Occasional Thoughts on Climate Change

[LibertyBell]

https://twitter.com/i/events/1453040298154606599

 

Renewable energy costs are already on par with fossil fuels - and only getting cheaper

In 2015, when the Paris Agreement on climate change was signed, countries made commitments to cut greenhouse gas emissions to limit global warming in this century to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit), ideally 1.5C, compared to preindustrial levels, Reuters reports. One way to achieve that goal is to reduce energy-related carbon dioxide emissions by scaling up the use of renewable energy resources, such as solar and wind power instead of fossil fuels, such as coal or oil. Critics have argued the cost of developing and deploying these renewable energy sources is expensive, but research shows that renewable energy sources are cost-competitive with fossil fuels and are getting cheaper each year, as multiple news outlets and international organizations report. There are also other long-term, cost-saving benefits to implementing renewable energy sources, Vox report

[LibertyBell]

What you need to know

- New wind and solar power projects produce cleaner and cheaper energy than new coal power plants, The Guardian and Bloomberg reports - Technology development in both solar and wind are part of what make them cost-effective sources, according to Ars Technica - There are also "positive externalities" - or social value to using solar and wind power like billions of dollars saved in health costs, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists

[LibertyBell]

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-gift-of-endless-memory/

 

Endless memory....I wonder if this is a useful trait or will it actually cause more problems than its worth?

 

[skierinvermont]

Odds of the reconciliation bill dropped significantly in betting markets after they passed the infrastructure bill.

[etudiant]

2 hours ago, skierinvermont said:

Odds of the reconciliation bill dropped significantly in betting markets after they passed the infrastructure bill.

Well, AOC was pretty clear that she needed to hold the infrastructure bill to shield the larger reconciliation.

Think that is why she voted against it, because with it passed, she has no leverage. The bookies agree with her, they are not stupid either.

[skierinvermont]

9 minutes ago, etudiant said:

Well, AOC was pretty clear that she needed to hold the infrastructure bill to shield the larger reconciliation.

Think that is why she voted against it, because with it passed, she has no leverage. The bookies agree with her, they are not stupid either.

Yes unfortunately. 

[Silver Meteor]

On 11/8/2021 at 5:13 PM, skierinvermont said:

Odds of the reconciliation bill dropped significantly in betting markets after they passed the infrastructure bill.

If you tally it up a little over $400B (less waste, fraud and abuse) goes to physical infrastructure. Where's the rest going? At 2,300+ pages you can wager a body part that bill (like so many others) is highway robbery of the taxpayer. But then we've reached the point where as far as the government is concerned the taxpayer is not much relevant to its massive spending; effectively we already have MMT. Apparently there are grownups who believe money grows on trees, and that China will provide us with a free lunch forever. Silly people.

[LibertyBell]

On 11/8/2021 at 7:37 PM, skierinvermont said:

Yes unfortunately. 

guess what else is a sham....COP26.  Over 500 fossil fuel lobbyists there, we weren't able to make headway against the tobacco cartels until we banned tobacco lobbyists from conferences.

 

[LibertyBell]

On 11/8/2021 at 7:37 PM, skierinvermont said:

Yes unfortunately. 

this country isn't one nation, it's like 50 different nations.  States like NY should and will ban coal products from WV and other fossil fuel states (should ban guns too....we have enough of a problem with them.)

 

[Silver Meteor]

As an avid reader with decades of experience in the stock and commodities markets I can comfortably say the typical citizen who touts wind and solar is economically illiterate. As I said here some time ago, nuclear is the future. This is obvious. So obvious I even recommended buying stock in uranium miners (advice that already would have earned you a hefty return with much more to come in the years ahead.)

The #1 article on Quillette for 2019 is from a brilliant science journalist about renewables. Get ready for some cognitive dissonance:

https://quillette.com/2019/02/27/why-renewables-cant-save-the-planet/

[skierinvermont]

9 hours ago, Silver Meteor said:

As an avid reader with decades of experience in the stock and commodities markets I can comfortably say the typical citizen who touts wind and solar is economically illiterate. As I said here some time ago, nuclear is the future. This is obvious. So obvious I even recommended buying stock in uranium miners (advice that already would have earned you a hefty return with much more to come in the years ahead.)

