The climate change consensus extends beyond climate scientists

[aerohead]

Originally Posted by sendler

It is a false hope that we could ever replace all energy with solar and wind. There is not enough raw materials to possibly build out this much hardware.
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One more time (one by one it seems). Just for the USA:
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130,000 square miles of area, 1.000.000 2.5MW class wind turbines, and 50,000 SolarStar class grid scale 500MW solar farms, and 70,000,000 rooftop solar systems, and a 4% increase in hydro with the new capacity capable to pump store. And an unrealistic quantity of this as split Hydrogen with a new fleet of long haul transport. And still very little percent of storage. Please review "Roadmap to Nowhere" to see the explanation of the facts and figures. They actually did the math.
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The Myth of Powering the Nation With Renewable Energy
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It's going to happen whether we like it or not.And it won't even be driven by policy.It doesn't even have to be for environmental reasons.
There's money in it and that's all it takes as an incentive in this world.Adam Smith's invisible hand.

[sendler]

Originally Posted by aerohead

But I'm told I'm wrong,with no information to put forwards with which to substantiate the claim.

Ethanol is a big loser in cars and biodiesel is a likewise big loser for big agriculture. The problem is ER/EI of 2:1. Half your future crop is consumed in trying to make the other half into fuel to do it all over again. And tying up the land that used to grow food. Right now we are extracting oil at 20:1 and the world economy is barely hanging by the thread of a debt to GDP ratio of 4:1. If we have to start farming with fuel at 2:1 the food output will drop and the price will skyrocket. Or even sooner than the doomsday biodiesel scenario when we platue traditional oil and have to start relying on fracked oil and deep water oil at 8:1 or tar sands at 3:1.

[aerohead]

Originally Posted by sendler

In what way do you find it to be untrue? The totals were taken from the SolutionsProject.org which all renewable advocates constantly quote as the go to guide to replacing all energy in the USA with wind, water, and solar. The Roadmap To Nowhere simply added up the hardware that is required in order to generate the required energy, and gave every benefit of the doubt every where they could regarding optimistic efficiency gains of electric vs ICE, capacity factor, land use, and price.
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1.5TeraWatts of continuous average power must be replaced just for the USA which already inludes the efficiency advantages of electric over ICE. With capacity factors as stated (25% for solar and 33% for wind?) The hardware requirements are as previously stated.
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And this doesn't even get into the hardware that needs to be built on the consume end of the transition, which is likewise impossible to build that many batteries. Just for the USA. Now envision the whole world making the same transition. Along with underdeveloped countries raising their standard of living so that they no longer have to cook using sticks or poop outside in the yard.
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It doesn't add up.
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The future will be much smaller and simpler.
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The sooner we accept this and quit relying on a false hope of rebuildables replacing 17 TW, the sooner we can make plans on how to get there as humanely as possible.

That 1.5-Terrawatts is not set in cement.I posted elsewhere at this thread that with energy efficiency we can cut your number by 43%.By getting off fossil fuel we can cut that number down another 41%, due to the inherent entropy of internal combustion.
Now we're into Gigawatt territory.
Renewable energy is already in the gigawatt realm.
Just keep adding to it each year and at some point you supplant the existing infrastructure.

[sendler]

Originally Posted by aerohead

That 1.5-Terrawatts is not set in cement.I posted elsewhere at this thread that with energy efficiency we can cut your number by 43%.By getting off fossil fuel we can cut that number down another 41%, due to the inherent entropy of internal combustion.
Now we're into Gigawatt territory.
Renewable energy is already in the gigawatt realm.
Just keep adding to it each year and at some point you supplant the existing infrastructure.

Nope. Many efficiency improvements have already ocurred. faulty compounding math right off the bat. And again, the majority of energy use are not possibly replaced with electric conversion. Personal transportaion is the next easy one. But it is only 10% of total energy as I stated above. So cutting this consumption to 1/3 with electric conversion saves us 6%.
And.
Can we possibly build 60 kWh batteries for 1 billion electric cars?

