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Thing is, it‘s true in essence, but talking about this stuff without numbers is completely pointless. It is written in a sensationalist way. 1. Subsidies for w

by WA 4y ago

Thing is, it‘s true in essence, but talking about this stuff without numbers is completely pointless. It is written in a sensationalist way. 1. Subsidies for wood pellets were a thing but are phased out in Germany. 2. The awareness of some stupid calculations of burning wood come up quite frequently in the German media (the Twitter thread is like 2-3 years late). 3. There are no numbers in the thread about the carbon emitted in the process of producing and shipping wood pellets. 4. Not all wood burned in Germany is wood from the US. 5. Not all stoves in Germany are utterly bad. The tech advanced in recent years. 6. The comparison with coal is kinda dumb, because we had different goals a hundred years ago. - I personally think burning wood in housing areas should be banned entirely for health reasons. - I think the general gist of the thread is true: burning wood is at least partially some kind of green washing scheme. - But the reality is more complex than this thread claims.

arghwhat 4y ago
> I personally think burning wood in housing areas should be banned entirely for health reasons ... Well yes, the entire point is that it's incredibly polluting, even more so than all the other fuels we're trying to supplant. Especially silly when countries simultaneously are trying to shut down nuclear, going from as green as we can practically do (fewest deaths and fewest resources per TWh) to as bad as it can realistically get (by same metrics). The only worse source of energy I can think of would be people burning their own trash as-is.
- Retric 4y ago
  Grid solar has both fewer deaths than Nuclear and uses fewer resources like water, thus the lower costs. Rooftop solar is dangerous because people are putting stuff on roofs and can fall off in the process, so rooftop solar probably shouldn’t be subsidized IMO.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - WHATDOESIT 4y ago
    To replace just a single nuclear reactor you need so many solar panels that the deaths caused by the transportation will be significant - accidents, pollution + you have to count the damaged roads that need to be replaced - again pollution and accidents. And high-voltage electricity is not exactly safe - you would need so much electrical work that there simply must be a lot of death from accidents too, on this scale we're getting into the area where it's statistics and not really something to simply prevent. Solar panels need to be replaced after 30 years max, but most probably will be replaced much earlier because the operators want to pocket the improved efficiency of newer panels. Reactors will need maintenance but it is normal to keep them running much longer. Also, what about the human labor? To maintain such large solar array you'd need hundreds of people. A modern nuclear powerplant with 5+ reactors is maintained by few dozens of people. I'm a huge proponent of solar energy - but on rooftops, not as a replacement of nature or nuclear power. It will never be possible to phase out fossil fuels in transport and industrial uses without nuclear power - solar just doesn't scale this much, it's perfect for individual houses but you just can't power thousands of large container ships with it, nor blast furnaces etc - and definitely not the uncountable amount of trucks and cars on roads.
    - mqus 4y ago
      >Solar panels need to be replaced after 30 years max, but most probably will be replaced much earlier because the operators want to pocket the improved efficiency of newer panels. Reactors will need maintenance but it is normal to keep them running much longer. Also, what about the human labor? To maintain such large solar array you'd need hundreds of people. A modern nuclear powerplant with 5+ reactors is maintained by few dozens of people. To just pick at one of your "statistics": E.g. Flamanville, a reactor plant with 2 reactors (and 1 being built) employed 670 people (not a "few dozens")[1]. I would argue the solar panels are the ones needing much less people. The ones I know don't need any kind of big servicing. But in those sizes this is pure speculation from my side. > To replace just a single nuclear reactor you need so many solar panels that the deaths caused by the transportation will be significant - accidents, pollution + you have to count the damaged roads that need to be replaced - again pollution and accidents. And high-voltage electricity is not exactly safe - you would need so much electrical work that there simply must be a lot of death from accidents too, on this scale we're getting into the area where it's statistics and not really something to simply prevent. Electronics-wise I don't see why there is so much more (and more dangerous) work involved in wiring up solar panels compared to constructing a nuclear plant. But I don't have statistics on that. I also wanted to know if your "deaths caused by the transportation will be significant" makes any sense. For that I tried to estimate the kind of size a solar park would have be to replace a reactor plant, e.g. Flamanville. Flamanville produces 14TWh per year. I took [2] as a reference(2.14km², 117GWh) and it came out to 256km² of area to produce the same amount of energy per year with solar in the flat part of germany. Storage is missing there. This is a huge amount of space, but also nothing that will produce "significant accidents" on its own. Constructing reactors and transporting fuel rods and nuclear waste is also a huge act with tons of material involved. > It will never be possible to phase out fossil fuels in transport and industrial uses without nuclear power - solar just doesn't scale this much, it's perfect for individual houses but you just can't power thousands of large container ships with it, nor blast furnaces etc - and definitely not the uncountable amount of trucks and cars on roads. Maybe direct batteries are not a solution for transport and industrial uses. But green h2 would be. This then has the fortunate aspect that it can be produced anywhere and independent of the need, e.g. in the Sahara and only when the sun shines. In that way solar can replace fossil fuels and nuclear power. Regarding cars and regular power use (btw germany covers ~40% of its energy with renewables already, taking this times two or three is not an issue of "scale"), lets just take the solar example from above and try to do 150% of germany's current power needs in full solar and see where that gets us. Germany needed 624 TWh in its peak year (2007, [3]), lets be generous and say we need 1000TWh in the future. This comes down to 18300 km². Germany has an area of 358000km². So our (very generous) solar capacity would need about an area of 5%. How much is 5%? According to [4], citys and streets (etc.) sum up to 14.5%, Agriculture has about 50%, Forests 30%. Since we can "simply" put the panels on top of the first category and don't have to replace existing areas most of the time, this looks pretty feasible to me, even with exaggerated demands in napkin calculations. So maybe it does not scale well, but it does scale. And all of this does not take into account that solar is not the only option. Power from wind is a great way to mix since wind is strong mostly when there is no/less sun. