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ridethetalk at 12:57 PM on 4 January 2013Putting an End to the Myth that Renewable Energy is too Expensive
Manwichstick, I think you hit the mark with the requirement for a well connected grid being the missing piece in the renewables puzzle. In a geographically diverse renewable generation scenario, fluctuations in sun/wind tend to even out. Pumped hydro storage also helps but, unless this can be done easily using seawater, this is unlikely to be useful in Australia. (On this note, Carnegie Wave Energy are using seawater to generate electricity/produce de-salinated water so this may not be too far-fetched.) As far as liquid fuels are concerned, I am keeping a finger on the pulse of algal fuels. I believe these present great possibilities for future fuel uses and, indeed for carbon sequestration. (Could we produce excess fuel and pump it back down into old oil wells?) Sequestering a liquid is a whole lot easier than a gas. -
Manwichstick at 12:14 PM on 4 January 2013Putting an End to the Myth that Renewable Energy is too Expensive
RE: KR @20,Dana @21,KR @22 "it has been shown that distributed renewable systems provide a steady baseline power supply - Archer and Jacobson 2007" I still see renewables appearing to be costly (short-term) on account of our desparate need for more electricity infrastructure - particularly east/west connectivity. North America is pretty North/South and we require a grid that is actually more "grid like" in that hydro in the rockies, can be connected to wind in the mid-plains and then connect to the needs in the east. Wind should be paired with hydro (wherever possible) since turbines spun by falling water are relatively easy to turn off/on. Nuclear has a place (I suspect deep in the base of the baseload) since it is difficult to turn off and on. Renewables would be so much more effective in a better grid. And once they are up and running they are the energy gift that keeps on giving. Besides maintainence, their benefit continues on into the future. -
George Montgomery at 11:18 AM on 4 January 2013Frequently Asked Questions About Ocean Acidification
The silliest comment I've seen on the denial of ocean acidification finished with "I'll let you work out just what percentage of the ocean waters mankind's tonnage of CO2 emissions amount to." No dissociation equation, no equilibrium reaction, no pH calculation, no idea. -
littlerobbergirl at 09:56 AM on 4 January 2013Putting an End to the Myth that Renewable Energy is too Expensive
Phil, Andy, dana, thanks. Hawaii seems to be going balls out for renewables - geothermal, wind, wave, and the sea pipe things for air conditioning. Makes sense if they have to import oil, but a special case as any alt. tech. is going to be cheaper! Worth watching how they get on. As for Maine burning their wood waste, good! But i cant help thinking we'll have rather more dead stuff to pyrolise (sp?) in next few years than we would like - pine bark beetles, sudden oak death, chestnut canker and ash dieback are just the start :( -
Rob Honeycutt at 09:53 AM on 4 January 2013Frequently Asked Questions About Ocean Acidification
Hey Rob... Can you give us an idea of the size of that tattered little critter? -
Tom Curtis at 09:08 AM on 4 January 2013The Dirt on Climate
littlerobbergirl @3, the diagram is the glacial and sea ice extent at the time of maximum extent of both, and is only to illustrate the lack of glaciation in longitudes close to the Chinese Loess plateau. At the onset of the last glacial, Antarctic sea ice would have been comparable to current levels, and probably not capable of driving the onset of glaciation in either hemisphere. -
LarryM at 07:57 AM on 4 January 2013Putting an End to the Myth that Renewable Energy is too Expensive
Thanks, Dana, for this update on the ever-increasing market competitiveness of renewable energy, when all costs and subsidies are considered. Thanks also for pointing out that ALEC - the unholy alliance between corporations and elected leaders - has added the decimation of state renewable energy standards to its agenda. It is extremely irritating when a cabal of plutocrats uses money and influence to overrule the people of my state (Colorado) who voted to have a renewable energy standard. We're second only to CA, with a requirement for 30% of electricity from renewables by 2020. Thankfully the Wind Production Tax Credit (PTC) of 2.2 cents/kWh was renewed along with the "fiscal cliff" bill, although the extension is only for one year. Too late for many Colorado jobs already lost to Congress' dysfunctionality, but something is better than nothing I suppose. Why are direct fossil fuel subsidies permanent and automatic, rather than subject to renewal every year or two like renewables? One difficulty to overcome in reaching a clean energy future is the seeming enormity of the task of getting from here to there without great disruption and cost. There are some very well thought out and modeled solutions out there, and I'll mention two. One is a recent study by NREL, and the other is a project called Reinventing Fire by energy and energy economics expert Amory Lovins and his crew at the Rocky Mountain Institute (buy the book here...it's a good read, and hopeful). One thing I like about Lovins' approach is that consideration of climate change is unnecessary, as the transition is led by the private sector because it's the more profitable approach (opposite of the Heartland mythology). -
Composer99 at 07:15 AM on 4 January 2013Putting an End to the Myth that Renewable Energy is too Expensive
CBDunkerson: Thanks for clearing up your point; I think you have addressed my concern save one minor misunderstanding:I think you are saying that less CO2 emissions would lower the amount of carbon in the atmosphere and thus result in more net outgassing from the oceans to maintain equilibrium...
