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Electronics => Power/Renewable Energy/EV's => Topic started by: TerraHertz on January 24, 2019, 10:03:37 pm

Title: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: TerraHertz on January 24, 2019, 10:03:37 pm
http://joannenova.com.au/2019/01/warning-money-on-fire-in-vic-and-sa-electricity-prices-at-14000-per-mw/ (http://joannenova.com.au/2019/01/warning-money-on-fire-in-vic-and-sa-electricity-prices-at-14000-per-mw/)
Warning: Money on fire in Vic and SA electricity prices at $14,000 per MW

This is the kind of crap that crashes civilizations. And we're suffering it because of ideologically motivated totally fake junk science.

A few relevant recent articles below. ( Full list: http://everist.org/archives/links/__AGW_links.txt (http://everist.org/archives/links/__AGW_links.txt) )

20190123
https://www.iceagenow.info/geologist-the-sun-not-co2-drives-earths-climate/ (https://www.iceagenow.info/geologist-the-sun-not-co2-drives-earths-climate/)
Geologist – "The sun, not CO2, drives Earth’s climate"
Devastating news for human-caused global warming proponents.
“The sun, not CO2, drives Earth’s climate,” says Dr Roger Higgs, long-time consultant geologist and sedimentologist.
Higgs bases his statement on four vital points:

 * Global warming and cooling are driven by the sun, specifically by the solar-sourced Interplanetary Magnetic Field, which regulates incoming cosmic rays, which in turn govern cloudiness and thus global temperature (the breathtakingly elegant Svensmark Theory).
 * Global temperature oscillations lag 25 years behind the causative solar magnetic fluctuations. This 25-year lag is due to ocean thermal inertia in remarkable agreement with the 15-20-year time lag estimated by Abdussamatov et al. 2012).
 * The idea that CO2 is the main climate driver, despite its scarcity in Earth’s atmosphere, ie 400 parts per million, near plant-starvation level, contrasts starkly with CO2’s 1,000 to 4,000 ppm levels for most of the last 600 million years.
 * Earth is now cooling.  Global warming ended in 2016: proof that the sun, not CO2, drives Earth’s climate. Moreover, from AD500 to 1200, CO2 levels were anti-correlated with Earth’s temperature.

“The reality is that man’s industrialization just happened to occur in a period of solar-driven warming, a mere coincidence, causing governments to needlessly spend trillions of taxpayer dollars on CO2-reduction efforts,” says Dr Higgs.
See entire paper, with several graphs:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/325805849_Global_warming_ended_in_2016_proof_that_the_sun_not_CO2_drives_Earth (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/325805849_Global_warming_ended_in_2016_proof_that_the_sun_not_CO2_drives_Earth)’s_climate
Here’s some information about Dr. Higgs: http://www.geoclastica.com/BudeGeoWalks.htm (http://www.geoclastica.com/BudeGeoWalks.htm)


20180915
https://www.iceagenow.info/temperature-was-warmer-1100-years-ago-than-it-is-todayw/ (https://www.iceagenow.info/temperature-was-warmer-1100-years-ago-than-it-is-todayw/)
http://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/108/24/9765.full.pdf (http://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/108/24/9765.full.pdf)

20180919
youtube  watch?v=FlwUfwsPFzM
How Can This be Happening on our Planet and Media Doesn’t Report It

20180930
https://www.iceagenow.info/headed-for-space-age-record-cold-warns-nasa-scientist/ (https://www.iceagenow.info/headed-for-space-age-record-cold-warns-nasa-scientist/)
Headed into Space-Age record cold, warns NASA scientist

20181008
http://joannenova.com.au/2018/10/first-audit-of-global-temperature-data-finds-freezing-tropical-islands-boiling-towns-boats-on-land/ (http://joannenova.com.au/2018/10/first-audit-of-global-temperature-data-finds-freezing-tropical-islands-boiling-towns-boats-on-land/)
#DataGate! First ever audit of global temperature data finds freezing tropical islands, boiling towns, boats on land

What were they thinking?

The fate of the planet is at stake, but the key temperature data set used by climate models contains more than 70 different sorts of problems.  Trillions of dollars have been spent because of predictions based on this data – yet even the most baby-basic quality control checks have not been done.

Thanks to Dr John McLean, we see how The IPCC demands for cash rests on freak data, empty fields, Fahrenheit temps recorded as Celsius, mistakes in longitude and latitude, brutal adjustments and even spelling errors.

Why. Why. Why wasn’t this done years ago?

So much for that facade. How can people who care about the climate be so sloppy and amateur with the data?

------
If you want the thesis, this is CURRENTLY freely downloadable from JCU.

https://researchonline.jcu.edu.au/52041/ (https://researchonline.jcu.edu.au/52041/)

https://researchonline.jcu.edu.au/view/jcu/3EEE19904EEB05089D5676FF4150A41F.html (https://researchonline.jcu.edu.au/view/jcu/3EEE19904EEB05089D5676FF4150A41F.html)

Since JCU vilified the person the thesis is dedicated to, Bob Carter, former Head of Geology JCU, and fired McLean’s supervisor Peter Ridd, for the blasphemy of casting doubt on the veracity of alarmism regarding the GBR, there is obviously a risk that they will disappear this document as well. I will be maintaining a watch on the link and, as an alumnus, will lodge a formal complaint if this happens.


20181014
youtube   watch?v=0kcoMDFHbro
Australia is Entering a Mega Drought the Repercussions: Kevin Long (726)  30:44
Kevin Long of the LongView.com.au and David DuByne creator of the ADAPT 2030 channel on YouTube discuss how Australia is entering a mega-drought that will last 20 years and effect crop production as global cooling sets in during the new Eddy Grand Solar Minimum.

http://thelongview.com.au/ (http://thelongview.com.au/)

20181020
http://www.cuzzblue.com/2018/10/the-climate-change-scam-blown-to-bits.html (http://www.cuzzblue.com/2018/10/the-climate-change-scam-blown-to-bits.html)
The Climate Change Scam Blown to Bits by 7 Pictures

20181029
http://joannenova.com.au/2018/10/interview-with-david-evans-breaking-the-impasse-in-the-climate-change-debate-and-why-he-became-a-skeptic/ (http://joannenova.com.au/2018/10/interview-with-david-evans-breaking-the-impasse-in-the-climate-change-debate-and-why-he-became-a-skeptic/)
  .youtube  watch?v=7Ib0UWEot3E
  The Climate Change Agenda - Dr. David Evans on Resolving Reality Radio - 26/9/18

20181114
http://joannenova.com.au/2018/11/climate-models-are-a-joke/ (http://joannenova.com.au/2018/11/climate-models-are-a-joke/)

20181125
https://www.iceagenow.info/greatest-two-year-global-cooling-event-in-100-years-media-ignores-it/ (https://www.iceagenow.info/greatest-two-year-global-cooling-event-in-100-years-media-ignores-it/)

20181201
http://www.fourwinds10.com/siterun_data/environment/weather_and_climate/news.php?q=1543510817 (http://www.fourwinds10.com/siterun_data/environment/weather_and_climate/news.php?q=1543510817)
Professor Valentina Zharkova: The Solar Magnet Field and the Terrestrial Climate

youtube  watch?v=yqZGgaZaXig
Is The Global Temperature Record Credible?
Tony Heller

20181202
https://www.iceagenow.info/better-to-be-a-little-prepared-than-not-at-all/ (https://www.iceagenow.info/better-to-be-a-little-prepared-than-not-at-all/)

20181203
https://www.iceagenow.info/astrophysicist-mini-ice-age-is-now-accelerating-important-video/ (https://www.iceagenow.info/astrophysicist-mini-ice-age-is-now-accelerating-important-video/)
Astrophysicist – Mini Ice Age is now accelerating
Contrary to what the politicians are trying to foist on you, a new mini ice age – a new Maunder Minimum – has already started. Astrophysicist Piers Corbyn

“We are plunging now into a deep mini ice age,” says astrophysicist Piers Corbyn. “And there is no way out.”

For the next 20 years it’s going to get colder and colder on average, says Corbyn.
“The basic message is that the sun is controlling the climate, primarily via the sea.”

The new mini ice age began around 2013

“What we have happening – NOW! – is the start of the mini ice age…it began around 2013. It’s a slow start, and now the rate of moving into the mini ice age is accelerating.”

“The best thing to do now is to tell your politicians to stop believing nonsense, and to stop doing silly measures like the bird-killing machines of wind farms in order to save the planet (they say), but get rid of all those things, which cost money, and reduce electricity prices now.

“Evidence shows that man-made climate change does not exist and the arguments for it are not based on science but on data fraud and a conspiracy theory of nature,” says Piers on his website. http://weatheraction.com/ (http://weatheraction.com/)

“The world is now cooling not warming and there is no observational evidence in the thousands and millions of years of data that changes in CO2 have any observable effect on weather or climate in the real world.”


20181208
http://www.investmentwatchblog.com/global-warming-enthusiasts-are-really-believe-the-malthusian-trap-modern-witch-doctor-analysis/ (http://www.investmentwatchblog.com/global-warming-enthusiasts-are-really-believe-the-malthusian-trap-modern-witch-doctor-analysis/)
Global Warming Enthusiasts really believe the Malthusian Trap – Modern Witch Doctor Analysis
You have pointed out several times that the agenda behind the global warming crowd is, besides taxes, also the reduction of the global population. Initially, I had difficulties believing in this “crazy conspiracy theory”, but I start to believe you could be right. Where I live, The Netherlands, the brainwashing machine to convince people that CO2 is THE problem, is on overdrive and very effective. More and more people are believing this non-sense and regularly start to claim that the world population should decrease because we are one of the main sources of the increase of CO2 concentrations. When you ask them how that should be accomplished they reply “birth control”. But how this should be done they don´t know, but most probably (as usual) rely on the government to come up with a solution.


20181214
http://halturnerradioshow.com/index.php/news/world-news/3583-10-years-ago-today-al-gore-predicted-north-pole-would-be-completely-ice-free-in-five-years (http://halturnerradioshow.com/index.php/news/world-news/3583-10-years-ago-today-al-gore-predicted-north-pole-would-be-completely-ice-free-in-five-years)
10 YEARS AGO TODAY – Al Gore Predicted North Pole Would Be COMPLETELY ICE FREE in Five Years
Gore made the prediction to a German audience on December 13, 2008. Al warned them that “the entire North ‘polarized’ cap will disappear in 5 years.”
This wasn’t the only time Al Gore made his ice-free prediction. Gore had been predicting dire scenario since 2007. That means that the North Pole should have melted completely five years ago today.
Junk scientist Al Gore also made the same prediction in 2009.

Meanwhile, in the real world:

https://www.iceagenow.info/the-cold-is-dipping-lower-and-lower-across-the-planet/ (https://www.iceagenow.info/the-cold-is-dipping-lower-and-lower-across-the-planet/)
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/world-news/climate/coldest-december-on-record-in-china/ (https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/world-news/climate/coldest-december-on-record-in-china/)
10 Dec 2018 – At 6 below zero C, “China is also experiencing the coldest day on record during December, and snow is falling in Beijing to Shanghai. Temperatures in China have been held under 4 below zero C on only seven December days since 2000. This is the coldest on record so far.”

https://www.iceagenow.info/make-no-mistake-we-are-in-an-ice-age-right-now/ (https://www.iceagenow.info/make-no-mistake-we-are-in-an-ice-age-right-now/)
An ice age is defined as any period in which at least one pole is glaciated. The south pole has been glaciated for 13 million years.



20181218  from JStone:
Cold winter warning
This is something interesting - AFTER the Farmers Almanac predicted a brutally cold winter (which is going as the Farmers Almanac said) "climate experts" have jumped the shark by claiming there will be a VERY cold winter caused by a "climate change induced" polar vortex! HA HA HA, anything to lie. If the Farmers Almanac called it based on sunspot observation and past records and patterns, it is not any sort of global warming "vortex".

They have a war room no doubt.
In this war room, a "think tank" full of snowflakes and "those not privileged" rather than the geniuses of previous generations play scategories to come up with whatever crap they need to spew to keep the global warming mantra funneling trillions into the new world order via a carbon tax and "public consent" they intend to manufacture just by dreaming up trash.

But they missed a key factor, due to being snowflakes and "those not privileged:"

The Farmers Almanac is real and revered. It has been used for decades and if standard record (which would not be possible to reference for legit forecasts if anything was really changing) called it right, snowflakes can dream up whatever explanation for the cold they want post-facto and those with brains will only laugh.
  Ref: 20180901  https://www.farmersalmanac.com/weather-outlook/2019-winter-forecast (https://www.farmersalmanac.com/weather-outlook/2019-winter-forecast)


youtube  watch?v=tlnwhcO5NC0    (saved this video)
Orwell's Nightmare: Temperature Adjustments and Climate Change
Lies, damned lies, and statistical adjustments
SHOW NOTES: https://www.corbettreport.com/?p=23211 (https://www.corbettreport.com/?p=23211)
Who controls the temperature datasets controls the past, and who controls the past controls the future. Welcome to the Orwellian world of temperature adjustments and climate alarmism. Sit up straight and buckle up tight, because this is consensus science as brought to you by Big Brother.
Systematic manipulation of the temperature record data, always to impose an upward trend where virtually none exists.
But still failing to support the warming model predictions.


20181218
youtube  watch?v=z9A2voChiFA
How to Thrive in the New Solar Minimum, Rick Monday interviews David DuByne of Adapt 2030
 (includes good quick review of mechanism of solar influence on Earth climate.)


20181222
https://www.iceagenow.info/five-fact-about-climate-change-video/ (https://www.iceagenow.info/five-fact-about-climate-change-video/)
Five Facts About Climate Change – Video
“The earth has experienced at least 17 ice ages,” says Tim Donner. On 17 occasions during the last two million years the earth has cooled off so much that we had gigantic glaciers stretching from the North Pole as far south as Kentucky that were as much as two miles thick.”
“And on 17 different occasions, for reasons scientists still don’t understand, those ice ages came to an end, and all of those gigantic sheets of ice melted – with zero man-made emissions.”
“Actual warming of the planet has still not been detected during the entire 21st century,” says Donner.
“There has been absolutely no rise in temperatures over the last 20 years.”
And in direct contradiction to Al Gore’s famous warning about an ice free Arctic, during 2018 the Arctic ice cap has actually grown.


20190123
https://www.iceagenow.info/ipcc-fatal-error-neglecting-ocean-thermal-inertia/ (https://www.iceagenow.info/ipcc-fatal-error-neglecting-ocean-thermal-inertia/)
IPCC Fatal Error – Neglecting ocean thermal inertia

20190124
http://joannenova.com.au/2019/01/forgotten-history-50-degrees-everywhere-right-across-australia-in-the-1800s/ (http://joannenova.com.au/2019/01/forgotten-history-50-degrees-everywhere-right-across-australia-in-the-1800s/)
Forgotten history: 50 degrees everywhere, right across Australia in the 1800s
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: xavier60 on January 25, 2019, 02:11:20 am
I hate seeing terminology being misused in that way.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: Mr.B on January 25, 2019, 03:30:47 am
You have certainly done a lot of research there TerraHertz - well done and thank you.
This could turn into a very interesting thread.
In the meantime I will start reading through your findings.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: TerraHertz on January 25, 2019, 04:55:37 am
You have certainly done a lot of research there TerraHertz - well done and thank you.
This could turn into a very interesting thread.
In the meantime I will start reading through your findings.

Not really 'research'. I just make a habit of saving articles and links to articles I come across on topics that interest me. Most of those are 'political' so don't have a place here.  But it does mean I can post long lists of links when appropriate.

I used to believe the CO2/AGW line, until around 2008 when I came across a chart of Earth's atmospheric CO2 levels (and surface temp) over the history of life on Earth. Hmm... it was almost always in the 1000ppm to 4000ppm range. What? Also it doesn't correlate to temperature.
But if true these points are completely incompatible with the fundamental premise of AGW theory. This led to a lot of reading... and eventually concluding that it (the entire AGW push) is in fact a clear case of what some will insist can't exist: a high level, widespread and quite heinous conspiracy. With a lot of useful idiots following along on the gravy train.
The designed intent behind the made-up lie of CO2-climate influence, is to radically deindustrialize human society, on the way to a massive reduction of global population to less than one billion. In as short a time span as possible, like ideally yesterday.
The core people originating the AGW garbage, literally want to kill around six billion people. Naturally they aren't squeamish about trivial details like blatant lying and faking of data to achieve that.

The really hilarious part of this is, they didn't expect an actual in-your-face ice age to set in while they were trying to hype 'ever rising temperatures.' (By faking present data and manipulating the old data records to give the impression of temps trending higher.) Hence the desperate segues from 'anthropogenic global warming' to 'climate change' and now the totally ridiculous smear 'climate change denier.'  Which is doubly ironic since it's the Global Warmist cult that tries to insist the climate has been stable and static 'forever' and is only recently starting to get warmer, entirely due to humans.

Nope, they lie. Earth's climate is and always has been highly varying. Because it's a chaotic system, driven by controlling factors originating from a variable star - the Sun.  And just now, it's heading into another mini ice age. We should build a lot more coal fired power plants. They are reliable, not affected by the weather, provide cheap power, stabilize the grid, and free up CO2 from the ground to serve as plant food and re-green the planet. Earth's desert areas exist mostly because atmospheric CO2 is presently down near an all time low, dangerously near starvation level for plants. Plants need a LOT more water when they are struggling with low CO2 levels like now.

This one is relevant to eevblog interests, because the Australian government's energy policies will result in frequent widespread blackouts, and stupidly insane electricity price fluctuations. Both of which ultimately can result in total industrial and social collapse. No power for those 20+ oscilloscopes we all have.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: TerraHertz on January 25, 2019, 11:37:54 pm
Predictable like clockwork.

http://joannenova.com.au/2019/01/melbourne-200000-houses-blacked-out-10-companies-curtailed-as-1-in-5-year-hot-day-hits/ (http://joannenova.com.au/2019/01/melbourne-200000-houses-blacked-out-10-companies-curtailed-as-1-in-5-year-hot-day-hits/)
Melbourne, 200,000 houses blacked out, 10 companies curtailed, as 1-in-5-year hot day hits

Worth reading all of it and the comments.
http://joannenova.com.au (http://joannenova.com.au)  site has often focused on the South-Eastern Australian generating grid worsening capacity shortfalls and system instability, since even before the SA major grid collapse over a year ago. It just keeps getting worse, while the government lies, Warmist CO2 scare tactics and BOM data distortions get more extreme too. Pretending there's a cause for all this other than shear delusional stupidity and ignorance.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: tautech on January 26, 2019, 12:12:18 am

Melbourne, 200,000 houses blacked out, 10 companies curtailed, as 1-in-5-year hot day hits

How will they charge their EV's ?  :scared:
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: cdev on January 26, 2019, 12:28:21 am
Wow, you mean I am imagining how warm it has been here, (US East Coast) in December and January? How could that be?

We've had a number of really cold days, for sure, for example, last week was pretty cold, but less and less of them and its pretty hard to ignore. Last summer wasn't as hot as some previous ones here, but it was hotter elsewhere.

The one before that I am pretty sure was a record breaker.

People are starting to plant cold weather tolerant palms around their homes here. Maybe it was possible to grow them before, people just didn't know it. But still.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: TerraHertz on January 26, 2019, 10:12:58 am
http://joannenova.com.au/2019/01/nearly-a-billion-dollars-for-electricity-for-just-one-day-500-per-family/ (http://joannenova.com.au/2019/01/nearly-a-billion-dollars-for-electricity-for-just-one-day-500-per-family/)
Quote
The cost of electricity on Thursday in two states of Australia reached a tally of $932 million dollars for a single day of electricity. Thanks to David Bidstrup on Catallaxy for calculating it.

As Bruce of Newcastle says “Three days and you could buy a HELE plant with the money wasted.” That’s a power plant that could last 70 years, and provide electricity at under $50/MW. (Forget all the high charges for 30 years to pay of the capital (in red below), we could just buy the damn thing outright, paid off in full from day one.)

This is utterly and completely a renewables fail

The socialist Labor-Greens are already trying to blame it on coal, but we ran coal plants for decades without these disasters. Right now, no one is investing in coal because of bipartisan stupidity. What company would pay the maintenance fees on infrastructure so hated by the political class? The coal plants are being run into the ground. Maintenance is even being delayed to keep the plants running through peaks like this.

No country on Earth with lots of renewables has cheap electricity. How many times do I have to repeat it? This is my mantra for 2019.

In Australia when we had mainly coal and no renewables our electricity was cheap and reliable. Now we are still mainly coal, but all it takes is a poisonous small infiltration of subsidized unreliable renewables to destroy the former economic incentives, the whole market, the system: our lifestyle.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: Marco on January 26, 2019, 02:15:20 pm
I think the best plants to build in the short term are coal gasification plants, it keeps your options open. Need to run on coal because of economic/security reasons? It works. Need to run on natural gas for international CO2 commitments (regardless of merit) and it still works. Some miracle happens and hydrogen generation from renewables get cheap enough  to become economical as a means for energy storage and it will very likely still work.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: DenzilPenberthy on January 29, 2019, 10:56:11 am
Not really 'research'. I just make a habit of saving articles and links to articles I come across on topics that interest me.

That's right, it's called 'cherry picking' and is the reason you are so full of shit.

I don't know what it is about some people that drives them to this sort of thing. A sort of intellectual short-cut to feeling smug about how clever you are. Oh well done, you've uncovered a big secret because you are so clever.  Ignore that it doesn't fit reality and never mind that the entire world community of people who's job it is to study this have come to a totally opposite conclusion.  That would require some sort of normal level of self-awareness.  Just carry on feeling clever.  I'm sure the entire world's scientific community is in on a big coordinated conspiracy to somehow exterminate most of the population and it's only a plucky band of oil companies and mining conglomerates that will save us  :horse:

Get back under your bridge.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: panzer04 on February 01, 2019, 02:55:21 am
It's interesting to note that at the height of the heatwave 40% of Victoria's coal capacity was offline. Granted, they are old power plants, but to imply it's reliable is just wrong. Coal power plants trip over all the time, and with very little forewarning. Solar and Wind have the benefit of being very predictable, even if variable. I find it curious that you claim that renewables are somehow responsible for high energy prices while the bulk of the shortfall is caused by power plants down for repairs.

The pessimists among us would likely claim that these plants are down for monetary reasons - Prices for power go nuts when there's a shortfall, and, well, the power plants are old and need maintenance now, during a period of peak energy demand, right? How unfortunate....  ::)
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: Red Squirrel on February 01, 2019, 03:18:59 am
I think the biggest key to getting renewable to replace fossil fuels is to work on storage tech.  The simplest form is using hydro dams to pump water into reservoirs when there is excess and then let it spin the turbine when power is needed. 

Take all the billions and billions and billions that go into oil subsidies, projects, pipelines etc and put it into researching electricity storage (whether it's a battery, or another tech) and I think it would go somewhere.

The actual renewable source of energy are at a good state right now.  Solar, wind, etc.  There is always room for improvement, but I think the main focus should be storage.  The nature of the best is renewables arn't always producing so we need a way to produce extra, and store it long term. The goal would be to overproduce, and over store, so when they arn't producing you have ample storage.  Whether this is a battery, or some kind of chemical process that generates a renewable fuel source, we need to discover it. 
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: NiHaoMike on February 01, 2019, 03:33:53 am
I think the biggest key to getting renewable to replace fossil fuels is to work on storage tech.  The simplest form is using hydro dams to pump water into reservoirs when there is excess and then let it spin the turbine when power is needed. 

Take all the billions and billions and billions that go into oil subsidies, projects, pipelines etc and put it into researching electricity storage (whether it's a battery, or another tech) and I think it would go somewhere.

The actual renewable source of energy are at a good state right now.  Solar, wind, etc.  There is always room for improvement, but I think the main focus should be storage.  The nature of the best is renewables arn't always producing so we need a way to produce extra, and store it long term. The goal would be to overproduce, and over store, so when they arn't producing you have ample storage.  Whether this is a battery, or some kind of chemical process that generates a renewable fuel source, we need to discover it. 
We already have a very cheap and very reliable storage technology - it's called thermal storage. It makes even more sense when the biggest energy uses in most homes - HVAC and hot water - are thermal in nature. Problem is, there's not much incentive to invest in it.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: Marco on February 01, 2019, 03:35:57 am
Yes, thermal storage can carry power across entire seasons at reasonable cost ... as far as the container goes. The problem is the cost of installing district heating.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: NiHaoMike on February 01, 2019, 03:56:05 am
It can be done in a more distributed way - every home having a thermal storage device.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: Marco on February 01, 2019, 04:11:05 am
You need to make the cube law work for you to get season crossing storage, can't do it going small.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: NiHaoMike on February 01, 2019, 05:29:42 am
Even just one day of thermal storage will go a long way for peak spreading and a few days will handle a large percentage of weather variations.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: T3sl4co1l on February 01, 2019, 06:13:35 pm
Far easier explanation.

Easily missed for its banality.

Follow the money.

In a dictatorship, money goes to the friends and cronies of the ruling elite.  In a democracy, it goes to the friends and cronies of the ruling elite.  The only thing that's different is the relative amount and frequency -- in the former, the amounts are large and the number, small; in the latter, the amounts are relatively small and the number, large.  That is, there are many more pet projects, "special interests" in the latter case.

So I ask: who owns the coal power plants?  Who owns (or is investing in) the renewable plants?

There, you will find your answer.

Not from some geologist (a geologist discussing global climate is a laughable claim, anyway; of course it depends on the sun -- and volcanic activity -- over geological time scales!), not from random news articles (come on, at least be the academic articles they are hopefully based upon?).

There can be no effective discussion of system-level dynamics, from lone elements within the system.  Only an extrinsic, system-level explanation can explain the dynamics of the system. :)

Tim
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: SiliconWizard on February 01, 2019, 08:36:49 pm
There can be no effective discussion of system-level dynamics, from lone elements within the system.  Only an extrinsic, system-level explanation can explain the dynamics of the system. :)

Absolutely.

The most obvious approach to take when being confronted with a seemingly absurd decision/project is always to ask oneself whomever might benefit from it.
There is usually an answer to that.

Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: CCitizenTO on February 04, 2019, 04:37:29 pm
Yeah I remember when the datagate thing happened... Apparently they were cherry picking data which proved warming. Also their models were showing that cooling was a possibility they did a very hard push to rebrand 'Global Warming' to 'Climate Change' because it's hard to say the world is getting hotter when the winters are just as bad as the summers  :P
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: james_s on February 04, 2019, 05:55:10 pm
The world *is* getting warmer, that doesn't mean that some parts of the world are not getting colder. It's because people's lack of understanding that it is more appropriately called "climate change". Some idiots can't figure out that a cold snap where they live doesn't mean the average temperature of the planet is not increasing.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: george80 on February 06, 2019, 02:19:12 am

Not sure what the actual topic of this thread is but seems to contain 2 pet interests so I'll sart off her with my first post no doubt being hated by some.

There is a big gut busting hurry by the green motivated here in Oz to rush into renewable as fast as possible and treat it like the be all  cure for all our power and environmental concerns.  The greenwashed won't hear of a gradual transition where say we use Solar particularly through teh day and wind where available to offset coal generation.  They believe that it all has to be sunshine and unicorn farts tomorrow even though that's technically not possible and going to wreak havoc of the grid and the country's economics.

The follow the money comment was spot on.  The whole Globull warming thing is perpetuated by gubbermints and big biz hat always attach a cost to do ing the right thing when there are so many ways or reducing emissions, conserving resources and energy and they are all ignored and never mentioned. They can be done without going back to the stone age or inconveniencing people.

One such simple thing would be to put a ban on product dumping where perfectly good products are dumped , usually into landfill, Because they are last years model, last seasons fashion, succeeded or what ever but are still brand new, perfectly safe and functional products just wasted for marketing branding reasons. Never gets a mention but if this were outlawd, the saving in all areas would be huge.

I doubt many people realise how much this goes on but I can guarantee people that there are semi trailer and container loads of this going on every single day in sydney alone.  Multiply that on a world while scale and it would be millions of tion of perfectl good product going to waste.

But somehow we think that Oz should save the world by reducing emissions  even though the chief scientist himself said it would not make one bit of difference to the world climate if our emissions were zero. It's not about Coal or renewable, it's all about companies and their puppet Gubbermints making Billions.... $2.7Bn is the projected profits for the power companies this financial year.

The grid in oz atm has the single and prime function of a money generating machine. Any BS about reliable supply and being cheap and dependably is nothing more than a con Job.  They want to get rid of coal because it is cheaper to make money from solar. Forget the fact it only works less than half the time, the profits are 3X better so more money from less expense.  Perfect!  if you are a CEO  that gets a performance Bonous or a corporate level share holder.

For the average family..... Look the hell out!

To prove the whole sham of the Oz grid, while the lights go out on hundreds of thousands of homes and Pollies get on the box and say don't  use your AC on stinking hot days, the power co's whine and lie about domestic solar posing a danger to the grid and crap about over voltage and using that BS as an argument to limit the amount of solar people can install and therefor be self sufficent.

They can spend billions on solar farms, tens of millions on Gas turbine generators that suck down 2 Semi trailer tankers of fuel an HOUR, but they don't ( supposedly) have any money to upgrade the ancient transformers to cater for solar back feed.
they tell us all about the technical difficulties which is pure and utter garbage. Other countries ENCOURAGE private solar and even give 1:1 credits on it but we are lied to that it can't be done.
IT CAN!

I hear all about these areas with too much solar. I have never actually heard WHERE these area are or seen a google earth showing where every home  and business has panels.  I am yet to work out how an area can have so many homes generating but no Shopping centres, schools, hospitals, factories, Offices, Businesses and housing units that all use power and loads of it, but have no generation within say 10 or even 5Km of these over saturated solar areas.

There aren't enough houses in most places to generate enough power to supply the local area and if the power can come it, it CAN go out just a short 10 Km when it came from hundred or even 1000Km away.  To say it can't is garbage and an insult to ones intelligence. you can make every excuse but at the end of the day, if they wanted it to work, it could and easily.

It's complete and utter bullchit.

Until they get actually get serious about a cost effective reliable grid the rest is just selling papers for the media mates, giving the pollies something to appear to be doing and just a complete and utter scam for the rest of us.
While I am not against the ideals of cleaner air etc, the green movement are a joke too pretending thee is scientific fact for nothing more than bought and paid for opinions.  You can get scientists, university research etc to say any damn thing you want it to when you are paying the bill. Gubbermint scientists will tow the lines as well to what ever their election fund contributors for their bosses tell them they want the research to say.

Unfortunetly for the greenwashed, They are the most SOL of all.  Big biz will do what is most profitable. Not whats best for the environment, the people or anything else other than the annual balance sheet and directors bonuses.

I'm in the process of setting up my place to have stand alone power.
I was waiting for it to be economical but learning as I went. I thought I had a lot of time because it's hard to make power cheaper than the grid, dear as the grid may be.
There is another force at play here now and that's supply.  It's going to get a HELL of a lot more unreliable qithin the next couple of years. the writing is on the wall and in the news every day for those that want to look.