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamanville_Nuclear_Power_Plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamanville_Nuclear_Power_Plan... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Templin_Solar_Park https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Templin_Solar_Park (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solarpark_Templin_%E2%80%93_Gro%C3%9F_D%C3%B6lln https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solarpark_Templin_%E2%80%93_Gr... has the energy statistics regarding GWh in 2017) [3] https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/daten/energie/stromverbrauch https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/daten/energie/stromverbrauch (german, but the graph should be readable) [4] https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/daten/flaeche-boden-land-oekosysteme/flaeche/struktur-der-flaechennutzung#die-wichtigsten-flachennutzungen https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/daten/flaeche-boden-land-oeko... (also german)
  - WastingMyTime89 4y ago
    A nuclear power plan doesn’t “use” water. It takes fresh water in and reject it later a bit warmer. That’s pretty much it. Water usage must be one of the silliest metric used in ecology by the way. Water doesn’t magically disappear when it’s “used”. What’s important is the share of the potable water available in an area used by an activity and how much other pollutants are released in the water.
    - leereeves 4y ago
      > A nuclear power plan doesn’t “use” water. Some nuclear power plants have cooling towers that evaporate large quantities of water.
      - TheLoafOfBread 4y ago
        So it will flow away into universe...
        leereeves 4y ago
        Water use doesn't mean destroying water. It means using some of the limited quantity of water that's available at a given time in a given place, using it for a given purpose and not some other purpose. Water that evaporates isn't available for drinking and showers and farming.
        WHATDOESIT 4y ago
        It is - it will rain down not too far away.
        leereeves 4y ago
        So it will be available again in the future, but it's not available right now anymore. I guess everyone here lives someplace with abundant water. When water supplies are actually limited, using water for one purpose means water isn't available for something else. Edit: I know nothing about European water supplies, but with a quick search I found news suggesting that is an issue even in Europe: https://www.euronews.com/2022/08/08/nothing-left-in-the-pipes-europe-tackles-unprecedented-water-shortages-as-heatwave-rages https://www.euronews.com/2022/08/08/nothing-left-in-the-pipe...
  - billythemaniam 4y ago
    GAF Energy in the last year came out with nailable solar shingles so the installation process is similar to a normal roof. I think that's the future because it only adds a relatively small cost to the cost of replacing a roof or new one, doesn't require any structural changes to framing (sometimes needed), and the risk of "stuff falling" is the same. https://www.gaf.energy/timberline-solar/ https://www.gaf.energy/timberline-solar/
    - mindslight 4y ago
      Are these available to DIYers? I'm building a shed and would just as soon use these if I could. As it stands, I'm just going to overbuild the roof structure a bit and then add racked solar when I get around to it.
      - billythemaniam 4y ago
        I don't know, but I recommend reaching out. Sounds like a cool project!
    - Retric 4y ago
      It’s better, but I still expect some fool to climb up onto their roof in the winter to remove snow etc. When you start talking 100’s of millions of homes your end up dealing with vast numbers of really dumb people.
      - billythemaniam 4y ago
        Bold, wild claims require evidence for the rest of us to believe you. Got any?
        Retric 4y ago
        Bold? Here’s a video of someone actually falling off their roof, but you can find plenty of videos where people are walking around their roof looking at their panels. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RA4HrMy9djk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RA4HrMy9djk Here’s an article actually recommending it for flat roofs. Using a Shovel Method Shoveling is the riskiest of the snow removal procedures from your roof. The reason for this is that it requires you to climb to the roof to remove the snow. There’s risk in climbing the ladder, the shoveling itself, and the risk of damaging the roof if you step in a weak spot or hit the shovel on a delicate part of the roof. However, it is the best especially on a flat surface/roof https://roofscour.com/how-to-remove-snow-off-roof/ https://roofscour.com/how-to-remove-snow-off-roof/
  - goodpoint 4y ago
    > Rooftop solar is dangerous because people are putting stuff on roofs and can fall off in the process This is very misleading. Roofing is dangerous and deaths when installing panels are blamed on solar energy. Yet, people need to build and rebuild roofs anyways. If solar panels or shingles are installed when a house is built or refurbished accidents should not be blamed on solar energy. Additionally, some countries (especially US) have poorly enforced work safety regulations and that can be improved. Plus, houses can be built with safe roofs i.e. flat roofs.
    - Retric 4y ago
      It’s not just installing panels homeowners will climb up to remove snow, do maintenance, etc. On a house by house basis it’s not a significant risk, but when you start comparing it to the ~1/2 billion homes it would take to equal the worlds nuclear power plants low risks do add up.
