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Heinberg: Our Renewable Future
The next few decades will see a profound and all-encompassing energy transformation throughout the world. Whereas society now derives the great majority of its energy from fossil fuels, by the end of the century we will depend primarily on renewable sources like solar, wind, biomass, and geothermal power.
Two irresistible forces will drive this historic transition.
The first is the necessity of avoiding catastrophic climate change. In December 2015, 196 nations unanimously agreed to limit global warming to no more than two degrees Celsius above preindustrial temperatures.[1] While some of this reduction could technically be achieved by carbon capture and storage from coal power plants, carbon sequestration in soils and forests, and other “negative emissions” technologies and efforts, the great majority of it will require dramatic cuts in fossil fuel consumption.
The second force driving a post-carbon energy shift is the ongoing depletion of the world’s oil, coal, and natural gas resources. Even if we do nothing to avoid climate change, our current energy regime remains unsustainable. Though Earth’s crust still holds enormous quantities of fossil fuels, economically useful portions of this resource base are much smaller, and the fossil fuel industry has typically targeted the highest-quality, easiest-to-access resources first.
All fossil fuel producers face the problem of declining resource quality, but the problem is most apparent in the petroleum sector. During the decade from 2005 to 2015, the oil industry’s costs of production rose by over 10 percent per year because the world’s cheap, conventional oil reserves—the “low-hanging fruit”—are now dwindling (fig. I.1). While new extraction technologies make lower-quality resources accessible (like tar sands and tight oil from fracking), these technologies require higher levels of investment and usually entail heightened environmental risks. World coal and gas supplies have yet to reach the same higher-cost tipping point; however, several recent studies suggest that the end of affordable supplies of these fuels may be years—not decades—away.[2] We will be consuming fossil fuels for many years to come, no doubt; but their decline is inevitable. We are headed to a nonfossil future whether we’re ready or not.
Figure I.1. Change in world oil industry capital expenditures (CAPEX) and crude oil production, 2005 vs. 1998 and 2013 vs. 2005. Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration and Steven Kopits, “Oil and Economic Growth: A Supply Constrained View,” presentation at Center on Global Energy Policy, Columbia University, New York, NY, February 11, 2014.
Nuclear fission power is not likely to play a larger role in our energy future than it does today, outside of China and a few other nations, if current trends continue. Indeed, high investment and (post-Fukushima) safety requirements, growing challenges of waste storage and disposal, and the risks of catastrophic accidents and weapons proliferation may together result in a significant overall shrinkage of the nuclear industry by the end of the century. Despite recent press reports about progress in hot fusion power and claims for “cold fusion,” these energy sources currently produce no commercial energy and—even if claims turn out to be justified—they are unlikely to do so on a significant scale for decades to come.
Fossil fuels are on their way out one way or another, and nuclear energy is a dead end. That leaves renewable energy sources, such as solar, wind, hydro, geothermal, and biomass, to shoulder the burden of powering future society. While it is probably an oversimplification to say that people in the not-too-distant-future will inhabit a 100 percent renewably powered world, it is worth exploring what a complete, or nearly complete, shift in our energy systems would actually mean. Because energy is implicit not only in everything we do but also in the built environment around us (which requires energy for its construction, maintenance, and disposal/decommissioning), it is in effect the wellspring of our existence. As the world embarks on a transformative change in its energy sources, the eventual impacts may include a profound alteration of people’s personal and collective habits and expectations, as well as a transformation of the structures and infrastructure around us. Our lives, communities, and economies changed radically with the transition from wood and muscle power to fossil fuels, and so it is logical that a transition from fossil fuels to renewables—that is, a fundamental change in the quantity and quality of energy available to power human civilization—will also entail a major shift in how we live.
How would a 100 percent renewable world look and feel? How might the great-grandchildren of today’s college students move through a typical day without using fossil fuels either directly or indirectly? Where will their food come from? How will they get from place to place? What will the buildings they inhabit look like, and how will those buildings function? Visions of the future are always wrong in detail, and often even in broad strokes; but sometimes they can be wrong in useful ways. Scenario exercises can help us evaluate and prepare for a variety of outcomes, even if we don’t know precisely which reality will emerge. Further, by imagining the future we often help create it: advertisers and industrialists long ago learned that creative product developers, marketers, and commercial artists can shape the choices, actions, and expectations of entire societies. If we are embarking upon what may turn out to be history’s most significant energy transition, we should spend some effort now to imagine an all-renewable world, even though the exercise will inevitably involve guesswork and oversimplification.
A good way to begin visualizing the post-carbon future might be to explore how and why we came to construct our current “normal” reality of energy consumption.