I'm putting up another 8 Kw of solar panels to being my total to 27 and I picked up  a 12Kw head I'm mating to one of my diesel engines.  Once the power starts getting unreliable I'll get a forklift battery back and change the  house to off grid. I already make more power than I use except in winter but with the extra panels, the genny and an oil fired heater I'm building atm, I should have more than enough to see us through.

Commercial Home battery's are a joke as far as economic returns go but I bet a lot more non DIY types will be clamoring to put them in once the power becomes sketchy as there is no doubt it's going to get.

Real Sketchy!
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: tautech on February 06, 2019, 04:56:53 am
Welcome to the forum george80.

Great first post and with sentiments that are mirrored the world over.  :clap:

WRT you becoming self sufficient, a thread that might give you some ideas:
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/renewable-energy/pv-energy-less-expensive-than-natural-gas/ (https://www.eevblog.com/forum/renewable-energy/pv-energy-less-expensive-than-natural-gas/)
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: george80 on February 06, 2019, 09:57:51 am
Welcome to the forum george80.

Thank You.
I shall refrain from writing on my laptop when I am tired and my eyesight is not the best in future. Re -reading that post and the spelling/ grammatical errors is embarrassing!  Ah well.

I have always had a thing about being energy sufficient or at least having backup and until now my collection of engines and generator was just my play toys or to the wife, Junk.  It seems now they may come in very handy in the not too distant future.
I have always enjoyed the short black outs we have had living in Sydney every 5-10 years as it gave me a chance to roll out my toys and be the only one in the street with teh lights on. Much to the annoyance of the neighbours in some cases. Even then those outages were generally caused by a vehicle taking out a pole or a bad storm.

Now it seems pretty likely those Genny's are going to become something that is a lot more needed. I can see them going from something that might be in one of every 20 households to something nearly everyone will have.  And need.
Keeping things going at home is one thing, not much happens in even the corner shop now without power.

Right now the talk is all about Peak power but I can soon see interruptions being par for the course.
With all the razamatazz about electric vehicles, the load they are going to add in the next 10 to 20 years is huge. I have seen this dismissed as only being  a fraction of the total power consumption.  It's going to be anything but minimal.  They can't supply everyone with a few extra KW on a hot day, How the hell do the green believers think we are doing to supply everyone an average of double to triple their regular demand EVERY day?

Oh, that's right, you can charge the car from your panels at home! If the car is at home that is. And of course then what are you going to power the house with?  and what are you going to do in winter when instead of making 25 Kwh a day like you do in summer you are making 5-10 Kwh.... and a lot less than that if it's an overcast day.....

I really would like to know where all the power is going to come from in holiday time when the service center's on the pacific highway have 50 cars in there art a time all wanting to suck  down 100Kw of power, at least, so they can continue on their way.
But there is always a feel good answer for theses problems from the sunshine and rainbows crowd.

I have spent too many hours reading about what's going on with the grid, the way any discussion on reliable and cheap power is always sabotaged with the  green " It can ONLY be ALL renewable" and watched the Pollies lips moving indicating they were lying. Again.
I am a pessimist and so far in my 50+ years it's never brought me undone. I have grave fears for the way things are going to go with our power supply. My prediction is it's going to go down in a big smoking mess where the private interests will abandon it and not only will we the little guy have to pay through the nose for the power when we can get it, we'll have to pay even more to clean up the carnage left behind.

Talk of coal and Renewables is at the end of the day, something to keep us amused while our national assets are raped and pillaged and big biz does exactly what it wants which is make max profits.
Sure they will act concerned about other things but at the end of the day, their fixed goal will never change and the only thing they do will be the most profitable one. the rest is just selling it to us suckers it was a justifiable decision.

I will check out the interesting thread you linked.

Thanks again.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: bd139 on February 06, 2019, 10:42:54 am
I really would like to know where all the power is going to come from in holiday time when the service center's on the pacific highway have 50 cars in there art a time all wanting to suck  down 100Kw of power, at least, so they can continue on their way.
But there is always a feel good answer for theses problems from the sunshine and rainbows crowd.

This is the one that makes me laugh here in the UK. You think you've got it bad? Minor rant sorry.

Well here they're going to ban petrol and diesel cars by 2040 apparently. So that means we need 30GW of additional power online or another 10 nuclear stations in 20 years. Aka £200bn of power plants and then the fuel to run them. Then there's the distribution costs, another £50bn. At the same time they're killing our biggest industrial and political alliance, which has already lead to the cancellation of one nuclear plant, and there's renewable and anti-nuclear propaganda all over the place which is pointless because we can't generate 30GW of renewables in this country as we're a pissy little island that's dark most of the time and not that windy really in the scale of things. This is all under the guise of tackling "climate change" and selling us renewables  :palm:

Maybe if they connected a generator the legs of the shite pedallers then we'd be sorted.

Whole world's going to change in the next 30 years and it's not going to be pretty and it's not because of AGW, if that even exists, but commercial and political idiocy. I'm moving to the sticks and will have to go full mad max I reckon :)
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: IanMacdonald on February 06, 2019, 06:41:16 pm
For a levelheaded assessment of both the unmentionable climate thingy and renewables, see our website:

https://iwrconsultancy.co.uk/science/climate

https://iwrconsultancy.co.uk/science/co2maths

https://iwrconsultancy.co.uk/science/renewables_projections.htm

The figures taken from ourworldindata.org are perhaps the most damning, indicating that at a best-case entimate the current world roadmap to renewables, relying principally as it does on wind turbines and solar PV, would take over a thousand years to complete, and cost 1800 times as much as the entire Apollo project.  :wtf:

-anyone who doubts these figures can go to the original site, where the sources are quoted. Note also that this is a best case estimate, and does not take into account items such as battery or pumped hydro energy storage, just the generating capacity. The actual cost might be a lot higher.

Basically, whether or not CC is a problem, we need to look for a different replacement for fossil fuels. Because, wind and solar will not work.

The sensible options are to use shale gas in the short term, since this about halves CO2 output, and is relatively clean. In the longer term, thorium or fusion are really the only sensible options. Thing is, the Greens may decry fusion development as overly expensive, but it is an absolutely tiny cost compared to that of going 100% wind and solar.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: george80 on February 07, 2019, 12:33:57 am

Well here they're going to ban petrol and diesel cars by 2040 apparently.

Good chance I won't be around to see it but I'll bey my arse that gets revised when all the green hype fails to stack up. Of course that will be the fault of all the non believers and the world will still be here despite the panic claims " that we need to do something now" that still won't be done.

The Whole EV thing is another commercial profiteering load of BS to me.
Lets face it, it's the biggest most profitable thing to happen to the motor industry since it was created.  From their POV, who cares if it works or not? They will sell milions of new cars, used but perfectly good ones will be discarded and then when people realise  that the things aren't so smooth because the roads are still rough, there are still traffic jams, parking has still got harder to find and everything else is the same except refueling now takes 20 Min at least instead of 5 ( can you imagine how many women will be at the side of the road with flat batteries given they can't spend 5 Min to fill up now??) , they will go back to the IC vehicles that the manufacturers will get to sell again well within the previous life cycle they had before.

Probably loads of money to be grabbed from gubbermints for development programs and other subsidies. 

It's no wonder they are Pushing EV's for all they are worth.  Like saving the planet and Safety, riding on the back of a noble cause is the most profitable and defensible way to make huge money there is.

I do see a potential good money earner I can do in my retirement though.
Emergency charge Vehicle for EV's .  I reckon a small 1 ton truck with a 50 Kw Genny on the back that is on call to give these stopped electrics a charge.
Could price it  higher than a tow truck because no need to have them towed AND then charged, you can get yourself home and isn't that the goal of 99% of people that " break down" ?
To reduce costs...... errr, appease the green religion members, I'll run the truck and the genny on Veg oil as I have been doing my own vehicle for years.
I strongly suspect that when stopped by the side of the road, the most die heard of these environmentalists would care if you stood there feeding Puppies and kittens into a Mincer to power the genny as long as they could drive home.

The green dedication in my repeated experience suffers a distinct lack of loyalty from the loudest of whingers when the chips are down.

Maybe for my own self satisfaction, I should have the generator steam powered and make THEM shovel the coal into the boiler!   :-DD


Quote
Whole world's going to change in the next 30 years and it's not going to be pretty and it's not because of AGW, if that even exists, but commercial and political idiocy. I'm moving to the sticks and will have to go full mad max I reckon :)

I agree.

Corruption and ulterior profitable motives aren't even attempted to be hidden now.  People have just come to accept it and carry on like the sheeple they have been trained to be.
I am so over the whole globull warming thing I'm loosing my temper with it.
Whether it is real or not, the way the green cult preach the ridiculous solutions is an insult because even blind freddy can see they do far more harm than good.

They want the ideal but refuse to accept any level of co operation with what is feasible and practical.
I often wonder how bought and sold a lot of these groups are and if there is any money being paid by groups they denounce to make stupid claims and suggestions to turn people off the whole green ideal.
then again, I have seen what they did when they got some political power so I don't think they need to be paid to action stupid ideals and screw things up.  the South Australian grid is shining example of what happens when you let the green idealist's put their ideas into practice. en ideals out of the blue but the cult followers are hell bent on converting everyone to their religion at every opportunity.

I moved to a small acreage 19 Months ago. A main thing for me coming out to the edge and having plenty of land and bearing in mind self sufficiency when looking at places was exactly to have some independence.  Like most things I do, at the time it was more a cost saving thing but I now see that other influences may make the decision even wiser.

I don't think you can hide from the world however but certainly the ability to have ones own water, power and grow a little food is a heck of a lot better than living in a concrete box where you have no assets and are fighting with everyone else for everything.
Human behavior goes funny when things go wrong.

I remember some years back where I lived there was one of the rare blackouts. Lightening blew the crap out of a local sub station. was about 12 hours with no power, A very long outage by any measure I could remember since a kid.
I happily went and got one of my small gennys thinking this won't be long and the bigger ones were buried and I ran some leads to lights, TV etc and we happily carried on. BBQ Mrs was planning the next night got brought forward so we sat out the back in comfort and made the most of the time.

Next morning pretty early my elderly neighbour is at the door. I did a lot for this old Italian lady with things around the house and she was like a grandmother to my kids.  She asked if I had power back on yet? I said no and she said she saw I was the only place with lights last night, how come? I teld her about my junk coming in useful and I had a generator. She asked about teh fridges and freezer and I said  they were plugged in and running fine.

This seemed to upset her and she said it wasn't " Fair" I had power and she did not and seems to get annoyed.  Before I could even say if the power was out I'd get out another genny and take this one up to her, She demanded that if power wasn't back on by lunchtime " I would have to put the wire to her house so she could watch TV and do things because it wasn't fair I have power and she did not."  Forget about essentials like the fridge, She thought she had a right to watch TV and do the washing. 
This neighbour was not next door, she was 3 doors up so it was not a simple matter of running a lead 30ft to her.

This wasn't a please or could you? It was an indignant  demand.  I was less worried about that than I was interested in the behavior change.  Even days later when the power came back on and she came down to Politely as usual ask me for a favour for something else, the demand that if the power went out again I HAD to give her some was still very strong.
Of course the mention of buying her own generator quickly changed that subject as did mention of any money she would need to spend.  When I was trying to fix something it was always : What for you muck around with this, just buy new one. " When something of hers broke, she didn't even like buying the parts for me to fix it let alone buying a whole new unit even when that is what I would have done.  :0)

I have seen people mention this on the net before when they are in storm damaged areas.  A guy on a DIY forum I talk to some years back had such an outage and fired up his well prepared generator only to have a neighbour come over and demand he conect his house so he could run his AC because it was hot. When the guy explained that the genny wasn't big enough for that the guy became aggressive even though they had basically been friend outside being neighbors before and the guy had encouraged him to get a genny  but the neighbour dismissed it. 

The guy with the genny felt bad and thought he could wire a breaker up so the neighbour could only take  a limited amount  and if he tried to run his AC it would trip.  He went and saw the neighbour and explained again and the neighbour was basically of the position that if you won't help me " Properly" you can go jump.
 Guy never had anything to do with that neighbour again and rightfully so.

I know I'd be right with one neighbour, he has his own gennys for camping but I'd happily share with him anyway. He is a tinkerer as well and I wouldn't even have to tell him not to run the AC.... although with what I'm looking to put together atm, probably not a worry for us both to run our Ducted.

The others, who knows? Couple I wouldn't be surprised to get demands from.  But Like my mate, there is always the breaker that would trip and probably make them think it wasn't worth while and not worry. All but the one next door would be out of reach anyway  and No one is going to be taking away the 4-500 Kg lumps that will be bolted to the garage floor.

Might also have a Ton of old fashioned, out of fashion lead acid battery's by then as well.




Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: wasyoungonce on February 07, 2019, 02:08:16 am
Cool story George but it’s difficult deciphering all the rubbish you wrote has anything related to the topic.

The fact remains please point out factually why the renewables are damaging or degrading to the SA power grid.

This’ll be interesting. Please facts only not hype nor hate just the facts. 

Oh, just want to say hot wiring houses with power I do hope you’re qualified and the houses have rated grid isolators !


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Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: tautech on February 07, 2019, 03:25:32 am
Cool story George but it’s difficult deciphering all the rubbish you wrote has anything related to the topic.

The fact remains please point out factually why the renewables are damaging or degrading to the SA power grid.

This’ll be interesting. Please facts only not hype nor hate just the facts. 

Oh, just want to say hot wiring houses with power I do hope you’re qualified and the houses have rated grid isolators !
George's rants are right on the money and there's nothing damaging about using renewables to power the grid....they just won't be enough for future needs and population growth.
So if the greenies really want to do their bit they can bring back the lost art of candle making and ride push bikes wherever they go.

Living in once what was a real rural address where my dad remembers getting power in 1935 and how it changed his family's life there is no way we want to return to the simpler ways.....the occasional power network outages we still experience are a gentle reminder of the importance of power to the masses. Once you experience life outside an urban environment and it's inherently reliable reticulated underground services you will gain another appreciation of the things city folk take for granted.

I like George have some options to take the pain away from unexpected outages (in NZ's case mostly storm line damage), a 6.5KW genset so to provide refrigeration and water and TV's that run from 12V inverters, gas cooking and lighting etc so we can pretty much carry on regardless while our neighbors live in darkness.

The greenies would also throw up their hands in horror when our local linesco did a major upgrade here some years back and asked us what trees they could remove to protect their new network investment. Pop and I said to cut anything and everything in their way down !
I'll keep my power in any storm thanks while the greenies can huddle around their candles and whale oil kerosene lamps.

Power to the masses is the most important development mankind has ever seen and must be maintained and enhanced.
Mankind mission critical, period !
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: george80 on February 07, 2019, 04:19:21 am
Righo then. You are one of those people quite obviously....

Cool story George but it’s difficult deciphering all the rubbish you wrote has anything related to the topic.

I'll bet it is difficult with pure green blinkers on to try and decipher anything let alone try to undermine what I said, which is clearly something you don't like.

In the week or so I have been reading here, talking about off topic is laughable, especially when any thread on any forum is ALWAYS side tracked by the Co2 whingers and green zealots.
They never consider environmental bleatings are off topic to the subject of power supply and generation do they?

Quote
The fact remains please point out factually why the renewables are damaging or degrading to the SA power grid.
First of all, please show with detail and precision where I said they were damaging the SA Grid?
I think you need to again take the green defensive blinkers off and pay attention to comprehension of what WAS written so you don't make laughable straw man arguments out of things no one even mentioned. 

Quote
This’ll be interesting. Please facts only not hype nor hate just the facts. 

Unlike your own question / response I take it? 

Quote
Oh, just want to say hot wiring houses with power I do hope you’re qualified and the houses have rated grid isolators !

Oh, you are one of those as well!   ::)

Not sure what that has to do with the topic, obviously nothing, but you felt you had to try and put in another disparaging comment to make yourself feel better.  Some Might say to criticism of someone for being off topic and then posting a completely off topic comment themselves was very hypocritical but, whatever. Fortunately I am not offended or concerned in any way. that would take a level of respect and regard for the comment I simply  do not have.... And pretty certainly, never will

I have no idea where you got the idea I was hot wireing House'S but I suspect it was just another failure of comprehension on your part in the rush to try and post something to make yourself feel better and sound authoritarian at someone elses Expense even if you were completely wrong. Never Mind.

If you are talking about the rooftop isolators that have caused more fires and damage than they have saved, then no, I don't have any and wouldn't ever think of having them either. Last I read, at least 2 state fire brigades said they would not allow them on any of their premises either. I think I'll go with their position on that rather than a Bunch of rules that are in many way conflicting anyway.

Respectfully, in future before trying to put people down, I suggest you address what is written and not let failures of comprehension make you look foolish or delusions of superiority undermine your credibility.    ;D
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: wasyoungonce on February 07, 2019, 04:42:34 am
So no facts.....except drivel....ok then


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Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: george80 on February 07, 2019, 05:09:53 am
So if the greenies really want to do their bit they can bring back the lost art of candle making and ride push bikes wherever they go.

I'm not sure candle making would be acceptable in the green zealots View.  They emit soot and Co2 so at very least would need to be fitted with a cat converter. Wax comes from bees or tallow so they would probably not be happy about taking the bees wax and we all know where they stand on farming live stock, we are all supposed to become veggitarians so that would have to be out.
Of course if they did make candles they would be using at very least 80% Fossil fuel for electric or natural gas which they have issues with as well.

Riding bikes I believe is OK. That is the ONLY type of personal transport that meets the agendas of their Cult..... Until they want to go interstate for a protest or a Yurt construction seminar. Then its straigt to the airport  for them, even if they are catching the cheap last flight out after protesting airport noise and the construction of a 2nd airport.

"Living in once what was a real rural address where my dad remembers getting power in 1935 and how it changed his family's life there is no way we want to return to the simpler ways"

My grandmother who raised me used to tell me about when power came to her town which is now a surburban City, the largest outside the CBD.  She was the local " Beauty Queen at the time and was a centre of attention for all the celebrations at the time. She used to often tell me about lamp posts we would walk by between home and the town and how they were the first ones electricaly lkit and could even tell me which one the Mayor of the time stood under when he flicked the switch.... even though they had been on for almost a month testing the things.  :0)

She had the cutting from teh local paper of the event with her on the Dias when the great accomplishment was made.
She later told me about how the house my grandfather and her Bought years later just down the road from the first lights had one power outlet in every single room! Quite a modern thing in those days.
Something I cursed as a young man for there only being so few.  Due to the old wiring, we had the place re wired later on and I insisted on there being at least 2 power outlets in the bedrooms and one outlet on every wall in the rest of the place.

Quote

I like George have some options to take the pain away from unexpected outages (in NZ's case mostly storm line damage), a 6.5KW genset so to provide refrigeration and water and TV's that run from 12V inverters, gas cooking and lighting etc so we can pretty much carry on regardless while our neighbors live in darkness.
   

Oh No! Don't tell me you are hotwiring houses too!   :-DD

I have seen any vids on YT about  gensets for houses in the US. I think that is mainly due to bad weather storm Damage but they seem a fairly normal thing.  I suspect they will become far more popular here too.
I am already reading about a lot of people wanting to upgrade their solar inverters to ones that will work when the grid is out and how many people have become upset because they do have solar but have only just found out when everyone else has no power, they don't either.

I think they will sell a lot of batteries to those with too much money who will want to keep the power on no matter what.
There is also a lot of talk in the power circles about everyone having their own batteries which the grid operators can control to feed power back when they need it. Typical.

They want to limit the amount of power people can put back to the grid for the real reason they see home solar as a revenue loss but want the same people with solar to bail them out of the shit they create for themselves because they won't put money into infrastructure which will lower their  offensive profits.

I was also reading some articles about wind here in Oz. it's is producing on average a whopping 7% of it's installed capacity.
Whith the SA and Vic power crisis the other week it managed a dissapointing 20% of it's projected generation but somehow the power shortage problem was caused by coal stations that had been closed down and the operators saying they would never be run again being hastily pulled out of retirement and a couple of them fell over but still delivered more than the all the renewables  at the time.

I believe that Local/ Private solar could help the grid a LOT.  If it were encouraged and reasonable feedin tarrifs paid, at least 50% of what is charged, then it may be possible to mett the majority of generation a lot of the time and actually offset some of the CO2 the green deciples whine about.

Unfortunately that's not good enough for them.  ALL Ff has to go, tomorrow, and it's not acceptable to turn down the coal or gas generators  and ramp them up when needed.  The green worshippers say that plants can't be turned up and down which is Bullchit. they always have been. Granted they won't ramp up in 5 Minutes but they are already working on models and predictions withing in the grid management NOW so having an idea how much power you are going to need and when is an everyday practice rather than an impossibility.

Even if you supplied the grid from domestic PV 120 Days a year, that's a massive 30% saving in emissions right there.
But the green crowd only see one option and that's the complete and utter fantasy of 100% renewables which won't happen while anyone on this blue rock is around if ever.

Quote
Pop and I said to cut anything and everything in their way down !
I'll keep my power in any storm thanks while the greenies can huddle around their candles and whale oil kerosene lamps.


I have put the saw through a ship load of trees since coming here. Not so much because of power line damage, it's underground from the pole here but more from fire and storm damage.  Too may trees too close to the house and within striking distance.  No thanks.
Fines are cheaper and a lot less mucking around than getting permission to remove them, which you won't, so stuff them.

My father had a client about 6 years ago that wanted to get rid of some trees near his house and the council repeatedly denied permission even though their own inspectors said they were a risk and so did several tree people he got in.
During a storm one came down on the house, killing him and severely injuring his wife. She suede the council for several million and won.  Should have also had those that knocked  the trees removal back jailed for criminal negligence.

Quote
Power to the masses is the most important development mankind has ever seen and must be maintained and enhanced.
Mankind mission critical, period !

We can't live without it now.
I saw some videos on tech warefare. hacking a Citys computer and control systems brings it to a screaching halt.  Nothing at all works and people go into melt down in as little as 12 hours. When they can't buy food or fuel and there is no water, things get serious fast.

I have several water tanks here. I drain them in rotation but I'll never drain them all.
I don't think any far fetched scenario is beyond impossibility these days.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: george80 on February 07, 2019, 05:13:10 am
So no facts.....except drivel....ok then


Sent from my iPhone using wankatalk

Yeah well, it would be hard for you to prove something I never said so best you not dig yourself in any deeper 'eh?
I think you have undermined credibility enough already.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: tautech on February 07, 2019, 06:45:15 am
I have put the saw through a ship load of trees since coming here. Not so much because of power line damage, it's underground from the pole here but more from fire and storm damage.  Too may trees too close to the house and within striking distance.  No thanks.
Fines are cheaper and a lot less mucking around than getting permission to remove them, which you won't, so stuff them.
:-+
You probably remember the Black Friday fire near Adelaide where the only house left standing in a subdivision was one where the owner illegally cut down all the trees on his property near his house and as a result got reamed by his local shire (council). IIRC he was an epat Kiwi and could well see the fire risk in a place as dry as yours.

One mustn't forget even the shires have green agendas that the bulk of the sheepish population just roll over like puppies and swallow them without protest.
When ppls have this green bent and can push it while in paid employment it's an effort to counter their 'best intentions' but that the public must do before we're overrun by their good  ::) intentions.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: wasyoungonce on February 07, 2019, 07:08:56 am

Quote
........then again, I have seen what they did when they got some political power so I don't think they need to be paid to action stupid ideals and screw things up.  the South Australian grid is shining example of what happens when you let the green idealist's put their ideas into practice. en ideals out of the blue but the cult followers are hell bent on converting everyone to their religion at every.....

Wow just wow you inferred the SA grid was broken or not ideal because of greens putting their ideals in practice: aka renewables.    I mean really it’s hard to decipher what you are banging on about. 

Then you denied you implied this.   So please tell me how have greenies degraded or damaged the SA grid?





Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: bd139 on February 07, 2019, 08:05:00 am
I have put the saw through a ship load of trees since coming here. Not so much because of power line damage, it's underground from the pole here but more from fire and storm damage.  Too may trees too close to the house and within striking distance.  No thanks.
Fines are cheaper and a lot less mucking around than getting permission to remove them, which you won't, so stuff them.
:-+
You probably remember the Black Friday fire near Adelaide where the only house left standing in a subdivision was one where the owner illegally cut down all the trees on his property near his house and as a result got reamed by his local shire (council). IIRC he was an epat Kiwi and could well see the fire risk in a place as dry as yours.

One mustn't forget even the shires have green agendas that the bulk of the sheepish population just roll over like puppies and swallow them without protest.
When ppls have this green bent and can push it while in paid employment it's an effort to counter their 'best intentions' but that the public must do before we're overrun by their good  ::) intentions.

I see similar parallels to the idiocy here. I think it’s a pathological case of “anything by committee”, a regular failure mode of the human race. The committee is a committee of poorly contrived opinions rather than research or professional expertise. The opinions are based on what they think people might want to hear thus not affecting their ego.

I actually ran for position as an independent councillor about ten years ago but they didn’t like my rational stance on expenditure. Plus I wasn’t a mason.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: GeorgeOfTheJungle on February 07, 2019, 10:24:22 am
What a great delight this thread's being.
Where's the "Say Thanks x1000" button for george80 please?
Don't stop, keep going please!
  :popcorn:
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: station240 on February 07, 2019, 01:34:07 pm
NOTE: This message has been deleted by the forum moderator Simon for being against the forum rules and/or at the discretion of the moderator as being in the best interests of the forum community and the nature of the thread.
If you believe this to be in error, please contact the moderator involved.
An optional additional explanation is:
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: IanMacdonald on February 08, 2019, 01:07:54 pm
When dealing with a politically-charged and propaganda-awash subject like this, it's important to separate facts from hearsay. We've seen how YT videos on magnet motors have had people believing that stuff is real, even up to getting millions of views. If the Internet has taught us one thing, it's that even if something is being repeated ad nauseam all around the World :blah: that doesn't necessarily mean it is correct.  Often, it just means that someone with a lot of money is paying for this to be done.

Always check the source of your facts. Follow the money back to who is sponsoring the broadcasting of these facts, because that way you find out what the real motives are. Do your own investigations to see if the claims make sense, or not. If your results aren't even in the same ballpark, then double check them. You may have made an error. If they're still not in the same ballpark though, chances are you have been fed with propaganda.

As Wikipedia says, propaganda will often consist of statements that on the surface seem correct, but which are not a true picture of the actual situation. People with no scientific knowledge  or reasoning ability are easily led astray by such material, into believing nonsense. Nobody would base propaganda on claims that are obviously wrong, because that would be ineffective. It's the claims that sound for all the world like they ought to be correct, but are not, that are the dangerous ones.

The most dangerous, most effective, propaganda is that which immediately fits within the reader's view of how the world ought to be. Solar roadways are a case in point. The power of the propaganda appealing to solar energy supporters is such that even after the concept has been thouroughly disproven as worthless, money is STILL being allocated to fresh installations.

'Let him who hath understanding reckon the number of the Beast' - Revelation.  Because, with understanding, comes the power to decide for oneself what is right and what is wrong. -and in science, it's all about the numbers. Not so much what it does, but how much it does.   :-DMM
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: station240 on February 08, 2019, 02:55:51 pm
Always check the source of your facts. Follow the money back to who is sponsoring the broadcasting of these facts, because that way you find out what the real motives are. Do your own investigations to see if the claims make sense, or not. If your results aren't even in the same ballpark, then double check them. You may have made an error. If they're still not in the same ballpark though, chances are you have been fed with propaganda.

To add the mainstream media, especially newspapers, are NOT A CREDIBLE INFORMATION SOURCE.
Simple reasons why:
1. The company takes money from those who want stories published, even obviously untrue ones. If caught, they say "oops we forgot to label it as a sponsored story" (or an opinion piece)
2. The publish press releases from others word for word, no fact checking.
3. Staff cutbacks means there is say 1 hour to write a story, as if anyone can research properly with that little time. Any experts the company had are long gone. So people don't buy the paper as it's trash, so less money, so less staff, so worse stories.
4. Option pieces, waste of perfectly good ink or electricity.

If the only information that agrees with a newspaper article is other newspapers and TV stations, then its junk news.
If anyone wants to know the detailed facts on something, the ONLY CHOICE is to go find a researcher, blog, industry specific news site, youtube expert.
Plenty of different choices, from people who actually take the time to understand what they are talking about.

How about the $14,000 per MW Coal power, and $14,000 per MW Gas power, that exists as some fool thought it was OK to set the maximum wholesale power price to $14,000 per MW ?
An power companies manipulated things so there would be say 1MW less power than needed, thusly everyone's power station got $14k every now and then.
Which by the way SA rarely pays anymore as the Big Battery is doing the job properly and for less money per MW.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: george80 on February 09, 2019, 07:02:13 am

To add the mainstream media, especially newspapers, are NOT A CREDIBLE INFORMATION SOURCE.

Could not agree more.
I did a stint in the media when I left school. Went to one of the countries largest Disasters, a train derailment.
Was with other Journos asking officials questions to which thy Cited numbers.  Those Numbers were automatically inflated, in this case was dead and injured.  When I poined out what I thought was and error I was told that not everyone was found and the toll would rise.

I pointed out the number the authourites specified were already an "Up to" number and the majority of the rescue had been performed and it would not be feasable for there to be that many left.  I was basicaly told Shut up kid and the story ran.
There never was ( thankfully) the numbers anywhere near what they ran but it was all sensationalism to sell the story.
The Irony was EVERY paper ran inflated numbers so they were all quoting something different and all well above the eventual outcome.

What makes me laugh is every single time I see one of these Globull warming debates it's always a bunch people arguing and linking endless newspaper articles mixed with the odd " Report " from some clearly biased, bought and paid for source.
These people seem to believe that something in the media is inarguable fact and proof of the position they want to push.
The only fact I can deduce for certain is that No one rally knows what the truth is and if they do, it's buried under the load of BS from everyone else busting a gut to make their side of the story the believable one.

We know all about fake news, it's nothing new or that the world is unaware of and "News" has been more along the lines of sensationalism and entertainment for many, many years.  In later years I have seen reports of stories that I was at the scene of and witnessed and the stories ALWAYS have a bias with information either left out or exaggerated to say what the news organization want or the agenda they want to push.

I remember during the Trump election there were all these claims being made about the guy. He was anti this, biased against that and so it went.  A bit of fact checking  revealed he was not against this group at all, in fact this Very large organisation was supporting him and advising their members to do so.  He had not done something else, in fact he had done the complete and utter opposite and the claim could not have been more of a lie. 

These things they were saying were in fact " Common knowledge virtualy every media source had repeated but were demonstrably fake and untrue.

The other thing is that so much news comes from news agencies now like reuters and the like especially when it is from overseas.
You can read 4 Different reports from competing sources and they all say the same thing word for word or are edited to suit the length of the space they want to fill.

Citing a media report of anything and holding it out to be fact is laughable.
Any news article will say exactly what the owners of the source want it to say from whatever hidden or not so hidden agenda they have and that is it.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: IanMacdonald on February 09, 2019, 09:00:38 am
Another mechanism by which false view are perpetrated, is censored visitor comments. If a page gets enough comments there are bound to be some for, some against. If the against comments are silently deleted it creates a false impression of public support for the article. The Guardian used to be at that lark for years,  though lately they've stopped allowing comments at all.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: bd139 on February 09, 2019, 09:13:30 am
I think that was because there are a lot of total loons out there waiting to comment.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: IanMacdonald on February 09, 2019, 10:22:23 am
I think that was because there are a lot of total loons out there waiting to comment.
No, I think it was because there were more and more analytical posts appearing from people who had studied the subject in depth, and these were getting harder and harder to refute. In fact it was the increasing quality of the posts which posed the problem for them, with some of the posters self-evidently knowing a lot more about the subject than their columnists. Which was making their staff look like fools. So...