      - goodpoint 4y ago
        > when you start comparing it to the ~1/2 billion homes it would take to equal the worlds nuclear power plants ...while also completely ignoring the systemic risks involving the latter.
        Retric 4y ago
        Over grid solar? There are some edge case advantages to rooftop solar for individual homeowners, but when everyone is connecting to the grid anyway I don’t think it’s a good idea to subsidize the more expensive option. It’s simply a waste of public funds when we can hit a larger bank for the buck both economically and environmentally.
  - spookie 4y ago
    There's not enough sunlight per day in the coming months in most of Europe. How's solar going to help?
- retcore 4y ago
  Pre pandemic, London air quality was returned to worse than before the Clean Air Act by wood burning for vanity hearths. Related earlier discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32765950 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32765950 and earlier NYT article with more information about European protected forest cutting, legal and illegal: https://archive.ph/7se1H https://archive.ph/7se1H
- sam_lowry_ 4y ago
  > I personally think burning wood in housing areas > should be banned entirely for health reasons Contemporary pellet burners and inserts are incredibly cost-effective and clean. Gosh, even heating with peat is ecologically sound if it is extracted nearby.
  - mjhay 4y ago
    Peat is only arguably renewable though - it grows at something like half a mm a year in thickness. Vegetation takes a long time to come back in those environments, and there's also so many more high-value things the peat could be used for instead. We must leave our grandchildren a world with Laphroaig..
- sschueller 4y ago
  Pellets in Switzerland are all from local Forrest that are specifically used for this. The manufacturing of pellets requires no additives and if 4 or more homes are sharing a burner (recommended) the burner has to meet very strict emissions and needs to be inspected regularly. Because the resources are local and the burning only produces CO2 which is planted again, it is considered quite sustainable. If course a geo thermal heat pump and solar would be better but not every one has 100k extra to get that installed.
  - nkurz 4y ago
    Here in the US I don't think I've ever heard of a shared burner between multiple homes. It seems like an interesting idea. How common are these? How does it typically work? Does one home owner sell heat to the neighbors, or is it jointly owned? Or is there no "typical", and it's always a custom arrangement?
    - sirfrankiecrisp 4y ago
      I don't know about typical, but I know a couple of people (here in Switzerland) using pellets and they jointly (that is, together with their neighbours) own the burner. They made the investment together and pay for all expenses together. I also heared that it makes most sense for a densly populated area like an old town (talking about european old towns) or big buildings like a school. Doesn't make too much sense if every one-family home has their own.
    - quickthrowman 4y ago
      It’s just a heat exchanger glycol loop that uses burning wood to generate the heat, very similar to a gas-fired boiler. With a large enough burner you can have multiple heat exchangers or multiple glycol loops with a large heat exchanger for multiple buildings, similar to how commercial buildings use a single boiler or chiller to heat/cool large buildings or multiple buildings that need multiple heating or cooling glycol loops. Most of the houses that burn wood for heat in the US are in sparsely populated rural areas where sharing a burner wouldn’t make sense due to the loop length and pumps needed to circulate the glycol. Densely populated areas in the US that need lots of winter heating generally have natural gas distribution networks.
nemo44x 4y ago
> I personally think burning wood in housing areas should be banned entirely for health reasons. What about for cooking? Smoking meat requires the use of wood splits being used to build a wood fire in a smoker.
- WA 4y ago
  Depends. Do you burn tons of wood every day as my neighbor for a daily barbeque or 10 hours in a row in your smoker? Does the smoke go into my sleeping room in the summer? I'd rather prefer if you didn't. Once in a while? I have to accept it (and might to a barbeque once in a while, too).
  - mistrial9 4y ago
    this is the reality here - dozens of wood fires for small groups of people with zero filtering; so easy and common, difficult to see the cumulative effects. I believe open fires have been completely banned in my area due to simple excess by a small number of careless actors.
game_the0ry 4y ago
> But the reality is more complex than this thread claims. Disagree - I think it is very simple and you are over-complicating, which is what the EU bureaucrats do to obfuscate their bad decisions bc they do not want accountability for what they do. Let me simplify: - past and present decisions by EU bureaucrats = bad - nuclear energy = good There. Now the EU people know who to blame and what to do. But the EU leadership is like - "Hubbuduh hubbuduh, blah blah..." It's distraction. Don't fall for that politic shit.
- disgruntledphd2 4y ago
  Energy is not an EU competency. And to be clear, EU bureaucrats decide basically nothing, the council of ministers makes all EU decisions and they are the elected ministers of the member states.
  - game_the0ry 4y ago
    > Energy is not an EU competency You’re right about that. > the council of ministers makes all EU decisions and they are the elected ministers of the member states. Then whoever is electing those ministers better start electing other, smarter people.
    - disgruntledphd2 4y ago
      That would be the people of Europe, and I agree. But blaming it on faceless bureaucrats is a distraction from that.
- peoplefromibiza 4y ago
  > Let me simplify: You simply don't know of EU works or you're lying because you have an agenda.
  - game_the0ry 4y ago
    My agenda is that is that I wish the best for the people of the EU. The people running the EU do not, which is proven by their illogical actions.
crisdux 4y ago
