You just talk nonsense... They still (not instead) use coal and the mafia who owns it tries to stop wind by heavily financing the ruling mafia.
What coal mafia fighting wind mafia has to do with fact Germany declared denucleraization after Fukushima.
If Germany decided to develop safe nuclear reactor designs after Fukushima, they would be using clean energy (still) Instead of using coal and buying more natural gas from Russians.
I agree what that did was a nonsense, Wyttenbach
Germany decided to develop safe nuclear reactor designs after Fukushima, they would be using clean energy (still) Instead of using coal and buying more natural gas from Russians.
The reactor is not the problem unless you build it on a friction zone like France did with Fessenheim that will die like Fukushima if the quake comes (what is for sure within the next 50ty years.)
The problem is fuel recovery. If we have LENR ready then even big reactors are no longer a problem! I do not think that there is an easy path to mixed fission/LENR albeit I see some options.
Green stimulus can repair global economy and climate, study says. Oh come on - this is snake oil selling by snakes..
For instance Tesla already makes more profit from carbon tax evasion i.e. $133 million by selling regulatory credits thanby selling cars ($105 million). These money go from governmental subsidizes into renewable fuels, which already collects 93% of federal energy subsidies which were whooping $7.047 billion in fiscal year 2016, i.e. more than ten times more than fossil fuels subsidizes and one hundred times more than let say for education! And these subsidies don’t include state or local subsidies, mandates or incentives. This is more than enough of money, which would attract interests of another industrial mafia - this time "renewable" one. No need to say, these money don't make a dent in steadily rising carbon dioxide concentration in atmosphere and they just increase fossil fuel consumption in its very consequence.
Whereas in nearly every country on the world introduction of "renewables" has increased prices of electricity. The "renewables" are supposed to generate more energy than they consume - this is their very meaning. So that they should never demand subsidizes (generated by burning of fossils, BTW) - but to generate profit from their very beginning. It's as simple as that.
Not to say, that "renewables" aren't renewable at all, as they drain raw sources and many consumables due to their limited life-time. For example biofuels only convert soil into desert. Wind plants in Germany don't make enough money for their scrapping, not to say recycling even after twenty years of their (di)service. This is a big comedy for economics and huge disaster for life environment.
If Germany decided to develop safe nuclear reactor designs after Fukushima, they would be using clean energy (still) Instead of using coal and buying more natural gas from Russians.
I agree what that did was a nonsense, Wyttenbach
Safety comes at a cost. This is clearly evident by the ongoing nuclear projects in Flamanville France, in Finland and in UK Hinkley Point project.
They are all the latest and safest designs, and are being built at an absolutely Crazy CAPEX.
The one in Finland and in France is now at above 9 USD pr. Watt electric installed capacity. And Hinkley Point have agreed an electricity cost twice the market cost of power.
You now get large solar PV plants at below 1USD pr. watt installed capacity.
EDIT; The above values are investment CAPEX factors that also decides the final electricity cost pr. KWh for profitability.
When and if LENR arrives we can remove much of the costly safety systems that makes traditional nuclear power uneconomic.
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Whereas in nearly every country on the world introduction of "renewables" has increased prices of electricity. The "renewables" are supposed to generate more energy than they consume - this is their very meaning. So that they should never demand subsidizes (generated by burning of fossils, BTW) - but to generate profit from their very beginning. It's as simple as that.
Not to say, that "renewables" aren't renewable at all, as they drain raw sources and many consumables due to their limited life-time. For example biofuels only convert soil into desert. Wind plants in Germany don't make enough money for their scrapping, not to say recycling even after twenty years of their (di)service. This is a big comedy for economics and huge disaster for life environment.
Zephir, as I explained earlier your claim is wrong.
And I will repeat:
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Ah, this is another myth roaming the internet of high costs in renewable countries.
But the truth is the opposite.
