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>Wind and solar are the cheapest sources of power. A decades long propaganda campaign has tried, but failed, to cover that up. Even if Wind and Solar could sup

by yyyk 5y ago

>Wind and solar are the cheapest sources of power. A decades long propaganda campaign has tried, but failed, to cover that up. Even if Wind and Solar could supply 100% of demand tomorrow, we cannot convert all uses of oil and gas quickly. Renewables may be the future, but they are not today. The attempts of some misguided politicians to reduce Western extraction* of fossils merely subsidize Putin and dictators like him. * As opposed for attempts to reduce demand and switch supply to clean fuels which are useful.

ZeroGravitas 5y ago
> "Decades long propaganda campaign"
lazide 5y ago
And the reality is, even if nameplate capacity is sufficient - effective capacity is not often enough it would be foolhardy to depend on it during the winter. Natural Gas has a mind blowing amount of thermal energy, and per unit is essentially free compared to anything else. 42-45MJ/kg. Near as I can tell, Germany imported 119 billion cubic meters of natural gas in Jan/Feb of last year. A cubic meter of natural gas has approximately 38MJ of energy in it, so that is around 4.5 x 10^18 joules of energy or 1.2 x 10^13 kWh. Something like 12 trillion kWh. About 40% of that was from Russia (near as I can tell). Natural gas and Electric heating probably have similar end efficiencies (taking into account electric transmission losses).
- ZeroGravitas 5y ago
  You seem a really big fan of natural gas. Have you heard of heat pumps? If you burn the gas in electricity plants you can get 3x the efficiency of burning gas for heat. So if the heating power of gas is that impressive to you, then renewable backed heat pumps must be about 10x as impressive. You can even hook them up to the nuclear plants that you were supposedly advocating for before this turned into a love letter to natural gas, Russia's biggest export.
  - lazide 5y ago
    I’m far from a fan of natural gas - I’m a realist. Have you run the numbers on capex to switch everyone to heat pumps, or looked at available grid capacity required if everyone switched? I’m not saying it’s impossible period - I’m saying no one is being realistic about the cost or trade offs, and seems to be under the delusion that some (most of the time) fanciful faceplate capacity number and cheap price for one part of the story means everything is solved. It’s time to do the math.
  - tempnow987 5y ago
    Electricity prices would be 50 cents+ if germany converted to all electric now and banned gas generation of electricity. This is on the order of a few trillion in extra cost per year (even assuming amazing efficiencies in going electric).
    - lazide 5y ago
      Near as I can tell, price could be infinite and it wouldn’t matter. Even using heat pumps, the energy required is multiples higher than all current electrical energy produced or transmitted in Germany.
      - tempnow987 5y ago
        The replacement for nuclear and gas for heating is basically a big capital cost to convert blast ovens / furnaces etc to electric power. Then you need to replace gas and nuclear with wind / solar + battery storage. Let's say you can get $600/kwH for storage? If you need to cover let's say 18 hrs of energy needs (electricity and heat using electricity) that would give a sense of capital cost for the storage portion of the solar + wind package for germany as a whole? This excludes cost of conversion of course across the rest of things. This push to dump nuclear and gas for wind / solar is going to come eventually, just not clear we are there yet in available supply / cost etc. So I don't think its infinite, but extremely high and not overnight.
        lazide 5y ago
dv_dt 5y ago
Europe has had plenty of time since the last Russian expansion into the Ukraine. A hard future commitment to finance renewable technology now would give Russia more pause now than sanctions that don't stop SWIFT, or temporarily halt of SWIFT. Part of what gives the large fiscal buffer to Russia is that they're one of the largest fossil fuel producers in the world.
- yyyk 5y ago
  I intentionally separated extracting fossils from fossil demand reduction. We should definitely reduce fossil demand for too many reasons, and investing in renewables can help by switching demand. However, the attempts to reduce fossil extraction don't help the climate (the West just imports from some dictatorship which doesn't care), and ironically have their own negative externality.

by yyyk 5y ago

ZeroGravitas 5y ago

> "Decades long propaganda campaign"

lazide 5y ago

And the reality is, even if nameplate capacity is sufficient - effective capacity is not often enough it would be foolhardy to depend on it during the winter. Natural Gas has a mind blowing amount of thermal energy, and per unit is essentially free compared to anything else. 42-45MJ/kg. Near as I can tell, Germany imported 119 billion cubic meters of natural gas in Jan/Feb of last year. A cubic meter of natural gas has approximately 38MJ of energy in it, so that is around 4.5 x 10^18 joules of energy or 1.2 x 10^13 kWh. Something like 12 trillion kWh. About 40% of that was from Russia (near as I can tell). Natural gas and Electric heating probably have similar end efficiencies (taking into account electric transmission losses).

ZeroGravitas 5y ago
You seem a really big fan of natural gas. Have you heard of heat pumps? If you burn the gas in electricity plants you can get 3x the efficiency of burning gas for heat. So if the heating power of gas is that impressive to you, then renewable backed heat pumps must be about 10x as impressive. You can even hook them up to the nuclear plants that you were supposedly advocating for before this turned into a love letter to natural gas, Russia's biggest export.
- lazide 5y ago
  I’m far from a fan of natural gas - I’m a realist. Have you run the numbers on capex to switch everyone to heat pumps, or looked at available grid capacity required if everyone switched? I’m not saying it’s impossible period - I’m saying no one is being realistic about the cost or trade offs, and seems to be under the delusion that some (most of the time) fanciful faceplate capacity number and cheap price for one part of the story means everything is solved. It’s time to do the math.
- tempnow987 5y ago
  Electricity prices would be 50 cents+ if germany converted to all electric now and banned gas generation of electricity. This is on the order of a few trillion in extra cost per year (even assuming amazing efficiencies in going electric).
  - lazide 5y ago
    Near as I can tell, price could be infinite and it wouldn’t matter. Even using heat pumps, the energy required is multiples higher than all current electrical energy produced or transmitted in Germany.
    - tempnow987 5y ago
      The replacement for nuclear and gas for heating is basically a big capital cost to convert blast ovens / furnaces etc to electric power. Then you need to replace gas and nuclear with wind / solar + battery storage. Let's say you can get $600/kwH for storage? If you need to cover let's say 18 hrs of energy needs (electricity and heat using electricity) that would give a sense of capital cost for the storage portion of the solar + wind package for germany as a whole? This excludes cost of conversion of course across the rest of things. This push to dump nuclear and gas for wind / solar is going to come eventually, just not clear we are there yet in available supply / cost etc. So I don't think its infinite, but extremely high and not overnight.
      - lazide 5y ago

dv_dt 5y ago

Europe has had plenty of time since the last Russian expansion into the Ukraine. A hard future commitment to finance renewable technology now would give Russia more pause now than sanctions that don't stop SWIFT, or temporarily halt of SWIFT. Part of what gives the large fiscal buffer to Russia is that they're one of the largest fossil fuel producers in the world.

yyyk 5y ago
I intentionally separated extracting fossils from fossil demand reduction. We should definitely reduce fossil demand for too many reasons, and investing in renewables can help by switching demand. However, the attempts to reduce fossil extraction don't help the climate (the West just imports from some dictatorship which doesn't care), and ironically have their own negative externality.