THE Renewable Energy Thread (merged)

[Graeme]

Not so surprising if it comes an the oil lobby advocate. Do you think the oil industry will thrive indefinitely without their subsidies?

[prajeshbhat]

These days the recent trend in the oil industry has been mergers. There is no point in forming small companies and competing with each other over petty profits. There are a enough profits to keep everyone happy. The wise sages in the oil industry realize this.

The Ultimate Merger Chart

The need of the hour is to form large gangs, the bigger the better. Most probably there is going to be an all out gang war. You better be in the largest gang.

[SeaGypsy]

I'm not sure you meant to be silly. The largest gang is the national military followed by the state police. Their job in an emergency is firstly to annihilate the biggest gangs first. Bad idea, unless what you mean is: Join the military and subvert it. Now that would be clever.

[prajeshbhat]

Sending in the military would be the last resort. Before that oil companies will merge and form a handful of super-large corporations. The big players will try to outbid each other as long as they can. This is already happening in non-opec nations. How else will you compete with CNOOC?

[cephalotus]

"...I’ve written before about why on-grid solar power is absurdly uneconomic and has almost no hope of becoming a viable alternative to current generation technology–or even competitive with other more viable renewable technologies..."

A photovoltaic power plant can now be built for 1.500-2.000 US$/kWp and I assume that it will be possible to build them for 1.000US$/kWp in 5 years.

In Saudi Arabia they have oil fired power plants.

1 kWp PV will make 2.000kWh/a on electricity in Saudi Arabia.

For 2.000kWh of electricity you have to burn more than 3 barrels of oil. Oil that could otherwise have been exported at 100US$/barrel.

So the maths is easy:

Invest now 1.500-2000US$ (later 1.000 US$) and you will gain more than 3 barrels of additional oil exports each year, which currently equals more than 300 US$ each year.

There is zero need for storage capacity for the first several GW of PV power plants in SA, quite the opposite is true, PV plants will produce electricity at the time of peak demand.

And as all of you can see very easily, in Saudi Arabia PV will directly substitute oil, so it is also a technology that offers some options against peak oil.

best regards.

[Graeme]

Scrapping fossil-fuel subsidies would get us halfway there on climate change

Here’s one free-market way to tackle global warming. In 2010, the world spent $409 billion on fossil-fuel subsidies to artificially lower the price of coal, gas and oil. Eliminating those subsidies would curb fuel use and lead to half the emissions cuts necessary to avoid 2°C of warming.

That’s all according to Fatih Birol, chief economist at the International Energy Agency. The Guardian’s Datablog supplies the chart. By Birol’s calculations, scrapping all subsidies for fossil-fuel consumption would avoid 2.56 gigatons of carbon-dioxide per year by 2035 — or about 70 percent of what the European Union currently emits. That could provide almost half of the extra cuts the world needs to stay within its carbon budget:


One possible solution comes from a 2008 Harvard Kennedy School study, which suggested that developing countries could take the money saved by rolling back subsidies and devote it toward efficiency upgrades or even lump-sum payments to citizens.

washingtonpost

[sparky]

.
Is this a a tongue in cheek thread ?
"alternatives" and renewable are the biggest subsidies cry babies around
Spain ,Germany , Britain and others are cutting back on those middle class feelgood wasters
A Kilowatt is a Kilowatt , all this talk of efficiency translate as
consume less , spend less , get less , enjoy less

[Cog]

Environmentalists have their own agenda. Namely, to make us all miserable before peak oil does. They must be a big hit at parties.

[Outcast_Searcher]

Instead of trying to pick winners by directly subsidising renewables (government is REALLY bad at trying to choose viable winners), I would strongly prefer we:

a). End all subsidies for all source of energy, including fossil fuels.
b). Tax the HELL out of fossil fuels, especially transportation fuels. A rapidly increasing scale, after a sufficient warning to let people plan/adapt would introduce some "fairness" into it. (With the coming of practical hybrids at better and better prices -- this really is a viable option for the first world, whining aside. What you do about the likes of Chindia is another matter...)

Of course, this will NEVER happen as politicians are too corrupt, voters will whine, and government is all about choosing winners while spouting freedom slogans.

Meanwhile, climate change denial continues apace. (I know short term weather is not climate -- but still -- the warmth of the weather in central KY this winter is absolotely astounding and/or frightening, depending on your perspective).

[Graeme]

Governments Spend $1.4 Billion Per Day to Destabilize Climate

Shifting subsidies to the development of climate-benign energy sources such as wind energy, solar power, and geothermal energy will help stabilize the earth’s climate.