What these figures fails to explain is Taxes. Denmark is a high tax country where everything is taxed high, like cars are EXTREMELY expensive to buy caused by taxes, compared to prices in the neighbour Germany.
AND taxes is used to drive the society, like free healthcare, free Universities, paied maternity leave, paied unemplyoment benefits etc. etc.
AND taxes vary from country to country, like low electricity tax in France and high in Germany and Denmark.
SO: If you made the same comparison of electricity costs PRE TAX, you would find that market cost of power is HIGHER in Nuclear France than in Germany and Denmark.
So Renewables has in effect lowered the market price.
Also to note is that Nuclear France has NO government fund to replace old Nuclear plants with new ones, while Germany has used electricity taxes to build a large fund for funding of future energy systems, being the dream of FUSION or improved Renewable technologies.
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Not to say, that "renewables" aren't renewable at all, as they drain raw sources and many consumables due to their limited life-time.
May be once you should try to deliver real facts and not made up nonsense!
I pretty sure you can also correlate the electricity price with the increase of the cocaine consumption (or what ever you like) in the referenced countries.
Just one more hint: Electricity price in Germany is indirectly bound to the oil price...
Display MoreSafety comes at a cost. This is clearly evident by the ongoing nuclear projects in Flamanville France, in Finland and in UK Hinkley Point project.
They are all the latest and safest designs, and are being built at an absolutely Crazy CAPEX.
The one in Finland and in France is now at above 9 USD pr. Watt electric installed capacity. And Hinkley Point have agreed an electricity cost twice the market cost of power.
You now get large solar PV plants at below 1USD pr. watt installed capacity.
EDIT; The above values are investment CAPEX factors that also decides the final electricity cost pr. KWh for profitability.
When and if LENR arrives we can remove much of the costly safety systems that makes traditional nuclear power uneconomic.
What they are building is an EPR.
From Wiki "The EPR is the evolutionary descendant of the Framatome N4 and Siemens Power Generation Division "Konvoi" reactors.[9][10] Siemens ceased its nuclear activities in 2011"
Framatome: The company first formed in 1958 to license Westinghouse's pressurized water reactor (PWR) designs for use in France. Similar agreements had been put in place with other European countries.
All these reactors could arguably be an evolutionary descendants of first reactors designed in 50s. This prevailing mentality that bigger is better results in building monsters with large amount of radioactive material.
Everybody loves Tesla and SpaceX vs incumbent stories. That can be possible repeated in the power sector.
There were dozens alternative reactor designs with nice passive safety features. Good news there are few startups developing them so I a guess than economics is not as bad. Another good news is that somebody in Canada listens to them and they are way ahead into regulatory approval process in Canada compare to US despite our notorious bureaucracy.
What I get form renewable energy manifestos is that it we could go 100% if we cut consumption by 30%. Really? Can you grow economy and cut consumption? That is not happening. Secondly we is going to finance baseload power facilities idling on a sunny/windy day and working full blast on a sweltering windless night once in a while.
Spain cancelled its solar tax in 2018 but I think the tax was fair. While the renewables were on a winning streak somebody have to silently pay for exiting connections to the gird just in case.
Just one more hint: Electricity price in Germany is indirectly bound to the oil price...
Let me guess why... Because natural gas is also bound to oil price? Or is it just an old Alpine tradition?
How some expensive technology can ever get "environmentally clean"? The price is just a measure of energy footprint of product and economy. If you pay for some product, you're paying the price of energy required for production of that product. No matter where it's exerted directly and/or indirectly for example for mining raw sources or for salary of labour force (which indeed also consumes an energy for its survival).
According to French economist Gaël Giraud (who dissents from most liberal "renewables" pushing economists from good reason) explains that GdP growth is mostly energy (google translated) and most of GdP growth is linked to the capacity to use energy. Here are English slides about his position (more info).
