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@Winger said in Climate Change:
@NTA said in Climate Change:
Which is the common thread:
Renewables need(ed) subsidies
Fossil fuels have subsidies - massive subsidies
Nuclear needs subsidiesNo, they don't. But the only thing that keeps
global warmingclimate change and green energy afloat is untruths. These untruths, and the ugliness behind them (like slave labor), is becoming more and more obvious now.Here's an old article on this subject
The fact that the ODI have resorted to including items which plainly are not subsidies in any shape or form is an indication that their report has more to do with a political agenda, rather than a genuine attempt to assess fossil fuel subsidies.
Evidence of this lies in the fact that they have completely failed to mention the very real tax revenue which fossil fuels generate for the government.
I have already touched on North Sea oil revenue. But by far the biggest contribution comes from fuel duties, which generated £28bn last year.
The reality is that the ODI is yet another part of the green blob, funded largely by the UN, EU and taxpayer funded foreign aid money. (Last year, for instance, the DFID contributed an astonishing £16.8m).
Given their background, this grossly dishonest report is probably what you would expect to see. But why UK taxpayers have to pay millions to such a disreputable outfit is a mystery.
This is absolutely correct (I have disagreed with @Winger a lot in this thread, and here I am agreeing twice in 24hrs ); when considering all govt policy interventions globally, FFs are definitely net-taxed rather than net-subsidised. The "but fossil fuels get lots of subsidies" myth is unfortunately in the same category as Elon's solar exaggerations and LCOE.
By way of details, here is the third Alex Epstein substack I've posted in the thread - I know that seems a bit biased to cite the same guy 3 times, but his research is very very well referenced, and he sits outside the academia / govt grant / NGO ecosystem which effectively prohibits anything that runs counter to the wind+solar narrative. That said, he is clearly pro fossil fuels, so is far from a neutral source (who is?).
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@nostrildamus said in Climate Change:
@TeWaio said in Climate Change:
Wind/solar are fine in places they make sense, but can't really be more than 5% or 10% of a grid without drowning it.
Sorry I don't follow this, are you saying if wind and solar are 5-10% cheaper that is a bad thing because they would 'drown' the grid?! If more efficient, that isn't their fault!
I meant 5-10% of the total generation capacity of a grid. Addendum: this is just my own impression and I could be wrong on this, as its the part of the energy system I know the least about. @NTA (and it seems @antipodean) know more about the details. Definitely there the correlation of more expensive electricity in any grid that has deployed loads of renewables. Could be correlation vs causation, as I intuitively understand its gas rather than renewables that set the marginal price, but that total cost vs renewables penetration relationship looks fairly horrible everywhere.
SolarAlmost everything in particular is artificially cheap as its mostly made in China using coal fired energy and slave labor as inputsFIFY.
Fair point, but wind and especially solar are probably the most energetically- and carbon-intensive things the Chinese make at scale
; it never has to earn its cost of capital in actual markets like other technologies.
Some have said that of costings for nuclear. Such as the power required for the plant itself, the location value of the location near a large enough population, the cost of the transition stage...
Yep true for nuclear as well, but wind/solar in China is much more distorted from free markets than nuclear in the West.
The mining ethics and supply issues with battery materials are well-documented
including solid state here? I think the potential of future batteries is quite impressive.
I really really want this to be true, but there is so much hype/vaporware in next-gen batteries, and there has been for decades. Having followed it for a long time, I don't think by 2030 mass manufactured batteries will be more than single-digit % better than todays. I would love to be wrong as in my current role I have decent investment exposure to battery companies.
and imagining they can scale up to be most of the vehicles AND balance a mostly wind-and-solar grid is fanciful, to say the least.
Depending where you are a nuclear power plant from political debate to efficient use could be 15-30 years that is a lot of time for wind solar and battery technologies to improve within.
Yes, but a lot of that is due to red tape/regs that were lobbied for by people who are anti-nuclear. Who then say "we can't do nuclear as it takes too long" - a fairly obvious sleight-of-hand IMO. The French built 56 reactors in about 20yrs from the early 1960s. The idea we don't have better tech/designs/construction six decades later is fanciful.
My reservation with (current) nuclear is mostly logistical and also: I don't trust the standards and quality control in the country I am in.
