The Myth of Renewable Energy 835
Harperdog writes to this "Excellent piece by Dawn Stover about what renewables can and can't do. The sun and wind may be practically inexhaustible, but 'renewable' energy isn't. Solar, wind, and geothermal power are not fundamentally different from other energy technologies that consume finite natural resources. Good reading for anyone who thinks they know how to combat climate change."
Don't worry (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Renewable or infinite? (Score:5, Interesting)
Really the question is, are these things better on the whole than fossil and nuclear fuels? I suspect that the answer is yes, although I am not an expert. Only people who live in shacks in Montana are seriously arguing that humanity can or should live without disturbing the environment at all; but we can at least try to not completely wreck the planet.
Steam (Score:5, Interesting)
Several times, she talks of water consumed by steam turbines.
Wouldn't any sane design condense the steam into water, and re-use it? Otherwise you're throwing away water *and* heat.
Re:Don't worry (Score:3, Interesting)
The world is not as Euro-centric as most of our history lessons. I doubt the mass 'migration' of millions of pacific islander will do any wonders for world peace.
Mostly just FUD (Score:4, Interesting)
OP seems to be a compendium of old FUD I've read before. Yeah sure, solar panels have a limited lifetime -- about 25 years, by which time the next generation of them will make twice or more as many panels from the same amount of materials harvested by recycling them. Oh dear, solar sites need to wash panels, they'll never figure out how to make dust-resistant coatings, of course. OMG wind turbines use a lot of Nd (using the worst case of a direct drive unit) so naturally it follows that that's the only way to do it and we won't be switching to Separately Excited Syncronous or Switch Variable Reluctance gensets when it becomes cost effective to do so.
I'll be glad when these clowns finally sell their Exxon stock so I don't have to listen to them whine any more in the face of the inevitable.
Disinformation - Shame on you /. ! (Score:5, Interesting)
A bit absurd (Score:5, Interesting)
Sure materials which we need to use in order to build e.g. wind turbines are theoretically finite. They are not being used up by building wind turbines, they can be recycled if that's economically interesting. Stuff like "While sunlight is renewable -- for at least another four billion years -- photovoltaic panels are not." is just silly. We are not going to run out of sand in any plausible scenario, so that's just nitpicking.
In any case, renewable energy refers to the energy source. That clearly sets it apart from other energy sources, and is thus a good description. There is nobody who believes the installations required to use renewables can be build without any environmental impact in terms of pollution, area use etc. That doesn't distinguish them from other installations. If people were calling renewable energy plants "impact free", fine the author would have a point. The myth the article is debunking is one which doesn't exist, however.
Re:RTFA and reached a conclusion (Score:5, Interesting)
He does mention that "renewable technologies are often less damaging to the climate and create fewer toxic wastes than conventional energy sources." Are those the words of an oil-industry shill, or someone who cherishes the status quo?
You note that "nuclear energy is not mentioned". But look! This is published in "Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists". The front page will supply you with nuclear-power reading if you really want it.
Re:Renewable or infinite? (Score:5, Interesting)
I used to be a big fan of wind, but I am starting to lean in the direction of (properly managed) biomass these days, for the following reasons:
Re:There is even better article (Score:5, Interesting)
Probably the biggest problem to addressing the 'population issue' is that the areas of the world where environment movements tend to exist tend to also exist alongside groups which love population growth.
Big cities like New York, Toronto, London... tend to have a lot of 'green movements'.
Yet they're also places which keep advocating high immigration rates for both political reasons (diversity...) as well as special economic reasons (prop up the housing industry, cheap immigrant labor...). More often than not the same groups in the green movement are the same who love increasing population.
It's one of the reasons why things like pollution/Capita are tricky. A lot of people seem to think per Capita measures are the ultimate measure. But it doesn't take into account societal and cultural choices.
For example, we compare two societies.
1. A huge population like India where the consumption/capita is very low. (545 kg in oil equivalence)
2. A sparsely population country like Iceland with high consumption/capita (17338 kg)
source: http://www.google.ca/publicdata [google.ca] (energy use per capita).
Now many who just look at the per capita measures like to rant how inefficient and wasteful western people are. Yet don't look at the per capita numbers alone. Look at the society as a whole.
Icelandic society provides a high standard of living for everyone and keeps its population reasonable. That each Icelandic person lives much better than an Indian is not a problem... as the Icelandic society has managed to keep its population small.
Put simply... is the solution to shove everyone in to a city and make everyone live like they're in Tokyo? Only for those who like to measure everything in per capita use and don't want to look at the greater functioning of society.
Re:Renewable or infinite? (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't think we're fucked just yet, we're close. Personally I think the energy debate is moot - market forces have and will determine where we get it. The real debate should be about food and water. We're headed for a very serious collapse and globalization has created conditions where the second there are food shortages, protectionism is going to rear it's ugly head and there will be massive starvation in some areas. Canada already experienced this in a small way, no starvation obviously, but when Katrina hit food shipments were diverted down south instead of to Canada - many shelves were empty for weeks.
Re:Renewable or infinite? (Score:5, Interesting)
Uranium is incredibly common and existing stocks can be rotated in. Typically nuclear plants only use 1% of the available energy in a fuel rod before swapping it out. Some plants are now recycling the older rods from 25+ years ago but few stations overall are capable of doing this.