How “Normal” Came to Be
For most people living in the early nineteenth century, firewood was the dominant fuel and muscles were the primary source of power. The entire economy—including the design of towns and homes, and people’s daily routines—was structured to take advantage of the capabilities of wood and human or animal muscle. Food staples were often grown close to the point of consumption in order to minimize the need for slow and expensive horse- or sail-drawn transport. Many people worked as farmers or farm laborers, because many hands were required to do the fieldwork needed to produce sufficient food for the entire population. Traction animals were significant symbols of wealth: a prosperous farmer might own a team of oxen or mules, while his well-off cousin in the city might keep a horse or two to provide personal mobility. In slave-holding portions of the United States, some humans claimed ownership of other humans so as to make economic use of their intelligently directed muscles—a horrific practice that shattered the lives of millions (its effects continue to reverberate) and was ended only by an epic war. Meanwhile, vast tracts of forest in the northeastern United States were being cleared to provide fuel for home heating and, increasingly, for the operation of industrial machinery, including steamboats and steam locomotives.
Agrarian life in the nineteenth century. (Credit: Carl Conrad Dahlberg, Malmö Art Museum, via Wikimedia Commons.)
Then, in the mid-1800s, along came fossil fuels. Compared to firewood, coal and oil were more energy dense and therefore more portable, and they could be made available in greater quantities (especially since forests were disappearing due to overcutting). Compared to muscles, fuel-fed machines were formidable and tireless. Nineteenth-century inventors had already been devising ways to reduce labor through mechanization and to create new opportunities for mobility, communication, and amenity with devices ranging from the telegraph to the rail locomotive. The advent of cheap, abundant, and transportable fossil energy sources encouraged a flood of new or improved energy-consuming technologies.
A series of significant inventions—including the electricity generator, alternating current, and the electric motor—made energy from coal (also from moving water and later from natural gas and nuclear fission) available in homes and offices. This opened the potential for electric lighting, washing machines, vacuum cleaners, and an ever-expanding array of entertainment and communications devices, including telephones, radios, televisions, and computers.
Meanwhile, liquid fuels made from petroleum mobilized the economy as never before. Automobiles, airplanes, trucks, ships, and diesel-fueled trains began hauling people and freight at distances and speeds—and in quantities—that were previously unimaginable. Oil products also began fueling society’s raw materials extraction processes—mining, forestry, and fishing—resulting in far higher rates of production at much lower costs. By the mid-twentieth century, oil was increasingly transformed into plastics, chemicals, lubricants, and pharmaceuticals. And oil-powered machinery replaced human labor in agriculture, resulting in one of the most significant demographic shifts in history as the bulk of humanity left farms and moved to cities (fig. I.2).
Figure I.2. World rural and urban population, 1950–2015. Source:United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, “World Urbanization Prospects 2014”.
Because fossil fuels were so cheap relative to the power of muscles, machines took over much of the drudgery of life. Whereas human slavery had figured prominently in parts of the U.S. economy in the early nineteenth century, today each American commands the services of hundreds of “energy slaves”[3] counted as the number of persons whose full-time labor would be required to substitute for the services currently provided by powered machinery.
As energy is consumed in the making of roads, buildings, pipelines, food, clothing, and other products, it is effectively embedded or embodied in those objects. The built environment around us, and the manufactured goods with which we surround ourselves, represent immense amounts of fossil energy—energy used in the production of materials and goods through the operations of mining equipment, smelters, cement makers, trucks, road surfacers, and factories.
During the same period in which fossil fuels began to power most aspects of daily life, we began to design our homes and cities to fit the machines and products that used those fuels or embodied the energy from their combustion. The automobile became the design centerpiece for suburbs, shopping malls, parking lots, garages, and highways. Meanwhile, expansion of transport by airplane required the construction of airports—the largest of which cover as much space as was formerly occupied by entire towns.
All of this was undertaken with the tacit assumption that society would always have more fossil energy with which to maintain and operate its ever-expanding infrastructure. There was no long-range grand plan guiding the project. The fossil-fueling of the economy happened bit by bit, each new element building on the last, with opportunity leading to innovation. What was technically possible became economically necessary . . . and hence normal.
It is easy now to take it all for granted. But we shouldn’t. As the energy sources that built the twentieth century ebb, it may be helpful to disabuse ourselves of many of our assumptions and expectations by observing how different “normal” is for North Americans as compared with people in rural villages in less industrialized countries, or by reading first-person narratives of daily life in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. As profoundly dissimilar as our current “normal” is to human experience prior to the industrial revolution, the future may be just as different again.
Why a Renewable World Will Be Different
Solar, wind, hydro, and geothermal generators produce electricity, and we already have an abundance of technologies that rely on electricity. So why should we need to change the ways we use energy? Presumably all that’s necessary is to unplug coal power plants, plug in solar panels and wind turbines, and continue living as we do currently.
