Google gives up on renewables

[freebeard]

I must have made comment in this thread because I keep getting notifications, but I can't find any. Possibly a defense of Vulture Central? But I'd given up on it since it went off-topic around comment #4 or 5, veering off into wind power and population. I'd seen the rebuttal, but couldn't find it again at that time.

Basically what Google said was that renewables couldn't revert CO2 below 350ppm alone.

What It Would Really Take to Reverse Climate Change
Today’s renewable energy technologies won’t save us. So what will?
By Ross Koningstein & David Fork
Posted 18 Nov 2014 | 20:00 GMT
http://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/renewables/what-it-would-really-take-to-reverse-climate-change

This is by the guys that did the work for Google. Here's the relevant pull quote:

What’s needed are zero-carbon energy sources so cheap that the operators of power plants and industrial facilities alike have an economic rationale for switching over within the next 40 years

Basically people won't stop doing bad things unless it will make them money. I suggest this: Moon Power and Biochar hold the answer to the dilemma.

Moon power includes tidal and the component of geothermal energy caused by the tidal forces. The component from radioactive decay is the only safe power from nuclear fission.

[IamIan]

Originally Posted by freebeard

But I'd given up on it since it went off-topic

Thanks for the bring it back on topic effort.


I propose moving all the over population discussion to a new thread might help with that as well.

Originally Posted by freebeard

Basically people won't stop doing bad things unless it will make them money.

Yup.

Which is why I 1st chimed in to point out the error in their conclusion about the point at which RE make money compared to dirtier options.

In case you missed it ... Here it is again:

- - - - - -

So what price should we be aiming for?
Consider an average U.S. coal or natural gas plant that has been in service for decades; its cost of electricity generation is about 4 to 6 U.S. cents per kilowatt-hour. What’s needed are zero-carbon energy sources so cheap that the operators of power plants and industrial facilities alike have an economic rationale for switching over within the next 40 years.

So they want zero-carbon option within the next 40 years that will be financially cost competitive with coal $0.04 to $0.06 per kwh.

Their conclusion that this financially competitive point can not be reached over the next 40 years ... is incorrect... so I pointed out where we are at today ... doesn't include any improvements in the next ~40 years... or the prices increases in the 'coal' competition over that 40 years as well.

According to a study by the investment banking firm Lazard, the cost of utility-scale solar energy is as low as 5.6 cents a kilowatt-hour, and wind is as low as 1.4 cents. In comparison, natural gas comes at 6.1 cents a kilowatt-hour on the low end and coal at 6.6 cents. Without subsidies, the firm’s analysis shows, solar costs about 7.2 cents a kilowatt-hour at the low end, with wind at 3.7 cents.

Link

There are already RE options today that satisfy the targets they wanted RE to reach 40 years from now... much less what the higher $ the coal option will be in 40 years ... or the lower $ RE options that will be around in 40 years.

[niky]

I'd like to see the methodology. Because given the projected and guaranteed lifespan (80%) of current solar cells, I recall it not being that positive. (last proposal I reviewed, however, was probably early 2013).

Wind... I have no idea about new turbines, and will need to look that up.

[IamIan]

Originally Posted by niky

I'd like to see the methodology.

You are free to contact the investment banking firm to ask for their methodology.

[redpoint5]

Wow, this thread is evidence that we are all religious. The "sustainable" zealots live in denial of the fact that nothing in this universe is sustainable. Entropy will have its fancy.

One idea I find interesting is that resisting change seems to be in human DNA despite the fact that change is the only constant thing in this world, and that adaptation is the requirement of survival. How is it that humans evolved to be so intolerant of change when it isn't evolutionary advantageous?

I'll contribute my graph to the discussion since there are so many others festering here:


...and concerning the Google article, the authors said that RE is a failure because even if all humans disappeared from earth, the global temperature would continue to rise in the future due to the already elevated CO2 levels. They predict disaster regardless of how efficient we become, short of sequestering more CO2 than we produce.

Humans aren't content for Earth to be their only habitable place, and this news proves it. One thing is certain; life isn't getting off this planet with a human population of only 500 million.

[IamIan]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

I'll contribute my graph to the discussion since there are so many others festering here:

Haha

Love that graph.

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

The "sustainable" zealots live in denial of the fact that nothing in this universe is sustainable. Entropy will have its fancy.

Eventually, sure, but you know something? I'm not all that worried about what's going to happen in a billion years or so :-)

One idea I find interesting is that resisting change seems to be in human DNA...

Not at all true. What you call "resisting change" is really nothing more than people wanting to change things to better suit themselves, instead of you :-)

Humans aren't content for Earth to be their only habitable place, and this news proves it.

Proves it how, exactly? Even the ability to travel to other planets (which Orion is far from demonstrating) would not make those planets habitable*. Only intensive terraforming projects, probably taking millenia, could do that.

One thing is certain; life isn't getting off this planet with a human population of only 500 million.

Whyever not? Let me just point that the only human voyages beyond low Earth orbit were all done by the US, population (per 1970 census) 203,392,031.

*PS: To be clear, by habitable I mean capable of sustaining a human population indefinitely, without continuously supplying necessities from Earth. You could of course establish long-term bases, in the same way as we have Antarctic research stations, or crews working on ocean oil platforms.

[Frank Lee]

This thread makes it evident why people give up. :/

[freebeard]

Wow, this thread is evidence that we are all religious.

I can't speak for everyone else, but please don't put me in that bucket.

The "sustainable" zealots live in denial of the fact that nothing in this universe is sustainable. Entropy will have its fancy.

An interesting choice of label. But...Universe itself is sustainable. Entropy doesn't rule everywhere, all the time.

[Nigel_S]

Originally Posted by jamesqf

Whyever not? Let me just point that the only human voyages beyond low Earth orbit were all done by the US, population (per 1970 census) 203,392,031.

Very misleading - don't forget that the prototypes for the propulsion system where not developed by the USA and did cost around 20,000 lives of the slaves who were forced to build them, many of them executed:

Grim history

Although there is no exact figure, estimates suggest that several thousand people were killed by the missile – 2,724 in Britain alone. However, a far grimmer statistic is that many more, at least 20,000, died constructing the V2s themselves.

“It’s something that’s often glossed over, but shouldn’t be,” says Doug Millard, space historian and curator of space technology at London’s Science Museum, where a V2 takes pride of place in the main exhibition hall. “The V2 programme was hugely expensive in terms of lives, with the Nazis using slave labour to manufacture these rockets.”

The prisoners – many pulled from other concentration camps for their technical skills such as welding – worked around the clock in an underground factory called Mittelwerk near the Buchenwald concentration camp in central Germany. They lived under appalling conditions, with no daylight, little sleep, food or proper sanitation. Many were executed for attempted sabotage. Eyewitness accounts describe prisoners being hanged from cranes above the rocket assembly lines.

BBC - Future - V2: The Nazi rocket that launched the space age