Basic problem with electric cars is we will still be burning fossil fuels to generate energy to recharge them. So it's just another green delusion
Nope. As noted, if you recharge them at night in Texas, you are probably using 100% wind energy. In Iowa you are using ~60% wind energy most of the day. In Georgia, at night you are using mostly nuclear power. Furthermore, electric cars are 3 to 4 times more energy efficient than gasoline-only cars, so even with coal, you produce less CO2 per mile.
This is only true for the US. They transform corn into alcohol and sell it as add-on for car fuel.
It is even worse than you think. According to Pimentel, ethanol from corn is an energy sink. It takes more energy to make it than you get out of it, when you factor in the fuel used by farm equipment and so on. It is gift to OPEC. See "Food, Energy and Society," chapter 19.
I always tell "Offroaders": One tank empty one more dead African boy as he just burnt his food...
Years ago I calculated that 50 gallons of ethanol takes about enough food calories to feed a person for a year. So, yes.
We already discussed it here. If the solar and wind plants would really save life environment, then they would also generate subsidizes instead of consuming them (into account of fossil-fuel based energetics indeed). Not accidentally Denmark has most expensive (=most environmentally demanding) electricity from all Western Europe countries, because it also has most renewables in its portfolio. The saving nature with "renewables" is like saving coal by buying Bugatti Veyron...
Oh dear,
The table you show and claim you make is a long lived Internet myth that has nothing to do with reality vs.renewables.
The table you show is NOT market price, but power price to consumer AFTER tax.
Taxes on the market price of power varies from country to country.
Taxes is used to run the society, like in Denmark free healthcare, free University, paied maternity leave, unemployment benefits etc....
So the REAL truth is that Nuclear France has higher MARKET price of power than renewable Denmark. Just because France has chosen less taxes on Power, the end price is lower.
So renewables result on LOWER market price than nuclear or Even coal these days.
And Denmark also has the highest prices (i.e taxes) on New cars in Europe, but that too has nothing to do with renewables 😉
JedRothwell Or just have electric bicycles? Electric powered gliders? Surfboards? Canoes? The possibilities of a green future and an end to GW multiply if we lose the concept of private cars. I know Elon Musk won't like this but he could repurpose his Teslas into Space X fusion powered rockets once we crack the LENR physics. Just need another Einstein.
Just need another Einstein.
The World Is Running Out of Elements : More clean energy equals more demand for the materials that make those technologies possible. See also:
shift to renewable energy will replace one non-renewable resource (fossil fuel) with another (metals and minerals)
This makes no sense. Most of the material in a wind turbine is in the tower, which is made of steel (iron) the most abundant material on earth. The other materials are in the generator, which takes no more metals and minerals than a generator in a fossil fuel plant. Granted, the duty cycle is somewhat lower. More to the point, metals and minerals used in generators are not used up. They are still there when the generator is scrapped. They are recycled. Valuable ones such as copper, and dangerous ones such as lead, are recycled with close to 100% efficiency. So, once you build enough generators to serve the entire world, you don't need any more metals. We are close to generating all of the electricity the world needs, except in Africa.
Fossil fuels are used up. Metals and minerals in machinery are not used up. Isotope studies have shown that some of lead in use today was mined in ancient Roman times, and has been recycled ever since.
Right now wind and solar energy meet only about 1 percent of global demand;
Wind is 6%. Solar is ~1%. Coal generators are rapidly being retired. The metals and minerals in them are use to make wind turbines, as I said. There is little net increase in metal and mineral consumption, because coal generators are so expensive and inefficient, the duty cycle on the ones being retired is usually close to 50%, which is not much more than a wind turbine. Also, wind turbines take far less minerals and materials than coal when you factor in the mines, mining equipment, and railroad trains it takes to deliver the fuel. That whole infrastructure is not needed for a wind turbine. Natural gas requires a pipeline infrastructure, mainly made of steel. The pipeline is far more massive and expensive than the steel towers in a wind farm. That is why comparing the cost of a wind farm to the cost of a fossil fuel generator plant makes no sense. You have to look at the whole system, including the fuel extraction and delivery system. Comparing the energy overhead and the land use without factoring in the fuel delivery infrastructure is also a mistake.