I do not think I was making an argument from equilibrium. My understanding may be (and probably is) off, but the impression I have is that normally, ocean warming leads to CO2 outgassing by the oceans into the atmosphere, and vice-versa. However, because of the source of the current build-up of atmospheric CO2 (human emisssions), due to the difference in partial pressures of CO2, the oceans are taking it up instead, despite their warming. Hence my inference that reducing human emissions would allow ocean outgassing of excess CO2 when the partial pressure difference is altered. I gather that I have made a mistake in there somewhere, but I do not think it has anything to do with equilibrium CO2 concentrations.Moderator Response: [DB] Dr. H. Franzen discusses that very thing in the comments thread of his Seawater Equilibria guest post, starting about here. -
John Russell at 07:07 AM on 4 January 2013Food Security: the first big hit from Climate Change will be to our pockets
'Been thinking about my plans for this coming year, influenced by this thread. On a gently-sloping hillside below the level of a pond I'll raise the soil level of a rectangle of land, incorporating the 20 tonnes of horse manure that I've just taken delivery of from a friend who keeps horses. On this rectangle I intend to erect polytunnels, and round the outside of it I'll dig a metre-wide ditch leading off to a nearby drainage channel to take away any excess water. That should allow me to control the water level in the soil within the poly tunnel; and the pond will provide a gravity-fed source of water in case of drought. Deer are a major problem round here (SW UK) so surrounding all this will be 6-foot deer fence with rabbit netting round the bottom three fee, pegged out to stop burrowing-under. Around the West, East and North will be planted a belt of alders to act as a wind break. I'll report back at some point how I get on. -
Uncle Pete at 05:48 AM on 4 January 2013Putting an End to the Myth that Renewable Energy is too Expensive
I propose an "all of the above" approach , and allow the market to decide . -
william5331 at 05:07 AM on 4 January 2013Putting an End to the Myth that Renewable Energy is too Expensive
The problems associated with the on-off nature of renewables are highly overhyped. http://mtkass.blogspot.co.nz/2011/02/wind-energys-no-good.html -
dana1981 at 03:44 AM on 4 January 2013Putting an End to the Myth that Renewable Energy is too Expensive
Whoops yeah, I should have linked to the advanced version. -
Putting an End to the Myth that Renewable Energy is too Expensive
dana1981 - Ah, yes, the Advanced version of the blog post addresses intermittent supply via geographic distribution and linked systems. I had been looking at the Intermediate version, which does not - just energy storage techniques. -
dana1981 at 02:46 AM on 4 January 2013Putting an End to the Myth that Renewable Energy is too Expensive
KR @21 - my link to the renewable baseload rebuttal @20 addresses the distributed renewable baseload point :-) That's one of the ways renewables can meet baseload demand, in addition to geothermal, and sources with storage like solar thermal. -
Putting an End to the Myth that Renewable Energy is too Expensive
In addition to dana1981's points, it has been shown that distributed renewable systems provide a steady baseline power supply - Archer and Jacobson 2007 show that just 19 wind sites in the southwest US (no solar in that investigation, which would increase availability due to different time patterns) gives at least 1/3 of the average power at current baseline dependability/consistency rates, while minimizing distribution costs. This percentage would only go up with larger distribution areas - individual sites have high variability, but weather is local, and when one site is calm others are windy. Back on topic - wind power is growing at 20% a year globally, solar power (photovoltaic) installations are doubling every two years. That wouldn't be happening if these weren't economically attractive, no matter what subsidies were given. ALEC and similar groups are arguing against reality. -
dana1981 at 02:19 AM on 4 January 2013Putting an End to the Myth that Renewable Energy is too Expensive
I think chriskoz @5 and Andy @12 are making a somewhat similar argument - that just because average electricity prices haven't increased at current relatively low levels of renewable penetration, that doesn't mean they won't rise when renewables reach a higher share and have to replace some baseload power, for example. That's a valid point. This post is specifically in response to Heartland/ALEC arguing that renewables are already too expensive, which is clearly false. Most states are still just aiming for ~25% renewables in the next decade or two, and I think the evidence shows that won't have much if any impact on electricity prices. That being said, the hidden costs of fossil fuels are so large that replacing them with renewables will still almost certainly save money in the grand scheme of things, even if prices rise as renewables meet a higher percentage of demand. It's also worth noting that there are several ways renewables can produce baseload electricity. LRG @9 - Phil and Andy are correct that Hawaii is the expensive outlier, and Maine is the high renewable production outlier due mainly to burning wood waste. -