Your points do not dispute doomberg's argument. The reality is that EU wood pellet consumption has been increasing. Germany and France are leading the growth. It is generally accepted that wood burning produces more co2 than coal and natural gas. We have cleaner alternatives. Corruption and poor decision making is hurting progress. Interesting report from the USDA. https://www.fas.usda.gov/data/european-union-eu-wood-pellet-annual https://www.fas.usda.gov/data/european-union-eu-wood-pellet-...
- WA 4y ago
  > Your points do not dispute doomberg's argument.[...] It is generally accepted that wood burning produces more co2 than coal and natural gas. How about this number? Coal consumption in the EU in the last 30 years: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/de/web/products-eurostat-news/-/ddn-20220502-2 https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/de/web/products-eurostat-news/... Still more than 10x the number of burnt wood. Should we replace all coal by wood? Heck no, that'd be insane, but Doomberg framed this whole thing in a sensationalist way. Correct me if I'm wrong, but this is what the whole thread is about: - UK burned wood a hundred years ago, which was totally inefficient. - Then they discovered coal, which is more energy efficient. - Now the EU is back to burning wood, even though it is less efficient than coal and they call this green, which is dumb. (Ignoring many aspects of the whole thing) - The EU is stupid and they should go full nuclear instead. I'm simply pointing out that Doomberg's chain of arguments lack actual numbers and neglect a few things (stove efficiency, different goals, etc.), even though the gist of it at least somewhat true.
  - _fizz_buzz_ 4y ago
    > The EU is stupid and they should go full nuclear instead. Policies differ between EU countries. Finland just brought a reactor online. France is planning to build 14 reactors in the next decade. On the other hand Germany is going to shut down 3 reactors.
    - forty 4y ago
      The last reactors France built all (including the one in Finland) have had more than 10 years delay compared to what was planned, so I doubt we are going to build 14 in the next decade :)
rascul 4y ago
> - I personally think burning wood in housing areas should be banned entirely for health reasons. From what I understand, modern fireplaces and wood stoves can be 70% to 80% efficient. Rocket mass stove can be over 90% efficient. I don't know how efficient pellet stoves can be. Smoke is from the wood that isn't completely burned, so more efficiency means more combustion and less smoke. My guess is that this is also going to be a lot better for health than an older and less efficient wood heat source. I would be interested in knowing how accurate I am but a quick web search hasn't turned up a whole lot.
- mountaintimefrm 4y ago
  I had a rocket mass heater for a few years and it was awesome - no smoke out the chimney, just steam. I burned sticks raked up out of my yard, pinecones, construction scraps, etc. There have been a lot of improvements in RMH design in recent years, led largely by the RMH enthusiasts at https://permies.com/f/260/rocket-mass-heaters https://permies.com/f/260/rocket-mass-heaters IMO traditional metal wood stoves really suck compared RMHs, but they can be made better by routing the exhaust through a stratification chamber (eg a large metal container like a barrel or a old water tank; hot flue gas enters the top, cooler flue gas exits the bottom). Pretty easy to set up next to an existing wood stove, and you get a lot more heat and a lot less smoke out of an otherwise crappy stove.
  - rascul 4y ago
    I've always found rocket mass heaters to be quite interesting. One day I'll get around to making one. I'm in an area where I might be able to use it a couple weeks out of the year so it's not much of a priority.
erddfre3423 4y ago
arrabe 4y ago
> sensationalist unfortunately this is how you get 5~6 digit followers on fintwit. its no longer about nuanced analysis but how can I disguise my political narrative in the form of "DD" or "analytical take" but leave room for contingency in case somebody digs deeper and throws stone at my bridge made out of twigs?
hutzlibu 4y ago
"- I personally think burning wood in housing areas should be banned entirely for health reasons." It would be a start, if coal for heating homes would be banned (you can buy it in the supermarket here). But stopping people from burning wood they get from their garden/forests, like I do now, is never gonna get through and I do not see any reasons why it should. The only time burning stoves bother people, is when people start their fires and more so if they do it non efficient. That smells bad and is bad. But once it burns? Not a problem, unless everyone in a crowded area would do it. And about CO2, well, it is a net zero, if the area where the wood comes from, is regrowing trees again.
FunnyBadger 4y ago
The US DOE designed the most efficient wood stoves during Jimmy Carter's presidency (he was an engineer by training). Those are the same ones we use today. This isn't a recent thing. This includes cat converter wood stoves. Strictly wood is NOT a carbon footprint because it's part of a short-term carbon cycle (in <100 years it's already back into trees). Until recently I lived in the boonies and ONLY used wood for heating. The biggest problem with wood: you have to constantly manage/regulate the fueling and heating - even the best stoves need to be refilled in 4-6 hours when the temperature is below 10C. Further, you only get this if you've aged (dried) the wood for 2 years first. Newly cut wood is 20-30% water and the heat of vaporization to steam radically reduces the heating value of the burned wood.
- nkurz 4y ago
  I downvoted this because I think you are wrong about some crucial details. Woodstoves have in fact improved considerably since the late 70's: higher efficiency, longer reload times, and lower emissions. Modern woodstoves do not need to be refilled every 4-6 hours. I'm in a good position to assert this, since we live in Vermont (a place with cold winters) and heat almost exclusively with wood. We recently upgraded from what was a state-of-the-art 1980's stove to a start-of-the-art 2020's stove. Doing so reduced our fuel consumption by about 30%, and improved our reload time from the 4-6 hours you mention to 8-10 hours. After upgrading, I no longer have to get up in the night to feed the fire. And this is in a 100 year old house with overnight outside temperatures frequently in the -20C to -10C range (-5F to 15F). I do agree with you though on the necessity of properly drying wood and on the carbon cycle.