Not sure where you are, but certainly nuclear requires stringent safety regulations. The Soviets' built water-cooled reactors with a positive void coefficient because they were cheaper, which made the Chernobyl disaster possible. The Japanese put the diesel backup generators for Fukushima in the basement instead of on the roof. There are easy fixes to all this, but agree it is scary given the potential consequences.
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@TeWaio said in Climate Change:
@nostrildamus said in Climate Change:
@TeWaio said in Climate Change:
Wind/solar are fine in places they make sense, but can't really be more than 5% or 10% of a grid without drowning it.
Sorry I don't follow this, are you saying if wind and solar are 5-10% cheaper that is a bad thing because they would 'drown' the grid?! If more efficient, that isn't their fault!
I meant 5-10% of the total generation capacity of a grid.
SolarAlmost everything in particular is artificially cheap as its mostly made in China using coal fired energy and slave labor as inputsFIFY.
Fair point, but wind and especially solar are probably the most energetically- and carbon-intensive things the Chinese make at scale
; it never has to earn its cost of capital in actual markets like other technologies.
Some have said that of costings for nuclear. Such as the power required for the plant itself, the location value of the location near a large enough population, the cost of the transition stage...
Yep true for nuclear as well, but wind/solar in China is much more distorted from free markets than nuclear in the West.
The mining ethics and supply issues with battery materials are well-documented
including solid state here? I think the potential of future batteries is quite impressive.
I really really want this to be true, but there is so much hype/vaporware in next-gen batteries, and there has been for decades. Having followed it for a long time, I don't think by 2030 mass manufactured batteries will be more than single-digit % better than todays.
and imagining they can scale up to be most of the vehicles AND balance a mostly wind-and-solar grid is fanciful, to say the least.
Depending where you are a nuclear power plant from political debate to efficient use could be 15-30 years that is a lot of time for wind solar and battery technologies to improve within.
Yes, but a lot of that is due to red tape/regs that were lobbied for by people who are anti-nuclear. Who then say "we can't do nuclear as it takes too long" - a fairly obvious slight-of-hand IMO. The French built 56 reactors in about 20yrss from the early 1960s. The idea we don't have better tech/designs/construction 60yrs later is fanciful.
My reservation with (current) nuclear is mostly logistical and also: I don't trust the standards and quality control in the country I am in.
Not sure where you are, but certainly nuclear requires stringent safety regulations. The Soveits built water-cooled reactors with a positive void coefficient because they were cheaper, which made the Chernobyl disaster possible. The Japanese put the diesel backup generators for Fukushima in the basement instead of on the roof. There are easy fixes to all this, but agree it is scary given the potential consequences.
Thank you, I don't know enough here to offer a good debate (or know enough to fully agree/disagree, but I like the points you raised. Regards batteries there is so much hype, yes it might pay to be cautious with both promises and guessed timeframes. If one company gets it right at scale though, I think it will be dominoes...
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@Windows97 said in Climate Change:
In a fair world nothing would have subsidies then the the technology would be able to stand on it's merits.
I think that is very much a philosophical, ethical and political standpoint rather than one specific to technology.
How do you feel about public spending in general? Do you believe in some sort of social welfare system? Public healthcare?
We know that insulation works, improves people's lives, and reduces energy wastage. It isn't a gamble on new tech, should it be subsidised?
What about fair trade agreements? Import tariffs or subsidies for local production?
As has been said, it isn't a fair world, and I do know what you are saying, but the question is really whether anything should have support from government even if it enhances the lives of the greater populace?
I think that it is fair to say that an awful lot of people (pretty much everybody in some way) lives are going to be dramatically changed, so should we be assisting our fellow man with public funds?
Rhetorical questions to illustrate that it's not the tech specifically that is being funded.
I have had thoughts at times that I wouldn't mind seeing all of the empty multi million dollar "bachs" at Omaha disappear under a few feet of water (won't take much) given that we have a housing crisis and people living in cars, but I'm not really that mean spirited.
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@TeWaio said in Climate Change:
@nostrildamus said in Climate Change:
Depending where you are a nuclear power plant from political debate to efficient use could be 15-30 years that is a lot of time for wind solar and battery technologies to improve within.
Yes, but a lot of that is due to red tape/regs that were lobbied for by people who are anti-nuclear. Who then say "we can't do nuclear as it takes too long" - a fairly obvious sleight-of-hand IMO. The French built 56 reactors in about 20yrs from the early 1960s. The idea we don't have better tech/designs/construction six decades later is fanciful.
