[QUOTE=DSeid]
Oh, just trying to provide some actual facts that may inform the debate. The links actually provide some support to both sides of the discussion. China is building more more efficient plants and more efficient means less CO2. Of course, as Una pointed out when I first brought up this cite, America isn’t building much new coal at all. And indeed if one considers GE an American company then America is selling less dirty coal technology to China. They are rapidly growing their low CO2 portfolio and exporting some of the technology. Low CO2 technology is another industry for them try to dominate globally. But yes, first and foremost, they are expanding their electricity generation in every way they can. They have answered the question of “Nuclear, coal, renewables?” with “Yes.” Lower pollution and lower CO2 when possible, or perhaps more accurately, convenient, to do so, but all of the above and each as fast as possible.
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Cool. Facts are always welcome in a debate. I agree with your point about what technologies they are going with being answered with ‘yes’…that’s certainly the case. I don’t see them as lowering their CO2 (or really pollution in general), as perhaps slowing the growth of it as they expand their power infrastructure. They surpassed the US in total CO2 a few years ago, and while it’s not rising as fast, it’s still rising, and will continue to rise as they continue that expansion.
I have no doubt that China will develop and sell ‘green’ technology now and in the future. Why shouldn’t they? But I think in a lot of these debates, the view points gonzomax attempts to make (which is what I was originally responding too) are extremely deceptive…and even your cite, while I don’t think YOU were trying to be deceptive, turns out to be deceptive to people who don’t look at what those numbers mean or the underlying issues.
[QUOTE=levdrakon]
Just because they rely on coal as we do, plus will probably need much more coal, doesn’t mean they can’t be at the forefront of renewables. Last year they surpassed the US in wind capacity. China is well aware its coal use is going up, and is going to have to keep going up for awhile, but they are actively tackling the problem by building the crap out of everything. Their long-term goal is also to wean themselves off coal and oil, but they realize they won’t be able to very quickly. Doesn’t mean they aren’t trying their ass off. Would you rather they stopped developing renewables and just went whole hog on coal?
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So, what you are saying here is that the US was at the forefront, and is still number two in total wind power deployed…right? And, of course, the reason for that is that China is rapidly growing and their energy needs are rapidly growing, so they are expanding ALL of their energy generation methods…while the US is relatively stable, with a long established power generation infrastructure.
IOW, they are ‘trying their ass off’ because they HAVE too…since their energy needs are rapidly expanding, and their base of power infrastructure started off at a very low point, relative to their current and future needs. Right?
Sure they are, if they really wanted too. They COULD replace all of their old dirty coal plants with cleaner coal plants (to at least address the pollution problem that they have)…the trouble is that realistically, it would cost more than they would benefit. They are building power infrastructure as fast as humanly possible, so the last thing they want to do is to take out of production stuff that’s working already…they’d just have to rebuild that capability AND build all the new capability they desperately need.
Nova had program on this last week. Solar can easily provide 20 percent of our energy . Wind can do do 20 percent. We can green our buildings and home and save 40 percent. No we do not have to rely on nuke or coal. we can get away from them. Today is not tomorrow. We can end this oil dependence.
Would we be in control if we cut back our need of oil and coal like that? That doe not even consider the new technologies.
Nice to throw out numbers but if Nova said that we can “easily” get solar up to 20% then they were making shit up. 40% energy savings by “greening” our buildings and homes? It’s big but not that big. And not without cost.
To do this we have to get past all the luddite naysayers who keep making up new objections for why we can’t move forward.
All of the opposition is basically a slavish dedication to the fossil fuel industry - which, along with the entire energy industry, stands to shrink by TRILLIONS of dollars as a result of decentralized energy security, if the solar energy market matures. (The utility companies will be left with condominiums and maybe larger data centers as customers, but that’s nothing compared to the market they have now.)
[QUOTE=Le Jacquelope]
To do this we have to get past all the luddite naysayers who keep making up new objections for why we can’t move forward.
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To do it you’d have to set aside reality and basic mathematics. If you are willing to do that, however, then it’s easy.
[QUOTE=DSeid]
Nice to throw out numbers but if Nova said that we can “easily” get solar up to 20% then they were making shit up. 40% energy savings by “greening” our buildings and homes? It’s big but not that big. And not without cost.
[/QUOTE]
I seriously doubt that the program on Nova that gonzo purportedly watched said anything of the kind. As you say, if they ACTUALLY said that we could get 20% of our energy from solar and 20% from wind at ALL, let alone ‘easily’ then they are totally delusional. My guess is that what they actually were talking about was potential, theoretical energy, not practical, realistic…and that’s giving gonzo the benefit of the doubt that he didn’t just make it all up.
