Solar is not the answer to climate change, or at least not in isolation. Germany found that above 8% of total energy production, added infrastructural and energy storage costs increases the costs of solar per energy unit. Obviously, this figure varies wildly by geographical location. In 2022, California managed to derive 17% of its total energy mix from solar, but this probably represents a push past the position for optimum economic value per unit. We are in the same position in the UK. The general threshold for which the above statement about infrastructure and energy storage is generally more optimist than for solar, with the threshold resting at about 30% of all energy production.
We're at 40% and the government recently agreed to an increase in strike prices for the wind industry of 70%. That's economic suicide and a poor policy decision- the current wind mix for the UK is already causing problems related to the need for infrastructural strengthening to the grid and pumped hydro. In 2022, £215 million was spent switching off energy from offshore wind facilities.
I understand your concerns over the cost of nuclear. Part of the problem stems for a 1st generation versus nth generation conundrum, which bears a close examination at the detail level. With the first generation, hard costs are higher, and in-project design changes account for a significant amount of costs. But conversely, subsequent nth generation plants don't generally tend to be cheaper either. This stems from indirect or soft costs. A detailed breakdown showed that these costs primarily related to home office services, field job supervision, temporary construction facilities and payroll insurance and taxes. Overall, these inflating soft costs accounts for 72% of increased reactor construction costs from 1976 to 1987, a trend which continued until 2017. Safety regulations were another key concern, with costs for containment buildings rising by 118% during the same period- a key consideration that thorium is not the only approach which removed the need for containment at the level needed for past generation reactors. There are numerous systems, many of which could be implemented today.
All of those who have a background in both climate science and real world experience in engineering acknowledge the need for base load energy as part of the energy mix. The most optimistic estimate this figure to be around 40%, but this relies heavily on the assumption of extensive energy storage capacity like pumped hydro. A more rational figure is probably somewhere between 50% and 60%, although burning most household waste like the Swedes do, as a form of biomass, would probably bring this figure down a little. And these figures don't anticipate future need for electricity, through the requirement to decarbonise personal vehicles (or switch out to short-range rail).
Funnily enough, I recently looked at hydrogen, but for a different reason. I became increasingly concerned about EV uptake and pricing. In particular, although the costs for a 2 year old car of an identical model were the same for electric versus petrol/gas, the ticket prices from new were wildly divergent- with £6K loss for a petrol car, and a whopping £19K loss for an EV. I chose the VW Golf as my sample car. I saw a real barrier to adoption in this figure, and became increasingly convinced that Toyota were right in their assertion that hydrogen is a more feasible technology. It was the only reason for my assessment. EV materials were also salient, but not quite as much of a consideration.
I conferred with my energy expert. His view was that it wouldn't be possible to refine hydrogen for car use in America given energy prices, for less than $6.11 a gallon. I imagine you're advocating for a solar only approach. That's a problem. LCOE are deeply flawed. Subsidy is an issue, but not the only one. Almost all online sources don't include installation costs for solar in their quoted prices for costs of solar per unit. The most difficult news to digest is that those have gone furthest in switching to renewables have the highest energy costs. I know much of the investment was historical, but it's going to create a backlash amongst consumers and citizens, and to an extent already is- but at nowhere near the levels likely to be seen as many witness the rapid downturn of the German economy as a result of poor energy choices. If anything we in the UK are in a worse position. We eliminated all coal energy production- making Ukraine a single point of failure for our economy, but in all likelihood it will be blamed on Brexit, rather than a combination of natural gas and rising renewable costs.
Please note, most online search engines tend to try and hide the failures of the German energy system. I just spent nearly have a hour trying to wrestle Chat GPT 4 for details on German energy imports in 2023. I finally managed to get my answer by asking for negative exports. Contrary to American narratives Germany energy costs haven't risen because of LPG. Most LPG in Germany is consumed by residential heating. Most of their gas was switched out for coal, and in 2023 Germany nearly doubled its energy imports from its neighbours. The German economy contracted 0.3 in 2023. One of the reasons cited by the FT was rising energy costs.
There is no "THE" answer. Where did you get the idea that I argue for a solar-only approach?
Lots of people talk about green energy in the context of electrical power. That's well on its wy to being solved, People talk about hydrogen, but usually in the context of automobiles. That doesn't make sense to be either.