The #1 article on Quillette for 2019 is from a brilliant science journalist about renewables. Get ready for some cognitive dissonance:

https://quillette.com/2019/02/27/why-renewables-cant-save-the-planet/

I don't know where you people even find this nonsense. Solar and wind are less than half the price of nuclear to produce the same amount of power. This is one guy on the internet that hasn't even appropriately sourced anything he's said.

[skierinvermont]

9 hours ago, Silver Meteor said:

If you tally it up a little over $400B (less waste, fraud and abuse) goes to physical infrastructure. Where's the rest going? At 2,300+ pages you can wager a body part that bill (like so many others) is highway robbery of the taxpayer. But then we've reached the point where as far as the government is concerned the taxpayer is not much relevant to its massive spending; effectively we already have MMT. Apparently there are grownups who believe money grows on trees, and that China will provide us with a free lunch forever. Silly people.

I've read good chunks of the bill. I'd suggest reading it before throwing around such baseless accusations.

[rclab]

35 minutes ago, skierinvermont said:

I've read good chunks of the bill. I'd suggest reading it before throwing around such baseless accusations.

Good morning skier. Reading it as you have would serve to reduce the misinterpretation/imagining. I do believe, for many of us, a brief, if possible, itemized cost list would also help. I’m, sad to admit, a cliff notes veteran from the required novel heavy reading battles. As always ….

[etudiant]

1 hour ago, skierinvermont said:

I don't know where you people even find this nonsense. Solar and wind are less than half the price of nuclear to produce the same amount of power. This is one guy on the internet that hasn't even appropriately sourced anything he's said.

Not sure that name plate power rating gives a full story. Nuclear is pretty much what it says on the tin, apart from re-fueling breaks. 

Solar at peak should be derated by about a factor of 4 to 6 to account for the night time outage and the less than full sun seasonal and daytime intervals.

Wind is similarly intermittent, except that too strong also halts the turbines, so at least similar derating as solar.

In theory, those issues can be solved by very dispersed siting and massive interconnects, but those discussions are nowhere near the needed depth, much less close to getting political support.

 

[skierinvermont]

5 minutes ago, etudiant said:

Not sure that name plate power rating gives a full story. Nuclear is pretty much what it says on the tin, apart from re-fueling breaks. 

Solar at peak should be derated by about a factor of 4 to 6 to account for the night time outage and the less than full sun seasonal and daytime intervals.

Wind is similarly intermittent, except that too strong also halts the turbines, so at least similar derating as solar.

In theory, those issues can be solved by very dispersed siting and massive interconnects, but those discussions are nowhere near the needed depth, much less close to getting political support.

 

Yes these considerations are all factored into the levelized cost of electricity. It's why power companies, in the free market, choose wind and solar more than any other type of new generation source today. If you're a power company trying to make money, wind and solar are already your top choice. We should be nudging them in the right direction to speed up the process and the reconciliation bill does exactly that.

[skierinvermont]

1 hour ago, rclab said:

Good morning skier. Reading it as you have would serve to reduce the misinterpretation/imagining. I do believe, for many of us, a brief, if possible, itemized cost list would also help. I’m, sad to admit, a cliff notes veteran from the required novel heavy reading battles. As always ….

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/10/28/us/biden-bill-plan#spending-plan-bill-biden

 

The key provisions of the proposal include:

• $555 billion to fight climate change, largely through tax incentives for low-emission sources of energy.

• $400 billion to provide universal prekindergarten to 3- and 4-year-olds, and to significantly reduce child care costs for working families earning up to $300,000 a year.

• $200 billion to extend an expanded tax credit for parents through 2022, and to permanently allow parents to benefit from the child tax credit even if they do not earn enough money to have income tax liability.

• $165 billion to reduce health care premiums for people who are covered through the Affordable Care Act, to provide insurance for an additional four million people through Medicaid and to offer hearing coverage through Medicare.

• $150 billion to reduce a waiting list for in-home care for seniors and disabled Americans, and to improve wages for home health care workers.

• $150 billion to build one million affordable housing units.

