Climate change - the POLITICAL debate. Vol 3

[mybrainhurts]

[mybrainhurts]

pgtips said:

Massive fall in the cost of renewables

I keep hearing this. Anything behind it?

[pgtips]

mybrainhurts said:

pgtips said:

Massive fall in the cost of renewables

I keep hearing this. Anything behind it?

Lots of data points emerging globally on this. Recent renewable auctions in UAE, Mexico amongst others, have solar clearing prices below (equivalent) of £30/MWh... which is less than half where we were 18 months ago. Even accounting for higher load factors in these markets (sunnier conditions) the falling panel costs due mainly Chinese supply chain improvements are leading to very significant cost reductions in European markets. Less dramatic fall in onshore and offshore, but still very significant cost reductions in new capacity. Hence,there is a growing trend towards subsidy-free renewables. In GB we're not quite there today - which is in part due to lowish gas prices leading to low power prices. But if the gas price rises by (say) 20% then renewables could be pretty competitive on a £/MWh basis. All of which (to my original point) has changed since the original CfD price was agreed with Edf.

Whether an advocate of renewables or not (and I read this forum pretty regularly so know where most opinion lies) the introduction of competitive auctioning for renewables has had a pretty impressive impact in terms of cost reduction.

[LongQ]

pgtips said:

mybrainhurts said:

pgtips said:

Massive fall in the cost of renewables

I keep hearing this. Anything behind it?

Lots of data points emerging globally on this. Recent renewable auctions in UAE, Mexico amongst others, have solar clearing prices below (equivalent) of £30/MWh... which is less than half where we were 18 months ago. Even accounting for higher load factors in these markets (sunnier conditions) the falling panel costs due mainly Chinese supply chain improvements are leading to very significant cost reductions in European markets. Less dramatic fall in onshore and offshore, but still very significant cost reductions in new capacity. Hence,there is a growing trend towards subsidy-free renewables. In GB we're not quite there today - which is in part due to lowish gas prices leading to low power prices. But if the gas price rises by (say) 20% then renewables could be pretty competitive on a £/MWh basis. All of which (to my original point) has changed since the original CfD price was agreed with Edf.

Whether an advocate of renewables or not (and I read this forum pretty regularly so know where most opinion lies) the introduction of competitive auctioning for renewables has had a pretty impressive impact in terms of cost reduction.

So what do the prices look like at night when there is no solar?

Or, in the UK,, in winter when the potential period for solar generation is rather short, especially in the north.

And how much do we have to pay to have the backup capacity built and available but either lying idle or ticking over, clocking up costs, but not supplying because we are using "free" solar and wind power?

The lower prices for solar panels, significant in some parts of the world but no really so much at our latitude, is as much down to manufacturing over capacity in China as it may be to lower manufacturing costs.

By the same token the costs of non-renewables (where one sees Nuclear in the renewable/non-renewable debate is a matter of faith in the main) becomes very expensive when their only income is restricted to providing backup supply when the "free" stuff can't deliver. Watch the bid prices spike then.

Their only hope would be that the governments of the world mandate that only state owned electric transport can be used and that the as much travel as possible that uses real time electricity supply (Trains, Light Rail, etc.) takes place at low "renewables" times of the day.

Recharging the batteries of a personal mobility vehicle fleet would fit that model. But it wouldn't be cheap. Indeed it couldn't be cheap - the ICE soourced Tax revenue will have to come from somewhere once ICE devices are deprecated.

[turbobloke]

This may not be pgtips' cup of tea but here we go again.

Wind and Solar Simply Will Not Work

Engineers willing to use fantasy fiction to make it all work but finding it simply cannot work said:

Renewable energy technologies simply won’t work; we need a fundamentally different approach.

As per comments at the link, the key problem is that the cost of manufacturing the components of the renewable power facilities is far too close to the total recoverable energy. The facilities never, or just barely, produce enough energy to balance the budget of what was consumed in their construction. This leads to a runaway cycle of constructing more and more renewable plants simply to produce the energy required to manufacture and maintain renewable energy plants, an obvious practical absurdity.

