Energy Post

> an electric car has about the total-cost-of-ownership co2 footprint as a diesel (sic!) That's nonsense, ICE propaganda which has been thoroughly debunked. Cf. https://energypost.eu/latest-data-shows-lifetime-emissions-of-evs-lowe… > I ride a bike or go by foot Excellent! Can't be beat in terms of co2 footprint!

Sad to see Germany continue to shut down Nuclear while having to greatly expand coal usage because their wind farms significantly under produce due to unexpected weather patterns. (As much as +40% coal generation in the past two years, and -20% wind) https://www.ans.org/news/article-3274/germany-coal-tops-wind-energy-in… https://energypost.eu/germany-2021-coal-generation-is-rising-but-the-s… And they're replacing it with... gas! Great, another carbon based fuel that is dramatically inferior to Nuclear in energy density, environment impact, and national security.

re #7: https://energypost.eu/dispelling-nuclear-baseload-myth-nothing-renewab… > ‘Baseload power stations’ are inflexible in operation, in the sense that they are unsuitable for following the variations in demand and supply on timescales of minutes and hours, so they have to be supplemented with flexible peak-load and slightly flexible intermediate-load power stations. As far as why nuclear plays poorly with solar, for example, consider a PV system that generates, at noon, 100% of demand. You'd want to shut down alternative power sources at this time - that's not efficient at all with nuclear or coal. As far as safety, what are your thoughts on cancelling Price-Anderson accident indemnity laws, and having owners and operators of nuclear power plants accept full liability, no pass-on to the taxpayer?

Thanks for this comment - it sent me down an interesting rabbit hole. Sure enough - oil is approximately 85% carbon by mass. A barrel of oil weighs around 140kg, and so contains about 120kg of carbon. Carbon dioxide is 27% carbon by mass, so that barrel of oil, when oxidized, will end up as 440kg of CO2. So 1 tonne of CO2 is 2.3 barrels of oil, which would cost you.... under $30 For comparison, to sequester it after burning would cost probably closer to $100 [1] I guess this is a long winded way to say that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. [1] https://energypost.eu/10-carbon-capture-methods-compared-costs-scalabi…

This story has been run for a long time now. The best refutation I know of appeared in 2015 in an essay called The myth of the dark side of the Energiewende [1]. I'd recommend reading it for critical balance. [1] https://energypost.eu/energiewende-dark-side/

Even being pessimistic about solar power, it still has the greatest potential: http://energypost.eu/reality-check-renewable-energy-potential/

As I understood it, we only have access to a few decades worth of high-grade uranium. After that we’re left with low-grade uranium which is hard to mine and refine - which incidentally you need fossil fuels to do (the mining part) With regard to space needed: imagine if every existing building had roof top solar panels. We’d get quite far. I think we have the space for a few wind turbines to get us the final few kWh. What do you think we should do with nuclear waste? And how do you feel about giving every country in the world access to technology that also lets them develop nuclear weapons? Or should a select group of countries be environmentally conscious and the rest use fossil fuels? Renewables can be given to every country without risk. This article has some interesting insights with regards to nuclear vs renewable energy: https://energypost.eu/renewable-energy-versus-nuclear-dispelling-myths…

> is a purely political move, to please some people that fear nuclear more than they fear climate change. This is a lie. French people are overly pro-nuclear. It was and remains being about the costs. https://finance-commerce.com/2019/09/frances-nuclear-love-affair-shows… Not only the costs of setting up new reactors but the costs of maintaining the old ones, maintaining waste and the ridiculously smaller costs of alternatives: https://reneweconomy.com.au/france-solar-auction-success-delivered-at-… It's dead. They don't even continue to throw money onto one of those seemingly "innovative" research programs anymore: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-nuclearpower-astrid/france-d… And it's not only France: https://energypost.eu/200-400-nuclear-reactors-to-be-decommissioned-by…

