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Energy and Climate paper - renewables, fossil, nuclear, hydro - the issues of dstribution

An interesting [long] read: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/18/4839/htm


You might care to not read the opinion below (or the article). Sorry for the noise if so.


Opinion: I've always thought that #goinggreen was just an unacceptable 'cash cow' for vested interests to get rich on the back of poorly thought out political driven policies lacking in scientific rigour. If the 'planet is going to burn' without reducing fossil and moving to renewable, then anything 'we' do ought to be not for profit and for the world arguably.  PM Johnson's latest [and foolish?] bet on wind turbines (with all it's current and eventual revalations) and generally the pushing at all costs of  unfriendly battery EV and other tech (there must be better even if there are other challenges to over come) is just set to continue the ever increasing cost on the public purse for arguably little gain and more worryingly more 'damage' and for generations. It doesnt help when I recently read that there are surreptitious plans being considered to allow power gens. to turn off consumer power as and when they see fit  e.g. when it is likely many will be charging their EV cars  [rolls eyes in dismay].  They will do this by enforcing 3rd gen smart meters 'properly' connected up to allow this to happen.  If the current political nonsense and propoganda we have witnessed over the last 8 months or so relating to health, gets a hold in climate change (and how to address it and it probably already has) then perhaps the game is already up.


Rhetorically: Is nuclear the best bet for the planet at the moment (especially if ever they can crack clean[er] fusion). There are challenges to HFC based tech, but as it stands for EV and local power cell, it appeals more to me if the brilliant minds can sort it out. Is battery EV tech going to cripple us on many fronts. Can the UK grid cope. Wind turbines and solar come with so many ifs and buts they should not be relied on. Is this post in the wrong forum ! (apologies if it is - still the link above is related).


Best regards. Habs



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  • I may be wrong, but I get the impression that the authors of this paper aren't fully convinced that there's a problem, if that is the case it would explain some of their conclusions. My main concern is that they don't seem to even consider energy efficiency, and the are really not very creative in considering how we use the energy we do use. There's a long debate elsewhere on these forums about the use of hydrogen, and the fact that it is "inefficient" (which, strictly, it is) but when you couple hydrogen generation with intermittent solar and wind - which this paper somewhat dismisses as unusable because they are variable - you start getting something interesting. Yes in pure energy terms it's inefficient, but it's not creating CO2 which is the point. (But yes there are complicated environmental issues with solar and wind.) 


    What is quite fun is that they get into Mathusianism, so the first argument is that we will run out of resources, and then the counter argument is that this is not a problem because we will (and have in the past) developed system and/or technology to cope with this. So therefore we don't need to consider developing solutions to combat climate change because we will develop solutions to combat climate change. Errr....


    Re Battery EV, and indeed all forms of transportation, I think the other question is - will we actually keep travelling around as much as we did pre-Mar 2020? (Hard for me to admit since I work in transportation!) If we actually paid the full cost, including saving towards the cost of coping when climate change hits, would we see society change such that the use of vehicles simply dropped? The idea that it's normal for the majority of the population to get in a car and drive to work (or children to school) has grown up in my lifetime - and I'm still of working age -  it's not set in stone as much as we might think it is. And that was before home working was possible for so many.


    But yes, I suspect you're right that in the short term nuclear probably is the only feasible answer.


    Cheers,


    Andy
Reply
  • I may be wrong, but I get the impression that the authors of this paper aren't fully convinced that there's a problem, if that is the case it would explain some of their conclusions. My main concern is that they don't seem to even consider energy efficiency, and the are really not very creative in considering how we use the energy we do use. There's a long debate elsewhere on these forums about the use of hydrogen, and the fact that it is "inefficient" (which, strictly, it is) but when you couple hydrogen generation with intermittent solar and wind - which this paper somewhat dismisses as unusable because they are variable - you start getting something interesting. Yes in pure energy terms it's inefficient, but it's not creating CO2 which is the point. (But yes there are complicated environmental issues with solar and wind.) 


    What is quite fun is that they get into Mathusianism, so the first argument is that we will run out of resources, and then the counter argument is that this is not a problem because we will (and have in the past) developed system and/or technology to cope with this. So therefore we don't need to consider developing solutions to combat climate change because we will develop solutions to combat climate change. Errr....


    Re Battery EV, and indeed all forms of transportation, I think the other question is - will we actually keep travelling around as much as we did pre-Mar 2020? (Hard for me to admit since I work in transportation!) If we actually paid the full cost, including saving towards the cost of coping when climate change hits, would we see society change such that the use of vehicles simply dropped? The idea that it's normal for the majority of the population to get in a car and drive to work (or children to school) has grown up in my lifetime - and I'm still of working age -  it's not set in stone as much as we might think it is. And that was before home working was possible for so many.


    But yes, I suspect you're right that in the short term nuclear probably is the only feasible answer.


    Cheers,


    Andy
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