We distort reality when we omit the health and environmental costs associated with burning fossil fuels from their prices. When governments actually subsidize their use, they take the distortion even further. Worldwide, direct fossil fuel subsidies added up to roughly $500 billion in 2010. Of this, supports on the production side totaled some $100 billion. Supports for consumption exceeded $400 billion, with $193 billion for oil, $91 billion for natural gas, $3 billion for coal, and $122 billion spent subsidizing the use of fossil fuel-generated electricity. All together, governments are shelling out nearly $1.4 billion per day to further destabilize the earth’s climate.

The government of Iran spent the most on promoting fossil fuel consumption in 2010, doling out $81 billion in subsidies. This equaled more than 20 percent of the country’s gross domestic product. Saudi Arabia was a distant second at $44 billion. Rounding out the top five were Russia ($39 billion), India ($22 billion), and China ($21 billion).

Kuwait’s fossil fuel subsidies were highest on a per capita basis, with $2,800 spent per person. The United Arab Emirates and Qatar followed, each spending close to $2,500 per person.

earth-policy

[babystrangeloop]

Good thing the US Chamber of Commerce isn't evil or anything.

U.S. - China Energy Trade War Imminent?
John Daly / Oilprice / January 31, 2012

... Last November the U.S. Department of Commerce launched an "anti-dumping and anti-subsidy" investigation into China's solar battery exports to the United States. ...

Cheap Chinese hair driers and air conditioners no problem but cheap Chinese solar batteries? No way, that would totally suck. Sure glad the US Chamber of Commerce is on our side defending our right to unaffordable solar batteries.

Now its wind power’s turn.

What is surprising about the brewing dispute is the relatively minor amounts of money involved. The Department of Commerce announced that utility scale wind towers imported from China are targeted for investigation even though, according to U.S. Customs statistics, in 2010 China's wind technology exports were worth a paltry $104 million.

According to the investigation schedule of the case, the Department of Commerce is expected to make preliminary decisions on subsidies and dumping on 23 March and 6 June, respectively.

My God--to think that the Chinese would dare provide economical wind power equipment to the United States--who do they think they are? Go to it Department of Commerce, stop those evil Chinese before they make wind power affordable!

[Graeme]

Can fossil fuels ever be replaced by renewables?

Renewable energy sources will struggle to replace coal and gas-fired power stations as long as energy consumption continues to rise and fossil fuel subsidies remain in place, a new study has found.
Based on a study of electricity used in around 130 countries over the past 50 years, University of Oregon sociologist Richard York found that rising demand means it can require between four and 10 units of electricity produced from nuclear, hydropower, geothermal, wind, biomass or solar to displace a single unit of fossil fuel-generated electricity.

York's paper, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, recognises that many of these new technologies are yet to become fully established and have the potential to be more viable alternatives once they have matured.
But it also describes how creating more energy sources often leads to higher levels of consumption. Inventing more efficient car engines or houses opens up the possibility of building bigger engines and houses, the study says, which means total energy consumption often did not decrease significantly even with the rising efficiency of new technologies.


The paper concludes that simply building alternative sources of energy is not enough to get the world off the coal and gas hook. Instead, governments need to curtail the $409bn of subsidies the sector is estimated to receive each year as well as accelerate efforts to reduce the cost of clean alternatives.

businessgreen

[sparky]

.

As equivalent replacement .........NO !!


Renewable were used in the middle ages ,
if you use renewable you will live in a society with the comfort and politics of the middle ages

[sunweb]

Solar and wind energy capturing devices as well as nuclear are not alternative energy sources. They are extensions of the fossil fuel supply system. There is an illusion of looking at the trees and not the forest in the “Renewable” energy world. Not seeing the systems, machineries, fossil fuel uses and environmental degradation that create the devices to capture the sun, wind and biofuels allows myopia and false claims of renewable, clean, green and sustainable.

Energy Return on Energy Invested (ERoEI) is only a part of the equation. There is a massive infrastructure of mining, processing, manufacturing, fabricating, installation, transportation and the associated environmental assaults. Each of these processes and machines may only add a miniscule amount of energy to the final component of solar or wind devices yet the devices cannot arise without them. There would be no devices with out this infrastructure.

How else would we do it? There is always the old way. Who of us will go down in the mine first?
A story in pictures and diagrams:
From Machines making machines making machines
http://sunweber.blogspot.com/2011/12/ma ... aking.html

[sunweb]

I would like to share the first two paragraphs of my essay:
We will go kicking and screaming down the path to the new Middle Ages as fossil fuels desert us. With the decline of available energy, those of most of us who have sat at the top of the energy pyramid will become the new peasants. With the popular view of the Middle Ages as a brutal and dirty time filled with famine and disease and at the mercy of armed overlords. We cringe at the thought.

