Wind and Solar vs Coal, Gasoline, Nuclear

[Hillhater]

Nice try Jack, ( terrible grammar tho’) .. but we are not talking about imagination, we are talking about FACTS of what is actually happening currently ....not in 20 years time!
2=3 Gw of wind and Solar does not keep Germany’s industries running. It needs the backup of the Coal, gas , and Nuclear plants to do that.
BUT I can IMAGINE a sustainable energy source that could keep them operating 24/7 reliably....
... but that is not, and never will be, Wind or Solar PV.

 

[Dauntless]

we are not talking about imagination, we are talking about FACTS of what is actually happening . . . .

You sound so sure with that "We." I've read many of his posts across his various names, haven't seen much in facts or 'actually happening' from him. Often quite the opposite.

I'm a big fan of these efforts to extract the pollution from the air and make something from it. Real in the sense they're doing it, but will it ever be REAL important? Far more interesting than his fantasizes.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-03-03/the-innovative-ways-people-are-recycling-air-pollution

 

[sendler2112]

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https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/germanys-energy-consumption-and-power-mix-charts
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[Cephalotus]

Nice try Jack, ( terrible grammar tho’) .. but we are not talking about imagination, we are talking about FACTS of what is actually happening currently ....not in 20 years time!
2=3 Gw of wind and Solar does not keep Germany’s industries running. It needs the backup of the Coal, gas , and Nuclear plants to do that.

In 3 years German industry will run on 0% nuclear

I assume in 10 years it will run on less than 20% coal, maybe less than 10% coal (depending on the price for CO2)

A industry that runs on 50% coal+gas and 50% solar+wind is already much better than a industry that runs on 100% coal+gas.

Primary consumption will shift in the next 10 years, too.

Already 1 out of 10 new sold Porsche is an electric Taycan. VW ID.3 will hit the market in September and I assume we will see sales of electric cars growing quickly.

For heating and small enterprises CO2 prices of 25€/t will be added to fossil fuels starting in 2021 and thos prices will grow to 55€/t in 2025. This will have an impact to shiift heating from oil+gas to heat pumps.

The nice thing is, that primary energy consumption will "automatically" decrease by factor 2-3 when switching from oil+gas in that sectors to electric motors and heat pumps.
Replacing thermal and nuclear power plants with RE will also "automatically" decrease primary energy consumption from those plants by factor 2.5-3, because 1kWh of nuclear power is counted as 3kWh of primary energy (they also count the waste heat that heats the river)

 

[Cephalotus]

The industry in Germany is kept running by 50% of RE. The other is 50% of nuclear and fossil fuels.

NO ..it is not.
Industry cannot be kept running when at times the available RE supply is less than 5% of the demand.

Very obviously it does exactly that.

And just in case if you wonder:

Average electricity export price in 2019 has been 46.99€/MWh and average electriicty import price has been 45.08€/MWh, so Germany did not only export more electricity than it imported, the average export has been more expensive/valueable than the import.

 

[Cephalotus]

BUT I can IMAGINE a sustainable energy source that could keep them operating 24/7 reliably....
... but that is not, and never will be, Wind or Solar PV.

I can not.

In the last 20 years France had been depended on imports from Germany to save them from blackouts. Happened in very hot and dry summers when there was not enough water to cool their nukes (not any more because of PV systems) and it happens in very cold winters when their demand exceeds 100GW.
Afaik Grmany not once depended on France to prevent our grid from a blackout.
It gets more interesting in winter 2022/23.

Europa builds three new nuclear power plants. Every one an economical desatsrer and many years behinde scedule. The most unrealiable electricty source imagingable with 0% capacity factor for years.

Afaik US brought one new reactor online during the least 25 years. Westinghouse tried to build 4 new ones and got bankrupt over them.

Generation 4 reactors are juts fairy tales. Those are fantasies that do no exist in the real world when you want to make electriicty at a competitive price.

 

[sendler2112]

For heating and small enterprises CO2 prices of 25€/t will be added to fossil fuels starting in 2021 and thos prices will grow to 55€/t in 2025. This will have an impact to shift heating from oil+gas to heat pumps.

Do the revenues from Carbon taxes enter into a general tax fund or are they earmarked for special uses such as incentives for private investment in the clean energy transition?

 

[Dauntless]

The Heroin Industry. Leading the way in solar power. Will they integrate nukes next?

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-53450688

 

[sendler2112]

João L R Abegão: Brilliant and insightful with a fascinating command of high level English wordsmith. Artistic as it is essential. Information to steer for better futures.
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https://www.overpopulationatlas.com/post/eternal-recurrence?postId=5f26d03164854800179e1945
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Some excerpts:
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"Still, Khaldun didn't attribute the fall of those societies to global events, but instead to something which will be repeated throughout this work, the greed, selfishness, and inadequacy of ruling elites which end up disturbing the sociopolitical order (Butzer, 2012)."