I don’t think that people who make claims like gonzo or Le Jac do really understand the scale of what they are talking about, when they pull these types of claims out of their asses. Even the most pro-wind/solar people who have any sort of grasp of reality aren’t saying we can ‘easily’ get 40% of our total produced energy(!!) from wind and solar…that’s completely ridiculous, and pretty much puts people making such claims out of the realm of taking them even marginally seriously. I’d have a hard time taking someone seriously who claimed that we could get wind and solar (combined) up to 10% of our total produced electricity unless they were talking a couple of decades as their time frame…and LOTS of money, and LOTS of other changes to our power infrastructure…and increasing resistance from the NIMBY crowd.
You guys really don’t fundamentally understand what the issue is here.
You’re the luddites. You’re acting like children with fantasies. We’re the adults in this scenario, making the informed decision.
You guys actually think that we’re somehow anti-renewables. Of course not, this is ridiculous. Every nuke advocate in this thread is happy to see us getting better photovoltaics or putting up more wind farms. Renewables, where they’re feasible, are great, and I hope we make great advances in this area.
And yet, even under the most optimistic realistic projections (and I’m being very generous here), we’re looking at renewables covering maybe 25% of our power generation in 20-30 years. That’s extremely optimistic.
So here’s the part where we’re adults and you’re children comes in: You just handwave away that 75% and say wouldn’t it be awesome if 25% of our power came from solar and wind and unicorns!
To which we say “sure, that’s great, but where’s the other 75% going to come from?”
“Well… wouldn’t it be great if 25% of our power came from solar and wind and unicorns!!!”
This is the depth of your stance on the issue. You just are completely oblivious to the idea of where that other 75% comes from. You are oblivious to the fact that coal is the status quo, and as long as you fight nuclear, coal is going to be most of that other 75%. And the damage coal does from that 75% is far worse than and goodness the 25% of solar/wind/unicorn brings.
But you guys are completely oblivious to this, so when we say “we want nuclear to make up that other 75%”, you say BUT… WHY WOULD YOU WANT NUCLEAR INSTEAD OF WIND/SOLAR/UNICORN POWER? I DON’T GET IT!!! WHY CAN’T WE ALL WANT UNICORN POWER??? Because somehow you have completely eliminated the 75% from your minds and made this issue bizarrely simplistic and wrong.
This is what somehow leads you to the conclusion that people who want nuclear power are somehow anti-renewables or other ridiculousness. You are seriously deliberately not seeing the core issue here.
Le Jac takes it one step further, since what’s he’s advocated in the past is a completely distributed power grid, where every individual house has it’s own solar panel and wind turbine to (in his mind) generate it’s own power need. Then the big electric companies (who he feels are holding us all down just so they can charge us) will be out of luck and out of business, and we can all live our green energy dreams without having to pay a dime!
It’s hard to take something like that even remotely serious, just as it’s hard to take anyone serious who claims that it would be ‘easy’ for us to get 20% of our electricity from solar and an additional 20% from wind…then build our buildings such that we also save an additional 40% from efficiency. That’s 80% of our energy that would be green! And this well all end our oil dependency (how? well, because today is not tomorrow!) and crush big energy once and for all!
I’m far more prepared to believe Gonzo and his 20% solar and 20% wind prediction than anything you have to say on the matter. You’ve lost all your credibility in this debate. “Where are we going to get the other 75%???” What does that even mean? I bet you don’t know.
This is typical nukie scare mongering. OMG, the global warming monster is coming to get us! The end is nigh! Ahhhhh! Only nuke can save us! Now we’re doomed!
What a joke. We are already covering well over 100% of our energy needs. You continually base your twisted argument based on 75% of our energy suddenly disappearing while we only get 20% from solar.
Nice little game you’re playing there, but thoughtful people can immediately see the inanity of “where are we going to get the other 75%??” scare mongering.
Anyone even partially following along will know that when someone mentions 20% wind or solar they are only offering that information as 20% of the energy solution, not 100% of the energy solution. 100% of the energy solution has always included a whole spectrum of energy sources in addition to increased efficiency.
Your game is to dismiss every single renewable source of energy that can provide 10, or 20, or 40 percent of our energy use by crying about how that one particular renewable energy source can’t provide 100% of our energy when there is absolutely no need for any one source to provide 100% of our energy.
You have no cred in this discussion if that’s the best you’ve got.