• $100 billion for immigration streamlining, in part to reduce a backlog of nine million visas. House Democrats proposed provisions last month to address the legal immigration system, including a plan to recapture hundreds of thousands of unused visas various administrations failed to use over several decades and allow green card applicants to pay higher fees to expedite their processing. The investment outlined on Thursday would also expand legal representation for migrants and streamline processing at the southwest border, officials said. Mr. Biden has faced criticism from both Republicans and Democrats for his handling of migration to the border.

• $40 billion for worker training and higher education, including increasing annual Pell grants by $550.

Offsetting that spending is an estimated $2 trillion in revenue increases, including:

• A 15 percent minimum tax on the reported profits of large corporations.

• Efforts to reduce profit-shifting by multinational companies, including a separate 15 percent minimum tax on profits earned by U.S. companies abroad — and tax penalties for companies that have their headquarters in global tax havens.

• A 1 percent tax on corporate stock buybacks.

• Increased enforcement for large corporations and the wealthy at the Internal Revenue Service.

• An additional 5 percent tax on incomes exceeding $10 million a year and another 3 percent tax on incomes above $25 million.

• Efforts to limit business losses for the very wealthy and to impose a 3.8 percent Medicare tax on certain people earning more than $400,000 a year who did not previously pay that tax.

[Typhoon Tip]

2 hours ago, etudiant said:

Not sure that name plate power rating gives a full story. Nuclear is pretty much what it says on the tin, apart from re-fueling breaks. 

Solar at peak should be derated by about a factor of 4 to 6 to account for the night time outage and the less than full sun seasonal and daytime intervals.

Wind is similarly intermittent, except that too strong also halts the turbines, so at least similar derating as solar.

In theory, those issues can be solved by very dispersed siting and massive interconnects, but those discussions are nowhere near the needed depth, much less close to getting political support.

 

That's related to the warmer ( pun ) truth right there ( bold ).  

Solar voltaic technologies can be advanced much further ... So too can battery tech - where so in concert with networking and load balancing, wind is still quite infantile. These are unexplored fully, and Hydro isn't even in discussion. Jesus, the oceanic tide dependability is a gravitational engine that is limitless.  In other words, their capacity has not been reached.   Not even close really. 

But, the truth is, they don't want to be reached - that's the elephant in every debate hall, water cooler discussion, or social media platform there is. Opposition has vested interests that rely upon traditional modes, and thus really it's a form of "protectionism" - in a more open definition of what the word really means. Instead of tariffs and/or limitations on trade to protect internal economic interests, in this sense they are limiting "trades of information" in order to protect their own internal economic interests...  Anyway, it is also a typical strategy to masquerade as prophet of infeasibility and hardship - one is not true, the latter is tough shit, you don't have any choice.

They lose me at economic hardship arguments. Simple reason: There is no economics in a future where they don't exist, and climate holocaust means that.  They are simply not connecting with that reality.  They may as well just cut out the smoke-screening of their rationale and just admit, they don't see climate change as a legit threat.

Many of these fields of research ( or where implement into physical use) are still primitive compared to how far they can be advanced.  Relying on the right-now scalar capacity to foot their arguments is wantonly short-sighted. 

[tamarack]

The article noted the anti-corridor campaign contributions of NextEra Energy and its fossil fuel station in Maine plus Seabrook Nuclear in NH, contributions which were highlighted in many of the endless "Vote No" ads.  ("Yes" was to block the corridor, "no" to reject the blocking.)  However, NextEra is also investing big in wind/solar, including a $110 million 77 megawatt solar array nearing completion in Farmington, the Shiretown of Franklin County, which voted about 70/30 against the NECEC corridor. 
In the minds of many, this was both a vote against the corridor and a vote against Central Maine Power.  CMP was a real hero in the 1998 ice storm in the way it mobilized forces from all over in reaction to the intensive utility infrastucture catastrophe that's probably Maine's worst ever.  During the most recent 5 or so years that good will has drained away thru increasing unreliability and some incredibly tone-deaf customer relations and billing processes.  This ineptness seemed concurrent with CMP becoming a subsidiary of a Spanish multi-national, though correlation may/may not imply causation.  20 years ago CMP's public relations were among the nation's best.  For the past several years they've ranked dead last.