"Tainter was also on the mark when he combined a thermodynamic factor, as in the case that as the complexity of sociopolitical institutions increases, a higher 'metabolic cost' develops – growing needs for matter, energy, and resultant low entropy. Under these circumstances, more elaborate civilizations are entangled on an entropic trap, which becomes hardly possible to escape (Servigne & Stevens, 2020)."

"Nevertheless, Diamond (and others) affirm that the factor linking all the previous collapses is the last on his list: that of a decaying sociopolitical order, through institutional dysfunction, ideological myopia, escalating levels of inequality, and above all the inadequacy of society – particularly the elites – to proceed accordingly with the threat of catastrophic events"

"When essential resources are depleted and crises mount, societies risk entering into a catabolic collapse, in which a self-reinforcing cycle of conversion of capital to waste (consisting of any material that is used or converted into a pollutant) occurs."
"with the pertinent version of Liebig’s Law expressing that any complex system contingent on several pivotal inputs can be degraded by a single factor in the least supply (Rees, 2017). "

"Henri Bergson deduced that a work of art, if it doesn’t exist, it cannot be imagined (or else, it would have been created). In this manner, the possibility of the artwork is forged at the same time as the work. Therefore, the study of collapse becomes feasible mostly retrospectively"

 

[Cephalotus]

Do the revenues from Carbon taxes enter into a general tax fund or are they earmarked for special uses such as incentives for private investment in the clean energy transition?

Hard to predict.

Political will seems to be to lower the electricity price and to give money for energyefficiency improvements in buildings and maybe some money for electric and hydrogen charging infrastructure.

We will see what happens, lowering the EEG tarrifs für example is not so easy to do within EU law (could be seen as an unlawfull industry subvention

 

[Hillhater]

For heating and small enterprises CO2 prices of 25€/t will be added to fossil fuels starting in 2021 and thos prices will grow to 55€/t in 2025. .......

I find it strange that anyone would be enthusiastic towards any..(.let alone an increasing),.. TAX on a substance that is the foundation of, and essential for, ALL LIFE on earth, and the basis for ALL FOOD that we consume.

 

[sendler2112]

Hard to predict.

Political will seems to be to lower the electricity price and to give money for energyefficiency improvements in buildings and maybe some money for electric and hydrogen charging infrastructure.

We will see what happens, lowering the EEG tarrifs für example is not so easy to do within EU law (could be seen as an unlawfull industry subvention

In the USA there is an interesting and well researched Proposal that keeps being reintroduced in the House of Representatives. H. R. 763. Which is written to be a progressive tax revenue neutral way to gradually rolling in a Carbon tax with 95% (or whatever is left after administration costs) given directly back to all tax payers as an equal dividend to make up for the increased pricing of energy and embodied energy and automatically progressively targeting those wealthy individuals and corporations which consume more than their share. Similar in that way to a value added tax.

 

[Dauntless]

. . . . a progressive tax revenue neutral way to gradually rolling in a Carbon tax with 95% (or whatever is left after administration costs) given directly back to all tax payers as an equal dividend to make up for the increased pricing of energy and embodied energy and automatically progressively targeting those wealthy individuals and corporations which consume more than their share. Similar in that way to a value added tax.

So you pay more than 100% of the tax as the early part of the chain passes the cost on to you, possibly reaching 300% because of finance costs, markup, etc. Then you get 95% back. Yeah, they have to roll that in slowly, the little guy isn't THAT stupid to think this is good. And the government is ready to make you spend $3.00 to get $0.95 back so they can keep a nickel. Business as usual.

 

[sendler2112]

It's not supposed to work that way with increased profit margins all along the way. The intent is that this Carbon tax plan would be revenue neutral to the middle class and down while spurring the market forces to allow a replacement of Carbon energy by increasing it's cost. As it also forces efficiency and automatically places more tax burden on wealthy consumers who can afford to pay for their overconsumption.

 

[Dauntless]

So you're saying a government program will work the way it's supposed to work. That the government intends to act as intended. Revenue neutral. In the same breath as "Government." It's not increased profit margins, it's increased COST. Like minimum wage increases, where the internal labor cost goes up, the cost from suppliers goes up, the prices go up more than the minimum wage went up so it's a net loss, but government is happy because if anyone does make more money they get pushed to a higher tax bracket so government can tax it more.

For all their verbage, government has no intention of doing something, anything, that benefits YOU. They'll tell you all about what you're supposed to believe and never question. . . .

 

[JackFlorey]

So you're saying a government program will work the way it's supposed to work.

Yep. Most do, despite the Ayn Rand types. The Apollo program, the US highway system, and air traffic control come to mind.

For all their verbage, government has no intention of doing something, anything, that benefits YOU.

The EPA benefited everyone in the US. Coal deaths are down by 90% since 2000, for example. That's 27,000 more people surviving every year.

 

[Dauntless]

So you're saying a government program will work the way it's supposed to work.

