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Comments 10901 to 10950:
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Matt at 19:34 PM on 22 April 2019Sea level rise is exaggerated
Despite glacial retreat, shrinking polar ice caps and warming oceans, measured sea level rise is merely incremental. The eplanations of rising land masses now unburdened by the weight of melted ice, and other theories leave me skeptical. I would have imagined that Atmospheric Moisture Increase in a warmer atmosphere may possibly account for some of the extra water, but cannot find any documentation of a correlation. Is AMI a possible explanation for the merely small levels of sea rise?
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Riduna at 16:37 PM on 22 April 2019The Future for Australian Coal
Australia has great potential for hydrogen production through electrolysis of water using electricity generated from renewable energy. In fact hydrogen produced in this way has already been exported to Japan and indicates growth of a whole new export industry.
Apart from use in fuel cells to drive emissions free electric cars, hydrogen can be used to replace coking coal in the production of emissions-free steel. This has already been trailed in Sweden and although the steel produced is presently more expensive than steel produced by coking coal the difference in price will reduce as the price of carbon rises.
Apparently hydrogen is used as a reduction agent in steel production, so provided the hydrogen is sourced from electrolysis of water using renewable energy, it could offer an alternative to present dependence on coking coal as a reduction agent.
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One Planet Only Forever at 13:56 PM on 22 April 20192019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #16
After giving the "How We Role" study report some additional consideration, I am not convinced of the claim by the researchers that the results of their test raises questions about 'the ability of peer penalties to effectively correct unhelpful behaviour'.
The authors claim that their observations of behaviours in their game resulted in actions that they determined indicate that “The feuding increased costs for the collective as a whole, which the authors say calls into question how effective unfettered peer punishment is in real life.” The authors offer no 'more effective alternatives for correcting the behaviour of the correction resistant free-riding selfish individuals' (see my comment @4 for an explanation of why the Individuals in the test are also Free-Riders in real life situations (no Individual is actually a Hermit in the Hills).
The test was not a good representation of a real life situation. But it does expose some things.
This type of test shows that many socioeconomic-political systems are likely developing a significant number of harmfully selfish individuals who are correction resistant, who resist becoming altruistically helpful.
It is not surprising that the observed main 'effort to correct' was directed at the Loners (note that the Loners did not appear to attempt to correct the Altruists). Unlike the ones called Free-Riders, the Loners (who are also Free-Riders in any society) had shown no interest in being a helpful part of the group. They only cared about themselves to the detriment of others. At least those referred to as Free-Riders contributed to the group effort and shared the risk of loss. If there were no Loners in a group it seems likely that there would have been corrective actions directed at the Free-riders who contributed a significantly smaller than equitable share.
And I know that JWRebel @3 is correct that in spite of the Dutch having social safety-net aspects in their society, there are many evaluations of global cultures that identify the Dutch as very significantly independent, even more independent than American culture (though admittedly 'American' is a messy broad diversity of regional cultures that is difficult to make relevant generalizations about, especially statistical generalizations like averages, means and modes).
Also, the experiment is a 'multi-party Prisoner's Dilemma resulting in an individual vs collective Dilemma'. The lack of interaction before the first round of action is (or should be) a rare situation (and makes the test not a good representation of a real life situation). It sets up an antagonistic starting point for future rounds that also have no opportunity for discussion to occur, just steps of observation and response without Trust, actually damaging to trust. Undeniably, any society will have some people who develop fiercely selfish motivations with a related lack of trust of others because many selfish people understand that they would not trust themselves to 'help others collectively, make a personal sacrifice for a common good' (and they expect Others to be like them, so they don't try to Trust Others).
Different versions of the experiment would likely produce significantly different results such as:
- If the participants were allowed to discuss the challenge and their potential actions. The only option offered in some of the 'competitions' was later stage individual attempts to penalize others at a personal cost (no discussion).
- If the participants were told that the total value of their group of 4 would be compared against all other groups of 4 to determine the 'Best Teams'. This would have dulled any culturally imprinted tendency to compete for individual status rather than collective status.
- If the participants are told in advance that as they do the steps of the game the other players will have opportunities to justifiably penalize those who have not yet contributed fairly to the communal effort (a one-way only penalizing).
A major problem with attempts to 'research basic human behaviour' is the difficulty of finding individuals who have not had their thinking significantly influenced by being raised in a competitive selfish motivating rather than cooperative altruism motivating environment (proponents of human behaviour being un-correctable basic nature are incorrect (it is correction resistant, but can be corrected), however the results of competitions for popularity and profit that are not effectively helpfully altruistically (ethically or morally) restrained and limited can make them appear to be Right).
Even less wealthy societies are rife with the potentially seriously corrupting influences of competition for perceptions of status relative to others, especially the more rapidly developing ones.
In an Opinion piece in the New York Times, “Progressive Capitalism Is Not an Oxymoron - We can save our broken economic system from itself.”, Joseph E. Stiglitz presents a claim regarding current developed results of capitalism that is related to what I am pointing out, altruistic governance and limits are required to get Good Results from the power of competition for popularity and profit.
The perceptions of status need to be corrected. The people with a proven history of helping improve awareness and understanding to develop sustainable corrections and improvements for the benefit of the future of humanity should all have the highest status. Anyone with more wealth and power but who can be shown to be less helpful should be effectively corrected to a status matching how helpful they actually are wanting to be (they can be free to decide what status they want to be at, not how they want status to be measured).
That correction could happen through Effective Corrective Peer Influence among the wealthiest and most powerful, or Effective Corrective Revolution, or it could not happen (which is the worst result for everyone, including for the selfish ones who incorrectly believe they Won Their Way - it is dangerous to allow Selfishness to significantly influence what happens).
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Jonas at 09:52 AM on 22 April 20192019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #16
Mon Apr 15, Republicans push anti-wind bills in several states as renewables grow increasingly popular
Link is wrong. It should probably be:
https://thinkprogress.org/renewables-wind-texas-north-carolina-attacks-4c09b565ae22/
Moderator Response:[JH] Thanks for catching this glitch. The correct link has been inserted into the OP.
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william5331 at 05:55 AM on 22 April 20192019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #16
Lone wolf farmers should get a copy of Montgomern's book, Growing a Revolution. They would stand out from their fellow farmers with better crops, less inputs and a better bottom line. More amazing, they would become the darlings of the local greenies.
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sebi at 03:31 AM on 22 April 2019Why is Antarctic sea ice growing?
