Wind and Solar vs Coal, Gasoline, Nuclear

[cricketo]

I guess you are using "lasting" as your "get out " in that statement.?
But death is pretty lasting for those involved, and plenty of people have died as a result of failed dams.
..Just one such event in China...

26,000 dead from flooding, 145,000 dead from subsequent famine and epidemics, 11 million homeless. Caused loss of generation, [4]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_hydroelectric_power_station_failures

They also say that exclusion zone around Chernobyl has created an excellent refuge for the wildlife. So we should replace all those hydro plants with a bunch of nukes. In all seriousness though, while hydro is renewable, it is not alternative. Its negative effects on environment and society are well understood, and many facilities have been decommissioned or cancelled because of that. Same with solar thermal plants, they're alternative and renewable, but have negative effects on the environment as well. Hence it was correct to ask specifically about PVs and not just renewables.

Further, the current political pressure from the AGW (RE) movement, has seriously restricted access to funding for developing countries to build coal/gas fueled generation infrastructure to inprove living standards for millions.
Even in the developed world, RE has resulted in higher power costs for those countries that have invested in it, leading to thousands of poverty level citizens , pensioners, etc, being unable to afford the higher costs and resulting in them litterally having to choose between heating or eating and significantly increasing risk of death from malnutrician , hypothermia, and heat stroke.
Any form of energy generation has its risks

You forgot to talk about cardiovascular and respiratory illness; cell damage in the respiratory system; accelerated aging of the lungs; increased rates of asthma, bronchitis, emphysema, cancer and many other factors associated with "improved living standards" within your fossil fuel vision. All you have to answer for that is "escalation of commitment" - to you problem isn't we're burning fossils, problem is we're not burning enough, so we're not very good at it. Well, one could dream

 

[Hillhater]

No ! Chalo was very clear....and specifically stated "renewables"

Chalo wrote: ↑Dec 06 2018 6:13am
There are no lasting consequences of an accident in renewable power.

... You just chose to change the context to avoid the facts.

And there was no need for me to debate the pros/cons of fossil vs RE generation. (Which is well catered for elseware), as i was responding to chalo's statement , by pointing out the often conveniently overlooked issues that are part of the RE dream.

 

[cricketo]

No ! Chalo was very clear....and specifically stated "renewables"

That's the case of selective hearing / reading on your part. This was said first :

What's the worst photovoltaic accident you can imagine?

 

[Hillhater]

No ..its a case of replying to a specific statement !
....rather that the one you thought i had !
Maybe its you who suffers from selective reading ??

 

[cricketo]

No ..its a case of replying to a specific statement !
....rather that the one you thought i had !
Maybe its you who suffers from selective reading ??

So let me see if I get this right... you couldn't provide any examples in the context of PVs as originally questioned, so you ignored the question and instead jumped on it when it was reiterated in more general terms... Were you on a debate team in high school by any chance ?

 

[billvon]

They also say that exclusion zone around Chernobyl has created an excellent refuge for the wildlife. So we should replace all those hydro plants with a bunch of nukes. In all seriousness though, while hydro is renewable, it is not alternative.

It is certainly alternative. Fossil fuels have been our primary source of power for a long time; alternatives like hydro, solar, wind, geothermal etc are (fortunately) growing. Many people don't think of hydro as alternative* because it's not "cool" - it's an old technology, using concrete and steel rather than semiconductors and high tech turbines. But being capable of both baseload and peaking - and being able to store unused energy - it's one of the most important alternative sources of energy we have. Unfortunately it's not viable everywhere.

Its negative effects on environment and society are well understood, and many facilities have been decommissioned or cancelled because of that. Same with solar thermal plants, they're alternative and renewable, but have negative effects on the environment as well.

Of course. All forms of energy have negative effects. Thus choosing wisely is critical.

(Hillhater said) . . . leading to thousands of poverty level citizens , pensioners, etc, being unable to afford the higher costs and resulting in them litterally having to choose between heating or eating and significantly increasing risk of death from malnutrician , hypothermia, and heat stroke.

And ironically, the warming caused by our use of fossil fuels will make the risk of heatstroke even higher.

You forgot to talk about cardiovascular and respiratory illness; cell damage in the respiratory system; accelerated aging of the lungs; increased rates of asthma, bronchitis, emphysema, cancer and many other factors associated with "improved living standards" within your fossil fuel vision

Yep. And it is worth noting that fossil fuels have, in the past, killed millions. In 2000, coal was killing 30,000 people a year in the US. In 1952, a single smog event in London killed 4000 people over five days, and 10,000 people total. For decades doctors had a simple prescription for people in Los Angeles with asthma - "move."