by WA 4y ago

arghwhat 4y ago

> I personally think burning wood in housing areas should be banned entirely for health reasons ... Well yes, the entire point is that it's incredibly polluting, even more so than all the other fuels we're trying to supplant. Especially silly when countries simultaneously are trying to shut down nuclear, going from as green as we can practically do (fewest deaths and fewest resources per TWh) to as bad as it can realistically get (by same metrics). The only worse source of energy I can think of would be people burning their own trash as-is.

Retric 4y ago
Grid solar has both fewer deaths than Nuclear and uses fewer resources like water, thus the lower costs. Rooftop solar is dangerous because people are putting stuff on roofs and can fall off in the process, so rooftop solar probably shouldn’t be subsidized IMO.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- WHATDOESIT 4y ago
  To replace just a single nuclear reactor you need so many solar panels that the deaths caused by the transportation will be significant - accidents, pollution + you have to count the damaged roads that need to be replaced - again pollution and accidents. And high-voltage electricity is not exactly safe - you would need so much electrical work that there simply must be a lot of death from accidents too, on this scale we're getting into the area where it's statistics and not really something to simply prevent. Solar panels need to be replaced after 30 years max, but most probably will be replaced much earlier because the operators want to pocket the improved efficiency of newer panels. Reactors will need maintenance but it is normal to keep them running much longer. Also, what about the human labor? To maintain such large solar array you'd need hundreds of people. A modern nuclear powerplant with 5+ reactors is maintained by few dozens of people. I'm a huge proponent of solar energy - but on rooftops, not as a replacement of nature or nuclear power. It will never be possible to phase out fossil fuels in transport and industrial uses without nuclear power - solar just doesn't scale this much, it's perfect for individual houses but you just can't power thousands of large container ships with it, nor blast furnaces etc - and definitely not the uncountable amount of trucks and cars on roads.
  - mqus 4y ago
    >Solar panels need to be replaced after 30 years max, but most probably will be replaced much earlier because the operators want to pocket the improved efficiency of newer panels. Reactors will need maintenance but it is normal to keep them running much longer. Also, what about the human labor? To maintain such large solar array you'd need hundreds of people. A modern nuclear powerplant with 5+ reactors is maintained by few dozens of people. To just pick at one of your "statistics": E.g. Flamanville, a reactor plant with 2 reactors (and 1 being built) employed 670 people (not a "few dozens")[1]. I would argue the solar panels are the ones needing much less people. The ones I know don't need any kind of big servicing. But in those sizes this is pure speculation from my side. > To replace just a single nuclear reactor you need so many solar panels that the deaths caused by the transportation will be significant - accidents, pollution + you have to count the damaged roads that need to be replaced - again pollution and accidents. And high-voltage electricity is not exactly safe - you would need so much electrical work that there simply must be a lot of death from accidents too, on this scale we're getting into the area where it's statistics and not really something to simply prevent. Electronics-wise I don't see why there is so much more (and more dangerous) work involved in wiring up solar panels compared to constructing a nuclear plant. But I don't have statistics on that. I also wanted to know if your "deaths caused by the transportation will be significant" makes any sense. For that I tried to estimate the kind of size a solar park would have be to replace a reactor plant, e.g. Flamanville. Flamanville produces 14TWh per year. I took [2] as a reference(2.14km², 117GWh) and it came out to 256km² of area to produce the same amount of energy per year with solar in the flat part of germany. Storage is missing there. This is a huge amount of space, but also nothing that will produce "significant accidents" on its own. Constructing reactors and transporting fuel rods and nuclear waste is also a huge act with tons of material involved. > It will never be possible to phase out fossil fuels in transport and industrial uses without nuclear power - solar just doesn't scale this much, it's perfect for individual houses but you just can't power thousands of large container ships with it, nor blast furnaces etc - and definitely not the uncountable amount of trucks and cars on roads. Maybe direct batteries are not a solution for transport and industrial uses. But green h2 would be. This then has the fortunate aspect that it can be produced anywhere and independent of the need, e.g. in the Sahara and only when the sun shines. In that way solar can replace fossil fuels and nuclear power. Regarding cars and regular power use (btw germany covers ~40% of its energy with renewables already, taking this times two or three is not an issue of "scale"), lets just take the solar example from above and try to do 150% of germany's current power needs in full solar and see where that gets us. Germany needed 624 TWh in its peak year (2007, [3]), lets be generous and say we need 1000TWh in the future. This comes down to 18300 km². Germany has an area of 358000km². So our (very generous) solar capacity would need about an area of 5%. How much is 5%? According to [4], citys and streets (etc.) sum up to 14.5%, Agriculture has about 50%, Forests 30%. Since we can "simply" put the panels on top of the first category and don't have to replace existing areas most of the time, this looks pretty feasible to me, even with exaggerated demands in napkin calculations. So maybe it does not scale well, but it does scale. And all of this does not take into account that solar is not the only option. Power from wind is a great way to mix since wind is strong mostly when there is no/less sun. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamanville_Nuclear_Power_Plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamanville_Nuclear_Power_Plan... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Templin_Solar_Park https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Templin_Solar_Park (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solarpark_Templin_%E2%80%93_Gro%C3%9F_D%C3%B6lln https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solarpark_Templin_%E2%80%93_Gr... has the energy statistics regarding GWh in 2017) [3] https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/daten/energie/stromverbrauch https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/daten/energie/stromverbrauch (german, but the graph should be readable) [4] https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/daten/flaeche-boden-land-oekosysteme/flaeche/struktur-der-flaechennutzung#die-wichtigsten-flachennutzungen https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/daten/flaeche-boden-land-oeko... (also german)
- WastingMyTime89 4y ago
  A nuclear power plan doesn’t “use” water. It takes fresh water in and reject it later a bit warmer. That’s pretty much it. Water usage must be one of the silliest metric used in ecology by the way. Water doesn’t magically disappear when it’s “used”. What’s important is the share of the potable water available in an area used by an activity and how much other pollutants are released in the water.
  - leereeves 4y ago
    > A nuclear power plan doesn’t “use” water. Some nuclear power plants have cooling towers that evaporate large quantities of water.