Concerning the trends in Antarctic sea-ice extent, it is worthwile to mention that the wind is the key driver behind its seasonal and annual variability and matter more than anomalies in temperature. Local trends in Antarctic sea-ice extent are thus primarily driven by trends in near-surface wind that either act to accelerate or hamper the seasonal growth/retreat of the sea ice. Consequently, trends in the frequencies and numbers of low and high pressure system, which steer the near-surface winds, or trends in the storm-track location and intensity are of primary importance to understand why Antarctic sea-ice appears to grow/extend in some regions.
(1) Holland, P. R., & Kwok, R. (2012). Wind-driven trends in Antarctic sea ice drift. Nature Geoscience, 5, 872–875. https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo1627
(2) Holland, M. M., Landrum, L., Raphael, M., & Stammerjohn, S. (2017). Springtime winds drive Ross sea ice variability and change in the following autumn. Nature Communications, 8, 731. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-017-00820-0
(3) Holland, P. R. (2014). The seasonality of Antarctic sea ice trends. Geophysical Research Letters, 41, 4230–4237. https://doi.org/10.1002/2014GL060172
(4) Schemm, S. (2018). Regional trends in weather systems help explain Antarctic sea ice trends. Geophysical Research Letters, 45. https://doi.org/10.1029/2018GL079109
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scaddenp at 20:20 PM on 21 April 2019Should a Green New Deal include nuclear power?
I confess that I didnt look a video - life is too short for listening to spoken word - I read much faster. Furthermore video usually doesnt give you references nor citations. I am happy to look at source references used however. A solar "panel" isnt a great measure, but assuming domestic size (because I bet Shellenberger would use whatever gave him biggest no), it seems installers can frame, wire and install 20 panels in 1-2 days. Given the 174,000 currently employed in coal workforce would seem that they could manage the 1.2 million panels per day. Replacement of existing panels where framing already exists should be faster.
I actually think nuclear power may have a place - David MacKay's figures in "Sustainable Energy without the hot air" are pretty sobering for the UK - and especially the "gen iv" tech, but I am still waiting a proper (reviewed) response to Abbott and certainly not convinced that the USA needs to consider it.
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One Planet Only Forever at 14:42 PM on 21 April 20192019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #16
nigelj,
It can be argued that Lone-Wolf (individualists, fiscal conservatives) are actually Free-Riders of the worst kind.
In his book "Reasons and Persons", Derek Parfit does an excellent job of arguing that it is morally best for everyone to be Altruistically helpful to others. However, in many competitions, the few who choose to not be altruistically helpful (those Lone-Wolves) benefit from the actions of the Altruists as well as getting more advantage by not participating in the Altruistic actions.
The Lone-wolves are actually understandably worse than Free-Riders. But they will refuse to accept the arguments clearly proving it, especially if they can win the power to decide what the rules of winning are and who gets rewarded and who gets penalized.
Right now, harmful political leadership is trying to win the power to make-up rules in their favour by appealing to a diversity of incorrect pursuers of winning (like the greedy and intolerant). Those united groups are comprised of correction resistant people who can fundamentally be expected to be on the Right side of the political spectrum (those resisting change can be helpful, but in this case the harmful resisters of change are clearly acting collectively, and tragically the helpful conservatives struggle to separate from the conservative pack).
Until the United harmful Right lose that ability to win unjustified immoral power, things will only get worse. Humanity has a tragic habit of waiting too long to disappoint undeserving wealthy and powerful people. Hopefully that will not be the case this time.
Hopefully it will become common sense that the true measure of merit is "Helpful Altruistic actions to improve awareness and understanding and develop sustainable corrections and improvements for the future of humanity".
Competition for popularity and profit can clearly distort or corrupt perceptions of worth and status. Correction of what is perceived to be worthy of status will be required, to the detriment of the many Free-Riding Lone-Wolves who have harmfully developed unjustified perceptions of status.
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JWRebel at 10:56 AM on 21 April 20192019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #16
The suggestion that since the behaviour is culturally conditioned, repeating the study with American students or subjects from a society with more inequality and less safety net may show even stronger results, will probably not be borne out. Dutch people are extremely individualistically oriented, and they are famous for free-loading. Share-ware always receives the lowest possible rewards from Dutch users, and people in the Netherlands typically consider littering to be their own business. Though they have the name for individualism, Americans operate far more co-op type endeavours, and will subject themselves to some form of organizing much more readily than will unruly Dutch students for who the concept of a roommate is already an intolerable affront.
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nigelj at 07:55 AM on 21 April 20192019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #16
Regarding the "next reckoning capitalism and climate change". I personally feel corporations and free markets have obvious value, but there are downsides as well. The trouble is there's no obvious workable alternative to capitalism, so we either fix capitalism, or our civilisation is in deep trouble.
The upside of free market capitalism is well enough known. The downside is that corporations act coldly to maximise profit and shareholder value as it's in their charter and thus have little regard for the environment, because the costs are dispersed onto the public (the tragedy of the commons issue). They are sometimes lead by psychopathic out of control egocentric people wanting little more than to amass power and money. But psychopaths are apparently good at running big organisations, so I'm told!
This has all been traditionally mitigated with a combination of government regulations, taxes, government programmes and access to the courts. The beast has been tamed, more or less. It's worked quite well in the main.
But something has gone horribly wrong in recent years with all this, with regulation getting a bad name, and the libertarian fanatics winning some of the debate pushing deregulation. The GOP has become very anti tax and anti government regulation, almost fanatically so. It has got even the most well intended socially minded politicians running scared.
The sheer size of mega corporations like google and facebook gives them huge power. Then there's the power of lobby groups and money in politics, some coming from the fossil fuel lobby and their sympathisers and it all looks like its reached massive proportions.
It's like the public have been hypnotised, and lead to believe that any constraint over corporations will mean less innovation and / or more expensive products or worse no products at all. The public need to realise none of this needs to follow.
Regulation doesn't need to reduce innovation and research typically finds regulation that is science and evidence based and related to proper concerns like safety and the environment either has no effect on innovation one way or the other , or actually increases innovation here and here.
Carbon tax and dividend is a well conceived mechanism to resolve a tragedy of the commons problem that avoids giving governments excessive power. People need to get their head around this.
People in postions of power also need to be held accountable. It seems like the public are running scared of doing this, which is unfortunate.
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nigelj at 07:01 AM on 21 April 20192019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #16
Lone wolves (individualists, fiscal conservatives) can be frustrating in terms of developing things like government programmes, public healthcare, and carbon fee schemes. I think the reason is because they basically deeply resent free loaders, and this is understandable.
