Renewables - do they have a future?

[pjclarke]

Of course there will be the odd niche, maybe even the lucky province or country that will be able to get by without massive cost, but, as the google team pointed out, renewables will never replace the existing mix.

Denmark. 41% of electricity from wind in the first half of 2014, aiming for 50% by 2020. Home of Siemens and Vestas, two of the biggest manufacturers of turbines in the world. Quite a large niche.

[EternalOptimist]

Arctic ice up. Antarctic ice up. Polar bears up. Temperatures flat or declining for nearly 19 years.

*yawn*

[xoggoth]

Arctic ice up. Antarctic ice up. Polar bears up. Temperatures flat or declining for nearly 19 years.

We could burn Polar bears! Great idea.

Going to yet another funeral tomorrow, maybe they should add heat recovery to crematoria. I would be quite happy to go out knowing I would charge a few phones. I could haunt them

[pjclarke]

Yeah, Arctic Ice way, way up ...

[scooterscot]

Interesting article:

http://http://www.theregister.co.uk/...ogle_renewable s_engineers/


far from achieving massive energy savings, which most plans for a renewables future rely on implicitly, we would wind up needing far more energy, which would mean even more vast renewables farms - and even more materials and energy to make and maintain them and so on. The scale of the building would be like nothing ever attempted by the human race.

It's a selective editor with an agenda that focuses on the asset cost alone when comparing technologies. He or she must consider the full life-cycle costs of installations unit for unit of power generated.

You find me an article that puts wind farm power generation life-cycle costs behind that of nuclear. And you won't, even tho some wind farms have already completed there life cycle. The reason? Because we're still trying to figure out how to manage radioactive material for the next 300 years of the first UK commissioned nuclear power station.

[scooterscot]

Wind and solar have no future,

Tell that to the plants and the trees.

[minestrone]

Thats because it's offshore...

It was onshore, loch ness. Quite a considerable amount of quarried stone considering the berlin wall was 70 miles long. So one windfarm is using enough stone to build a 12 foot high concrete wall the length of Britain. And mining for neodymium in the magnets is poisoning tens of thousands in china.

[barrydidit]

It was onshore, loch ness. Quite a considerable amount of quarried stone considering the berlin wall was 70 miles long. So one windfarm is using enough stone to build a 12 foot high concrete wall the length of Britain. And mining for neodymium in the magnets is poisoning tens of thousands in china.

? Even Northern Ireland on it's own is longer than that.

[EternalOptimist]

It was onshore, loch ness. Quite a considerable amount of quarried stone considering the berlin wall was 70 miles long. So one windfarm is using enough stone to build a 12 foot high concrete wall the length of Britain. And mining for neodymium in the magnets is poisoning tens of thousands in china.

Let them have their windmills. I have no ideological objection to wind or solar.
but let them pay for it themselves.

I do have a strong objection to being forced to pay for their ill-thought, impractical, politically motivated brain-f@rts

[minestrone]

? Even Northern Ireland on it's own is longer than that.

Sorry, I was a continuation of the first post. 10 times the stone of the Berlin wall, so 700 miles.