There’s something to be said, certainly, for distributed power in the cases of wind and solar where the efficiency losses from smaller implementations are not a particular problem.
I hope no one in this thread really believes this.
“All of the opposition is basically a slavish dedication to the fossil fuel industry” is prima facie a false statement.
“the fossil fuel industry - which, along with the entire energy industry, stands to shrink by TRILLIONS of dollars” - nope. Who exactly is responsible for putting wind and solar into play in significant quantities? Ma and Pa Kettle, or the utilities funding and buying power from the wind farms and solar arrays? Good grief.
“(The utility companies will be left with condominiums and maybe larger data centers as customers, but that’s nothing compared to the market they have now.)” - and cement kilns, manufacturing facilities, steel mills, aluminum plants, paper and pulp plants, refineries, and about 39,000 other industrial customers. And the vast amounts of Average Americans who simply don’t feel motivated or who don’t have the capital to go off-grid. And there’s that whole grid stability bugaboo…
If a renewables revolution comes, the utilities will be part of it, possibly still the majority partner in it. They have the money, the existing infrastructure, the equipment, the personnel, the engineers, the experience, and the regulatory backing.
About 2 months ago I was invited to attend a “secret” meeting with a giant local utility where in their closed-door session they laid out several plans of action for expanding into renewables services. These included:
Leasing solar PV arrays to homeowners, including a “full package” from initial inspection to annual maintenance of the panels (cleaning, etc.) Think about the average idiot American, who can’t even set the time on their DVD player - you think they’re going to be getting up on their roof every year to clean their PV panels, and check their system out? Why not have the friendly guy from the utility do it while you’re at work? No muss, no fuss, it’s all rolled into your bill And of course there will be energy audits to pay for, and possibly leasing of new breaker boxes, tie-ins, etc. I mean really, think about it - you can’t get the average American to exert the effort to caulk leaks around their house, you think they’re going to take responsibility/ownership of maintaining a solar or wind system? Please, my cat has a better chance than the average American, and my cat isn’t that smart!
Leasing micro-wind turbines, and providing the same services.
Leasing of standby backup generators (natural gas powered) for folks who want 100% backup capability, as well as battery banks.
Selling services to businesses and industrial customers for energy audits and of course business and industrial scale PV panel and wind microturbine leasing. After all, in this economy what business wants to sink a whole bunch of capital into their building?
And since most folks, or that is to say pretty much 95%+ of the ones they’ve talked to are not interested in being 100% off-grid, they’ll be there to provide the baseload grid power, for things like -10 F winter snowstorms.
Even if something magic happens and solar PV panels and small-scale wind truly become dirt cheap, the utilities have plans to make money off of them. They’re working on it.
They had some other interesting things I can’t talk about.
I feel bad even arguing with you because I think you must have some sort of cognitive condition that isn’t allowing you to think about what you’re saying.
You’d believe Gonzo if he said 20% solar and 20% wind. Hell, you’d believe him if he said 80% solar and 140% wind. You’d probably believe him if he said “snarfluke” solar and “armarazin” wind. It’s all just nonsense to you, and he’s on your side so you’ll back him up.
Find me any sort of realistic assessment in which even the most optimistic pragmatists expect alt energy to make up 40% of our power generation in the next 30 or 40 years. Seriously. Look at serious attempts to put a number on it, and tell me that’s remotely reasonable.
As for “what the other 75% means”, are you really so dense? I couldn’t be more clear. Even if we get renewables generating Y% of our power, we’re still going to need 100-Y% generation capacity to make up the difference. That’s going to have to come from nuclear/coal/natural gas.
Even under the most wildly optimistic projections for newables, we’re still going to need a huge amount of power generated from non-renewables. You just accept that this will be coal because you A) will fight tooth and nail against nuclear and B) refuse to acknowledge that the gap has to be made up anyway so C) implictly support coal.
The continued use of coal will be more damaging to the environment than even a wildly optimistic projection for renewables will do good for the environment.
So you’re taking the… environmentalist position… but denying global warming? That’s… unique.
WTF are you talking about? Our non-renewables are covered with coal, nuclear, and natural gas. Even if we get 10x as much renewables in the future, the majority of power will still be generated by coal, nuclear, or natural gas. I’m not saying that will dissapear, I’m saying that we’ll continue to go with the status quo - the status quo that’s extremely bad for the environment. This is what you advocate.
I’m not sure if you have a problem being grounded in reality or what, but I have no idea where it is you’re getting these notions from my simple posts.
Seriously, there’s like this insane ideological blindspot you have.
“Renewables could make up 40% of our energy generation in a few decades!”