We need to do more to point out that free loaders are in a minority, and the advantages of public programmes and things like carbon fee and dividend or wind power subsidies outweigh the problems of free loaders. There are also simple mechanisms to minimise free loading like government audit schemes and tests, and team players should embrace these provided they are not malicious.
Lone wolves need to remember they are often the beneficiaries of numerous public programmes developed by team players, and would not be where they are without these!
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nigelj at 17:27 PM on 20 April 2019Should a Green New Deal include nuclear power?
The cost of nuclear accidents should also be factored in. It's estimated clean up costs for Fukushima are $180 billion US here. Ouch!
I was watching something on nuclear power last night on television, and disposing of the many thousands of tons of contaminated soil is proving to be another headache.
The sarchophagus containment vessel to encase Chernobyl also cost billions of dollars. It was originally intended to be concrete, but this proved not to be viable, because it was too heavy to slide into place on rails, and so they used stainless steel, which will have to be replaced eventually and does not completely contain some forms of the radiation.
Nuclear power was promised to provide limitless cheap energy. I always thought that sounded too good to be true. There's no such thing as a free lunch.
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michael sweet at 16:39 PM on 20 April 2019Should a Green New Deal include nuclear power?
Sauerj:
I wasted 30 minutes listening to Shellenbergers lecture. It was a load of mistruths designed to fool a non-techjnical audience.
I have only a few observations to make, a full discourse would be far too long.
1) Shellenberger did not address any of the 13 reasons Abbott presents why nuclear cannot generate a significant fraction (more than 5% of total power). You have not addressed them either. Since Abbott was peer reviewed and you have not addressed it we must accept his argument as correct.
2) At one point Shellenberger argues that renewable energy is bad because electricity is more expensive in Germany. Then he argues that renewable energy is bad because electricity prices decline when renewable energy is added to the mix. This is a direct contradiction. Since the lecture was prepared long before it is a deliberate contradiction. Deliberate contradictions are lies and we can simply discard all of his talk since he has been demonstrated to lie.
Why would anyone think that a decrease in electricity prices is bad??? Please justify that argument.
2) Shellenberger denied that the nuclear industry is responsible for the people they killed at Fukushima. The industry demonstrates their complete lack of concern for safety when they do not accept responsibility for the people they kill.
3) I tried to source the graph you cite that claims more tonnage of materials is used in renewable energy. Shellenberger cites a pro-nuclear book that I could not find on the internet. I found the same graph at a site that supports nuclear power. They referenced figure 10 from an EIA report from 2015. The report did not have a figure 10. From my position the graph is falsified since the reference I found for it was false. We already know that Shellenberger is a lier. Please provide a reference for the graph that shows how it was made.
4) In any case, nuclear is not economic. In the Lazard report you cited in the first graph of the report (the most important) on page 2, the low levelized price of solar power is $36/Mwh and wind is $29/Mwh. The low value for nuclear power is $112/Mwh. Nuclear is three times the price of solar and four times the price of wind. It costs more for operation and maintenance of a nuclear plant (with no mortgage) than the full costs of a renewable plant.
There is no comparison graph on page 13 of the report you linked. Costs for disposal of the nuclear waste must be missing since nuclear has no plan for how they will dispose of their waste
In general it is a waste of time to debate a nuclear proponent since they insist that black is white and up is down. I have provided peer reviewed data that shows nuclear power is not capable of producing a significant amount of power. You have not addressed those arguments. You have not produced any peer reviewed data.
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John Hartz at 08:01 AM on 20 April 2019Should a Green New Deal include nuclear power?
Recommended supplemental reading:
In 2011, after an earthquake and tsunami caused a meltdown at Japan’s Fukushima-Daiichi power plant, Gregory Jaczko, then the chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, had to worry about two things: whether radioactive fallout would harm the U.S. and whether a similar accident could befall an American plant. The answer to the first question turned out to be no. The second question preoccupies him still.
The NRC directed the operators of the 60 or so working U.S. nuclear power plants to evaluate their current flood risk, using the latest weather modeling technology and accounting for the effects of climate change. Companies were told to compare those risks with what their plants, many almost a half-century old, were built to withstand, and, where there was a gap, to explain how they would close it.
That process has revealed a lot of gaps. But Jaczko and others say that the commission’s new leadership, appointed by President Donald Trump, hasn’t done enough to require owners of nuclear power plants to take preventative measures—and that the risks are increasing as climate change worsens.
U.S. Nuclear Power Plants Weren’t Built for Climate Change by Christopher Flavelle & Jeremy C.F. Lin, Bloomberg BusinessWeek, Apr 18, 2019
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nigelj at 07:34 AM on 20 April 2019Should a Green New Deal include nuclear power?
Sauerj @13,
You are not reading what people say. It doesn't matter about replacing panels because solar energy is still cost competitive.
As Lazard says costs of new nuclear power and solar / wind are similar, but nuclear power is a mature technology and prices are static. Prices for solar and wind have been on a falling trajectory, and virtually all commentators think they will fall further, so by the time new nuclear plant is half way through the approval process, solar and wind will almost certainly be cheaper options than nuclear and much quicker to build.
However I have no objection to the GND including a nuclear component, provided the choice is left up to generators and not forced by governments. So therefore it would be driven by the economics and practicalities and these currently dont favour nuclear power. This may change: but its up to the nuclear industry.
If you think differently how so?
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sauerj at 05:14 AM on 20 April 2019Should a Green New Deal include nuclear power?
All, 1) You guys mistook the 1.2mm panels per day figure being for global replacement; that figure is for the US alone (you all must not have watched the video very closely). The 15x mass differences (RE vs NP) is still a lot of "impact", a lot more energy; even if able to recycle all these materials. 2) Other reliable people question Jacobson's plan (see wiki article under his name). 3) Shellenberger: I see nothing on the internet that makes me believe he is a "nuclear shill paid by industry". He seems trustworthy to me; admitting his own past bias misunderstandings, and his genuine passion for zero emissions gives him (at least for me) a good spirit of credibility. This is bolstered by the fact that many other very trustworthy people are in the same camp with him; people like James Hansen, whom I greatly trust & admire. 4) Study Lazard's free cash flow methodology on page 13 of their energy PDF report (linked HERE). It DOES include capacity factor differences, but it does NOT account for service-life differences and it does NOT account for levelized on-demand reliability. So, I'm a bit skeptical that its costs are 100% levelized. Besides, even if putting these differences temporarily aside, Larard still reports NP as cheaper than solar & NP equal to wind (see nigelj's link above, 2nd slide). 5) France vs Germany comparison gives me pause (see this site). 6) So, I remain very skeptical that a anti-NP (no NP) policy is prudent. I fully admit I could well be wrong, but I'm seeing & reading signs (above refs & others, see below) that gives the prudent, due-diligence eng in me great pause. 7) I have no skin in this debate. Without a very steep $100-200+/MT CO2e CT (rev-neu so to allow it to be so steep), I am positive that we are going to be screwed anyway, no matter what we think we are going to do (RE or NP). But, my concern here is that even w/ a good CT policy (like EICDA), it won't be nearly as effective if all safe energies are not equally "on the table".
