Quote from Wyttenbach

Times have change. Solar had the break through about 5 years ago in average but oh surprise it depends on the geographical, political and economic environment. I would say in North Norway it will never be a success...

..or may be not.

The University of Tromsø in the far north of Norway tested panels in 2018, panels at different angels and also bifacial panels that are becoming popular.

A positive factor in the north is 10% increased efficiency for 20 degC reduced temperature....And fixed bifacial panels may use reflection from the snow behind, and the night sun during summertime...

In one year run (which they say was an average year wrt clouds and sun), they achieved 960 KWh pr. KW panel.

This is comparable with places further south where clouds are normal, like parts of UK or north of Germany.

As cost come further down it is not unlikely we will see the first grid scale solar plants north of the polar circle 😎

We can also illustrate the growth of wind and solar this way:

In 2019 wind+ solar produced 272 TWh more electricity than 2018.

This growth equals = 272 000 GWh / 24 / 365 = 31 GW installed power running 24/7

Nuclear regularity is around 92% , i.e 31/0,92= 34 GW

So, the GROWTH of wind and solar alone represented adding approximately 34 Nuclear reactors every year.

And since growth also accelerate, this equivalent number will only increase in the years ahead.

Therefore I am a renewable optimist 😉

Quote from Zephir_AWT

Of course, after TAX used to subsidize the "renewables". One could make these money by burning or selling fossil fuels instead - this amount of coal corresponds the carbon footprint of renewables.

No, as I explained taxes are used to run the society, not renewables.

Denmark also have the highest prices on cars, but that also has nothing to with renwables.

Also Norway has high tax on power, but we have only Cheap Hydro power, so also here taxes are used to run our social benefit system 😉

And here is the real truth on electricity prices:

Denmark is part of nordpool in the figure Below and have the lowest market price, and Germany has lower electricity prices than nuclear France.

Quote from Zephir_AWT

Again you are completely wrong.

And again I explain:

The graph you show and claim you make is a long lived Internet myth that has nothing to do with reality vs.renewables.

The graph 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 😉

Quote from rubycarat

LENR is not the only solution. For a long-term solution, atomic power is the only solution. There are many types of atomic. LENR would be the cleanest and best that i can see. But small modular reactors, the molten salt reactors, these are also in the works and provide a better outcome than a wind farm that destroys wilderness for thirty years and then, if you're lucky to have the funding, dismantling and burying the blades underground.

But Ruby,

There is no capacity to build nuclear as fast as needed.

Solar power alone are expanded each year at a rate of some 30 nuclear reactors each year. And the speed increases, i.e. exponential growth.

Nuclear reactors, large or small are much more complicated and takes much longer time to build pr. Watt installed capacity...

Then some real numbers:

CO2 emissions in EU down over 20% since 1990.

https://ec.europa.eu/clima/new…use-gas-emissions-down_en

Quote from Zephir_AWT

Well, it just shows, that "renewables" don't work for curbing carbon dioxide emissions in both absolute numbers, both relative numbers.

EU dependency on fossil fuel imports on rise despite energy consumption decrease - I'm not judging it - I'm just explaining, why it so (EU also utilizes largest portion of "renewables")

Wrong,

As your article states

"Their [EU fossil fuel] share has constantly decreased over the past decades, from 83% in 1990 to 73% in 2015"

Imports have nothing to with Absolute or relative CO2 numbers.

Quote from interested observer

So, by Zephr’s brand of reasoning, since U.S. annual traffic accident fatality numbers stayed essentially flat from the 1980s until 2000, seatbelts and airbags must have been causing the deaths.

Or

"Since the use of belts and airbags have increased since the 80's, but fatalities have been Essential flat, shows belts and airbags have had no impact. I.e. no point using them " 😂🤣🤪😱

Quote from Zephir_AWT

But do they consume less fossil fuels than fossil fuel plants by itself? This is the question.
I will stand my ground, until I don't see carbon dioxide levels at least slowing in growth, not to say plummeting.

So, you did not understand what I wrote?

Let's try again:

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: it takes only MONTHS for wind and solar to pay back ALL CO2 that was produced during construction of the plants Including all of the Value chain from mining to finished project.

Of course the global energy consumption increased more than growth of nuclear, Hydro, solar and wind, so the low Carbon sources must grow further with exponential coefficient higher than total global energy increase, and tye world must turn electric, away from liquid fuels.

Ruby, I fully agree that LENR would be a perfect Solution.

If the breakthrough came today, It could even probably be built and expanded fast enough to save the world.

