Renewables now account for 25% of German energy production
reuters.com
reuters.com
Years ago, people said renewables wouldn't ever amount to much. Sure, it's growing exponentially, but look at how small it is! And yes, costs keep going down but it will take forever before it's competitive with coal and nuclear.
Forever's come and gone. Oil and gas went up in price. Exponential growth generated a nice experience curve http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experience_curve_effects
Now some critics and skeptics will go around saying no one could have predicted how quickly wind and solar took over. They'll say it was due to the rapid increase in oil prices (no one saw that coming either) or subsidies (German feed-in tariffs were very generous, though not as much as tax breaks for oil co's).
So the lesson: humans are really bad at forecasting the results exponential growth. If you can find one that people are ignoring and time it well, you can entrench yourself in a market before most people even realize it exists.
I have another lesson.
15 years ago before anyone knew it existed. Denmark invested heavily in wind. It created one of the biggest windmill companies in the world.
It did all the right things. Took it to the stock market allowed normal people to invest in it, created lots of new jobs and the stock surged in the early zeros.
Today stock is struggling and most of the jobs have been outsourced to other countries much less expensive to produce in.
The windmill technology in itself is not hi-tech but "low-tech" so there isn't even som IP that the Danes benefit from.
The only customers worth talking about is countries and there is no revolution in efficiency happening.
My guess is that wind will be surpassed by other more beneficial technologies.
So the lesson: Alternative energy as we know it right now is far from being a solution to the problems we have. The politicians should not pick the winners but instead set goals that can be won.
If you're taking about Vestas, it's still worth $5 Billion, going up or down depending on the results of big sales. That share price was worth 20X more is a disappointment to investors, but it does not prove that no one can make it in that sector.
Exponential means you get much more out of it than you invest.
I.e. Nuclear, Thorium etc.
Care to say which ones you have in mind? Are any ready for large-scale deployment so we can avoid climate chaos?
Counting per megawatt avoids looking at the subsidies that have been amassing to fossil fuels over decades, and completely avoids the issue of externalities.
Deepwater Horizon is but the most recent example of a catastrophic spill. We never hear of a wind spill. In any case, the big externality is being allowed to dump so much CO2 in our shared atmosphere.
As has happened in other countries, the subsidies have gone down over time. With increased growth we get faster drops in price (that experience curve, again). Compare this to the regulatory capture from oil and gas that has led to ever higher subsidies.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_Brazil http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_Norway
Most hydroelectric power in Norway are generated with the help of a reservoir, usually a natural lake that's been regulated with the help of a relatively small dam, but there are some wholly artificial ones as well, the biggest one being 84 square km.
That said, yes - the environmental impact is small. It also helps that the Norwegian population is very small.
There are breeder reactor designs which convert far more abundant non-fissile isotopes to fuel-grade fissible isotopes, usually starting with U-238 or Th-232. While not technically "renewable", these do off a theoretically sustainable energy supply, with projections suggesting over 5 billion years' supply at forseable energy consumption rates (that's long enough for solar stability to be the principle limiting factor).
As far as new breeder designs, it's a bit too late. Nuclear promised us "energy too cheap to meter" and construction and maintenance costs have kept going down. Meanwhile solar and wind have been regularly going down in price with each doubling of production.
The case against nuclear isn't environmental; it's economic.
No, it's mostly just fear.
Personally, I consider the current generation of fission reactors technologically unsound: Neither the problem of radiactive waste nor shutdown in case of catastrophic failures are adequately solved.
Research in Thorium reactors is worthwhile considering the growing energy needs of China and India, but smarter transnational grids with more efficient load balancing can probably make renewable energy production viable in Europe.
Nuclear represents high risks at multiple areas of operation:
- The fuel, waste, and plants are all radioactive, in some cases for geological time periods, presenting unprecedented disposal issues. Perhaps not insurmountable, but very, very significant.
- Scale of operations of nuclear plants means that the plants themselves, their operations, and their revenues are immense. A large nuclear plant generates over $2 billion worth of electricity (retail) annually. As we've learned with other large financial systems, profit maximization can skew risk management objectives.
- Risks of scale include management, financial, terrorist, natural disaster, labor action, and other factors. Any of these could put, at the least, power reliability at risk, and at worst, health and safety for millions of people. One consequence of the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami in Japan was TEPCO's loss of 27% of its generating capacity (http://www.pcworld.idg.com.au/article/379610/japan_facing_ma...). Exacerbated by Japan's dual-cycle grids (eastern and western Japan operate on 50 and 60 Hz respectively: http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/03/tech-legacy-tokyo/).
- The timescale and emergent phenomena associated with nuclear power mean that risks aren't known, appreciated, and/or understood at construction time. Chernobyl, TMI, and Fukushima all exhibited fundamental engineering and/or operational flaws. Siting of the Fukushima plant turned out to be problematic. Several California plants are now known to be on or near active seismic zones. We still don't have a permanent waste disposal solution in the US (and much of the rest of the world).