“Ok, great, what makes up the other 60%?”
“What 60%? What is this 60% are you talking about?”
“Well… even you admit that we’re still going to need to generate most of our power from non-renewables, right? So what are we going to use for that power?”
“WTF is this 60% scaremongering? Do you even know what other 60% you’re talking about?!”
This is what it’s like talking with you.
I never said anything like that. MY VERY LAST POST IN THIS THREAD explains that I’m all sorts of pro-renewables. I love solar, I love wind, and I want to push them a ton.
But here’s the deal: The coal we have producing the energy that wind and solar can’t IS WAY MORE BAD FOR THE ENVIRONMENT than any good done by the renewables. If we care about the environment, our overriding goal should be the elimination of coal power. Renewables by themselves cannot make anything more than a moderate impact.
As far as the environment goes:
Renewables + Coal <<<<<<<< Nuclear << Nuclear + renewables.
No, I wouldn’t. If someone told me they heard it on Nova and someone else told me they heard it from SenorBeef I’m going with Nova.
It’s already been done some places. Who or what are you talking about getting 40% from renewables?
What does transportation run on? Fuel. What percent of our energy is transportation? What does nuclear have to say about that hm? You going to put a few gallons of nuclear in your tank and off you go? “Be right back honey, gotta swing by the local nuclear plant and fill up the car!” You’re reasoning just sprung another leak.
I’d have to see some numbers about that.
Gosh, I feel refuted.
40% less than what is providing it now. 40% reduction = good.
Who lead you to believe our goal is the 100% elimination of coal? The nuke industry? They lie, sorry.
Our goal is to reduce emissions, not eliminate coal.
Wind to 20% is something that the DOE is on record as saying is very doable by 2030. That’s less than 20 years, not 30 to 40. Some “optimistic pragmatists” see 10% solar as very doable by 2025, less than 15 years away. California now has a 33% renewable standard signed into law to be achieved by 2020 and Governor Brown thinks 40% is “within grasp”
It is not impossible. But “easily”? No. And by 2040 to 2050 the current crop of nuclear plants will all be either shutting down or very close to it, even with extensions beyond their original expected safe operating lifetime.
Renewables, yes. But there is no possibility that renewables can do it alone. Natural gas will get us by for a few decades but most expect that by 2040 to 50 it will be tightening up to a very large degree. Coal we’ve got plenty of. So assume that high end 40% renewables by then. If half of it has gone to replace nuclear’s current 20% and we currently have about 10% from renewables (yes, including hydro) then we’ve only displaced 10% of the 40% that is coal by then. It would still be 30% of power generation. Keep the current 20% nuclear share by allowing replacement nuclear capacity with newer and intrinsically safer nuclear plants, and that renewable increase can cut coal’s share down to 10%.
Which would you rather have that rapid growth of renewable accomplish: displacement of replacement nuclear plants; or displacement of coal plants?
[QUOTE=levdrakon]
I’m far more prepared to believe Gonzo and his 20% solar and 20% wind prediction than anything you have to say on the matter. You’ve lost all your credibility in this debate. “Where are we going to get the other 75%???” What does that even mean? I bet you don’t know.
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Then it doesn’t really do much to enhance your own credibility. First off…it’s gonzomax. Secondly…20% of our energy coming from solar and 20% coming from wind? Really? Do you have any idea what it would entail to get 20% of our energy from solar and 20 additional percent from wind? What it would cost? Not just in wind turbines and solar plants, but in land use and infrastructure changes and builds?? And you seriously believe gonzomax’s assertions that he heard all this on Nova…and that makes it credible to you?
I guess it depends on whether you believe in all that Global Warming stuff in the end. If you don’t, then it’s really no problem. If you do, and if you feel that it’s a problem that needs to be addressed, and if you have any sort of reality based view point, then you’d have to ask…what CAN replace coal? What technologies that are actually available today CAN replace it? What technologies can scale up to meet our huge energy needs that also don’t produce CO2? Wind? Nope…can’t do it. It would cost to much, it’s too variable. Even if you could be the literally hundreds of thousands or millions (if we are seriously talking about getting it to 20% of our CURRENT energy needs) of (multi-million dollar) turbines, what do you do if the wind isn’t blowing? Tell people to suck it up and wait until the winds kick back in? Solar? Nope…same problems. I know you don’t accept any of this, despite being shown why it is in several different threads, so I’ll just say…YOU show ME how it could be done. Show me the math on how you could put the things in on the scales needed to get us to 20/20 for wind and solar. Cite your sources. Hell, cite gonzomax’s supposed Nova assertion…let’s see what they have to say about it directly, instead of gonzo’s vague and probably erroneous memories.