This is a misleading way of imagining the energy transition for six important reasons.
- Intermittency. As we will see in chapter 3, the on-demand way we use electricity now is unsuited to variable renewable supplies from solar and wind. Power engineers designed our current electricity production, distribution, and consumption systems around controllable inputs (hydro, coal, natural gas, and nuclear), but solar and wind are inherently uncontrollable: we cannot force the sun to shine or the wind to blow to suit our desires. It may be possible, to a limited degree, to make intermittent solar or wind energy act like fossil fuels by storing some of the electricity generated for later use, building extra capacity, or redesigning electricity grids. But this costs both money and energy. To avoid enormous overall system costs for capacity redundancy, energy storage, and multiple long-distance grid interconnections, it will be necessary to find more and more ways to shift electricity demand from times of convenience to times of abundant supply, and to significantly reduce overall demand.
- The liquid fuels problem. As we will see in chapter 4, electricity doesn’t supply all our current energy usage and is unlikely to do so in a renewable future. Our single largest source of energy is oil, which still fuels nearly all transportation as well as many industrial processes. While there are renewable replacements for some oil products (e.g., biofuels), these are in most cases not direct substitutes (few automobiles, trucks, ships, or airplanes can burn a pure biofuel without costly engine retrofitting) and have other substantial drawbacks and limitations.[4] Only portions of our transport infrastructure lend themselves easily to electrification—another potential substitution strategy. Thus a renewable future is likely to be characterized by less mobility, and this has significant implications for the entire economy.
- Other uses of fossil fuels. Society currently uses the energy from fossil fuels for other essential purposes as well, including the production of high temperatures for making steel and other metals, cement, rubber, ceramics, glass, and other manufactured goods. Fossil fuels also serve as feedstocks for materials (e.g., plastics, chemicals, and pharmaceuticals). As we will see in chapter 5, all of these pose substitution or adaptation quandaries.
- Area density of energy collection activities. In the energy transition, we will move from sources with a small geographic footprint (e.g., a natural gas well) toward ones with much larger footprints (large wind and solar farms collecting diffuse or ambient sources of energy). As we do, there will be unavoidable costs, inefficiencies, and environmental impacts resulting from the increasing spatial extent of energy collection activities. While the environmental impacts of a wind farm are substantially less than those from drilling for, distributing, and burning natural gas, or from mining, transporting, and burning coal, capturing renewable energy at the scale required to offset all gas and coal energy would nevertheless entail environmental impacts that are far from trivial. Minimizing these costs will entail planning and adaptation.
- Location. Sunlight, wind, hydropower, and biomass are more readily available in some places than others. Long-distance transmission entails significant investment costs and energy losses. Moreover, transporting biomass energy resources (e.g., biofuels or wood) reduces the overall energy profitability of their use.This implies that, as the energy transition accelerates, energy production will shift from large, centralized processing and distribution centers (e.g., a 500,000 barrel per day refinery) to distributed and smaller-scale facilities (e.g., a local or regional biofuel factory within a defined collection zone or “shed”), since the same amount of “feedstock” cannot be concentrated in one place. It also implies that population centers may tend to reorganize themselves geographically around available energy sources.
- Energy quantity. As we will see in chapter 6, quantities of energy available will also change during the transition. Since the mid-nineteenth century, annual global energy consumption has grown exponentially to over 500 exajoules (fig. I.3). Even assuming a massive build-out of solar and wind capacity during the next 35 years, renewables will probably be unable to fully replace the quantity of energy currently provided by fossil fuels, let alone meet projected energy demand growth. This raises profound questions not only about how much energy will be available but also for widespread expectations and assumptions about global economic growth.
Figure I.3. World primary energy consumption by fuel type, 1850–2014. Primary electricity converted by direct equivalent method. Source: Data compiled by J. David Hughes. Post-1965 data from BP, Statistical Review of World Energy (annual). Pre-1965 data from Arnulf Grubler, “Technology and Global Change: Data Appendix,” (1998).
For these six reasons, we should explore now how energy usage must and will evolve during the next few decades as the world transitions (willingly or not) to renewable energy. As we’ve already seen, our current patterns of energy use developed in response to the qualities and quantities of the energy available to us during the past century. Fossil fuels provided significant advantages: they were available on demand, cheap, portable, and energy dense. They also entailed costs, including climate change and other environmental and social impacts.[5] Renewables offer their own suite of advantages, the most obvious of which are that, with solar and wind, there is no fuel cost, and they have far lower climate and health impacts. But that doesn’t mean these are truly free or limitless energy sources: the devices used to capture energy from sunlight and wind require materials and embodied energy. Further, the energy we get from these sources is variable and won’t substitute for all current fossil fuel uses. And the technologies we use to harvest energy from sunlight and wind have their own environmental impacts.