That should be the cost of manufacturing, and installing, and maintaining, and decommissioning.

If vanity projects born of ideology and wishful thinking aren't part of the solution, the cost is wasted beyond a certain point of folly whatever the cost may be.

[pgtips]

turbobloke said:

That should be the cost of manufacturing, and installing, and maintaining, and decommissioning.

If vanity projects born of ideology and wishful thinking aren't part of the solution, the cost is wasted beyond a certain point of folly whatever the cost may be.

You're funny - really funny. Where did I say renewables were a good thing? Not an advocate of any technology, matey. Just thought I'd lob in a few facts and see how the forum reacted. Renewables costs have fallen substantially in last 18 moths... fact. Don't make em good, don't make em bad - just a fact. Pretty predictably with you inparticular - immediatel personal references. You used the phrase "playing the man not the ball2 several pages ago" - stick with the ball.

[Ali G]

http://gridwatch.co.uk/

Currently:

Nuclear 28.5% - and reliable
Wind 17.2% - completely unreliable
Gas 38.9% - dependant upon supply
Others bal fig to 100%

The means for the UK to provide energy security depends upon 'dependant upon supply' (Gas) to fll the void when 'completely unreliable' wind fails to deliver.

The current insecurity of UK energy is borne of political ideology.

Go figure..

[LongQ]

Solar and subsidy in the USA.

http://euanmearns.com/the-revealing-numbers-on-sol...

Low strike prices mean nothing if there is no real capacity.

For wide area commercial use (as opposed to on the roof at home), on a good generation day you can have almost all the free the electricity you could want because it has to be dumped somewhere the way things are set up at the moment.

Without significant re-thinking of the way we operate as a society, availability of solar energy will not reliably match demand unless energy storage technology improves dramatically and equally cheaply.

It's a bit like having cheap tickets to the local sports stadium when there is no even scheduled.

Here is another view of the potential problem with some (localised to the USA) reasons that solar is unlikely to become a global panacea, especially if reliable on-demand any time electricity (or heating capability) is thought to be desirable.

https://davidgattieblog.wordpress.com/2016/07/25/o...

[turbobloke]

pgtips said:

turbobloke said:

That should be the cost of manufacturing, and installing, and maintaining, and decommissioning.

If vanity projects born of ideology and wishful thinking aren't part of the solution, the cost is wasted beyond a certain point of folly whatever the cost may be.

You're funny - really funny. Where did I say renewables were a good thing? Not an advocate of any technology, matey. Just thought I'd lob in a few facts and see how the forum reacted.

. . .

- stick with the ball.

Firstly, try taking your own advice about playing the ball, which could be equally funny.

Secondly my considered view was that you may not take too kindly to the (multiply re-posted) lobbing of a few more facts, or balls, in your chosen terminology.

Your post certainly focused on cost and price reductions but by way of an obvious omission failed to mention that the lower cost is still a waste of money at this stage. As you've clearly taken kindly to these newly lobbed facts then any such thoughts have been dispelled. Truly you are a person of the lobbed facts, it's obvious now, doubtless we can enjoy more lobbing as the thread progresses.

Peace and Peak Renewables to all

[LongQ]

I stumbled across this rather interesting piece by a US academic with an cv that suggests a Phd followed by several years working "in the field" before moving to the world of academia.

He is primarily an Ecologist but in the Hansen mold in that he seems very keen on Nuclear power.

Whilst the piece assumes the need to reduce CO2 it does not ram the message down one's throat as you read it and it makes some excellent points about the potential futility of seeking to establish huge reductions in CO2 emissions by ploughing vast sums into renewable energy (and aiming at the wrong targets).

Clearly this is about strategy and the need to consider how rapidly developing countries can be energy enabled without massively increasing CO2 output by an amount that would immediately obliterate any savings the reduction leading policies of the already industrialised countries might achieve.

It's all about politics (and related globalisation). Highly recommended.

https://davidgattieblog.wordpress.com/2016/09/22/a...