CBDunkerson at 02:17 AM on 4 January 2013Putting an End to the Myth that Renewable Energy is too Expensive
Composer99, there are actually a lot of factors involved... but my simple estimate should be in the ballpark. I think you are saying that less CO2 emissions would lower the amount of carbon in the atmosphere and thus result in more net outgassing from the oceans to maintain equilibrium... That would be true if the oceans were uniformly saturated with carbon, but they aren't. If the oceans were well mixed then the amount of carbon we have released to date would have had no discernible impact on global climate. Indeed, the vast amount of carbon the oceans can absorb was one of the initial and strongest arguments against AGW. It turned out to be incorrect only because of the rate at which we are putting carbon into the atmosphere... we are churning it out so quickly that the surface of the oceans is becoming saturated and allowing a backlog to accumulate in the atmosphere. If we were emitting at a lower rate (say 50% of current) the ocean surface would not be as saturated with carbon and thus actually able to absorb more for a given atmospheric ppm level. That said... I'm not arguing that our goal should be to hold steady at ~400 ppm by reducing CO2 emissions 50%. We should be looking to reduce the atmospheric CO2 level back to 350 ppm or less. However, that should be possible while continuing to use fossil fuels for a few niche applications... provided we deal with the two biggest culprits; baseload electrical generation and transportation. -
JasonB at 01:40 AM on 4 January 2013Putting an End to the Myth that Renewable Energy is too Expensive
OPatrick, I can't speak for the other commenters but in my case at least my ambivalence probably derives from knowing too much about nuclear. :-) It is something I have spent a lot of time researching and looking at from lots of different angles, from mining and resource availability through to costs, safety, risks, and flexibility. The reason I'm not strongly against it in spite of all that is because I think we need to actively pursue all options if we're going to achieve major reductions and it can play a role. I just don't think it's ever going to be the magic bullet or even a major player for many reasons, so I don't like it sucking oxygen away from investment in renewables. -
Composer99 at 01:14 AM on 4 January 2013Putting an End to the Myth that Renewable Energy is too Expensive
CBDunkerson:Logically, there is some point between our current level of fossil fuel use and zero fossil fuel use at which our emissions would not cause atmospheric CO2 levels to increase. Given that roughly half the carbon we emit currently accumulates in the atmosphere each year that level would seem to be at about 50% of current emissions.
Unless I am mistaken, it is my understanding that, all other things being equal, warming oceans tend to outgas CO2 (oceans being, as far as I am aware, the source of the CO2 feedback to warming orbital forcings). This is currently not the case due to anthropogenic emissions which are causing oceanic absorption of CO2 due to the pressure differentials (again, as far as I understand it). As such, as human emissions draw down I would expect we would see increased CO2 outgassing from the oceans, which would keep heightened atmospheric CO2 stable (or at least slow down its decrease). So I am not certain it is correct to say we can just cut our emissions by half and atmospheric CO2 will simply stop rising. -
OPatrick at 23:43 PM on 3 January 2013Putting an End to the Myth that Renewable Energy is too Expensive
It's refreshing to see such a thoughtful set of informative comments (and, of course, a thoughtful and informative article). There seems to be a consensus building on Skeptical Science, at least towards nuclear, to the effect that we don't really know where we stand because we can't find enough information we trust on it. Is there a case therefore for expanding this and related articles into a cohesive analysis of renewable and other alternative energy? Perhaps a sister site, Sceptical Energy? I'd like to see someone, or a group of someones, with a proven level of expertise but no vested interests other than wanting a sustainable environment to live in looking in to these issues on my behalf.... -
michael sweet at 23:28 PM on 3 January 2013Putting an End to the Myth that Renewable Energy is too Expensive
Concerning baseload power: currently power companies subsidize use of power at night with low rates because coal and nuclear power are inflexible and cannot be ramped down. Solar produces power at peak usage times so these subsidies are not needed. Perhaps industry will adapt to renewables by using energy storage as they do today with inefficient coal generators. Nuclear seems uneconomic to me. Here in Florida customers have paid $1.5 billion for planning on a plant that will never be built. Currently there are at least two nuclear power plants permanently off line (Crystal River in Florida and San Onofre in California) due to long term maintenance issues. Any solution must be good for the entire world. Do we really want North Korea to get its power from Nuclear plants? Would you feel safe about the maintenance of nuclear power plants in Nigeria? I feel good about solar in Nigeria and wind in Korea. -