Meanwhile, an example of the extent of the propaganda can be seen here:
https://www.climateweekaberdeen.org/resources.html (https://www.climateweekaberdeen.org/resources.html)
Notice that whilst it's supposedly about climate action, the real purpose is to convince the public to allow governments and energy companies to fund wind turbines. Possibly with a few solar panels too. But, mostly turbines. So again this is a red herring argument that's being put out. Climate change may be a concern, but that does not mean wind turbines will solve it. All available real evidence is that they will not.  :--
Other red herrings include promotion of recycling. Yes, most people think recycling is a good idea  :-+ but it has nothing to do with climate or wind turbines. Of course, most people won't notice that it is unrelated to the subject matter.  :-//
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: bd139 on February 09, 2019, 11:15:57 am
Fair points. The guardian isn’t exactly known for quality reporting. Some of it is laughable.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: tszaboo on February 09, 2019, 12:23:02 pm
What a load of ranting bullshit.
Seriously, you are describing the "greens" as some kind of moron hippis. Newsflash, yes, there are idiots in both groups, and they are usually the loudest. Dont believe me? You are aligning yourself with this group of people, you are "one of them".
(https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQU1Raa9uMdTM0AqbqGiO6CKc_en90Mgl7QPGFjpnf7P1DlkU-k3A)

OK, so now we can maybe act civilized and instead of insulting each other, start a conversation.
First thing is, renewable energy is cheaper. Therefore switching to it makes financial sense.
It makes political sense. Look up the 10 largest oil exporters. 9 out of 10 is a dictatorship (or they fail to adhere human rights in a big way). Every time you fill up your car, you support a dictator.
About storage: Sure, large scale storage is not employed. But why would it be? It is rare, that green output is larger than demand. Once it will be usual, storage will follow. Power to gas can store immense amount of energy, and the engineering behind it is solved. Efficiency doesnt matter, when green energy is just so much cheaper.
And yeah, they will sell a bunch of electric cars, and thats like a doomsday scenario to some. But, you know, after driving an electric car... Its just better. Less moving parts, less service bill, more reliable, and faster. And no, it doesnt take 20 minutes to charge it up. It takes 20 seconds a day. And the car can run the airco for you so you dont have to sit in a cold car with a foggy window on the daily commute. And you know, no NOx, no volatile organic compounds (AKA cancer).
You know, it feels good sometimes to click on that web interface of the solar panel, and see "You saved the equivalent of 16T of coal since installation". That is a literally a train wagon of coal.
So thats the thing about renewable. It is 21 century, and convenient, better for everyone. It feels good that I dont have to go outside to chop wood.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: bd139 on February 09, 2019, 12:43:09 pm
I'm all for idealism but this is where it's going to fall over. Renewables are only cheaper on operational expenditure.  They require massive infrastructure investment that just isn't there. Your electric car introduces more costs:

1. New distribution infrastructure
2. New generation capacity
3. New disposal and recycling infrastructure.

These actually pretty much offset the cost. Not only that, item 2 is a joke at the moment. Where are we going to get 3GW here in the UK by 2040 when it has taken them ten years to fuck up a single non renewable nuclear plant and all the others are near end of life.

I live in a relatively affluent bit of the UK. Tesla ownership is close to highest in Europe here. I see tens of them every day. Parents down the school have them. There are two Tesla dealerships within 10 minutes drive from here. We've got power distribution and voltage sag problems here already. We literally have to rip up every street, substation, distribution substation and the grid to support that load.

It would be better to stick a boiler on the back of your Tesla and start shoveling coal into it.

Me, 100% honestly, I'm buying myself a nice Dawes bicycle and avoiding travelling. Millions of us in service industries should simply just work at home. That's got a better "green outcome" than building a renewable infrastructure.

Social change and carrying on burning fossil fuels is probably better at this point.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: george80 on February 10, 2019, 05:14:59 am
Seriously, you are describing the "greens" as some kind of moron hippis.
 You are aligning yourself with this group of people, you are "one of them".

Farmers??
Pickup Truck Drivers?
Car show exhibitors??

Ah yes, the hypocrisy of the greenwashed.  Do as we say not as we do.


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OK, so now we can maybe act civilized and instead of insulting each other, start a conversation.

By this you mean a flawed green lecture I take it?  OK.

Quote
First thing is, renewable energy is cheaper.

Really? Then how come they keep blowing up coal fired power stations here and supposedly putting in more RE but everyones power bill keep going up to point of something like 400% in the last 10 years. That's not exaggeration or analogy, that is verifiable, demostrable FACT!

Even if RE is cheaper as I hear parroted all the time, so what? You think that automaticaly means power will be cheaper to the end user and the power co's won't simply skim the bigger margins?
That's the trouble with the green washed mentality, they fail to understand how business works and think that the movers and shakers that sit on Company boards being paid millions a year have the same greenwashed ideals as they do.
THEY DON'T!

They care about one thing and one thing only and that is PROFIT. The sooner the green do gooders get that through their heads the sooner they may start coming up with realistic and beneficial solution's that will work in the real world.

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It makes political sense. Look up the 10 largest oil exporters. 9 out of 10 is a dictatorship (or they fail to adhere human rights in a big way). Every time you fill up your car, you support a dictator.
 

Umm, yeah WRONG.

In any case, why are you now mixing Foreign Politics and green agendas in with a discussion on the Australian grid and it's power supply?  Never miss an opportunity to push the green cause and ram it down everyones throats Right?
Human rights has NOTHING to do with this discussion nor it is a consideration.

I take it you have an electric car because if you don't, that again would make you a hypocrite.


Quote
About storage: Sure, large scale storage is not employed. But why would it be?

Ummm, maybe in case you haven't noticed, the sun don't shine all the time and the wind isn't always blowing.  In the idealsic green 100% Re newabull grid, where is the power going to come from at Midnight?

I really wish the green washed whingers would get their story's  and agenda's straight for once. They are always wanting something different and while one lot is sooking about one thing, the other lot are agaist what the first lot say will save the world.
Don't know how many times I have read the green lot going on about more batteries and now we have one saying don't need them.

Can you all at least decide what the hell it is you DO want and tell the others so you at least are all on the same dam page??

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Once it will be usual, storage will follow.

Oh so we do need storage now.  But only after we have the RE generation. Hope it don't take long, People will probably get sick of going to bed at sunset.

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Power to gas can store immense amount of energy, and the engineering behind it is solved.

Is that like the science of Globull warming is solved.... only the models keep changing when they are proven completely wrong by reality and real world outcomes?


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Efficiency doesnt matter, when green energy is just so much cheaper.

Oh dear!
If you sounded a bit less than creditable before, You sound like a right dilettante now!

You should tell the investors or gubbermints you want to build these RE generators that efficiency doesen't matter. Tell the engineers because that will make things so much easier for them as well.  Tell the end customers that because efficency doesent matter, they are paying twice or 3 times what they could be because green energy is so much cheaper.  They might ask cheaper than what and it would be handy to have an answer for that and even better to have a factual one.

There are a lot of things I have noticed that don't matter to the greenwashed. Things like  Reality, laws of physics, practicality, truth, return on investment, reliability, scientific principals and honesty.


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And no, it doesnt take 20 minutes to charge it up. It takes 20 seconds a day.

Goes to my last point in the above comment.  And the one about reality, laws of physics, truth, and scientific principals.

Could you please link to anything that indicates a car can be charged up in 20 seconds because otherwise, I call complete and utter bullchit.

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And the car can run the airco for you so you dont have to sit in a cold car with a foggy window on the daily commute.
You mean like cars have been able to do for the last 40 Plus years?

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And you know, no NOx, no volatile organic compounds (AKA cancer).

What? electric cars are going to wipe out cancer??? Geez, why didn't someone say this in the first place! I'm all for them Now !
Just one question, far as I know there is more than one cause of cancer, how are EV's going to eliminate all those sources as well?


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You know, it feels good sometimes to click on that web interface of the solar panel, and see "You saved the equivalent of 16T of coal since installation". That is a literally a train wagon of coal.

Ummm, no it's not but anyway, nothing else much you said has been correct so won't bother about this one.

I like to do the weekly/ Monthly Totals on my inverters and read how much power I generated, divide it by .3 and work out how much money I saved on power bills.  Due for a read this thursday and I expect my saving to be about $1500 on what it would have without panels. That feels REAL good to me.

I will say though, it's fantastic you are saving coal. That is very charitable and kind of you.  From what I can work out by all the noise the green whingers are making, the stuff is about to become extinct at any moment so it's a good job we can save it so it will be around for future generations to see and admire. 

They will be able to see coal mines still happy and healthy and full of coal just as it once was instead of having to go to zoo's or Museums to see it or look at historic Photos.
Too many things in our world have become extinct already and if the efforts of concientious people like yourself can save coal from being added to that list, then the world will be a better place.

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So thats the thing about renewable. It is 21 century, and convenient, better for everyone. It feels good that I dont have to go outside to chop wood.

Ummm, I think you should have caught up to the 20th century by now. I was around in then back half of that and never chopped wood and neither did anyone I know. Electricity and gas were around then to save that wood chopping. Matter of fact, they were even banning having wood fires in some parts, Bad for the environment you know.  You should start thinking of future generation and take some environmental responsibility and get yourself a modern stove  and stop polluting like that!
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: george80 on February 10, 2019, 06:06:39 am
I'm all for idealism but this is where it's going to fall over. Renewables are only cheaper on operational expenditure.  They require massive infrastructure investment that just isn't there. Your electric car introduces more costs:

The eve/ green washed proponents continually cook the books and lie by omission if nothing else.
They manipulate numbers like saying it costs $75 to fill an IC but only $20 to fill an EV.
What they purposeful;ly Hide is the IC can take you 800-1000 Km for that $75.  The EV will take you 150. Per Km, Ev's ARE more expensive to run.

Quote

1. New distribution infrastructure
2. New generation capacity
3. New disposal and recycling infrastructure.

These actually pretty much offset the cost. Not only that, item 2 is a joke at the moment. Where are we going to get 3GW here in the UK by 2040 when it has taken them ten years to fuck up a single non renewable nuclear plant and all the others are near end of life.

The real costs are always hidden by the green proponents. the will say how it " Only" costs this much to build an XX gw solar farm but will forget the tens/ hundreds of millions to build the transmissions lines to get the power back to where it is wanted or hook back into the main grid..... if the current inter connector can handle it anyway.  They will make out there are no maintence costs and no environmental costs of impact on the surrounding habitat.

They fail to recognise or acknowledge that the power generated is not 24/7 like a coal  plant but available a small part of the time for solar forgetting about bad weather and as for wind, that constantly fails to deliver projected ( overinflated) estimates of power production very regularly.... usually when it's needed most!

The health effects of wind are becoming known but are being argued with Cigarette type science of denial by a massive industry and the connected gubbermints. The public will continue to be lied to until there is too much evidence to deny any longer and the whole debacle comes to light.
Not so long ago we were all assured gas fracking was so safe and friendly too but they ran out of ways to spin that once the evidence got too much and the excuses too thin.

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We've got power distribution and voltage sag problems here already. We literally have to rip up every street, substation, distribution substation and the grid to support that load.

Every time I make mention of the huge increase in load on the grid, someone comes along and say it' only some tiny amount of that the grid produces now. That's ironic because what lead to the $14,000 mwh cost was people switching on their Air conditioners. Luck if that would be 2 Kw on average over and above normal demand.  The  grid here went into meltdown and there has even been a lot of talk and planning for what to do if the plantes line up and 3 states have hot weather all at once. The fear is the entire grid could collapse and they are  making sure they think they have a strategy in place to do a " Cold boot" of our entire grid.

This is from people using their IC on a hot day but the green washed are trying to tell us that  a significant chunk of the population sucking down tens of KW each day on average if not in practice ( and who is not going to charge an EV after driving) is not going to put a drain on things when here is oz they are already predicting power shortages in the next 5 years when a few more coal plants are closed down.  Please......!

The next green argument is by then there will be more RE in place.  That would be the 9-3 Solar or the maybe tonight, maybe not wind  ?? Yeah right!!

And the old well worn laughable chestnut, " You can charge your EV from your solar panels. "
That's great, Plenty of sun in most parts of Oz and lots of us have panels already.  Of course lots of people also drive their car to work during the day so going to need a pretty long extension cord.  going to be messy when everyone is driving over each others.
But you can have a battery at home and charge from that.  So that's another $20K for a battery, a loss of 30% round trip efficency if not 50%  and who has enough solar on their roof to provide for the needs of the home as they are used for now and charge a battery to charge a battery?

NOT VERY MANY!

I have never been to the UK but I'm lead to believe the sunshine can be scarce for fairly long periods and I'm guessing the the amount of solar and capacity is not as high there as it is here and many other countries in Europe would be the same.


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It would be better to stick a boiler on the back of your Tesla and start shoveling coal into it.

The all up efficiency would probably be better!

Me, 100% honestly, I'm buying myself a nice Dawes bicycle and avoiding travelling. [/quote]

I love traveling around in my veg powered 4WD tank.  Upsets the greenwashed when I say I have a 2 plus ton tank to drive around in and REALLY upsets them when I point out it runs on veg oil and is therefore more enviro friendly  than their  tiny matchbox or fossil fueled EV hypocrisy on wheels.

Quote
Social change and carrying on burning fossil fuels is probably better at this point.

Careful!
You'll be shot for talking fact and reality like that!
The REAL priority these days is to be seen to be doing something new and Innovative even if it's a fallacy anything is being achieved.

What the powers that be REALLY want is more consumerism, the sheeple bying new products endlessly. Keeps the money going round... mainly round into the pockets of the wealthy via gubbermint taxes etc. Wether these products and ideas work as they say or not is irrelevant. It's important the sheeple THINK they are doing something for the  environment that's the important thing!

So many of these ideas is see to save the world that are in fact in the big picture WORSE than the old methods but touted as green because the end product may be better than the other, but they never take into account the pile of energy, resources and emissions in making it which as you say, wipes out any benefits and then some. 

it's a bit like saying you have the nicest looking house in the street but the interior is full of garbage you took money for people to dump so you could make the Front look nice from the road. 
I also hear people saying things like " Well we have to do this even if it's not better so we can learn how to make it better in the future generations".

Bullchit!  We have had now for some time computer modeling with very high accuracy. If they can make every new airplane as complex as they are fly right off the bat with very few changes because they knew what it was going to do before they built it, they can predict the outcomes of of other, much simpler problems even better.  No need to build a thing these days to learn. Design it in a computer and you'll be 98% or more the way there straight off.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: bd139 on February 10, 2019, 07:53:02 am
On your last points I don’t want one up or a finger against the greens. Just a rational mid ground. There’s pollution in major cities to consider as well. I drive an 0.99 litre petrol vehicle for this reason that does 70-80mpg. It’s cheap, it’s safe and it’s extremely reliable (and I can get at least 5x tek 7603’s in it :) )

And yes there’s not a lot of sun here. You need a lot of panels to break even.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: george80 on February 10, 2019, 08:44:46 am

 There’s pollution in major cities to consider as well.

One of the things I see the EV proponets professing is the no tailpipe angle and  The mention of moving the pollution from the cities to the country.... or out of the cities, wherever they think that is.

I don't think that is at all a rational or creditable upside.

Again, we are all on the big blue marble and moving the garbage from one spot to another does not get rid of it, it's merely making it someone elses problem.  Not good enough in my book. There is a lot of disdain for the west shipping Ewaste for instance to the 3rd world countries so to me moving the pollution out of the cities to else where is a cop out as well.

If the initiative does not reduce the problem in it's entirety then it's better not to squander resources going sideways, just keep  marking time. I'n the long run it IS the best alternative even if it is boring, unfashionable and doesen't make big biz any more bucks.

Here in Oz we have the green sentiment shoved down our throats at every turn.  Most places also have plenty of sunshine and there is Miles of roof space in the suburbs for PV.
While there is a known and unquestioned predicted shortage of power in the next few years, the ability of homeowners to to provide for their own power needs and others with domestic solar is severly limited.  We are allowed 5Kw or less in some places on single phase and generally limited to 10 Kw in 3 phase if we want to claim the solar credits which greatly reduce the cost of systems.

The excuse given is that the grid can't cope with too much feedback and voltage rise becomes an issue. And it IS an excuse, nothing less.  I have had people who claim to be electrical engineer etc tell me it is a real thing, an engineering problem but when I ask if there is no way said problem can be overcome and how do they do it in other places where they encourage PV and other RE to be fed back into the system, they begrudgingly admit it can be done but at a cost.

There is always money to be spent on solar and wind farms and a lot of other useless crackpot ideas but when it comes to localised generation where the power will be right where it is used, where it can be employed without taking up any more land, disturbing habitats or having ANY negative effect, It is restricted as much as possible.

Domestic PV need no transmission lines to take power for miles, I doubt anywhere in Sydney it would have to travel 5, probably even 3KM to find a place where all the power in an area would be consumed.  Shopping centres, factories, offices, schools, hospitals, Phone exchanges, water and sewage pumping and so it goes.  Not to mention the ridiculous amount of housing units that are being thrown up her ( or falling down) where there is no generation but a lot of consumers in a very small area.

If the system was upgraded so the full potential of rooftop PV could be realised, maybe there would be enough power to charge ev's  or at very least the demand on the failing grid would be greatly reduced.  Have the homes pumping all the PV they can back into the system and have all the EV's charging during the day while people are at work. That way they drive home and don't need to charge the car.

Hell, I might even play devils advocate and suggest there may be a way of plugging the cars in to give a certain amount of discharge  to offset the night time useage again.  Have enough power with reserve to get back to work and charge up again from the domestic generated PV. may not by your PV but you might be using someone elses and they using yours. All good in the end.

There is no need to go building solar farms, taking up land and costing tax payers billions that go into the coffers of global entities.
Let the individual foot most of the bill for which they will get a return on their investment and the gubbermints will also through various ways if not direct income.
Be happy to turn the power plants down during the day, crank them up  in the evenings and on overcast days if need be.
Be happy with the substantial savings made and don't be greedy professing a want it all , want it now impractical attitude.

The fly in this practical and utopian ointment is the power cos.
They don't want people generating their own power and infringing on their revenues and yearly earnings.  They want to make money first and foremost and stuff anything or anyone else, especially the environment.

And that is where it all falls apart.  Green concern is nothing but an act like a reality TV show and why nothing worthwhile will ever be done unless there is MORE revenue in it to fit the growth models of business and Gubbermint.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: tszaboo on February 10, 2019, 08:52:09 am
Seriously, you are describing the "greens" as some kind of moron hippis.
 You are aligning yourself with this group of people, you are "one of them".

Farmers??
Pickup Truck Drivers?
Car show exhibitors??

Ah yes, the hypocrisy of the greenwashed.  Do as we say not as we do.

It is called "rolling coal", they are really special people, modifying their trucks to make as much pollution as possible.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolling_coal (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolling_coal)
The rest... Look, I dont have neither the time nor the patience to answer for your strawman argument.
And luckily, I dont need to convince you. Governments all over the world think alike, and despite people like you, we are switching to green energy. I really wish you would learn how to argue...

And no, the global warming model wasnt proven wrong. Someone linked two websites, which is not proof. I'm not even going to adress that temperature is somehow "lagging behind", somehow defying physics.
Anyway, luckily there is this ignore function on this forum.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: tautech on February 10, 2019, 09:30:23 am
The fly in this practical and utopian ointment is the power cos.
They don't want people generating their own power and infringing on their revenues and yearly earnings.  They want to make money first and foremost and stuff anything or anyone else, especially the environment.

And that is where it all falls apart.  Green concern is nothing but an act like a reality TV show and why nothing worthwhile will ever be done unless there is MORE revenue in it to fit the growth models of business and Gubbermint.
All of this ^.

AND if any govt has the balls to do what's right for their ppls by stomping on this anti-competitive behavior they risk big biz capital flight offshore and a slump in their $$$ currency and imported goods pricing jumping through the roof.  :horse:
The capitalist model is not perfect, far from it.  :(
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: george80 on February 10, 2019, 04:02:33 pm
It is called "rolling coal", they are really special people, modifying their trucks to make as much pollution as possible.

Sorry, I don't own a truck like that so how you believe I have any affinity with them I have no idea.  I in fact have run my Vehicle for the last 16 years on veg oil so in fact I'll bet my backside I have caused infinitely less pollution than you have running fossil fuels.
My solar panels also generate more power than I use so if you want to get into a penis measuring contest over who is the most environmentally responsible out of the 2 of us, Lob it out and we'll get the ruler.

Quote
The rest... Look, I dont have neither the time nor the patience to answer for your strawman argument.

Funny how people suddenly run out of time and inclination to debate when they are shown to be completely wrong . More like they don't have any salient points to argue and don't want to be proven wrong again.
 If I had the inclination, i'll bet if I checked  you will have the time to make plenty of posts in the next week or so.

Quote
Governments all over the world think alike,
Yeah well I can't agree with you more there! Unfortunately they all think as badly as each other and tend to copy one anothers flawed policys and ideals as well as doing what their big business puppet want them to dance to the tune they play for them instead of doing what is best for the people they are supposed to serve.
On this we agree.

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and despite people like you, we are switching to green energy. I really wish you would learn how to argue...

Yes we are switching to green energy and what a complete and utter fiasco it has been even this early in the game.
As for learning to argue, Clearly I can argue well enough that you don't want to loose any more face.

Quote
And no, the global warming model wasnt proven wrong. Someone linked two websites, which is not proof. I'm not even going to adress that temperature is somehow "lagging behind", somehow defying physics.

Yeah, they have all been proven wrong.
I have been reading the whining of some local green goobers crapping on about our record warm temps here a couple of weeks back are proof the sky is falling and chicken little is about to get roasted.  unfortunately they are too ignorant to realise in other parts of the world they are having a severe cold spell which would negate the heat waves and all the polar ice caps melting and all that crap. They also fail to acknowledge the proof that the world has always been in a state of temp fluctuation and many High temp records were set in the early 1800's, well before the globull scamming BS was thought up.


Quote
Anyway, luckily there is this ignore function on this forum.

OK, I didn't know that. I have the ability to be able to read differing viewpoints without having to shield myself from them less I get too upset or whatever it is.
Some people do not have that intestinal fortitude or self control so I highly encourage those to use that function in order to protect their delicate sensitivities. 
Unfortunately many  that say they will use this feature don't which is a real shame.

Be so much better for everyone if they did.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: f4eru on February 11, 2019, 06:57:26 am
The mention of moving the pollution from the cities to the country.... or out of the cities, wherever they think that is.
 (http://The mention of moving the pollution from the cities to the country.... or out of the cities, wherever they think that is.)
The nice thing is, it does move the pollution, but mainly, it reduces it to 1/5 of the volume, due do increased efficiency of the whole chain, and growing renewables share.

For the rest, you're right, we have an unacceptable footprint, and it's inacceptable to cope with the ressource waste of moving 80kg of meat with a very wasteful1500kg vehicle, no matter the fuel.
That weight should be limited to a much smaller value on the long term, especially in 10 years, when automation make car crashes extremely unlikely.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: TerraHertz on February 19, 2019, 01:28:26 am
The nice thing is, it does move the pollution, but mainly, it reduces it to 1/5 of the volume, due do increased efficiency of the whole chain

What? You think the energy efficiency of remote generation, long distance electrical transmission, then battery charge and discharge losses in a vehicle, plus the energy overheads of EV and battery manufacture, is higher than the system of IC engine vehicles, their manufacture and the production and transport of hydrocarbon fuels?
Not to mention the utility of IC engine vehicles, that can be rugged, high carrying capacity, long range, and work with bulk-storable long-lasting fuel.

Also, what exactly are you saying gets "reduced to 1/5 the volume" in the former case, compared to the latter?
CO2? Actual pollution like particulates, CO, SO2, etc? Please define.

By the way, the actual biggest problem with our industrial society, is not CO2 emissions, but planned obsolescence. That results in physical products with very limited use lifetimes, thus the huge material and energy wastage required for the continual replacement of everything we use.  You don't see many (any?) Green advocates calling for an end to planned obsolescence do you? This factor alone should convince you the entire 'Green' energy push has goals quite different to what it pretends.

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and growing renewables share.
Don't get me wrong. I'm all in favor of investments in energy sources that are distributed, locally or privately owned, have less harmful (or non-harmful) environmental footprints, and are capable of aiding the support of a high-tech civilization. Which of course must include having a sufficiently positive EROEI to be energy-worthwhile, as opposed to simply wasting our precious and irreplaceable fossil fuel energy resources on stupid ideologically motivated feel-good schemes that don't ultimately work.


The problem is, the only 'renewable' energy source I know of that meets those requirements, is hydroelectric power. ALL the others have serious issues with EROEI, operating lifetime, energy-payback time, energy availability and long term dependability. So bad they are actually not practical & worthwhile as major energy sources for industrial society overall.
Local and individual use of solar panel & battery installations for residential energy independence, especially  in remote locations, is great. But it does require a fossil-fueled industrial base to enable manufacture of the panels (glass, aluminium, silicon cells, wiring) and electronics.
It's also unfortunate governments and power generation authorities dislike and generally discourage true energy independence, since they lose both their money cut, and the political control aspect.


Quote
For the rest, you're right, we have an unacceptable footprint,
Perhaps. It depends what you define as objectives. It would be nice to reduce our environmental impact, true. But taking it to zero? OK YOU kill yourself first as a praiseworthy example to the rest of us.

Quote
and it's inacceptable to cope with the ressource waste of moving 80kg of meat with a very wasteful1500kg vehicle, no matter the fuel.

Speak for yourself. I find it 'inacceptable' (sic) for someone else to tell me what kind of vehicle I need to carry out whatever activities I consider worthwhile. Maybe I need a 3 ton truck as well as a light runaround? Who are you to say no?

Quote
That weight should be limited to a much smaller value on the long term, especially in 10 years, when automation make car crashes extremely unlikely.

Oh I see. You are one of those who believe in fairy tales, and want to impose fairy-tale-based restrictions on everyone else.
The kind of mindset that results in quotes like these:
Quote
"Global Sustainability requires the deliberate quest of poverty, reduced resource consumption and set levels of mortality control." - Professor Maurice King

"Current lifestyles and consumption patterns of the affluent middle class - involving high meat intake, use of fossil fuels, appliances, air-conditioning, and suburban housing - are not sustainable." - Maurice Strong, Rio Earth Summit

"Complex technology of any sort is an assault on human dignity. It would be little short of disastrous for us to discover a source of clean, cheap, abundant energy, because of what we might do with it." - Amory Lovins, Rocky Mountain Institute

"The prospect of cheap fusion energy is the worst thing that could happen to the planet." - Jeremy Rifkin, Greenhouse Crisis Foundation  (One of my favorites.)

"Giving society cheap, abundant energy would be the equivalent of giving an idiot child a machine gun." - Prof Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University  (A close second.)

"The big threat to the planet is people: there are too many, doing too well economically and burning too much oil." – Sir James Lovelock, BBC Interview

"My three main goals would be to reduce human population to about 100 million worldwide, destroy the industrial infrastructure and see wilderness, with it’s full complement of species, returning throughout the world." -Dave Foreman, co-founder of Earth First!

"A total population of 250-300 million people, a 95% decline from present levels, would be ideal." - Ted Turner, founder of CNN and major UN donor

"... the resultant ideal sustainable population is hence more than 500 million but less than one billion." - Club of Rome, Goals for Mankind
( More at http://everist.org/archives/links/__Global_Cull_links.txt (http://everist.org/archives/links/__Global_Cull_links.txt) )


As an update, here are a few recent read-worthy articles.

20190130
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/01/30/climate-change-gets-a-new-language-again/ (https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/01/30/climate-change-gets-a-new-language-again/)
Just in case you thought the Warmists don't strategize adaptations of the propaganda terminology they use.


20190213
http://joannenova.com.au/2019/02/australias-new-hottest-day-just-discovered-not-albany-or-oodnadatta-but-carnarvon-51-degrees-in-1953/ (http://joannenova.com.au/2019/02/australias-new-hottest-day-just-discovered-not-albany-or-oodnadatta-but-carnarvon-51-degrees-in-1953/)
Australia’s new hottest day just “discovered”, not Albany or Oodnadatta, but Carnarvon (51 degrees in 1953!)
THE BOM LIST grows — Scandal after scandal  (A list of uncovered data frauds from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology.)

The BOM seem to be doing their historical revisionism nearly every year. From Sept 2017:
  http://joannenova.com.au/2017/09/too-late-bureau-of-met-buys-time-with-another-major-revision-of-data-that-was-best-quality-five-years-ago/ (http://joannenova.com.au/2017/09/too-late-bureau-of-met-buys-time-with-another-major-revision-of-data-that-was-best-quality-five-years-ago/)


20190216
http://www.petitionproject.org/index.php (http://www.petitionproject.org/index.php)
Global Warming Petition Project
http://www.petitionproject.org/seitz_letter.php (http://www.petitionproject.org/seitz_letter.php)
http://humansarefree.com/2016/09/over-30000-scientists-declare-climate.html#.XGb33e4JetU.email (http://humansarefree.com/2016/09/over-30000-scientists-declare-climate.html#.XGb33e4JetU.email)
Over 30,000 Scientists Declare Climate Change A Hoax
A staggering 30,000+ scientists have come forward confirming that man-made climate change is a hoax perpetuated by the elite in order to make money.


20190219
http://joannenova.com.au/2019/02/nasa-hides-page-saying-the-sun-was-the-primary-climate-driver-and-clouds-and-particles-are-more-important-than-greenhouse-gases/ (http://joannenova.com.au/2019/02/nasa-hides-page-saying-the-sun-was-the-primary-climate-driver-and-clouds-and-particles-are-more-important-than-greenhouse-gases/)
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-02-15/climate-change-religion-and-related-cover-ups-what-hell-nasa-hiding (https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-02-15/climate-change-religion-and-related-cover-ups-what-hell-nasa-hiding)
NASA hides page saying the Sun was the primary climate driver, and clouds and particles are more important than greenhouse gases


Also https://www.iceagenow.info/ (https://www.iceagenow.info/) always worth reading daily, for their collection of 'gosh it really is an Ice Age starting' current global cold-weather records.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: boffin on February 21, 2019, 05:34:31 pm
I really would like to know where all the power is going to come from in holiday time when the service center's on the pacific highway have 50 cars in there art a time all wanting to suck  down 100Kw of power, at least, so they can continue on their way.
But there is always a feel good answer for theses problems from the sunshine and rainbows crowd.

This is the one that makes me laugh here in the UK. You think you've got it bad? Minor rant sorry.