> However, this takes off-line about 40 percent of Germany’s nuclear capacity and Germany is one of the two countries along Great Britain from which France imports electricity during the high-usage months in the summer. The reason importing electricity from Germany and the U.K. will be particularly important for France during a drought is because 24 of its 58 nuclear reactors do not have cooling towers and purely depend on the flow of river water to cool the reactor cores. What this means is that if the level of water in rivers drops, it means that some of the reactors may have to be shut down especially those on the Rhone River in southwest France, where temperatures are expected to be particularly high due to its geographical location. http://www.businessinsider.com/french-heat-wave-one-tumultous-summer-2… > France imports UK electricity as summer heatwave puts a third of its nukes out of action https://thinkprogress.org/france-imports-uk-electricity-as-summer-heat… > Germany powers France in cold despite nuclear u-turn https://www.reuters.com/article/europe-power-supply/germany-powers-fra… > France was heavily dependent on power imports from Germany during the first cold spell of this winter, despite the fact that most of the country’s nuclear reactors are back online http://energypost.eu/france-cant-meet-power-demand/

On Tesla growing to millions of cars per year: at those volumes, most likely the government won't give subsidies anymore. So this means a car needs to be priced at the area of $20K( from $40k today) for a 200 miles range, and that means batteries below $100/kwh. Whether this is possible with Tesla's li-ion is a big question, some predictions i saw talk about $150/kwh as the limit, graph[1], from this nature article[2]. On the other hand, musk is predicting they will be below $100/kwh in the 2020's[3] - but that doesn't sound like a really reliable source. Also, there are possibly other battery chemistries, like li-sulfur , which could probably reach $100/kwh. Assuming it works, will it stay the giga factory(will it even fit?) with exclusivity for Tesla cars ? or more likely be available to more companies(with many new giga factories that will become established) - leading to a great situation, but maybe not a happy one for Tesla stock owners ? [1]http://energypost.eu/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Schalk-Cloete-figure-1… [2]http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v5/n4/full/nclimate2564.html?WT… [3]https://forums.tesla.com/forum/forums/how-soon-can-tesla-get-battery-c…

The difference was that investigative journalism used to cough up documents, videos and proofs before running to the presses. Now it's a string of 'anonymous official' and the new form that tries harder to be legit 'anonymous official heard X person say', with X a famous and readily recognizable character out of government. At that point is hearsay vs hearsay. Reputable outlets are trashing their reputation and dragging it in the ground in the name of 'faster news' - but then it's even harder to normal people to tell what's grounded, what's likely, what's a half truth and what's propaganda. It's far to easy to get position from a crackpot conspiracy theorist and wash them up into a better thought post on a unbranded website, so google searches now dig up as much trash as good posts for many important topics, and because the writing style and source weight is the same (hearsay) it'll be increasingly difficult for people to process. This is especially true for controversial topics that sit at the edge of personal knowledge. I.e. some day ago I was curios about methane plant total lifecycle impact compared to solar panel disposal or solar concentrator plants, and happened across this article that brings up some interesting points, backs them up with some easily verifiable math and shows a greater complexity to a topic I thought was more straightforward: http://energypost.eu/wind-solars-achilles-heel-methane-meltdown-porter… and the problem…

https://theconversation.com/baseload-power-is-a-myth-even-intermittent… https://www.ceem.unsw.edu.au/sites/default/files/uploads/publications/… https://energypost.eu/dispelling-nuclear-baseload-myth-nothing-renewab…

https://energypost.eu/how-much-will-it-really-cost-to-decommission-the… Whereas Germany has set aside €38 billion to decommission 17 nuclear reactors, and the UK Nuclear Decommissioning Authority estimates that clean-up of UK’s 17 nuclear sites will cost between €109‒250 billion over the next 120 years, France has set aside only €23 billion to decommissioning its 58 reactors. That's about 6X less than Germany, per reactor. When is the last time that kind of project came in under budget?

I was trying to find heat pump adoption rates for Europe and US. Seems like its still pretty low in Europe outside some northern countries. Germany is less than 2000/100000 people. https://www.theecoexperts.co.uk/heat-pumps/top-countries Meanwhile this link says US has a 15% adoption rate across all income groups. That seems higher than I expected. https://energypost.eu/u-s-heat-pump-adoption-is-evenly-spread-across-r… Is there a better source on heat pump adoption rate in Europe and US?

also papering over the need to invent cost competitive green hydrogen production and massively scale it really fast. also hydrogen is a leaky greenhouse gas https://energypost.eu/hydrogen-is-also-a-greenhouse-gas-so-leaks-must-… wish them luck, not trying to be negative, we need solutions asap, situation is dire.