Traditional nuclear plants have way too long construction times to have an impact.

While we wait, I still think renewables are workable.

But that means whole of world needs to turn electric. It will take time for planes, cars, trucks, ships to go electric.

So we may end up with a need also to do Carbon Capture and Storage undeground while we turn the globe electric.

Please also note that since electric drive is more efficient than liquid fuels, we would not need 150 000 TWh in electricity If oil where replaced with electricity for propulsion.

It is almost one to one when used for heat, but for propulsion electricity is way more efficient than fossil fuels.

But Anyhow: If we where to just do a calculation for the fun of it, and calculate how large ara we would need to cover with solar panels to produce 150 000 TWh pr. Year:

Using part of The dessert of Algeria we would only need an area of 240 km times 240 km with solar panels. So , a very small part of Algeria could power the whole of the globe with all energy needs.

In real life, I would say we could build a number of large scale solar plants around the world,. Make Hydrogen as fuel for ships and trucks. This could also be liquid fuel, where hydrogen is Converted to ammonia. Use batteries and Pumped Hydro to store energy.

Expand the electrical grid to interconnect the whole globe, making everything one grid. The sun always shines somewhere and the wind always blows somewhere. Distributed solar and wind must be part of the Solution.

Quote from rubycarat

To convert our human systems to solar and wind, the grid is the infrastructure that must be re-tooled, along with lots of other devices on the load. That is a huge investment that so far no one is willing to make. It will only cost more as time goes by. Until that time, there is a patchwork grid, failing in places, getting shored up in places.

Britains need heat, not so much air conditioning. How does solar and wind supply all the power needed for air conditioning in the equatorial regions? I don't know the answer to that either.

U.K. Grid Struggles as Renewables Overtake Fossil Fuels

https://finance.yahoo.com/news…ining-cope-230100436.html

(Bloomberg) -- Renewables supplied more than 40% of electricity during first quarter of 2020, overtaking fossil fuels as storms battered the U.K.

Output from wind farms was up by 40% compared with the first three months of 2019 as severe storms meant Britain experienced the wettest and windiest February on record, according to the Electric Insights report, commissioned by Drax Group Plc and researched by a team of independent academics from Imperial College in London.

Making sure the grid isn’t overloaded by wind and solar is a challenge for National Grid Plc but a drop in demand caused by lockdown measures to prevent the spread of Covid-19 has made it more difficult. The grid operator asked for emergency powers to switch off renewable generators if needed to limit supply.

“Having flexibility within the power system at these critical moments is crucial to keeping Britain’s lights on,” said Iain Staffell, author of the report published Thursday.

Britain’s wind farms ran at record-high capacity factors in February, averaging 50% for onshore and 60% for offshore wind farms. This is significantly higher than fossil-fueled power stations, with gas running 34% of the time and 17% for coal, according to the report.

Drax owns and operates a portfolio of flexible, low carbon and renewable electricity generation assets across Britain. These include the U.K.’s largest power station, based in Selby, North Yorkshire, which supplies 5% of the country’s electricity needs. Having converted two thirds of its power stations to use sustainable biomass instead of coal, Drax has become the nation’s biggest renewable power generator.

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There are several ways to Solve issue with renewable variations. One is pumped Hydro storage. Another is expanding the grid to send power from areas with oversupply to areas in need.

Norway has several cables to Europe. Additional GW sized cables are being built now to Germany and UK.

THE BUSINESS CASE IS:

Norway will buy cheap electricity from UK and Germany when they have oversupply. During import they will turn down Hydro power and let the dams fill naturally.

When market price in UK and Germany rise, Norway will start the Hydro genetators again and sell power to Europe at a higher. So the difference makes the cable projects profitable investments and solves a problem for Europe.

In a way Norway becomes Europes battery.

I am sure this idea can be transferred to US and other places.

Quote from Zephir_AWT

Offelia: you cannot argue with graphs ending in 2009. The renewables flourished during Al Gore + Obama:
Energy subsidies from the federal government (in billions of 2018 U.S. dollars).

Here is some more facts from EIA. In 2016, 54% of subsidies went to non-renewables.

Renewable subsidies are on decline as technology has matured and cost has declined.

There is nothing wrong with subsidise renewables as long as technology development brings the cost down to profitability without subsidies like we see now.

But why fossil fuels would still need ANY subsidies after 100 years in operation beats me.

https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=35952

Annual subsidies for fossil fuels much higher than renewables so far.

https://cen.acs.org/articles/8…-US-Energy-Subsidies.html

Quote from rubycarat

EIA projects nearly 50% increase in world energy usage by 2050, led by growth in Asia

https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=41433

As energy use grows, all sources grow.

https://ourworldindata.org/energy

M King Hubbert didn't put anything else between the fossil age and the atomic future. I wish there was an alternative! But so-called renewables are too little too late.