With great sadness, we must recognize the direct connection between present day population levels and the use of fossil fuels in food production, medical procedures, medicines and hygiene. With the fall in fossil fuel availability there will be a reduction in population. Population soared with the industrial revolution and the development of industrial, fossil fuel based agriculture. It cannot be sustained.
From: The New Middle Ages
http://sunweber.blogspot.com/2011/05/ne ... -ages.html
http://peakoil.com/generalideas/the-new-middle-ages/

[pstarr]

I would like to share the first two paragraphs of my essay:
We will go kicking and screaming down the path to the new Middle Ages as fossil fuels desert us. With the decline of available energy, those of most of us who have sat at the top of the energy pyramid will become the new peasants. With the popular view of the Middle Ages as a brutal and dirty time filled with famine and disease and at the mercy of armed overlords. We cringe at the thought.

With great sadness, we must recognize the direct connection between present day population levels and the use of fossil fuels in food production, medical procedures, medicines and hygiene. With the fall in fossil fuel availability there will be a reduction in population. Population soared with the industrial revolution and the development of industrial, fossil fuel based agriculture. It cannot be sustained.
From: The New Middle Ages
http://sunweber.blogspot.com/2011/05/ne ... -ages.html
http://peakoil.com/generalideas/the-new-middle-ages/

Big difference between now and the Middle Ages. The good stuff has already been mined, is out of the ground, and ready to be yanked from garbage dumps and salvage yards for recycling and reuse. It will be re-smelted with (aluminum-frame) photovoltaic panels. I see ahead The (Golden . . . no . . . Shiny ) I see ahead "The Shiny Age of Aluminum" (tm) patent pending. see my lawyer, please. and a brilliant future

[Sys1]

We used since the beginning of industrial civilisation 500 billions barrels of oil, aka half of world reserves. Those 500 billions barrels were made by nature in 500 millions of years, meaning it's a sun stock of half a billion years.
So we consumed on average since 1930 (since rate of extraction is actually in constant increase, if not exponential, until it reachs the peak) around 5 millions years of sun stock each year, aka around 14'000 years of sun energy a day!
From there, how the hell it's imaginable to run our civilisation -without even thinking about growth- on solar pannels which would return at best 1 day of energy for each day they are used?

We are about to experience a total collapse of industrial civilisation and massive die off. There is no such thing any more as businnes as usual.
As we hear on mainstream medias that "recovery" is here, oil skyrockets above 100$ a barrel. This is where recovery is an illusion. It's like willing to run faster than your shade. The truth is that never will we again recover from the first wave of peak oil which occured in the form of "subprimes" in 2007-2008.
A wiser question would be : "What can be preserved with far less fossil fuels?"

[seahorse3]

Sparky, nice and succinct.

[ian807]

Not with the current crop of renewables (i.e. solar, wind, hydro, algae or any other inefficient solar collection scheme). I expect, however, that after the inevitable die-off of the 2100s, that the remaining population will be quite happy to put as many nuclear power plants as necessary into service. Hopefully, battery technology will be better by then and we can run at least a small industrial civilization. Even with bad batteries, we should be able to patch together a smaller, less energy-intensive civilization.

All this assumes, of course, that existing nuclear weapon stockpiles are not used, and that the existing nuclear plants of the world are shut down in a way that doesn't make large areas uninhabitable.

[Lore]

I think Sys1 has a clue here and sunweb makes a good point. Energy harnessed from solar panels will not build new solar panels, or likewise, electricity from nuclear power plants will not construct new nuclear power plants.

The collapse over PO means the dismemberment of skilled workers that hold the tentative fabric of our society together. For example, a few people don't show up at your local water waste treatment facility today and soon you have no water. There is no one to walk in and take the place of the system specialists. The ripple effect is that it dislocates other specialists and so and so forth down the line. You soon find that there are too many holes in the system to put the pieces back together. That the accumulated knowledge and access to far away resources degenerates until it no longer exists to reconstruct that which was, let alone build upon any sophisticated future dreams. That is what is meant by collapse.

Oddball: Hi, man.
Big Joe: What are you doing?
Oddball: I'm drinking wine and eating cheese, and catching some rays, you know.
Big Joe: What's happening?
Oddball: Well, the tank's broke and they're trying to fix it.
Big Joe: Well, then, why the hell aren't you up there helping them?
Oddball: [chuckles] I only ride 'em, I don't know what makes 'em work.
Big Joe: Christ!
Oddball: Definitely an antisocial type. Woof, woof, woof! That's my other dog imitation.

Quote: Kelly's Heros