Engineers will certainly make every effort to adapt new energy resources to familiar usage patterns (e.g., by replacing gasoline-fueled cars with electric cars). We can, to a certain limited extent, press solar and wind into the mold of our current energy system by buffering their variability with energy storage technology and grid enhancements. But the larger the proportion of our total energy we get from these resources, the more our buffering efforts will cost in both money and energy. Over the long run, usage patterns will almost certainly change substantially as we adapt to renewable energy resources.
The problem with our current energy usage patterns is not simply that they are wasteful (though they often are) or that we use energy to do things that are harmful (though we often do). Even disregarding those legitimate concerns, many current energy usage patterns probably just won’t work in an all-renewable world.
Overview of This Book
While the main thrust of this book is to examine how energy usage is likely to change in an all-renewable world, we will begin by reviewing the basics of energy and looking closely at how we currently power society.
Then we will take a survey of energy supply and demand issues, exploring the changed circumstances to which society will be adapting. This portion of the book consists of five chapters—three discussing energy quality (one on electricity, one on liquid fuels, one on other energy uses), one exploring how much renewable energy capacity might be available by midcentury, and one answering various objections likely to be raised to our conclusions about future energy supply.
The book concludes by discussing the critically important questions of how to ensure that everyone benefits from the renewable energy transition and what steps can and should be taken now to put us on a path toward a truly just and sustainable future.
The goal of this book is to help readers think more clearly and intelligently about our renewable future. An all-renewable world will present opportunities as well as challenges. And building that world will entail more than just the construction of enormous numbers of solar panels and wind turbines. Along the way, we will learn that how we use energy is as important as how we get it. Indeed, unless we adapt our energy usage patterns with the same vigor as is devoted to changing energy sources, the transition could result in a substantial reduction of economic functionality for society as a whole.
30 Comments on "Heinberg: Our Renewable Future"
makati1 on Thu, 2nd Jun 2016 6:59 am
Stopped reading after the first paragraph. Skipped to the last and saw that it was a book ad. The book is about ‘renewable’ energy and is a waste of money. Renewable can NOT exist without a large, constant input of hydrocarbon energy. But most dumbed down Americans never think. They just dream and guzzle the propaganda Koolaid. They deserve what is coming.
Davy on Thu, 2nd Jun 2016 7:03 am
Heinberg is a failure at this point. He has gone down the road of selling his own “snake oil”. This is sad because the guy knows better. It is a better message than someone like the environmental and energy clown Trump but it is still deception.
In any case alternatives to fossil fuels won’t hurt. They have many applications in a collapsing world. They offer a range of salvage options once normal grid functions go unstable. This is much more the case of solar than wind. Any alternatives produced and lifestyles and attitudes changed from the status quo is good so in this respect Heinberg is not hurting the situation.
Where Heinberg is hurting is with the truth. If someone like Heinberg came out and said two things I would give him respect. Number one is to acknowledge we are likely too late to save the world from abrupt and dangerous climate change. This dangerous climate process will likely end in a destroyed civilization by the end of the century. If Heinberg was really honest he would say in 15 to 20 years. Number two would be alternative energy society is physically and economically not possible. It is further not possible because modern humans are not capable of the change to intermittency and greatly reduced energy supply. We are utterly naked to these type changes.
Heinberg should be saying Nature will enforce two changes on us with one being the end of stable climate and the other being the end of abundant energy. The combination of both of these will destroy our global civilization. This is the brick wall in as little as 10-20 years. The immediate problem is a decaying and unravelling global economy which is a much closer danger.
This economic danger also spells the end of any hope of much alternative energy build out and this is for two reasons. Alternative energy is very expensive to build out and it is front loaded with payoffs comes in the future. Society is going broke so payoffs in the future will become in a macro sense unaffordable. The other reason is the economic deflation of excess capacity of existing energy assets once economic activity drops considerably. Why build out more generating capacity when the economic situation is such that you don’t need it and can’t afford it?
Heinberg has gone down the path of ignoring the truth. He knows better and is likely thinking the end justifies the means. In our increasingly desperate and collapsed world this attitude of the end justify the means will increasingly be the policy of choice meaning extremism. Extremism is at its best a distortion of the truth at its worse evil. If anything we need people standing up for the truth. The truth now is we are in big trouble and optimism is deception. Deception means death for many. It is wrong and Heinberg is wrong. We obviously can’t handle the truth.
sunweb on Thu, 2nd Jun 2016 7:07 am
Heinberg doesn’t give up on selling ‘renewables’ no matter what evidence he is presented. Follow the money.
