He was mostly comparing to nuclear. I guess that’s because air pollution from nuclear is minimal like renewables and make it a viable option if we can get over our fear? Fossil fuel is easy to fire up or turn off when renewable is having its bad days. That make it a good backup to renewables.
@ucbalumnus About using undesirable space to install solar panels. I hope it doesn’t become another thing we send to poor neighborhood. There’s a Starbucks rule for wind turbines. Not within 30 miles from a Starbucks.
I question claims that we will run out of oil in 50 years or less. Past claims of peak oil have all proved false, as new fields were discovered or new technologies enabled oil and gas companies to access resources that were previously unavailable. The relative advantages and disadvantages of fossil fuels vs renewables are open to debate, but we are not about to run out of fossil fuels.
Some days it’s 100% other days it’s less, but generally more than 75%. It depends mostly on the weather, to a lesser extent on how greedy we are with the usage. We’ve learned what pulls a lot of energy (microwave and tea kettle, but they are only brief surges), the dehumidifier setting on the mini-splits. If we didn’t have a 1920s house with a barn roof design, plus other intersecting roofs, we’d have plenty of space for more panels. I think it would take three power walls and a few more panels for us to get off the grid completely.
No, you can’t. I have had solar panels on my roof for about 12 years and the annual output they generate are sufficient to power the house on a yearly basis. However, most of the power is only generated during the day and on sunny days. Unless you install a much more expensive battery storage system, you still need to be connected to the grid. I have what’s called NetMetering. Power flows out to the grid during the day and flows back at night. Similarly during sunny days and cloudy days.
We are installing one of such systems. We are not adding batteries at this time - the power grid here is very stable, so no need to have emergency backup, and if needed, we will add them later.
People get all wrapped up about finite lifetime of batteries. Think of them as appliances. Your water tank needs to be replaced every now and then. Batteries have predictable lifetime, unlike the fridge that might croak god knows when.
That’s an incredibly complex question that can’t be easily answered. Many of the dams in the Midwest where I’m familiar with are 100 plus years old and generate relatively little power in relation to coal or nuclear plants. The equipment still works and there’s not a better option to upgrade their generating capacity. At least to pay for itself.
I do have a separate emergency backup, which isn’t connected to the solar panels or the grid. It was powered entirely by batteries, but only for a very limited number of circuits (a few lights, fridge, furnace blower, etc.). When power goes out, you disconnect from the grid and connect to this backup system.
My backup system uses standard deep cycle marine batteries (which are better than car batteries for this purpose). When they need to be replaced, I can get them from Costco for about $200 each.
We contracted with Tesla to install solar panels and batteries at our house and they screwed up the application for the state subsidies and essential defaulted on their contract. Terrible management at Tesla as far as I could tell. But, we would have had four batteries and this could probably have powered the house for two days).
There is a tremendous opportunity to improve things. One can generate power in places that have abundance of sun or wind (North Africa or Australia) and transmit it to markets with demand (Western Europe/the UK or Singapore). What is needed are inter-connectors to connect countries together both for the transmission from resource-rich countries to energy consumers but also between countries (e.g., within Europe) so that one can optimize the system. Otherwise, each country builds an excess of power generation so as not to be without and there will be a global oversupply of generation. There are lots of opportunities for optimization both on the supply side and on the demand side.
Resistive losses are a major constraint to long distance transmission, barring some immense breakthrough in superconductivity. Losses are around 2-4% for distribution over less than 1000km (typical of today’s grid) and would be over 20% if power was sent 10000km. It’s way cheaper and more efficient to ship (fossil) fuels around the world than to transmit the electricity they produce. The problem is that you can’t store and transport solar or wind energy like you can with coal or gas.
Resistive losses will be less if power is transmitted at higher voltage. Some countries are adopting ultra high voltage transmissions. How much would that reduce transmission losses?
The new interconnectors use high voltage DC lines. There is loss, but my impression is that with the reduced loss, the low cost of generating solar power in places like Morocco makes up for the loss.
Finished the book. In ending, he hinted at some parallel between alarmist environmentalists and religious ideologues(?), environmentalism as agnostic religion. They are both sanctimonious.
@Iglooo, there are environmental idealogues, for whom environmentalism is religious dogma. There are other folks like Greenpeace that use environmental issues to raise money. But there are also very sober scientists who study water, air, climate, etc. for whom the scientific method itself is dogma.
I haven’t read the book by Shellenberger but it sounds like he starts with the conclusion and then selects studies that support his conclusion as opposed to starting with the data to develop conclusions. He’s not the only one. My impression is that Malcolm Gladwell’s later books also start with the conclusion and search for supporting studies/data.
I have not read his book either. I have looked at a couple of his TEDx talks.
My understanding based on his TEDx talks is that he originally had a different conclusion. Specifically he was at one point opposed to nuclear and a big supporter of solar and wind. Then he looked at the facts and changed his mind.
However, I have not read his book. I am thinking that I should.
@shawbridge I don’t see how “I haven’t read the book” and “selects studies that support his conclusion” are in the same sentence. It is very specific an opinion to form without reading the book.
His greatest regret is that while we are overly wrapped up about climate change, we ignore more obvious issues. In his and others’ opinion people are bigger factor contributing natural disasters than climate change, overfishing, overdeveloping in the areas that are better left alone. Solar is all good if we can limit solar panels on the roof but we are clearing forests for a solar farm. Replacing plastic bag with paper bag is not helping, nor to rid of plastic straws, they are making glass straws using more energy and generating more pollution, etc.
It was based upon your description of what he had said. I’m not in the climate science area, but have some exposure. If one draws the circle too narrowly, one ignores externalities. This is true of the folks who extolled the virtues of nuclear but ignored the fact there was no solution to the disposal of high-level nuclear waste. (I was an advisor to the board of a company formed by a nuclear engineer and funded by three billionaires that was working on a solution but the company failed. It is not my area, but I haven’t read about solutions to the problem.). The same is true for folks extolling the virtues of solar or wind without recognizing the need for dispatchable standby power in case it is not sunny or windy. That is why, incidentally, tconnecting various grids that I mentioned earlier means there is less need for standby generation. I advise another company that likes to say that it is a carbon negative company (converts CO2 into various products) but whether it is carbon negative or positive depends upon where one draws the circle.
When I was younger, I worked for a wealthy family and examined a number of investments in environmental companies and made a few. What was clear that for ideological reasons, the US was doing seemingly silly things. We separated out recycling into various categories when a) there was no market or even cost-effective technology for recycling certain things that were being separated out; and b) there was technology that separated out a mixed waste stream at least as effectively as people separate, but we insisted on making people do it and driving two trucks around every neighborhood rather than one. Lots of inefficiencies that I could see at the time. Replacing plastic straws may be an example of that. I was under the impression that there were some serious issues with plastic bags separate from the cost of making them and the use of virgin materials and their effects on climate.
There’s no doubt people are huge destroyers of our planet, potentially affecting future life, esp with things like development and overfishing, but those are still part of climate change. They’re not separate.
It’s helping with the “urban tumbleweed” pollution out there, not because paper bags are replacing them, but most folks are turning to reusable bags where plastic has been banned.
Getting rid of straws is helping with pollution, etc, too. Not replacing them - purely realizing we don’t always need them.
There’s a lot more humans can do to help the planet if they want to with lawns, reusables, less “stuff” and more. None of it negates the fact that fossil fuels pollute too.