CBDunkerson at 23:05 PM on 3 January 2013Putting an End to the Myth that Renewable Energy is too Expensive
Doug H, you cite a few examples where carbon fuels might always be required (e.g. broadacre farming & load balancing) and then say that in a "low-carbon economy" these things would have to cease to exist. That isn't accurate. What you are describing is a no carbon economy. Logically, there is some point between our current level of fossil fuel use and zero fossil fuel use at which our emissions would not cause atmospheric CO2 levels to increase. Given that roughly half the carbon we emit currently accumulates in the atmosphere each year that level would seem to be at about 50% of current emissions. Even if we continued burning carbon for broadacre farming, commercial air travel, some military applications, grid load balancing, et cetera... the level of CO2 emissions from such would be far below 50% of current. The majority of our CO2 emissions (~75%) come from baseload power generation and general transportation. Convert those two things over to non-carbon electrical sources and we'd be fine. At that, there are existing or potential solutions to all of the 'no carbon exceptions'. Load balancing with fossil fuels would not be needed if we built a global electrical grid (there is always Sun and Wind somewhere on the planet), included sufficient electrical storage to smooth over fluctuations, or some combination of the two. A heavy tractor could potentially be beamed power from a nearby transmitter... allowing it to drop the weight of the huge engine and fuel tank (helping to offset power lost in transmission). There was a recent successful test of similar power beaming to a UAV in flight. Whether that could be scaled up to a full sized passenger jet is uncertain, but ultra-thin solar may also eventually be sufficient to keep planes in the air if they don't need to haul tons of fuel along. Et cetera. The point is that there already are or some day will be solutions to many of the 'continuing carbon' issues... but even if there weren't, we only need to tackle baseload power and transportation to end AGW. We could continue using carbon fuels for everything else and the planet would still be on the road to recovery. No new technologies are needed to solve the problem. We could do so today... and doing so would be less expensive than continuing with fossil fuels in the long run. -
CBDunkerson at 22:31 PM on 3 January 2013The Dirt on Climate
littlerobbergirl, the big difference between land ice and sea ice is that the land ice can build up to such a thickness that it remains present all year. The large SH sea ice extent shown on the image above is presumably an estimate of the winter maximum... but little to no sunlight hits the south pole during winter and thus the shift in albedo from snow on the ice would have little impact. That ice and snow would need to remain through the summer to match the effect of land ice/snow in the NH. To paraphrase the old saw about trees falling with no one to hear, if snow falls in the dark does it cause an albedo shift? -
Paul D at 20:37 PM on 3 January 2013Putting an End to the Myth that Renewable Energy is too Expensive
In the UK there is an ex-nuclear energy scientist that actively helps anti-wind farm groups. I think he also joined or has been associated with a climate skeptic group. I think climate change skeptics/deniers will align themselves with anything that has a potential to undermine any policy to deploy technology that is strongly linked to climate change policies. Nuclear energy is associated with existing energy provision and historical economic activity, so in many respects it is aligned with established norms. Renewable energy is associated with variability and a potential change in the way we use energy, that equates to uncertainty and change. A point I would make is that these struggles are similar to those throughout history. There were tremendous battles to adopt different standards and technology in electricity distribution. What we have today is established, only because of tremendous and very public fights over the use of DC or AC electrical systems and other issues. So the idea that established systems are going to continue into the future is basically a political lie and ignores the massive creative and extensive work that was required to establish what we have. This implies change will continue and the establishment of energy storage and renewables will continue into the future. Those changes will become established and will become the norm. -
Andy Skuce at 20:35 PM on 3 January 2013Putting an End to the Myth that Renewable Energy is too Expensive
littlerobbergirl @9: I believe that the high renewables state is Maine, which generates some of its electricity from woodwaste. It is probably not realistic for other states to adopt this kind of renewable energy at that level. My main problem with this analysis is that electricity price variations are dominated by the fluctuating costs of the large share of non-renewable sources and the changing mix, in different states, between coal, gas and nuclear energy. There are also many regulatory price controls. I don't think that we can assume that because we have not been able to measure an increase in costs when the proportion of renewables is generally less than 15% that this means that there won't be an increase when the proportion rises to greater than 50%--and we need to get to 100% within decades. Certainly, pricing externalities properly for coal and gas is going to raise consumer prices. Higher electricity costs seem inevitable to me, we have been free-riding and passing on costs to future generations for too long. -