Well here they're going to ban petrol and diesel cars by 2040 apparently. So that means we need 30GW of additional power online or another 10 nuclear stations in 20 years. Aka £200bn of power plants and then the fuel to run them. Then there's the distribution costs, another £50bn. At the same time they're killing our biggest industrial and political alliance, which has already lead to the cancellation of one nuclear plant, and there's renewable and anti-nuclear propaganda all over the place which is pointless because we can't generate 30GW of renewables in this country as we're a pissy little island that's dark most of the time and not that windy really in the scale of things. This is all under the guise of tackling "climate change" and selling us renewables  :palm:

Maybe if they connected a generator the legs of the shite pedallers then we'd be sorted.

Whole world's going to change in the next 30 years and it's not going to be pretty and it's not because of AGW, if that even exists, but commercial and political idiocy. I'm moving to the sticks and will have to go full mad max I reckon :)

Not nearly as dire as you predict.  The power companies (and transmission lines) can handle a pretty big uptake in BEV cars because most will charge at night when power generation/transmission lines are running at a small fraction of their capacity. 

You probably knew this already as you're a smart person, and you're just trolling, right?
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: Marco on February 21, 2019, 06:05:11 pm
They generally don't charge at night, they start charging before dinner starts. In theory most people could charge at night ... but people would need pretty high monetary incentives to do so, because most people want their car fully operational ASAP. You never know when you might need it.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: Mr.B on February 21, 2019, 07:41:15 pm
They generally don't charge at night, they start charging before dinner starts. In theory most people could charge at night ... but people would need pretty high monetary incentives to do so, because most people want their car fully operational ASAP. You never know when you might need it.

This.

Most people in New Zealand get home from work any time between 5:30 and 6:30.
The first thing they are going to do when they get home is plug the charger in.

This is immediately before, or during, peak domestic power consumption in this country.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: george80 on February 21, 2019, 09:18:34 pm

Not nearly as dire as you predict.  The power companies (and transmission lines) can handle a pretty big uptake in BEV cars because most will charge at night when power generation/transmission lines are running at a small fraction of their capacity. 

PFFFFT!
The power companies and transmission lines here can't even handle people turning on their AC on a hot day.  What the hell makes you think they are going to be able to handle 50 and 100A loads in say even 25% of homes all wanting to charge EV's at night?

There is a fairly huge problem with that green washed belief.

Firstly, if you had a significant amount of vehicles charging at night, the grid would be far from running at a " small fraction of their capacity" .  Have you any idea how much power an EV sucks down charging compared to the rest of  normal house hold useage both in Amperage and KWH?
Clearly not or you are just ignoring it to wave the green flag and hide the truth.
If you have a load of EV's sucking down even 20 KWH, not going to take much to bring off peak times up to the same regular day time use and that is exactly what they are predicting will  happen. The big thing now with EV's is recharge time and in order to do that they p-ush in as many KW as possible in the shortest time. That creates a Huge drain on the grid.

Secondly, here in oz and many other places the greenwashed and the minion Pollies that pander to them, are hell bent trying to do away with all fossil fuel power plants and go to renewable's.  Being we are more dessert than anything else and sunshine outstrips wind by magnitudes, Where do you think all this power is going to come from at night? 
Again you pose yet another green hypocrisy of the green mentality that say people can charge their EV's at home off their own panels. Another flawed idea to be sure typicaly lacking in any knowledge of what they are talking crap about but which way do the greenwashed want it?
Are the EV's supposed to be charged at home from the owners own solar  ::) or are they supposed to be charged from the grid at night?

Typicaly Both scenarios are flawed with significant real world problems but I wish to hell all these save the world types would get together and at least sort out which fairy tale they want to go with.  I have also heard the idea that people can charge them at work during the day when there is plenty of solar which is probably the best if still a flawed concept.
Just wish the story was consistent and creditable for once taking into account real world factors instead of a lot of rainbow and unicorn fairy tale thinking.                             

The greenwashed champion wind but the reality is it constantly and consistently fails to live up to even the most conservative rated generation here.
During some recent blackouts of over 250K homes in one state due to deliberate load shedding, The wind that was supposed to be providing something like  20+% of total power came up with a laughable 0,7% contribution. That's a factor in what lead to the topic of this thread, the $14 Mw power.

Stats have already shown that EV owners DO NOT wait to charge at night, they get home and start charging straight away like they do with their phones. Even if the chargers are programmed to charge after peak period, once there is  penetration of the EV fleet and also a lot of people have gone to batteries which are being encouraged for people without solar to charge at night when power is cheaper and be used through the day, The night time power will be far from plentiful or cheap.

Add in the fact that right here now, Pumped Hydro is also being touted as the savior of the country and the plan there is to use power in lower demand times to fill dams and then drain them back to fill in the peak demands.
What so many fail to take into account is in the RE grid scenario, Off peak demand times now are not going to be in future but the generation is going to be VERY down as well.

Future planning using todays scenarios that they are hell bent on doing away with but still want to bank on the benefits of today that will be long gone in their plans for tomorrow. Everyone is looking at this off peak night time power but not taking into consideration that in a mainly solar based grid, the power is going to be available at Midday not mid night.

Quote
You probably knew this already as you're a smart person, and you're just trolling, right?

You could have thought this through for yourself even if you are a greenwashed person and just another one pushing the green Koolaide.
Don't be so sarcastic till you check your facts and look outside your own Bubble less you throw so much egg in your own face.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: GeorgeOfTheJungle on February 22, 2019, 09:48:02 am
@george80 I'm going to erect a monument for you for the best anti-green-washed-foolery posts ever seen. Keep them coming, please, thanks. :clap:
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: george80 on February 22, 2019, 12:41:50 pm

Someone on another thread tripped the 2 volt light in my head to think of something painfully obvious that I completely missed until now.
Another flaw in the  Charging from home and panels idea.

I pointed out that one would need a bare minimum of 20 Kw of panels to provide for the average house and the Vehicle consumption year round and that would be doubtful in a lot of places with overcast weather and winter fall off.

What I completely missed is the fact in the US, Canda and Oz as well as other places no doubt the average home has 2.3 2.5 Cars, not just the one I had in mind for some reason. Really changes the whole Dynamic and makes the home charging Idea even more laughable as a viable soloution for all but the tiniest  minority. 
Where there are teenagers still at home, I'll bet the FAMILY average is a lot closer to 4 cars. All my friends with Kids have at LEAST 4 vehicles.
Pretty obvious to see that having enough panels to charge 4 cars is going to take your own solar farm in the back yard AND, you'll have to have  at least some of the cars at home every day.

There is also the weekend scenario where the kids want to go out and so Do mum and dad so you are going to want at least 3 cars charged up and ready to go.  If you do have multiple chargers and even if they are staged to charge one after the other, that is going to add up to a LOT of draw on the grid and put a big dent in the off peak  we have now.

Looking at the figures from our own grid, The mid night and mid day figures are not very far apart at all.
I was also reading today of ice air conditioning which freezes water over night, in the supposed off peak period, so the cold energy can be used through the day.  These systems are mainly at this time industrial and they suck down some severe power.  You don't freeze tons of water in 8 hours or so in your domestic chest Freezer.

The off peak period is fast dissappearing which is a good thing for the generators as there is less ramping up and down for them but the more RE infects the power supply the power will be available over night. That's pretty obvious.
Another thing that has caused problems with wind here is it falls off at the same time  solar does... around sunset....when the demand really peaks.
The reason for this as I read is as the sun drops and the land cools, the cooling air starts sinking and moving towards the lower and cooler areas being the sea.  The onshore wind as it normally is here is therefore neutaralised  fo some hours or all night if it's hot enough and therefore you have no solar and no wind.

May be different in other places but as we are HEAVILY  coastal here as is a lot of out wind generation, It's a huge problem for the RE generated grid to over come.  Literally no solar and no wind worth a Damn either.

Of course the RE disciples all start yelling "Batteries"  but our world biggest battery when pulled into "save us" Mode was spent and dead flat in 90 min providing one smaller states grid about 5% of it's power needs.
That's 20 More world biggest battery's worth $80M each to power a state with 1.7M people out of 25M.
Umm, no. There is no way the country could even afford to provide backup for that one state, talking about providing battery backup for even just Sydney with 3M people is a complete and utter farce.

Next thing the Green motivated will start saying is " Home batteries".
Ah, no, that's not going to fly either.  Forgetting about completely unrecoverable costs to the home owner, there is a problem in that  over 1/3rd  of the citys population is going to live in apartments in another 20 Years.  No panels for them BUT, there is also talk of making batteries a requirement of any new building.  Great, so if they aren't self charged from panels, where will the power come from?

Yep, the grid at night they say so that will mean we'll have even more draw down on the grid when there is no solar and little wind trying to charge up batteries for when there is no wind or solar because you already ran the battery down in the peak time trying to take the load of the grid when there was no wind or solar.

If Only we could charge a battery and use the power twice... or even 3 times as the Theroys of some would need to make viable.

I said to the Mrs the other day, I am going to spend some decent money on some more engines and some generators. It's not fluffing around, we are going to need them the way things are going. Couple of days later she comes home from work and says did you buy those generators? I said I have got a couple, why?  She said they were talking about it at work today. Some of our engineers were talking about getting them because they think there are going to be a lot of power shortages and even work has been looking into putting them in because they are worried about blackouts and Data loss.

When the the Mrs approves and in fact encourages one to buy what she previously thought of as toys and Junk in the shed, you know things  are headed in a bad direction.
I will be ready but How much good will it do when the stores can't trade and businesses are crippled for hours.  I don't think people are going to starve  But if  we do have a full grid blackout that takes 24 hours to boot up fully again, there sure is going to be some panic.

Maybe I should buy all the gennys I can get my hands on. I have a strong feeling they are about to be an in demand item.
I can see some Chinese equipment importers making a Killing!
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: george80 on February 22, 2019, 12:59:04 pm


Some real world, real time facts and Figures on the wind dilemma.  Bout midnight here now.

Looking at our grid generation/ Consumption report, updated every 5 min.

Our 3 Biggest states;

Qld   Demand 6567 MW  wind generation 36Mw   .54%

NSW  Demand  7642 Mw  Wind, 502   6.5%

Vic   Demand 4288   wind  255  6%

Now whether the shortfall is by weather conditions or lack of generators in place, Blind freddy can see that is a HELL of a big gap to fill between demand and what wind is providing.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: NiHaoMike on February 22, 2019, 01:59:17 pm
I was also reading today of ice air conditioning which freezes water over night, in the supposed off peak period, so the cold energy can be used through the day.  These systems are mainly at this time industrial and they suck down some severe power.  You don't freeze tons of water in 8 hours or so in your domestic chest Freezer.
Try again, a hobbyist has shown that it's nowhere as expensive to implement as you claim and definitely far cheaper than batteries.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFnSFWx13mo (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFnSFWx13mo)
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: HighVoltage on February 22, 2019, 02:36:52 pm
I just came across this nice article from Newsweek in 1975,
"The Cooling world"

Their biggest fear was that we would not have enough food in world,
because it could be too cold.



Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: george80 on February 22, 2019, 09:12:59 pm
Try again, a hobbyist has shown that it's nowhere as expensive to implement as you claim and definitely far cheaper than batteries.

I just love it when people make indignant replies to prove their superior knowledge and in doing show their ignorance and the fact they don't have the first clue about what they are trying to be so clever about.

Instead of thinking you know it all by watching some kid screw about with an ice box trying to cool one room as a once shot attempt rather than over the course of 8 hours with on going internal heat load, look up the energy input to phase change 1 ton of water to ice and then look up these systems in commercial and practical  use to see how much Ice they make in order to cool a building.  The idea with these systems is STORAGE, using the cheaper off peak rates that won't exist in the RE Grid of the future as the point I was making. Even a percentage of buildings using such a system would in itself add a great load to the off peak demands on the grid.

Add that in with resistance water heating, charging EV's, Pumping water for Hydro storage systems  and all the other things trying to take advantage of cheap " Off peak" power and anyone with a modicum of intelligence ( a lower amount of people than I would have given credit for) can see the off peak hours quickly evening out to the regular hours and the difficulty in an RE grid trying to keep up..... as I showed with real time figures.

Please try to improve your comprehension skills and not be so biased you feel you have to defend your religion even when you have no idea what you are talking about.

The way some people just rush into try to defend something demonstrating and proving their complete and utter lack of any real knowledge on a subject and then make themselves look like complete Dilettantes in trying to one up others with smartarse comments just astounds  me.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: george80 on February 22, 2019, 09:35:53 pm

7:30 Am  Some more real time Numbers:


Qld   Demand 5929 MW  wind generation 21Mw   .35%

NSW  Demand  7382Mw  Wind, 266   3.6%

Vic   Demand 4213  wind  595 13.8%


The numbers as I have just checked surprised me.  There was more demand at Midnight than there is at 7:30 in the morning.
Not sure how that works but it is what it is and they are creditable figures, if anything Biased towards the RE agenda.

https://reneweconomy.com.au/nem-watch/

So much for off peak.  Clearly we have already reached the point here where at some times at least, the cheaper times are not off peak at all.
Not a problem except for the fact there is heck of a lot more solar input at 7:30 in the morning, ( about 1400 MW for the 3 states combined right now.) than there is at midnight. Producing a bit over 2KW myself right now even though it is completely overcast. More than covering our Morning activities and giving a very small feedback to the grid.

I didn't check but I'd be very confident in saying our draw was 100% FROM the grid at midnight!  ;D




Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: NiHaoMike on February 23, 2019, 03:06:08 am
I just love it when people make indignant replies to prove their superior knowledge and in doing show their ignorance and the fact they don't have the first clue about what they are trying to be so clever about.

Instead of thinking you know it all by watching some kid screw about with an ice box trying to cool one room as a once shot attempt rather than over the course of 8 hours with on going internal heat load, look up the energy input to phase change 1 ton of water to ice and then look up these systems in commercial and practical  use to see how much Ice they make in order to cool a building.  The idea with these systems is STORAGE, using the cheaper off peak rates that won't exist in the RE Grid of the future as the point I was making. Even a percentage of buildings using such a system would in itself add a great load to the off peak demands on the grid.
It does solve the majority of the problem of solar - storage. Solar panels are really cheap nowadays and solar production aligns well with cooling load on a day-to-day basis. Directed cooling can vastly reduce cooling energy usage, but it also makes cooling an on demand load with a high dynamic range - something thermal storage solves with ease. It allows the compressor to run based on solar production while a simple, low power arrangement of fans and pumps delivers cooling as needed.

A project I would really like to work on if I get the chance to is an inverter for driving an A/C compressor (or multiple) directly from solar panels, varying the output frequency to match solar production, while requiring either no batteries or a very limited amount of battery storage. Once that's done, building a complete thermal storage system around it would be trivial. The controller for directed cooling would also be an interesting project, but comparatively boring in terms of hardware (just a Raspberry Pi or similar with some sensors and servos attached) while requiring a lot of advanced programming.
Quote
Add that in with resistance water heating
That's a technology that should have been deemed obsolete for general use hot water - heat pump technology has been very cheap for a long time. Cutting down hot water energy use to 1/3 or so is very easy.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: george80 on February 23, 2019, 03:22:49 am

This gets more interesting the more I look at it.

1pm grid demand.

Qld   Demand 6340 MW  wind generation 3Mw   

NSW  Demand  7040 Mw  Wind, 542   

Vic   Demand 4065   wind  439 

Look at the numbers.  2 of the 3 states are pulling LESS from the grid at 1 PM than they were at Midnight.  Clearly the effect of small scale solar on Home and business rooftops allowing self generated power to be used instead of pulling from the grid.
Unfortunately not too much solar available to charge the EV with at night.

This Off peak thing is already arse about face as I predicted but maybe was behind in what was already happening at least some of the time.
Certainly different in very hot weather which brings another point up with Charging EV's when the weather is hot and people are still running their air into the night.  I just let mine bounce of the thermostat when it's really hot all night long. 

We are coming to the end of summer here but Autum is still pretty decent generation weather and there is little need for heating or cooling.
I don't expect this trend Of more night than day draw on the grid to continue through winter but it is very interesting none the less and certainly puts a big question over the whole idea of low  night time utilization of the power networks and generators.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: george80 on February 23, 2019, 03:56:32 am

Once that's done, building a complete thermal storage system around it would be trivial.

No where near as trivial as first meets the eye.
Group of friends and I were discussing this on another forum. We soon worked out that there were a lot more complexities to it than what we would have envisaged.

Turning water to ice is easy. Getting the Cold energy back out at a useful rate is not.  One only has to freeze a 5L block of ice and pour a kettle of boiling water over it to see  it's not easy to melt. The commercial systems have an intricate set of HE pipes running through the ice at close spacing to overcome this.  Not easy or cheap to replicate on a DIY basis.

Sure, you could set something up but is it is going to deliver the same hourly BTU as a regular AC is another thing.  Having a few hundred BTU that lasts  for 4 days constantly is one thing and not a useful one for space cooling.  Having 20,000 BTU for 6 hours is something else.


Quote
Add that in with resistance water heating
That's a technology that should have been deemed obsolete for general use hot water - heat pump technology has been very cheap for a long time. Cutting down hot water energy use to 1/3 or so is very easy.
[/quote]

Resistance water heating has made a come back here. Was about to be prohibited here at one stage and now it's what everyone is using especially over gas.

Resistance water heaters are a fraction of the cost of Heat pumps.  Hundreds Vs's thousands. heat pumps are only efficient down to certain temps as well. Heat pumps have a garbage reputation here. Mate of mine is a fridgy and even he won't touch one.
Solar panels are very chea  here and do a lot more than just heat water like heat pump.

Now a lot of inverters have built in diverts.
They send any excess power to the water heater instead of the grid to the tank is hot. They can then send powr say to a pool pump or other load such as clothes dryer.  Here using the power is the first priority over getting a paltry feed in tariff.

I set up a devise which looks at the Line voltage.  When it goes up to the extent I know my solar is making good power, it kicks in the water heater. I took the water heater completely off the off peak and for about 9 months now haven't had a bill for that.  If it is cloudy crappy weather for more than 3 days which is how long the water lasts us, I manually boot the heater in for a while. Only had to do that 4 times in 9 months so far.
It is very useful in compensating for high line voltage as well. Rather than have the inverter high voltage tripping all day, the heater pulls things down a bit so the inverter stays on song and the excess power is used for other things around the place.

Resistance couldn't be cheaper or more efficient for me. In winter heat pumps would be a joke here and would resort to built in resistance heating in the cold weather anyway.
I just bought another slightly smaller resistance heater. I'm going to run that direct off some panels with a controller so I still get useful heating from lower input as a pre heater and maybe a house heater.  here the water temps drop significant'y in winter and cause another 3-4 KW load just over the summer and winter incoming temp differences.  Even if that's all I put into the tank, that will be a saving on the main heating demand.

As I'm putting up more panels still, If I have a lot of excess power through the day, ( not likley but possible) I'll heat the water hot then circulate that through a radiator in the house in the evening or morning.  Not hard to store 10Kw of heating energy that way and take away a lot of demand on the grid.


Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: Marco on February 23, 2019, 04:21:10 am
For a new energy efficient home with AC, the state of the art heatpump systems definitely make sense because it can cheaply be combined with the AC. Energy efficient homes need neither high temperature water for heating nor much power either, so the heatpump can work at relatively low temperatures (for instance -20C for the Chilltrix CX34).
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: george80 on February 23, 2019, 05:29:47 am

I looked up heat pumps.

$3800 as against the same size resistance heater for $950.  $2850 Difference.

I would pay .11C kwh for off peak.  That's almost 26,000 Kwh of power. If I use 8 Kwh of power a day for water heating which is my yearly average I would get  3250 days of heating or almost 10 years of hot water in the savings I made in the purchase of a resistance heater over a heat pump.
That's basically free power for the life of the unit.

Add in to the fact I could run it off free solar power, Heat pump makes NO sense what so ever.

Quote
so the heatpump can work at relatively low temperatures (for instance -20C for the Chilltrix CX34).

From what I can find, the chilltrix is not available here. If it were it would be a $5000+ unit. Makes resistance heating an even better option.
You could have an entire new solar system fitted for that money AND get the water heater as well making it totally free. Of course the solar would still be there for your next heater and probably the one after that too.
 
All the ones I can see available locally  fall off the efficiency curve before they get to 0 C and are certainly not getting anywhere near their normal efficiency at that and most stop working all together at that point.

Heat pumps do not make financial sense here and if one has solar they would be a very poor investment  ESPECIALLY seeing so many reviews I found said had one, never again, nothing but trouble.

Most people building new homes are trying to reduce expenses and costs not increase them. In any case spending the money on solar panels to reduce their overall power costs rather than just their water heating costs would make far more sense and be an infinitely better investment giving far longer lasting returns. 
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: NiHaoMike on February 23, 2019, 05:38:22 am
No where near as trivial as first meets the eye.
Group of friends and I were discussing this on another forum. We soon worked out that there were a lot more complexities to it than what we would have envisaged.

Turning water to ice is easy. Getting the Cold energy back out at a useful rate is not.  One only has to freeze a 5L block of ice and pour a kettle of boiling water over it to see  it's not easy to melt. The commercial systems have an intricate set of HE pipes running through the ice at close spacing to overcome this.  Not easy or cheap to replicate on a DIY basis.

Sure, you could set something up but is it is going to deliver the same hourly BTU as a regular AC is another thing.  Having a few hundred BTU that lasts  for 4 days constantly is one thing and not a useful one for space cooling.  Having 20,000 BTU for 6 hours is something else.
With directed cooling, it doesn't take much. Sit 3 feet or so in front of a 5000BTU/hr window A/C and if anything, you'll probably find it too cold. Then you'll get the idea to throttle down the A/C using a VFD to stop it from getting too cold, but then you run into dynamic range limitations due to little details like the minimum operating speed of the compressor and the expansion valve not being stable at such low flow rates. In contrast, an ice water chilled fan coil is trivial to throttle down - just slow down the pump. Now the compressor speed can be varied to exactly match solar production, while the pumps and fans use at most a few tens of watts that's easy to run from batteries.

Besides, the delta T you have to work with is quite big - 0C at the ice and 33C or so at the skin. With a generous 8C or so of the thermal budget to account for the skin-air thermal resistance (which is probably more than is really necessary after taking advantage of airflow), that still leaves 25C for the remaining air-coolant and coolant-ice thermal resistances.
Quote
Resistance water heaters are a fraction of the cost of Heat pumps.  Hundreds Vs's thousands. heat pumps are only efficient down to certain temps as well. Heat pumps have a garbage reputation here. Mate of mine is a fridgy and even he won't touch one.
The technology in one of those heat pump water heaters is very simple and mature - more or less the same as what's used in a $100 Walmart special window A/C.
Quote
It is very useful in compensating for high line voltage as well. Rather than have the inverter high voltage tripping all day, the heater pulls things down a bit so the inverter stays on song and the excess power is used for other things around the place.
The right fix for that is an autotransformer. Hint: an ordinary power transformer can be connected in an autotransformer configuration.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: george80 on February 23, 2019, 06:39:14 am
With directed cooling, it doesn't take much. Sit 3 feet or so in front of a 5000BTU/hr window A/C

I'm not interested in tiddly wink fan blowing on a bucket of Ice/ Candle heater imagination solutions here. I have a large house I want to cool and hot weather up to 47oC a few weeks back. 
If something can't be built that is at least as effective as my 15 ton Ducted AC, to me it's not worth worrying about. I'm not going to go to a lot of fuss and have crap sitting round taking up space unless it actually has a real benifit over what I'm doing now. If I want to cool just one room I'll just go put in a split.
May as well just run the Ducted ac off the solar I have now which will do that and still wind back the meters for some credit at night as frig around on a half pint soloution.

No wonder you think it's simple and easy. We are coming from very different viewpoints of what the end goal is. 


Quote
The technology in one of those heat pump water heaters is very simple and mature - more or less the same as what's used in a $100 Walmart special window A/C.

I completely agree. Somehow though the reliability and dependability seems to completely go out the window when they apply the same principal to heating water rather than heating or cooling air.  The main problems here have been Circuit boards and Failing compressors. I don't know why, just read the same thing from people that have had them over and over as well as accounts from my mate who has serviced them.


Quote
The right fix for that is an autotransformer. Hint: an ordinary power transformer can be connected in an autotransformer configuration.

How and where would that be set up to cure high line voltage with a GTI and what is a transformer that can handle 5KW going to cost me?
My voltage monitoring Relay cost $30 and works brilliantly.  I can't see myself getting a Tranny that can handle 5kw for that sort of money nor any other components to do the job as effectively.

The RIGHT Fix is for the power co to come take the transformer on the Pole down a couple of taps so the line voltage is within spec to start with. I shouldn't have to be frigging round with transformers and I would be surprised if doing so was not illegal anyway.  The problem is rather than fix the voltage issues the correct way they make BS excuses to get out of it.

Pretty sure the 6V over spec I see at midnight isn't due to anyones solar pushing the grid voltage up.

Others in the street have been complaining about it before I got here and so far the power co has done nothing.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: Marco on February 23, 2019, 07:07:46 am
If it were it would be a $5000+ unit.

As I said for new homes, 4 kW of heating at -20C would do bugger all for most old houses any way and the low water temperature would only work with floor heating.

Central AC is not cheap to begin with and the piping for this is substantially more straightforward to install (because it circulates water rather than refrigerant). These kinds of systems are the future for new homes, perfect combination of convenience and energy efficiency.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: SeanB on February 23, 2019, 10:48:45 am
Biggest issue with heat pumps is that high water temperature most people want. Pretty much every one I see is set by default to 70C hot water, and at those temperatures your compressor is working incredibly hard to compress the gas, plus also the valves inside are experiencing very high pressure cycles and temperatures, so the refrigerant slowly undergoes thermal decomposition, along with the POE oil inside the unit. The degraded refrigerant and oil is corrosive, and this then destroys the tubing and windings inside the compressor, and the condenser inside the hot water tank. the boards failing is often due to the compressor getting shorted windings, and this then results in high phase currents, not enough to trip the overload protection, but enough to heat up the compressor even more till it breaks down enough to burn out the power semiconductors, or the vibration cracks solder joints and they arc, burning the board.

House AC the aim is to have a cold evaporator, much easier, and even as a heat pump the aim is to have the condenser only a little above 40C peak, and thus the refrigerant does not get degraded so easily.

Having hot water is a lot easier with solar than heat pump, and if you already have excess power from solar panels the resistive heater is a lot easier and reliable, or install solar preheat to the tank to get free warm water input, provided you either have no freezing temperatures, or use a secondary loop system with a heat exchanger.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: NiHaoMike on February 23, 2019, 02:03:16 pm
I'm not interested in tiddly wink fan blowing on a bucket of Ice/ Candle heater imagination solutions here. I have a large house I want to cool and hot weather up to 47oC a few weeks back. 
Redefine the goal. It's quite wasteful to cool a whole house when the actual objective is to keep the people cool. (Are you the kind who turns on every light in the house just because you're working in one room?) That's where the directed cooling controller comes into play - detect where the people are in the room using modern technology like infrared sensors and computer vision, then use servos to direct the airflow towards them.
Quote
How and where would that be set up to cure high line voltage with a GTI and what is a transformer that can handle 5KW going to cost me?
My voltage monitoring Relay cost $30 and works brilliantly.  I can't see myself getting a Tranny that can handle 5kw for that sort of money nor any other components to do the job as effectively.
Much cheaper than you think for an autotransformer. For example, if you need to buck the voltage by 20V, you only need a 420VA transformer. The transformer would be connected so that the primary is across the mains as usual but the secondary is connected in series between the input and output to drop the voltage.
http://www.repairfaq.org/sam/pwrfaq.htm#ipsulv (http://www.repairfaq.org/sam/pwrfaq.htm#ipsulv)
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: GeorgeOfTheJungle on February 23, 2019, 04:34:59 pm
I think IR sensors don't work well when the ambient temp is equal or very close to the human body temp.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: NiHaoMike on February 23, 2019, 04:38:00 pm
I think IR sensors don't work well when the ambient temp is equal or very close to the human body temp.
Active IR works just fine and is way cheaper than passive IR arrays as a bonus.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: GeorgeOfTheJungle on February 23, 2019, 05:49:34 pm
I think IR sensors don't work well when the ambient temp is equal or very close to the human body temp.
Active IR works just fine and is way cheaper than passive IR arrays as a bonus.

Why? How does active IR work?
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: Marco on February 23, 2019, 06:02:42 pm
Biggest issue with heat pumps is that high water temperature most people want. Pretty much every one I see is set by default to 70C hot water

For old homes here there is no real alternative, our central heating systems are designed for high water temperature. For a new house you could have the main heat pump heat to low water temperature for floor heating, then add a tiny more robust one for the boiler.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: NiHaoMike on February 23, 2019, 07:11:09 pm
Why? How does active IR work?
Take a look at the Kinect for an example, although a somewhat simpler version would probably be more than good enough.
For old homes here there is no real alternative, our central heating systems are designed for high water temperature. For a new house you could have the main heat pump heat to low water temperature for floor heating, then add a tiny more robust one for the boiler.
What's the heating fuel? If it's gas or oil, it would make more sense to run a generator, use or export the electricity, and also make use of the heat coming off the engine.

If it's a solid fuel like wood, it's trickier but a steam engine could be used to run a generator. (Not sure on overall efficiency, however. Might be too low to be worthwhile.)

If it's electric, whether resistance or heat pump, the only reason to use a boiler for space heating in the first place would be for thermal storage.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: Marco on February 23, 2019, 07:30:06 pm
Almost every house here is heated with gas and high temperature radiators.

There's no point to cogeneration inside the home if you have mains, better to just convert it all to heat and burn less gas. Turbine power plants will generate far more electricity with the saved gas than some overly complex dinky toy generator.

Boilers are for tap water and showers.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: IanMacdonald on February 23, 2019, 08:55:42 pm
Not sure if it's been mentioned but Lord Deben wants to ban gas heating in new houses.

https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/gas-hob-boiler-banned-climate-change-global-warming-houses-flats-a8789951.html (https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/gas-hob-boiler-banned-climate-change-global-warming-houses-flats-a8789951.html)

Thing is, Lord Deben has his fingers firmly embedded in the renewables pie, and stands to profit from this. I just don't understand how this is allowed to go on. Normally, MPs and peers are not allowed to have conflicting business interests.

The consequence would likely be a switch to wood or coal instead of costly and unreliable wind electricity. Which would increase, not decrease, CO2 emissions.  Probably he doesn't care about that though, the real objective being to push wind turbine sales.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: bd139 on February 23, 2019, 09:13:55 pm
We're going to have to burn the chavs the way we're going. They're renewable.

Edit: More seriously, you're right. More coal shoveled into Teslas and cookers then.

As for MPs and peers having conflicting business interests, it's a bit diffcult not to when business leadership and politicians are factory pressed in the same public schools. Everyone knows or is fucking someone with the same business interests to keep the lizard blood pure.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: NiHaoMike on February 23, 2019, 10:00:56 pm
The consequence would likely be a switch to wood or coal instead of costly and unreliable wind electricity. Which would increase, not decrease, CO2 emissions.
Wood, if constantly replanted as would be needed for a sustainable supply, is carbon neutral. But burning it is far from emissions free in other respects.
There's no point to cogeneration inside the home if you have mains, better to just convert it all to heat and burn less gas. Turbine power plants will generate far more electricity with the saved gas than some overly complex dinky toy generator.
A common piston engine easily gets 30% efficiency or better. The remaining 70% becomes heat, of which it would be reasonable to recover 90% of that using a heat exchanger, same as just burning the gas and capturing the heat using a heat exchanger. If you want, you can then use a fraction of the generated electricity to run a heat pump that extracts the remaining 7% of the heat from the exhaust gas, getting a higher efficiency than a regular boiler can get. (Ultimate limit most likely due to having to keep the exhaust gas a few degrees above freezing so the condensate doesn't freeze.)