Kenz300 on Thu, 2nd Jun 2016 7:31 am
Paris Goes Car-Free First Sunday of Every Month
http://ecowatch.com/2016/05/17/paris-goes-car-free/
The transition to safer, cleaner and cheaper alternative energy sources continues…………
Germany Achieves Milestone – Renewables Supply Nearly 100 Percent Energy for a Day
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/articles/2016/05/germany-achieves-milestone-renewables-supply-nearly-100-percent-energy-for-a-day.html
Portugal ran entirely on renewable energy for 4 consecutive days last week
http://electrek.co/2016/05/16/portugal-ran-entirely-on-renewable-energy-for-4-consecutive-days-last-week/
Cloud9 on Thu, 2nd Jun 2016 8:02 am
I think Heinberg is preaching to the remnant, the fragment of civilization that survives the collapse. There will, no doubt, be hydro plants that are running after the collapse. Solar cells to recharge batteries will keep a lot of our gadgets up and running well after the collapse. What will not happen is that 350 million Americans will continue to live as they have lived.
Consider housing. In a complete total systemic collapse all transfer payments stop. No mortgages are paid. No rents are paid. No taxes are collected. How is a collapsed bank going to foreclose on a property without a functioning court system? It is not. How will a landlord without the assistance of law enforcement
evict a delinquent renter? They will not. What will happen is that the laws of adverse possession will kick in once portions of the system reboot.
Gasoline consumption will grind to a halt as delivery systems fail. Millions of barrels of oil will be abandoned in transit once everyone figures out they are not going to get paid. Population centers will empty out and food and security will be the primary concerns of the population for the foreseeable future. A great many horrific things will be done by people trying to survive. At some point the population will drop below the carrying capacity and the system will stabilize. Then civility will return and amnesty will be declared except for the more egregious criminals.
The government will reboot to a level not seen since the beginning of the 19th century. And the pastoral picture we see above will appear again at a time when we have a much reduced population.
dave thompson on Thu, 2nd Jun 2016 8:13 am
Cloud9, when the paychecks stop for all the people running and minding the nukes around the world? Catastrophic melt down x440+
makati1 on Thu, 2nd Jun 2016 8:33 am
dave, Cloud9 is clueless. The US has ~99 of those and unknown hundreds of thousands of tons of radioactive waste that will also need managed for centuries.
That is one of the reasons I don’t believe that humans will survive the 21st century. Cancers will soon be common, like colds only deadly, and life expectancy will drop into the prehistory levels until there are none of us able to procreate. End of story.
Cloud9 on Thu, 2nd Jun 2016 9:41 am
You are right. I am clueless. My crystal ball is a cloudy as everyone else’s. Will melt downs be a horror? Of course they will. Chemical spills, pollution of all kinds, the waste of industrialization will continue to extract a toll on the environment. Some scavenger two hundred years from now will no doubt dig up a nerve gas canister and open it. Will it be the end of the species? I don’t think so. If any remnant of the political structure remains it will make every effort to contain nuclear sites and biological hazard sites. Will they be successful? Not entirely. What I do see is life returning to places like Chernobyl. http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20160421-the-chernobyl-exclusion-zone-is-arguably-a-nature-reserve
Cloud9 on Thu, 2nd Jun 2016 9:42 am
What I am not going to do is sit on my hands and drink myself to death because I have decided all is lost.
Revi on Thu, 2nd Jun 2016 12:11 pm
I think renewables are the answer. You can’t beat free energy in the long run. We have changed things over the past 10 years and use half the fossil fuel we used to and now are using about half renewables in our household. I took a shower with water heated by the sun, listened to the radio on solar power andI have been driving a small electric car every day for the past month or so. It uses a tiny fraction of the energy of a regular car, and all the energy comes from renewables. I used my gasoline small truck to go get wood yesterday, but that will be burned this winter to keep us warm. Of course it will be uncomfortable to switch, but once we have it won’t be so bad. Really!
Apneaman on Thu, 2nd Jun 2016 12:51 pm
Cloud9, billions of dollars, untold man hours of work using fossil fueled machinery and materials and many human lives to contain Chernobyl. Can’t happen without a functioning global industrial economy. Not for all 450 + of them.
St. Roy on Thu, 2nd Jun 2016 1:28 pm
I have met and spoken with Richard and I have been a supporter of the PCI. Richard is a warm, thoughtful, balanced and exceptionally knowledgeable person about the 3Es. He knows damn well that renewables will not support even a tiny fraction of the worlds 7.4B people. He also knows that abrupt climate will destroy the habitat for humanity and many other species over 99% of the planet in this century. But that message is not one that he can make a living on if said directly. Read between the lines. He says it!
PracticalMaina on Thu, 2nd Jun 2016 1:51 pm
2 less active nuke plants, hopefully more join them.
http://in.reuters.com/article/usa-nuclear-exelon-idINL1N18U1L6
“given a lack of progress on state energy legislation that would have allowed the plants to operate economically.”
too cheap to meter, except they cant even cover the operating cost. It will be interesting to see how it plays out. Illinois also may be shutting down up to 2 gigawatts of coal.