[Typhoon Tip]

2 hours ago, tamarack said:

The article noted the anti-corridor campaign contributions of NextEra Energy and its fossil fuel station in Maine plus Seabrook Nuclear in NH, contributions which were highlighted in many of the endless "Vote No" ads.  ("Yes" was to block the corridor, "no" to reject the blocking.)  However, NextEra is also investing big in wind/solar, including a $110 million 77 megawatt solar array nearing completion in Farmington, the Shiretown of Franklin County, which voted about 70/30 against the NECEC corridor. 
In the minds of many, this was both a vote against the corridor and a vote against Central Maine Power.  CMP was a real hero in the 1998 ice storm in the way it mobilized forces from all over in reaction to the intensive utility infrastucture catastrophe that's probably Maine's worst ever.  During the most recent 5 or so years that good will has drained away thru increasing unreliability and some incredibly tone-deaf customer relations and billing processes.  This ineptness seemed concurrent with CMP becoming a subsidiary of a Spanish multi-national, though correlation may/may not imply causation.  20 years ago CMP's public relations were among the nation's best.  For the past several years they've ranked dead last.

..he said tongue in cheek looking off sideways.  Of course they do - but we play the game

[LibertyBell]

On 11/10/2021 at 12:40 AM, Silver Meteor said:

As an avid reader with decades of experience in the stock and commodities markets I can comfortably say the typical citizen who touts wind and solar is economically illiterate. As I said here some time ago, nuclear is the future. This is obvious. So obvious I even recommended buying stock in uranium miners (advice that already would have earned you a hefty return with much more to come in the years ahead.)

The #1 article on Quillette for 2019 is from a brilliant science journalist about renewables. Get ready for some cognitive dissonance:

https://quillette.com/2019/02/27/why-renewables-cant-save-the-planet/

Thorium dude, the answer is always Thorium

 

[LibertyBell]

12 hours ago, bluewave said:

The large size of solar and wind installations is one of the greatest obstacles to wider acceptance. 

https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/2021-4-fall/feature/nimby-threat-renewable-energy

Achieving those climate goals involves a big commitment to big renewable energy projects. That entails a willingness to site them—even in spitting distance of someone's backyard. Mark Jacobson, director of Stanford University's Atmosphere/Energy Program, has attempted to quantify how many renewable energy installations the United States will actually need. He reckons 223,000 five-megawatt onshore wind turbines, 171,000 five-megawatt offshore turbines, 44,000 50-megawatt utility-scale photovoltaic (PV) systems, 77 100-megawatt geothermal plants, 137 million five-kilowatt residential rooftop PV systems, 8.7 million 100-kilowatt commercial and government rooftop PV systems, and 19 100-megawatt concentrated solar power plants.

All those turbines and solar panels (plus the requisite transmission lines) have to go somewhere. But many communities—including those full of avowed liberals and environmentalists—are working hard to make sure they go somewhere else. In Klickitat County, Washington, retirees who moved to the area for its scenic views convinced their board of commissioners to stop permitting solar farms. In 2019, California's San Bernardino County prohibited the construction of big wind and solar farms on more than a million acres of private land. The Los Angeles Times said that the ruling was "bending to the will of residents who say they don't want renewable energy projects industrializing their rural desert communities." In Coxsackie, New York, a group called Citizens for Sensible Solar organized to stop the construction of utility-scale solar plants that would "destroy the rural aesthetic of their homes.” In Culpeper, Virginia, the blocking of an 80-megawatt solar farm led to the creation of the nonprofit Citizens for Responsible Solar, which works to stop utility-scale projects nationwide. "Rural communities are under attack from big, corporate solar developers (some foreign) who want to build large-scale, industrial solar power plants on agricultural- and forestry-zoned land to take advantage of lower development costs," the group says.