My reservation with (current) nuclear is mostly logistical and also: I don't trust the standards and quality control in the country I am in.
Not sure where you are, but certainly nuclear requires stringent safety regulations. The Soviets' built water-cooled reactors with a positive void coefficient because they were cheaper, which made the Chernobyl disaster possible. The Japanese put the diesel backup generators for Fukushima in the basement instead of on the roof. There are easy fixes to all this, but agree it is scary given the potential consequences.
Just as an example of the ridiculous regulatory impost nuclear is held to:
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@Snowy My response was to a point made by NTA in regards to the various subsides prevalent in the energy industry so we could determine which one actually was the cheapest as apparently green energy which is supposed to be cheap - isn't.
With subsidies in effect it's impossible to tell from a financial standpoint which is the cheapest purely from an economical point of view.
Anything read further than that is your own thoughts and feelings and nothing to do with mine
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@TeWaio said in Climate Change:
, I don't think by 2030 mass manufactured batteries will be more than single-digit % better than todays. I would love to be wrong as in my current role I have decent investment exposure to battery companies.
that's really interesting! Why is that - I'd assumed we'd continue to see incremental ongoing improvements; it's one of the things that has been a cause for future-optimism.
I googled a bit, and found this. Curious as to alternative views (genuinely so; I am not an expert in future batter prices, but assumed scale would continue to cut prices). And thoughts on the Toyota Solid State Vapourware batteries?
BNEF expects battery price to start dropping again in 2024, when lithium prices are expected to ease as more extraction and refining capacity comes online. Based on the updated observed learning rate, BNEF’s 2022 Battery Price Survey predicts that average pack prices should fall below $100/kWh by 2026. This is two years later than previously expected and will negatively impact the ability for automakers to produce and sell mass-market EVs in areas without subsidies or other forms of support. Higher battery prices could also hurt the economics of energy storage projects.
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@nzzp supply and demand, I guess? Suddenly everyone needs to ramp up their shit, and that means supply chain constraints come into play.
There are other options for stationary storage, but being less mature, they aren't ready to take the market by storm.
If the primary use for lithium was vehicles, and it was mandated that stationary had to move to an alternative (e.g. Zinc-Bromide or another type of salt), maybe that could shift the needle?
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@TeWaio said in Climate Change:
I meant 5-10% of the total generation capacity of a grid. Addendum: this is just my own impression and I could be wrong on this, as its the part of the energy system I know the least about. @NTA (and it seems @antipodean) know more about the details.
Have worked alongside some guys who were there when the NEM was figuring out the most robust way to connect SCART They acknowledge that a VRE grid will have challenges that they didn't have "back in the day", but then consumer patterns are the an equally complex problem to solve.
There are some good people to follow out there tho. I like to watch Dave Osmond's weekly update to his data modelling to see how things fluctuate due to local circumstances
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@nzzp said in Climate Change:
@TeWaio said in Climate Change:
, I don't think by 2030 mass manufactured batteries will be more than single-digit % better than todays. I would love to be wrong as in my current role I have decent investment exposure to battery companies.
that's really interesting! Why is that - I'd assumed we'd continue to see incremental ongoing improvements; it's one of the things that has been a cause for future-optimism.
The best way to think about it is to consider the physics/chemistry involved in burning fossil fuels vs a battery.
In the former case, energy stored in covalent bonds between fuel molecules is unlocked by combusting them with oxygen. There's a LOT of energy in this, which why a fairly light/small tank of gasoline can propel a multi tonne vehicle hundreds of miles. The bar to get something better than this is pretty high, which why is we still burn petrol well over 100yrs after the first automobiles.
For a battery, you're not breaking any chemical bonds to access large amounts of energy, rather you're storing energy by separating electrical charge across a given medium. As you seek to store more and more energy via "separated charge" in a fixed volume, you begin to bump up against physical limits. Enough charge differential in any given volume, and the electrons will leap across the gap - this is how we get lightening; enough charge differential builds up between clouds and the ground that electrical charge travels through the air itself.