Centralized combined cycle CHP would win efficiency wise, but that only works in fairly populated areas to keep plumbing thermal losses reasonable.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: Marco on February 23, 2019, 10:43:17 pm
Thing is, Lord Deben has his fingers firmly embedded in the renewables pie, and stands to profit from this.

I don't see how, increased electricity use doesn't drive renewable use ... especially not in winter. For new houses an energy efficiency mandate actually makes some sense, the extra costs are relatively minor.

A common piston engine easily gets 30% efficiency or better. The remaining 70% becomes heat, of which it would be reasonable to recover 90% of that using a heat exchanger, same as just burning the gas and capturing the heat using a heat exchanger. If you want, you can then use a fraction of the generated electricity to run a heat pump that extracts the remaining 7% of the heat from the exhaust gas, getting a higher efficiency than a regular boiler can get. (Ultimate limit most likely due to having to keep the exhaust gas a few degrees above freezing so the condensate doesn't freeze.).

Or you can just run a heatpump off mains and avoid a whole lot of complexity. Or you can use 30% less gas by not doing generation at all and avoid a whole lot of complexity. It makes no f'ing sense at all to do cogeneration in your own home if you're connected to the mains.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: george80 on February 24, 2019, 07:02:22 am
Redefine the goal. It's quite wasteful to cool a whole house when the actual objective is to keep the people cool.

Yeah, heard this before and don't agree.
I don't want to be in one room and walk to another and freeze or melt my round ones off. when we are all home and in different areas, the whole house pretty much does need to be heated or cooled.

The idea of AC that activated when you are in that room might be OK if you live in a matchbox but I don't and don't want to. Didn't work my arse off to have what I do and make all the sacrifices over the years to live uncomfortably as I once did. The areas in my home are large and the AC is going to take a good 10 Min to have any effect on a hot or cold day.

Quote
(Are you the kind who turns on every light in the house just because you're working in one room?)

 While my attitude may not fit the green agenda, there are few people I have come across that actually do more to fit the green, sustainable mindset than I do. I Couldn't give a rats about the PC green washed religion, I do it to save money and because I like to be as independent as possible. 

I have all LED lighting in my home I changed over when we got here from the all incandescent. I figured out I can light the entire joint up like daylight now for WELL under 150w. Every light in the house, the front yard landscape lighting and the back yard ( runway) floodlights as my wife calls them. When the lights are 4-6W instead of 50-150, the watts go a long way. Even if I did have every light on all the time, my smallest solar array would make that power back up in under 1 hour and provide well over a weeks worth of 24/7 lighting in a day. It's one of 4 arrays.

My 20+Kw solar setups make more power than I can use 9 months of the year and this year I'll fix that 3 month winter deficit. I have all this solar and generator power so I can heat and cool my whole house and have every other power sucking amenity I wish with very low grid consumption.  According to my power bill, I am still at about half the power consumption an average SINGLE person home uses which gives us a real world efficiency of 6x the average.
How does your power consumption rate?

Those that want to play the green guilt game with me will get their noses rubbed in it every single time.


Quote
That's where the directed cooling controller comes into play - detect where the people are in the room using modern technology like infrared sensors and computer vision, then use servos to direct the airflow towards them.

In MY real world scenario, I believe this would be a detriment.
I'm working in my office.  AC detects I'm here and all the cooling is fed here.  I walk to the bathroom and it tracks me and sends the air there. I'm there for a minute or 30  ;D and then come out and go to the kitchen to make a Cuppa and something to eat. Ac is directed there. Being this would be a new system , it's no doubt going to be inverter so sensing the room I'm in is 35oC, the thing goes full tilt into cooling that room down. In the mean time I'm in there sweating like a pig and uncomfortable.

As it gets to a decent temp, I'm done and walk back to the office which has been warming up because no one is in it so again the thing winds up pouring all the cold it can in there to get the temp back to the set level whatever that may be. Repeat cycle 5-10 times a day.
Of course if I go out the house to do something it shuts down ( I  take it) and place warms up again.

The Wife and Daughter come home, fill most of the remaining rooms of the place and now because the solar on the roof is producing 3 Kw instead of  20 it was earlier in the day, the thing is again flat out only now pulling from the grid in peak times.
 Don't give a rats about that either but it is against the green correct agenda they preach and I don't see it gets me any benefit.

MY way of doing it is to have the whole house cooled from about mid day when it tends to get over 30 inside off my solar which would other wise go to waste. I can run the AC flat out and STILL backfeed so why not. I disagree with your position of only people being needed to be cooled or heated.  it's easy to drop the temp of the air but then the objects in a home  just act like big thermal mass radiators and I have spent a lot of time learning about thermal mass.  Unless the furniture, walls  and everything in the home is also cooled, it's just going to keep radiating heat when the air is cooler and heat it up.
Basic law of thermodynamics, heat always seeks cold.

By never allowing the interiour of the house to get hot, the AC is just maintain temp, not trying to bring a hot house down to where it should be.
Just like an aeroplane, more economical to Cruise and maintain speed in the high thin air than it is to push through the thick air lower down.


Quote
For example, if you need to buck the voltage by 20V, you only need a 420VA transformer. The transformer would be connected so that the primary is across the mains as usual but the secondary is connected in series between the input and output to drop the voltage.
http://www.repairfaq.org/sam/pwrfaq.htm#ipsulv (http://www.repairfaq.org/sam/pwrfaq.htm#ipsulv)

I'm not sure I fully understand how that works and I am even more unsure it would work with a GTI but I shall study the concept and that link page more thoroughly. It may not be something I want to do in this application but there looks to be much useful information there that may be applicable to my many other projects and hair brained ideas.
Thank you for what looks like a very interesting and useful link which I have bookmarked. 
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: NiHaoMike on February 26, 2019, 02:22:40 am
My 20+Kw solar setups make more power than I can use 9 months of the year and this year I'll fix that 3 month winter deficit. I have all this solar and generator power so I can heat and cool my whole house and have every other power sucking amenity I wish with very low grid consumption.  According to my power bill, I am still at about half the power consumption an average SINGLE person home uses which gives us a real world efficiency of 6x the average.
Brute force upsizing the solar array works, just expensive compared to adding some smarts to lower the energy use in the first place.
Quote
In MY real world scenario, I believe this would be a detriment.
I'm working in my office.  AC detects I'm here and all the cooling is fed here.  I walk to the bathroom and it tracks me and sends the air there. I'm there for a minute or 30  ;D and then come out and go to the kitchen to make a Cuppa and something to eat. Ac is directed there. Being this would be a new system , it's no doubt going to be inverter so sensing the room I'm in is 35oC, the thing goes full tilt into cooling that room down. In the mean time I'm in there sweating like a pig and uncomfortable.

As it gets to a decent temp, I'm done and walk back to the office which has been warming up because no one is in it so again the thing winds up pouring all the cold it can in there to get the temp back to the set level whatever that may be. Repeat cycle 5-10 times a day.
Of course if I go out the house to do something it shuts down ( I  take it) and place warms up again.

The Wife and Daughter come home, fill most of the remaining rooms of the place and now because the solar on the roof is producing 3 Kw instead of  20 it was earlier in the day, the thing is again flat out only now pulling from the grid in peak times.
 Don't give a rats about that either but it is against the green correct agenda they preach and I don't see it gets me any benefit.
It would definitely take storage to make directed cooling work with solar - exactly what thermal storage is good for. Using the house itself as thermal storage does work to some extent, but quite leaky and low thermal density compared to an actual thermal storage tank.

It also appears that there's a misunderstanding of how directed cooling actually works. It's easiest to understand if you compare it to automotive HVAC rather than traditional building HVAC. (Most people don't start the car HVAC minutes in advance, even though that's actually possible on many EVs.) The point is that the people would not feel hot even though the space is, because the HVAC unit is blowing cold air at them. And since manually moving the vents would be inconvenient, the solution is to use computer vision to make the vents move automatically.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: george80 on February 26, 2019, 05:02:51 am

Brute force upsizing the solar array works, just expensive compared to adding some smarts to lower the energy use in the first place.

I have done what I can to lower consumption where practical, effective and, economical.
All my solar is used components I have bought from people mainly whom have upgraded to larger systems. I have about $2000 in it all which paid itself back in 3 Billing quarters based on what we would have paid otherwise.

For -me- Generation is far cheaper than saving through more insulation, Double glazing or any of the often refereed to solution's which I have heard many reports from people now saying they did it and it was not nearly as effective as made out.  Given people's propensity to over hype any sort of do good parroted mantra these days, I have ZERO difficulty in believing that and my own observations also raised questions.

In the last feew weeks I have spent $400 on a 4Kw set of panels and inverter, $200 on 2 Diesel engines and a 2.5KW generator head and am trying to organise another 10 Kw 3 phase head which will cost me $200 plus I'll probably give the guy that is going to pull it apart and replace the bearing with quality units, true up the slip rings and put quality brushes in the thing another $200 for his trouble.
I'll Couple this to an engine I bought last year, $200 again ( which was a great bargain) and A friend gave me a 12 Kw 3 Phase induction motor I can hook up to backfeed the mains if the solar runs short over winter to anothe engine I bought some time ago which also cost me next to nothing.

Given the expence of running a place like this and the sorts of power bills common around here, I'll have still spent far less than 1 years power bills.
I enjoy this as a hobby and am actually glad I now have a place where I can put my years of Playing around with all this to use.

If is far more enjoyable and cheaper for me to make power than save it and the bonus is that a few might appreciate, I can have less stress and a better relationship with my teenage daughter when I don't care when she leaves on and don't have to nag her over it ( which is pretty useless anyway) because I don't give a damn how much power we use!  Whatever we use, I am set up to make more.



[/quote]It would definitely take storage to make directed cooling work with solar - exactly what thermal storage is good for. Using the house itself as thermal storage does work to some extent, but quite leaky and low thermal density compared to an actual thermal storage tank.[/quote]

Cooling is not my biggest concern. I can run my Big ducted AC off the solar and still feed back. I would like to be able to get some cold storage  to appease my sense of DIY and efficiency but the bottom line is the sun shines bright in summer and I make so much power already I have been running the solar at under half it's full potential for about 4 months now.  I reckon I'll be able to do this till about easter as the temps will be much milder and I haven't touched the ac in over a week anyhow.  After that I'll be licking in everything including the new array and probably giving the Generator a run  every few days or so.

I am in the process of converting a 100 Kw spa heater which I want to use for heating the house this winter.  This will be oil fired and greatly reduce if not eliminate our need for heating with the AC which is all we have.  I tried just heating my office with a fan heater last winter but I think it was less efficient that running the AC with it's greater efficiency and warming more of the house.

I agree with what you say about storage and am looking to incorporate that as well.  I am trying to purchase a large used water heater as a tank and run the water from the spa heater into that then to the house. The idea being at night or moreso in the morning, I'll have 25KW worth of stored heat before I even fire the heater. I have also the last week been thinking that I might be able to get away with something smaller if I want to and am going to try using a gas water heater modified with an oil burner. I'm thinking If I can get a constant 10Kw out of that, it should be enough.

My wife also wants a Spa outside and while I'm not that keen on that idea, It would give me a 5000L thermal heat storage tank as well.
With that much water I could easily store 100Kwh of heat with only a 40oC temp difference.
I don't know how insulated spa's are and what the heat loss would be or how much opportunity exists to improve the insulation.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: TerraHertz on March 12, 2019, 12:04:21 am
A few relevant recent articles

http://joannenova.com.au/2019/03/the-cost-of-one-days-electricity-on-the-australian-grid-is-three-times-or-50-times-more-than-it-was-in-2012/ (http://joannenova.com.au/2019/03/the-cost-of-one-days-electricity-on-the-australian-grid-is-three-times-or-50-times-more-than-it-was-in-2012/)
The cost of one days electricity on the Australian grid is three times (or 50 times) more than it was in 2012

20190309
https://www.breitbart.com/radio/2019/03/07/greenpeace-founder-global-warming-hoax-pushed-corrupt-scientists-hooked-government-grants/ (https://www.breitbart.com/radio/2019/03/07/greenpeace-founder-global-warming-hoax-pushed-corrupt-scientists-hooked-government-grants/)
Greenpeace Founder: Global Warming is a Hoax Pushed by Corrupt Scientists ‘Hooked on Government Grants’

20190305
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/03/05/30-years-of-noaa-tide-gauge-data-debunk-1988-senate-hearing-climate-alarmist-claims/ (https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/03/05/30-years-of-noaa-tide-gauge-data-debunk-1988-senate-hearing-climate-alarmist-claims/)

20190310
https://www.thenewamerican.com/tech/environment/item/31677-trump-climate-panel-could-expose-huge-fraud-hence-the-hysteria?vsmaid=3717&vcid=1734 (https://www.thenewamerican.com/tech/environment/item/31677-trump-climate-panel-could-expose-huge-fraud-hence-the-hysteria?vsmaid=3717&vcid=1734)
Trump Climate Panel Could Expose Huge Fraud, Hence the Hysteria

Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: coppice on March 12, 2019, 12:24:41 am
A few relevant recent articles

20190305
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/03/05/30-years-of-noaa-tide-gauge-data-debunk-1988-senate-hearing-climate-alarmist-claims/ (https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/03/05/30-years-of-noaa-tide-gauge-data-debunk-1988-senate-hearing-climate-alarmist-claims/)
That's strange. I wonder what the original information from NOAA says?

https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends_station.shtml?id=8518750

Ah, something completely different.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: TerraHertz on March 12, 2019, 05:18:00 am
A few relevant recent articles

20190305
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/03/05/30-years-of-noaa-tide-gauge-data-debunk-1988-senate-hearing-climate-alarmist-claims/ (https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/03/05/30-years-of-noaa-tide-gauge-data-debunk-1988-senate-hearing-climate-alarmist-claims/)
That's strange. I wonder what the original information from NOAA says?

https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends_station.shtml?id=8518750

Ah, something completely different.


What? Please explain what difference you are claiming exists.
In light of the pic below, the same chart copied from the two different sites. Bottom one is your NOAA link.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: GeorgeOfTheJungle on March 12, 2019, 09:28:43 am
Quote
A hockey stick without a blade, scores ZERO goals. Better start fudging, er “smoothing” the data.

 >:D
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: coppice on March 12, 2019, 09:42:16 am
A few relevant recent articles

20190305
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/03/05/30-years-of-noaa-tide-gauge-data-debunk-1988-senate-hearing-climate-alarmist-claims/ (https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/03/05/30-years-of-noaa-tide-gauge-data-debunk-1988-senate-hearing-climate-alarmist-claims/)
That's strange. I wonder what the original information from NOAA says?

https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends_station.shtml?id=8518750

Ah, something completely different.


What? Please explain what difference you are claiming exists.
In light of the pic below, the same chart copied from the two different sites. Bottom one is your NOAA link.
The difference is that the main text in your link refers to a linear rise in sea levels, and the graphic image is scaled so the text in the graphic is not easy to read. The original graph at NOAA has large clear text, and the text says the graph is not a graph of sea rise. Its a graph of the local relative sea rise compared to the average level of all the oceans. So the graph actually says nothing at all about the shape of the curve of ocean levels.

It is quite common for people being deceptive to carefully scale an original graph like this, to the edge of readability of the text, and then add a misleading narrative that is easy to read.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: GeorgeOfTheJungle on March 12, 2019, 11:58:04 am
The original graph at NOAA has large clear text, and the text says the graph is not a graph of sea rise. Its a graph of the local relative sea rise compared to the average level of all the oceans. So the graph actually says nothing at all about the shape of the curve of ocean levels.

I don't see why not:

"The plotted values are relative to the most recent Mean Sea Level datum established by CO-OPS."
"In general, a datum is a base elevation used as a reference from which to reckon heights or depths."
"MSL Mean Sea Level: The arithmetic mean of hourly heights observed over the National Tidal Datum Epoch. Shorter series are specified in the name; e.g. monthly mean sea level and yearly mean sea level."
"An epoch is a 19-year tidal cycle used to calculate datums. The present National Tidal Datum Epoch (NTDE) is 1983 through 2001"
(https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/datum_options.html)

Relative to something, that something is the reference, and they've chosen MSL between 1983..2001.

It is quite common for people being deceptive to carefully scale an original graph like this, to the edge of readability of the text, and then add a misleading narrative that is easy to read.

Yes, look in the mirror.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: apis on March 12, 2019, 12:20:25 pm
If someone is more interested in facts about sea level rise than conspiracy theories this is what the fifth IPCC report actually says about it:
https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/WG1AR5_Chapter13_FINAL.pdf (https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/WG1AR5_Chapter13_FINAL.pdf)

This article provides a good summary for those who don't want to read the whole thing:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2013/10/sea-level-in-the-5th-ipcc-report/ (http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2013/10/sea-level-in-the-5th-ipcc-report/)
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: GeorgeOfTheJungle on March 12, 2019, 12:30:11 pm
If someone is more interested in facts about sea level rise than conspiracy theories this is what the fifth IPCC report actually says about it:

Don't you understand the difference between facts and predictions and projections?

Quote
The projections for the future are much higher and more credible than those in the 4th report but possibly still a bit conservative, as we will discuss in more detail below. For high emissions IPCC now predicts a global rise by 52-98 cm by the year 2100, which would threaten the survival of coastal cities and entire island nations. But even with aggressive emissions reductions, a rise by 28-61 cm is predicted. Even under this highly optimistic scenario we might see over half a meter of sea-level rise, with serious impacts on many coastal areas, including coastal erosion and a greatly increased risk of flooding
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: coppice on March 12, 2019, 12:55:47 pm
The original graph at NOAA has large clear text, and the text says the graph is not a graph of sea rise. Its a graph of the local relative sea rise compared to the average level of all the oceans. So the graph actually says nothing at all about the shape of the curve of ocean levels.

I don't see why not:

"The plotted values are relative to the most recent Mean Sea Level datum established by CO-OPS."
"In general, a datum is a base elevation used as a reference from which to reckon heights or depths."
"MSL Mean Sea Level: The arithmetic mean of hourly heights observed over the National Tidal Datum Epoch. Shorter series are specified in the name; e.g. monthly mean sea level and yearly mean sea level."
"An epoch is a 19-year tidal cycle used to calculate datums. The present National Tidal Datum Epoch (NTDE) is 1983 through 2001"
(https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/datum_options.html)

Relative to something, that something is the reference, and they've chosen MSL between 1983..2001.
How does that add up to saying something about how the ocean level has varied over the period the graph covers?
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: apis on March 12, 2019, 01:06:30 pm
If someone is more interested in facts about sea level rise than conspiracy theories this is what the fifth IPCC report actually says about it:
Don't you understand the difference between facts and predictions and projections?
??? The predictions are based on facts. The text discuss both historical evidence as well as predictions for the future.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: george80 on March 12, 2019, 01:45:19 pm

Well I have been a big skeptic of all this climate change stuff but the more I think about it from my own perspective, the more I'm having 2nd thoughts.  Forgetting about all fear mongering and profiteering and the fact you can't read a thing now without the mention of climate change or C02, it's my own observations that are swaying me.

Looking at some pictures, I remember it was really cold here about 9 months ago. There was Ice on the bird bath in the mornings. Now, it's like 21oC at the same time and where it was only 20 in the middle of the day, it's hit 30 here now for weeks.  Something is going on for sure.

Now it's starting to cool off again, it's like this cycle of cooler and warmer, cooler and warmer.
Another thing I noticed, leaves are starting to fall off the trees. It did that last year too but then they recovered and grew back but now they are all starting to Die again. And same thing with my lawn.... Didn't grow for months there for a while then all the sudden, i went from not mowing it for a month to having to trim it every 3 days but now it's slowed down again.

When I think about it, it's like the climate changes every few months!

I thought it was just hoax but now I'm not so sure. I'm still skeptical but if it gets cold them warms up again by Christmas, I know this climate change thing is real and i'll have to see what expensive green products I can spend lot of money on because that will stop it, everything I read keeps telling me.   ^-^
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: GeorgeOfTheJungle on March 12, 2019, 03:52:38 pm
How does that add up to saying something about how the ocean level has varied over the period the graph covers?

A "base elevation used as a reference from which to reckon heights" + the sea heights. How does it not?

The predictions are based on facts. The text discuss both historical evidence as well as predictions for the future.

You can't say "If someone is more interested in facts" and put a link to lots of ifs + mights. The 2007 IPCC AR4 was also full of (catastrophic) predictions, all wrong. Your lobby is a fraud. What they know best is how to keep the billions coming.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: apis on March 12, 2019, 04:23:15 pm
You can't say "If someone is more interested in facts" and put a link to lots of ifs + mights. The 2007 IPCC AR4 was also full of (catastrophic) predictions, all wrong. Your lobby is a fraud. What they know best is how to keep the billions coming.
I posted a link to a summary of the science by some of the experts in this field, which also happens to include predictions (since it's pretty important to have a good understanding of what to expect in the future). What you call "my lobby" is more commonly known as science which is all I care about, i.e. the truth. Science is not a fraud.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: GeorgeOfTheJungle on March 12, 2019, 04:36:09 pm
What the IPCC does is a fraud, not science.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: apis on March 12, 2019, 04:48:56 pm
If you think IPCC (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intergovernmental_Panel_on_Climate_Change#Organization) is fraudulent then all the worlds governments and the major universities around the world are all in on it. They coordinate the work with e.g. the assessment reports on climate change, but the reports themselves, like the one I linked to above (https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/WG1AR5_Chapter13_FINAL.pdf), is written by scientists, the best experts in the field from around the globe.

Quote from: Wikipedia
Several science academies have referred to and/or reiterated some of the conclusions of AR4. These include:

Joint-statements made in 2007,[67] 2008[68] and 2009[69] by the science academies of Brazil, China, India, Mexico, South Africa and the G8 nations (the "G8+5").
Publications by the Australian Academy of Science.[70]
A joint-statement made in 2007 by the Network of African Science Academies.[71]
A statement made in 2010 by the Inter Academy Medical Panel[72] This statement has been signed by 43 scientific academies.[a]
The Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (PBL, et al., 2009;[73] 2010)[74] has carried out two reviews of AR4. These reviews are generally supportive of AR4's conclusions.[75][76] PBL (2010)[76] make some recommendations to improve the IPCC process. A literature assessment by the US National Research Council (US NRC, 2010)[77] concludes:

Quote from: US National Research Council
Climate change is occurring, is caused largely by human activities, and poses significant risks for—and in many cases is already affecting—a broad range of human and natural systems [emphasis in original text]. [...] This conclusion is based on a substantial array of scientific evidence, including recent work, and is consistent with the conclusions of recent assessments by the U.S. Global Change Research Program [...], the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Fourth Assessment Report [...], and other assessments of the state of scientific knowledge on climate change.
Source (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intergovernmental_Panel_on_Climate_Change#Response_to_AR4)
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: Marco on March 12, 2019, 06:13:10 pm
Its a graph of the local relative sea rise compared to the average level of all the oceans.

At a specific point  in time, so linear stays linear. If you want less processed gauge data there is psmsl.org (https://www.psmsl.org/data/obtaining/stations/12.php) ... for now, gauge data is an inconvenient truth. They try to hide behind systemic bias of northern hemisphere stations, but then you look at something like Argentine islands or Australia and the acceleration is still nowhere to be found.

The sneaky water hides from tidal gauges, you need satellites to sneak up on it.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: GeorgeOfTheJungle on March 12, 2019, 06:41:15 pm
If you think IPCC (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intergovernmental_Panel_on_Climate_Change#Organization) is fraudulent then all the worlds governments and the major universities around the world are all in on it. They coordinate the work with e.g. the assessment reports on climate change, but the reports themselves, like the one I linked to above (https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/WG1AR5_Chapter13_FINAL.pdf), is written by scientists, the best experts in the field from around the globe.

I know how do the Universities work. Geologists and paleoclimatologists in particular, I know a few. If you want funds for a research project, just put climate change somewhere in the title or in the project abstract. That's how it works. A big pie of tens of billions of climatedollars yearly, worldwide, they say.

Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: george80 on March 12, 2019, 09:27:00 pm
If you think IPCC (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intergovernmental_Panel_on_Climate_Change#Organization) is fraudulent then all the worlds governments and the major universities around the world are all in on it.

You Forgot big business as well.
Just follow the money. Of course University's are in on it. Billions for them in research grants coming up with the results the people paying them want them to and they are always subsidized by gubbermints. I'd be talking the same shit too if I were paid. There are so many suckers out there that believe in it i'd be cashing in on it too!
I'll also bet bet if I had million dollar cheques to write I could go to these Universitys and get them to do a complete 180 and say it was all a hoax as long as there was enough $$ in it for them and their " Scientists".



Quote
They coordinate the work with e.g. the assessment reports on climate change, but the reports themselves, like the one I linked to above (https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/WG1AR5_Chapter13_FINAL.pdf), is written by scientists, the best experts in the field from around the globe.

What you mean is they collude with each other so as to keep the lie going and the bucks coming in.  The fiction is written by the best PAID  scientists out there that couldn't get a better gig doing anything else. Just follow the money. 


This isn't science at all, that's a complete Crock.  You can't do an experiment to show a repeatable result, there are no laws of physics or other scientific  principals in play here, It's no better than looking at a crystal ball and having your fortune told  and the fortune teller is wearing a shirt and tie not beads and a scarf on their head and is making $500 an hour not $10.

Guessing ( and getting it wrong more often than not) is not science at all, it's Bullshit and lies.
They knew the planet had heated and cooled when I was a kid going to school. That was the way the planet worked.  In the last 10 or so years, they came up with a better scam than Y2K and called it Globull warming but even the name was floored when that didn't work out and we had a period or record cold so they had to change the lie to get it somewhat in touch with reality.

There is NO science in this garbage. It's all based on profits and marketing.

Wasn't the science Departments at the unis that came up with this crap, was the business and finance departments when they saw how well 'ol  Al Bore was doing out of the crock.

Science! Bwahahahahah!
Only science in it is the human science of how gullible and easily lead stupid human beings can be and how they will believe any garbage you tell them if you repeat it enough.

Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: apis on March 12, 2019, 10:10:06 pm
Right, it's a big conspiracy. If people want to know what those lying and scheming scientists are saying anyway, ;) they can read it in the IPCC report, the latest one is AR5 I believe:
https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg1/ (https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg1/)
It's available for download free of charge.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: george80 on March 13, 2019, 07:04:10 am

There should be a world wide " Position" register.
You sign up if you believe in something or want to protest it or what ever.

For the Globull Bullshit register you put down if you believe it or not.
If it turns out true in years to come, the those against it, Ie, ME, get their house sold up and everything they own to pay for the mistake. If it turns out to be bullshit, then all the supporters being private and companies get sold up and their assets go to pay the ones that said it was bullshit all along for having the crap bored out of them with it and what it cost them in all these garbage initiatives.

The scientists, business leaders and politicians go to jail if thee is a shadow of doubt that they knew about it all along and were cashing in on it.  I'm putting everything I own on the bullshit side.  Wonder how many of the GreenKooalaide drinkers would have the guts to do the same?

Not many I reckon despite their crying and screaming.

We can do a fe other things this way too.
You want to protest an airport  or a road or some other needed development being built. Please sign here and well make sure you never are permitted to use that airport or road once it's been built in case you forget to stand by your convictions.

Want to vote against some Gubbermint initiative that turns out to be a while elephant and then scrapped? Great. Politicians whom approved it and the companies they colluded with get sold up and the money put back to pay for what they wasted.

Lest see how that improves the decision making processes and benefits the general public instead of the the vested interests of the few.
 
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: tautech on March 13, 2019, 07:10:15 am
What ? Accountability ?  :scared:

Nah that would be too unkind.....but good !  :-+
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: apis on March 13, 2019, 12:14:24 pm
Yeah, accountability would be nice, unfortunately there is no way to implement it. Who would be the judge to decide what is happening and what is not? Right now we know for a fact (from overwhelming scientific evidence) that climate change is happening. Yet there are people who stick their head in the sand and pretend the scientists are all lying and that they know better. Just like there are people who insist the earth is flat despite that you can fairly easily determine it is not with your own eyes and a it of deduction. To some people truth is relative (to what benefits themselves the most).
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: GeorgeOfTheJungle on March 13, 2019, 12:43:37 pm
And you just keep parroting the official AGW lobby propaganda. Read the infamous AR4 for gods sake.

Quote
accountability would be nice, unfortunately there is no way to implement it

Or rather, fortunately you should say. But look, you've just seen a few posts above a perfectly valid chart of sea levels at NYC, and even that you can't trust because... it shows no acceleration as you would have liked, lol.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: apis on March 13, 2019, 01:19:36 pm
you've just seen a few posts above a perfectly valid chart of sea levels at NYC, and even that you can't trust because... it shows no acceleration as you would have liked, lol.
I've never said there was anything wrong with the NOAA graph, or that it can't be trusted? It looks perfectly in agreement with global warming to me, it looks like the sea level is rising. Just like in this graph which shows the global average over a longer time period (and naturally, the curves after about 2010 are projections):
(http://www.realclimate.org/images/IPCC_AR5_13.27.png)
Source: IPCC AR5 Fig. 13.27 (https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/WG1AR5_Chapter13_FINAL.pdf)

In general though, you can't expect a single measurement station to perfectly agree with the global average, as is explained in the AR5 report (https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg1/) I linked.

And if you trust NOAA, here you can read what NOAA says about climate change:
https://www.noaa.gov/education/resource-collections/climate-education-resources/climate-change-impacts (https://www.noaa.gov/education/resource-collections/climate-education-resources/climate-change-impacts)
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: GeorgeOfTheJungle on March 13, 2019, 01:40:55 pm
That's a projection not the real world data, it's just another Mann-made hockey stick. There's no acceleration in the true, real world data.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: george80 on March 13, 2019, 04:09:18 pm

Right now we know for a fact (from overwhelming scientific evidence) that climate change is happening.
:-DD :-DD

Fact????  Scientific Evidence???   Since when did lies and bullshit become scientific evidence??  Oh, yeah, that's thats right, when Al bore and friends conjured it up, made Millions and the whole damn world either got on board so they could cash in on it too or got played for suckers.  |O

Quote
Yet there are people who stick their head in the sand and pretend the scientists are all lying and that they know better.

Not falling for a scam that other weak minded fools fall for is not sticking ones head in the sand no matter how much the gullible want to make out there is only one correct way to think.

Sea levels are Rising?  So Effing what?
Again, when I went to school, they said the moutains were under the sea at one stage  and you can find sea shells in the rock.
Was that Globull warming back then too.... when as far as I know there were no humans on the planet at all?

Do I think some scientists are Lying? You bet your arse I do!
Why?  To keep their job in places that have decided they want to push this agenda. It's a big money spinner and if they don't play along, no more jobs for you and you can bet they will never get one again.  Doesn't  pay to be a whistle blower in this day and age. 


