Wind and Solar vs Coal, Gasoline, Nuclear

[Hillhater]

With the way utility costs are going up its a great time to invest in them and to use less energy, .......
......I know an old girlfriend who had parents living out in the country would buy propane to fill their big tank with.

Calab, much will depend on where you live..country, city, rural, etc etc.
In many developed areas , wood burning is not allowed, and even collecting wood from forrests is illegal ! ( our “green” friends introduced that idea !). Even in rural , forrested areas near me, folk have to buy wood from licienced suppliers, if they want to burn their wood stove...and that is not cheap,..roughly $0.50 per kg .!
Few have the luxury of their own personal wood supply in quantity to run their needs sustainably.
Then there is the convenience, ease of use, factors to consider.
For most , It is cheaper to use electric Reverse Cycle Aircon to warm the house, hot water, cooking, etc.
Bottled LPG is a good alternative for those who want open flame cooking and heating etc.
The cheapest energy source for most is still utility electricity from coal/gas generation plants.

 

[CONSIDERABLE SHOUTING]

With the way utility costs are going up its a great time to invest in them and to use less energy, .......
......I know an old girlfriend who had parents living out in the country would buy propane to fill their big tank with.

Calab, much will depend on where you live..country, city, rural, etc etc.
In many developed areas , wood burning is not allowed, and even collecting wood from forrests is illegal ! ( our “green” friends introduced that idea !). Even in rural , forrested areas near me, folk have to buy wood from licienced suppliers, if they want to burn their wood stove...and that is not cheap,..roughly $0.50 per kg .!

Dude you're in Australia. Not only are you slapping your laws on other nations, you also have Eucalyptus that NEEDS fire to germinate, and massive wildfire risk. Different Strokes for different... nations.

The cheapest energy source for most is still utility electricity from coal/gas generation plants.

Not much in the USA- my home is partially heated by natural gas, and my heating bill literally doubled this past year despite this being the warmest winter I remember. I've gotta get some kind of supplemental system, including my fireplace back to work, I should NOT be paying near $100/month when I have brand-new doors and windows goddamnit!

 

[ZeroEm]

Worked on autos years back. The getting hot and melting is an issue with the motor not being setup right. Wrong plugs, timing, fuel mixture, .....ect.
The starting it on gas is to warm us the heat exchanger. They were running liquid (that's normal) and needed heat to vaporize it into a gas. You switch back to gasoline before shutting it off so it starts easily. Was around a lot of truck on propane, don't remember any issues but everyone was used to it and setup right.

by Ianhill » Feb 12 2022 9:16am

Im confused we had lpg vans in my works started in petrol then warmed up switch to lpg and needed to be run on petrol again before shutdown or they get hot, theres little charge cool effect from lpg compared to gasoline so when ever they get pushed hard they overheat least the 1.6 petrol equivalent vans from peugeot and alike did thats the only experience with it i had.

The spark plugs lasting longer just never happened it was getting to hot in the cyclinder and melting the electrode that vapourised metal will stick somewhere likely the rings as theres cool oil behind them they wear faster and compression would falls to pieces too differing across the block.

Im thinking now did the us and aus get something better maybe the larger dispalcment engines didnt need the thrashing the euro boxes do and never got to the melt point of plugs etc.

 

[ZeroEm]

One thing everyone forgets, Fossil fuels are limited and will run out. The best coal and easy oil is gone. It cost more to get less. The last big fields of oil is north and we can get to it now as the ice is mostly gone.

 

[CONSIDERABLE SHOUTING]

One thing everyone forgets, Fossil fuels are limited and will run out. The best coal and easy oil is gone. It cost more to get less. The last big fields of oil is north and we can get to it now as the ice is mostly gone.

Yep. We have a hard deadline of about 50 years remaining, and that means modern life literally runs out. No plastics, no engine oil, no gas... even if transport is solved through EV, the sheer number of things that rely on them now means you'd honestly stop modern society in it's tracks. Pharmaceuticals, single-use surgical equipment, furniture, car or technical parts... There's billions going into 'cracking' ocean plastic back into a harvestable form, but its far too expensive to be market viable and we've been trying to do it for decades.