In modern batteries we are approaching the limit of how much charge can be stored in a given space (for vehicles at least, stationary power doesn't have as much constraint). As the battery electrolyte materials get more and more exotic, or cathodes get more efficient at facilitating electron flow, a slightly increased amount of charge can be packed in, but the gains are marginal at this point.
The hype cycle that talks every 6-12 months about some amazing new battery material that can hold twice the energy, be charged in minutes, and be easily and cheaply mass-produced, is just that, hype. Again, I'd love to be wrong, but physics and chemistry are not on our side here.
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@TeWaio said in Climate Change:
This is absolutely correct (I have disagreed with @Winger a lot in this thread, and here I am agreeing twice in 24hrs );
I thought at first your account had been hacked
And thanks for your excellent posts. I've lost interest in all of this in recent years but the direction we are travelling due to climate change is very concerning. Especially as some predict we are heading into a cold period (due to a much less active sun). Colder and less food and energy ...
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@TeWaio said in Climate Change:
@nzzp said in Climate Change:
@TeWaio said in Climate Change:
, I don't think by 2030 mass manufactured batteries will be more than single-digit % better than todays. I would love to be wrong as in my current role I have decent investment exposure to battery companies.
that's really interesting! Why is that - I'd assumed we'd continue to see incremental ongoing improvements; it's one of the things that has been a cause for future-optimism.
The best way to think about it is to consider the physics/chemistry involved in burning fossil fuels vs a battery.
In the former case, energy stored in covalent bonds between fuel molecules is unlocked by combusting them with oxygen. There's a LOT of energy in this, which why a fairly light/small tank of gasoline can propel a multi tonne vehicle hundreds of miles. The bar to get something better than this is pretty high, which why is we still burn petrol well over 100yrs after the first automobiles.
For a battery, you're not breaking any chemical bonds to access large amounts of energy, rather you're storing energy by separating electrical charge across a given medium. As you seek to store more and more energy via "separated charge" in a fixed volume, you begin to bump up against physical limits. Enough charge differential in any given volume, and the electrons will leap across the gap - this is how we get lightening; enough charge differential builds up between clouds and the ground that electrical charge travels through the air itself.
In modern batteries we are approaching the limit of how much charge can be stored in a given space (for vehicles at least, stationary power doesn't have as much constraint). As the battery electrolyte materials get more and more exotic, or cathodes get more efficient at facilitating electron flow, a slightly increased amount of charge can be packed in, but the gains are marginal at this point.
The hype cycle that talks every 6-12 months about some amazing new battery material that can hold twice the energy, be charged in minutes, and be easily and cheaply mass-produced, is just that, hype. Again, I'd love to be wrong, but physics and chemistry are not on our side here.
Learned more there than I did in 3 years of Physics at school
Thanks
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@TeWaio thanks for that.
So the battery advances we've seen are diminishing returns? They seem to have been going on for a while, at like 3-5% per year ... any optimism for a chemical breakthrough that will change this up again (like Lithium Ion did as I understand it)?
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@Windows97 said in Climate Change:
@Snowy My response was to a point made by NTA in regards to the various subsides prevalent in the energy industry so we could determine which one actually was the cheapest as apparently green energy which is supposed to be cheap - isn't.
With subsidies in effect it's impossible to tell from a financial standpoint which is the cheapest purely from an economical point of view.
Anything read further than that is your own thoughts and feelings and nothing to do with mine
I said they were rhetorical questions, they implied nothing as to where my feelings lie or any implication as to yours.😏 Merely illustrating that it is common to subsidise other things and it is a moral question as to whether that is correct or not.
From everything in here it impossible to decide anything because everybody uses conflicting data and discredits anything else. It seems that it isn't even clear what, how much, or even if there are subsidies in place in any given place for any given supply at any given time!
It could be concluded than green energy is relatively cheap, without subsidies, in the right location, on the right day, with no storage, or transport network. Which renders it of limited value unless it is on site (with storage). I might have mentioned that before...
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When you have passionate morons spouting this nonsense on MSM it's no wonder the general public becomes disinterested
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@MiketheSnow catastrophically stupid
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Whilst the above about beef is indeed idiotic, it does at least introduce other ways that climate change can be addressed. This thread has been mainly about energy supply (and a bit about energy usage reduction) but there are other factors at play as well. The point about deforestation is a huge one and people always talk about the trees, but the second biggest carbon store on the planet (after the oceans) is actually fungi.