    - TheLoafOfBread 4y ago
      So it will flow away into universe...
      - leereeves 4y ago
        Water use doesn't mean destroying water. It means using some of the limited quantity of water that's available at a given time in a given place, using it for a given purpose and not some other purpose. Water that evaporates isn't available for drinking and showers and farming.
        WHATDOESIT 4y ago
        It is - it will rain down not too far away.
        leereeves 4y ago
        So it will be available again in the future, but it's not available right now anymore. I guess everyone here lives someplace with abundant water. When water supplies are actually limited, using water for one purpose means water isn't available for something else. Edit: I know nothing about European water supplies, but with a quick search I found news suggesting that is an issue even in Europe: https://www.euronews.com/2022/08/08/nothing-left-in-the-pipes-europe-tackles-unprecedented-water-shortages-as-heatwave-rages https://www.euronews.com/2022/08/08/nothing-left-in-the-pipe...
- billythemaniam 4y ago
  GAF Energy in the last year came out with nailable solar shingles so the installation process is similar to a normal roof. I think that's the future because it only adds a relatively small cost to the cost of replacing a roof or new one, doesn't require any structural changes to framing (sometimes needed), and the risk of "stuff falling" is the same. https://www.gaf.energy/timberline-solar/ https://www.gaf.energy/timberline-solar/
  - mindslight 4y ago
    Are these available to DIYers? I'm building a shed and would just as soon use these if I could. As it stands, I'm just going to overbuild the roof structure a bit and then add racked solar when I get around to it.
    - billythemaniam 4y ago
      I don't know, but I recommend reaching out. Sounds like a cool project!
  - Retric 4y ago
    It’s better, but I still expect some fool to climb up onto their roof in the winter to remove snow etc. When you start talking 100’s of millions of homes your end up dealing with vast numbers of really dumb people.
    - billythemaniam 4y ago
      Bold, wild claims require evidence for the rest of us to believe you. Got any?
      - Retric 4y ago
        Bold? Here’s a video of someone actually falling off their roof, but you can find plenty of videos where people are walking around their roof looking at their panels. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RA4HrMy9djk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RA4HrMy9djk Here’s an article actually recommending it for flat roofs. Using a Shovel Method Shoveling is the riskiest of the snow removal procedures from your roof. The reason for this is that it requires you to climb to the roof to remove the snow. There’s risk in climbing the ladder, the shoveling itself, and the risk of damaging the roof if you step in a weak spot or hit the shovel on a delicate part of the roof. However, it is the best especially on a flat surface/roof https://roofscour.com/how-to-remove-snow-off-roof/ https://roofscour.com/how-to-remove-snow-off-roof/
- goodpoint 4y ago
  > Rooftop solar is dangerous because people are putting stuff on roofs and can fall off in the process This is very misleading. Roofing is dangerous and deaths when installing panels are blamed on solar energy. Yet, people need to build and rebuild roofs anyways. If solar panels or shingles are installed when a house is built or refurbished accidents should not be blamed on solar energy. Additionally, some countries (especially US) have poorly enforced work safety regulations and that can be improved. Plus, houses can be built with safe roofs i.e. flat roofs.
  - Retric 4y ago
    It’s not just installing panels homeowners will climb up to remove snow, do maintenance, etc. On a house by house basis it’s not a significant risk, but when you start comparing it to the ~1/2 billion homes it would take to equal the worlds nuclear power plants low risks do add up.
    - goodpoint 4y ago
      > when you start comparing it to the ~1/2 billion homes it would take to equal the worlds nuclear power plants ...while also completely ignoring the systemic risks involving the latter.
      - Retric 4y ago
        Over grid solar? There are some edge case advantages to rooftop solar for individual homeowners, but when everyone is connecting to the grid anyway I don’t think it’s a good idea to subsidize the more expensive option. It’s simply a waste of public funds when we can hit a larger bank for the buck both economically and environmentally.
- spookie 4y ago
  There's not enough sunlight per day in the coming months in most of Europe. How's solar going to help?
retcore 4y ago
Pre pandemic, London air quality was returned to worse than before the Clean Air Act by wood burning for vanity hearths. Related earlier discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32765950 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32765950 and earlier NYT article with more information about European protected forest cutting, legal and illegal: https://archive.ph/7se1H https://archive.ph/7se1H
sam_lowry_ 4y ago
> I personally think burning wood in housing areas > should be banned entirely for health reasons Contemporary pellet burners and inserts are incredibly cost-effective and clean. Gosh, even heating with peat is ecologically sound if it is extracted nearby.
- mjhay 4y ago
  Peat is only arguably renewable though - it grows at something like half a mm a year in thickness. Vegetation takes a long time to come back in those environments, and there's also so many more high-value things the peat could be used for instead. We must leave our grandchildren a world with Laphroaig..
sschueller 4y ago
Pellets in Switzerland are all from local Forrest that are specifically used for this. The manufacturing of pellets requires no additives and if 4 or more homes are sharing a burner (recommended) the burner has to meet very strict emissions and needs to be inspected regularly. Because the resources are local and the burning only produces CO2 which is planted again, it is considered quite sustainable. If course a geo thermal heat pump and solar would be better but not every one has 100k extra to get that installed.
- nkurz 4y ago
  Here in the US I don't think I've ever heard of a shared burner between multiple homes. It seems like an interesting idea. How common are these? How does it typically work? Does one home owner sell heat to the neighbors, or is it jointly owned? Or is there no "typical", and it's always a custom arrangement?
  - sirfrankiecrisp 4y ago
    I don't know about typical, but I know a couple of people (here in Switzerland) using pellets and they jointly (that is, together with their neighbours) own the burner. They made the investment together and pay for all expenses together. I also heared that it makes most sense for a densly populated area like an old town (talking about european old towns) or big buildings like a school. Doesn't make too much sense if every one-family home has their own.
  - quickthrowman 4y ago
    It’s just a heat exchanger glycol loop that uses burning wood to generate the heat, very similar to a gas-fired boiler. With a large enough burner you can have multiple heat exchangers or multiple glycol loops with a large heat exchanger for multiple buildings, similar to how commercial buildings use a single boiler or chiller to heat/cool large buildings or multiple buildings that need multiple heating or cooling glycol loops. Most of the houses that burn wood for heat in the US are in sparsely populated rural areas where sharing a burner wouldn’t make sense due to the loop length and pumps needed to circulate the glycol. Densely populated areas in the US that need lots of winter heating generally have natural gas distribution networks.