 
Quote
Just like there are people who insist the earth is flat despite that you can fairly easily determine it is not with your own eyes and a it of deduction.
I can see with my own eyes and a bit of simple logic and deduction by following the mo0ney the whole thing is a lie?
Why are so many things that could have a real benifit at no cost always ignored yet everything in the prescribed mantra has a HUGE Cost?  Don't need to be Einstein to work out this is a laughable crock.


Quote
To some people truth is relative (to what benefits themselves the most).

YOU SAID IT!!

And I could not agree more.
THATS the reason scientists, university's, big biz and gubbermints  are so into this scam.  It benefits them HUGELY.

Now tell me how calling it for the crock of shit it is benefits the man in the street in any way? He's not the one making billions out of it so who has the greater incentive to lie?

You were right, twice!
It just takes a bit of deduction to work out the globull scamming bullshit.  :-DD
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: apis on March 13, 2019, 06:32:38 pm
That's a projection not the real world data, it's just another Mann-made hockey stick. There's no acceleration in the true, real world data.
You are wrong (as can be seen by anyone who reads the source). It's real world data up until about 2010, then from 2010 the red and blue lines are projections. The solid purple curve is from tidal gauge data, the lighter purple dots and bars are proxy data.

Sea levels are Rising?  So Effing what?
It's kind of hard to explain if not because of climate change. It also matters directly because most people live near the sea and if the sea is rising it will engulf buildings, infrastructure and a lot of land area. Kind of important to know for city planers for example.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: boffin on March 13, 2019, 08:09:10 pm
Plot Idea:

97% of the world's scientists contrive an environmental crisis, but are exposed by a plucky band of billionaires & oil companies.


Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: paulca on March 16, 2019, 05:29:58 pm
IPCC digest a reasonable amount of reasonable science, mix in a fair quantity of political rhetoric and BS, put it through the spin wash a few times and deficate it out again.  Politics and science never mix well.

The media take the IPCC output sensationalise it, hype it, dramatise it, miss represent it and drive public opinion into a frenzy.  Science and the popular media don't mix well.

Normal people suddenly believe they know all about climate issues and global energy demands and demand their government do something, "Would someone please think of the children!".  Hell it IS the children making the demands now!  Normal people don't do maths and science very well. 

Scientists and engineers feedback saying, "WAIT!  Don't over-react and go off half cocked we need to think this through!"

The public then call these scientists climate skeptics and believe they work for the oil companies!  :palm:

They say they don't want nuclear, the say they don't want wind or solar or hydro, they don't want fracking, they don't want coal or gas, but they all want CARBON FREE, CHEAP BILLS!  They still haven't woken up that the only current thing that does that is nuclear which they don't want.  Shouting and demanding it louder and louder and skipping out of school to demand it in the streets will not make it happen either.

No, renewables will not fix the worlds energy problems, but we have to do something right?  No, reducing the amount we use will not fix our problems unless we all reduce our life styles closer to something seen in Victorian times or akin to sub-Saharan Africa, but still avoiding wasting energy is wise, no?   No, fusion will not be ready in time, but shouldn't we continue to invest lots into it.   No next gen reactors will not be ready in time, but lets keep funding them!  Yes, over population is the primary factor here, but... no there are no real non politically suicidal solutions.

The net is we are in for a bumpy century, if we don't have a world war again first. 
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: george80 on March 16, 2019, 07:27:37 pm

The public then call these scientists climate skeptics and believe they work for the oil companies!  :palm:

No, renewables will not fix the worlds energy problems, but we have to do something right?  No, reducing the amount we use will not fix our problems unless we all reduce our life styles closer to something seen in Victorian times or akin to sub-Saharan Africa, but still avoiding wasting energy is wise, no?   No, fusion will not be ready in time, but shouldn't we continue to invest lots into it.   No next gen reactors will not be ready in time, but lets keep funding them!  Yes, over population is the primary factor here, but... no there are no real non politically suicidal solutions.

Careful, You start making too much sense against what some of the powers that be here want pushed and this thread will be closed down too.

As usual, only one correct way to think here so please confine yourself to thinking in the approved manner!   ::)
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: paulca on March 17, 2019, 12:05:19 pm
Careful, You start making too much sense against what some of the powers that be here want pushed and this thread will be closed down too.

As usual, only one correct way to think here so please confine yourself to thinking in the approved manner!   ::)

I spotted the that.  Felt it was a bit off.  I agree the first thread had gone through many a BS cycle, but the later one got locked for someone posting a video the mod didn't agree with.

Judging by talking with the average Joe/Jill and popular media, education on energy is some what lacking.  How many times have you seen things like:

A TV on stand-by consumes 20W a day.

When it comes to understanding energy demands and generation this is what we are up against.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: george80 on March 17, 2019, 11:51:56 pm

 but the later one got locked for someone posting a video the mod didn't agree with.

Probably the only thing I would agree with him on is our mutual dislike for Nukes but using ones power for personal agendas is just wrong.  It's wrong on a personal level and it's wrong by the forum and it's owner to close down ongoing discussions when the real goal of a forum  should to make it as active as possible and encourage postings. 
Shutting something down because you don't like it is typical lefties thinking and nothing is much worse than that.


Quote
Judging by talking with the average Joe/Jill and popular media, education on energy is some what lacking.

Most people don't know Beans about electricity in general.  I know mechanics that have been in the Trade for years that are hopeless with electrics and even more hopeless when it comes to AC.  Most people couldn't tell you the difference between a volt, an amp or a watt or the  relationship.
The sheeple tend to believe any crap they see on TV and still hold ingrained beliefs that things they have seen on movies are true. This is what the leftist propaganda is based on when they deliberately lie or tell untruths by omission or exaggeration.

Loads of people out there think they will be able tio charge their EV from panels on their roof not having the first clue about the output of their home system or the capacity of the ev.... or that the sun doesn't tend to shine very bright at night when they will be home from work.


 
Quote
When it comes to understanding energy demands and generation this is what we are up against.

And things like turning lights off to save power without the faintest clue that Boiling the kettle once would use more power than their LED lights in the whole house could use all night.   

People have NO concept of energy what so ever.
As them how much power is in a car battery, how much is in a liter of petrol or diesel, what a KWh and what a KW are.  yet so many as I have embarrassed before will talk about this and that and the need to do whatever but cannot answer the simplest of questions to show they have the faintest inkling of what they are talking about.

I could tell them I'd sell them 250Kwh worth of energy storage for $5000 and they would trip over themselves to get it yet probably whinge when I handed over a 25L drum of Diesel that actually had a bit more than the advertised 250Kwh. They might change their mind about a battery when they realized  that a traditional 250 Kwh battery is going to arrive on a semi trailer... or more than one.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: paulca on March 18, 2019, 05:57:01 am
We agree that people don't understand energy.

I don't agree shutting down people's views is "leftism".  It's facism, always has been.  It's just that the new age left, while believing they are being socialist and inclusive fail to see the irony in ostracising people for their non-inclusive or non-conformant views.  But this is a slippery slope to politics.

We disagree on nukes.  Nukes have got a bad rep for historic reasons.  Mostly the wrong technologies from the wrong political drivers and a few accidents allowing peoples fear of what they don't understand to go melt down. (sorry for the pun).  With different technologies and properly thinking it through it might be different.  The realists in the world are already realising, if we are to go as carbon free as we really need to, there isn't really an option but to go nuclear.  Renewables will play their part but unless we work out how to store GWh's of energy, something else has to power us while it's dark and calm and it needs to be available in 10 years, not 100 (when hopefully fusion might be working).  It's all about getting through this century without completely messing up the planet.

Even including the accidents when stacked against coal, oil and gas nuclear is still statistically safer by orders of magnitude.  Of course figures can and have been spun the other way by the likes of Greenpeace, but they are completely unable to back up their figures without using extremely controversial 'science'.  Without going to the extreme's of accidents, coal plants and gas/oil extraction produce higher radiation than nuclear plants.  Coal is radioactive, believe it or not and most of it stays in the ash which is happily dumped in the open.  Both mining coal and oil release pockets of radon gas.  If either the coal or oil industry had to meet the strict radiation standards that the nuclear industry had to then almost all the mines would be shut down instantly.  No it's not 100% safe and accidental releases cause environmental damage, but nothing is safe and the alternatives are as damaging or more damaging.

Currently my country is facing the decision for the UK to dump radioactive waste here.  My issues with this are not directly related to the waste, but rather the choice of location.  Northern Ireland does not have any reactors, thus, in my view we should not be burdened with the waste.  It just feels wrong for a country with several nuclear reactors that has made about 0 effort to deal with it sensibly, even when offered alternatives just decide to dump it across the sea in another country, out of sight, out of mind.

And while we are on the topic of radiation and people failing to understand things, consider that people believe microwaves "irradiate" their food and cell phones irradiate their brains.  No amount of explaining the term radiation and the different types of it or what the actual risks are can steer them clear of madness.  The BBC had a competition winning photo the other day called "Radiation Fog", they had to try and calm their readers by stating, completely incorrectly, that the fog "had nothing to do with radiation", it was just the heat emitting from the warm ground causing the fog....  :palm:.  The heat emitting from the ground IS radiating!  I was tempted to email them to remind them to not tout BS to satisfy the stupid.

As another prime example of how "people" completely fail to think things through I seen a startup pitch the other day touting a "human generator".  Basically a range of gym exercise gear that charged batteries which could be used to power their house.  Of course humans are fairly efficient at converting chemical energy to motion and that is where most people stop calculating and celebrate the new carbon free energy source we should all have!  Of course the trouble is the carbon density and efficiency of our food production, compared to it's calorific content is horrendous.  Every 1 Kwh of energy in our food very likely took 2 or 3 KWh to produce, store and transport.  This figure is rising rapidly now people are being told that LOW calories foods are better for them.  Carbon emissions come in order:  Energy production, Transport, Agriculture.  Not to mention that even an athlete could barely put out 1 horse power for 15 minutes, let along an hour and an hour would only generate 0.75Kwh.

Back on energy one thing seems to be coming to consensus.  While it is still cheap to dig up coal, oil, gas and burn it to make profit nothing will change on the grand scales.  On nuclear, while it's cheaper to build another PWR or BWR because the licenses already exist for the "proven" tech and it's still cheap to mine Uranium nothing will change.  The trouble for the planet is, that cheapness will outlive the climate stability.  There may be a lot of noise from people on what energy sources they don't want, they all want cheap bills and the energy companies want profit, so we continue to burn fossil fuels.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: GeorgeOfTheJungle on March 18, 2019, 07:21:41 am
The trouble for the planet is, that cheapness will outlive the climate stability.  There may be a lot of noise from people on what energy sources they don't want, they all want cheap bills and the energy companies want profit, so we continue to burn fossil fuels.

No, no, the reason why we continue to burn fossil fuels is simply that we have no way, we have nothing, neither cheap nor expensive, with which to replace them. Keep in mind that electricity is less than 15% of the energy we consume (*), and only a small % of that comes from renewables. Look at this chart:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_consumption
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9d/Bp_world_energy_consumption_2016.gif)

See oil+coal+gas? See how huge is the gap with renewables? Tell me what on earth, no matter its price, do you think can serve to replace FF?

(*) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_energy_consumption#World_electricity_consumption_(2012)
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: george80 on March 18, 2019, 08:56:03 am

I don't agree shutting down people's views is "leftism".  It's facism, always has been. 


Please forgive me. I'm not as up on my " issims" as I should be.   :-\
I was actualy looking them up last night to make sure my understanding was correct but there are some I'm still not sure I am clear on or the implications/ practical application thereof.


Quote
We disagree on nukes.
With different technologies and properly thinking it through it might be different.


Yes we disagree but perhaps not why you think.
The technology to me is irrelevant. The problem has and always will be with humans and Human nature.
Whatever you design into these things, you will always have the flaws in humanity in greed, laziness, pride, sloth and a bunch of other things undermining and tech or safety device you build in.

The money factors of cost and profit will always be at play and over ride all else.  That has been the problem with nuke and a lot of other things all along and won't change because human nature and especially corporate greed won't either. 

The power of nuke Fkups on the people and planet as has already been demonstrated with horrific effect, is far too great to entrust to humans and their weaknesses.

Quote
The realists in the world are already realising, if we are to go as carbon free as we really need to,


Well there is our other point of disagreement. I do not believe the carbon/ co2 Globall warming ideology is anything more than a profit making scam and distraction for humanity to take our attention from real issues like how pathetic all our leaders have become and how screwed up they are letting the world get.

Quote
Even including the accidents when stacked against coal, oil and gas nuclear is still statistically safer by orders of magnitude.


You can make statistics say anything you want them or pay for them to.
Tell me where any areas or citys have been wiped out by coal emissions. They don't exist like the areas around Chernoybl and the city of pripiyat , Fukshima and so many others in those areas.

Quote
Coal is radioactive, believe it or not and most of it stays in the ash which is happily dumped in the open.

 So are bananas. The levels are too low to cause any harm however and they contain no hot particles like escape and settle hundreds/ thousands of miles away from accident sites. have you seen the vids or are aware of how much radioactive particles were dumped in Tokyo after the Fukushima Disaster? ?

The ash is also used in building materials of a concrete type nature, roads and for other uses such as fertilizer.   It's not glow in the dark stuff as you seem to suggest.
In any case, if one is to propose that the infinitely more radioactive Nuke waste can be handled and stored/ disposed of safely then it is only logical that a much less radioactive material can be handled even more easily.

 
Quote
  Northern Ireland does not have any reactors, thus, in my view we should not be burdened with the waste.


If there is no problem with it and it is safe / clean as you say, what is the problem? No doubt your country will be paid a lot of money to take the stuff which could benefit your people a great deal. if there is no problem with the stuff, you should take the money and the material and celebrate getting a great deal!
 
I'm afraid you have given away the tell.  You don't want it, understandably, because you know this is a very dangerous material and comes with great risks. Even if it does get tucked away without a problem, sooner or later it IS going to have to be dealt with and at that time, who knows what the cost might be monetarily, environmentally or otherwise?

I agree with you that those the create it ought to deal with it but unfortunately it's not as easy as keeping a dog in your back yard. It gets out, it infects everyone not just stays in your borders.
 

Quote
And while we are on the topic of radiation and people failing to understand things, consider that people believe microwaves "irradiate" their food and cell phones irradiate their brains.  No amount of explaining the term radiation and the different types of it or what the actual risks are can steer them clear of madness. 


I think this applies to the coal radiation argument as well. It's completely and utterly different to nuke waste radiation. It is magnitudes weaker, far less concentrated and nothing like the the risk.  It also seems that the problem with coal ash is not it's radioactivity but the fact it's a fine dust containing a whole range of minerals and elements.

I was recently reading of initiatives to process the ash and get all the valuable minerals and metals out of it, including the radioactive components.  It was said to be a cash positive process and could aid power stations revenue substantially.
Spose we'll have to wait another 20 years to see if that one flies at all.  Always something new and wonderful about to happen in the future. very few ever seem to come to fruition though.


Quote
As another prime example of how "people" completely fail to think things through I seen a startup pitch the other day touting a "human generator".


Got to admit, had that idea myself before. Not for the house but for a gym.
I have seen how many people there are in places and particularly on treadmills and exercise bikes.  Never did understand why people PAY to come to do something they could do for free running up and down the street but anyway.  The thing is one person is irrelevant, 20-30..... Now we have something to work with!

Often the bikes and rowing machine use a fan for resistance.  Change the fan for a not too big motor and you have a generator.  Other resistance gear may be able to be converted with linear motors.

Of course the next thought was would it be worth it? What's the cost of the machine going to increase in comparisons to the power it as a group could produce?

I spose that's silly thinking now. If we look at the stupidity and cost of Solar roadways and the compulsion people have to be seen to be doing something, cost Vs return is a very out dated and old fashioned way of looking at things.  Just quote the impressive sounding numbers and forget about ROI.

It's the ILLUSION that's important not the real returns.


 
Quote
While it is still cheap to dig up coal, oil, gas and burn it to make profit nothing will change on the grand scales.


Exactly the way I see it.
Profits of big biz and gubbermint will always out weight anything else.

I'm not against looking after the environment even though I think the Globull warming thing is a crock. The problem is there are so many effective, cost free things that could be implemented but won't be bothered with because there isn't a buck in it for gubbermints and big biz and anything that might cost them a buck or a bit of lose revenue is even worse.

We could offset a lot of power generation costs and blight on the landscape from whatever method with rooftop solar.
Here we have shitloads of sunshine and roofs for miles but we are limited ( and there is talk of more limits still) on the amount of PV we can install.  It's bullshitted as being for technical reasons which means they don't want to eat into the $2.7BN a year profits the electricity sector makes here by upgrading all the transformers that are 50 years old to newer units that can handle the back feed for localised generation and distribution.

While ever the mentality is profit over all else, you are right, nothing will change for the better of the planet, only better for the bottom line of companies and revenue for gubbermints.
the people can argue and jump up and down all they like but the only result will be the powers that be may have to spin doctor what they intend to do all along a bit more cleverly.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: bd139 on March 18, 2019, 09:52:02 am
Agree on human issues. I don't want nuclear because of the human issues, not because of the physics or the technology.

Case in point, we have this nightmare in the UK: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sellafield

There are 10,000 people employed just to decommission this site.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: george80 on March 18, 2019, 11:01:12 am

Case in point, we have this nightmare in the UK: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sellafield

WOW!

In 2014, the undiscounted decommissioning cost estimate for Sellafield was increased to £79.1 billion,[23] and by 2015 to £117.4 billion.[14] The annual operating cost will be £2 billion in 2016.[24]


So much for cheap Nuke Power!!


Between 1950 and 2000 there were 21 serious incidents or accidents involving off-site radiological releases that warranted a rating on the International Nuclear Event Scale, one at level 5, five at level 4 and fifteen at level 3

So much for them being safe and clean!
Oh yes, I know, That was the old reactors and these accidents can't happen with the new ones..... none of which have been built yet and few to none of the old ones that are known to be flawed have been shut down.... Many have been licensed to operate beyond their design life.

I'm sorry but no one is going to convince me these things should even exist!
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: bd139 on March 18, 2019, 11:22:45 am
They're a fucking nightmare.

This one always sticks in my mind

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQpLhXLvC-4 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQpLhXLvC-4)

Only options are:

1. Less travel.
2. Make higher quality things that last 3-5x longer and can be repaired.
3. Make more energy efficient things.
4. Avoid using energy.
5. Avoid creating too many more people (I'm a bad example - 3 kids  :-DD)
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: coppice on March 18, 2019, 11:33:10 am

Case in point, we have this nightmare in the UK: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sellafield

WOW!

In 2014, the undiscounted decommissioning cost estimate for Sellafield was increased to £79.1 billion,[23] and by 2015 to £117.4 billion.[14] The annual operating cost will be £2 billion in 2016.[24]


So much for cheap Nuke Power!!


Between 1950 and 2000 there were 21 serious incidents or accidents involving off-site radiological releases that warranted a rating on the International Nuclear Event Scale, one at level 5, five at level 4 and fifteen at level 3

So much for them being safe and clean!
Oh yes, I know, That was the old reactors and these accidents can't happen with the new ones..... none of which have been built yet and few to none of the old ones that are known to be flawed have been shut down.... Many have been licensed to operate beyond their design life.

I'm sorry but no one is going to convince me these things should even exist!
Actually, most of the incidents at Sellafield don't relate to the reactor. Sellafield started its life with a very nasty reactor incident at the very beginning of the UK's nuclear energy development. However, since then most of the problems have been in the adjacently located spent fuel reprocessing facility.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: george80 on March 18, 2019, 01:34:00 pm

 However, since then most of the problems have been in the adjacently located spent fuel reprocessing facility.

Still nuke material having come from reactors.

EVERY reactor has safety issues. A lot are also covered up either by operators or authorities that don't want panic/ protest.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: bd139 on March 18, 2019, 01:49:58 pm
To be fair the newer ones are a lot better but the problem is always that there is waste be it spent fuel that can't be reprocessed or reactor parts. Our modern policy here in the UK is grind these up and cast them in heavy leaded glass then bury it and shrug  :palm:

We're still dealing with building 41 which was basically a side result of the sudden ramp up of nuclear power for pile 1 and 2 in the 1950s. Basically we needed to jump on the nuclear band wagon to get us a nice little seat in the UN. To do this we ramped up production massively but didn't have a waste story so we just chucked it in a big vat and crossed fingers. This didn't work as bits of it kept catching fire spontanously so they filled it up with inert gas to stop that. They're working on that now. The same thing is going to happen when we ramp up nuclear power here as we've not increased the budget to handle waste and we don't have the land mass to bury it safely (not that it's particularly safe). Ergo we're just pushing the problems somewhere in the future.

Also fusion, if they ever get that off the ground, has the same outcome. A lot of waste from the reactor components which need to be disposed of.

Total nightmare.

I'm going to buy myself a recumbent trike. That runs on baked beans pretty well.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: george80 on March 18, 2019, 02:04:18 pm

This one always sticks in my mind

Scarily realistic in attitudes of those with vested interests.

Only options are:

1. Less travel.
2. Make higher quality things that last 3-5x longer and can be repaired.
3. Make more energy efficient things.
4. Avoid using energy.
5. Avoid creating too many more people (I'm a bad example - 3 kids  :-DD)
[/quote]

I think there are a few more. .....


I started on a long list of things but then I realised, it all came down to the very self same thing...... Putting profits behind doing what was best. ATM it's completely the other way round and everything is profit first.

As I have mentioned, here in OZ we have loads of sunshine and a LOT of homes have the ability to generate an excess of power from solar.  A lot don't too, particularly these new homes destined to be the slums and ghettos of the very near future by cramming people into the tiniest little piss ant boxes on the smallest  pocket handkerchiefs of land.

For those that have the ability to make decent power, instead of limiting it for profit reasons, let them do what they can to support the ones that can't.... Like unit blocks, shopping centres, businesses etc.
This way would could stick to the best, most flexible option of all, coal, and off set the negative side with solar. Turn the power plants down through the day and then back up again at night saving 50%?  of the emissions/ waste and negatives while still having a reliable source of power that can be ramped up in poor weather or when needed.

This option wont happen because the power companies will pull the strings of the dancing Politician puppets and not let it through because it will hurt the power co profits and it's ALWAYS all about the profits!

The greenwashed are supposedly so worried about reducing emissions, well here is a way to slash emissions in a few years.
Instead of putting money into turbines and other gubbermint crap, put it to subsidizing private  solar installs, pay a DECENT amount for the power generated and put pressure on gubbermint to make it happen.

If there is 2 things this country is blessed with it's sun and coal. instead of trying to get an overnight ideal, lets use what we can to offset the drawbacks before trying to reinvent the wheel and be happy in what we achieve while we work on or wait for technology to come up with a TRULY better alternative.

All it will take is putting doing the best thing over concern for profits and revenue that will still be there anyway.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: apis on March 18, 2019, 04:53:35 pm
Agree on human issues. I don't want nuclear because of the human issues, not because of the physics or the technology.

Case in point, we have this nightmare in the UK: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sellafield

There are 10,000 people employed just to decommission this site.
Stellafield was used for producing material for nuclear bombs, not civilian nuclear power, wasn't it? That is a different can of worms.

Human issues makes me sceptical as well, but we can look at what have happened so far and do the math. If you calculate damage/kwh so far, it turns out nuclear power is on par with solar and wind. No energy source is perfect, but coal (energy generation based on burning in general) is much worse than anything else, including nuclear. I don't understand why people think dying from radiation is so much worse than dying from air-pollution and heavy metal poisoning. The latter is a much much bigger problem.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: bd139 on March 18, 2019, 05:00:11 pm
Initially yes. It turned into a dumping ground for everything radioactive in the end. There's even medical waste there now.

Edit: Problem is both are bad. Hence why I said we need to reduce energy requirements. We got used to having power at our fingertips all day every day. That's not sustainable. Screw the "sustainable energy" thing. The only thing that is, is less of it. I'm not proposing we cast ourselves into a post-apocalytic dark age for ref.

Let's put it this way. I was sitting half way up an office block the other day in a meeting, staring out across London. Hundreds of thousands of people shipped in for the day, consuming power for the sake of being in the same place. That's GWh being pissed away on trains, transport, lighting, computing, food production etc which can be distributed easily if it wasn't for some fucked up old fashioned values of making sure everyone is there because you can't trust them if you can't see them. I know people who drive 150 miles a day to sit at a desk for 7 hours.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: GeorgeOfTheJungle on March 18, 2019, 06:18:13 pm
They're about to decomission a nuclear in Almaraz, Spain. They say they're going to replace it with as many PVs as needed... yeah. 15439 GWh per year, do the math (*) and you'd need 7000 hectares of PVs + many more for aisles.

(*) 15439e9/365/100/6/(100*100) (6 hours of sun per day, 365 days a year, 100W/m2)
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: bd139 on March 18, 2019, 06:21:14 pm
That’s not an awful lot of land. But it is a lot of storage problems and expense.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: boffin on March 18, 2019, 06:36:22 pm
They're about to decomission a nuclear in Almaraz, Spain. They say they're going to replace it with as many PVs as needed... yeah. 15439 GWh per year, do the math (*) and you'd need 7000 hectares of PVs + many more for aisles.

(*) 15439e9/365/100/6/(100*100) (6 hours of sun per day, 365 days a year, 100W/m2)

just over 4 times the existing site size of 1683ha. 

really not that much



Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: GeorgeOfTheJungle on March 18, 2019, 06:51:04 pm
They're about to decomission a nuclear in Almaraz, Spain. They say they're going to replace it with as many PVs as needed... yeah. 15439 GWh per year, do the math (*) and you'd need 7000 hectares of PVs + many more for aisles.

(*) 15439e9/365/100/6/(100*100) (6 hours of sun per day, 365 days a year, 100W/m2)

just over 4 times the existing site size of 1683ha. 

really not that much

LOL Boffin, you and your maths! It's 210x times more, the nuclear is 50 ha, 7000 ha of PVs + aisles is about 10500 ha.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: apis on March 18, 2019, 06:51:28 pm
I'm all for energy reduction, but that will be harder to achieve politically than a CO2 tax I suspect. How do you make people use less energy? I know of people who turn on all their (incandescent) lights whenever it's earth hour (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_Hour). A lot of other people fill their homes with tea lights. If some people refuse to travel by air, prices will drop and other will take their place instead.

What I really care about is getting rid of coal (burning). As long as the options are coal(/gas/oil/wood) or nuclear, nuclear is a much better option. A lot of people say we should just use less energy and more solar panels. Fine, if that is possible it's great, but until then, as long as coal is still around it's better to replace coal with nuclear. What is happening in many places today is that nuclear is being replaced with coal and gas.

They're about to decomission a nuclear in Almaraz, Spain. They say they're going to replace it with as many PVs as needed... yeah. 15439 GWh per year, do the math (*) and you'd need 7000 hectares of PVs + many more for aisles.

(*) 15439e9/365/100/6/(100*100) (6 hours of sun per day, 365 days a year, 100W/m2)
The problem, as I see it, is that they could have used the same solar panels (money) to shut down one of their coal power plants instead. They might not realise it but they are effectively choosing coal instead of nuclear. Electricity production in Spain is about 40% fossil fuels, 20% nuclear.

electricity production in spain (https://www.iea.org/statistics/?country=SPAIN&year=2016&category=Key%20indicators&indicator=ElecGenByFuel&mode=chart&dataTable=ELECTRICITYANDHEAT)
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: boffin on March 18, 2019, 07:22:50 pm
They're about to decomission a nuclear in Almaraz, Spain. They say they're going to replace it with as many PVs as needed... yeah. 15439 GWh per year, do the math (*) and you'd need 7000 hectares of PVs + many more for aisles.

(*) 15439e9/365/100/6/(100*100) (6 hours of sun per day, 365 days a year, 100W/m2)

just over 4 times the existing site size of 1683ha. 

really not that much

LOL Boffin, you and your maths! It's 210x times more, the nuclear is 50 ha, 7000 ha of PVs + aisles is about 10500 ha.

Your ability to pull a number out of your sphincter, to back up your factless claims, is without equal.

Quote from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almaraz_Nuclear_Power_Plant
... The first reactor began operating in 1981 and the second in 1983. It occupies an area of 1683 hectares ...

Reality 1683 hectares
George 50 hectares

 :-DD :-DD :-DD :-DD :-DD :-DD :-DD
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: GeorgeOfTheJungle on March 18, 2019, 07:49:15 pm
Reality 1683 hectares
George 50 hectares

https://goo.gl/maps/SvUTWB4HGrB2 (https://goo.gl/maps/SvUTWB4HGrB2)

(https://www.eevblog.com/forum/renewable-energy/$14-000-per-mw-renewables-economic-suicide/?action=dlattach;attach=680433;image)
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: tszaboo on March 18, 2019, 09:54:14 pm
Reality 1683 hectares
George 50 hectares

https://goo.gl/maps/SvUTWB4HGrB2 (https://goo.gl/maps/SvUTWB4HGrB2)
You have to include the water reservoir which was built to cool the plant.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: GeorgeOfTheJungle on March 18, 2019, 11:35:29 pm
You have to include the water reservoir which was built to cool the plant.

Look, I have measured fukushima for boffin and you: 11584700 ha  >:D
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: NiHaoMike on March 19, 2019, 02:58:15 am
Let's put it this way. I was sitting half way up an office block the other day in a meeting, staring out across London. Hundreds of thousands of people shipped in for the day, consuming power for the sake of being in the same place. That's GWh being pissed away on trains, transport, lighting, computing, food production etc which can be distributed easily if it wasn't for some fucked up old fashioned values of making sure everyone is there because you can't trust them if you can't see them. I know people who drive 150 miles a day to sit at a desk for 7 hours.
On the flip side, there would be less HVAC energy use since that can be turned off or set way back when the house is empty - a few large offices use less energy for HVAC than many (comparatively) small houses thanks to the smaller combined surface area. I don't see how food production would change significantly - those working from home still have to eat. Transportation is indeed the biggest problem, maybe the most effective solution is encourage more working from home.

I have always advocated requiring higher MPG for new cars, although that only solves one problem with cars. Increasing fuel taxes would stress the poor.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: george80 on March 19, 2019, 05:24:15 am
I'm all for energy reduction, but that will be harder to achieve politically than a CO2 tax I suspect.

Geez I am so bored with all this Co2 Bullshit.  |O 
I think from now on, whenever I hear  or see it mentioned, I'll go out and burn a tyre  in protest.
Give the whingers something whinge about!  ::)

Co2 is never going to be reduced, energy consumption is never going to be reduced ( well until our grid here falls over which is on the cards in the not too distant future)  because both of those thing are against the fundamental principals and Ideals of business and gubbermints of constant growth and consumption..... no matter what green apeasing propaganda they put out claiming different.
Watch the actions not the words.

Never going to change so may as well shut up and accept it because to do other wise is just using more energy and generating more c02 on a pointless argument.


Quote
I know of people who turn on all their (incandescent) lights whenever it's earth hour (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_Hour).

Yep, do it whenever I remember it's on.  The more lights the better the photos are going to look!
I'm all for doing my bit like that and I have a LOT of lights.   Stupid ideas deserve appropriate responses.


Quote
[/b] A lot of other people fill their homes with tea lights.