PracticalMaina on Thu, 2nd Jun 2016 1:54 pm
Care to explain how the EROEI on nukes is better than renewables????? When an operator makes a statement like this. “Exelon said Clinton will close on June 1, 2017, and Quad Cities will close on June 1, 2018. Quad Cities and Clinton have lost a combined $800 million in the past seven years, despite being two of Exelon’s best-performing plants, the company added.” 800 million in losses on 2 of your best plants?? where do I invest, should I just try to make steam with my cash?
Boat on Thu, 2nd Jun 2016 1:54 pm
We have all this brain power to describe doom. Anybody got a map that shows the best zones to survive in. Assume every melt down, every dam busted, roving bands of well armed starving cannibals etc
Apneaman on Thu, 2nd Jun 2016 2:02 pm
Here ya go Boater
http://mars.nasa.gov/maps/explore-mars-map/fullscreen/
Apneaman on Thu, 2nd Jun 2016 2:04 pm
Europe floods: Death toll rises as France declares natural disaster
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-36432576
sunweb on Thu, 2nd Jun 2016 3:08 pm
Revi – did you use a magic wand to get the solar devices and auxiliaries?
Solar and wind energy collecting devices and their auxiliary equipment have an industrial history. They are an extension of the fossil fuel supply system and the global industrial infrastructure. It is important to understand the industrial infrastructure and the environmental results for the components of the solar energy collecting devices so we don’t designate them with false labels such as green, renewable or sustainable.
This is a challenge to ‘business as usual’. If we teach people that these solar devices are the future of energy without teaching the whole system, we mislead, misinform and create false hopes and beliefs. They are not made with magic wands.
These videos are primarily concerning solar energy collecting devices. These videos and charts are provided by the various industries themselves. I have posted both charts and videos for the solar cells, modules, aluminum from ore, aluminum from recycling, aluminum extrusion, inverters, batteries and copper.
Please note each piece of machinery you see in each of the videos has its own industrial interconnection and history.
http://sunweber.blogspot.com/2015/04/solar-devices-industrial-infrastructure.html
This is about wind:
http://sunweber.blogspot.com/2014/11/prove-this-wrong.html
Is this more elitist technology for the few. It seems to me all this promotion of solar and wind energy collecting devices are either envisioned as worldwide or it is simply more imperial colonizing of countries with resources and no power. Then think of the resources and energy required to meet global need for the global population.
sunweb on Thu, 2nd Jun 2016 3:12 pm
Kenz300 – how much of that 100% was hydro or biomass.
A paper recently published in Energy Policy by Ferrucio Ferroni and Robert J. Hopkirk and titled Energy Return on Energy Invested (ERoEI) for photovoltaic solar systems in regions of moderate insolation. They used a similar methodology thart Charles Hall and Pedro Prieto used in their study for 4 GW in Spain. That is, they considered not only the usual energy inputs for modules and its components and/or some immediate accesories to them, but also some societal sine qua non energy input expenses for solar systems and concludes that in these regions (countries like Germany and Switzerland), the EROI is 0.85:1.
Scientific studies show it takes years to payback the energy used in solar electric devices. EROI (Energy Returned on Energy Invested) says it takes energy – mining, drilling, refining, transporting, installing, maintenance, and replacement parts – to make the devices necessary to capture solar energy.
Spain’s Photovoltaic Revolution: The Energy Return on Investment by Prieto, Pedro A., Hall, Charles 2013.
http://www.springer.com/energy/renewable+and+green+energy/book/978-1-4419-9436-3
and http://energyskeptic.com/2013/tilting-at-windmills-spains-solar-pv/
and B o o k R e v i e w : E n e r g y i n A u s t r a l i a – P e a k O i l , S o l a r P o w e r , a n d A s i a’ s E c o n o m i c G r o w t h by G r a h a m P a l m e r http://www.springer.com/energy/renewable+and+green+energy/book/978-3-319-02939-9
Spain’s Photovoltaic Revolution presents the first complete energy analysis of a large-scale, real-world deployment of photovoltaic (PV) collection systems representing 3.5 GW of installed, grid-connected solar plants in Spain. Prieto and Hall conclude that the EROI of solar photovoltaic is only 2.45, very low despite Spain’s ideal sunny climate. Germany’s EROI is probably 20 to 33% less (1.6 to 2), due to less sunlight and efficient rooftop installations.
“Solar advocates can learn from this analysis . . . “ Not looking at the reality of EROI “is not good science and leads to wasted money and energy that could have been better spent preparing more wisely for declining fossil fuels in the future.”