Here are three more articles that just hit my desk today, which only continue to add to my concern about a 0% NP plan. I have read the first two (they are relatively short), but not yet the 3rd one (very long) which is referenced in the 2nd article.
1) grist.org/article/report-going-100-renewable-power-means-a-lot-of-dirty-mining/
2) www.nytimes.com/2019/04/06/opinion/sunday/climate-change-nuclear-power.html
3) issues.org/a-roadmap-for-u-s-nuclear-energy-innovation/ -
nigelj at 07:10 AM on 19 April 2019Should a Green New Deal include nuclear power?
"If people were to study what it would take to achieve 100% RE (both in coverage of land, how much MASS of material will need to be mined out of the ground and how much MASS of material is needed to keep replenishing all of that as it depreciates),"
In fact if America was powered entirely with solar panels, it would use less than 1% of the land area here and of course much of that could be on rooftops anyway. Wind farms only use land to the extent of the supporting towers, and animals often graze around these towers. Wind farms are also located offshore, and costs for this are dropping fast.
Regarding the quantities and types of materials needed to build solar and wind power, this article discusses problems and some very realistic and workable solutions. Use of materials is a valid concern and a challenge that needs highlighting, but there are answers. Its obviously important to remember other forms of electricty generation also use a range of materials and would eventually need replacement and rebuilding.
"Then, the real WHOOPER is that 1.2mm solar panels would have to be replaced EVERY DAY and FOREVER just to replenish the ones that wear out (on a 40 year rotation cycle)."
Surely this is of little significance? A red herring? Millions of cars have parts replaced each year. Solar power is very financially competitive with fossil fuels and nuclear power, and cheaper in many places, based on levelised costs that include replacement and maintainance here. To me this is all that really counts.
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chuck101 at 17:57 PM on 18 April 2019The Future for Australian Coal
I was trying the link to the estimated 18 Billion Dollars 2018 worth of damage, and the 40 billion Dollars that coal brings to Australia, but they both are subscriber only articles in the Australian. Since I have no intention of giving any of my hard earned Dollars to the already obscenely rich, climate denier Murdoch, I was wondering if there are alternative sources for these figures. If they are correct, it suggests that already, nearly 50 percent of our earnings from Coal are need to clean up climate disasters. Why is this not being pushed more publicly? It is only going to get worse..
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michael sweet at 15:41 PM on 18 April 2019Should a Green New Deal include nuclear power?
Saurej:
Googling automobile production I wee that last yeat world production of autos was about 70 million cars. That would be about 1.2 million cars every 6 days. Since solar panels are so much smaller than cars it would be a lot less than current automobile production. I do not have figures on how many power plants are currently under construction. In my experience when you do a global calculation it is a big number. 1.2 million panels per day seems like a reasonable number to me. As Scaddenp describes it is less than current production! Since the panels can be recycled most of the materials would come from the scrapped panels.
Schellenberger is a nuclear shill paid by industry. His job is to mislead. It may be correct that more tons of materials are required for wind and solar, although it has not been determined how much materials are needed to dispose of the nuclear waste since there are no operating waste disposal sites.
On the other hand, as Abbott 2012 describes, there are many many more tons of rare metals in a nuclear plant. Wind and solar are almost entirely steel, aluminum, copper and sand. Nuclear plants depend on a host of rare elements like uranium, hafnium, beryllium, zirconium and many others. These rare metals simply do not exist in enough quantity to build out a nuclear utopia like Schallemberger describes.
In addition, nuclear is too expensive and too slow to construct. If we waste billions of dollars on expensive nuclear plants like the Hinkley plant in England, Olkiluoto in Finland and the Vogtle and Summer plants in the USA, all of which are either years (decades) behind schedule or cancelled and billions over budget, we will never be able to deal with the carbon problem.
Read Abbott 2012 and the other papers from Abbott I linked above to get an idea of some of the problems nuclear has to deal with. Currently nuclear proponents are backing modular reactors that have not yet been designed or thorium plants that are also in the design stage. The reactors being built by Korea and Russa are "unsafe" (as described by nuclear supporters) designs. The "safe" designs are turning out to be unbuildable.
We do not have the time and money to waste on a technology that has failed. Nuclear has failed and cannot scale to the size required to help the carbon problem. Wind and solar are proven technologies that can be scaled to any required scale.
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scaddenp at 11:27 AM on 18 April 2019Should a Green New Deal include nuclear power?
Those numbers sound big but on global scale, is it? 1.2m a day is what sized workforce in making and replacing them? IEA is saying 1.6m panels being installed per day at moment. The panels are recyclable so I dont see waste materials are as complex as coal or nuclear. And as for workforce, well WSJ isnt my pick of reliable source but it claims coal (mining, transport, plant operation) needs twice as many workers per MW as solar and 5x as many as wind power. I would welcome a more authorative source - ah, how about DOE.
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sauerj at 10:40 AM on 18 April 2019Should a Green New Deal include nuclear power?
Michael Sweet, Thanks for your feedback. The 1.2mm (million) figure for replacement panels per day comes from the 1st video that I linked above (I think the link I gave above does not directly launch the video, so I'm linking again here). [In case this link too is bad, the title of the YT video is: "Mark Z. Jacobson's 100% Renewables (100% WWS) Roadmap to Nowhere by Conley & Maloney @ TEAC8"]
The guys that did this presentation (video published 1-6-2018) are using the total panel numbers directly from Jacobson's report (18bn panels), and doing their own daily replacement math based on assuming the most ideal panel service life of 40 yrs. This seems like a earnestly fair use of Jacobson's own work. Doing the math, this does work out to be replacing 1.2 million panels everyday. (That's a staggering continuous maintenance consideration).
On the relative difference in tonnes of materials per TWh, the Shellenberger videos give the tonnes/TWh values for SP, WP, NP of 16,447, 14,067 and 920 respectively. Doing the math, thus a SP/NP ratio of 17.9, and a WP/NP ratio of 15.3. Thus, there is more tonnage of materials "impact" associated with SP & WP than nuclear.
