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The Green New Deal and the Growth of Renewables

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Re: The Green New Deal and the Growth of Renewables

Unread postby Sweeney » Wed 29 Apr 2020, 13:14:09

I'm in the Charente, west side of France, about half-way down. Angouleme is our major town.
I have been suprised by the commitment of the French government to environmentally-friendly policies. The average French person has no interest whatsoever in the environment but, contrary to their usual image, they are not at all rebellious. If the French government says "We all have to do this." then everybody does as they are told. Except for speeding :cry: . (I'm a cyclist).
The French government keeps pushing for the banning of agro-chemicals like glyphosate even though this is intensely unpopular with the farmers.
Unemployment figures can be deceptive. The French unemployment benefit pays you 75 percent of your last wage for two years; then it stops. Consequently many people made redundant take a year off before looking for another job.
We have long-distance travel and shipping and greater penetration of air-conditioning.
But much of this is discretionary. Montequest is missing the point.
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Re: The Green New Deal and the Growth of Renewables

Unread postby MonteQuest » Wed 29 Apr 2020, 13:16:20

C8 wrote:
Sweeney wrote:I am thinking that France and other European nations are going to go more into renewable energy for a little while longer. But the high costs and general economic malaise will force them to sharply reverse course.


“Those who see an opportunity for renewable energy in the demise of oil need to think again. The manufacture of solar panels, wind turbines and electric cars depend on diesel all along the supply chain from extraction to distribution of finished products. A world in economic depression will default to the cheapest and most productive fuels. Oil will be cheap and abundant for a long time. There will be little money or appetite for the massive equipment changes that renewable sources require. Climate change will not be high in the consciousness of people struggling to survive. Those who believe that the world will function the same on lower energy density sources like wind and solar should review their old physics text books. You cannot fit 4.5 years of work from sunlight or wind into the 5.6 cubic feet space of a barrel of oil.”—Oil geologist Art Berman
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Re: The Green New Deal and the Growth of Renewables

Unread postby MonteQuest » Wed 29 Apr 2020, 13:27:30

Sweeney wrote:But much of this is discretionary. Montequest is missing the point.


I never miss the point. :) I do my homework. It's not discretion that causes the miles driven to be twice that of Europe. It's distance. Distance to work and distance between shippers and receivers. As to AC, try living in the southern US in the summer without it. These are key reasons why there is such a gap in per capita energy usage between the US and Europe, along with population density. What point do you think I am missing? That it won't be painful to cut US energy usage to European levels? I think it will be impossible. :)
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Re: The Green New Deal and the Growth of Renewables

Unread postby Simon_R » Wed 29 Apr 2020, 13:45:16

Hi Montequest
Whilst I cannot answer for the rest of the EU, where we are transport by rail is being heavily pushed, our local town has recently built a 'port' for trains to come in and have freight loaded to lorries and vice versa.

As for the turbines not despatching, if there is capacity in the line occasionally this means that there is sufficient capacity, this means there are a limited number of reasons why they are not despatching

1) No one bought the power (unlikely as Wind is normally a price taker, so low as low can be)
2) They are down for service
3) They are cooling down
4) There is no wind
5) There is too much wind
6) They are Despatchable (ie, they can be remotely turned on or off) in which case, maybe the owner is deliberately turning them off, waiting for the market to tighten, then turn them on, and sell spot at a much higher rate.

Thanks

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Re: The Green New Deal and the Growth of Renewables

Unread postby Sweeney » Wed 29 Apr 2020, 15:26:09

Montequest wrote:
I never miss the point. :) I do my homework. It's not discretion that causes the miles driven to be twice that of Europe. It's distance. Distance to work and distance between shippers and receivers. As to AC, try living in the southern US in the summer without it. These are key reasons why there is such a gap in per capita energy usage between the US and Europe, along with population density. What point do you think I am missing? That it won't be painful to cut US energy usage to European levels? I think it will be impossible. ]


It's discretionary that Americans use Dodge Rams and F350s rather than Golfs and other small cars. People could live closer to their jobs. And people lived in the southern US before AC had even been dreamed of. This is a classic case of an American saying that their current lifestyle cannot and will not be changed, regardless of the consequences for the planet.
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Re: The Green New Deal and the Growth of Renewables

Unread postby REAL Green » Wed 29 Apr 2020, 15:45:44

Sweeney wrote:
Montequest wrote:
I never miss the point. :) I do my homework. It's not discretion that causes the miles driven to be twice that of Europe. It's distance. Distance to work and distance between shippers and receivers. As to AC, try living in the southern US in the summer without it.