Phil at 20:27 PM on 3 January 2013Putting an End to the Myth that Renewable Energy is too Expensive
littlerobbergirl @9 I would suspect that the high cost outlier is Hawaii, reflecting the high transportation costs of fossil fuels. -
JasonB at 20:24 PM on 3 January 2013Putting an End to the Myth that Renewable Energy is too Expensive
Doug H, I'm not so pessimistic about our chances of being able to maintain close to our current standards while also raising the rest of the world to something similar for a few reasons, which I'll have to expound on somewhat briefly due to time constraints: 1. We are currently very wasteful with energy, precisely because it is so cheap. There is plenty of scope for improvement that actually has negative cost. 2. People make a big deal about the cost of renewable electricity and the cost of deploying infrastructure but fail to keep things in perspective. The current generating cost of electricity from coal in my state is only about 1/4 of the retail price; the rest is transmission costs, retailing costs, profit margins, etc. Even if renewables were four times as expensive as coal (which they aren't) it would still only double the retail price, and the cost of electricity makes up a pretty small percentage of my overall expenditures as it is. I've been buying free-range eggs for years despite being much more expensive than cage eggs in the beginning; I'm willing to make the same sacrifice with my power.For example, broadacre farming currently relies upon powerful tractors and no replacement for internal combustion engines in such tractors has, as yet, made its presence felt.
Note that many of the largest trucks used in mining and diesel-powered trains have been "hybrids" for decades before the Prius came along — the diesel motor drives a generator that, in turn, drives electric motors that drive the wheels. Electric motors rule! There's no problem making an electric tractor (and, in fact, if it were large enough I wouldn't be surprised if it was electric, just like the trucks and the trains); the problem is energy storage. Hydrocarbons are a great way of storing energy — so great, in fact, that even when electric motors are being used, people are willing to put up with the low efficiency of the internal combustion engine driving a generator just so they can use them with an electric motor. BTW, the problem with hydrocarbons is not the fact that burning them releases CO2; the problem is that the CO2 that is released was sequestered for millions of years, so it is being added to the system. Synthetic hydrocarbons, made from CO2 freshly drawn from the atmosphere, are carbon-neutral. Synthetic hydrocarbons and alcohols are an interesting possibility that would allow us to keep much of our existing infrastructure. Batteries aren't great but they're workable; for years I've been using LiPo-powered helicopters rather than alcohol or petrol powered ones due to the benefits of electric motors in operation. I think there are plenty of reasons to be optimistic about our ability to change without great reductions in living standards if we make the change early enough for the world we are faced with to not be too different to what it is now. What I'm pessimistic about is whether we will choose to do so. -
littlerobbergirl at 19:29 PM on 3 January 2013Putting an End to the Myth that Renewable Energy is too Expensive
Im interested in those two outliers on fig 2 - the high cost one and the high renewables one do you know which states they are? Could be useful as worst and best case examples. -
littlerobbergirl at 19:10 PM on 3 January 2013The Dirt on Climate
Interesting post, nice diagrams, thanks. Interesting point Tom, but could there have been snow falling on permanent sea ice around antarctica at 65 s? Your pic shows loads of ice. -
Doug Hutcheson at 18:54 PM on 3 January 2013Putting an End to the Myth that Renewable Energy is too Expensive
JasonB @ 6, the underlying problem exercising many minds, as I see it, is how to maintain our present life-styles in a low-carbon economy. To my mind, maintaining our life-styles is incompatible with zero emissions, given the state of current technologies. In many cases, adaptation to a low-carbon economy will require us to forgo some of the things we take for granted today. For example, broadacre farming currently relies upon powerful tractors and no replacement for internal combustion engines in such tractors has, as yet, made its presence felt. Thus, broadacre farming will continue to rely on the combustion of liquid fuels: if appropriate liquid fuels cannot be sourced, broadacre farmers will adapt by going out of business. In the same vein, if low-carbon electricity generation becomes intermittent, we will be forced to adapt by not expecting 24/7 delivery of electricity to our homes and workplaces. People who depend upon 24/7 electricity to power their life support systems will adapt by dying. It may sound harsh, but it is the reality of the future we are facing. The question is: can we maintain our current life-styles in a low-carbon economy? The answer is: almost certainly, we can't. Once we accept the reality of a future less convenient than today, we can move past the stumbling block of how to feed, clothe and house 10 billion people by 2050, by realising that a low-carbon future will not be able to sustain a population that large, using presently available technology. Instead of worrying about how to take today's good life into tomorrow, we should be looking at how best to use the more limited energy sources of the future. Deploying nuclear power plants may solve the 24/7 electricity conundrum, but it will not solve the problem of the farm tractor and its ilk. -