I don't have peer reviewed critiques of Jacobson's work at my ready. I am a novice, and only just beginning to investigate & learn (in the last 9 months) on this specific branch of CC mitigation: the involved & complicated comparisons of RE vs NP (especially the complications of next gen NP). So, I can't offer any further serious, peer-reviewed critique of Jacobson's work. But, certainly, there have been serious researchers that have done that (as cited on Wikipedia).
All I can personnally say is give my opinion from people I feel trustworthy and they are saying things that seem very concerning about a non-NP plan (as given in my 1st comment above). In the least, it seems that we should tred down the national macro-energy management path with eyes open wide on all options (being honest w/ ourselves & giving due diligence to all the facts). And, to that, I'm hearing reasonably concerning things about Jacobson's plan (who was the main citation for the above greenman video).
I have no skin in this comparitive game; I could care less. My only goal is zero emissions as fast & smartly as possible. [And when I call people "trustworthy" above, I earnestly believe they have the same goals of urgency toward zero emissions and associated due diligence, in earnest good faith, to get there as fast & smartly as possible.] But, for giving serious peer-reviewed rebuttal of Jacobson, I transparently admit that I am an amateur here, and only passing on misc internet information that seems trustworthy to me.
FYI: I am a 35-year career chemical engineer with lots of project experience under my belt who takes CC mitigation as priority #1, #2 #3 thru #10. I am also an fervently active Citizens' Climate Lobby member.]
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Riduna at 10:30 AM on 18 April 2019The Future for Australian Coal
Scaddenp
Sanjeev Gupta owner of the Whyalla Steel Mill in South Australia has announced investment to build renewable energy/storage projects with capacity of 1 GW dispatchable, part used by the Mill, part sold to the Grid. It is not clear that the Mill would use this energy source directly in the steel production process – I had assumed it would.
This now seems unlikely since Gupta has subsequently purchased a leading coking coal mine – billionaires can do that sort of thing. So your point is well made, though gas and electricity may be able to reduce reliance on coking coal for steel production in the future?
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Ignorant Guy at 09:10 AM on 18 April 2019Models are unreliable
MA Rodger @ 1105
you'd surely have to be a bit of a foolish pedant to run away with the belief that 1880 was as warm or warmer than today's temperatures
Yes, I would tend to agree. But I have seen it a lot. And recently.
Actually I strongly suspect that CommonSense @ 1099 is afflicted by precisely that misunderstanding. -
scaddenp at 07:37 AM on 18 April 2019The Future for Australian Coal
Those references seem quite a long way from a commercially viable process for steel-making with coke. Or perhaps a better question would be what is the amount of a carbon tax that would make that commercially viable? My gut feeling is that even when you have a cost-competitive for making steel without coke, it would 30 years to wind down coke thanks to sunk costs in plant. "Green coke" might be a better migration path.
If steel and cement were the only source of fossil carbon emissions, would we still have a climate problem? The much more easily substitutable thermal coal would be first priority in my opinion.
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nigelj at 07:01 AM on 18 April 2019Should a Green New Deal include nuclear power?
I'm a bit "sceptical" of nuclear power, having grown up with watching Chernobyl etc, but I try to keep an open mind.
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nigelj at 06:57 AM on 18 April 2019Should a Green New Deal include nuclear power?
Michael Sweet, interesting and I accept all that you say. I will try to explain better what I mean. Its well known from numerous reports that humanity is using resources too fast, including metals, which puts future generations under strain. However I think there are some viable solutions to this if our generation acts proactively rather than dumping the problem on future generations.
The starting point is metals are finite and some are in limited supply as you would obviously realise. Of course this has implications for all forms of electricity generation. As you would know we are using the resource up fairly fast and increasing population and economic growth can only amplify this. Some report, the UN I think, stated we are using materials up at twice the rate that is sustainable longer term.
It's projected that we will run out of some metals by 2100, on the basis of known land based reserves at current prices. If we include for some more discoveries, higher priced reserves, and minerals in sea water there are several centuries left at current rates of use.
Clearly I think that means there is enough for a mass conversion to renewable energy. As you point out substitutes are found for the rare earths. Nuclear power is more troubling because it uses such a wide range of exotic metals that are harder to substitute for.
However we are still using metals at a fairly rapid rate, and this risks leaving future generations in short supply of some of them. This risks shortagages, price increases and other problems that could be severe.
So what are the solutions? Metals can be recycled almost forever, including lithium. But this doesn't resolve the problem of a fundamentally depleted resource, and intense population and economic pressure. It would therefore make some sense for our generation to conserve what materials the earth has left.
Of course we have to be realistic. People want technology and aren't going to drastically cut their use of technology, metals, and electricity unless forced. But we can prolong a renewable energy and technology based culture as long as possible on this planet by our generation starting by wasting less, recycling more, being more efficient, and also proactively getting population growth to stop. If we don't do this in the near future, in a planned way, I fear shortages will create an extremely painful situation for future generations and some sort of relatively abrupt increase in mortality and hardship, to add to the climate problem if we don't fix that as well. Sorry if I have digressed a bit, but the issues interrelate.
Nuclear power is clearly just not currently competitive. There are too many problems with it. However I don't think the GND should rule it out completely, because there is no sound basis to do that.
I think we should let generating companies decide what to build, as long as its low carbon emissions, but with a condition that they must be able to build any nuclear power in a timely manner so that reliance on fossil fuels is minimised. This shifts the burden back to the nuclear industry to smarten up. It also avoids the government getting too hands on in deciding the proportional mix of generation and leaves it a little bit to the market. The government are there to give direction if the market starts to wander off course.
It certainly doesn't make much sense to me to close existing nuclear plant.
I'm a bit scperical of nuclear power, having grown up with watching Chernobyl etc, but I try to keep an open mind.
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william5331 at 06:03 AM on 18 April 2019The Future for Australian Coal
Here is a reference
https://cleantechnica.com/2018/05/14/hydrogen-from-renewables-could-make-emissions-free-steel-possible/
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william5331 at 05:58 AM on 18 April 2019The Future for Australian Coal
Just curious. Is it possible to use the reducing power of hydrogen to make steel instead of coke.
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michael sweet at 23:45 PM on 17 April 2019Should a Green New Deal include nuclear power?
Nigelj and Sauerj:
Jacobson 2011 (cited over 1100 times) has done the analysis for renewable energy and all the materials, including land for the panels, are readily available for renewable energy. Jacobson discusses the amounts of materials used for the panels and wind turbines. Recycling solar panels and wind turbines is covered. Your 1.2 mm (? what does mm mean) per day seems off. Perhaps a comparison to Jacobson, which is peer reviewed, is warrented.
