht) to electrical output (kWhe).....520GWht to the steam plant results in 180 GWhe net electrical output !....35% efficient !.

Yes. Combined cycle gas plants that use a combustion turbine followed by a steam (from the exhaust heat) turbine are now approaching 60%. So heat to steam to electric at 35% sounds pretty good.

 

[sendler2112]

I am more about local energy sources and economic independence than environmental fascism.

The world electrical consumption is immense. 3 TeraWatt continuous average. And this is forecast to double by 2050. And this is just electric. World complete energy consumption for all heat, manufacturing, transportation, electric, ect, is over 9 TeraWatts continuous. And this doubles every 60-70 years. There is no local source that can even put the slightest dent in this. And energy consumption is economy. It is tied together 1:1 since the industrial revolution. Every man made thing you see around you is made of energy. Energy to harvest the raw materials, energy to manufacture. See Nate Hagens video for a very concise explanation.
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https://youtu.be/YUSpsT6Oqrg
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China is already poised to rule the world. And their energy (and population control) decisions have further cemented this. They are not afraid to do what must be done. Such as flooding hundreds of thousands of people out of their ancestral homes to make two of the worlds largest hydro reservoirs. Or pursuing new nuclear. They will eventually own the intellectual rights to all of the effective Gen4 nuclear designs. And then will glad to market them to us at twice the price of what they can build it for. And they don't allow people to lay down in front of the bulldozers when they need to build something for the greater good.
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9 Terawatts going to 18 is immense. Please be pragmatic, Watch Nate Hagens. Read Run The Numbers and Do The Math. And spread the word. The time is now while we have the fossil fuel energy wealth to build the things we need to replace it. Can you imagine all farming, manufacturing, transportation, and heavy contruction, running on battery electric?
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http://energyrealityproject.com/lets-run-the-numbers-nuclear-energy-vs-wind-and-solar/
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https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2011/10/the-energy-trap/
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ect

 

[Ohbse]

Energy reality project is very much back of a napkin calculations, largely based on very out of date pricing. Even so, I agree with a lot of the conclusions, however the author is missing something absolutely critical. Despite scientific evidence, studies and new nuclear technologies - people are dumb. There will not be a popular uprising of new nuclear. It just will not happen, regardless of how good an idea it is.

We need to take action today. SMR technology sounds GREAT, but realistically isn't going to be ready for any type of production in under 10 years, probably followed by another 5 years of legal wrangling over where to place them. Again, people are dumb and there's no way they want to live next door to anything fission powered, ever. If it were technically and economically feasible today it would be happening in China where opinions count for little, but it's not...

What is happening right now is huge disruption, solar pv is continuing to be the most cost effective and reliable method of achieving zero emissions. China commissioned 13.5GW of capacity just in June. They're on track for >40GW commissioned this year and interestingly an increasing amount of distributed rooftop solar to better deal with electrical oversupply during daylight hours.

In the period Jan-July 2017, China added 1.09 GW of new nuclear capacity, 6.69 GW of hydro, 7.3 GW of wind and 18.84 GW of thermal power. The size of new solar installations for this period, 34.92 GW, outlines the increasingly important role played by the technology in China’s energy mix.

https://www.pv-magazine.com/2017/08/22/aecea-china-installations-to-surpass-40-gw-in-2017/

More solar PV was commissioned than all other power sources combined for H1 2017.

 

[sendler2112]

The problem i have with the published numbers for solar (and wind) is that proponents always quote the "installed" capacity or the "nameplate" capacity. Solar Star is a 550 MW installation but it can only average 180 MW. Topaz is at 25%. So that 39GW could really only take the place of 10 GW for baseload. If it had storage. Which it does not. So it is really only useful to fill the peak from cooling requirements. You still need a solid baseload production from non intermittent sources for solar to work.

 

[Hillhater]

In the period Jan-July 2017, China added 1.09 GW of new nuclear capacity, 6.69 GW of hydro, 7.3 GW of wind and 18.84 GW of thermal power. The size of new solar installations for this period, 34.92 GW, outlines the increasingly important role played by the technology in China’s energy mix....

..which as sendler2112 said, actually means the Solar installations are really only approx 10 GW of output, the wind less than 3 GW output , and both of them intermittent , inconsistent, and unpredictable.
But at least they were smart enough to ensure they installed double that (26.69 GW ), of reliable, continuous, base load.
EDIT:.. i couldn't detect from that site if the 34.92 GW, of solar included all the rooftop solar installations ?