andrewfez at 16:52 PM on 3 January 2013Food Security: the first big hit from Climate Change will be to our pockets
Thankee vroomie, villabolo, Mal, Doug, Daniel and anybody i missed for the replies. Based on your replies, it seems that places around 45 degrees latitude are going to be popular. The BBC video mentioned above that showed the forest farming sounds like a good idea; especially if you can substitute chestnuts for rice, regarding carbohydrates. I try to use nuts for breakfast/lunch a few times per week as a substitute for animal protein; I have no idea if that's sensible or not, concerning nutrient substitution. -
JasonB at 16:11 PM on 3 January 2013Putting an End to the Myth that Renewable Energy is too Expensive
Something that has occurred to me in the past is that there are countries like Australia, China, and the US, where the population centres are concentrated largely in the east and the ideal locations for solar thermal (i.e. deserts) lie to the west. The key feature of this, of course, is that peak power demand is often in the late afternoon/early evening, when the solar thermal plants a few timezones to the west will still be generating substantial output (especially with a few hours of storage). The trick is to get that power to the customer. According to Wikipedia there are > 2,000 km HVDC power lines already (two 3 GW lines 2,500 km long are under construction in Brazil); that's more than enough to connect Sydney and Melbourne to some very sunny areas in Australia. :-) -
JasonB at 16:00 PM on 3 January 2013Putting an End to the Myth that Renewable Energy is too Expensive
Doug H, like you, I am fairly ambivalent on nuclear power, neither strongly in favour nor against. What annoys me, however, is the way the nuclear energy proponents misrepresent both nuclear and renewables. For an example of the former, note that they base costs on projected costs [*] of new conventional plants, but base benefits on hypothetical future fast breeders and thorium reactors, which are still a long way off commercial use and have highly uncertain costs. ([*] Never actual costs, of course, because every instance of massive over-runs so far is either a one-off that will never happen again, or the fault of overly burdensome regulations caused by irrational hysteria...) For an example of the latter, there is the land area required (as if that in and of itself is an issue — ignoring the fact that wind turbines can co-exist with other land uses, rooftop solar doesn't require any extra land, and large scale solar thermal is best placed in very low-value land areas), the material required (one popular Australian pro-nuclear site worked out how much steel and concrete was required and then essentially said "Look how much that is, QED" without mentioning that both represented just a few percent of global production capacity), and the intermittency. There is no doubt that large-scale penetration of unreliable power sources creates new challenges to be overcome; however the perfect is often the enemy of the good, and we can scale up penetration quite a long way before it becomes a big issue, all the while gaining the benefits of averted CO2 emissions. If we are expected to believe that all the historical problems with nuclear will be solved if only we start working on them now, then surely the same applies to engineering our grids to work effectively with high penetrations of renewables? The other thing they often overlook is the discrepancy between nuclear supply curves (or, more accurately, flat lines) and demand curves that dramatically reduces the attractiveness at high penetrations; that discrepancy needs to be resolved somehow — historically, using pumped hydro, or through large scale grid interconnects in the case of France — and many of the energy storage solutions that solve the problem for nuclear would also work for intermittent renewables. In the meantime, we have studies from Germany that showed how wind power actually lowered electricity costs (and, interestingly, that anti-wind article at The Conversation even said "Large volumes of wind generation entry have also contributed to a substantial lowering of the South Australian wholesale spot price" but thought it was a bad thing) and a study from California I posted about here before that showed how rooftop solar combined with solar thermal can dramatically increase wind penetration due to the complementary supply curves combined with the flexible output characteristics of solar thermal plants vs coal and nuclear. My view is that we should build wind and solar as fast as we can and let nuclear see if half a century of massive subsidies has managed to make it economically viable on its own yet. By all means subsidise wind and solar to the same degree that nuclear power has enjoyed over the years if you wish to level the playing field. :-) -