I got interested in mycology a while back, related to nearly all ancient cultures using psychedelics, as well as new research being done on changing neural pathways, depression, etc. In the process, all sorts of other things kept coming up about mycorrhizal mushrooms and carbon storage (among other amazing fungal facts). Point being we do still have other options to help with climate change.
There are loads of these articles (most of them a lot more informative than this one, but the first that came up):
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/07/fungi-forests-carbon-climate/
Fungi can also clean up oil spills and breakdown plastics. A very untapped resource.
Of course, the research might never happen, or see the light of day, because someone would need to work out how to get rich out of it. The same as big pharma are unlikely to give up their control on mind altering anti-depressants if people could grow them in their back yard (but that is for another thread along with the demonisation of psychedelics by church and state). It is not nice when you see people on the current regime of drugs available / being pushed. There was a mental health thread somewhere IIRC.
Anyway, I Lee Grant. Maybe we should be subsidising mycology research?
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@TeWaio said in Climate Change:
the former case, energy stored in covalent bonds between fuel molecules is unlocked by combusting them with oxygen. There's a LOT of energy in this, which why a fairly light/small tank of gasoline can propel a multi tonne vehicle hundreds of miles. The bar to get something better than this is pretty high, which why is we still burn petrol well over 100yrs after the first automobiles
Energy density of FF is awesome and fairly easy to get to.
The downside is the delivery: ~70% of the primary energy is lost in heat (engine, friction in drive train) in a petrol vehicle, as one example. Logistics can be counted as another loss - particularly as any changing cost to fuel affects the whole supply chain.
The energy density of our current battery storage options isn't even close in terms of MJ/kg BUT has a high efficiency in terms of delivery.
It's the same reason pure electric from renewables beats hydrogen from renewables in terms of supply chain efficiency. The losses are minimal, particularly for the transport piece where electricity is already available in the majority of places it is needed for vehicles (urban areas).
Hydrogen is great once it is made tho - similar to petrol in terms of density and losses of we just swap out petrol tech and replace with H2. I reckon hydrogen would benefit from a complete rethink of how cars are built. Mechanical drive trains are a bit clunky, so some form of hybrid solution that is more electrified would help with efficiency.
Side note: I saw a study where a climate denier tried to use primary energy as a reason why batteries were never more than a rounding error on the needs for global transport 🤣
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@NTA said in Climate Change:
I reckon hydrogen would benefit from a complete rethink of how cars are built. Mechanical drive trains are a bit clunky, so some form of hybrid solution that is more electrified would help with efficiency.
@NTA said in Climate Change:
It's the same reason pure electric from renewables beats hydrogen from renewables in terms of supply chain efficiency.
Not quite sure what you mean by either of those. As I understand it, in a hydrogen fuel cell, energy is converted directly to electricity, effectively by oxidation (hence byproduct of H2O) so there is no hybridisation to be done. It isn't a hydrogen motor. Effectively a battery type chemical reaction to convert potential energy, to electrical, to mechanical like an EV, instead of the combustive oxygenation chemical energy release from carbon conversion (byproduct CO and CO2) that then needs to be converted to electrical, and then to mechanical in a hybrid (with all of the associated energy losses).
That is grossly over simplified, and I may have misconstrued your comments, or mis represented what I am getting at, but wondering what you mean by rethinking hydrogen vehicles? They are basically BEV anyway (as I understand it). Not HHEV (Hydrogen Hybrid EV as in PHEV).
I guess with the latter quote you are referring to producing hydrogen from renewables, and transporting it, instead of just using a renewable on site? If you are I couldn't agree more. My thoughts on transporting things (from grapes to energy) versing (@booboo ) local production, are ubiquitous in this thread.
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@Snowy speaking about the latter - from the top of the supply chain including all processes.
If you have solar panels, wind turbines, or even gas/fossil fuel/nuclear, the electricity generated has losses as it is transmitted, but we're talking a few percent. When you convert AC to DC and back outside the car, filling the battery, sending to motor etc.
When you want to produce hydrogen fuel from electricity, the process chain is a bit longer and less efficient as you go through it.
There are a few quoted figures - depending on source - but this image gives you the general idea. I would say EVs are closer to 70% though if I averaged up all the sites I see Sometimes the pro-EV sites are a little... uh... "ambitious" with their totals.
Climate Change