Jacobson found that all materials exist in adequate quantaties except for rare earth metals used in the turbines. Since then the designers of wind turbines have reduced the use of rare earth metals so that is not an issue.
By contrast, Abbott 2012, published in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists (and other places and here), shows that sufficient materials for significant nuclear plants (more than 5% of world power) do not exist. (Nuclear plants also use a lot of rare earth elements.) No nuclear supporter has attempted to show that enough materials exist for nuclear plants. On Tamino's site a nuclear supporter told me to contact an economic geolgist on my own for answers when I asked if materials existed. No citations exist.
It currently costs more to run a nuclear plant with no mortgage than to build and run a new renewable plant including mortgage costs. Nuclear is not economic.
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michael sweet at 23:20 PM on 17 April 2019The Future for Australian Coal
This Scientific American article discusses using electricity directly to manufacture steel. It appears that it is possible to use electricity to manufacture steel directly. One issue is the cost of rebuilding current factories. If CO2 cost was high it would be more economic. How much do people want to reduce CO2?
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Johnb at 22:41 PM on 17 April 2019The Future for Australian Coal
Here’s one possible technology being looked at
Moderator Response:[PS] Fixed link. Please learn how to do this yourself with the link tool in the comments editor.
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MA Rodger at 18:50 PM on 17 April 2019Models are unreliable
Ignorant Guy @1104,
You are entirely correct to say that the problem is the use of the phrase "hottest year since X" when what is meant is "hottest year on record" when X is the start-year of that record. Looking at a few of those thousands of Google hits, the phrase usually does not track back to 'responsible' organisations but it seems to be later reporting when journalist-speak for "hottest year on record" & "the record began in X" is edited down to a shorter phrase.
There is ClimateChangeNews who use the headline "Earth on course for hottest year since 1880" yet NOAA put it as the likely "new record for the warmest annual average temperature since records began in 1880." Note this NOAA statement is correct. The ClimateChangeNews headline is not correct -1880 was a lot colder than the year they were reporting about - 2015.
Mind, the press officers attached to the likes of NOAA or NASA are also journalists and not immune to compressing information into a single but inaccurate statement. Although the article does say "Last year was the third consecutive year in which global temperatures were more than 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit (1 degree Celsius) above late nineteenth-century levels," it also promenantly says "Earth’s global surface temperatures in 2017 ranked as the second warmest since 1880, according to an analysis by NASA."
But even so, you'd surely have to be a bit of a foolish pedant to run away with the belief that 1880 was as warm or warmer than today's temperatures, even if you inhabited that contrarian planet Wattsupia.
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scaddenp at 13:42 PM on 17 April 2019The Future for Australian Coal
I am a little intrigued by the comment: "coking coal is replaced by gas/electricity".
My understanding is that making steel needs CO to reduction of Fe oxides, some carbon for the Fe-C alloy that is steel, and importantly, the porosity to allow the CO circulate within the furnace. I can see gas can provide CO, but the porosity? I know of bio-coke trials (happening here), but is there a commercial process for steel from iron ore without coke yet?
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jonb at 12:43 PM on 17 April 2019The Future for Australian Coal
Thanks for the clarification. I'll just add that the replacement of coking coal to make steel and other metals with the use of direct electrical smelting or the use of gas will be a quite slow process due to economics - hence Australian coking coal exports will be fine for at least the next decade or so. On the other hand the replacement of thermal coal for electricity generation, both in Australia and around the world, will be and is a quick process by replacement by renewables (and gas) and is already happening quickly as the article mentioned.
Whether new coking coal mines are needed in Australia is difficult to say. This was brought up in the Rocky Hill court case in NSW and the judge decided (on what basis was not really shown) that no more coking coal mines were needed to meet Australian export needs. This case may be appealed - we'll see.
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Riduna at 12:01 PM on 17 April 2019The Future for Australian Coal
jonb – thank you for your comment.
In 2018/19 the expected value of coking coal exports is a reported estimate of ~$38 billion and for thermal coal ~$28 billion, though both are predicted to decline in value in 2019/20. A downward trend in the value of Australian coal exports, seems likely to continue thereafter as coking coal is replaced by gas/electricity and thermal coal is replaced by solar/wind generators.
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jonb at 11:07 AM on 17 April 2019The Future for Australian Coal
On the contary to the first comment I think this is a very unclear article. After mentioning the difference between coking/metallurgical coal and thermal coal early in the article all mention of coking coal and its role in exports is dropped. Australia exports are a majority of coking coal (more than 60% of value I think) used to make steel and other metals. While using this coal adds to considerable greenhouse gas emissions, at the moment there is no other economically way to make steel (excluding recycling). So unless we are prepared to give up or severely reduce our use of steel we will need to mine and use large amounts of coking coal. On the other hand thermal coal is completely replaceable in the generation of electricity by gas, nuclear, solar, wind, tidal, wave etc. The article needs to explain this difference and hence the quite different future for Australian exports of coking coal (probably good) versus thermal coal (not so good as described). Of course Adani (and all the other proposed Galilee Basin mines) is a proposed thermal coal mine and that is why it is quite unlikely to ever go ahead.
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Ignorant Guy at 10:30 AM on 17 April 2019Models are unreliable
The pattern "hottest year since VXYZ" is rather usual. As an example we can go to NOAA's web-site for presenting time series for global land and ocean temperature anomalies at https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cag/global/time-series/globe/land_ocean/ytd/12/1880-2019. You can see that the particular data set presented there is from 1880 upto now. And in this set there are new annual top records lately set in 2014, 2015 and 2016. Those years it was correct to refer to this data and say "this is the hottest year since 1880". And there are of course other data sets, global and regional, so other years are possible.
I tried to net-search (with Google) for some instances of this pattern. I found:
"hottest year since 1880" 18900 hits
"hottest year since 1895" 59 hits
"hottest year since 1896" 14 hits
"hottest year since 1900" 51 hits
"hottest year since 1901" 97 hits
"hottest year since 1909" 11 hits
"hottest year since 1910" 28 hits
But the point is that if I say "2016 was the hottest year since 1880" that could make someone believe that I mean that 1880 was hotter. I most certainly do not mean that. So I avoid that particular wording. -
scaddenp at 07:16 AM on 17 April 2019Should a Green New Deal include nuclear power?