That's just Q3 2021 compared to Q3 2020. https://energypost.eu/germany-2021-coal-generation-is-rising-but-the-s… The money quote: Similarly, by the end of June 2021, generation from coal-fired power plants was 39 percent higher than in the first six months of 2020. However, generation from coal-fired power in the first half of 2021 was still below the levels seen in 2019.

The whole "baseline" thing is partly a myth, and there is an article about that https://energypost.eu/dispelling-nuclear-baseload-myth-nothing-renewab…

> However, almost all homes in the Netherlands are heated by gas directly from the source. Given the climate of NL is relatively mild, averaging between 0 to 25C,[1] would something like a heat pump be ideal for the area? There are units that can operating down to -20C. There seems to be a desire to move off of gas: * https://energypost.eu/a-revolution-the-netherlands-kisses-gas-goodbye-… Not everyone is enthusiastic about the idea: * https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2018/03/heat-pump-installations-will-pro… [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netherlands#Climate

> decommissioning doesn't necessarily means dismantling That's kinda missing the point, the fact is that France's nuclear fleet is heavily underfunded by at least 50 billion Euro [0]. These are exactly the kind of costs regularly externalized or completely omitted when calculating the profitability of nuclear vs renewables [1]. [0] https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-europe-nuclear/eu-short-of-118-billi… [1] https://energypost.eu/how-profitable-is-an-investment-in-nuclear-power…

https://energypost.eu/wind-solars-achilles-heel-methane-meltdown-porte… Sources in the article. There's a paper on observed leak rates at different plants too but I'm on my phone and can't find it.

OK, I double checked and you're right. Nuclear is counted properly difference is only for renewables: https://energypost.eu/iea-underreports-contribution-solar-wind-factor-…

I think the cost for nuclear and lead time will have gas powered and coal plants for dark times. The issue is the cost for these dark time power will go up. I have a friend who is a Wheelwright and he states that backup plants that only come online 3 days a month makes more money then if it was running 100% of the time. http://energypost.eu/battery-storage-will-take-backup-power-plants/ In the next 10 years batteries will have a larger role and about 25% of coal power plants will be retired by 2020 in US and Europe.

Despite setbacks China is also actively building up more nuclear capacity, something I wish was taken more seriously in the US http://energypost.eu/china-2016-year-nuclear-power/

Up north the latest nuclear plant guarantees price for its owners at 50 EUR/MWh (37 GBP) or less: http://www.energypost.eu/rosatom-signs-contract-build-nuclear-plant-fe…

For my taste - wind turbines are disgusting. A blight on the landscape for minimal benefit compared to other energy sources. Give me 1000’s of acres of solar vs 100 acres of wind farm. If you have to live close to them - they never go away… everywhere you look, giant white (why are they white anyway? Why not sky blue?) Not to mention the nighttime visual pollution. Drive into Rockport, TX after dark and its endless skyline of red flashing lights — that all cycle at the same time. Beyond obnoxious. That just my view of the aesthetics… Nobody ever bothers to talk about what will be done with these football field sized blades (I’m guessing at least 100k of them by now?) when they’re decommissioned? Completely useless material that has to be buried somewhere… I guess everyone here will volunteer to bury one in their backyard? You think the “buy and dump” problem is bad in oil and gas? … do you think any of the companies who signed these 30 year leases will be around to de-com the turbines when they start falling apart? (Answer is no) https://www.power-eng.com/news/evolving-regulations-for-wind-turbine-e… Then there’s the never ending problem of freezing… nobody has good solutions and most of them involve the same harmful chemicals or secondary energy sources or helicopters or whatever that all derive from the hydrocarbons everyone seems to hate. https://www.windpowerengineering.com/the-cold-hard-truth-about-ice-on-…