(* - this leads to odd divisions in renewable energy portfolios. For example, in California, many portfolios separate out microhydro as renewable but large scale hydro as conventional. Note that there was no hard definition of microhydro for a long time; they have now chosen 30 megawatts as the dividing line with several exceptions.)

 

[Hillhater]

i would not have time to respond to every dumb ass statement posted on here, so i simply reply to thase where i know they are incorrect.
But, on the subject of PV generation, consider the well known fact that it is barely useful without some form of storage, and the only realistic storage with useful capacity currently, is Hydro.
So, in reality Utility solar PV is joined at the hip with hydro ....so it ought to share some of the responsibility for hydro accidents ! :wink:
And then there is this from Wiki/Forbes
Energy Source Mortality Rate (deaths/trillionkWhr)
Coal – U.S. 10,000 (32% electricity)
Solar (rooftop) 440 (< 1% electricity)
Hydro – U.S. 5 (6% electricity)
Nuclear – U.S. 0.1 (19% electricity)

 

[Chalo]

But, on the subject of PV generation, consider the well known fact that it is barely useful without some form of storage,

??? Is the word "fact" pronounced "bullshit" in your country?

Where I live, the heaviest power loads occur during the brightest part of the day, when air conditioning is being used heavily. That makes PV a good match for cyclic demand. It also suggests that it would be good to use the west-facing slope of a roof when feasible.

 

[Hillhater]

In most parts of the world (including the USA). the FACT is that The highest loads occur in the evening , 6-10pm when everyone get home and want to cool/heat the house, cook, shower, boila hot drink, etc etc.
https://goo.gl/images/P1y5DG

 

[billvon]

In most parts of the world (including the USA). the FACT is that The highest loads occur in the evening , 6-10pm when everyone get home and want to cool/heat the house, cook, shower, boila hot drink, etc etc.

Yep. Let's look at a warm day in California - July 7th 2018 - using actual data. Peak load occurred at 6pm - 35,338 megawatts. Sunrise that day was 5:47am; sunset was 7:59pm. At 6pm, nontracking solar power systems were generating about 40% of their peak; tracking systems were running at 65% of their peak. So with 23 gigawatts of solar installed, solar was contributing about 33% of the total peak load.

Not bad. Lots of peakers didn't have to run that day.

 

[sendler2112]

Electricitymap.org is fun to look at.
.
https://www.electricitymap.org/?page=country&solar=false&remote=true&wind=false&countryCode=US-CA
.

 

[Hillhater]

In most parts of the world (including the USA). the FACT is that The highest loads occur in the evening , 6-10pm when everyone get home and want to cool/heat the house, cook, shower, boila hot drink, etc etc.

Yep. Let's look at a warm day in California - July 7th 2018 - using actual data. Peak load occurred at 6pm - 35,338 megawatts. Sunrise that day was 5:47am; sunset was 7:59pm. At 6pm, nontracking solar power systems were generating about 40% of their peak; tracking systems were running at 65% of their peak. So with 23 gigawatts of solar installed, solar was contributing about 33% of the total peak load.

Not bad. Lots of peakers didn't have to run that day.

Not bad for a peak summer day..
... But your "actual data" seems to be out of wack with Caiso.com.
http://www.caiso.com/TodaysOutlook/Pages/supply.aspx
....who recorded a July 7th, 6 pm peak of 41.2 GW with a solar contribution of 4.5 GW....less than 11% of peak load ?
But why not pick another typical recent day..like yesterday , December 5th..
6pm peak demand of 30GW, with a solar contribution of ..0.0 GW..!!.....because the solar had "clocked off" by 4:30 .

 

[billvon]

But why not pick another typical recent day..like yesterday , December 5th.. 6pm peak demand of 30GW, with a solar contribution of ..0.0 GW..!!.....because the solar had "clocked off" by 4:30

Good example. With a peak demand of 30GW, there was minimal stress on the grid. No need for extra support.

 

[Hillhater]

But why not pick another typical recent day..like yesterday , December 5th.. 6pm peak demand of 30GW, with a solar contribution of ..0.0 GW..!!.....because the solar had "clocked off" by 4:30

Good example. With a peak demand of 30GW, there was minimal stress on the grid. No need for extra support.

" No need for extra support." ??.... So why were they importing 9.2 GW from out of state , at the very same time, to meet that demand ??
And i will save you the trouble of checking the Wind generation,....it was 0.87 GW ! (15% the 5.7GW installed)

But back to the original point of Chalo's,....that peak demand coinsided with solar supply.....it doesnt !
.....and much of the time there is no solar generation at the time of peak demand. Hence the need for storage .