We will be forced to begin rationing fuel and petroleum for decades BEFORE that doomsday happens, but it's not gonna be fun when we start. Our usage only ticks up each year, petroleum really is like heroin :/

 

[Ianhill]

Stop listening to the oil funded news, we lived long before the stuff and can continue long after too, its not oil that made the universe possible nor does it come close to the possiblitys available in time.

Open our minds eye and see this is a moment in tine to be enjoyed not made out to be hell the worlds never been better everyone needs a smoke of tysons toad.

One thing i know about myself is i preform best when shit hits the fan and chips are down, we dont have the solution but dont need one either way i see it just got to hold the game open long enough for Ai to be the next singularity to change the way we live our lives all over again.

If you look back over time for singularity events based on human inputs you will see they are getting more regular as our science improves and numbers increase so as long as these driving forces are in place theres still strong hope many will reach the next level of living how ever it looks.

 

[Hillhater]

Dude you're in Australia. Not only are you slapping your laws on other nations, ......
....I've gotta get some kind of supplemental system, including my fireplace back to work, I should NOT be paying near $100/month when I have brand-new doors and windows goddamnit!

Which laws would that be ?
I hope you have a large personal supply of free firewood.......but, that cannot work for everybody .

 

[Ianhill]

Watched a good ine today ona school teacher having a breakdown and goes to shetland islands to live a quiet life how mistaken she was but to stubburn to admit it, the partner was growing a hatred to her but he was too in love to challenge her.

Even with peat on thier land they could not cut enough uo and dry it out to keep themself warm all winter, the reality was she run away from urban lifes stresses to be overcome by a life they had no atrachment to making everything take twice as long and cost alot more in money as they had sold everything they had and was now living bread line.

Reality is we bitch and moan but its the best way we got to live to date people of the past wouldnt of made the changes to their life otherwise we be told stoke the fire boil a back boiler and live a slow life of little earning.

 

[Hillhater]

One thing everyone forgets, Fossil fuels are limited and will run out. The best coal and easy oil is gone. It cost more to get less. The last big fields of oil is north and we can get to it now as the ice is mostly gone.

Yep. We have a hard deadline of about 50 years remaining, .......

Certainly Ffuels are a finite resource, and we should not waste them on applications where there are simple , proven , alternatives ( EVs etc).
But that “50 years” is a little worn out,...it was being used 50 years ago ..1970s ( actually back then the word was only 20 years of oil left !)... so just be careful where you source your information.
Coal and Gas are in a different league, with massive resources still untapped. There only limitations currently are those imposed by Green thinking, not by nature.
In time ...soon.. alternative energy sources (Nuclear etc) will substitute for much of the uses of these Fossil fuels also, ....
.....providing the Green movement can be shut up.!

 

[CONSIDERABLE SHOUTING]

Dude you're in Australia. Not only are you slapping your laws on other nations, ......
....I've gotta get some kind of supplemental system, including my fireplace back to work, I should NOT be paying near $100/month when I have brand-new doors and windows goddamnit!

Which laws would that be ?
I hope you have a large personal supply of free firewood.......but, that cannot work for everybody .

Bro you literally said Aus has laws against gathering firewood.

I actually live in a pretty heavily wooded area.

 

[Hillhater]

Bro you literally said Aus has laws against gathering firewood.

I actually live in a pretty heavily wooded area.

Sure did,...but i didnt suggest that it was a good law or that it should apply anywhere else !
Wooded area ....but is it yours to use freely ?
We can get a permit to collect fallen wood here, but that is a time consuming and labour intense fuel source....
....compared to using the RC aircon...
...or my wood pellet furnace which is simple, clean, and cheap to run !

 

[calab]

Surprisingly Texas has a lot of wind and solar that I was never aware of, and I did not know the backup dino fossils froze in the pipes.

