A Calculation: How Many Trillions of Dollars of Environmental Damage Will IGCC Coal Cost? | 89 comments (89 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

Re: A Calculation: (none / 1)

kerching!

"Because they can't generate enough power"

and round we go again...

Did we have any debates that summed this up anywhere? I remember discussing wind turbines and railways with DoDo, there were some numbers in that. And there was another debate where we worked out the power output of wind turbines plus geo-thermal plus solar. Then we can add wave power (anyone got any info on that?) and there were those European Parliament translator chaps and chapesses, one of whom had a link to a site with that funky map showing PV across the sahara and down into the arabin peninsula, wind around the top left of europe, geo thermal to the centre right...

So maybe throw out the challenge:

Can someone show me the proof that renewables can't supply Europe (and by implication any other large group of countries = all humans on the planet) with enough energy to...

And there's another merry-go-round there.

Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.

by rg (leopold dot lepster at google mail dot com) on Tue Jan 9th, 2007 at 09:05:17 AM EST
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Re: A Calculation: (none / 1)

No, because there are advantages to using fuels. If your specification includes the ability to deploy anywhere, scale arbitrarily, or provide mobility and autonomy renewables can't compete with fuels. Which goes back to Starvid's tagline "peak oil is not an energy crisis, it's a liquid fuel crisis".

Those whom the Gods wish to destroy They first make mad. -- Euripides

by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Tue Jan 9th, 2007 at 09:14:00 AM EST
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Re: A Calculation: (none / 0)

That sounds a set of problems at the margins rather than in the main line of day-to-day living where most of our energy usage is.

by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Tue Jan 9th, 2007 at 09:19:03 AM EST
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Re: A Calculation: (none / 0)

Unless you're talking about hydrocarbons and you live in suburbia. Starvid is very happy with his electric scooter feeding off nuclear.

Those whom the Gods wish to destroy They first make mad. -- Euripides

by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Tue Jan 9th, 2007 at 09:20:47 AM EST
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Re: A Calculation: (none / 0)

Does living in suburbia need liquid fuels for some reason?

by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Tue Jan 9th, 2007 at 09:21:56 AM EST
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Re: A Calculation: (none / 1)

It needs either fuels or batteries for vehicles. Note that transportation fuels need not be a source of energy but only a store of energy. Synthetic hydrocarbons would also work.

Those whom the Gods wish to destroy They first make mad. -- Euripides

by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Tue Jan 9th, 2007 at 09:28:55 AM EST
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Re: A Calculation: (none / 0)

Or small nuclear power plants in each vehicle. That'd be ok too.

by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Tue Jan 9th, 2007 at 09:31:28 AM EST
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Re: A Calculation: (none / 0)

Nah, too much need for radiation protection.

Those whom the Gods wish to destroy They first make mad. -- Euripides

by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Tue Jan 9th, 2007 at 09:35:53 AM EST
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Re: A Calculation: (none / 0)

Think of the new markets for lead underwear though. It'd be a new industrial revolution!

by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Tue Jan 9th, 2007 at 09:38:44 AM EST
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Re: A Calculation: (none / 0)

Isn't there a theory that lead poisoning brought down the Roman Empire?

Those whom the Gods wish to destroy They first make mad. -- Euripides

by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Tue Jan 9th, 2007 at 09:41:33 AM EST
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A theory? (4.00 / 3)

A theory?!? The Romans were solely responsible for boosting the atmospheric lead pollution to such levels they are recognisable as anthropolical markers in ice cores. The whole elite of Romans who drank wine (and who at that time didn't?) is suspect to have suffered of chronic and heavy lead poisoning.

The evidence, however, remains scant - because the Romans cremated when possible. And because the elite had the money to cremate their deceased - little adult bones have been preserved. But children bones have - and each analysis shows they were over the top contaminated with lead. Even although children have a larger uptake of lead into their system, the evidence that the entire Roman civilisation was high on lead is stacking.

Thanks for that. This was part of my thesis subject.

by Nomad (Bjinse) on Tue Jan 9th, 2007 at 09:50:06 AM EST
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Of course (none / 0)

Putting the whole blame of the destruction of the Roman Empire on Pb - would be a little too much credit for one element.

But contributed? Very feasible, in my mind.

by Nomad (Bjinse) on Tue Jan 9th, 2007 at 09:53:01 AM EST
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Intermittence (4.00 / 2)

"Because they can't generate enough power"

That's emphatically not the issue. The issue is electricity that's available 24/7, instantly on demand.

renewables like wind and solar are not available when needed, but when the resource (wind, sun) is there, which makes them less useful to respond to some form of demand.

Now, there are many ways around that (storage systems, use of that power for non-time sensitive demand, etc...), but it is an issue.

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

by Jerome a Paris (etg@eurotrib.com) on Tue Jan 9th, 2007 at 09:32:50 AM EST
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Re: Intermittence (none / 0)

If that is not the issue, what makes nuclear safer than wind or tide power? (Or geo-thermal, etc...)

Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.

by rg (leopold dot lepster at google mail dot com) on Tue Jan 9th, 2007 at 04:12:49 PM EST
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Re: Intermittence (none / 1)

The issue is not total capacity but intermittency and the inability to adjust production to demand.

Those whom the Gods wish to destroy They first make mad. -- Euripides

by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Wed Jan 10th, 2007 at 03:41:02 AM EST
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Re: Intermittence (none / 0)

...which I think is pretty much a red-herring argument (see comments elsewhere, including Jerome's link to the wind turbines --> compressed air situation in the U.S.)

Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.

by rg (leopold dot lepster at google mail dot com) on Wed Jan 10th, 2007 at 08:17:10 AM EST
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Re: Intermittence (none / 0)

No, it's a real source of uncertainty: we don't know if we can store enough energy to buffer the unreliability of wind etc. If we can't work out a way of doing so we need to provide base-load from somewhere else.

by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Wed Jan 10th, 2007 at 08:32:23 AM EST
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Re: Intermittence (none / 0)

Can passive geothermal provide the baseload?

Those whom the Gods wish to destroy They first make mad. -- Euripides

by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Wed Jan 10th, 2007 at 08:34:43 AM EST
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Re: Intermittence (none / 1)

Some of it, at least. We know it's going to have to be a patchwork depending on local conditions.

by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Wed Jan 10th, 2007 at 08:36:18 AM EST
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