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Ruby,

We should be careful when comparing primary energy with sources that only feed the electricity grid.

Primary energy includes everything, like all the liquid that fuels air planes, ships, cars, trucks, busses.

And these consumers will take some time to replace with electric drive, so we will still consume liquid fuels for some time yet.

Sources like Nuclear energy and renwables feeds only the electricity grid.

The growth of renewables have been dramatic only the last couple of years, and this year solar and wind alone will feed 8 to 10 % of global electricity.

It gross exeponentially, which means by the end of this decade we may remove coal completely If we let renewables grow at the same exponential rate as now.

Quote from Zephir_AWT

But they still consume only 7% of subsidies in USA - which is my point. Which is also funny, because fossil fuels still cover 86% of electricity and 97% of total energy consumption there.

Wrong.

Much more than 7%. And why should they get any, when fossile have been around for 100 years? Stil not profitable after 100 years 😜?

https://www.vox.com/energy-and…energy-coal-oil-subsidies

Quote from Alan Smith

@oystia.

Problem with the co-firing in cement plants idea here is that without very careful control of flue-gas and fire-bed temperatures in the cement kilns the epoxy resin binders in the blade material will produce dioxins and furans , which AFAIK most cement manufacturers are not equipped to capture at source. It's just replacing one kind of pollutant with another. I also suspect that the claimed reduction in CO2 emissions at the plant is not real, but the result of some tricky number-juggling with the numbers.

I agree that it would be a waste to Solve one problem and by that create another one.

Regulations set normallt strict limits to emissions from cement factories.

But not all countries have the same strong Environmental Protection Agencies like most European countries...

The reduced CO2 emissions is possibly related to the reuse of fibers as filler in cement.

https://www.compositesworld.co…-for-cement-co-processing

Quote from Zephir_AWT

This doesn't contradict my article, according to which federal subsidies that support non-fossil fuels were $7.047 billion in fiscal year 2016, and more than 14 times higher that the subsides for fossil fuels, which were $489 million. This article is four years old, so that we would have $649 billion into fossil fuels and proportionally higher portion for "renewables".

Unfortunatelly, the exact numbers spent for renewables in 2019 look pretty hidden at the web, whereas fossil fuel subsidizes are readily available thanks to alarmist propaganda.

But one can nowhere read, that "renewable" subsidizes consume fourteen-times more subsidizes than fossil fuels and how much exactly. Is it just an accident?

Energy subsidies from the federal government (in billions of 2018 U.S. dollars). The “other” category represents technology-agnostic energy subsidies, like transmission and conservation efforts which aren’t tied to specific fuels. But I guess, that indirect investments into "renewables" would still gobble up the largest part of it. For example most of investments into electric grid comes into account of "renewables", which pose highest stress to it.

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No, fossil fuels acount for 85% of global subsidies.

https://www.eesi.org/papers/vi…breaks-and-societal-costs

Quote from rubycarat

Wind turbines not recycled like some think.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news…re-piling-up-in-landfills

But that does not mean we are not heading towards 100% recycling 😉

The last challenge is the blades. But All recovery challenges will be solved.

And Vestas just made a Nice announcement as referred to in the article below 😎

https://windeurope.org/newsroo…ty-for-the-wind-industry/

Quote from Zephir_AWT

Nope, you've it opposite. Fossil fuels + nuclear subsidize consume 7% of fuel subsidizes (of which most goes into nuclears anyway), all the rest i.e. 93% goes into "renewables".
People here are as brainwashed by renewable lobby as scientific people - which is rather bad considering we are on the LENR forum.

Let us stick to sources we can trust:

The International Monetary Fund have Even higher number for US fossil fuel subsidies:

649 Billion USD in 2015.

Far above US renewable subsidies.

https://www.imf.org/en/Publica…try-Level-Estimates-46509

Quote from Zephir_AWT

This is just another myth - if the fossil fuels would need net subsidizes, then the countries like Russia or Kuwait would be poorest countries in the world and they wouldn't fight for another fossil fuel reserves. The fossil fuel energetics is actually most profitable and lucrative one.

fossil fuel subsidies are no myth.

The International Energy Agency reported 400 Billion USD in fossil fuel subsidies in 2018.

Renewable subsidies are just a fraction of this.

https://www.iea.org/topics/energy-subsidies