[hidetheelephants]

pgtips said:

There has been a massive change in the power sector since the CfD was first awarded to EdF, which makes the contract look really poor value for money now. Massive fall in the cost of renewables (reduce the subsidy and amazing how cost competitive they have become), huge advancement in large scale battery deployment to augment intermittency and balance the system, a period of sustained low gas prices, reductions in demand..... On its own it now looks expensive and a big risk to consumers. I guess the hope is that New nucs 2, 3, 4, etc will be less costly as a result of Hinkley. I'm somewhat skeptical myself. Hopefully we'll see a growth in small scale nucs which can be deployed much more easily.

The only risk consumers bear is the cost premium if wholesale prices are below the strike; all other risks are borne by EDF and the Chinese. There have been no massive advancements in battery development; recent innovations like reusing worn out e-car batteries are all very well but they add inefficiency which never seems to get mentioned.

[turbobloke]

A link from another thread...this is hilarious, not least the 'climate science indicates' line.

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/letters/follow...

This is closer to the state of climate junkscience and it's also hilarious. H/T chris watton for sharing the DT link back in 2013.

Sean Thomas said:

Whither the weather? As you may have heard, a conference of national forecasters assembled this week in Exeter: to discuss the future of the British climate, following the spate of harsher than expected winters, and unusually wet summers, since 2007.

Already, commentators are asking if global warming is to blame. In particular, some are wondering if the direction of the Jet Stream is being altered by Arctic ice melt. Others are speculating that natural variations, such as the “Atlantic multi-decadal oscillation”, might be responsible for recent evolutions.

However, most of this reportage has been second-hand. Unprecedentedly, I had direct access to the meteorologists concerned, as I was in Exeter in spirit form, and I managed to speak to the principal actors.

First, I asked Stephen Belcher, the head of the Met Office Hadley Centre, whether the recent extended winter was related to global warming. Shaking his famous “ghost stick”, and fingering his trademark necklace of sharks’ teeth and mammoth bones, the loin-clothed Belcher blew smoke into a conch, and replied,

“Here come de heap big warmy. Bigtime warmy warmy. Is big big hot. Plenty big warm burny hot. Hot! Hot hot! But now not hot. Not hot now. De hot come go, come go. Now Is Coldy Coldy. Is ice. Hot den cold. Frreeeezy ice til hot again. Den de rain. It faaaalllll. Make pasty.”

Startled by this sobering analysis, I moved on to Professor Rowan Sutton, Climate Director of NCAS at the University of Reading. Professor Sutton said that many scientists are, as of this moment, examining the complex patterns in the North Atlantic, and trying to work out whether the current run of inclement European winters will persist.

When pressed on the particular outlook for the British Isles. Professor Sutton shook his head, moaned eerily unto the heavens, and stuffed his fingers into the entrails of a recently disembowelled chicken, bought fresh from Waitrose in Teignmouth.

Hurling the still-beating heart of the chicken into a shallow copper salver, Professor Sutton inhaled the aroma of burning incense, then told the Telegraph: “The seven towers of Agamemnon tremble. Much is the discord in the latitude of Gemini. When, when cry the sirens of doom and love. Speckly showers on Tuesday.”

It’s a pretty stark analysis, and not without merit. There are plenty of climate change scientists who are equally forthright on the possibilities of change, or no change, and of more hot, or less hot, or of rain, or no rain, or of Britain turning into the Sahara by next weekend, or instead becoming a freezing cold Frostyworld ruled by a strange, glistening ice-queen – crucially, it all depends on the time of day you ask them, and whether or not they had asparagus the day before.

So who are we to believe? For a final word, I turned to the greatest climate change scientist of all, Dr David Viner, one-time senior research scientist at the climatic research unit of the University of East Anglia, who predicted in 2000 that, within a few years, winter snowfall would become "a very rare and exciting event".

However, he was trapped under a glacier in Stockport, so was unable to comment at the time the Telegraph went to press.

[LongQ]

turbobloke said:

A link from another thread...this is hilarious, not least the 'climate science indicates' line.

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/letters/follow...

TB, are you sure that's not a parody of a letters page, given that the Indy is no longer printed?

Totally Off Topic but the letter, from a Lady who apparently lives in Comb St.Nicholas, about service and food concerns on BA flights is an absolute classic of parody even down to her alleged name and location.