Retiring worn-out wind turbines would cost billions that nobody has
This is also nonsense. It costs no more to recycle wind turbine generators than scrapped coal generators. Or scrapped automobiles, for that matter. It does not cost money overall; scrapping and recycling is profitable. If you see abandoned wind towers or hundreds of automobiles lying around, it is not because "nobody has" the money to recycle them. It is because the market value for scrap happens to be low at the moment. That is a stockpile, waiting for a more profitable time. Hundreds of automobiles are never left to rust away. Wind turbines are smaller than most coal generators, so it might be easier to transport them. They are shipped from the factory to the wind farm site by rail, ready to install, so I imagine they can be shipped to the recycle plant without much disassembly. Wind turbines last about as long as fossil fuel generators. Wind towers are the most expensive part, and they will probably last 50 to 100 years.
A shift to renewable energy will replace one non-renewable resource (fossil fuel) with another (metals and minerals). As this article puts clearly, a shift to renewable energy will just replace one non-renewable resource (fossil fuel) with another (metals and minerals).
Only one thing is true: There live far to many people on this planet and most of them live like the pigs - eat and shit - and don't handle their waste.
Flow batteries don't need any rare materials and motors without Co,Nd,Sm are a little bit heavier and a bit more expensive. It's all about the last $ profit.
Most of the arguments against wind and solar power are demonstrably false and rather easily at that. Why are so many people so determined to reject technology that is growing rapidly, improving all the time, and getting cheaper by leaps and bounds?
I think opposition began a few decades ago when wind power was heavily subsidized. People did not want to see tax money wasted on a technology that was not competitive. They probably thought it would never become competitive. They might have been right, after all. It is a legitimate objection. Because wind has made remarkable progress, subsidies have been mostly withdrawn. I believe that wind now gets about the same level of subsidies as fossil fuel or nuclear power.
This objection has been raised many times in the history of technology. An interesting example was in the opposite direction, when coal replaced wind. Until the 1840s, all ocean going ships were powered by wind alone. Steamships were only used on rivers or as tugboats. When ocean going steamships were first developed, they were uneconomical compared to sailing ships. The British and U.S. governments subsidized them for various reasons. Sailing ship interests and the public objected. They said you should not interfere in the free market. Let the customers decide. Do not waste tax money on expensive technology that needs expensive coal fuel because it can never compete with the wind, which is free. The U.S. subsidized Collins steamship company failed. The technical challenge was too great. The technology was too ambitious and the ships too big. The Congress refused to subsidize it as much as it needed, around $800,000 a year, and it went bankrupt. The British continued to prop up the Cunard line.
In 1851, U.S. clipper ships reached the acme of their development. They were the fastest sailing ships ever made, and arguably the most beautiful. Their only drawback was that their cargo capacity was diminished by the sharp lines of the hull. They were used in the east coast to California routes, famously carrying gold miners. Many were abandoned in San Francisco, with the crews supposedly off the gold fields. They set speed records. It must have seemed like nothing could compete with such wonderful ships. The editor in Harper's Magazine wrote about the Flying Cloud, which went from New York to San Francisco in 89 days, 8 hours, a record that held for 130 years:
We wish to touch with our pen nib—as the ob. servant reader has before this seen—whatever is hanging upon the lip of the town; and with this wish lighting us, we can not of a surety pass by that new burst of exultation, which is just now fanning our clipper vessels, of all rig and build, into an ocean triumph.
Nine hundred and ninety odd miles of ocean way within three days' time, is not a speed to be passed over with mere newspaper mention; and it promises — if our steam-men do not look to their oars – a return to the old and wholesome service of wind and sail. We are chronicling here no imaginary run of a “Flying Dutchman,” but the actual performance of the A Number One, clipper-built, and copper-fastened ship, FLYING CLOUD–Cressy, commander. And if the clipper-men can give us a line, Atlantic-wise, which will bowl us over the ocean toward the Lizard, at a fourteen-knot pace, and not too much spray to the quarter deck—they will give even the Collins' monsters a scramble for a triumph. There is a quiet exultation after all, in bounding over the heaving blue wave-backs, with no impelling power, but the swift breath of the god of winds, which steam-driven decks can never give. It is taking nature in the fulness of her bounty, and not cramping her gifts into boiling water-pots; it is a trust to the god of storms, that makes the breezes our helpers, and every gale to touch the cheek with the wanton and the welcome of an aiding brother.
just let me make one thing clear:
Serious analysts have confirmed that the globe have enough mineral resources for another 100 years of consumption.
And after that we have surely started to mine space, or have made Even deeper mines into the crust 😉.
Serious analysts have confirmed that the globe have enough mineral resources for another 100 years of consumption.
That seems like a nebulous conclusion to me. I think there are so many ways to get around that problem, or finesse the problem, and so many untapped resources, it might be 100 years or it might be 100 million years. I am serious!