ELIofVA - I did an analysis of how my countrymen (NZers) spent energy and results were a little depressing on the conservation front. Every country would be different but it is worth looking at. Home energy costs were about 10% of energy used. Even a 100% reduction doesnt reduce emissions much. Worse, here at least where we have 85% renewable electricity, home energy wasnt a big part of emissions. Transport, especially flying and cars (retail petrol), were the big factors. With cars at least, a move to electric is a big saving. And the elephant in the room was the embodied energy in all the stuff we consume. Reduce, reuse, recycle (in that order) is probably the biggest conservation measure we can make outside transport.
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nigelj at 06:40 AM on 17 April 2019Should a Green New Deal include nuclear power?
Metals are a finite resource and some are quite rare. It's very troubling but would effect nuclear power as well as renewables.
But the answers are difficult. I suspect people wont voluntarily go without electricity, heating, computers, and transport etcetera.
The most realistic answer is probably a fairly urgent drive to waste less, more energy efficient appliances and getting population growth to stop. Does the world need more people? I can't see a good reason why.
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william5331 at 05:56 AM on 17 April 2019Should a Green New Deal include nuclear power?
Nuclear power is relatively safe as long as we have our present economy and infrastructure but we seem to be in the final phase of an exponential growth curve. In the real world of biology, these end in a vertical graph — straight down. Under these conditions, the finance and infrastructure no longer remains to manage these devices and they are likely to all go critical and melt down. This will result in areas around the plants which are no go areas of high level radioactivity. Anyway, on a practical level, even now, wind and solar are financially feasible to replace fossil fuel and energy storage systems are improving by leaps and bounds. We probably do not need nuclear. https://mtkass.blogspot.com/2018/12/energy-storage.html
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nigelj at 05:40 AM on 17 April 2019The Future for Australian Coal
This is a clear, well composed, and well ordered article full of detail. Almost a textbook example.
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ELIofVA at 23:52 PM on 16 April 2019Should a Green New Deal include nuclear power?
These kinds of discussions seem to always imply that our current energy demand primarily satisified with fossil fuels must be replaced with low carbon electric production. The low hanging fruit is reducing the energy demand through conservation. Pricing carbon emissions using a carbon tax would create a demand for the conservation sector of the economy. We could retrofit all our existing buildings to be super energy efficient. This becomes more economical as carbon emissions become expensive. Yes, it would be inflationary. I do not think we should commit to our current level of abundance as a given. That is leading us to disaster.
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sauerj at 23:15 PM on 16 April 2019Should a Green New Deal include nuclear power?
I'm a bit concerned about a plan does not ALSO include an aggressive NP component, but only subsidizes for a 100% RE direction. If people were to study what it would take to achieve 100% RE (both in coverage of land, how much MASS of material will need to be mined out of the ground and how much MASS of material is needed to keep replenishing all of that as it depreciates), then environmentally minded people would start scratching their heads and say, whoa, I didn't realize how much we have to eat up the earth (read: that much harder to get off fossil fuels) to achieve 100% RE (no gas peaking in the mix).
This video HERE is a little nerdy and these two guys throw out the #'s WAY too fast. But it is a real head scratcher. The chart at the very end makes NO sense to me and they don't explain it well. But, the chart near the beginning that shows the necessary land coverage is troubling. Then, the real WHOOPER is that 1.2mm solar panels would have to be replaced EVERY DAY and FOREVER just to replenish the ones that wear out (on a 40 year rotation cycle). ... I've checked their numbers; they are not lying about this.
For any environmental person who also is very anti-NP and is willing to put due diligence in what we ultimately have to do to achieve 100% RE, then this should deeply make them think twice. If they are REALLY about zero emissions, then they've GOT to reconcile with this.
Shellenberger videos are also very good on this subject, such as THIS one.
I know NP takes time, but if we go the 100% RE route (like Germany, vs France), and don't succeed to get below 50% reductions 30-40 years from now (due to the not having a stable baseload source and use a lot of gas peaking power to 100% avoid brown outs), and then realize we need some other form of stable baseload NP, then we will be that much more be behind. So, I think we need to look at what it really takes to go 100% RE and then be honestly realistic. If that path doesn't seem really plausible, then we should ALSO include NP (R/D and commercialization) in the accelerated GND program. ... HERE is a good site to use to compare France w/ Germany.
Ultimately we ALSO need a rev-neu CT so to comprehensively address the underpinnings of our economy away from carbon consumption as well. The current EICDA bill (#763) is ideal for this (now up to 30 house co-sponsors). -
Postkey at 17:58 PM on 16 April 2019Models are unreliable
And where have you 'often' heard, "this year is the hottest year since 1898"?
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scaddenp at 09:26 AM on 16 April 20193 clean energy myths that can lead to a productive climate conversation
Looking at effect of subsidies, I am not following your argument on price. The Lazard graphic linked in orginal is unsubsidies cost. Comparison and effect of subsidies is in the linked 2018 Lazard report from the article. Graphic comparison of cost with/without subsidies for renewables in US:
Comparison with fossil fuels
And dont forget that FF is also subsidized.
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scaddenp at 07:40 AM on 16 April 20193 clean energy myths that can lead to a productive climate conversation
Thinking Man, I followed your link which was to again blog (and from a energy advocacy) but the blog did fortunately link to their source of data namely CME here. On pg 6, we find:
"The comparator countries are all members of the Organisation for Economic
Cooperation and Development (OECD)."which is somewhat different from "highest electricity rates in the world". The data is from 2015 except for exclusions noted. So no, I was not moving the posts back several years, and not updated since SA installed the storage battery for instance. Note too that the leading edge energy blog compares 2017 prices in Oz to 2015 prices in rest of world.
Furthermore, the prices paid in other countries are converted to AUD at "Purchasing Power Parity", which is a good methodology, but a different basis to that for world electricity comparison in my source.
I would say that your industry blog is misrepresenting their data source frankly. I would also say, that if you want to make a case renewables and electricity pricing, then you need to be comparing wholesale generation rates not retail, since retail is affected by many considerations other than the full cost of generating the required power. In your accc.gov reference, I find wholesale cost makes up 31% of the retail price. The report does quite an analysis of change in wholesale price. Retirement of coal plants and slow development of new capacity certainly do figure but SA is also particularly vunerable to gas price. Market issues around concentration and gaming the system were also identified.
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Ignorant Guy at 06:27 AM on 16 April 2019Models are unreliable
CommonSense @ 1099
Yes, we often hear things like e g "this year is the hottest year since 1898". But that does not mean that 1898 was hotter. It usually only means that the data set referred to starts at 1898. So the phrase is shorthand for "this year is the hottest year in the entire data set upto this year. And that data set starts in 1898".