chriskoz at 15:59 PM on 3 January 2013Putting an End to the Myth that Renewable Energy is too Expensive
Your cost analysis, Dana, is simplified by the fact that you provide the average costs only. As a side note, I don't knoiw if your actual $ are wholesale or consumer prices. If consumer, then they seem quite cheap, at least comparing to the prices in most AUS states, where I live. The actual cost of electricity producton may vary wildly. The baseload is reliable and cheap. Peak time may be several times more expensive. We know that the technical problem with renewables is ake the as reliable to compete with baseload coal, which is reliable because the techology is well established (100y old) and very cheap because the various externalities including climate change are excluded. I'd like to see some more detailed analysis how renewables compete with baseload coal in both price and reliability. Perhaps solar (either theral or PV) could ultimately become our baseload power if we argree the grids become international (the "daylight" states selling power to "nighttime" states) but I guess that last condition is just in my dreams: I don't even know the feasibility of the power transport over such big distances in the first place. -
Doug Hutcheson at 15:13 PM on 3 January 2013Putting an End to the Myth that Renewable Energy is too Expensive
dana1981 @ 3, to my mind, we should use whatever safe technology we have available, as the cost of not replacing fossil fuels is far more important to our collective futures than the cost efficiency of any one technology. If someone could come up with a demonstrably safe design for nuclear generation, I would be happy to include it in our future energy mix. That is my 'all the above, excluding fossil carbon' approach to future electricity generation. Delay is our worst enemy. -
dana1981 at 14:59 PM on 3 January 2013Putting an End to the Myth that Renewable Energy is too Expensive
GillianB @2 - I added the suggested text. Doug H @1 - at the risk of turning the comment thread into a nuclear power discussion (which I hope doesn't happen, but tends to occur), it's a bit ironic for nuclear power backers to criticize the cost of renewable power, because new nuclear projects always run way over budget and schedule, and often default on their loans at taxpayer expense. I'd support nuclear power if it could be cost-effective, but right now that's not the case. And an individual nuclear plant is so expensive that you have to put a lot of eggs in that high-risk basket. Renewables are a much safer bet. -
GillianB at 12:47 PM on 3 January 2013Putting an End to the Myth that Renewable Energy is too Expensive
Thanks for this excellent summary of key facts. As ALEC is very active at the state level as well as the national level, I suggest a minor edit to the sentence "..and then pass it along to legislators who will introduce and attempt to implement their bills in US Congress" to include State Legislatures as well as US Congress. Cheers... -
Doug Hutcheson at 12:23 PM on 3 January 2013Putting an End to the Myth that Renewable Energy is too Expensive
I have been following an at times vitriolic comment thread at The Conversation, on the topic Wind is no answer if it leads to higher emissions. The premise of the article is that wind generation is intermittent and requires fossil-fuelled backup generation capacity. To my surprise, almost none of the comments attacks the fundamental idea that CO2 emissions are a bad thing. The interesting argument on the comment thread is between pro- and anti-nuclear proponents, with the pro-nuke crowd claiming that renewables are too expensive and their intermittencies create costly engineering problems for the distribution network, so the logical thing is to start a crash programme of building nuclear generators, instead of spending resources on wind, solar, tide etc. capacity. Sadly, by strenuously opposing renewables, the pro-nuke crowd are playing into the hands of the do-nothing, BAU, burn-baby-burn crowd. I'm not sure where I stand regarding nuclear generators. On the one hand, I see the dangers of catastrophic failures, such as happened at Chernobyl and Fukashima. On the other hand, I know that great strides have been made in engineering and safety aspects, as well as the ability of newer designs being able to use spent fuel from earlier designs currently in operation, thus eliminating the dangerous waste products of existing nuclear plants. On balance, I am sceptical of the ability of humanity to rush the building of new nuclear plants, while maintaining the highest standards of safety, so I am uncomfortable with the prospect of rapid deployment. This caution, however, does nothing to solve the problem of renewables having intermittent generation capability. -
dana1981 at 11:47 AM on 3 January 2013Contrary to Contrarian Claims, IPCC Temperature Projections Have Been Exceptionally Accurate
peggy @30 - all projections are based on a certain GHG emissions scenario. In Figure 12 they used the IPCC FAR 'business as usual' scenario discussed towards the top of the post. -
Doug Hutcheson at 11:28 AM on 3 January 2013It hasn't warmed since 1998