It would almost be disappointing if it was real.

Perhaps sadly, Google seems to confirm that a lady of that name does indeed live in the village. I find it hard to believe someone might have gone to the trouble of setting up an entire false identity with so much detail, so she must be real.

But is the letter "real"?

Edited by LongQ on Saturday 1st October 21:19

[don4l]

turbobloke said:

A link from another thread...this is hilarious, not least the 'climate science indicates' line.

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/letters/follow...

This is closer to the state of climate junkscience and it's also hilarious. H/T chris watton for sharing the DT link back in 2013.

Sean Thomas said:

Whither the weather? As you may have heard, a conference of national forecasters assembled this week in Exeter: to discuss the future of the British climate, following the spate of harsher than expected winters, and unusually wet summers, since 2007.

Already, commentators are asking if global warming is to blame. In particular, some are wondering if the direction of the Jet Stream is being altered by Arctic ice melt. Others are speculating that natural variations, such as the “Atlantic multi-decadal oscillation”, might be responsible for recent evolutions.

However, most of this reportage has been second-hand. Unprecedentedly, I had direct access to the meteorologists concerned, as I was in Exeter in spirit form, and I managed to speak to the principal actors.

First, I asked Stephen Belcher, the head of the Met Office Hadley Centre, whether the recent extended winter was related to global warming. Shaking his famous “ghost stick”, and fingering his trademark necklace of sharks’ teeth and mammoth bones, the loin-clothed Belcher blew smoke into a conch, and replied,

“Here come de heap big warmy. Bigtime warmy warmy. Is big big hot. Plenty big warm burny hot. Hot! Hot hot! But now not hot. Not hot now. De hot come go, come go. Now Is Coldy Coldy. Is ice. Hot den cold. Frreeeezy ice til hot again. Den de rain. It faaaalllll. Make pasty.”

Startled by this sobering analysis, I moved on to Professor Rowan Sutton, Climate Director of NCAS at the University of Reading. Professor Sutton said that many scientists are, as of this moment, examining the complex patterns in the North Atlantic, and trying to work out whether the current run of inclement European winters will persist.

When pressed on the particular outlook for the British Isles. Professor Sutton shook his head, moaned eerily unto the heavens, and stuffed his fingers into the entrails of a recently disembowelled chicken, bought fresh from Waitrose in Teignmouth.

Hurling the still-beating heart of the chicken into a shallow copper salver, Professor Sutton inhaled the aroma of burning incense, then told the Telegraph: “The seven towers of Agamemnon tremble. Much is the discord in the latitude of Gemini. When, when cry the sirens of doom and love. Speckly showers on Tuesday.”

It’s a pretty stark analysis, and not without merit. There are plenty of climate change scientists who are equally forthright on the possibilities of change, or no change, and of more hot, or less hot, or of rain, or no rain, or of Britain turning into the Sahara by next weekend, or instead becoming a freezing cold Frostyworld ruled by a strange, glistening ice-queen – crucially, it all depends on the time of day you ask them, and whether or not they had asparagus the day before.

So who are we to believe? For a final word, I turned to the greatest climate change scientist of all, Dr David Viner, one-time senior research scientist at the climatic research unit of the University of East Anglia, who predicted in 2000 that, within a few years, winter snowfall would become "a very rare and exciting event".

However, he was trapped under a glacier in Stockport, so was unable to comment at the time the Telegraph went to press.

That Independent link is absolutely hilarious.

OutOfPrintIndependent said:

Following Brexit, global warming could leave Britain without food

That is Bedwetting at its very finest.

It is almost as well researched as the 1990 Guardian analysis of the BSE crisis. I'm sure that you remember that by 2010 we would be having 500,000 deaths per year from nvCJD. No travel would be permitted between the UK and Europe. The french would have filled the Eurotunnel with concrete.

These idiots wonder why they are bankrupt.

They simply do not understand that most people are not willing to pay for lies.

It only takes two seconds to figure out the impact of a two degree increase on British farming.

We would both sow and reap the crops earlier. Crops grow better when it is warm, so we might get an extra crop in each year.