Sweeney wrote:It's discretionary that Americans use Dodge Rams and F350s rather than Golfs and other small cars. People could live closer to their jobs. And people lived in the southern US before AC had even been dreamed of. This is a classic case of an American saying that their current lifestyle cannot and will not be changed, regardless of the consequences for the planet.


It is a little more complicated than a/c and big trucks. The US is the largest global economy. The US also has a huge petro-chemical sector. It has a huge military. There are areas of the US very efficient and others not so efficient. Yet, I do agree that Americans need to emulate Europeans and their lower energy consumptive lives. As far as American behavior not changing, lol, nature will deal with that fallacy. I have a European wife and I can tell you Europeans have a long way to go to being green too.
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Re: The Green New Deal and the Growth of Renewables

Unread postby Newfie » Wed 29 Apr 2020, 16:48:47

There are areas where we can do better easily.

More economical cars.
Driving less.
Flying less.
Buying less plastic crap.
Buying from American manufacturers vs overseas shipping.


Not so easy to change is the housing stock which sucks up a lot of energy in heating, cooling and ventilation. Here the big cities are a real problem. These places can not be efficiently retrofitted to heat pumps. The spaces have not been designed for cross ventilation and cooling so they require forced ventilation and AC.

Our 1887 town house has its original windows. 13’ high ceilings and 8’ tall double hung windows so they can be opened top and bottom to create circulation. There was an opening sky light in the stair case so it could act as a chimney, it was broken and required replacement, no mechanical replacement could be found, they are not made. Our entire one block street was built at one time, an early mini development. Ours is the ONLY house on the block where the windows still operate as intended. Many of the houses, before historical certification, had all opening windows removed and replaced with sealed windows that could not open. The have to constantly fight to retain the integrity of the windows so that they function as designed. Everyone want to make them inoperable for one reason or another.

But those kind of old design features are quite literally history now. The LEED standards bend toward, give a nod, to opening windows and skylights and natural light. We don’t have the resources remaining to tear down old inefficient buildings and replace them with truly green structures.

Sure, you can build a zero energy house for yourself. You can not replace all existing housing in NYC or Chicago or Paris or London or Tokyo with zero energy units.
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Re: The Green New Deal and the Growth of Renewables

Unread postby C8 » Wed 29 Apr 2020, 17:00:06

One of the major problems with the US or Europe going green is that the same people who want to go green also want to open the nation's doors wide to immigrants- thus raising the overall population and total national energy use. As people move from low to high energy per-capita nations they will more than erase any efficiency gains made by those nations.

Some math everyone needs to memorize:

For every 1 American there are 25 people in the world, and about 20 of them live in very low energy use nations
If just 1 of those 20 people come to the US, the # of Americans doubles! (with similar results to US energy consumption)
The world's population will grow as much in the next 5 years as there are people in the US

When you look at the realities of world population growth and the dominance of the green movement by the woke "open borders" crowd, you realize that western energy consumption is only going to go up, up, up.
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Re: The Green New Deal and the Growth of Renewables

Unread postby Ibon » Wed 29 Apr 2020, 17:07:25

Sweeney wrote:
It's discretionary that Americans use Dodge Rams and F350s rather than Golfs and other small cars. People could live closer to their jobs. And people lived in the southern US before AC had even been dreamed of. This is a classic case of an American saying that their current lifestyle cannot and will not be changed, regardless of the consequences for the planet.


I agree with you on the Dodge Rams and F350's. On the aircon part nope. I lived in South Florida for 10 year and I befriended an old timer who spent 70 years of his llfe there. He was a horticulturalist. He spent decades without air conditioning but the landscape has radically changed since those days.

In past decades before air conditioning the architecture of homes was designed with breeze ways, big windows with screens, fans and screened in porches (think millions of mosquitoes). Usually live oak trees formed canopies over the roofs of many homes creating a micro climate of shade. Lot's of green space around each home. My horticulturalist friend mentioned that it was comfortable without air conditioning.

That no longer exists. High density urban and suburban living have created micro climates of extreme heat and humidity because of the amount of concrete and asphalt that absorbs sunlight during the day. This makes living in the south today impossible without air conditioning during about 7 months a year.

If the south depopulates then sure we could go back to the time without air conditioning that my horticulturalist friend talked about.
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Re: The Green New Deal and the Growth of Renewables

Unread postby MonteQuest » Wed 29 Apr 2020, 17:39:34

Simon_R wrote:As for the turbines not despatching, if there is capacity in the line occasionally this means that there is sufficient capacity, this means there are a limited number of reasons why they are not despatching.