In terms of organizing heft, no rural mom-and-pop NIMBY group can rival the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound, which waged a 16-year battle to kill the Cape Wind Project, a 130-turbine, 454-megawatt offshore wind farm that would have provided 75 percent of the energy for Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard, and Nantucket. The powerhouse group spanned the ideological spectrum, with support from both the Kennedy family and billionaire William Koch, and was known for burying opponents in blizzards of filings and technical arguments. The late Ted Kennedy, then a Democratic senator from Massachusetts, expressed his objection simply: "Don't you realize—it's where I sail." Koch, who donated $5 million to the cause, is a big sailor too (he won the America's Cup in 1992), but he's also in the fossil fuel business, and he's motivated by protecting his extensive real estate holdings against "visual pollution." He told The New York Times, "The ability to acquire a special property where I can create a family compound for my children and extended family was and is very meaningful to me."

The would-be developers of Cape Wind surrendered their federal lease in 2017 after a series of setbacks orchestrated in part by the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound. "We must remain vigilant to ensure long-term protection for the Sound so that it is never again threatened by industrial development," says the group on its website.

 

 

 

we're building  a huge wind farm offshore, I dont see anyone complaining about that

it's 300 miles wide

 

[LibertyBell]

15 hours ago, Typhoon Tip said:

That's related to the warmer ( pun ) truth right there ( bold ).  

Solar voltaic technologies can be advanced much further ... So too can battery tech - where so in concert with networking and load balancing, wind is still quite infantile. These are unexplored fully, and Hydro isn't even in discussion. Jesus, the oceanic tide dependability is a gravitational engine that is limitless.  In other words, their capacity has not been reached.   Not even close really. 

But, the truth is, they don't want to be reached - that's the elephant in every debate hall, water cooler discussion, or social media platform there is. Opposition has vested interests that rely upon traditional modes, and thus really it's a form of "protectionism" - in a more open definition of what the word really means. Instead of tariffs and/or limitations on trade to protect internal economic interests, in this sense they are limiting "trades of information" in order to protect their own internal economic interests...  Anyway, it is also a typical strategy to masquerade as prophet of infeasibility and hardship - one is not true, the latter is tough shit, you don't have any choice.

They lose me at economic hardship arguments. Simple reason: There is no economics in a future where they don't exist, and climate holocaust means that.  They are simply not connecting with that reality.  They may as well just cut out the smoke-screening of their rationale and just admit, they don't see climate change as a legit threat.

Many of these fields of research ( or where implement into physical use) are still primitive compared to how far they can be advanced.  Relying on the right-now scalar capacity to foot their arguments is wantonly short-sighted. 

they cant claim economic hardship because renewables are price competitive with fossil fuels and dont kill you or destroy the planet

 

[LibertyBell]

16 hours ago, skierinvermont said:

Yes these considerations are all factored into the levelized cost of electricity. It's why power companies, in the free market, choose wind and solar more than any other type of new generation source today. If you're a power company trying to make money, wind and solar are already your top choice. We should be nudging them in the right direction to speed up the process and the reconciliation bill does exactly that.

it did until Munchkin got ahold of it.

 

[LibertyBell]

16 hours ago, etudiant said:

Not sure that name plate power rating gives a full story. Nuclear is pretty much what it says on the tin, apart from re-fueling breaks. 

Solar at peak should be derated by about a factor of 4 to 6 to account for the night time outage and the less than full sun seasonal and daytime intervals.

Wind is similarly intermittent, except that too strong also halts the turbines, so at least similar derating as solar.

In theory, those issues can be solved by very dispersed siting and massive interconnects, but those discussions are nowhere near the needed depth, much less close to getting political support.

 

there is such a thing as storage of energy you know? we can store solar and wind energy in chemical batteries to use later

 

[LibertyBell]

Meanwhile China is having problems with coal (GOOD)

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/china-coals-last-hurrah-comes-too-late-old-mining-towns-2021-11-11/

 

Back in 2019, government researchers were already debating whether production should be expanded and more coal power plants built in order to alleviate potential shortages over 2021-2025.

But experts say this year's shortages prove China needs to accelerate its transition to renewables, and speed up reforms to allow electricity users to switch more easily to cleaner power sources and end their dependence on coal.

"I'm puzzled as to why there is not a campaign-style push to ramp up renewable energy like we have seen with coal," said Alex Wang, co-director at UCLA's Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.

"Coal reliance makes China vulnerable," he added. "It's an energy security problem."