Yep. Most do, despite the Ayn Rand types. The Apollo program, the US highway system, and air traffic control come to mind.

Actually no, most simply continue, Such as Rural Electric Administration which has its' own department head going to Congress to push for dissolution because it had obviously outlived its' usefulness decades earlier and now was just a tax drain. Congress did nothing. Most people hold up the Federal Highway Administration to illustrate the flaw in your thinking. Air Traffic Control which had pretty much every employee walk off the job one day, etc. The Apollo control simulator that was a firetrap and not really a simulated space capsule, ah well, if you just want to fantasize all is well. . . .

Government programs work, eh? https://www.npr.org/2020/05/04/848389343/how-did-the-small-business-loan-program-have-so-many-problems-in-just-4-weeks

 

[sendler2112]

The interstate highway system has served me well for half a million miles My public high school education including algebra, geometry, trig, chemistry, and physics, has served me well. My public firefighters and rescue do a good job. My local police are even quite respectable. My water system always works well and public regulation has given us a clean wastewater treatment plant.

 

[Hillhater]

......The Apollo program, the US highway system, and air traffic control come to mind.

+ the Police force
+the Fire dept
+ Education
+ the Armed Services
Etc..
All of those gave you something tangible in return. ( well, Apollo is debateable !)..
But a carbon tax is just a money grab on invisible, but essential, gas based on a theoretical benefit...
IE they are expecting you to “believe” in the returns.
...much like contributions to a Church !

 

[JackFlorey]

But a carbon tax is just a money grab on based on a theoretical benefit IE they are expecting you to “believe” in the returns.

A carbon tax reduces carbon emissions and thus reduces economic impact caused by climate change. That damage is estimated to be $250 billion by 2025 and $1.9 trillion (in 2020 dollars) by 2100 in the US alone. Thus a carbon tax that reduces that damage has and easily quantifiable value.

the Fire dept

What service does the fire department provide you if your house is not currently on fire?

 

[Hillhater]

But a carbon tax is just a money grab on based on a theoretical benefit IE they are expecting you to “believe” in the returns.

A carbon tax reduces carbon emissions and thus reduces economic impact caused by climate change. That damage is estimated to be $250 billion by 2025 and $1.9 trillion (in 2020 dollars) by 2100 in the US alone. Thus a carbon tax that reduces that damage has and easily quantifiable value.

No jack...
...you do not know that is the benefit, that is just what you have been told to justify the concept.
..and you have chosen to BELIEVE it
Just blind faith. !
What will you believe in when the claimed Climate Change nor the increase on CO2 ppm, is not impacted by any amount of human initiated CO2 reduction ?

 

[sendler2112]

But a carbon tax is just a money grab on based on a theoretical benefit IE they are expecting you to “believe” in the returns.

You need to read the proposal of H.R. 763, It is designed to give back all of the fees as dividends to every tax payer so that only above average consumption will equate to a net increased tax burden. Poor people that don't consume as much will actually get back more than they pay in increased prices of energy and goods.
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https://citizensclimatelobby.org/energy-innovation-and-carbon-dividend-act/

 

[JackFlorey]

...you do not know that is the benefit, that is just what you have been told to justify the concept.
..and you have chosen to BELIEVE it
Just blind faith. !

Just like the fire department. You do not need them, but you support them because you have BLIND FAITH that you MIGHT need them someday!

What will you believe in when the claimed Climate Change nor the increase on CO2 ppm, is not impacted by any amount of human initiated CO2 reduction ?

What will you believe when it's proven that CO2 is a greenhouse gas and that it has been driving the warming we are seeing? Will you simply deny the science? Because that's what happened. There are a few Flat Earthers left who don't believe in science, but 90% of the world now understands the science behind climate change. Even here in the Trump-led US, only 40% of Americans reject climate science.

 

[Hillhater]

Just like the fire department. You do not need them, but you support them because you have BLIND FAITH that you MIGHT need them someday! ?

You can SEE the fire dept, you KNOW what they will do if your pants catch fire
You KNOW that some unfortunate day you WILL need them
Its called insurance against a KNOWN RISK.

What will you believe when it's proven that CO2 is a greenhouse gas and that it has been driving the warming we are seeing? Will you simply deny the science? Because that's what happened. There are a few Flat Earthers left who don't believe in science, but 90% of the world now understands the science behind climate change. Even here in the Trump-led US, only 40% of Americans reject climate science.

It is a “green house gas”. As are many other gasses in the atmosphere,..the question is just how influential is it, and just how much CONTROL over it do you believe we humans actually have ?
If you believe Al Gore, then we should be dead by now, .. but if you believe in real science facts then you are wasting time , money, and enormous resources, hateing on an invisible gas that is essential to our existance, and that we have NO CONTROL over.

 

[jonescg]

Anyway, Perth just recorded it's second warmest July on record. The warmest being waaaay back in... 2019

National trend is suggesting something but I can't put my finger on it...