Most alternate forms of renewable / sustainable power are much more diverse and distributed. Though this means higher capital and maintenance costs per MWh of generation, it also means vastly smaller risks of any individual plant failure, and far lower likelihood of cascade failures.
Interesting times.
But my major problem with most forms of nuclear is that from a geopolitical standpoint, if you are proposing a technology for clean global power, it has to by definition be something you would be able to share freely with a potential enemy. Most current nuclear power technologies, including the pebble bed, conspicuously fail at this.
Solar, wind, and hydro are renewable in the sense that we consume them as they are produced.
Agriculturally-based power sources (wood, ethanol, biomass, algae oil generation) are renewable in the sense that the biological source grows back after it's harvested (assuming sustainable harvesting).
A sustainable consumptive resource is one which, at projected rates of consumption, would be sufficient for forseable demand until the end of time on Earth. In 4-5 billion years, the sun will expand to the point that it encompasses Earth's orbit. Somewhat sooner than that, increased solar radiation will boil off the oceans and atmosphere. We'll have bigger things to worry about than sources of electricity.
Over what period of time (or is the rate of consumption fixed?) and what region of space?
"at projected rates of consumption, would be sufficient for forseable demand until the end of time on Earth"
Not sure I believe 4B-year forward demand projections...
Isn't the amount of energy expended (and/or mass of raw materials mixed) per TWh produced what we really care about?
If you look at the Timeline of the Far Future, somewhere between 100m and 800m years from now life as we know it on Earth becomes untenable (asteroid impacts, solar flux), if not before (other effects).
There are some practical upper long-term limits to human population on Earth. I suspect it's anywhere between a few hundred millions to low billions (I don't believe present populations are long-term sustainable).
There are other resource constraints which may serve to set an upper limit on energy consumption per capita. From this we can establish long-term energy demands, available supplies, and feasibility of these supplies.
4 billion year forecasting is rather more fantasy than science, so far as human endeavors go.
The machines we use to harness energy don't last forever either. If every 30 years I have to replace either 2,600 tons of equipment for energy source A or 200 tons for energy source B, don't I want B?
Yes, we all believe in the Third Law of Thermdynamics, and understand that the arrow of time is defined by entropy.
"Renewable" means that the specifically tapped resource will renew, by its own access to its prime driver, faster than we can deplete it. In your geothermal instance, it's the geothermal reservoir that's considered renewable. It's also possible to tap geothermal as a nonrenewable resource (generally in open-cycle systems in which groundwater is vented, release, or otherwise not returned to the reservoir, resulting in eventual depletion).
Even fossil fuels are renewable if the extraction rate is kept below the creation rate. Given that FF were created over roughly 200 million years, and will likely be practically exhausted in fewer than 200, that rate is on the order of 1 million times less than we're utilizing them now (probably more if you consider that extraction rates have accelerated the past 100 years).
Your harnessing plant isn't considered part of the fuel resource, and isn't considered in the sustainability equation, generally, unless you're doing something silly like open-pit nuclear fission to capture waste heat for generation, in which you'll likely exhaust your available habitable planetary surface.
Most likely you're not physically transforming your plant in a way that excludes, say, recycling of raw materials, and/or your plant is comprised of very abundant materials (iron, silicates, etc.) relative to your fuel source. It's not the absolute magnitude of plant material involved in generating energy, it's the portion of same relative to the available resources for replenishing these. Generally, structural materials are much more abundant than energy-containing materials. Starting with the matter surrounding and below you at this moment.
Sources of useful energy are not hugely abundant. And, in the case of nonrenewable energy sources, are consumed in the process of utilizing them.
If you're looking at the Earth's crust, it's 60% silica, with most of the remaining 40% being various highly oxidized compounds, including certain quantities of dihydrogen oxide.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_pricing#Global_elec...
[1]http://www.economist.com/blogs/schumpeter/2012/05/americas-f...
Coal, however, is only seemingly cheap. Most of the actual costs of coal are externalized, and not seen at the meter. Rather, they show up at the doctor's office:
http://solar.gwu.edu/index_files/Resources_files/epstein_ful...
http://www.counterpunch.org/2009/03/12/hiding-the-costs-of-c...
The Princeton professor in the second article estimates that accounting for the externalities of coal would more than triple the meter price of coal power. The Harvard study in the first article estimates a somewhat greater cost based on looking at a wider range of factors.
The biggest piece of good news for the environment in Years is being driven by a "brown" industry in cowboy America, who woul have predicted it?
(There was twice as much increase in natural gas as there was increase in renewables, but renewables produce approximately 0 carbon while natural gas produces 56.25% of the carbon coal produces: http://www.naturalgas.org/environment/naturalgas.asp )
Most of the continental US gets down right hot for 2-5 months out of the year. So hot that air conditioning accounts for the largest share of commercial and residential electricity usage. This is probably becoming an even bigger factor when you consider there has been a mass migration from more temperate climates of the upper Midwest to areas such as Texas, Florida and the Southwest. This migration began in the mid 20th century with the advent of reliable central air conditioning.