And then put a flower pot over them and make YT vids claiming they are heating their house cheap and saving the world.
There is just no limit to stupid and ignorance.

Quote
If some people refuse to travel by air, prices will drop and other will take their place instead.

Yep, you are never going to beat the Big biz machine and it's useless trying or for a tiny little group to whine and sook about what the rest of the population loves and craves. Besides, it's harder to get a ship to most places than a plane, especially in and out of land locked countries. I have also found that a lot of companies won't give employees an extra month off for travel time just to get to and from their destination before their Holiday time starts.

Quote
What I really care about is getting rid of coal (burning).

Of course you do because you have swallowed the globull boring scam hook line and sinker and think  getting rid of coal in favour of unreliables  is going to cure the problems of the world. Are you going to put your hand up to be the first to load shed when the renewables fall over and there isn't enough power to go round?  Are you prepared to put your money where your beliefs are and sell everything you own to compensate people who loose their job when companies close or move to places where they have lower emissions standards but reliable power and therefor the net result is still NIL?
No, you'll want all the unicorns and rainbows but no responsibility with the inevitable happens.

Quote
As long as the options are coal(/gas/oil/wood) or nuclear, nuclear is a much better option.

 |O |O |O  Yeah.  ::) Especially if you drink enough of the green Koolaide and smoke enough of the Nuke industry propaganda.  Drink and smoke a bit more and you'll see we can just saddle up the flying pigs  to turbines and make them provide all our power needs!

Lets make a big song and dance about doing away with one source of pollutants to replace it with another source that is a million times more deadly, longer lasting, and more dangerous. Makes perfect sense. We'll just ignore the fact the waste has the potential to wipe out the world a with just a ton of the stuff and as illustrated on this very thread, costs BILLIONS to clean up after when it's done.

The hypocrisy of people claiming to be concerned about the planet and the environment and then championing a power source that produces the most Toxic, deadly and damaging substances know to man with NO possibility of making it safe would be laughable if it were not so moronic and worrying as to how gullible and easily fooled society has become.  :palm:
The irony of arguing over the health of the planet when those in charge have become so dumbed down and incapable of thinking for themselves is beyond imagination.


Quote
A lot of people say we should just use less energy and more solar panels. Fine, if that is possible it's great,

It's technically possible but the same forces in the world that are going to keep increasing co2 levels and driving people to consume more are the very same ones blocking the use of more Rooftop solar that could greatly reduce the centralized energy supplies which is the last thing they want.


Quote
but until then, as long as coal is still around it's better to replace coal with nuclear.

NO, it's not.
No matter how many times you read it and parrot the same flawed bullshit, it's still moronically flawed bullshit.


Quote
What is happening in many places today is that nuclear is being replaced with coal and gas.

Well thank Fk humans are doing something right!! There is hope for us yet.

And what is the problem with gas? No waste there to worry about. it's clean as!
Oh, yeah, that's right, the Co2, the Co2 sky is falling garbage. yeah, cause if you make all power generation gas the world will end next week and if you take it away the worlds problems will be cured. how could I forget?   ::)

Quote
The problem, as I see it, is that they could have used the same solar panels (money) to shut down one of their coal power plants instead.

If that's the way you see it, Time for a visit to Specsavers so you can get some new glasses that are clear rather than  Nuke rose coloured see things clearly and stop being so badly mislead.
The proposal to push an old reactor beyond it's designed service life pretty much gives away the brain washing that says champion the cause blindly and never let the potential effects, problems and dangers take up any thoughts in your head at all.

Quote
They might not realise it but they are effectively choosing coal instead of nuclear.
Oh I'm sure they realise and I commend them on their wise decision to do so.

Quote
Electricity production in Spain is about 40% fossil fuels, 20% nuclear.

And thankfully the nuke number is going down.

Unlike the complete and utter Bullshit the greenwashed like to spread about everything at every opportunity, Coal is not dying as a power source at all and Nuke IS going down.

Atm Sources site there are 700+ Coal plants under construction or sheduled to be built.
For Nuke, the number is 20 with half  of those  in China.
Can't seem to find numbers for unreliables construction but there seems to be a hysteric race to see who can build the biggest unreliable facilities around the world.
 How they can claim to be saving the world at the same time they are defacing is and destroying habitats and landscapes in beyond me.

The place for solar is in the citys where it can be used on rooftops and takes up no more land nor does any further damage to the landcape or natural environment. That however means putting control back into the hands of the people and loosing profits so that is simply unacceptable and unfathomable.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: bd139 on March 19, 2019, 08:05:18 am
Let's put it this way. I was sitting half way up an office block the other day in a meeting, staring out across London. Hundreds of thousands of people shipped in for the day, consuming power for the sake of being in the same place. That's GWh being pissed away on trains, transport, lighting, computing, food production etc which can be distributed easily if it wasn't for some fucked up old fashioned values of making sure everyone is there because you can't trust them if you can't see them. I know people who drive 150 miles a day to sit at a desk for 7 hours.
On the flip side, there would be less HVAC energy use since that can be turned off or set way back when the house is empty - a few large offices use less energy for HVAC than many (comparatively) small houses thanks to the smaller combined surface area. I don't see how food production would change significantly - those working from home still have to eat. Transportation is indeed the biggest problem, maybe the most effective solution is encourage more working from home.

I have always advocated requiring higher MPG for new cars, although that only solves one problem with cars. Increasing fuel taxes would stress the poor.

There’s almost no AC here in UK and we only have the heating on three months a year at average. It’s more food supply than production.

We have charges for going into London by car. Firstly there’s the congestion charge which is a daily pollution tax $14 a day. Then there’s the ULEZ charge, a pollution tax on poor performing cars, again around $14. Then there’s parking which can reach $32 a day. Pretty punishing for car owners. EVs and get low emission vehicles are exempt from everything other than parking.

So everyone just gets the train in which is up to $330 a month for the Greater London zone.

So London is pretty sorted but once everyone gets in there needs to be a supply of goods which are brought in via armies of trucks, all of which are taxed heavily. Thus your food costs more at lunch.

People are being punished with long commutes, expensive food, expensive tickets or charges on top of the unnecessary energy. I just don’t get it all.

I go in perhaps once every couple of weeks for a meeting and that could be done on skype.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: GeorgeOfTheJungle on March 19, 2019, 08:32:20 am
IMO we are too many already. Doubling the population makes no thing better. Halving it would.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: tszaboo on March 19, 2019, 11:54:32 am
IMO we are too many already. Doubling the population makes no thing better. Halving it would.
OK, thread can be closed now.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: bd139 on March 19, 2019, 12:15:31 pm
I don't think he's suggesting full Thanos there...  :-DD
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: apis on March 19, 2019, 02:41:05 pm
Since most people are not willing to get rid of coal power, nature will probably halve it for us soon enough.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: boffin on March 19, 2019, 03:02:21 pm
You have to include the water reservoir which was built to cool the plant.

Look, I have measured fukushima for boffin and you: 11584700 ha  >:D

You what the difference is?  Some people provide references:

https://www.foronuclear.org/en/nuclear-energy/nuclear-energy-in-spain/almaraz-ii (https://www.foronuclear.org/en/nuclear-energy/nuclear-energy-in-spain/almaraz-ii)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almaraz_Nuclear_Power_Plant (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almaraz_Nuclear_Power_Plant)

1683 ha

Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: Marco on March 19, 2019, 04:49:40 pm
Deserts are big enough, the world is small enough for HVDC.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: GeorgeOfTheJungle on March 19, 2019, 04:56:40 pm
OK, thread can be closed now.

 >:D
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: GeorgeOfTheJungle on March 19, 2019, 04:59:02 pm
Deserts are big enough, the world is small enough for HVDC.

You "only" need 170e3 TWh/year of PV energy... Do the math @ 100W/m2
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: Marco on March 19, 2019, 05:30:25 pm
Sahara desert, 10e12*100*356*10 = 3.5 exa-Wh/year ... as I said, deserts are big enough.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: apis on March 19, 2019, 05:46:56 pm
Sahara has an average insolation of closer to 240 W/m2, some places over 300 W/m2.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_irradiance (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_irradiance)

240*365*24 = 2102 kWh/(m2 year)

"In 2016, world total final electricity consumption reached 20 863 TWh"
https://www.iea.org/statistics/electricity/ (https://www.iea.org/statistics/electricity/)

20863e9/(2102 * 0.10) ~= 100e9 m2 = 100 000 km2 (assuming 10% efficiency)

Sahara is 9 200 000 km2
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sahara (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sahara)

Edit: changed "100 km2" to "100 000 km2"
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: GeorgeOfTheJungle on March 19, 2019, 05:56:38 pm
And the Sahara has 24 hours/day of sun?
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: apis on March 19, 2019, 06:08:09 pm
240 W/m2 is the average for an entire year, i.e. nights included.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: GeorgeOfTheJungle on March 19, 2019, 06:20:39 pm
And what do we do at night, shut down everything?
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: GeorgeOfTheJungle on March 19, 2019, 06:24:18 pm
"In 2016, world total final electricity consumption reached 20 863 TWh"
https://www.iea.org/statistics/electricity/ (https://www.iea.org/statistics/electricity/)

No, if you want to get rid of FF, you need to generate more electricity: 170e3 TWh/year:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_consumption (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_consumption)

...and convert everything to electric.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: GeorgeOfTheJungle on March 19, 2019, 06:25:25 pm
20863e9/(2102 * 0.10) ~= 100e9 m2 = 100 km2 (assuming 10% efficiency)

And you've got to put aisles between the PV rows...
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: apis on March 19, 2019, 06:27:19 pm
And what do we do at night, shut down everything?
That's why we still need nuclear.

No, if you want to get rid of FF, you need to generate more electricity: 170e3 TWh/year:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_consumption (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_consumption)

...and convert everything to electric.
Fine: 100000*(170/20) = 850 000 km2, still smaller than Sahara.

And you've got to put aisles between the PV rows...
Say we need as much space for aisles: 2*850000 = 1 700 000 km2. Still smaller than than Sahara.

Edit: corrected conversion error.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: nctnico on March 19, 2019, 06:51:07 pm
But how about the people living in the Sahara? Don't go thingking that nobody lives in a desert because you'll be sadly mistaken.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: apis on March 19, 2019, 07:08:18 pm
They really are not that many, but they will probably be happy because they now have lots of new employment opportunities and an export product.

(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/31/Alg%C3%A9rie_2009.jpg/320px-Alg%C3%A9rie_2009.jpg)

Anyway, the world will never depend solely on solar from Sahara, there are plenty of other places to put PV panels. The point is that space is not a limiting factor.

The biggest problem with solar is that the sun doesn't always shine, i.e. we need storage which doesn't exist yet. So for the time being we will also need either coal/gas or nuclear. Of those nuclear is really the safest and most environmentally friendly option, and it is also the only option that is CO2 neutral.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: george80 on March 19, 2019, 08:37:25 pm
Of those nuclear is really the safest and most environmentally friendly option, and it is also the only option that is CO2 neutral.

 :-DD :-DD :-DD

You know the greenwashed mentality has really gone over the top when they are reccomedning something they traditionally always protested and produce's the most deadly poison know to man.

They are so hell bent and tunnel visioned on the Co2 fallacy they will back something far more potentially deadly and dangerous in order to avoid the demon they have blown out of all proportion.

The hypocrisy would be laughable if it were not so sad.   :palm:

I'm going to need a LOT of tyres!   |O
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: GeorgeOfTheJungle on March 19, 2019, 08:45:13 pm
"In 2016, world total final electricity consumption reached 20 863 TWh"

20863e9/(2102 * 0.10) ~= 100e9 m2 = 100 km2 (assuming 10% efficiency)

Your numbers are off by three orders of magnitude...  1 km2 = 1e6 m2

Fine: 100*170/20 = 850 km2, still nothing compared to all of Sahara.

And you've got to put aisles between the PV rows...
Say we need as much space for aisles: 2*850 = 1700 km2. Still less than one percent of Sahara.

So let's make that 1000x bigger: 1.7 million km2 or a square whose side is 1303 km.

How much would that cost?

It almost fits into Saudi Arabia:

(https://www.eevblog.com/forum/renewable-energy/$14-000-per-mw-renewables-economic-suicide/?action=dlattach;attach=681659;image)
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: Marco on March 19, 2019, 09:12:04 pm
That's not really the point, there's all sorts of problems. Mostly cost, storage and autarky ... it's just that area isn't really the problem.

For the US the autarky part isn't a problem either,  they've got plenty of high sun-day deserts within their borders.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: apis on March 19, 2019, 09:14:15 pm
For the US the autarky part isn't a problem either,  they've got plenty of high sun-day deserts within their borders.
Same with Australia.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: nctnico on March 19, 2019, 09:37:47 pm
Of those nuclear is really the safest and most environmentally friendly option, and it is also the only option that is CO2 neutral.
They are so hell bent and tunnel visioned on the Co2 fallacy they will back something far more potentially deadly and dangerous in order to avoid the demon they have blown out of all proportion.
The numbers are stacked against you. Nuclear is and has been the safest way to generate energy. So far mostly electricity but the residual heat can also be used for heating.

It is kind of like the car versus airplane. Way more people die due to car crashes compared to airplanes. Yet if an airplane crashes a lot of people die at once. You have to let go of decades of fear mongering by Greenpaece et al and take a look at the facts and statistics. We have been collectively brainwashed to fear nuclear power just like Americans have been brainwashed to fear anything that reeks of socialism or communism.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: apis on March 19, 2019, 09:39:56 pm
Your numbers are off by three orders of magnitude...  1 km2 = 1e6 m2
Yes sorry, I've corrected it now. I thought it was a bit low, I was thinking cubes instead of squares for some inexplicable reason. It is still less than 20% of the Sahara, i.e. there is enough land area in the world (not only the Sahara) that could be used. (The usually cited number is ~3% so I might still have gotten something wrong, if you use 20% efficiency you could halve the area for example, but it's not only PV efficiency you also get losses when you transfer it to the grid.)

How much would that cost?
It almost fits into Saudi Arabia:
This is the entire worlds energy consumption we are talking about, so it's naturally very large figures. But continuing as we are now, building new coal power plants, mining for coal, trucking it around, also cost a lot of money. Coal causes pollution and global warming which is costing us a lot of money continually (and peoples health). Think about how much land will be lost due to sea level rise for example, and that is just one of many problems.

It would be expensive and you couldn't produce that many solar panels over night either. That is why I say we need every option available (solar, nuclear, wind and hydro mainly but probably also energy reduction) if we are going to replace fossil fuels as quickly as possible.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: apis on March 19, 2019, 09:51:46 pm
So far mostly electricity but the residual heat can also be used for heating.
Sadly because of the hysteria surrounding nuclear the heat is often just treated as waste and pumped into the ocean or rivers. We could have had nuclear based district heating today if it weren't for the anti-nuclear lobby. The Canadians developed a reactor called slowpoke that was intended just for that.
https://www.rmc-cmr.ca/en/chemistry-and-chemical-engineering/slowpoke-nuclear-reactors-canada (https://www.rmc-cmr.ca/en/chemistry-and-chemical-engineering/slowpoke-nuclear-reactors-canada)
http://cns-snc.ca/media/uploads/branch_data/branches/quebec/slowpoke/CHUS_dead_Record_21_12_88.jpg (http://cns-snc.ca/media/uploads/branch_data/branches/quebec/slowpoke/CHUS_dead_Record_21_12_88.jpg)
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: tautech on March 19, 2019, 09:53:46 pm
That is why I say we need every option available (solar, nuclear, wind and hydro mainly but probably also energy reduction) if we are going to replace fossil fuels as quickly as possible.
Ain't gunna happen anytime soon.

The world is fully geared to use fossil fuels especially hydrocarbon based fuels due to their efficiency.
Supplement maybe but replace, not in my or my childrens lifetime.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: nctnico on March 19, 2019, 10:04:55 pm
They really are not that many, but they will probably be happy because they now have lots of new employment opportunities and an export product.
That is what they thought when Israel got founded... driving people away is never a good option. AFAIK it is actually very hard to built stuff in a desert because people who feel it is their land will tear things down or sabotage it (or make others do that for them).
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: apis on March 19, 2019, 10:07:07 pm
That is why I say we need every option available (solar, nuclear, wind and hydro mainly but probably also energy reduction) if we are going to replace fossil fuels as quickly as possible.
Ain't gunna happen anytime soon.

The world is fully geared to use fossil fuels especially hydrocarbon based fuels due to their efficiency.
Supplement maybe but replace, not in my or my childrens lifetime.
Won't happen by itself at least.

The problem is that certain leaders of some of the most powerful countries are personally heavily invested in coal, oil and gas. Consider for example the Bush family, Putin, the Saudis, etc. The world needs a global international agreement, but when e.g. the U.S. and Russia doesn't want to play along, other countries like China says there is no point they make large investments since it wont matter in the end. (We all share the same atmosphere and climate).
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: apis on March 19, 2019, 10:12:56 pm
They really are not that many, but they will probably be happy because they now have lots of new employment opportunities and an export product.
That is what they thought when Israel got founded... driving people away is never a good option. AFAIK it is actually very hard to built stuff in a desert because people who feel it is their land will tear things down or sabotage it (or make others do that for them).
That is something else entirely. In this case the people who own the land can build the solar panels and get rich, it's sort of like finding oil, if they can get the ball rolling and build the infrastructure to export it to Europe or south to central Africa. And again, the point wasn't that all the worlds energy should be produced in the Sahara, only that there is enough land area available for solar to cover the worlds energy needs. There are problems with solar but land use isn't one of them.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: george80 on March 19, 2019, 11:46:47 pm
The numbers are stacked against you.

With 700+ Coal stations under construction or approved to be constructed around the world tight now  and about 25 for Nuke, the numbers are anything but stacked against me.

People go on and on about nuke being safer but I can give you names of people killed by it but no one can give me the name of anyone killed by coal.

There is very little I back the greenwashed on but fortunately most of them are still against Nukes and for that they have my complete support.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: nctnico on March 20, 2019, 12:06:21 am
People go on and on about nuke being safer but I can give you names of people killed by it but no one can give me the name of anyone killed by coal.
You make my point exactly. So many people get killed by coal (just like in car accidents) that nobody cares anymore about who they where.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: george80 on March 20, 2019, 12:28:46 am
Ain't gunna happen anytime soon.

The world is fully geared to use fossil fuels especially hydrocarbon based fuels due to their efficiency.
Supplement maybe but replace, not in my or my childrens lifetime.

Exactly.
No matter how much they rabble on about it and jump up and down about C02, Big biz is not going to throw away billions in infrastructure simply to accommodate some ideal..... UNLESS it's profitable. Until the world runs out of FF, they will be doing all they can to keep using it so they don't have to build their infrastructures they have over the last 100 years again.

The reality is that it is recognised right NOW unreliables CANNOT power the planet but the fairy dust believers needing a cause to champion keep ignoring that.  The fact gubbermints recognise this, already means the clock is ticking on the whole scam the same as when when cigarette companies who were in denial till they could be no longer, this unreliables thing will be exposed and the fraud it is. 

As you say and I have said all along, Supplemental, great. Put panels on all the rooftops so the power stations can be wound back and make practical and effective savings there if you want but having unreliables as the main power source, Not in the lifetime of anyone on the planet right now that's for sure. I still don't get why the greenwashed are in favour of destroying environments and landscapes with Vast solar farms instead of putting panels on rooftops here the power can be used without the further blight and cost of transmitting  the power hundereds or thousands of KM?.


I have to laugh at all this simplistic crap about how much land panels would take to power the world.
It's exactly like claiming you can run a car on water. Sure you can but the problems, inefficiency and cost and everything else makes it IMPRACTICAL to do so.

The people going on about this panel area are purposefully being ignorant to the problems  and logistics of distribution of the power and also the storage.  While I think some are talking about representative areas needed, some seem to actually think there can be one central area like a dessert that can supply all the power needed to the world.
They also base their calculations on the most perfect areas like Desserts and Places like Oz ignoring all the vast areas of europe where land is at a premium and due to the weather conditions would take  at least 6x more panels to generate a given amount of power in the ideal sunny areas. No point glossing the numbers over and quoting average sunlight radiation, the only way to plan is for the LOWEST overcast winters days because there is no way to store enough power for a country or a continent especially for a day let alone a week.

IF people want to play the area game, they should do it country by country taking into account their power needs, weather conditions, allowing to have adequate generation in winter which means another 6-20 times increase over summer insolation and then work out where all these panels could be put to provide power for that region.  Not a lot of Desserts and suitable waste land in Europe to put even 50 Sq Km of panels which would need to be one of many such blights on the landscape and environment to provide the needed all year round power. Base the solar generation area based on insolation of a dessert and put that in Europe and you are going to have a LOT of people freezing to death in winter....  or forgetting all about electric and going to fossil fuel defeating the purpose of the whole stupid suggestion in the first place.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: george80 on March 20, 2019, 12:32:11 am
You make my point exactly. So many people get killed by coal (just like in car accidents) that nobody cares anymore about who they where.

How many people in your country or any other have Cause of Death: "Coal power plant emissions"  or anything mentioning coal ( unless they were miners) listed on their death certificates?

None.

Yet we are supposed to believe hundreds of thousands die from it every year??




 :-DD :-DD :-DD
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: apis on March 20, 2019, 01:07:29 am
Here's a recent one (11/11/2017) that killed more people than Chernobyl:
Quote
Officials in India say the the death toll from the November 1 explosion at an NTPC thermal plant in Unchahar has risen to 43, with seven more deaths reported in the past week. Dozens of workers at the plant were injured when flue gases and steam were released from a 500-MW coal-fired unit at the plant during a maintenance operation. Several workers remain hospitalized, many with severe burns, according to local officials, who late November 10 said at least eight of the injured are in “very critical” condition.
https://www.powermag.com/death-toll-rises-to-43-in-wake-of-india-coal-plant-blast/ (https://www.powermag.com/death-toll-rises-to-43-in-wake-of-india-coal-plant-blast/)

Quote
The Nov. 1 accident at the 1,550-megawatt coal-fired power station in Unchahar in northern India killed 45 people and left survivors with severe burns.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-india-ntpc-blast/delay-in-shutting-down-ntpc-power-plant-led-to-deadly-blast-in-india-probe-idUSKBN1KD1FJ (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-india-ntpc-blast/delay-in-shutting-down-ntpc-power-plant-led-to-deadly-blast-in-india-probe-idUSKBN1KD1FJ)

How many people in your country or any other have Cause of Death: "Coal power plant emissions"  or anything mentioning coal ( unless they were miners) listed on their death certificates?
Then please explain why coal miners lives doesn't matter?

Quote
Thousands of miners die from mining accidents each year, especially from underground coal mining, although hard rock mining is not immune from accidents. Coal mining is considered much more hazardous than hard rock mining due to flat-lying rock strata, generally incompetent rock, the presence of methane gas, and coal dust.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mining_accident (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mining_accident)

Two recent coal mine disasters in the USA:
Quote
The Upper Big Branch Mine disaster occurred on April 5, 2010 roughly 1,000 feet (300 m) underground in Raleigh County, West Virginia at Massey Energy's Upper Big Branch coal mine located in Montcoal. Twenty-nine out of thirty-one miners at the site were killed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upper_Big_Branch_Mine_disaster (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upper_Big_Branch_Mine_disaster)

Quote
During 2006, 72 miners lost their lives at work, 47 by coal mining. The majority of these fatalities occurred in Kentucky and West Virginia, including the Sago Mine Disaster.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mining_accident (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mining_accident)

Lets see, 47 + 29 = 76 deaths directly related to coal in the US, recently. Those two accidents are sadly a drop in the ocean and it's already more people killed than the number of people who died during the Chernobyl accident:
Quote
Death(s)   
    31 (direct)
    15 (estimated indirect deaths up to 2011)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster)

Yet we are supposed to believe hundreds of thousands die from it every year??
It's the sad reality:
https://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/kharecha_02/ (https://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/kharecha_02/)
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-other-reason-to-shift-away-from-coal-air-pollution-that-kills-thousands-every-year/ (https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-other-reason-to-shift-away-from-coal-air-pollution-that-kills-thousands-every-year/)
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-deathprint-a-price-always-paid/#4c552b5c709b (https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-deathprint-a-price-always-paid/#4c552b5c709b)
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20928053-600-fossil-fuels-are-far-deadlier-than-nuclear-power/ (https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20928053-600-fossil-fuels-are-far-deadlier-than-nuclear-power/)

The triumph of coal marketing
(https://i2.wp.com/seths.blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/6a00d83451b31569e20147e3645469970b-450wi.jpg?ssl=1)
https://seths.blog/2011/03/the-triumph-of-coal-marketing/ (https://seths.blog/2011/03/the-triumph-of-coal-marketing/)
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: george80 on March 20, 2019, 02:49:05 am
Here's a recent one (11/11/2017) that killed more people than Chernobyl:


Chernobyl killed THOUSANDS. That's fact which is well known and to deny that is typical of the lefty greens and Nuke advocates that will say anything in order to push their flawed agendas.

Of course to further spin doctor things you have changed the subject from emissions of power stations to accidents both in power stations and mining accidents.

So completely typical  . Facts don't support the fairy tale so just make up complete bullshit and pretend it's fact.  |O
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: apis on March 20, 2019, 03:48:26 am
:palm: I'm starting to think you are beyond help.

Make up your mind. Should we include the estimates of people who die prematurely because of pollution or only those who can be linked directly to an accident?

You asked if there were any deaths directly linked to coal, and there are thousands, many every year. I compared that to how many have died in accidents directly linked to civilian nuclear power since it was invented, which is 31 from Chernobyl (1 from Fukushima).
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster

If you want to include those who are estimated to die prematurely because of pollution, then:Every year air pollution from coal kills more people than civilian nuclear have since it's invention.

For references, see the previous post.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: george80 on March 20, 2019, 08:10:29 am
:palm: I'm starting to think you are beyond help.

I am! If you think parroting  estimates of the number of deaths from Coal when there is NO FACTUAL ( Read that again, FACTUAL) numbers to support this, is going to win me over, you are very wrong.

Been through this already so if you want to argue this artificial deaths from coal, address what I have already point out a page or 2 back or show PROOF ( not figures plucked out the air and guesstimates by vested interests) of those numbers.

If there were a million people dying a year from coal there would be loads of information that directly pointed to this from all round the world. There would be a name for dying this way and it would be on death certificates.

All this million a year rubbish is nothing more than guess work and could have been attributable at very least in part to a whole range of other things.

Point out the facts not the bullshit if you want to be believed because repeating the same baseless bullshit isn't going to make it true no matter how much you want it to support your make believe ideals.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: paulca on March 20, 2019, 08:14:07 am
I am! If you think parroting  estimates of the number of deaths from Coal when there is NO FACTUAL ( Read that again, FACTUAL) numbers to support this, is going to win me over, you are very wrong.

Ok.  If we remove the estimated deaths from coal, oil, gas, let's also remove the estimated deaths from nuclear shall we?

Excluding those resulting from the USA barbaric behaviour at the end of WWII, it stands at around 200.  Some figures suggest even lower.  Your turn.

I agree BTW on current reactor tech, which is basically 1950s US Navy tech.  It doesn't mean there are not better solutions with less waste and designed fail safe.  However I think we need to really man up and consider that we will need nuclear and soon.

I'll also leave this here:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-150d11df-c541-44a9-9332-560a19828c47 (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-150d11df-c541-44a9-9332-560a19828c47)
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: nctnico on March 20, 2019, 09:30:53 am
You make my point exactly. So many people get killed by coal (just like in car accidents) that nobody cares anymore about who they where.
How many people in your country or any other have Cause of Death: "Coal power plant emissions"  or anything mentioning coal ( unless they were miners) listed on their death certificates?
Thousands in one incident: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Smog_of_London (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Smog_of_London)
And similar events have happened all around the world.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: GeorgeOfTheJungle on March 20, 2019, 10:36:08 am
But nowadays nothing like that happens anymore.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: bd139 on March 20, 2019, 10:40:01 am
Most of that happened because smoking was cool then. Lots of people were on the verge of emphysema and had other respiratory problems from living in damp accommodation.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: GeorgeOfTheJungle on March 20, 2019, 10:50:31 am
Blame Philip Morris.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: nctnico on March 20, 2019, 10:57:48 am
But nowadays nothing like that happens anymore.
I'm not so sure. Look at China.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: apis on March 20, 2019, 01:18:59 pm
I am! If you think parroting  estimates of the number of deaths from Coal when there is NO FACTUAL ( Read that again, FACTUAL) numbers to support this, is going to win me over, you are very wrong.
Of course it's factual, you have been provided with lots of sources that link to scientific studies you just choose to ignore them. The estimates with regard to air pollution from coal are much better supported by scientific evidence than the estimated deaths from pollution from nuclear accidents. If you look at estimated deaths, coal is far far worse. If you look at deaths directly linked to accidents, coal is far far worse. No matter how you try and twist it, coal is far far worse.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: george80 on March 20, 2019, 02:13:15 pm

 The estimates with regard to air pollution from coal are much better supported by scientific evidence than the estimated deaths from pollution from nuclear accidents.

So show me the scientific evidence that backs up the estimates for coal deaths.

have you or anyone here EVER heard of anyone say " They died from coal power plant Emmisions"? or anything related directly to coal fired power plant EMISSIONS ( not coal mining ) .

Af coal power plant emissions kill so many, everyone must have known of someone killed from coal power plant emissions.

Fortunately, there is no such thing in the real world only made up " Estimates" it the green world.

Again, if you think i'm wrong, whats the word Term for dying from coal power station emissions?
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: apis on March 20, 2019, 02:16:10 pm
I have shown you many times but you just ignore it. Go back and check the previous few posts. Or do some research on your own it's not that hard to find.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: GeorgeOfTheJungle on March 20, 2019, 04:06:09 pm
Good. So far we've seen that if we were to put the PVs in the best possible place, the Sahara, where there's the most insolation all the days all the year, to generate 170e3 TWh/y we'd need 1.7e6 km2.

That's 170e15 Wh / (365*24 h) / (1.7e6*1000*1000 m2) = 11.5 W/m2

Put the PVs anywhere else, as in roofs scattered all around the world, as george80 would like, and get less than that. Compare with this:

Fukushima Daiichi 4.7 GW, 350 ha => 1342 W/m2
Fukushima Daini 4.4 GW, 150 ha => 2933 W/m2
Almaraz 2.1 GW, 50 ha => 4200 W/m2

To use your (750W) microwave oven you can choose between 0.26 m2 of nuclear, or 65 m2 of PVs.

How much would that cost?
This is the entire worlds energy consumption we are talking about, so it's naturally very large figures.

Ok, but let's try to figure out.

Here it says $2.7 per watt of PV installed (2018): https://www.solarpowerrocks.com/affordable-solar/much-cost-go-solar-money-go/ (https://www.solarpowerrocks.com/affordable-solar/much-cost-go-solar-money-go/)

And here it says $2000/kW nuclear (2016): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_of_nuclear_power_plants (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_of_nuclear_power_plants)

That's $2700/kW PV versus $2000/kW nuclear, but to generate the same energy we need about 3 times more PV power because PVs only generate 1/3 of a day. So 3*(2700/2000) = 4.