nemo44x 4y ago

> I personally think burning wood in housing areas should be banned entirely for health reasons. What about for cooking? Smoking meat requires the use of wood splits being used to build a wood fire in a smoker.

WA 4y ago
Depends. Do you burn tons of wood every day as my neighbor for a daily barbeque or 10 hours in a row in your smoker? Does the smoke go into my sleeping room in the summer? I'd rather prefer if you didn't. Once in a while? I have to accept it (and might to a barbeque once in a while, too).
- mistrial9 4y ago
  this is the reality here - dozens of wood fires for small groups of people with zero filtering; so easy and common, difficult to see the cumulative effects. I believe open fires have been completely banned in my area due to simple excess by a small number of careless actors.

game_the0ry 4y ago

> But the reality is more complex than this thread claims. Disagree - I think it is very simple and you are over-complicating, which is what the EU bureaucrats do to obfuscate their bad decisions bc they do not want accountability for what they do. Let me simplify: - past and present decisions by EU bureaucrats = bad - nuclear energy = good There. Now the EU people know who to blame and what to do. But the EU leadership is like - "Hubbuduh hubbuduh, blah blah..." It's distraction. Don't fall for that politic shit.

disgruntledphd2 4y ago
Energy is not an EU competency. And to be clear, EU bureaucrats decide basically nothing, the council of ministers makes all EU decisions and they are the elected ministers of the member states.
- game_the0ry 4y ago
  > Energy is not an EU competency You’re right about that. > the council of ministers makes all EU decisions and they are the elected ministers of the member states. Then whoever is electing those ministers better start electing other, smarter people.
  - disgruntledphd2 4y ago
    That would be the people of Europe, and I agree. But blaming it on faceless bureaucrats is a distraction from that.
peoplefromibiza 4y ago
> Let me simplify: You simply don't know of EU works or you're lying because you have an agenda.
- game_the0ry 4y ago
  My agenda is that is that I wish the best for the people of the EU. The people running the EU do not, which is proven by their illogical actions.

crisdux 4y ago

Your points do not dispute doomberg's argument. The reality is that EU wood pellet consumption has been increasing. Germany and France are leading the growth. It is generally accepted that wood burning produces more co2 than coal and natural gas. We have cleaner alternatives. Corruption and poor decision making is hurting progress. Interesting report from the USDA. https://www.fas.usda.gov/data/european-union-eu-wood-pellet-annual https://www.fas.usda.gov/data/european-union-eu-wood-pellet-...