The company told me the turbines are occasionally shut down due to a lack of transmission line capacity. Texas had the same issue years ago after a huge build-out of turbines.
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Re: The Green New Deal and the Growth of Renewables

Unread postby MonteQuest » Wed 29 Apr 2020, 17:59:52

Sweeney wrote:It's discretionary that Americans use Dodge Rams and F350s rather than Golfs and other small cars. People could live closer to their jobs. And people lived in the southern US before AC had even been dreamed of. This is a classic case of an American saying that their current lifestyle cannot and will not be changed, regardless of the consequences for the planet.


It's true that European cars are much more fuel-efficient than American cars. But most of the "miles" driven here are not discretionary. Distance demands it. Most people cannot live closer to their jobs. There is no place to move to. Many commuters drive an hour each way to work from suburbia. Truckers run coast to coast. Planes fly coast to coast. Trains run coast to coast. No one is saying that lifestyles can't or won't be changed, but America will never have the per capita energy use that Europe has. Population density and distance are the primary factors. Those aren't going to change. Maybe shutting off the AC will force people to move to the dense northern cities en masse. :) Ibon explained the conundrum well.
Last edited by MonteQuest on Wed 29 Apr 2020, 18:18:44, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: The Green New Deal and the Growth of Renewables

Unread postby MonteQuest » Wed 29 Apr 2020, 18:08:02

Newfie wrote:There are areas where we can do better easily.

More economical cars.
Driving less.
Flying less.
Buying less plastic crap.
Buying from American manufacturers vs overseas shipping.


Easily? All these things involve less economic activity. Who will absorb the loss? As we are seeing from the economic chaos from the pandemic, you can't use less and you can't do less and keep the house of cards standing. Conservation and efficiency gains are not solutions for a population in overshoot. They are perpetuations of it. I thought this had been hammered home over the years on peakoil.com?
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Re: The Green New Deal and the Growth of Renewables

Unread postby MonteQuest » Wed 29 Apr 2020, 18:15:25

C8 wrote:One of the major problems with the US or Europe going green is that the same people who want to go green also want to open the nation's doors wide to immigrants- thus raising the overall population and total national energy use. As people move from low to high energy per-capita nations they will more than erase any efficiency gains made by those nations.


And with the US population birth rate below replacement, we need immigrants to grow the workforce. Remember, GDP is determined by the numbers of workers and how productive they are. That's our dilemma. Our labor force is shrinking. Of course, more robots could increase productivity. LOL! :) The major problem with going "green" is it still requires unsustainable growth.
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Re: The Green New Deal and the Growth of Renewables

Unread postby asg70 » Wed 29 Apr 2020, 18:16:37

MonteQuest wrote:Most people cannot live closer to their jobs.


"Most people?" The majority don't even really need to commute outside of corporate tradition. Did you just crawl back out from under a rock after all these years without staying up to date on how the world has been changing? There was a healthy discussion not that long ago about telecommuting in how it relates to coronavirus. Do you want to look into that or do I have to drop links in here?

Start here:

https://www.google.com/search?q=coronav ... 27&dpr=1.5

BOLD PREDICTIONS
-Billions are on the verge of starvation as the lockdown continues. (yoshua, 5/20/20)

HALL OF SHAME:
-Short welched on a bet and should be shunned.
-Frequent-flyers should not cry crocodile-tears over climate-change.
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Re: The Green New Deal and the Growth of Renewables

Unread postby MonteQuest » Wed 29 Apr 2020, 18:24:35

asg70 wrote: Did you just crawl back out from under a rock after all these years without staying up to date on how the world has been changing?


And you expect a response?
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Re: The Green New Deal and the Growth of Renewables

Unread postby MonteQuest » Wed 29 Apr 2020, 18:30:07

Here's the latest breakdown of renewables and electrical power generation in the USA. Modern renewables like wind, solar, and geothermal comprise just 9.5%.
Image
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Re: The Green New Deal and the Growth of Renewables

Unread postby REAL Green » Wed 29 Apr 2020, 18:38:26

MonteQuest wrote:Easily? All these things involve less economic activity. Who will absorb the loss? As we are seeing from the economic chaos from the pandemic, you can't use less and you can't do less and keep the house of cards standing. Conservation and efficiency gains are not solutions for a population in overshoot. They are perpetuations of it. I thought this had been hammered home over the years on peakoil.com?