Most mineral resources are not lost at all. They are sitting right where we left them. Often in landfills. They will still be there a century from now. By that time we will have robots and recycling technology that can dig up old computers, dishwasher and whatnot, separate out the materials, and recycle them with near 100% recovery. As I mentioned, some of the lead in use today has been traced back to mines operated in ancient Roman times. It will has been recycled with little loss of material. The only new minerals we will need are for the increased number of machines we use. And the only increase in machines is likely to be for the increase in population. Which is not increasing. It looks like it is, but it isn't. Older people are living longer, but there is no increase in the younger cohort, so by the end of this century the population will stop growing.
Machines tend to use less and less materials. Electric cars are lighter, simpler and use less materials than gasoline models. Computers get smaller. Telecommunications links get smaller and a million times faster and more energy efficient. Telecommuting has improved, and will improve to the point where you might get confused and think you are the room with coworkers who are a thousand kilometers away. So, the need for commuting and roads will decrease. Amazon uses less space, materials, and people than bricks and mortar retail. A century from now -- maybe sooner -- the Amazon technique will be used everywhere. Grocery stores and pharmacies will be fully robotic, with no people allowed in. People will not fit in. That allows 3-dimensional storage and retrieval, taking up much less space. Robots need much less space to operate than people. Robotic pharmacies already exist. They are more like large boxes or vending machines than rooms. See:
Resources are only permanently lost with pollution. For example, when palladium is heated and blown out of catalytic converters, it ends up as toxic heavy metal pollution along highways. With closed cell palladium cold fusion devices, the palladium would never be lost, unless it transmutes.
There are tremendous untapped sources of materials on earth, such as the oceans. With abundant energy from cold fusion, or even today's solar energy, we could not only extract unlimited amounts of some elements, we could also irrigate most deserts and increase verdant, livable land by about as much land as there is in the U.S. See p. 78:
https://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/RothwellJcoldfusiona.pdf
That would increase agricultural output, but I doubt that will be needed, because indoor factory farms can produce all of the field crops in the U.S. in an area roughly the size of greater New York City, with far less energy, water, pumps, materials, minerals and so on, and of course, without human labor, which itself consumes a lot of resources and space. You can grow the food closer together in shelves when robots harvest it. Food is one of the major sources of consumption, so when you cut the materials needed to grow it by a large factor, you reduce overall resource consumption. Replace most transportation with telecommuting and you reduce consumption again by a large factor. The thing is, we don't want to spend these resources. We would prefer not to, if we could avoid it. Few people enjoy commuting to work. Few people want to work in agriculture, out in fields, in the hot sun. Being a checkout clerk or shelf stocker in a grocery store does not pay well, and most people would not want to do it. We actively want to stop devoting resources to these things. So naturally, we will stop.
It seems to me, housing is about the only thing that is likely to consume the same amount of resources in the future as today. I suppose people will still want about the same amount of living space as they have now. Maybe more. Perhaps not, though. Most of my house is crammed with books. Printed books. Shelf after shelf, in every room. If I could wave a magic wand and convert them to computer data, I would. I could find them more easily! They would all fit on a 1 TB disk, and I would have much more living space. Perhaps houses will not take up as much land area. I suppose many houses will have large underground storage space that can only be accessed by robots. When you want the summer furniture on the back porch, or the fancy dishes for guests, the robots will bring them up and put them out. When you don't want them, they will be stored out of sight, closely packed together in 3-dimensional shelves, too close together for a person to fit in the room. I expect most people will also opt out of cooking and cleaning, so meals will be prepared out of sight by robots and brought up when ready, and the vacuum cleaner and yard tools will be stored below. I doubt that many people will have their own automobiles, but if they do, the cars will be parked below, out of sight, taking up no land space.
I suppose people will not have their own cars because cars will be self driving, and when you want one, you will summon it by cell phone, like today's taxi or Uber. But much better, because it will be cleaned by robots every day, or after every ride. You won't have to bother with insurance, or maintenance, or having a garage to store it (above ground or under).
So, all in all, the amount of resources we need per capita might decline by a large factor. Maybe by an order of magnitude, or even more.
If resources are needed from space, a space elevator will bring them cheaply. I think it will not bring raw resources. It will bring finished, manufactured goods and possibly food. All manufacturing and agriculture will be moved to geosynchronous orbiting facilities because there is unlimited space up there, and unlimited solar energy. A large fraction of the human race might move there too, or to the Moon or Mars or who knows where.
For more about this, see A. C. Clarke, "Profiles of the Future."