 

[sendler2112]

We can't expect to carry on the same as before. Consumption will have to follow production. Not the other way around. Everything will have to change.

 

[billvon]

We can't expect to carry on the same as before. Consumption will have to follow production. Not the other way around.

It will of course be a combination of both. Lower production will drive prices higher. Higher prices will enable production of more difficult to access resources. As production increases, prices will drop (or more likely, will not rise as fast.)

 

[cricketo]

It is certainly alternative. Fossil fuels have been our primary source of power for a long time; alternatives like hydro, solar, wind, geothermal etc are (fortunately) growing.

You're correct, I misused the term.

All forms of energy have negative effects.

So what are the inherent negatives of PVs that you can think of ?

 

[billvon]

So what are the inherent negatives of PVs that you can think of ?

Pollution during manufacture. Risks during installation. Energy use during manufacture.

Needless to say, these risks are much, much lower than the risks of something like coal.

 

[cricketo]

So what are the inherent negatives of PVs that you can think of ?

Pollution during manufacture. Risks during installation. Energy use during manufacture.

Needless to say, these risks are much, much lower than the risks of something like coal.

None of those are inherent to PVs, and can be avoided. It is not necessary to pollute, not all solar projects are roof top ones, and energy used for manufacturing can come from clean sources including PVs themselves.

 

[billvon]

None of those are inherent to PVs, and can be avoided. It is not necessary to pollute, not all solar projects are roof top ones, and energy used for manufacturing can come from clean sources including PVs themselves.

Agreed. But you can say the same thing for nuclear power. The risks of meltdowns can be avoided completely by building inherently safe plants. You can recycle the waste and turn it into new fuel.

Heck, you could even say the same for coal power. If you require all the ash to be stored on-site in lined pits forever, require the sequestration of all pollutants (including CO2) and require 100% underground mining, then you'd avoid almost all the current problems of coal. However, no one is willing to pay for that.

The benefit of solar is not that's it's perfectly clean or perfectly safe. The big benefits are that PV lasts a long time, emits no pollution in operation and requires no fuel - and from a financial perspective it's very cheap.

 

[cricketo]

None of those are inherent to PVs, and can be avoided. It is not necessary to pollute, not all solar projects are roof top ones, and energy used for manufacturing can come from clean sources including PVs themselves.

Agreed. But you can say the same thing for nuclear power. The risks of meltdowns can be avoided completely by building inherently safe plants. You can recycle the waste and turn it into new fuel.

Heck, you could even say the same for coal power. If you require all the ash to be stored on-site in lined pits forever, require the sequestration of all pollutants (including CO2) and require 100% underground mining, then you'd avoid almost all the current problems of coal. However, no one is willing to pay for that.

The benefit of solar is not that's it's perfectly clean or perfectly safe. The big benefits are that PV lasts a long time, emits no pollution in operation and requires no fuel - and from a financial perspective it's very cheap.

No, you can't say the same thing about nuclear. Even if you were theoretically to construct a perfectly safe reactor, which was the suggested that you can't really do, you're still on the hook for handling radioactive materials on the way to/from such reactor, which inherently poses a risk.

Likewise, no matter how much cleaner coal plants are made, you're on the hook to support coal mining operations with their own issues and transportation (another operation proved to have issues) of that coal to destination plants. And yes, underground mining solves one issue in favor of another. How many lives have been lost underground every year ?

With PVs, the only thing that comes close to having inherent risks are the kinds of PVs that rely on heavy metals and toxic compounds, but those can be avoided.

 

[sendler2112]

CO2 emissions on the rise again.
.
https://www.resilience.org/stories/2018-12-06/analysis-fossil-fuel-emissions-in-2018-increasing-at-fastest-rate-for-seven-years/
.

 

[sendler2112]

Economy and CO2 are closely linked.
.
.

.
.
https://www.resilience.org/stories/2018-12-06/cop24-climate-protesters-must-get-radical-and-challenge-economic-growth/
.

 

[Hillhater]

Economy and CO2 are closely linked.

.

I know CO2 is an important component of our world, but i never suspected such a direct correlation to Economic performance !
However, Im sure the IPCC will have a scientific explanation and a "model" to prove the "Economic Greenhouse" effect of CO2 ! :lol:

 

[cricketo]

Economy and CO2 are closely linked.

.

I know CO2 is an important component of our world, but i never suspected such a direct correlation to Economic performance !
However, Im sure the IPCC will have a scientific explanation and a "model" to prove the "Economic Greenhouse" effect of CO2 ! :lol:

Yup! And it's a proof that Venus has a far superior economy which should be met with some serious tariffs to prevent unfair competition!