This study does not detail the environmental destructive mining, toxic chemicals or air and water pollution necessary to get the materials for manufacturing and installing solar devices. It is the sun not the devices that is renewable, green and sustainable.
Apneaman on Thu, 2nd Jun 2016 3:16 pm
3 big assed MSM pieces on Texass troubles and nary a mention of the main factor for all the record amounts of precipitation. Bizzaro world from now till doomsday kids.
Storms dump more rain on flood-hit Texas, snarling transport
“A new round of storms dumped more rain on flood-hit parts of Texas on Thursday, scrambling transport, further swelling rivers already spilling over their banks and sending more people to evacuation shelters to escape the rising waters.”
http://uk.reuters.com/article/us-texas-flooding-idUKKCN0YO1R1
No relief in sight for parts of Texas swamped by deadly floods
“The widespread flooding has pushed Governor Greg Abbott to declare a state of disaster in 31 counties. Some parts of Southeast Texas could see up to another seven inches of rain this week.”
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/texas-storms-no-relief-in-sight-with-more-floods-coming-31-counties-declare-state-of-disaster/
More flooding in Texas expected after historic May
““Unfortunately, even more rain is on the way,” CNN Meteorologist Allison Chinchar said. “All of that moist, warm air from the Gulf of Mexico [will be] adding to a very wet Texas.”
Hail, damaging 60-plus mph wind gusts and flooding are all possible in the coming days, according to the National Weather Service.
A flash flood watch will be in effect for all of south-central Texas until Friday morning, the NWS said.
The storms could produce rainfall totaling more than two inches per hour.
“These rates, in combination with saturated soils, will result in rapid flash flooding,” the NWS said.”
http://myfox8.com/2016/06/02/more-flooding-in-texas-expected-after-historic-may/
There is simply NO explanation for it kids. These acts of god just happen and no one knows why.
Apneaman on Thu, 2nd Jun 2016 5:24 pm
Shocking video shows moment a huge swarm of locusts attacks farms and devastates crops in Russia as officials declare a state of emergency
Millions of the insects in southern Russia have shredded farmland crops
Drivers have had to swerve to avoid them as state of emergency declared
Officials say that at least 10% of the south’s farmland has been destroyed
“Every year swarms of the insect from north Africa appear in the south feeding on crops.
But this year locals think the unusually warm weather has caused thousands more to arrive.”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3616707/Shocking-video-shows-moment-huge-swarm-locusts-attacks-farms-devastates-crops-Russia-officials-declare-state-emergency.html
Apneaman on Thu, 2nd Jun 2016 5:31 pm
one thing leads to another.
The Rains of Climate Change, Voracious Locust Swarms Wreck Crops in Russia
“This year was supposed to set new records for Russian grain production. But that was before a persistent trough in the Jet Stream funneled storm after storm over the Ukraine through Western and Central Russia setting off record extreme rainfall events. Before a swarm of locusts invading further north earlier than is typical ravaged over 170,000 ares of corn in Southern Russia. Now the combined insect plague and stormy weather has put cereal crops at risk of shortfalls.”
” And a series of seemingly endless ending storms dumped between 2 and 6 times the normal amount of rainfall over Russia’s most productive growing zone.
The rains prevented or slowed the rate of seed planting. For Central Russia, planting all but halted. Now some estimates are hinting that Russia may miss its record grain harvest target.”
more
https://robertscribbler.com/2016/06/02/the-rains-of-climate-change-voracious-locust-swarms-wreck-crops-in-russia/
Apneaman on Thu, 2nd Jun 2016 6:13 pm
India’s record heat wave has killed more than 370 people
The country recently saw its highest temperature ever
“Most Indians live in villages, where some 300-million don’t have access to electricity. Many don’t have running water either, which means long walks in scorching heat.
In rapidly expanding cities like Delhi, pollution and the sheer number of people only making things worse, and the worst affected are the daily wage laborers toiling away in the sun, with no labor laws barring them from doing so in such punishing temperatures.”
http://wwlp.com/2016/06/02/indias-record-heat-wave-has-killed-more-than-370-people/
“some 300-million don’t have access to electricity.”
More of them and others are getting it, so it will be a big relief in the short term.
The world is about to install 700 million air conditioners. Here’s what that means for the climate
“In many other countries, however — including countries in much hotter climates — air conditioning is still a relative rarity. But as these countries boom in wealth and population, and extend electricity to more people even as the climate warms, the projections are clear: They are going to install mind-boggling amounts of air conditioning, not just for comfort but as a health necessity.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/05/31/the-world-is-about-to-install-700-million-air-conditioners-heres-what-that-means-for-the-climate/?tid=a_inl
Go for it good brown people of the earth. You might as well be comfortable for whatever time remains. It’s not like, empty promise whitey will ever stop.