They’ve literally just started so it’ll take a while for them to see the problems. But already: https://www.solarpaces.org/spain-now-needs-csp-for-grid-stability-stud… https://energypost.eu/spain-as-renewables-rise-managing-supply-and-dem… We’ve already carried out this experiment. Rooftop solar is a luxury good that doesn’t actually reduce fossil fuel dependence. Thankfully Spain has learned the lesson of California & is only giving a wholesale rebate on the bill meaning you’ll never make money from rooftop solar: https://www.ecovidahomes.com/blog/can-you-sell-electricity-back-to-the… But that doesn’t change the math that using public funds to incentivize rooftop solar is a populist direction that isn’t actually a good idea for the grid. Once enough rooftop solar is installed, watch the grid in Spain start to struggle financially if they haven’t priced the T&D hookup fee correctly (+ expect that fee to rise over time). All that being said, Spain & Europe are slightly different stories - they have a unified electricity grid I believe which lets them export their surplus. Not sure if that actually works for rooftop solar but may help mediate some of the problems that we have in the US.

It might be an improvement but (1) I expect it would be political suicide for the government to try and implement, (2) if it is just a pricing exercise it wouldn’t change CO2 emissions (edit: if the government just spends taxes then that uses CO2), (3) the examples of the failures of carbon-credits indicates pricing externalities is a complex problem. Let’s use a mental model that externalities should double the price. Existing NZ petrol taxes per litre double the price (about 50% at pump is excise and GST [1]). Using that model we can see that the existing pricing in of externalities doesn’t actually fix anything for petrol. See comment edit above for direct action you can do to marginally fix the problem for yourself (obviously it doesn’t fix the problem, but it is one of the few direct actions you could do that is difficult to be cheated). Edit: alternatively, global oil risks (rather than raw costs) act similarly to externalities in driving adoption of greener technologies: https://energypost.eu/russias-war-is-accelerating-the-clean-energy-tra… Presumably because those risks are causing political costs to politicians? [1] https://www.aa.co.nz/cars/owning-a-car/fuel-prices-and-types/petrol/

Totally agree on pumped power storage capacity being needed. But those are massive infrastructure projects. Erecting a damn, to store the potential energy is bound to meet resistance. Alternative solution: Build Lots of pressure-piston, that are stable standing on its own. Basically, a pillar of ice, coated in insulation, standing upon a small lake that provides water at pressure. If additional energy is needed after the extraction, heat is added to the system and the lake replenishes, while the piston shrinks. If energy needs to be stored, additional water is pumped on top and frozen. If additional heat reservoirs are nearby or something in need of coolant is nearby, additional heatpump like bonuses should be findable. Similar concepts have been explored: https://energypost.eu/gravity-batteries-any-nation-can-do-it-at-scale-… but they need massive construction efforts. Instead of having the building up storage provide its own structure, with little more then a concrete base and some grain silo walls. https://i.imgur.com/iCg9LzY.png The piston sealing the under pressure water, could be archieved via "onion" layers, steps leading down, taking up a part of the pressure, until it drops to "holding back by atmosphere" on the outmost layer.

Including Germany, who peaked around 50% (they use a lot of oil which is bad for climate, but good for fuel diversity). https://energypost.eu/no-energiewende-without-warmewende-making-german… > For almost a decade, emission reductions have stagnated. Weird that this phrase comes up so much in relation to German progress on renewables and climate change. > Opportunities missed since 2008 > Indeed, the German government has stumbled in several attempts to put efficient heating on the agenda. In 2019, the interior ministry led by Horst Seehofer cancelled the buildings commission intended to identify ways to reduce the sector’s carbon footprint, while in 2017, the German government coalition failed in a first attempt to agree on a building energy law, which would have set new standards for efficiency in buildings. The NGO Environmental Action Germany has compiled a “chronology of failures” in the sector, starting from 2008. > Past success, but still 28m tonnes off target > After years of standstill, the energy used in Germany’s buildings has not fallen nearly as much as targeted. Instead of dropping by 20 percent between 2008 and 2020, final energy consumption had only gone down by 6.9 percent in 2017. Although greenhouse gas emissions in the building sector have fallen by about 44 percent since 1990, progress has largely stagnated since 2011 and studies show the need to significantly ramp up action.