Note to others: And that's a good reason to avoid that ambiguous way of phrasing. Because if you try to interpret it using only your common sense you may get it all wrong. -
Philippe Chantreau at 03:21 AM on 16 April 20193 clean energy myths that can lead to a productive climate conversation
Thinking man, it would be appreciated if you could format the links so they actually function and can be clicked on. Use the insert tab, the rest is fairly self explanatory. As it stands, I didn't follow your links because I didn't have the patience. It may be that you have a point with the Australian electricity prices but so what? The higher prices reflect the real costs, they are not as artificially low as fossil fuel electricity that relies on higher externalization. Everywhere in the world, we are going to have to get used to higher electricity prices, or pay dearly in other ways. Where I live, we enjoy very low electricity prices due to the abundance of hydropower in our mix. I personally would have no problem absorbing a cost increase of 50 or 75% if it was for the purpose of switching to all or more renewables. That is something I am willing to spend money for, it's worth the cost. I will gladly cut on less important petty consumption to allow for that.
Whatever we think we save with cheap power is externalized. It does not go away. It accumulates, compounding interest in that pesky physical world where money is irrelevant. Then the physical world leverages its position, most recently in the disastrous form that has been predicted by climate science. Australia, and Europe, and the US all have experienced record heat, fires, drought and heavy rains on a regular basis in the recent past. Houston saw three 500 year type of rain events in 3 consecutive years; this year's extreme weather in the midwest is adding to the bill; Australia has been burning its summers with fervor several years in a row, while the great barrier is showing signs of stress never seen before. What's the price tag?
I do have to agree with you on one point though, the regular joes are the ones coughing up the dough in this mess. I don't see the people who raked in profits from fossil fuels pitching in now to help those who lost their farm, their house. Are the fossil fuel barons offering extraordinary help for the great barrier? Considering how much denial they spread, even if they did, that would be a token. Capitalism being what it is, they continue to try to obtain maximum advantage, at the expense of everything and everybody else. Within this dominant ideology, one can hardly blame the wind industry of also trying to obtain maximum advantage...
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ThinkingMan at 00:28 AM on 16 April 20193 clean energy myths that can lead to a productive climate conversation
This post replies to scaddenp’s misleading comment about South Australia electricity prices and the commonly made claim wind electricity is cheap. Another post will deal with other comments about other points made by me.
SOUTH AUSTRALIA ELECTRICITY PRICES— scaddenp moved the goal posts back a few years and to the average for all of Australia. During those years, much has happened in South Australia plus the neighboring states of Victoria and New South Wales to drive up their electricity prices. Specifically, South Australia and New South Wales have closed thermal generators, installed renewables and increased purchases of electricity from Victoria.
All three states now pay extraordinarily high prices for electricity. The 27 June 2017 issue of Australia’s ABC (aka Australian Broadcasting Corporation) makes the same point made by the Financial Review article scaddenp disputed. See: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-06-28/sa-has-most-expensive-power-prices-in-the-world/8658434 . An Aussie energy services firm shares that assessment. See: https://www.leadingedgeenergy.com.au/highest-electricity-prices-world/ The point is: South Australia’s electricity price became the HIGHEST IN THE WORLD during the second half of 2017.
The assessment is based on data from the US Energy Information Administration for electricity prices outside Australia. Domestic sources provided electricity prices for the Australian states.
The 18% price increase cited in the Australian Financial Review and ABC articles and elsewhere merely worsened the global rankings of South Australia, Victoria and New South Wales. Their retail electricity prices were already among the 5 highest in the world in early 2017 and during 2016. See pages 12 & 13 of http://cmeaustralia.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/160708-FINAL-REPORT-OBS-INTERNATIONAL-PRICE-COMPARISON.pdf .
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission echo the assessment that retail electricity prices are higher in South Australia than elsewhere in the world. See p. 26 of https://www.accc.gov.au/system/files/Retail%20Electricity%20Inquiry%20-%20Preliminary%20report%20-%2013%20November%202017.pdf .
WIND MUST BE THE CHEAPEST SOURCE OF ELECTRICITY because wind wins power auctions.
Wind has lower levelized costs than and gets picked ahead of new natural gas generators and old coal fired generators largely because of preferential treatment by government. Preferential treatments range from “renewable portfolio standards” to loading order regulations favoring wind to production tax credits, investment tax credits, property tax rebates, renewable energy certificates and other forms of assistance.
Renewable mandates affect long and short term decisions about wind’s share of total electricity supply. In the U.S., Renewable portfolio standards profoundly affect the types of generators constructed and closed, as well as how much of each. “Loading instructions” influence wind’s share of “day ahead” sourcing decisions. California’s Public Utility Commission, for example, orders the CA ISO to choose renewables before choosing fossil fuel generated electricity. See: https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/How-Electricity-Gets-Bought-and-Sold-in-California#gs.4p4rxu
How important are tax credits, tax rebates, renewable energy certificates and other forms of financial assistance? They are vital individually and collectively. The U.S. production tax credit was $23 / MWh in 2015 & 2016. $23 is almost 60% of the levelized cost of wind power shown on the SkepticalScience blog that started this discussion. In the New England region of the U.S., renewable energy certificates were valued at $45-50 / MWh in 2015. $45-50 exceeds the levelized cost. In one of the New England states, Massachusetts, renewable energy certificates exist because “… renewable projects cannot generate enough revenue for private developers to finance the project solely from selling electricity … . Private developers rely on REC sales to the utilities in order to make up the difference.” (source: www.massclimateaction.org/recs ). Maine’s Green Power program buys renewable energy certificates to offset renewables’ cost disadvantage vs. conventional electricity (see: https://www.maine.gov/mpuc/greenpower/faq.shtml ). My town granted a 60% property tax reduction to the wind farm located here.
The financial and competitive advantages gained from the above is revealed by the wind lobby’s efforts in 2015 to extend U.S. incentives that were about to expire. The wind lobby pushed to extend incentives even though the investment per unit of capacity had plunged over the 2010-2015 period and further declines were anticipated.
Moderator Response:[PS] Fixed links (I hope). Please learn how to create links yourself using the link tool (chain icon) in the comments editor. It is simple to do.
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william5331 at 05:13 AM on 15 April 20192019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #15
Massie, with two MIT engineering degrees has discovered real-politics. Who Pays the Piper Calls the Tune. It is almost unthinkable that he doesn't realize that the climate is changing and that we are doing it so he is looking to who will pay for his next election campaign. Far better a one term politician who is honest than a multi term politician who continually bows to vested interests.
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