 

[jonescg]

I can see a near-future where residential and some commercial power consumption is entirely met by solar, wind and batteries, while the majority of industrial customers will need a baseload supply in the form of gas, coal or even nuclear. This sort of bulk power makes economic sense for these industries, while homes and small commercial enterprises can manage their own power needs.

Economies are changing too - people are likely to buy fewer cars and live in smaller homes. So there will be a levelling off of power demand in the developed world. This too contributed to the reduced demand for new generating capacity. You would think that means more to spend on things like pumped hydro etc, but these same economic conditions have lead to reduced wages and lower spending power.

I doubt we'll see another coal fired power station built in Australia, but we'll see a few more gas-fired stations. The economics of coal just don't stack up these days; whether it's due to reduced global demand for coal, infinitesimally small improvements in efficiency, emissions regulations, the hopeless failure of the NEM, or even catchy facebook memes :wink: nobody with the money is backing coal right now.

 

[Ohbse]

The problem i have with the published numbers for solar (and wind) is that proponents always quote the "installed" capacity or the "nameplate" capacity. Solar Star is a 550 MW installation but it can only average 180 MW. Topaz is at 25%. So that 39GW could really only take the place of 10 GW for baseload. If it had storage. Which it does not. So it is really only useful to fill the peak from cooling requirements. You still need a solid baseload production from non intermittent sources for solar to work.

You're absolutely right. One of the interesting growing pains that occurs with an increased spread of intermittent renewables is curtailment, prices can actually cross zero and go negative. This in turn creates an interesting opportunity for various types of storage. To be 'buying' power for zero or less than zero and then outputting it later makes battery/pumped hydro/heat capture feasible. You can already see the beginnings of market forces correcting for the intermittent output.

One thing that comes up every time I see energy futures discussed is how people can't get their heads around progressive change. I think it's a human nature thing. We don't need to design a replacement grid from scratch and implement it all at once, we merely need to encourage the right circumstances for progressive change to occur. It's of course infeasible to build enough solar panels, wind turbines and battery storage in one year or even ten to cover all the electrical requirements of the planet, but it's absolutely possible over a generation of humans. China have already exceeded their 2020 5 year target for PV two months ago. At current ramp rates (up in production, down in price) they'll be on track to more than doubling that target by the time 2020 rolls around.

Over the next couple years the global renewable share of new generation is going to increase dramatically, both for reasons of political will (or put another way, our species ongoing existance) but also because it's now beginning to make financial sense.

Regarding Australia and their ongoing bullshit (I mean no offense to our resident aussies), the problem here isn't one of technology, it's because it seems nobody in Australia can organise anything. The regulatory environment has incentivized failure, as long as it's more profitable to do bugger all, you can bet people will continue to do bugger all...

For a comparison, look at the broadband situation in NZ vs Australia. Both countries announced substantial government/private partnerships with big targets for rolling out fibre across their respective countries. Australia created a wholly owned entity, made it illegal to compete with that entity and then continuously pared back funding. The result is in many places WORSE connectivity than people had five years ago. In contrast NZ created a free market tender process for blocks of work, signed (and enforced) contracts with those entities and assisted with the capital with an interest free loan and partial ownership of the joint venture. I've now got a gigabit connection that *actually* runs at gigabit any time of day, no data caps and costs me about $70 aud a month. They're on track to deliver fibre to the premises for 80% of the country in the next couple of years, where Australia was in the low single digit % last time I looked, despite having spent substantially more.

Created the right circumstances, incentivised correctly = good results. Trying to force things artificially tends to go the other way IMO. Market forces can be a very good thing for getting to carbon neutral, but they need to be encouraged with some sort of minimalist intervention.

 

[Hillhater]

... This in turn creates an interesting opportunity for various types of storage. To be 'buying' power for zero or less than zero and then outputting it later makes battery/pumped hydro/heat capture feasible. You can already see the beginnings of market forces correcting for the intermittent output.

This is precisely what the proposed Thermal Solar plant in Port Augusta is going to do.
It is designed specifically to supply as a "peaker" plant, with the storage and output capacity sized to suit the peak period demand (~8hrs) only..with no intentions of supporting the overnight base load requirement.
in effect, they will be "buying power during low price daytime periods to cover off their supply contract to the Government facilities
Without that peak demand pricing advantage, this plant would not be viable.
It is a slick business plan.