Like magnets can't be re-used (Score:5, Interesting)
Lets see. Coal. Expensive to mine from underground and a blight on the load in open mines. Nuclear material? Same issues with mining it and that love waste to get rid off. Oil? That is running out and drilling for it has proved hazardous. Mining it from tar sand is even worse then coal mining and even just transporting it ain't save.
Funny the article doesn't mention any of that. Or for that matter that efficient generators ANYWHERE need rare earth magnets. In the end, almost all power generation needs the same kind of generator, the only difference is what makes them spin and how efficient you want them to be.
And yes, desert water is not infinite... Greenland is a desert now? Funny. I expected them to be warmer. And less wet.
Troll article cherry picks arguments to support its troll and ignores everything else.
How unexpected.
Re:Renewable or infinite? (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, when I interviewed a representative from the company putting in the wind farm in Kingston Ontario they said they're looking at a 50 year payback on 87 turbines.
I'd say the average person is more wasteful in the computers, cell phones, electronic gadgets, etc than any turbine/solar panel/etc.
Re:Don't worry (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Renewable or infinite? (Score:5, Interesting)
not 1%, more like 14% of what can be extracted. But yes, the point is most of our "spent fuel" is a gold mine of energy. And we have thorium sufficient for centuries while we figure out fusion or just massive solar harvesting coupled with biotech so we grow what we need instead of refining and smelting.
Re:RTFA and reached a conclusion (Score:4, Interesting)
No idea on acre-feet, but according to the US DOE, a coal plant needs 1.2 to 2.2 litres of water per kilowatt-hour depending on the design.
Compare natural gas at 0.7-0.9, geothermal at 5.3, oil at 1.3-1.4, nuclear at 2.8-3.2, and solar at 2.8-3.5.
Re:Renewable or infinite? (Score:5, Interesting)
What about the battery pack that needs to be replaced every 1-2 year? What about the limited mileage per charge?
Bullshit.
Consumer reports tested a Prius after 10 years, and compared it with a test of a similar model when it was new. In 10 years and 200,000 miles, the battery performance had hardly degraded at all.
http://news.consumerreports.org/cars/2011/02/200000-mile-toyota-prius-still-performs.html [consumerreports.org]
efficiency (Score:3, Interesting)
The #1 thing we can do to combat energy inefficiency, which is the only thing we really need to do, is switch from an economy that maximizes profit at all costs, to one that minimizes waste. It's THAT simple. Seriously.
The question is, how is this even possible? Well, we need a department of government that analyzes products and their life-cycles and somehow comes up with a waste quotient that takes into account production waste (this is where renewable energy use comes into play, and makes my post not off-topic) as well as product waste (so that companies will be incentivized to make products that last), and somehow work this into a tax scheme that eats into the profits. Boo-yah. Done
Re:Renewable or infinite? (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, I looked into the amount of water an equivalent coal-powered generator would use. It turns out 1GW of coal power uses 13500 acre-ft of water (4.4billion gal) per year, vs the 600 acre-feet for the solar project.
I call bullshit. (Score:4, Interesting)
I gotta see some backup for:
"The gearbox of a two-megawatt wind turbine contains about 800 pounds of neodymium and 130 pounds of dysprosium "
I've worked on a lot of gearboxes and several turbine/generator sets in my career as an ME. The gearbox on a 15MW gas turbine generator might weigh 1/2 a ton total and I assure you that is 90% iron and 10% oil. I think somebody seriously slipped a decimal point or two.
Re:Renewable or infinite? (Score:5, Interesting)
This is not true. Unless you live in an anarchy dominated territory, like somalia, you really cannot "live like they do" without violating several laws, including tax evasion.
Say for instance, I quit my job and packed up a knife, an axe, a tent, and some various other sundry items, then headed west into the large expanses of BLM owned forested wilderness:
Unless I sell all my properties first, and liquidate all my accounts, and sell my vehicle when I get there, I am guilty of tax evasion. (Property taxes, vehicular taxes, income taxes.)
Then, upon arrival, should I set my axe against the BLM owned forest so as to build myself a survival structure and to start a cooking fire, I break several more laws.
Illegal poaching, destruction of public property, endangering public property, building without a permit, creating a permanent structure that does not meet building code... (you get the idea.)
Simply put, what you suggest as the baseline comparison is not legally permitted in countries where there is an energy problem, and is actively discouraged by the governments of those countries which do.
This is why it is absurd to demand such measures from people wanting reform in energy production. If they are hipicrites for wanting such while consuming dirty energy, it is because they are forced into a legal catch-22 where there is no legal alternaative. Asserting that there is such an alternative without first getting said power production reform to enable its use is downright disingenuous.
Re:Renewable or infinite? (Score:4, Interesting)
Your prius gets 50mpg? Well that's not bad, should I tell you that I just finished driving nearly 5000mi, in a '96 saturn and got around 49mpg on the highway. Yep, a car that's 15 years old, getting nearly the same performance.
Re:Renewable or infinite? (Score:4, Interesting)
But comparing a Hummer and a Prius is completely insane and can only lead to biaised results.
So how does that differ from suggesting solar power is only possible with photovoltaic panels or desert groundwater steam turbines?
Or that California's geothermal power is typical of all world installations and other types like HDR don't exist at all.
Or that the only possible type of wind turbine to use is the type installed in the US in 2009, ignoring newer tech like the blade tip generators (http://www.windtronics.com/honeywell-wind-turbine)
Or that Biomass is anything but another form of solar.
Or... Or... Or... But there's no point. This whole article is barely thought out, half-baked page-click bait. WHBT HAND.