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In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

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Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#611

Post by lambdaone »

pfdietz wrote: post #545
kilroy123 wrote: post #474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just over build the solar. Build out solar so demand in winter is met. Use the excess power in summer for some kind of industrial use.

This can lead to a solution, but at high latitude it becomes infeasibly expensive. Insolation varies too much from summer to winter. Low round trip efficiency long term storage becomes much cheaper than doing (just) this.

Syngas (infinitely better than hydrogen, which was always a stupid idea), or huge-scale Carnot batteries (the square-cube law is your friend) would do the trick nicely in both cases.

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#612

Post by sajithdilshan »

Another sensational headline. As someone living in Berlin, the capital of Europe’s largest economy, I see the effects firsthand. Germany’s aggressive green energy push has driven energy costs so high that heating has effectively become a luxury. This winter, air quality has been among the worst in recent years because many people are burning wood to stay warm instead of using central heating. At the same time, manufacturing companies are leaving the country, pushed out by some of the highest energy prices in Europe.

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#613

Post by asymmetric »

ericd wrote: post #513
epolanski wrote: post #496

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't like your feedback, it's condescending and you know nothing about me. 1. In my area 96% of energy is gas-based. I live in Rome, Italy. It's written in my energy bill. I ain't got no solar. Night or day it's mostly a matter of relatively small changes of demand. 2. If you want to do something real for the environment change your diet! I'm sick of this neverending focus on energy when the biggest impact you can…

Pretty sure your diet is a relatively small part of your carbon footprint.

I think you’re wrong, especially if you consider more the just carbon (eg land use, deforestation, …) https://woods.stanford.edu/news/meats-environmental-impact

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#614

Post by fundatus »

clarionbell wrote: post #600

Meanwhile European chemical manufacturing is collapsing under weight of record energy costs.[1][2] Most of other manufacturing is somehow tied to chemicals, you can't build things without material after all. So this will feed ongoing industrial collapse, which now affects even Germany.[3] Meanwhile, low income households are running into financial issues if they want to turn up the heat.[4] The whole process has been…

And the reason for that? Fossil fuels. Cited from one of your articles:

> “Our industry continues to face difficult market dynamics and challenging energy costs, with European gas prices around three times higher than the US,” Arnaud Valenduc, business director for Ineos Inovyn, the Ineos business that makes chloromethane, says in the press release.

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#615

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

embedding-shape wrote: post #179
ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Solar prices in the US are criminal, protecting oil and gas who bought all the politicians. >Canada here. 7.6kw on our roof for $0 out of pocket thanks to $5k grant and $8k interest free loan. This very well may be true, but taken at face value Canada seems to be paying you around $7k to install solar panels on your roof (that's 8k interest free loan is losing out to inflation + any interest it would have earned). D…

> Definitely a great deal if you own a home, if I was a renter/condo owner I'd be annoyed that everyone is subsidizing your free solar however. What kind of selfish point of view is this? Don't you want people to use energy sources that are better for our entire world, even if it costs you like $10 more in taxes per year? Seems like a no brainer deal if you like "the outside" and you want it to still be there. I'm a…

> I'd be happy to pay more in taxes

Giving money to politicians is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#616

Post by lambdaone »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #538
micwag wrote: post #462

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In a calm cloudy winter week all renewables and battery storage are totally screwed. Hydro doesn’t really care about a calm cloudy winter week and is the reason my state was 100% renewable last year. So it’s definitely not a problem for ALL renewables.

Effectively all renewables . When was the last time a new dam and hydro electric power plant was built in your country? Either all of the favourable geography has already been dammed, or good luck getting environmental approval.

Alas, this is absolutely right. It's trivial to find places to put hydropower using global elevation data and GIS tools, but almost all of the good ones are already either being exploited, or in the process of being readied for use, or facing barriers such as the side-effect of destroying cities or heritage sites.

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#617

Post by lambdaone »

hexbin010 wrote: post #577
IshKebab wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with solar isn't the night. Getting enough batteries to cover that is totally doable. The issue is the winter. And not even because of fewer daylight hours - on sunny winter days there is usually still a good amount of solar. The problem is its often very cloudy in the winter. In the UK in winter we regularly have periods of 5 cloudy days in a row where solar output is virtually zero. I don't know what th…

Try 2 weeks of seemingly endless cloud up this way lol. This winter has been seriously depressing so far

Remarkably, even most cloudy weather still lets a suprising amount of sun in. And it doesn't stop the wind from blowing. The threat is when the wind stops blowing at the same time it's very, very cloudy and in the middle of winter (short days). This happens, but it's very intermittent.

However, as seen above, there are lots and lots of ways to store (or equivalent) power over long periods, it's just the economic incentive to build them that is needed - and is now on the way. Renewable-gas low-duty-cycle gas peakers, Carnot batteries, and sodium-ion batteries are top candidates, with the first being the low-hanging fruit because they already exist.

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#618

Post by ZeroGravitas »

clarionbell wrote: post #600

Meanwhile European chemical manufacturing is collapsing under weight of record energy costs.[1][2] Most of other manufacturing is somehow tied to chemicals, you can't build things without material after all. So this will feed ongoing industrial collapse, which now affects even Germany.[3] Meanwhile, low income households are running into financial issues if they want to turn up the heat.[4] The whole process has been…

If you don't propose what you think is a better alternative we don't know what we are agreeing with by upvoting. Is it:

1. Let Russia take most of eastern Europe in exchange for gas

2. Make Europe Great Again i.e. complain loudly about current politicians then do everything even worse with no plan or logic

3. Fully automated Luxury Communism

4. Ask Harry Potter to make chemical inputs with his magic wand.

5. Nuclear, just because we think it's neat.

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#620

Post by IshKebab »

kilroy123 wrote: post #474
IshKebab wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with solar isn't the night. Getting enough batteries to cover that is totally doable. The issue is the winter. And not even because of fewer daylight hours - on sunny winter days there is usually still a good amount of solar. The problem is its often very cloudy in the winter. In the UK in winter we regularly have periods of 5 cloudy days in a row where solar output is virtually zero. I don't know what th…

Just over build the solar. Build out solar so demand in winter is met. Use the excess power in summer for some kind of industrial use.

You would have to overbuild by a factor of 20 at least. Not at all practical or economical.
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