Renewables now account for 25% of German energy production
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Re: Renewables now account for 25% of German energy production
#2By the way, I wonder why biomass is green while coal is not? I mean, in the end you burn organic materials?
Of course, existing coal plants are dirty, but for that kind of money you could make like really nice coal plants.
Re: Renewables now account for 25% of German energy production
#3By the way, I wonder why biomass is green while coal is not? I mean, in the end you burn organic materials? Of course, existing coal plants are dirty, but for that kind of money you could make like really nice coal plants.
If it is considered green by some it's probably because biomass doesn't result in things like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountaintop_removal_mining or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tagebau_Garzweiler_Panoram...
Re: Renewables now account for 25% of German energy production
#4By the way, I wonder why biomass is green while coal is not? I mean, in the end you burn organic materials? Of course, existing coal plants are dirty, but for that kind of money you could make like really nice coal plants.
For the same reason burning wood is green- as long as you are regrowing it.
So - if you're burning timber from a forest which is sustainably managed (so you're renewing wood at the same rate you're using it), then there is no net carbon released.
Re: Renewables now account for 25% of German energy production
#5By the way, I wonder why biomass is green while coal is not? I mean, in the end you burn organic materials? Of course, existing coal plants are dirty, but for that kind of money you could make like really nice coal plants.
Because biomass will naturally released CO2 when decomposing. Burning it won't add to the footprint.
On the other hand, when you are burning coal, you released CO2 that was previously sequestered.
Re: Renewables now account for 25% of German energy production
#6By the way, I wonder why biomass is green while coal is not? I mean, in the end you burn organic materials? Of course, existing coal plants are dirty, but for that kind of money you could make like really nice coal plants.
If it is considered green by some it's probably because biomass doesn't result in things like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountaintop_removal_mining or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tagebau_Garzweiler_Panoram...
Well, it might still result in refitting agricultural areas for biofuels, increased food prices and people starving.
Re: Renewables now account for 25% of German energy production
#7By the way, I wonder why biomass is green while coal is not? I mean, in the end you burn organic materials? Of course, existing coal plants are dirty, but for that kind of money you could make like really nice coal plants.
Putting long-accumulated carbon back into the atmosphere does not look green to me (unless reaching the very-high levels of CO2 that were present several hundreds of millions of years ago can be defined as 'green')
Biomass is green because it does not change the percent of CO2 in the atmosphere: it fixes it into wood first, to put it back later. The net effect is zero over the human timescale.
Burning coal has also a net effect of zero, but over the Earth lifespan timescale, which is not very good for the current ecosystem (including us).
Re: Renewables now account for 25% of German energy production
#8If you drive through Bavaria, especially the area between Munich and the Alps, it's very hard to find 4 houses/farms in a row that do not have photovoltaic cells on their roofs.
Re: Renewables now account for 25% of German energy production
#9I heard at a power conference last week that Germany halted installation of new solar panels on homes recently due to the problems integrating solar onto the grid.
As the lecturer put it: We've spent the last hundred years building systems to safely and reliably send power on a one-way trip from the utilities to businesses and homes. Modifying the electrical distribution system to be multi-directional is not an easy problem to solve.
Anyone know more?
Re: Renewables now account for 25% of German energy production
#10That sounds very impressive. But I wonder at what cost overall.
For instance there is a great deal of talk about windenergy, but the primary customers are states and these windmills seems to require quite a lot of maintenance.
So the questions of course is. Even if the energy is sustainable, is the economic model?