We are well on our way to a solution for personal transportation. I see this is effectively solved. My wife and I drive hybrids and get 60-75% better mpg compared to our old cars. We plan to go with plug-in hybrids next. A friend has one and he says he has used just under 100 gallons of gas to drive over 10K miles, or just over 100 mpg. If we can average 80 mpg with our next cars, we will have cut our transportation CO2 emissions by a factor of 3.5 from before 2012. These vehicles have much smaller batteries than EVs and can be charged overnight from a standard home electrical outlet. They don't need the special charger you need for an EV. It is an easy transition to make that does most of the job without having to make any significant lifestyle changes or infrastructure investments. By the time we would be looking a replacement for the plug-in hybrid, EVs will be a well-developed option and the last little bit of reduction will happen.
But what about aviation or ocean freight? Nuclear freighters were tried out during the time when the US was building lots of nuclear electric plants and did not catch on. Electric ships are going to have the same issues as electric trucks. Both nuclear and electric are unsuitable for aviation.
I talk about using solar to produce hydrogen for use as a chemical reduction agent, i.e., artificial photosynthesis. Where we use sun to generate electrons (electricity) to split water, using the hydrogen produce to reduce CO2 to hydrocarbon fuels. Hydrogen might also find use as a drop-in replacement for natural gas in high-temperature industrial processes like steel making.
Fair point. I looked into sea freight. Halving speed has a significant impact on emissions- a potential stopgap measure, given the increase in automation. Bunker fuels can also be cracked to a higher grade, although costs might be prohibitive. Nuclear is only an option for container ships if sea routes can be protected- unless someone can design an entirely self-contained power plant.
Hybrids are a much better solution. Did I mention a friend of mine is a design engineer for the hybrid industry? Ironically, he is also a complete petrolhead. He restores classic cars as a hobby. His current passion project is a pre-TVR Griffith. I'm not sure what series it is.
I'm sorry for my initial terseness. It was kneejerk reaction. I've had far too many conversations and thread interactions with people who believe that wind, hydro and solar alone can power advanced economies. You have my abject apologies.
Although there are many parties that are participants in the dynamic, there’s only one that can be blamed and entirely responsible for the situation....
“We the People”. We suck.
They left us instructions. “An informed and educated electorate.” Was deemed essential by the Framers. Obviously, they were correct.
Solar is not the answer to climate change, or at least not in isolation. Germany found that above 8% of total energy production, added infrastructural and energy storage costs increases the costs of solar per energy unit. Obviously, this figure varies wildly by geographical location. In 2022, California managed to derive 17% of its total energy mix from solar, but this probably represents a push past the position for optimum economic value per unit. We are in the same position in the UK. The general threshold for which the above statement about infrastructure and energy storage is generally more optimist than for solar, with the threshold resting at about 30% of all energy production.
We're at 40% and the government recently agreed to an increase in strike prices for the wind industry of 70%. That's economic suicide and a poor policy decision- the current wind mix for the UK is already causing problems related to the need for infrastructural strengthening to the grid and pumped hydro. In 2022, £215 million was spent switching off energy from offshore wind facilities.
I understand your concerns over the cost of nuclear. Part of the problem stems for a 1st generation versus nth generation conundrum, which bears a close examination at the detail level. With the first generation, hard costs are higher, and in-project design changes account for a significant amount of costs. But conversely, subsequent nth generation plants don't generally tend to be cheaper either. This stems from indirect or soft costs. A detailed breakdown showed that these costs primarily related to home office services, field job supervision, temporary construction facilities and payroll insurance and taxes. Overall, these inflating soft costs accounts for 72% of increased reactor construction costs from 1976 to 1987, a trend which continued until 2017. Safety regulations were another key concern, with costs for containment buildings rising by 118% during the same period- a key consideration that thorium is not the only approach which removed the need for containment at the level needed for past generation reactors. There are numerous systems, many of which could be implemented today.
https://energy.mit.edu/news/building-nuclear-power-plants/
All of those who have a background in both climate science and real world experience in engineering acknowledge the need for base load energy as part of the energy mix. The most optimistic estimate this figure to be around 40%, but this relies heavily on the assumption of extensive energy storage capacity like pumped hydro. A more rational figure is probably somewhere between 50% and 60%, although burning most household waste like the Swedes do, as a form of biomass, would probably bring this figure down a little. And these figures don't anticipate future need for electricity, through the requirement to decarbonise personal vehicles (or switch out to short-range rail).