 

[Hillhater]

...... I did not know the backup dino fossils froze in the pipes.g

They froze because the operator/ owners did not do as they were advised in 2011 , to “Weatherproof” the critical infrastructure .
A case of cost cutting biting everyone on the ass !

 

[calab]

Then please blame who needs to be blamed, the government for not inspecting. That is what it always comes down to.

They froze because the operator/ owners did not do as they were advised in 2011 , to “Weatherproof” the critical infrastructure .
A case of cost cutting biting everyone on the ass !

 

[CONSIDERABLE SHOUTING]

Surprisingly Texas has a lot of wind and solar that I was never aware of, and I did not know the backup dino fossils froze in the pipes.

Yep, because the oil and gas industry in Texas makes Ted Cruz the #1 on the list of "Receives the most money from corporate donations" here, per official campaign donation trackers. They really don't want anyone to know, that last year all the power coming from solar and natural gas turbines was being pumped to dry coal off before it could even be processed enough for burning and not for warming homes.

Texas will never fix it's grid. They don't care how many die- see COVID.

 

[CONSIDERABLE SHOUTING]

Then please blame who needs to be blamed, the government for not inspecting. That is what it always comes down to.

Two words- Regulatory Capture. If you want things fixed permanently, you're gonna have to get mean and you're gonna have to tear some shit down.

 

[calab]

It is the age old problem, politicians being paid off by big corporations, and hiding stuff in big bills that no one reads.

 

[Hillhater]

They really don't want anyone to know, that last year all the power coming from solar and natural gas turbines was being pumped to dry coal off before it could even be processed enough for burning and not for warming homes.

Utter bollocks !......Electricty for drying coal ...where do you get these ideas ?
1) Texas has little more than “Token” Solar power (2%) which would not be generating much at all during the storms , let alone at night !
2 ) Coal is often dried before burning, with most plants using waste heat from the exhaust of the main burners for that purpose.
3) the energy required to do any drying of coal is miniscule compared to the energy generated by burning it
5 ) Gas generation capacity in Texas is 3x that of coal .

Infact, the key issue was the freezing of the gas at the wellheads due to the high moisture content and the failure of the operators to install pipe heating to prevent this well known problem.
FYI Gas, Coal and Nuclear supply over 80% of the Electricity consumed in Texas.
If you want to “Finger” anyone for those power failures, then ERCOT the independent regulator for the state ,..is the target.
They have a dedicated Reliability and Operations. Committee dedicated to ensure supply is maintained.! :lol:

 

[Ianhill]

It is the age old problem, politicians being paid off by big corporations, and hiding stuff in big bills that no one reads.

The problem was lack of preasure from goverment to prepare for cold weather that lead to the using the media arm to to decive the public with lies as usual people fall for it.

 

[calab]

From Aug 2020 for Texas
https://comptroller.texas.gov/economy/fiscal-notes/2020/august/ercot.php

 

[Hillhater]

What that annual supply chart does not show is how consistent the various sources are..
Solar is obviously only able to produce power for <50% of the time, ..
And wind output is constantly varying between zero and some unpredictable amount.
All the time the Gas and Coal plants are having to compensate for the variations, meaning they have to maintain sufficient spare capacity for potentially replacing ALL the wind and solar contribution at times.
That has significant effect on efficiency and operating costs

 

[TheBeastie]

Stop listening to the oil funded news

I don't know if it's exactly the same all over the world but the twisted reality of Australian fossil fuel generators and energy companies is that they have ALL been building wind/solar plants ever since subsidies came in for renewables while SHUTTING down their fossil fuel arms, and have ended up making far MORE money, because all the renewables and lack of energy supply forced up the prices of energy, due to "Supply and demand LAW".