File under human, positive self reinforcing feedback loop.
Davy on Thu, 2nd Jun 2016 7:11 pm
“The Nuclear Plant Casualties of the Shale Boom Are Mounting”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-06-02/the-nuclear-plant-casualties-of-the-u-s-shale-boom-are-mounting
“Exelon Corp.’s Clinton and Quad Cities reactors in Illinois will close after losing $800 million over the past seven years, the company said Thursday, adding that state measures to keep the reactors running have failed to materialize.”
“PJM Interconnection LLC, which manages the biggest U.S. electricity grid spanning parts of the Midwest, Mid-Atlantic and Northeast, said Thursday that it should still have enough power resources available to supply the region if Exelon’s plants retire.
Other nuclear plants shutting due to financial woes include:
Dominion Resources Inc.’s Kewaunee in Wisconsin: Shut in May 2013
Entergy Corp.’s Vermont Yankee in Vermont: Shut in December 2014
Entergy’s Pilgrim in Massachusetts: Slated to shut by June 2019
Entergy’s Fitzpatrick in New York: Slated to shut by early 2017
Omaha Public Power District’s Fort Calhoun in Nebraska: May close by end of 2016
Exelon’s Byron in Illinois, Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania, as well as Ginna and Nine Mile Point in New York are at risk of early retirement, Fitch Ratings said in research published Thursday”
Apneaman on Thu, 2nd Jun 2016 8:06 pm
The humans break more records – proud little cancer monkeys. Build lots of wind turbines and solar panels. Surely that will somehow stop the planetary inertia.
Arctic sea ice set a record low every single day in May
http://mashable.com/2016/06/01/arctic-sea-ice-record-low/#I6fJTt7SnEqR
Harquebus on Thu, 2nd Jun 2016 8:08 pm
Solar and wind energy are free but, collecting them isn’t.
Heinberg amazes me. Smart on the one hand, dumb on the other.
Apneaman on Thu, 2nd Jun 2016 8:19 pm
Former editor at Jane’s defense magazine, Robert Marston Fanney AKA robertscribbler has put out this hopey article on alternatives beating up ff’s. Cognitive dissonance to think any of this shit is going to make a difference. Still one of the best climate science communicaters. Maybe he don’t know what else to do? I don’t. Oh well, if alternatives can fuck up fossil fuel profits, then I’m all for them – I like to think of alternatives as “Cancer Lite”
Lots of graphs and numbers – the shit white boys love.
Renewables are Winning the Race Against Fossil Fuels — But Not Fast Enough
“In the early part of this race, there is one factor that can provide the greatest overall benefit — the rate of renewable energy (RE) adoption. For adding RE at a high rate removes future market share from fossil fuels even as it draws down emissions, enables efficiencies, and undercuts fossil fuel industry revenues. Such a systemic change saps the economic and political power of destructive entities that have for decades attempted to lock in greater and greater volumes of climate-harming emissions. And when RE begins to overcome not just future market share, but also current fossil fuel markets, this loss of power and influence hastens.”
https://robertscribbler.com/2016/06/02/renewables-are-winning-the-race-against-fossil-fuels-but-not-fast-enough/
Apneaman on Thu, 2nd Jun 2016 8:31 pm
French deluge: Louvre closes down, thousands flee homes amid state of emergency
https://www.rt.com/news/345243-france-flooding-emergency-evacuations/
makati1 on Thu, 2nd Jun 2016 9:25 pm
Related:
“The world’s largest solar power system installed on the rooftop of a shopping mall has been launched earlier this week by Philippine property developer Robinsons Land Corp in Pampanga, Philippines.
The 2.88-megawatt solar array atop Robinsons Starmills (pictured) was inaugurated on Monday (30 May), and will offset up to 95 percent of daytime demand, Robinsons Land president Frederick Go said. This solar plant breaks existing records on such a renewable energy generator installed for a shopping mall’s own consumption. … The group also said it also plans operate new solar power system on its malls in other provinces in the Philippines including Tacloban and Bacolod. Once completed, Robinsons Land will have 10 malls with solar facilities with a total capacity of 12.5 MW and an annual yield of 14.6 million kilowatt-hours.”
https://sg.news.yahoo.com/worlds-largest-mall-solar-power-plant-launched-philippines-042421571–sector.html
Kenz300 on Fri, 3rd Jun 2016 9:28 am
The world needs to stop building any more coal or fossil fuel power plants….
They use lots of water to generate electricity (adding to drought problems)…they also add Climate Change gases to the atmosphere……………….
Wind and solar require little or no water to produce electricity (conserving water)……
Wind and solar also reduce emissions and do not add to Climate Changing gases in the atmosphere..
Climate Change is real………….we will all be impacted by it……………..