 

[TheBeastie]

https://youtu.be/YUSpsT6Oqrg

Great video this one and it points out some interesting facts that most people don't even want to know, such as the fact that while we might have impressive looking numbers on increasing renewables the conventional energy production numbers continue to outgrow them in a global scale, so technically renewables can be viewed as merely decreasing in total comparison numbers.
https://youtu.be/YUSpsT6Oqrg?t=10m56s
This guy touches on some stuff that I think will really alienate hardcore renewables, he even has charts showing that countries that had the least amounts of blackouts due to reliable power had the largest GDP growths. And overall he is very supportive of renewables.

As far as I am concerned when I look at the USA, India, Vietnam and Japan etc its all about the bigger fool game where other countries continue or even massively ramp up their fossil fuel use while trying to claim they are becoming green and at the same time see their economies prosper via reliable cheep energy.
Since Fukushima Japan is almost entirely on fossil fuels now.

I was looking at my new Samsung phone box labels the other day and I noticed most of it even the headphones said "Made in Vietnam" and I realized why Vietnam has been stepping up its coal power-station building so much because they are seeing how much cheap reliable energy is boosting their economy as global players like Samsung start building factories there.
Samsung picks Vietnam for $3bn smartphone factory
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-29985467

Look at all these coal power-stations being built in Vietnam, you can even conveniently watch via googlemaps satellite view and most of these are monster size, some are dubiously missing their expected capacity which really probably means huge.
This is just a random selection of the 40 odd being built/planned or extended with additional turbine units in Vietnam alone.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Thai_Binh_Power_Center
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Cong_Thanh_power_station
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Duyen_Hai_Power_Generation_Complex 4,305 megawatt (MW)
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Binh_Dinh_power_station 3,200-megawatt (MW)
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Na_Duong_power_station
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Dung_Quat_Economic_Zone_power_station_(J-Power)
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Cam_Pha_power_station#Description_of_Expansion_and_Opposition
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Ha_Tinh_Formosa_Plastics_Steel_Complex_power_station
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Van_Phong_power_station 2,640-megawatt (MW)
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Vung_Ang_power_station 4,920-megawatt (MW)
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Vinh_Tan_power_station 6,224-megawatt (MW)

If an Australian government minister saw some of these power-station numbers they would probably crack a boner just thinking about the idea of being allowed to build just one, if they had any intelligence at all.
And the argument that renewable numbers are very vulnerable to manipulation or interpretation is right.
In fact its pretty hard to dig up real hard numbers around the world, the USA via its EIA.gov website completely blows the rest of the world away and reveals just how unbelievably bad some of these projects are.

With the EIA.gov website, you don't even have to apply for a license to log in or anything it's just a single URL and bam the numbers are there which greatly helps Wikipedia summarize the data for everyone else to look at, other countries projects are more secretive than North Korea.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crescent_Dunes_Solar_Energy_Project
https://www.eia.gov/electricity/data/browser/#/plant/57275/?pin=ELEC.PLANT.GEN.57275-SUN-ALL.M&linechart=ELEC.PLANT.GEN.57275-SUN-ALL.M

The new South Australia Aurora Solar Thermal Power project is an exact copy of this Crescent Dunes $1billion solar project in the USA, but look at the numbers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crescent_Dunes_Solar_Energy_Project Its numbers (130,842 MWh_in_a_year / 8760_hours_in_a_year) = 15MW average power vs Hazelwood 12,000,000 MWh / 8760_hours_in_a_year = 1369MW average power output.
(15MW / 1369MW) x 100 = 1.09%
This means almost exactly 1% of the average power from 1960's Hazelwood (1.09%). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hazelwood_Power_Station http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/business/south-australia-energy-plan-port-augusta-will-be-home-to-new-650-million-solar-thermal-power-plant/news-story/857bd46f35b44689846cfbd04a5af54b
Do you think most folks see it presented this way on their local media TV/radio stations? No way and I watch local news sources in Australia on Facebook like GetUP and they lie and mislead on an epic level.
Its more like this, they post these well-made videos that completely fly in the face on EIA/Wikipedia pages its disgusting insult to its followers, I actually try to post on Facebook Getup in the comments section the real world numbers and it gets marked as spam (so its invisible) or straight out deleted 90% of the time.
While I will admit I created this one my self its not really a stretch from what the renewable energy groups claim it could do.