Simon @ 243, Bob Carter's Gish Gallop is still worth reading, as an example of faulty reasoning by someone who should know better. His opposition to AGW seems rooted in his politics, rather than in his superior understanding of the evidence. No doubt, this polarised view is being passed on to his students. Sad to see. -
curiousd at 10:50 AM on 3 January 2013Contrary to Contrarian Claims, IPCC Temperature Projections Have Been Exceptionally Accurate
In regards to my comment 29 above, despite John Cook's valient efforts to help me out in cyberspace, my graph still did not plot! This is a polite website but perhaps an "Oh Piffle!" is o.k. However, I was able to post my plot onto http://tinypic.com/r/29faz45/6 -
peggy at 10:46 AM on 3 January 2013Contrary to Contrarian Claims, IPCC Temperature Projections Have Been Exceptionally Accurate
A simple question on the IPCC predictions, in fig.12 for example- do they hold GHG constant or do they also include a social policy prediction? If so, what CO2 level are they designed around? No doubt the answer is in the references, but such critical information should be presented with the predictions. I speak as a casual reader with a PhD in biology. -
curiousd at 10:37 AM on 3 January 2013Contrary to Contrarian Claims, IPCC Temperature Projections Have Been Exceptionally Accurate
In regard to above comments about multiple data sets, perhaps a clearer case can be made to help prove the point by indeed combining many data sets extending over a long time period but then linearizing the expected relationship between CO2 and temperature by plotting aveage temp anomaly versus log base 2 ( Concentration CO2 by year / Concentration CO2 in 1850). I have used the averaged temp anomaly since 1850 in the SKS temperature trend calculator to do this, including CO2 from Law Dome data plus Keeling. Then I performed this linearization. Here is the result:
The statistical analysis of my data processing program shows that an uncorrelated relationship between these variables has a probability of less than 1 in 10,000. The R value is strong at 0.91
Moderator Response: [DB] Fixed image. -
Tom Curtis at 07:45 AM on 3 January 2013The Dirt on Climate
To raise the obvious point, glacials (by current understanding) commence when weak Northern Hemisphere summer insolation fails to melt the winter snows, thus leaving high albedo snow cover throughout the summer. That snow cover then accumulates to form ice sheets; but it is the high albedo during the period of maximum NH insolation that reduced global temperatures. The mechanism does not work in the SH for the simple reason that, in the relevant latitude, snow in the SH falls into the ocean where it simply melts. As a result, NH, not SH insolation drives the transitions between glacial and interglacial - a point acknowledged by Hao et al by their use of June insolation at 65 degrees North to indicate the likely onset and termination of glacials (figure 3). Prima facie, this mechanism is inconsistent with an increase of Antarctic glaciation preceding an increase in NH glaciation. Given that ice sheet extent in Asia was very limited due to arid conditions (see diagram below), it seems far more probable that delay in onset of winter monsoon dominance is a regional effect rather than a hemispheric effect, ie, that it is not indicative of the timing of NH glaciation.
Of course, there may be some odd effect here picked up by the climate models and loess, but we need significantly more detail to assess it.
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Andy Skuce at 03:16 AM on 3 January 2013The Dirt on Climate
Thanks for this informative post, jg. And great diagrams, too! -
Simon8049 at 22:33 PM on 2 January 2013It hasn't warmed since 1998
The link to Bob Carter's Telegraph article no longer works. It has moved to: There IS a problem with global warming... it stopped in 1998 -
JasonB at 15:49 PM on 2 January 2013Arctic Sea Ice Extent: We're gonna need a bigger graph
This has always struck me as a bizarre complaint. Spend any time on WUWT and you'll see numerous posts positively dripping with hatred towards those who dare try to present data in a graph with a scale they disapprove of. Isn't that why the values are shown on the axes? Even Excel, the fake sceptics' statistical analysis tool of choice, defaults to automatically adjusting the axes values to best fit the data when you use it to create a graph. And why stop with the Y axis? Surely the X axis should start at "0", too? Let's see, instrumental record ~150 years, X axis scale ~14 billion years, you'd need a sheet of paper 4 km long to have the entire instrumental record represented by a single pixel at 600 dpi on that graph. :-) -
Bernard J. at 15:15 PM on 2 January 2013It hasn't warmed since 1998
DB at #238. Thanks for the tweak. I'm not sure what the issue is with my addie - I tried mailing it from my institutional address, and there was no problem. I shall have to remain intrigued, and wondering... ;-) -
Bernard J. at 15:12 PM on 2 January 2013Food Security: the first big hit from Climate Change will be to our pockets
That's torn it Daniel - there'll be a rush on now. You might want to ask the moderators to deleted the pot! ;-) -
villabolo at 13:23 PM on 2 January 2013Food Security: the first big hit from Climate Change will be to our pockets
@35, Thanks for the link Daniel.
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