[LibertyBell]

16 minutes ago, bluewave said:

Local residents have been trying to block the one off the Hamptons for years now. The larger one further west is still in the early review stages. But the commercial fishing interests have come out against it.

https://www.easthamptonstar.com/government/2021422/no-wind-farms-fairways

Two areas off the South Shore of Long Island that had been identified as potential federal lease areas for development of offshore wind will not be considered for leases, an official of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management said last week. 

The announcement came on April 14, during a BOEM-hosted virtual meeting of the Intergovernmental Renewable Energy Task Forces, comprising representatives from 14 coastal states, local governments, tribes, and federal agencies. A second meeting was held on Friday.

The areas in the New York Bight known as Fairways North and Fairways South, respectively 88,246 and 23,841 acres, "will not be considered for leases," said Luke Feinberg, a BOEM project coordinator. The Bight is in the waters between Long Island and the New Jersey coast.

 

https://www.liherald.com/stories/feds-to-begin-review-of-wind-farm-off-long-beach,133115?

 

 

Why dont fishermen and locals try to block the oil leases given out in the Gulf of Mexico which clearly cause much more harm and there was a leak from Hurricane Ivan in 2004 that still hasn't been cleaned up, 17 years later!

 

[LibertyBell]

17 minutes ago, bluewave said:

Local residents have been trying to block the one off the Hamptons for years now. The larger one further west is still in the early review stages. But the commercial fishing interests have come out against it.

https://www.easthamptonstar.com/government/2021422/no-wind-farms-fairways

Two areas off the South Shore of Long Island that had been identified as potential federal lease areas for development of offshore wind will not be considered for leases, an official of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management said last week. 

The announcement came on April 14, during a BOEM-hosted virtual meeting of the Intergovernmental Renewable Energy Task Forces, comprising representatives from 14 coastal states, local governments, tribes, and federal agencies. A second meeting was held on Friday.

The areas in the New York Bight known as Fairways North and Fairways South, respectively 88,246 and 23,841 acres, "will not be considered for leases," said Luke Feinberg, a BOEM project coordinator. The Bight is in the waters between Long Island and the New Jersey coast.

 

https://www.liherald.com/stories/feds-to-begin-review-of-wind-farm-off-long-beach,133115?

 

 

Do you have info on the New Jersey ones, because I thought that project had already started?

 

[LibertyBell]

1 minute ago, bluewave said:

Same story….

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-07-22/n-j-amps-up-wind-fight-overriding-beach-towns-balking-at-farms

Offshore wind farm developers are finding one more thing in common with the fossil fuel industry: community backlash on both sides of the Atlantic.

Much like the resistance to fracking in parts of the U.S. and the U.K., oceanfront towns have fought against power lines running ashore from wind farms, even as the massive turbines themselves are mostly out of sight. 

 

Except there are really good reasons to reject fracking.  In eastern PA, where my other house is, fracking is banned there too.  It causes noise and light pollution, pollutes the water and reduces property values, not to mention the methane release it causes and the risk of earthquakes resulting from wastewater injection.  It's banned in the entire Delaware Valley region too.  But being worried about wind turbines makes zero sense when they are offshore, they cause none of those issues and might even weaken hurricanes as they approach......thats a win/win to me.

 

[LibertyBell]

Wow these guys are like the antivaxxers.....

 

The slow death of Cape Wind, a wind farm planned for five miles off Cape Cod that drew the ire of the Kennedy and Koch families, taught wind developers that projects needed to be much farther offshore to avoid local opposition. But recent fights from New York to Norfolk show that even out-of-sight turbines can rouse local residents against a project.

“It overrides any ability we have to protect our property,” said Michael DeVlieger, another Ocean City councilman. He said his constituents are worried about the disruption to their town, the potential use of eminent domain and even whether the power lines could affect their health. “I’ve got a guy with a pacemaker on 34th street who’s scared to death they’re going to put this thing in.”

[LibertyBell]

So in NJ the governor is going to override locals and put them there anyway.....maybe that sets a precedent?

Also, in the article they mentioned the Koch family....what are the Koch people doing on Cape Cod? They need to stay in flyover country, where they belong.