According to his paradigm it doesn't matter how smart you are and how clever your energy technology is: until it's more expensive than fossil fuel energy, then it also consumes more energy on background so it must be subsidized by economy based on cheaper technology (guess which one it is) - which also means, it increases the consumption of fossil fuels on background.
In similar way, it doesn't matter how advanced and fancy your electric car is: once its ownership and operation including recycling consumes more money that this one of gasoline car - then it's the electric car which wastes the natural resources and fossil fuels - not classical one. And so on..
The conclusion is clear: if you want to push "renewables", then they must get cheaper and as such they should generate subsidizes - not to consume them. It's as simple as it is.
QuoteDenmark is a high tax country where everything is taxed high, like cars are EXTREMELY expensive to buy caused by taxes
Of course: the country subsidizing expensive electric cars and/or expensive electricity of offshore wind plants would need high taxes for covering this cost.
But does it make "renewables" more energetically effective? This is just my point.
The conclusion is clear: if you want to push "renewables", then they must get cheaper and as such they should generate subsidizes - not to consume them. It's as simple as it is.
We have passed these goals the last 5 years. Obviously the goals depend on who is ruling a country and how this is done. Solar energy can be installed for 2cents/kwh in middle east e.g. Saudi Arabia. Its much higher in Germany and worst in Switzerland where the labor to install it is the most expensive on world...
To focus on renewables only is a short brain idea. As said before building insulation and electric cars are not by definition renewables. But both reduce energy consumption by a factor of 3-6! IF you add a heat pump theb its in total a factor of 20-30 !!!
Stop discussing nonsensical arguments please.
The return on energy time for an antic standard nuclear power plant was 4.6 years. Today its > 5 years without decommissioning what adds 1-2 more years. This defines the limits of a growth function. If you construct to many power plants at the same time you effectively loose (starve of) energy ... This is not the case for Solar (>50) & wind (>20) as their factors are much larger than for nuclear power plants (7) . Further the time needed for installation of renewables is a few days to a few months compared to 6..infinite years for a nuclear power plant... This defines the ROI!
A shift to "renewables" will only replace one non-renewable resource (fossil fuel) with another (metals and minerals).
That would only be the case if renewable energy source such as wind turbines and solar cells used more materials than combustion plants. The opposite is true. They use much less materials. It may not seem that way at first glance, because 1,000 1-MW wind turbines seem to be larger than a 1 GW coal fired plant. But it only seems that way because you have to add in many materials to coal fired plant that are not visible when you look at the plant itself. First, there is a mountain of coal that is burned over time, that far exceeds the mass of wind turbine materials. Probably hundreds of times. Second, there is the mine and the equipment needed to run it, such as gigantic trucks. Third, a large fraction of the railroad capacity between the mine and the coal-fired plant must be devoted to coal. A railroad line has a limited traffic capacity. Plus, using it for coal trains wears out the rails, so they have to be replaced. Wind turbines are also carried by rail, but only once in the 20 to 30-year life of the turbine, and only once in 50 to 100 years for the tower, so the overall burden on the transportation system is much lower.
You have to look at the overall system.
With solar panels, many are installed on the roofs of the house or building where the electricity is used, so you do not need a power grid distribution network. Or, I should say, you do not need as much of a grid. The use of the grid is reduced. The grid constitutes about a third of the physical mass of the power generation and distribution network, so reducing it greatly reduces the metals and minerals needed to generate electricity.
Also, a wind farm of 1,000 1-MW wind turbines seems to take a lot of space, but it does not. The base of the towers is the only space it takes up. These are typically in rural areas. Farmers continue to use the land around the base to grow crops or keep livestock. The actual cross section of land used per megawatt is about the same or smaller than a 1-GW combustion plant. Offshore wind turbine farms take up no land space at all. Note that wind turbines in the North Sea, which is shallow, could produce about four times more electricity than Europe consumes, taking up zero land space. You cannot do that with any other conventional source of energy. (You could do it with cold fusion, because it does not need a distribution network and the generators will be co-generators no larger than the furnaces and air conditioners they replace.)