Our energy needs are fairly flat, but that’s possibly due to the fact that we’re in a recession. Regardless, if you get wind up to 20% and solar up to 20% (by some to date undisclosed miracle), you will only have gotten us to a replacement of nuclear plus 20%…so, if you want to get rid of coal, I don’t see that you’ve done much. Why have you gotten rid of nuclear? Well, because the plants don’t last forever, and over the next 20 or 30 years they will start reaching the end of life part of their cycle and going off line. We won’t be building new ones, thanks to folks like you, so you will have succeeded (perhaps…still haven’t said how) in getting rid of one CO2 free energy production technology with another CO2 energy production technology…which still leaves us with coal as the primary energy source. So…what are you going to do to get rid of coal? Hope that the magic ponies start to fly? Well…I guess that’s as good an answer as any.
And your game is to just handwave away all of the real problems with trying to project stuff like wind and solar up to the scales we are talking about, then claim that anyone trying to explain this to you (for the, oh, 50th time or so) has no cred with you. But, you see, you believe gonzomax…so, I don’t think many folks are going to be all that hurt by not having much cred with someone like you, lev.
And just for reference for anyone who doesn’t want to slog through the whole thread, no one that I know of on the ‘pro-nuclear’ side is saying that we won’t have a mix of energy sources in the future…and that this mix won’t involve stuff like solar or wind. Or that those things being in the mix are a bad thing. What has been explained to lev in the past is that those things can’t scale up to meet the actual energy needs we have today. Not on any sort of realistic time frame. Perhaps in a hundred years we’ll have solar and wind that produces a combined 40% of our current energy needs…maybe even in just 50 years, with some breakthroughs in technology. But in 10 or 20 years? No way in hell. Impossible. Even if we were willing to pay hundreds of billions or trillions to jam it up to those levels, and even if you could do all the building by fiat and not have to worry about any of the NIMBY crowd, the resources don’t exist to MAKE the things on those scales in those time frames. You are literally talking about hundreds of thousands or millions of huge wind turbines, and hundreds or thousands of square miles covered in solar panels!
[QUOTE=DSeid]
Wind to 20% is something that the DOE is on record as saying is very doable by 2030. That’s less than 20 years, not 30 to 40. Some “optimistic pragmatists” see 10% solar as very doable by 2025, less than 15 years away. California now has a 33% renewable standard signed into law to be achieved by 2020 and Governor Brown thinks 40% is “within grasp”
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You have a cite for DOE saying that we can get to 20% of our total electrical needs by 2030? Because I’d have to say that it sounds hopelessly optimistic.
As for the other, it helps that California buys energy from OTHER states…and you might have noticed that rolling brown and blackouts are fairly common in California. I think that the second part of this is very deceptive.
Even if it weren’t, do you think that every state is like California? Do you project that California, if they manage to achieve 40% of their electrical needs (without dealing with the fact that they buy energy from other states) by 2020 (:dubious:!!) that this means that every state could do the same thing?
Exactly and exactly. I’d say it IS impossible, if we are looking at it from a realistic perspective wrt production and potential investment money available, not to mention little things like NIMBYism that’s bound to crop up…or, ironically, environmental groups who start to come down on solar and even wind for it’s environmental impact if they start deploying not just hundreds or thousands of the things but hundreds of thousands or millions of them (or covering huge swaths of the country in solar panels).
Your point about the nuclear plants going off-line is well taken though. And that’s going to happen…and no new ones will be built. And our energy needs are either going to stay flat or continue to rise in the next 100 years.
http://www.liquida.com/article/15229040/world-trade-organization-united-steelworkers-government-subsidies/ I am always right . A lot of people cling to the idea that America is special and will come up with the solutions due to our great American spirit and innovation.
Corporations don’t cling to those stupid notions. They ship anything and everything to India and China among other countries they know have a huge educational system that produces scientists , engineers and mathematicians. We do not. All of the great American ideas have been handed over to other countries to make quick and large profits. What do you do when a country reverse engineers your machinery and your products? Take them to court in Beijing? Sue them in Bombay?
Renewable Energy in China Long established serious policies in China to prevent the green house heating that our corporations deny. The Republican party has dug their heels in the ground to dismantle anything that is green and to fight regulation. We love our Fracking, coal and oil.
Our corporations are holding us back from being the creator of the new energy the world needs. I fel sad that you guys honestly do not understand the damage they are doing to us…