I look at this new report on the same sex marriage debate in the media on how much garbage our local TV and radio stations put out. Watch this in full because it has to be seen to be believed, the short story is the anti-gay poster never ever existed.
https://www.facebook.com/theboltreport/videos/487413581616776/?permPage=1

Also, the fear of nuclear is way over the top I am significantly more afraid of heavy metals than radioactive isotopes, you can buy a cheap meter off ebay and plug it on your phone to detect ionizing radiation but if heavy metals are in your water your in trouble and in the dark.
The fact that solar-panels have heavy or rare earth metals in them and come from dubious manufacturing states like China just like the insanely flammable cladding leads me to believe there will only be a period of time before all those dodgy solar panels start leaking heavy metals on roof top solar into peoples water supply. Almost all farmers use roof top water as drinking water and a lot of suburban housing these days collect rain water from their own roofs to water their veggie gardens etc.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadmium_telluride_photovoltaics
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadmium_poisoning
http://www.news.com.au/world/europe/london-fire-melbourne-skyscraper-fire-caused-by-shoddy-cladding-may-have-been-a-warning-for-london/news-story/6de8652286b765f369e779be3062a45f

It's not that I support coal I just know that new technology like tokamaks will come along in 10 years time and solve our carbon emissions debate, there will be an energy miracle even if it's just boring cheap Gen 4 nuclear. If the tokamak projects come through then it will prove that the money pour into renewables will be one of the biggest wastes of money in human history.
Look at the news that just came out today http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/a27961/mit-nuclear-fusion-experiment-increases-efficiency/

 

[sendler2112]

They're on track for >40GW commissioned this year and interestingly an increasing amount of distributed rooftop solar to better deal with electrical oversupply during daylight hours.

In the period Jan-July 2017, China added 1.09 GW of new nuclear capacity, 6.69 GW of hydro, 7.3 GW of wind and 18.84 GW of thermal power. The size of new solar installations for this period, 34.92 GW, outlines the increasingly important role played by the technology in China’s energy mix.

https://www.pv-magazine.com/2017/08/22/aecea-china-installations-to-surpass-40-gw-in-2017/

More solar PV was commissioned than all other power sources combined for H1 2017.

Sorry but I am very sceptical having been bombarded by inflated claims on every report of renwable installations. 39 GW is a big number. 1/3 was stated as distributed so we will never find where those are. The others must be gigantic (for solar) farms of more than 200MW at least. Of which it would take 100 of these to make it to 26 GW. Completed in 6 months? Where are they all? I can find very little specific info on anything anywhere near this number.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_photovoltaic_power_stations
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http://www.pvresources.com/en/top50pv.php
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And this article states that Solar contributed 1% of China's electricity last year. "Solar plants generated 66.2 billion kilowatt-hours of power last year, accounting for 1 percent of China’s total power generation, the NEA said."
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http://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-solar-idUSKBN15J0G7?utm_campaign=trueAnthem:+Trending+Content&utm_content=589663fb04d301059ff13d69&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=twitter
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[Hillhater]

If an Australian government minister saw some of these power-station numbers they would probably crack a boner just thinking about the idea of being allowed to build just one, if they had any intelligence at all......

...and they would blow a sphincter gasket if they read the PV mag like Ohbse posted, and saw China have a program to install 200 GW of coal power generation , by 2020....Thats just in the next 3 years !

.......The new South Australia Aurora Solar Thermal Power project is an exact copy of this Crescent Dunes $1billion solar project in the USA, ......

....EXCEPT,...in one key area.....Location !
Crescent Dunes is in a high desert area ,..5000+ ft altitude, well away from ocean coastal weather influence.
Aurora will be coastal (Southern Ocean !), near sea level between hill ranges . The clear sunlight hours are much more limited than the US site where the suns direct irradiance power is 30% more than Port Augusta (2685 vs 2067 kWh/sqm/yr )
Though They have increased the collector area by 20% for Aurora....its not enough to compensate.

 

[jonescg]

The fact that solar-panels have heavy or rare earth metals in them and come from dubious manufacturing states like China leads me to believe there will only be a period of time before all those dodgy solar panels start leaking heavy metals on roof top solar into peoples water supply. Almost all farmers use roof top water as drinking water and a lot of suburban housing these days collect rain water from their own roofs to water their veggie gardens etc.