Hydroelectric generators take up vast amounts of land, in the form of lakes. In some cases, the lakes themselves are of economic value, or useful as reservoirs.
Of course: the country subsidizing expensive electric cars and/or expensive electricity of offshore wind plants would need high taxes for covering this cost.
But the citizens themselves pay far less, because they are not killed by coal smoke. In the U.S. coal smoke kills roughly 20,000 people a year. These are mostly poor people living in rural areas, so they have no political power, and they cannot sue, and their families are not compensated for the loss. Imagine how much electricity would cost in the U.S. if electric power companies killed 20,000 middle class or wealthy people instead! They would be sued for hundreds of billions of dollars, and electricity would cost $1 per kilowatt hour. Actually, in real life, they would be forced to stop using coal in six months. This is why there are no coal fired plants in California. Because California has many middle class and wealthy people that corporations cannot kill with impunity.
In other words, the lives and health of tens of thousands of people are sacrificed in a gigantic subsidy for coal, that far exceeds the value of any subsidy ever paid for wind turbines.
It is a hidden subsidy. A tax on poor people. Over decades it amounts to the lives of millions of people cut short, or made miserable and unproductive. If you have ever driven through an area close to a coal fired plant during an inversion, you will know that ordinary life, school for children, going outside for a walk, and other activities are impossible. It is like driving through a thick fog, except that it stinks.
Add in the eventual cost of global warming and you (and your descendents) probably end up paying tens or hundreds of times more for combustion-generated electricity.
Needless to say, the smoke could be eliminated with pollution controls. But that would raise the cost of electricity by 5 or 10 cents per kilowatt hour (I think). That would cut electric company profits. Or, if they passed on the cost, middle-class urban consumers would raise hell. They would rather kill people than pay a little more for electricity. It would also make wind and solar even cheaper in comparison to coal.
Fortunately, coal is now so expensive, there are no plans to build any more coal generators in the U.S., and the existing ones are old and being retired quickly. Coal as a share of generation is falling rapidly, and the coal companies are going out of business. That's a shame for them, and for the miners, but good for the rest of us.
any countries with renewables providing base load yet?
Iowa produces 40% of their electricity with wind, a larger fraction than any other source. It is also the cheapest source, even before you factor in the cost of pollution. (Which, as I pointed out above, the power company does not pay. You and I pay it.)
QuoteIowa produces 40% of their electricity with wind, a larger fraction than any other source. It is also the cheapest source
Is wind electricity of Iowa cheap, because its cheaply produced, or because grid providers have no interest about this unpredictable and volatile electricity?
These Forbes articles (1, 2) explain the mystery of "cheap" electricity from wind plants. See also: Is wind power saving rural Iowa or wrecking it?
California has highest portion of "renewables" in electricity production
and also highest price of electricity (33% by 2020)
Or the lowest price, when you factor in dead people, ruined lives, and land, rivers, and water tables destroyed by strip mining. Come to Georgia. Drive through a rural county during an inversion. Would you be willing to live with stinking smoke everywhere, like thick fog? Look at the health stats and mortality rate of the people living there. Look at what happens in places with strip mining and the pollution it causes. Then tell me if you would be willing to pay the price they are forced to pay. Your electric bill may be oh-so-low, but that is because the power company kills people and destroys their lives, forcing them to pay instead of you. But not in California. And not with wind and solar electricity.
Think carefully before you decide what is a high price, and what is a lower price. What does that "price" include? Do people pay it voluntarily, knowingly, in return for goods and services they receive in return? Or does the power company take it from poor rural people willy nilly, ruining their lives, while handing over the benefits to other people who live in cities? This is not a business model in the normal sense. It is more like rape and rapine. Like what the ruthless roving band of bandits in the movie "The Seven Samurai" did, except the power company execs wear suits and pay "campaign contributions" (bribes) to Members of Congress so they can continue murdering people.