QuoteWhy are so many people so determined to reject technology that is growing rapidly, improving all the time, and getting cheaper by leaps and bounds?
Because it's unsustainable environmental fiasco. I'm guarding nature and geopolitical stability in fact - I don't care about interests of lobby of "renewables" and/or fossil fuels..
Why so many people (even here at cold fusion forum) are determined to ignore elementary laws of economics?
Because it's unsustainable environmental fiasco
Sounds just like the fossil fuel business.
Because it's unsustainable environmental fiasco.
........determined to ignore elementary laws of economics?
fiasco ?
In 2018 solar alone globally delivered 455 TWh electricity and wind delivered 1128 TWh.
In 2019 I believe the same numbers will read 585 TWh and 1270 TWh.
A Nice growth that is 😉
The global CO2 intensity in 2019 was 442 tonn CO2 pr. TWh.
THIS MEANS: in 2019 solar and wind resulted in 820 000 tonn CO2 avoided from Coal and Gas generators.
And we now see UNSUBSIDISED solar plants being built Even in UK, which is not the best solar place on the globe.
To me it is clear: if not LENR arrives, then then solar and storage will take over the world within 15 years 😁.
Because it's unsustainable environmental fiasco.
Impressive unsupportable polemic you got there.
Wind and solar are great success story that is why https://www.popularmechanics.c…lear-power-tiny-reactors/
Good that there are people in DOE who know their limitations.
Because it's unsustainable environmental fiasco. I'm guarding nature and geopolitical stability in fact - I don't care about interests of lobby of "renewables" and/or fossil fuels..
Do you really think before you write??
Do you really believe that the current technology (brown coal in Germany & Wuhan!) is environmental friendly and sustainable ?? Or burning gas and poison the oceans to death with carbon acid? Is that what you want ??
Do you drive a famous German Diesel car that is definitely killing our forests know due to excess Nitrate fertilization? To you understand the biology of this process ??
Why so many people (even here at cold fusion forum) are determined to ignore elementary laws of economics?
First, that is not in evidence. Electric power companies do not ignore the laws of economics. They are profitable. Wind and solar are no longer subsidized any more than fossil fuel, so if wind farms were economical, no power company would build one. They are building them. More new power comes from wind and solar than gas or any other source. Today, a power company announced a 690 MW PV solar plant, to be build in one year. That's fast. No one could build a fossil fuel or nuclear plant of that size in one year. Because it is so fast, the ROI begins quickly and the money is not tied up, so profits are higher. That's another reason wind and solar are cheaper than other sources.
US Interior department approves plan for the largest solar project in U.S. history
https://www.renewableenergywor…r-project-in-u-s-history/
Second, back when wind and solar were more expensive, and subsidized, your argument that it violated elementary laws of economics was still not very good. It was irrelevant. Everyone knew the plants were uneconomical. No one argued the electricity was cheaper. However, supporters had good reasons for supporting the subsidies, which you seem to be ignoring. Two reasons in particular:
1. Supporters said that if you look at the total cost of fossil fuel, including the cost of pollution and the liability for killing 20,000 people per year, the actual cost was much higher than the nominal cost, so fossil fuel was actually subsidized at a far higher cost in money and lives than wind power. Wind power does not kill people, other than a handful of workers who fall from towers. Do you acknowledge these extra costs matter, and the lost lives matter? Or do you ignore them?
2. Supporters said that if money was invested in the technology, it would become cheaper than fossil fuel. They showed that wind resources are abundant in some geographic locations, and that the materials in wind turbines are not rare or expensive, and there is no reason why mass production should now lower the cost. They were right. You may not think so, but the power company executives think so, and they probably know more about this than you do. Furthermore, history is full of examples of technology that was subsidized by governments until it became cheaper and competitive. Well known examples include steamships, railroads, highways and automobiles, computers, semiconductors and integrated circuits. Granted, there have been subsidies and government support that failed to make the products cheaper, such as nuclear fission power, and ethanol from corn. Such subsidies should be ended, in my opinion. There is no clear path to making ethanol cost effective. In fact, there is no known way to make it an energy source, rather than an energy sink. Whereas in 1990 there was a clear path to reducing the cost of wind power enough to make it competitive. The prospects for PV solar were not as clear, and it took longer to make it competitive.
QuoteDo you really believe that the current technology (brown coal in Germany & Wuhan!) is environmental friendly and sustainable?
Of course it isn't - but "renewables" increase its consumption, not decrease it. I don't like "renewables" just because I don't like fossils. Am I only person at the whole world who can see it?