Emissions from Photovoltaic Life Cycles. Fthenakis, Vasilis M. ; Kim, Hyung Chul ; Alsema, Erik. Environmental Science & Technology, 03/2008, Vol.42(6), pp.2168-2174
DOI: 10.1021/es071763q

"For example the emissions of Cd from the life cycle of CdTe PV are 90-300 times lower than those from coal power plants with optimally functioning particulate control devices. In fact, life-cycle Cd emissions are even lower in CdTe PV than in crystalline Si PV, because the former use less energy in their life cycle than the later. In general, thin-film photovoltaics require less energy in their manufacturing than crystalline Si photovoltaics, and this translates to lower emissions of heavy metals, SOx, NOx, PM, and CO2."

 

[Hillhater]

Hey all.
I have to tell you that i have just experienced something new....a ban from posting comments on a tech news.site !
Those journalist on the Reneweconomy site do not want to hear any facts or discussion that is not totally alligned to their version of things.
They are 110%? convinced that more solar, and wind generation is the only way to solve SAs power issues and bring down prices. The Aurora project is seen as a brilliant solution etc etc
Any serious questioning or presentation of cotrary facts is met with derision, insults, abusive name calling, Troll accusations, etc etc.....and then a complete ban, with no explanation !
Ah well, it was not a place i liked anyway .

 

[sendler2112]

Kumbaya

 

[jonescg]

Hey all.
I have to tell you that i have just experienced something new....a ban from posting comments on a tech news.site !

Which article? I want to read it

I read ReNewEconomy pretty frequently because it covers content I am very interested in, but the journalistic quality is garbage. Apart from typos and bad grammar, they do deliberately fail to mention key factors - like cost of installation, impact on national markets and retail pricing, or whether or not a new tariff structure is fair. Above all, I think they tend to forget that while 1 in 4 homes in Australia has PV on the roof, there's 2 in 4 that don't, and there's 1 in 4 that never will, because they rent or don't have the capital to make it work. When a site fails to cover this it's actually doing a disservice.

That said, it's one of a few sites that covers renewable energy and EVs on a regular basis. Is it gospel? Of course not. But it's not exactly commy pinko stuff either.

I like to word my contributions to Giles' articles in such a way that it will cause the reader to take another look at the article and see if it's missing something important. By contrast, busting in and saying 'its bullshit!' while linking a bunch of memes from tinfoil-hat sites would probably hinder the discussion...

 

[sendler2112]

China has big plans to be the world leader in Nuclear power and along with Russia will eventually own all of the intellctual rights to the newer and much improved systems. So when the rest of us finally realize that we need it. We will have to pay them to license and build it for us.
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http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles/countries-a-f/china-nuclear-power.aspx
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[Hillhater]

Hey all.
I have to tell you that i have just experienced something new....a ban from posting comments on a tech news.site !

Which article? I want to read it ...

The article about Aurora..Port Augusta CST... http://reneweconomy.com.au/aurora-what-you-should-know-about-port-augustas-solar-power-tower-86715/
I was posting as "Caffined"
There was a follow up article also regarding the $110m federal loan,..but that was a relatively civil discussion.
The site is interesting, but you will notice that 99% of the comments are fanboys who dont question anything too deeply .!

 

[nutnspecial]

99% of the comments are fanboys who dont question anything too deeply .!

Dammit I hate whenever that happens lol. Some of us should join up to help press their envelope, but it will have to be indirect. I hate being indirect. Maybe that's lazy on my part but I always thought it was wrong? Like I was lying to them in telling them something other than my perception of the truth 'take it or leave it'. Meanwhile I'm aware I respond and grow alot from other people 'lying' to me, maybe because I consider that 'adverse' and strive to overcome all adversity. I wonder if that is normal. Hmm psychology is a biznatch lol.

 

[liveforphysics]

Distributed solar home solar will obsolete the "grids" impact in peoples daily lives.

Big factories and big tower apartment buildings will perhaps still need a "grid" because they won't offer a practical solar collection surface area to be self-sufficient.

Already today for just a few grand you can be a net grid energy provider quite easily (at least in California). Roofing wears out and requires replacement every few decades, when making that replacement also be solar panels is only a few grand difference in price vs a non-solar roof, the importance of the grid in peoples daily lives will be minimal.