My question is are Americans consuming more electricity than the average German because of environmental factors or because we're really guzzling power like gasoline in the 1960s and 70s?
> Superior energy efficiency can be designed into new construction (or retrofitted to existing buildings). Since the U.S. Department of Energy was created in 1977, their Weatherization Assistance Program[25] has reduced heating-and-cooling load on 5.5 million low-income affordable homes an average of 31%. A hundred million American buildings still need improved weatherization. Careless conventional construction practices are still producing inefficient new buildings that need weatherization when they are first occupied.
Compare that with German standards for energy efficient buildings.
Make renewable energy by burning regular energy. Mark it up a bit and sell it for 300% of what you paid for the regular energy.
That's basically how biomass energy works anyway. Wind and photovoltaic energy also have a huge amount of regular energy usage hidden in them.
If the electricity really costs so much I'm not really impressed. However any chance that number is taxes?
The circumstances have changed, though: In addition to two nuclear plants which were dormant since 2007 and 2009, six plants were shut down in mid-May 2011, and all of them are now gone for good.
The balance was still positive in 2011, and I suspect it will be this year as well, but it might be a close thing.
While not a poster child, Germany is far from the worst offender as far as CO2 emission per capita goes.
Also, I think that is highly relevant. If you do not include imports, countries with few natural sources automatically will appear to be green. For example, I bet many small island groups will have close to 100% renewable energy production, including those with huge navy bases such as Truk and Diego Garcia.
Consider the flip side: Tracking imports won't help you with countries that have their own resources. What you need to track is energy consumption and production modes.
http://www.bdew.de/internet.nsf/id/20120726-pi-erneuerbare-e... [pdf, german]
http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=de&tl=en&js... [english translation]
Germany is a net exporter of electricity.
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?
[0]http://www.siemens.com/press/en/pressrelease/?press=/en/pres...
Also, this is the first time I see that they want to get only 35% of the energy from renewables by 2035. So they want to improve it only by 10% in the next 23 years? That's sounds like a very small improvement in a lot of time. I thought their original goal was 40% as renewable energy by 2020.
Here's a map of solar energy potential in Europe: http://re.jrc.ec.europa.eu/pvgis/cmaps/eu_opt/pvgis_Europe-s...
If Europe had a more integrated economy and power grid, the more efficient thing to do would be to take those same PV panels and put them somewhere further south. But that would take significant changes, so for now, the resources get put into the geography that happens to be at hand.
They actually get about the same amount of sun as northern Canada. Which makes their commitment to solar and other renewable energy even more impressive. If solar can work in Germany, it can work anywhere.
Here is a pretty good article from earlier this year: http://greenmien.knowledgemosaic.com/2012/01/11/germany-puts...
Looking at this map, is does not appear so: http://www.alternative-energy-resources.net/solarenergydisad...
There are not enough land lines to transport the energy that is created in wind farms to the parts of Germany that need it, for example. Seems Germany is missing about 4500 power grid kilometers to supply every household.
I'm not completely sure if that is in anyway related to the big players in nuclear energy who won't allow the use of their networks. Could be it's just the basic infrastructure missing. However, it's probably crucial to hook up big wind parks first.
Try searching for Energiewende on the matter, maybe.
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?
It's maintained by the European Wind Energy Association, so it is predictably pro-wind power. But their data does seem to indicate that wind can be economical if: 1. you put the windmills in good places, 2. the price of oil and gas goes up (which it has done), 3. technology improvements drive operation and maintenance costs down (which it has done).
Their economic comparisons include CO2 emissions costs, since it is a European study and they do have an emissions trading program there.
E.g. in Illinois, we have four major sources of energy: coal, gas, wind, and nuclear. Nuclear is of course dirt cheap on a per kWh basis. Wind is about twice as expensive as coal. However, if you factor in the enormous externalities of coal power generation (probably billions of dollars in Illinois alone) as well as coal mining, the real per kWh price of coal power is double the nominal price, and that's assuming that there is nothing to this whole "global warming" thing.
http://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/renewables/a-skeptic-looks-a...
Interesting read.
Of course, existing coal plants are dirty, but for that kind of money you could make like really nice coal plants.
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.
Burning biomass could be sustainable if we make sure that new biomass is grown at the same rate as it is burned. I have yet to see a document assuring me that is the case.
In any case burning biofuel is not greenhouse gas neutral. And hence not green.
On the other hand, when you are burning coal, you released CO2 that was previously sequestered.
Add that biomass usually releases CH4 (methane) which is a considered a much more potent greenhouse gas. Even simply burning the methane to CO2 -- ignoring energy recapture -- is an environmentally beneficial action, which is why landfills sometimes have flares.
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).
Depending on one's definition of 'green' it may or may not be green. However it is renewable (in a sensible time frame).
Also, keep in mind, most of the countries being referenced are smaller Scandinavian countries. Getting proper delivery of resources is a major hurdle for US companies and their customers.
Also, Quebec relies on hydroelectricity for 97% of its energy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quebec (need to search for "97%" on that page)