PVs are 4x times more expensive, and need 250x more land.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: mtdoc on March 20, 2019, 04:41:06 pm
You make my point exactly. So many people get killed by coal (just like in car accidents) that nobody cares anymore about who they where.
How many people in your country or any other have Cause of Death: "Coal power plant emissions"  or anything mentioning coal ( unless they were miners) listed on their death certificates?

None.

Yet we are supposed to believe hundreds of thousands die from it every

Ignorant nonsense comment,

As someone who fills out the cause of death sections of death certificates - it doesn’t work that way. You cannot list coal plant emissions, air pollution, etc.  You must put the physiologic cause such as lung cancer,  COPD, asthma exacerbation, etc, etc.   It’s  the same for many things which are the ultimate (but not proximal) cause of death. You can’t list tornado, tsunami, earthquake, flood, bridge collapse, nuclear reactor containment breach etc, etc either. 
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: boffin on March 20, 2019, 06:38:18 pm
Good. So far we've seen that if we were to put the PVs in the best possible place, the Sahara, where there's the most insolation all the days all the year, to generate 170e3 TWh/y we'd need 1.7e6 km2.
Fukushima Daiichi 4.7 GW, 350 ha => 1342 W/m2
...

again, you're off by a factor of 100 or so.

That facility occupies 371km2 (37,100 ha) of land which is useless for anything now due to the exclusion zone,
so even if it was still operating, it would mean an amazingly pitful 12W/sqm


Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: apis on March 20, 2019, 07:09:50 pm
Here it says $2.7 per watt of PV installed (2018): https://www.solarpowerrocks.com/affordable-solar/much-cost-go-solar-money-go/ (https://www.solarpowerrocks.com/affordable-solar/much-cost-go-solar-money-go/)

And here it says $2000/kW nuclear (2016): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_of_nuclear_power_plants (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_of_nuclear_power_plants)

That's $2700/kW PV versus $2000/kW nuclear, but to generate the same energy we need about 3 times more PV power because PVs only generate 1/3 of a day. So 3*(2700/2000) = 4.

PVs are 4x times more expensive, and need 250x more land.
As long as the world stop burning stuff for energy, especially fossil fuels, I'm happy. What is happening now though is that instead of shutting down coal people shut down nuclear and replace it with solar panels or wind. That doesn't help with either greenhouse gas emissions nor pollution and is basically a pointless waste of money. Eventually they will reach a point when there isn't enough storage capacity in the grid and they will realise they can't just add more solar panels. And then we will be stuck with solar panels and coal/gas without having achieved anything except wasting a lot of money.

It's really hard to estimate the true cost of these things though. If you want to do it properly you can't only look at the installation cost. You have to look at the entire lifetime including maintenance and decommissioning/recycling and all the externalises like cost of cleanup after an accident, the need for grid storage, the healthcare costs due to pollution, etc. The market is so heavily lobbied, regulated, subsidised (out of necessity) that the market prices isn't going to accurately reflect the true costs, and the production capacity is limited. The countries with nuclear power in EU have the lowest electricity prices though and I don't think that's a coincidence.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: apis on March 20, 2019, 07:19:43 pm
Good. So far we've seen that if we were to put the PVs in the best possible place, the Sahara, where there's the most insolation all the days all the year, to generate 170e3 TWh/y we'd need 1.7e6 km2.
Fukushima Daiichi 4.7 GW, 350 ha => 1342 W/m2
...

again, you're off by a factor of 100 or so.

That facility occupies 371km2 (37,100 ha) of land which is useless for anything now due to the exclusion zone,
so even if it was still operating, it would mean an amazingly pitful 12W/sqm
Sorry, I first thought you meant the area around normal nuclear reactors. There is usually a safety zone around a nuclear power plant, but it can be used for e.g. farming or solar panels.

The chernobyl exclusion zone is a thriving wild life habitat now and there are people living there that never left. It's not so black and white. And it's unfair to base calculations on the worst accidents only. We should use the average per unit energy.

Now that I think about it, you could put solar panels in the exclusion zone as well.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: GeorgeOfTheJungle on March 20, 2019, 07:39:05 pm
I don't like solar farms, the bigger they are, the less I like them. And now that I think about it... in the desert there are huge dunes! What happens with that? Sand and wind can't be good for the panels. I also prefer to see a desert than millions of rows of PVs.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: splin on March 20, 2019, 09:46:27 pm
A big problem for PV in deserts is lack of water for cleaning them. In sandy deserts blowing sand will likely bury PV farms within a few years (as per Opportunity on Mars) and/or scour the glass seriously reducing output.

Another big problem is that huge PV farms in Africa or the Midle East would be an easy and attractive target for terrorists especially so if Europe was heavily dependant on that electricity. One very cheap bullet is enough to destroy one or more expensive panels. Just image how much fun Al Quaeda or similar could have machine gunning PV panels from the back of a Landcruiser. How many millions or tens of millions of dollars of infidel Western assets could be destroyed by a two man team in a day?

They would be virtually impossible to protect and why I believe (I don't know, just hypothesising) the Desertec proposals were abandonded and are unlikely ever to be implemented on a significant scale. If the electricity were used locally (as in Saudi) there would be much more incentive for the local governments to provide security. It might also reduce the vulnerability to attack in the first place but there seem to be no shortage of people willing to destroy anything related to the West or even representing modern living. And going to shoot up PV farms may simply be seen as good weapons training for new recruits or good sport for long range sniper practice.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: george80 on March 20, 2019, 10:43:22 pm

You cannot list coal plant emissions, air pollution, etc.  You must put the physiologic cause such as lung cancer,  COPD, asthma exacerbation, etc, etc. 

Yep.

So how do you define  the cause of lung cancer coming from Power station emissions and  not from the guy smoking 20 years ago or working in a factory where  there was some sort of toxic dust or whatever?

If one says that a million people a year die from coal plant emissions, how can you medically identify that to count it rather than just making guesses?   What else would give the same conditions and  coal plant emissions?

Sitting in traffic for years and years, Living in dusty environments, working in certain environments where there was say wood working or metal working, concrete plant....

What I am saying is to assign all these deaths to coal is just a guess and there are a Loads of other things that could also cuase the same condidions so how do we scientifically know which cause was what?

Unless you do, these greenwashed claims are all just complete and utter bullshit.
If you can't define them specifically then you are just guessing and like everything that comes from the green or nuke sides, You know it's going to be complete and utter bullshit and garbage..... like everything else we know they incessantly lie about.

Anyway, at the end of the day, Nuke is fked.  The public opinion against it, the costs, build times and risks mean very few places will entertain the idea of building new reactors as the numbers of Nuke Vs. coal plants under construction show.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: tautech on March 20, 2019, 10:54:41 pm
Anyway, at the end of the day, Nuke is fked.  The public opinion against it, the costs, build times and risks mean very few places will entertain the idea of building new reactors as the numbers of Nuke Vs. coal plants under construction show.
Which might suggest the Paris accord will fall over in time.

Everyone, well nearly, thought it was a great idea at the time but in the cold hard light of day with no really viable energy alternatives on the horizon maybe common sense will prevail ?
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: apis on March 20, 2019, 11:37:55 pm
What I am saying is to assign all these deaths to coal is just a guess and there are a Loads of other things that could also cuase the same condidions so how do we scientifically know which cause was what?
You do epidemiological studies on very large groups of people exposed to different levels of pollution. People exposed to air-pollution get sick more often. You have the same problem when estimating the effects of low levels of radiation.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: nctnico on March 21, 2019, 01:44:52 am
Anyway, at the end of the day, Nuke is fked.  The public opinion against it, the costs, build times and risks mean very few places will entertain the idea of building new reactors as the numbers of Nuke Vs. coal plants under construction show.
Which might suggest the Paris accord will fall over in time.

Everyone, well nearly, thought it was a great idea at the time but in the cold hard light of day with no really viable energy alternatives on the horizon maybe common sense will prevail ?
Today we had elections. The party who wants to spend the least on meeting the 'Paris CO2 goals' has won big time. It is time the world re-thinks CO2 reduction strategies because now the real costs are becoming clear. The time for costly half-assed experimental solutions is over.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: tautech on March 21, 2019, 02:25:44 am
Anyway, at the end of the day, Nuke is fked.  The public opinion against it, the costs, build times and risks mean very few places will entertain the idea of building new reactors as the numbers of Nuke Vs. coal plants under construction show.
Which might suggest the Paris accord will fall over in time.

Everyone, well nearly, thought it was a great idea at the time but in the cold hard light of day with no really viable energy alternatives on the horizon maybe common sense will prevail ?
Today we had elections. The party who wants to spend the least on meeting the 'Paris CO2 goals' has won big time. It is time the world re-thinks CO2 reduction strategies because now the real costs are becoming clear. The time for costly half-assed experimental solutions is over.
Don't you believe it !

Just because some gubbermint policy has failed to address their country's CO2 emissions doesn't mean they won't come up with some other hare brained scheme to meet their Paris accord targets rather than loose face in the international greenwashed community.

Dumb shit that has been proposed here to reduce methane emissions:
Fart/belching tax on farmed livestock......... ::) FFS, next they'll wanna tax human flatulence !
How can a gubbermint also tax wild animals and their contribution to methane emission ?

On one hand we have legislation to preserve and enhance wetlands from 150 years of drainage and yet no account is made of the methane that's emitted from them. Without the efforts of our forefathers draining these unproductive methane emitting wet wastelands we wouldn't have the productive lands we do today.

Oh that's right, artificial food sources could mean we don't need all the productive land we have today, yeah right and the worlds population is gunna stop growing.  ::)

It's all a right furking mess !
Everyday I see ppls in high places making dumb decisions and getting paid for their BS when the truth be known they couldn't organize a piss up in a brewery.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: paulca on March 21, 2019, 08:17:18 am
On the point of radioactive coal.  It seems people were comparing it to rector accidents.  This is not what is meant.

A nuclear power plant contains it's radiation (except in the event of extremely rare accidents).  The plants are monitored 24/7 both inside, the perimeter and for miles around.  The levels they must achieve are very strict.

Coal on the other hand is not monitored.  It does not contain it's radioactive waste in the fly ash and smoke.  Instead it's either left in the open or distributes on the wind in the smoke particles.

So while it is low level and probably not a major concern it still stands that coal plants and coal mines release a higher amount of radiation across the land than a nuclear plant or a nuclear fuel storage facility does.

On the nuclear waste problem.  Lets consider that current tech is already considering mining land fill because we can now recycle a lot of what is buried there.  The only issue is the cost of getting it out.  With nuclear waste there are many proposals to turn it back into reactor fuel to make it much less radioactive before it becomes waste again.... and in many cases they don't need to dig it back up as access is provided to the underground storage.

I agree that nuclear has been hurt by public opinion, in some cases that opinion is valid.  However I stress again this has mostly been the result of greed, government short-termism and military influence. Basing our civilian reactors on US Navy submarine tech was a gross mistake which has been heavily opposed since the 1950s by nuclear scientists.  However the US Navy had produced the first fully commissioned reactor and tested it to be safe, in a submarine, so governments went for it.  The cost of comissioning a new reactor design was far, far too high when they could just spin up another "rickover" PWR design.  BWRs were designed to make them simpler and thus cheaper, but in no way at all safer.  The fuel issue was never addressed.  It was originally thought the waste would be reprocessed to extract the plutonium, the remainder having much, much shorter half lives, but this has never been achieved on the industrial scales needed.

The trouble is, we need to get off fossil fuels and quickly.  Europe's target of 2030 will probably be missed.  The US is nowhere near that.  New safer, cleaner reactor designs even if funded will take 10-20 years before they could become viable.

Renewables currently require almost an equal amount of coal or gas plants to take up the slack when it's dark and/or calm.  There is no getting around that.  Battery tech capable of buffering the power grid in developed nations is probably longer away than next gen nukes and... can you consider the chemical waste from some of those techs?

So while the public opinion is against nuclear, how many more years of increasingly deadly weather events and deadly heatwaves do you think it will be before public opinion starts to sway towards climate change being more deadly than nuclear power.  Unfortunately I think it will take too long and our children and their children will suffer for it.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: george80 on March 21, 2019, 11:30:30 am

Paulca,

While I don't agree with your Climate change and some other views, I can't say how much I admire and appreciate the balanced, honest look you give on everything you posted about.

It is so good to read a post that one might disagree with in part but isn't full of bullshit and lies trying to push the agenda. You would be more likely  to win me over and make me think again because of your honesty than so many others talking rubbish but trying to make out it is fact.  There are other things that i think you are spot on with but it's the way you factually relate what i don't agree with that impresses me  and I appreciate the most.

Thank you.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: Marco on March 21, 2019, 04:52:14 pm
With nuclear waste there are many proposals to turn it back into reactor fuel to make it much less radioactive before it becomes waste again
None of which works well without breeding reactors and all of which provide technology with high proliferation risks.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: apis on March 21, 2019, 08:44:27 pm
My take on which nuclear reactor technology is best is to let the nuclear engineers figure it out. The old BWRs might not be the best, but almost 80 years of history with P/BWRs shows it's still one of the safest and cleanest forms of energy. It's safer than coal, wood burning and hydro by a fair margin. It's even safer than wind and rooftop solar according to some sources.

It's sort of impossible to judge proliferation risks for a layman since most of the relevant information is classified. But North Korea isn't going to care if Germany builds a fast breeder reactor or not. If NK want one they will build it, and I assume they already have the best type of reactor in that regard. Russia, USA or China isn't going to shut down their nuclear weapons programs because of anti nuclear power hysteria here in Europe. (They are probably very happy that they can sell us lots of expensive LNG though.)
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: Marco on March 21, 2019, 10:55:57 pm
I doubt Russia is terribly happy that their small power plant breeder keeps catching fire while PWR makes them money.

Breeders breed money into fire, reprocessing plants process money into heavily polluted sites ... I'd not be surprised if MSRs do both.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: paulca on March 22, 2019, 08:12:07 am
I'd not be surprised if MSRs do both.

Why not read up on them?

Someone previously said something about a test thorium MSR partially melting down.  Pause for a moment and let that failing in logic settle in.  A "melt down" is when the reaction runs out of control to the point the fuel rods melt.  How can a reactor which uses molten fuel, "melt down" if it's already molten? 

This is a key point in why these are being proposed.  They are designed with positive safety trends, the more out of control they get the more they control themselves.  The higher you run them the slower the reaction takes place (the opposite of Chernobyl).  With the MSR designs being proposed not even a presidential order to cause a "melt down" can be achieved.  If you suddenly shut off the pumps and shut off the water supply the reactor heats up, melts it's salt plug, the fuel drains out and without the moderator slowing the neutrons fission stops.  The fuel is not even under pressure and has a huge thermal liquid temperature range, so it sits in the basement and cools into a solid lump of salt which can be recovered either in solid form or by heating, melting and pumping it.  I believe this has been tested for real at ORNL.

In comparison the PWRs and BWRs operate under many atmospheres of pressure, require tons of water per second to cool them, requiring constant access to water and electrical power or they melt down.  If containment is breached there is a volume of high pressure steam which can escape explosively exposing the reactor fuel to oxygen, causing a significant fire, releasing fission products in the smoke plume.  Aka, Chernobyl, which is the worst case scenario for a reactor. 

As Bill Nye put it once, current reactors suffer from the "Homer Simpson Effect".  It is a very real possibility that, just like in Chernobyl some one can "press the wrong button" and cause a catastrophe.  Nuclear incidents always have a cause of "Why on earth did they do that?".  What people are currently trying to design are reactors that cannot be miss handled without them failing safe.  Of course you could still drop a bomb on one, or a terrorist could blow one up, but even then the designs place the cores in a pit underground making even that extremely hard to do.  I'm sure there will be other problems yet to discover, but at least they are thinking the right way rather than just lifting a sub reactor out onto land and pumping water to it.

Fuel tech is also moving in similar directions to address previous issues with waste and "melt downs".  Fuel that is orders of magnitude more efficient in terms of how much of the fertile fuel is consumed against how much waste is produced.  Fuel which self limits and slows it's reaction the hotter it gets.

Tech is also trying to address the decommissioning, by making reactors modular, so when a core is beyond it's life cycle, it is allowed to cool for 5-10 years and the highly dangerous short half-life waste has time to decay before the whole core, minus it's fuel, is removed and shipped to a decommissioning site (yes I'm sure there are risks there), but you don't have to decommission it on site but at a special facility where lots of parts can be recovered and recommissioned in new cores.

I'm sure a lot of this is 30+ years away but with the right funding, some of it is only 10 years away.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: Marco on March 22, 2019, 08:34:13 am
It's not like the liquid sodium cooled reactors are meant to catch fire all the time, it just kinda happens. It's not like reprocessing plants need to have leaks all the time, it just kinda happens. I suspect for leaks at least that on site reprocessing for MSRs will have similar costly fuck ups, which just kinda keep happening.

Being passively safe is nice, but they don't mean it will be cheap.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: paulca on March 22, 2019, 10:17:48 am
It's not like the liquid sodium cooled reactors are meant to catch fire all the time, it just kinda happens. It's not like reprocessing plants need to have leaks all the time, it just kinda happens. I suspect for leaks at least that on site reprocessing for MSRs will have similar costly fuck ups, which just kinda keep happening.

Being passively safe is nice, but they don't mean it will be cheap.

As I understand there aren't any liquid sodium cooled reactors.  Salt (almost certainly NOT liquid sodium which is 1) not a salt and 2) is a dangerous highly reactive metal) cooled reactors are being built in India and China and there are a few test set ups with electrical heating in labs.

There is a big difference between liquid salt cooled (with salt having a much more stable thermal range than water and not involving pressure or steam) and liquid fuelled reactors.  However it seems current near-term progress is aiming at salt cooled reactors with gravel bed fuel.  This is to avoid the issues like hydrogen explosions (such as at fukashima) and steam expansion and pressure build ups.

Can you point me to the examples of waste containment leaks?  Given that almost all of the waste is solid I can only see "leaks" being an issue if ground water leaks into storage, irodes the vessels and carries radiation out.  Also bear in mind that waste sites do not only store waste from reactors, but some really nasty exotic high-level waste from the nuclear weapons industry.

A very unsellable solution for nuclear waste is to grind it into dust and distribute it across the planet.  Remember that nuclear fuel was original dug out of the ground where it naturally occurs.  It is then reacted to make it LESS radio active.  So distributing it widely enough actually makes the planet less radioactive.  I'm only being academic, in real world terms this is completely impractical.

As a random aside... you will hear this from people, "Plutonium does not exist in nature.  It's man-made".  This is only correct within certain time framed.  Many examples have been found in nature where ground water has concentrated Uranium 238 in such ways, with water moderators and natural breeding to cause critical reactions and melt downs in bed rock.  This will result in plutonium production.  (Uranium 238 aborbs a neutron to form Uranium 239 with a very short half-life decays via beta emission to Plutonium 239.)  The only reason you can be fairly confident that plutonium you find IS man made is because it decays with a half life of 60,000 years.  So the naturally occurring stuff will have almost completely disappeared.

Note also that thorium reactions (if we ever get there) burn most of their own waste products and do not produce much plutonium containing waste.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: nctnico on March 22, 2019, 11:31:36 am
A very unsellable solution for nuclear waste is to grind it into dust and distribute it across the planet.  Remember that nuclear fuel was original dug out of the ground where it naturally occurs.  It is then reacted to make it LESS radio active.  So distributing it widely enough actually makes the planet less radioactive.  I'm only being academic, in real world terms this is completely impractical.
I think this is tried somewhere at the coast of England but now there is a large heap of nuclear waste in the sea because the stuff somehow managed to accumulate in a small area.

I'm a firm believer 'we' should keep dangerous waste stored in a place where it can be inspected and moved if necessary. Burrying it underground is likely to cause problems down the road because it may become inaccessible and/or it may pop up at some time when everyone already forgot about it.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: Marco on March 22, 2019, 11:36:58 am
The only "commercial" breeder reactor (kinda an exaggeration, since there is only one) is the BN-800, a liquid sodium cooled reactor. Still it's far closer to a commercial design than any MSR, which is pie in the sky. My intuition tells me the on site reprocessing will be a shitshow ... but until there's some commercial scale designs running it's impossible to prove.

Reprocessing dissolves fuel. Thorp (Sellafield) had a big leak in 2005 and had to shut down for 2 years, dumped a ton of low grade nuclear waste into the sea as well. La Hague had a leak into ground water in 1976 and also dumped a ton of low grade nuclear waste into the sea. Toikamaru had its share of very costly accidents, Hanau too ... reprocessing is a giant fucking shitshow. The only reason to reprocess spent nuclear fuel at the moment is because you want to waste money or because you want weapons grade plutonium.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: RoGeorge on March 22, 2019, 11:52:14 am
do some research on your own it's not that hard to find.

The problem is that the Internet is so big nowadays, that it became a WHAT YOU SEARCH IS WHAT YOU FIND place.  Search flat Earth.  You'll find plenty.  Search round Earth.  You'll find plenty.  A simple online research (which is the only research affordable individually) won't settle any debate.

That is why a search engine can not replace education.

Please note that the above remark is completely offtopic, and I don't care who is taking what side, but that quoted idea it's a fallacy that tends to spread way too fast, and it's a dangerous one.  That is why I am pointing to it, not trying to blame anybody.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: apis on March 22, 2019, 02:03:45 pm
The problem is that the Internet is so big nowadays, that it became a WHAT YOU SEARCH IS WHAT YOU FIND place.  Search flat Earth.  You'll find plenty.  Search round Earth.  You'll find plenty.
That's very true. It is possible to find someone who claims anything you'd like (not only on the internet). That is why you also need a large dose of source criticism.

A simple online research (which is the only research affordable individually) won't settle any debate.
If you restrict yourself to credible sources It's quite possible to sift through the noise, even if the signal to noise ratio is low. I believe the biggest problem today is that people are loosing faith in traditional institutions, like mainstream media, (inter)government agencies and universities. If people don't even trust peer reviewed journals like Nature or the Lancet we are in for trouble. I mean, you shouldn't just trust a single source, but when the majority of them say one thing then it makes little sense to mistrust them or else you are going to fall deep into the rabbit hole and a world where everything seems possible (that is not a good thing).

Of course, if you are unable to judge the credibility of sources you are screwed and there is nothing that can save you. If you don't trust the WHO, then why should you trust your doctor?

Example:
https://www.fda.gov/biologicsbloodvaccines/vaccines/ (https://www.fda.gov/biologicsbloodvaccines/vaccines/default.htm)
https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/parents/vaccine-decision/ (https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/parents/vaccine-decision/index.html)
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fact-or-fiction-vaccines-are-dangerous/ (https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fact-or-fiction-vaccines-are-dangerous/)
vs
https://www.thehealthyhomeeconomist.com/six-reasons-to-say-no-to-vaccination/ (https://www.thehealthyhomeeconomist.com/six-reasons-to-say-no-to-vaccination/)
https://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-11532/8-reasons-i-havent-vaccinated-my-daughter.html (https://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-11532/8-reasons-i-havent-vaccinated-my-daughter.html)
https://www.youtube.com/ (https://www.youtube.com/) watch?v=qUxIyoFX7ZU (anti vaccination video)

To be clear: the first three pages are credible. Two of them are from government agencies and the last one a well known and fairly reputable popular science magazine, while the other three are from random people I have no knowledge of or reason to trust.

(Is there a better way to prevent youtube links to become embedded video?)

That is why a search engine can not replace education.
I don't disagree with that. Education hopefully has a better signal to noise ratio than the average search engine. But it is also dangerous to believe that education is foolproof.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: nctnico on March 22, 2019, 02:15:29 pm
In general it is best to stick to government bodies for credible sources or websites where fact checking takes place (like Wikipedia).
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: TerraHertz on April 04, 2019, 02:40:39 am
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Dan Britt - Orbits and Ice Ages: The History of Climate
Published on Feb 8, 2012

youtube.com    watch?v=dSVkSCN_hLQ
Prof Don Easterbrook Crashes the Global Warming Party
Published on Nov 19, 2017

20190331
https://www.iceagenow.info/climate-change-helped-destroy-ancient-civilizations-with-no-help-from-your-suv/ (https://www.iceagenow.info/climate-change-helped-destroy-ancient-civilizations-with-no-help-from-your-suv/)
Climate Change Helped Destroy Ancient Civilizations – With No Help From Your SUV
youtube.com      watch?v=CKMFQmMv8zI
Here a few of the excellent comments about this video:
“Here’s five examples of pre-industrial climate change. But this time climate change is totally man-made. You just have to trust us.”
“All of these predate fossil fuel use. So what your saying is extreme climate change is a cyclical thing. Got it.”
“If this can happen naturally, then I’ll take my chances with fossil fuels! Greatest natural resource in our history, and we haven’t found a sustainable replacement yet.”
"Thanks to the World Economic Forum for showing us that naturally occurring climate change destroyed civilizations. Fortunately, since there is no more naturally occurring climate change, beware of man-made climate change.”
"So you’re saying it’s natural climate change that destroys the world? Or are you saying a Carbon tax would’ve saved the Mayans and Vikings?"
"We need to correct the problem that destroyed the Viking civilizations of Greenland. I suggest we heat up the Earth some more, until the Greenland Ice Pack is gone."


20190221
youtube.com     watch?v=U-9UlF8hkhs
World In Midst of Carbon Drought (w/ Prof. William Happer, Princeton University)
Conversations That Matter, with Stuart McNish.   Published on Jun 22, 2015
We are in a carbon drought. That is according to Professor William Happer of Princeton University. The renowned physicist says when it comes to carbon dioxide, there’s more good than bad. He goes on to say most of carbon dioxide’s effect has already happened. He points to the logarithmic dependence of temperature on carbon dioxide levels.



Same as I've been saying since 2008. 300-400ppm CO2 is around the lowest Earth's atmosphere has ever been through the history of life on Earth. The entire ecosphere is starving for carbon at present. The historical norm, for which plants evolved, is in the range 1000-4000ppm. "CO2 induced global warming" is the most outrageous lying bullshit ever pushed on the public. It's a vile myth, that only survives and prospers because most people are incredibly ignorant of both science and the geological and climate history of Earth. Also because the idea that an organized group of Elites would actually construct such a massive conspiracy, and that their aims are to crash industrial civilization and kill 80% of the human race, is simply beyond most people's conceptual grasp.

As usual, long list of links here:
  http://everist.org/archives/links/__AGW_links.txt (http://everist.org/archives/links/__AGW_links.txt)     
  http://everist.org/archives/links/__AGW_quotes.txt (http://everist.org/archives/links/__AGW_quotes.txt)
(and other files in that folder.)
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: TerraHertz on April 04, 2019, 03:00:44 am
In general it is best to stick to government bodies for credible sources or websites where fact checking takes place (like Wikipedia).

You serious?
I'm not even going to touch "trust government bodies not to lie".
As for Wikipedia...
  https://www.cbsnews.com/news/meet-the-man-behind-a-third-of-whats-on-wikipedia/ (https://www.cbsnews.com/news/meet-the-man-behind-a-third-of-whats-on-wikipedia/)

Paraphrasing another's comment on that: (and do check out the photo.)
Quote
Man behind 1/3rd of edits on Wikipedia is an old school Soviet Russian, who lives with his mom.
First of all, this shows just how shallow Wikipedia is. Wikipedia is TOTAL CRAP compared to what Geocities was before it got wiped out, which had millions of unique sites by millions of different people, and there's no way one guy could have ever edited a third of them. If one man managed to edit a third of Wikipedia, Wikipedia is shallow GARBAGE.
Second, this shows that Wikipedia does not have quality control on anything. If one guy can screw the whole system, Wikipedia is BUNK.

Just to run this ONE web site, I have to spend between 8-12 hours a day looking for stuff that's good enough to put here and make sure it is accurate. Wikipedia is orders of magnitude larger than this site, and if ONE dufus edited a third of it, he's blowing pudding out his @ss. There's no conceivable way he's doing anything at all other than deleting what he does not like, he's not researching CRAP. NOT POSSIBLE, even with Wikipedia being only a shadow of what Geocities was.

Mundane web sites have multiple editors. How much larger is Wikipedia than the New York Times? MANY TIMES LARGER. How does ONE guy do all that editing, complete with real fact checking? Answer: NOT.

So here we have a CBS report that just admitted a guy with first generation roots to Bolshevik Russia is doing 1/3 the edits on Wikipedia, as a "volunteer" and he's getting it all done in 3 hours a day. If that's the case, BAG WIKIPEDIA, there's no fact checking, no quality control, ONLY BIAS. But everyone knew that already, RIGHT?

What do I think he's doing?

1. Removing all conservative content.

2. Stripping all the details out of any post that has any scientific value. Wikipedia is TOTALLY worthless as a reference for anything of that nature, and there's no excuse for it. If it is beyond 8th grade, it's not there. It's not that it never gets posted there, it is that it consistently, every last time, gets WIPED OUT.

3. NOT WRITING OR ADDING JACK, ONLY DELETING. You can't go through that many posts and EVER hit Google or pick up a book while doing it.

The CBS hero piece on this guy is the same kind of fake media reporting that has become the BANE of the MSM. There's no way the credibility they hand this guy could EVER, in a MILLION YEARS happen in "3 hours a day", the only thing possible is that he's a saboteur, with direct family roots to Bolshevik communism.

Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: nctnico on April 04, 2019, 07:44:10 am
If you would have investigated on how Wikipedia works you'd know there is a process and it is required to have credible third party references for any claim made on Wikipedia. I'm not saying everything on Wikipedia is right but you can check the sources yourself. They are listed below every Wikipedia page. A page on Wikipedia is basically a comprehensive excerpt from various third party sources.

The rant you quoted is just nonsense. The use of the the term 'Bolshevik Russia' is a dead giveaway. The fact is that articles on Wikipedia aren't written or audited by one person. The procedures behind Wikipedia ensure that.

Either way, Wikipedia is a way better source compared to Youtube or Facebook. Allover Europe we see outbreaks of Measles dissease due to less people having their kids vaccinated. The primary cause is misinformation spread on Youtube and Facebook. Someone has succesfully turned Youtube and Facebook into biological warfare weapons!
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: coppice on April 04, 2019, 04:12:08 pm
If you would have investigated on how Wikipedia works you'd know there is a process and it is required to have credible third party references for any claim made on Wikipedia. I'm not saying everything on Wikipedia is right but you can check the sources yourself. They are listed below every Wikipedia page. A page on Wikipedia is basically a comprehensive excerpt from various third party sources.
If there are some excellent technical pages on Wikipedia you remember from 10 years ago, try looking at them again today. There is a good chance they will look considerably different. They might have had all the detail stripped out. They might have been replaced by total drivel. They might have been replaced by pages pushing commercial interests. Wikipedia loves tagging pages as needing more citation, but good solid citations are being stripped out all the time as pages are dumbed down. I used to know a few people who contributed quite a lot of material to Wikipedia, but they gave up long ago, tired of working in a war zone.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: apis on April 04, 2019, 08:04:38 pm
That's true, but Wikipedia is still surprisingly good. There have been several studies comparing factual errors with other encyclopedias (like Britannica) and Wikipedia is just as good (bad). You just have to keep in mind how the sausage was made and check the sources if it's something important. Ideally you should check several independent sources. Wikipedia is often a good starting point though.
Title: Re: $14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide
Post by: paulca on April 05, 2019, 05:32:59 pm
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/humans-are-free/