The sad (twisted) reality is I am super-sure the fossil fuel companies knew they would ONLY end up making more money, they knew the more wind/solar were embraced while shutting down their fossil fuel arms the MORE money they would make. :x :lol: :x

Like I said in my last post, the owner of Hazelwood made a killing selling whole sale electricity from it's other assets AFTER closing their "evil" Hazelwood coal-power station, and yes of course they knew it would happen. The particularly crazy thing about Hazelwood was the Victorian government basically forced them to do it, when normally it's something the energy companies want to do but are afraid of the backlash from at least the local jobs and surrounding community...
https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=89002&start=6875#p1700362

To give you a mere taste of how much research fossil fuel companies do on any project is the fact they have all long had the most powerful super-computers and research teams in the world.
BP supercomputer now world’s most powerful for commercial research
https://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/news-and-insights/press-releases/bp-supercomputer-now-worlds-most-powerful-for-commercial-research.html

The fossil fuel companies have long just been secretly laughing at the general public who think they are hurting them by all moving to "renewables", because the FF companies paid for the best minds in the world to research what the outcome would be, and BP etc all knew from the start they would just make FAR more money "moving to renewables".

Every FF CEO would have commissioned more research 10 times over, and would just get summary report saying "no matter what model used the more renewables deployed the more money we will make guaranteed, no matter what".

The "big evil fossil fuel companies" have always been 3 steps a head from the VERY beginning.

In Australia for the last 10 years its been a problem where the "evil fossil fuel" energy companies have been closing their coal-power stations even decades earlier then expect in some cases. The federal government has offered to buy them from the energy companies but they of course have refused to sell and are just dismantling them.
Yallourn, one of Australia's last brown coal power stations, to close early in favour of giant battery
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/mar/10/yallourn-close-early-victoria-australia-brown-coal-power-stations-giant-battery
AGL brings forward closure date of two largest coal-fired power plants as market shifts to renewables
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/feb/10/agl-brings-forward-closure-date-of-two-largest-coal-fired-power-plants-as-market-shifts-to-renewables
Australia’s largest coal-fired power station, Eraring, to close in 2025, seven years early
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/feb/17/australias-largest-coal-fired-power-station-eraring-to-close-in-2025-seven-years-early
^I am using The Guardian here which will have the most twisted anti fossil fuel way of reporting it all and it still is pretty clear.

I feel stupid even having to point this stuff out.

 

[CONSIDERABLE SHOUTING]

I can't get over how HH somehow thinks that coal naturally repels water and ice, as if it has some kind of force field- this just cements my opinion that the real reason he's never been banned is because there's a mod that finds him too funny to yeet out of here :lol: . I thought only Europeans claimed to know what was best for America, but w/e

Thanks for the writeup Beastie. None of that is too shocking, of course- when you literally the economies of several nations and your wealth means you have to play games between everything from extremist religions to world powers, you have to get very crafty, apropos of any "conspiracy".

 

[Voltron]

Plus, putting big piles of wet coal next to dry coal, or letting too much moisture condense on large piles can make them spontaneously combust.

And it turns out wind power works out pretty well in storms...


"Power prices have tumbled as stormy weather across Europe helped drive some of the highest output from wind turbines ever recorded."
"German prices fell by more than two-thirds to their lowest this year, while output from wind farms in the country is set to double by tomorrow morning.
Millions of people have been told to stay at home as one of the worst storms in decades batters Britain. But the jump in wind generation will offer some relief to strained energy markets, which have relied heavily on coal and gas amid a supply crunch."


https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/retail-sales-rebound-despite-inflation-222232622.html

 

[Hillhater]

I can't get over how HH somehow thinks that coal naturally repels water and ice, .....

...and i cant get over how you imagine i said any thing like that ?
Would you care to quote me from somewhere ?
My comment was ..

.2 ) Coal is often dried before burning, .......

...
..and i would further comment to say that many coal plants go to the extent of using surplus process heat to reduce
the natural water content (up to 50% by weight of Lignite) to INCREASE the overall efficiency of the plants
And whilst you are at it, how about some reference for your comment....

....last year all the power coming from solar and natural gas turbines was being pumped to dry coal off before it could even be processed enough for burning and not for warming homes.

.