Funnily enough, I recently looked at hydrogen, but for a different reason. I became increasingly concerned about EV uptake and pricing. In particular, although the costs for a 2 year old car of an identical model were the same for electric versus petrol/gas, the ticket prices from new were wildly divergent- with £6K loss for a petrol car, and a whopping £19K loss for an EV. I chose the VW Golf as my sample car. I saw a real barrier to adoption in this figure, and became increasingly convinced that Toyota were right in their assertion that hydrogen is a more feasible technology. It was the only reason for my assessment. EV materials were also salient, but not quite as much of a consideration.
I conferred with my energy expert. His view was that it wouldn't be possible to refine hydrogen for car use in America given energy prices, for less than $6.11 a gallon. I imagine you're advocating for a solar only approach. That's a problem. LCOE are deeply flawed. Subsidy is an issue, but not the only one. Almost all online sources don't include installation costs for solar in their quoted prices for costs of solar per unit. The most difficult news to digest is that those have gone furthest in switching to renewables have the highest energy costs. I know much of the investment was historical, but it's going to create a backlash amongst consumers and citizens, and to an extent already is- but at nowhere near the levels likely to be seen as many witness the rapid downturn of the German economy as a result of poor energy choices. If anything we in the UK are in a worse position. We eliminated all coal energy production- making Ukraine a single point of failure for our economy, but in all likelihood it will be blamed on Brexit, rather than a combination of natural gas and rising renewable costs.
Please note, most online search engines tend to try and hide the failures of the German energy system. I just spent nearly have a hour trying to wrestle Chat GPT 4 for details on German energy imports in 2023. I finally managed to get my answer by asking for negative exports. Contrary to American narratives Germany energy costs haven't risen because of LPG. Most LPG in Germany is consumed by residential heating. Most of their gas was switched out for coal, and in 2023 Germany nearly doubled its energy imports from its neighbours. The German economy contracted 0.3 in 2023. One of the reasons cited by the FT was rising energy costs.
There is no "THE" answer. Where did you get the idea that I argue for a solar-only approach?
Lots of people talk about green energy in the context of electrical power. That's well on its wy to being solved, People talk about hydrogen, but usually in the context of automobiles. That doesn't make sense to be either.
We are well on our way to a solution for personal transportation. I see this is effectively solved. My wife and I drive hybrids and get 60-75% better mpg compared to our old cars. We plan to go with plug-in hybrids next. A friend has one and he says he has used just under 100 gallons of gas to drive over 10K miles, or just over 100 mpg. If we can average 80 mpg with our next cars, we will have cut our transportation CO2 emissions by a factor of 3.5 from before 2012. These vehicles have much smaller batteries than EVs and can be charged overnight from a standard home electrical outlet. They don't need the special charger you need for an EV. It is an easy transition to make that does most of the job without having to make any significant lifestyle changes or infrastructure investments. By the time we would be looking a replacement for the plug-in hybrid, EVs will be a well-developed option and the last little bit of reduction will happen.
But what about aviation or ocean freight? Nuclear freighters were tried out during the time when the US was building lots of nuclear electric plants and did not catch on. Electric ships are going to have the same issues as electric trucks. Both nuclear and electric are unsuitable for aviation.
I talk about using solar to produce hydrogen for use as a chemical reduction agent, i.e., artificial photosynthesis. Where we use sun to generate electrons (electricity) to split water, using the hydrogen produce to reduce CO2 to hydrocarbon fuels. Hydrogen might also find use as a drop-in replacement for natural gas in high-temperature industrial processes like steel making.
Fair point. I looked into sea freight. Halving speed has a significant impact on emissions- a potential stopgap measure, given the increase in automation. Bunker fuels can also be cracked to a higher grade, although costs might be prohibitive. Nuclear is only an option for container ships if sea routes can be protected- unless someone can design an entirely self-contained power plant.
Hybrids are a much better solution. Did I mention a friend of mine is a design engineer for the hybrid industry? Ironically, he is also a complete petrolhead. He restores classic cars as a hobby. His current passion project is a pre-TVR Griffith. I'm not sure what series it is.
I'm sorry for my initial terseness. It was kneejerk reaction. I've had far too many conversations and thread interactions with people who believe that wind, hydro and solar alone can power advanced economies. You have my abject apologies.
Shit started going downhill in 80 with Reagan.
Sure did
Although there are many parties that are participants in the dynamic, there’s only one that can be blamed and entirely responsible for the situation....
“We the People”. We suck.
They left us instructions. “An informed and educated electorate.” Was deemed essential by the Framers. Obviously, they were correct.