The price of a solar roof vs a non-solar roof replacement will be inside of a few grand difference likely before 2020.

 

[sendler2112]

Distributed solar home solar will obsolete the "grids" impact in peoples daily lives.

People so easily forget their true energy footprint. Just because you can unplug your house through thrifty living. We must start to understand that everything in the house. The house itself. everthing outside the house. The roads the factories the stores. The hospitals. The schools. All agriculture. All everything. Is made of vast amounts of energy. 3 TeraWatts continous electrical. 10 TeraWatts continuous average for all energy. And it will all double again by 2050. Rooftop solar is great to distribute the load to help with some of the peak from cooling. But home electric is such a small part of our energy consumption as a civilization.

 

[Hillhater]

No doubt home solar will have a huge uptake,..... mostly driven by the ever increasing cost of grid supply, but until home storage (batteries?) become much, much , more affordable, then grid connection will remain essential for both night time supply and for those periods (days, weeks ?) when there is insufficient solar generation.
Currently home storage costs to provide 24hr supply (10kWh), is roughly 3 times as much as the cost of the (5kWh) solar collector installation , pushing the cost up from $3k for the collector system to $13+k for a battery inclusive system.
Even then, there is still no cover for those bad weather weeks !
So the grid will still be required for the forseeable future even for domestic users with rooftop solar.
Some large industrial users in Au ...(Steel producers, large paper process mills, ). ..have announced plans to install their own power generation capacity due to the increasing move to renewable grid sources and consequent insecurity of base load. Those will undoubtedly be Thermal generation, gas, waste fueled, etc, ..which makes the utility move to renewables a farce !

 

[nutnspecial]

Very true sendler2112.
Even if striving for energy 'perfection', I still realize I'll prob never make my own shoes, learn how to do medical surgery or highly technical medicine; and I will buy some foods, Use at least some 'media', and even the rest of the wood metal plastic or stone (or other building products) for me to make the money for those things, or to even just make a 'home' - EVEN when they're reclaimed and not new they still came from alot of energy. Besides that anything I buy is for a deal and utilizes mass transport that uses- you can't even get alot of things otherwise . .. . But was is this energy we're worried about anyway? Where in the heck am I going with this? It can't be created or destroyed right???

So then why is single use PV so special when mass anything (yes coal, yes nuclear, yes hydro, yes wind, yes biogas) could/can be more efficient overall? Hmmmm. All I can say is it takes many types to build that village. Someday 'that' village will reach utopia, hopefully. In the meantime I step away from anything Corporate as much as possible, starting especially with the info grid /web, especially of the 'sure things', simply since corps are apparently just out to make a buck for their 'holdings', and meanwhile they have all the legal rights of a human but with no conscience or soul to live/die for, or answer for their actions/omissions in blood/sweat/tears. They are a shell for something. Potentially sinister/destructive to our blood/lives/future lives etc. Till I hear otherwise. Merrily merrily merrily, life is but a dream!

then grid connection will remain essential

Yup. It all comes down to the 'storage' of said energy, and/or using 5-10x less than the jones', I guess. But again, who cares how much energy we 'use', when if done safely for current and future life, and it cannot be created or diminished in the first place? But wait I think that goes against another law that all things entropy lol. I don't think our 'laws' are up to date, or maybe it's me.

 

[liveforphysics]

Personally, I don't see going to renewables as a farce, but the only realistic path forward.

No process where you burn something will be a part of a civilization that survives.

 

[kdog]

Yep and if people learn to Reduce their consumption, at least in a domestic sense, the average roof will easily provide the home power. Maybe not all year, but on average. Our 5person home uses less than the average 1 person household, and our 2kw solar set up (small) and evacuated tubes provides about 60% of our annual consumption. This is excess is summer, break even in Autumn deficient in spring/winter by varying degrees.
We don't live a bare minimum existence, but I do wonder where people manage to dump all that power... I mean I'd have to quintuple our power useage to equal the average ( based on power supplier stats)... What the hell do people do with all that power?? I guess I'd have to take into account our wood heater to be fair, cause a lot of people have heat pumps, but that would only be a moderate increase in total power consumption.

 

[Hillhater]

.....No process where you burn something will be a part of a civilization that survives.

Dont you find it ironic that if humans had not harnesed the effects of burning things, we would not have this civilisation as we know it at all.