This is the inconvenient consequences of saving the planet. Degrowth of consumption and population is the only activity that will save the planet and depending on the degree of degrowth that is an economy killer. What is more catch22 is if you start killing the economy you also kill very capable tech that will assist degrowth. This is why a behavioral change of “we are screwed” is in order. “Failure is not an option” is a lie. Acceptance of failure is a learning experience. Once acceptance is reached then it is more about downsizing with dignity by finding meaning in doing what is correct. Limits of growth and planetary destruction dictate smart degrowth that includes tech and growth but more so less tech and less growth. There is no "get out of jail free card". The consequences will be paid and the result is pain and suffering. People will die and places will collapse. There is no way to put a smiley face on this except for those who come to acceptance and find meaning in what is called for despite the good or bad of the outcome. We are all dead eventually anyway does that mean not living in the here and now?
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Re: The Green New Deal and the Growth of Renewables

Unread postby Newfie » Wed 29 Apr 2020, 20:11:19

C8 wrote:One of the major problems with the US or Europe going green is that the same people who want to go green also want to open the nation's doors wide to immigrants- thus raising the overall population and total national energy use. As people move from low to high energy per-capita nations they will more than erase any efficiency gains made by those nations.

Some math everyone needs to memorize:

For every 1 American there are 25 people in the world, and about 20 of them live in very low energy use nations
If just 1 of those 20 people come to the US, the # of Americans doubles! (with similar results to US energy consumption)
The world's population will grow as much in the next 5 years as there are people in the US

When you look at the realities of world population growth and the dominance of the green movement by the woke "open borders" crowd, you realize that western energy consumption is only going to go up, up, up.


Yes. I oppose immigration on similar grounds, and a few others.

As soon as I say I’m against immigration I’m labeled a Trump loving Nazi. The knee jerk reaction is instantaneous.
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Re: The Green New Deal and the Growth of Renewables

Unread postby Ibon » Wed 29 Apr 2020, 20:13:01

REAL Green wrote: Acceptance of failure is a learning experience.


Out of the humility of acceptance comes not only the perseverance of dealing with hardships and suffering but also a re acquaintance with self reliance. This will increase well being. Suffering and joy will both be more intense during this degrowth. There are silver linings. Many will not survive this. Many others will grow a spine.
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Re: The Green New Deal and the Growth of Renewables

Unread postby Newfie » Wed 29 Apr 2020, 20:30:41

MonteQuest wrote:
Newfie wrote:There are areas where we can do better easily.

More economical cars.
Driving less.
Flying less.
Buying less plastic crap.
Buying from American manufacturers vs overseas shipping.


Easily? All these things involve less economic activity. Who will absorb the loss? As we are seeing from the economic chaos from the pandemic, you can't use less and you can't do less and keep the house of cards standing. Conservation and efficiency gains are not solutions for a population in overshoot. They are perpetuations of it. I thought this had been hammered home over the years on peakoil.com?


You do love to incite argument! I love you anyway.

“Easy” in this usage is a comparative, this is the low hanging fruit.

As to the rest I pretty much agree, the forces that be will resist Degrowth.

You make an interesting comment about conservation and energy being a perpetuation of a population in over shoot. It’s a great point. I think you are making an argumentative leap from first talking about a problematic economic system and then moving to a population problem. But it does bring up an interesting question I had not considered. My first cut observation follows, reserving the right to modify and improve or correct as needed.

The current situation (USA) is both a growing economy and a growing population. The population is growing artificially in order to prop up the economic growth. This indicates our first priority is economic growth.

If we were to magically get everyone to see the light and move to a static or declining economic model then the pressure would be off population growth. So the first priority is to encourage demand destruction to bring about economic Degrowth. Having made progress on that front we can then turn attention to the population if it is still a problem.

We are still missing the first step. And I suspect it is a step to far for us. The first step is to understand what we are trying to achieve as a species, the “meaning of life” if you will. Currently “He who dies with the most toys wins” seems to be our dominant model. Although there are others who seem to advocate for “Chicken Coop Earth”, the maximum possible number of humans no matter the quality of life. Very few have seriously contemplated the topic, too philosophical. I advocate something along the line of “A balance of sustaining natural systems while supporting sufficient technology to advance knowledge.”

Without some rough idea of what we want to achieve as a species we tend to simply grab for ourselves. The old “Tragedy of the Commons” dilemma. Until we can address that we are stuffed. I’m not hopeful.
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