WA 4y ago
> Your points do not dispute doomberg's argument.[...] It is generally accepted that wood burning produces more co2 than coal and natural gas. How about this number? Coal consumption in the EU in the last 30 years: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/de/web/products-eurostat-news/-/ddn-20220502-2 https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/de/web/products-eurostat-news/... Still more than 10x the number of burnt wood. Should we replace all coal by wood? Heck no, that'd be insane, but Doomberg framed this whole thing in a sensationalist way. Correct me if I'm wrong, but this is what the whole thread is about: - UK burned wood a hundred years ago, which was totally inefficient. - Then they discovered coal, which is more energy efficient. - Now the EU is back to burning wood, even though it is less efficient than coal and they call this green, which is dumb. (Ignoring many aspects of the whole thing) - The EU is stupid and they should go full nuclear instead. I'm simply pointing out that Doomberg's chain of arguments lack actual numbers and neglect a few things (stove efficiency, different goals, etc.), even though the gist of it at least somewhat true.
- _fizz_buzz_ 4y ago
  > The EU is stupid and they should go full nuclear instead. Policies differ between EU countries. Finland just brought a reactor online. France is planning to build 14 reactors in the next decade. On the other hand Germany is going to shut down 3 reactors.
  - forty 4y ago
    The last reactors France built all (including the one in Finland) have had more than 10 years delay compared to what was planned, so I doubt we are going to build 14 in the next decade :)

rascul 4y ago

> - I personally think burning wood in housing areas should be banned entirely for health reasons. From what I understand, modern fireplaces and wood stoves can be 70% to 80% efficient. Rocket mass stove can be over 90% efficient. I don't know how efficient pellet stoves can be. Smoke is from the wood that isn't completely burned, so more efficiency means more combustion and less smoke. My guess is that this is also going to be a lot better for health than an older and less efficient wood heat source. I would be interested in knowing how accurate I am but a quick web search hasn't turned up a whole lot.

mountaintimefrm 4y ago
I had a rocket mass heater for a few years and it was awesome - no smoke out the chimney, just steam. I burned sticks raked up out of my yard, pinecones, construction scraps, etc. There have been a lot of improvements in RMH design in recent years, led largely by the RMH enthusiasts at https://permies.com/f/260/rocket-mass-heaters https://permies.com/f/260/rocket-mass-heaters IMO traditional metal wood stoves really suck compared RMHs, but they can be made better by routing the exhaust through a stratification chamber (eg a large metal container like a barrel or a old water tank; hot flue gas enters the top, cooler flue gas exits the bottom). Pretty easy to set up next to an existing wood stove, and you get a lot more heat and a lot less smoke out of an otherwise crappy stove.
- rascul 4y ago
  I've always found rocket mass heaters to be quite interesting. One day I'll get around to making one. I'm in an area where I might be able to use it a couple weeks out of the year so it's not much of a priority.

erddfre3423 4y ago

arrabe 4y ago

> sensationalist unfortunately this is how you get 5~6 digit followers on fintwit. its no longer about nuanced analysis but how can I disguise my political narrative in the form of "DD" or "analytical take" but leave room for contingency in case somebody digs deeper and throws stone at my bridge made out of twigs?

hutzlibu 4y ago

"- I personally think burning wood in housing areas should be banned entirely for health reasons." It would be a start, if coal for heating homes would be banned (you can buy it in the supermarket here). But stopping people from burning wood they get from their garden/forests, like I do now, is never gonna get through and I do not see any reasons why it should. The only time burning stoves bother people, is when people start their fires and more so if they do it non efficient. That smells bad and is bad. But once it burns? Not a problem, unless everyone in a crowded area would do it. And about CO2, well, it is a net zero, if the area where the wood comes from, is regrowing trees again.

FunnyBadger 4y ago

The US DOE designed the most efficient wood stoves during Jimmy Carter's presidency (he was an engineer by training). Those are the same ones we use today. This isn't a recent thing. This includes cat converter wood stoves. Strictly wood is NOT a carbon footprint because it's part of a short-term carbon cycle (in <100 years it's already back into trees). Until recently I lived in the boonies and ONLY used wood for heating. The biggest problem with wood: you have to constantly manage/regulate the fueling and heating - even the best stoves need to be refilled in 4-6 hours when the temperature is below 10C. Further, you only get this if you've aged (dried) the wood for 2 years first. Newly cut wood is 20-30% water and the heat of vaporization to steam radically reduces the heating value of the burned wood.

nkurz 4y ago
I downvoted this because I think you are wrong about some crucial details. Woodstoves have in fact improved considerably since the late 70's: higher efficiency, longer reload times, and lower emissions. Modern woodstoves do not need to be refilled every 4-6 hours. I'm in a good position to assert this, since we live in Vermont (a place with cold winters) and heat almost exclusively with wood. We recently upgraded from what was a state-of-the-art 1980's stove to a start-of-the-art 2020's stove. Doing so reduced our fuel consumption by about 30%, and improved our reload time from the 4-6 hours you mention to 8-10 hours. After upgrading, I no longer have to get up in the night to feed the fire. And this is in a 100 year old house with overnight outside temperatures frequently in the -20C to -10C range (-5F to 15F). I do agree with you though on the necessity of properly drying wood and on the carbon cycle.