[LongQ]

don4l said:

That is Bedwetting at its very finest.

It is almost as well researched as the 1990 Guardian analysis of the BSE crisis. I'm sure that you remember that by 2010 we would be having 500,000 deaths per year from nvCJD. No travel would be permitted between the UK and Europe. The french would have filled the Eurotunnel with concrete.

These idiots wonder why they are bankrupt.

They simply do not understand that most people are not willing to pay for lies.

It only takes two seconds to figure out the impact of a two degree increase on British farming.

We would both sow and reap the crops earlier. Crops grow better when it is warm, so we might get an extra crop in each year.

More even than that it seems to conflate so many ideas into one "we are a useless country unable to cope without external management" theory.

I can't see the problem. After all the lady from Comb St. Nicholas has, on her blog site, an old French recipe for cooking badger.

By the time of the food crisis there should be a lot of those around - ideal for Indy readers who all seem to come from somewhere fairly deep in the countryside.

The recipe starts by suggesting the freshly killed badger should be skinned and entrails removed and then placed in a fast running local stream for a couple of days to both clean it and help to make the fat more easily removable.

That sounds like wise advice (although it does not mention whether it also eliminates any possibility of TB infection remaining). One might question whether any stream would be fit for such a purpose but recall that farming would have been non-intensive for some years and, presumably, fertilizer free as a result of the battle against CO2 emissions. So the steams may be in good shape although one suspects they would be best utilised near the highest point viable and well above the waste outlet of the local Manor House.

The downside of the plan, of course, would be that any remaining recent immigrants would likely be much better equipped for roaming the countryside slaughtering wildlife than the indigenous Brits. So best keep those airports open and make sure the supply of veg air-freighted from Africa is not interrupted no matter how much CO2 the flying releases.


BTW: Whilst the lady from Comb St. Nicholas does come across as a little eccentric, some of her subject matter reads rather well and makes much more sense than many, perhaps most, "official" comments and reports.

[Pan Pan Pan]

If one cares to dig to the bottom of just about any environmental issue we are being told we must worry about, almost without fail, we will find a little ole human at the bottom of it, As we are increasing those little ole humans globally at rates between 287 and 346 thousand net per day, why do people believe we can go on doing this, but it will not and will never have an effect on the planet.
Cutting down rain forests? who is doing that, and for what reason?
Hoovering fish out of the sea? Who is doing that, and for what reason?
Cutting or drilling holes in the sea bed looking for oil or minerals, Who is doing that and for what reason?
Driving natural species out of their environments, and losing them in increasing numbers in the process? Who is doing that and for what reason?

Until we learn how to produce children who wont ever want to eat, or drink, or wear clothes. Children who wont ever want to move further from where they were born than they can walk, Children who wont ever want toys, X boxes, Ipads, Tv`s, computers, cinemas, pop concerts, Children who wont want to visit any other countries in their entire lives. Children who don't want to be kept warm in winter, or cool in summer, children who wont ever want houses of their own, or powered transport of any kind to reach them, and of course crucially children who will never want to have children of their own. Until we learn to produce the children described above, then each new human, like the billions of us around them, will be just another resource consuming, emissions producing entity, and we are turning them out in at rates never seen on Earth before, in its entire 4.6 billion year history. Yet some still say we must save the Earth/rain forests for our children, as they put yet another disposable nappy in the waste bin.

[hidetheelephants]

While reading other articles on the Beeb news site I noticed Mrs Maunder has got a write-up, although the author seems more interested in the feminist aspects than the science. A pioneering woman in mathematics and astronomy.

[turbobloke]

They must be codding.



The item to which I refer is the codpiece.

Apparently cod can't use changes in facial expression to attract a mate, so they use a variety of rumblings from their swim bladder.

In doing so, some have developed a scouse accent (suitably bladdered) that other fish may find incodgruous.

This makes them vulnerable to climate change.

[robinessex]

Cods Wallop !!!

[turbobloke]

robinessex said:

Cods Wallop !!!

It would have been too much to expect the main headline to be 'Rudd attacks Roach'.