[aerohead]

Originally Posted by sendler

In what way do you find it to be untrue? The totals were taken from the SolutionsProject.org which all renewable advocates constantly quote as the go to guide to replacing all energy in the USA with wind, water, and solar. The Roadmap To Nowhere simply added up the hardware that is required in order to generate the required energy, and gave every benefit of the doubt every where they could regarding optimistic efficiency gains of electric vs ICE, capacity factor, land use, and price.
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1.5TeraWatts of continuous average power must be replaced just for the USA which already inludes the efficiency advantages of electric over ICE. With capacity factors as stated (25% for solar and 33% for wind?) The hardware requirements are as previously stated.
.
And this doesn't even get into the hardware that needs to be built on the consume end of the transition, which is likewise impossible to build that many batteries. Just for the USA. Now envision the whole world making the same transition. Along with underdeveloped countries raising their standard of living so that they no longer have to cook using sticks or poop outside in the yard.
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It doesn't add up.
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The future will be much smaller and simpler.
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The sooner we accept this and quit relying on a false hope of rebuildables replacing 17 TW, the sooner we can make plans on how to get there as humanely as possible.

Could you please transcribe specific data from this work so we can skip reading the whole thing.I've just spent the last 3-weeks on Lomberg's book.
Without my own computer,I'm looking at having to print the whole thing,which I'd rather not venture if I can't get a taste of it beforehand.
Impossible is not a word that translates to historical precedent in the United States.
Ph.D. in Economics, Bjorn Lomberg doesn't have a problem with 100% renewables.He expects it to happen! He uses all the real statistics.
I'm a renewable advocate and I've never heard of SolutionsProject.org,nor Roadmap to Nowhere.Perhaps the media hasn't stumbled onto them so far.

[aerohead]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

That's not likely. While the market isn't perfect, it's usually more correct than any individual or group's opinion of what is best for the economy. It is more likely that if there was even equal profit to be made in renewables as fossil fuels, that industry would be larger.

The time will come, but it's not here yet, and not due to lack of will, or conspiracy. Tough problems take time. Their solutions are normally found in many evolutions of various technologies; a process that is time consuming.

We're reminded that time is a luxury we do not possess.

[aerohead]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

That doesn't seem likely. Entitlements seem to be the biggest expense going forward, especially given a slowing population growth, predicted shrinking economy, and $21,000,000,000,000 national debt.

Lomberg said that debt was good.That a nation had no world standing unless it had debt.Creditworthiness.
Interest rates are low.It's a good time to borrow for infrastructure,investing in the future.

[aerohead]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

Unfunded tax cuts doesn't make sense. It doesn't cost to have someone not pay a tax. The more accurate description would be insufficient tax revenue for given government expenditures.

The truth is that entitlements (government dependency / loss of liberty) far exceed any other spending category. That isn't to say money isn't wasted in other categories, only that it's less significant.



Collectively we have developed a narcissistic entitlement culture where we eat tomorrow's lunch and let our grandchildren pay for it. We have that attitude with resource consumption, pollution emissions, and economics.



Tell that to WWII survivors. Ask any old person what their top 10 most significant challenges were, and I doubt GW appears on their list. Ask an 80 year old how they coped with a sea level that rose 8" in their lifetime, and they will give you a blank stare. This is the same predicted rise for the next 80 years.



We are a significant contributing factor, but it's far from clear if the net negative impacts of GW outweigh the net benefits.

Its nice that we live in such a comfortable world in which the outdoor thermostat is something we can concern ourselves with. Much better problem to contend with than say, how not to starve to death, or how to keep invading hordes from killing us.

From Lomberg: The Cautionary Principle: 'Where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage,lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation.'

[sendler]

Jacobson is suing Clack for saying this:
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" Jacobson et al. [Jacobson MZ, Delucchi MA, Cameron MA, Frew BA (2015) Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 112(49):15060–15065] argue that it is feasible to provide “low-cost solutions to the grid reliability problem with 100% penetration of WWS [wind, water and solar power] across all energy sectors in the continental United States between 2050 and 2055”, with only electricity and hydrogen as energy carriers. In this paper, we evaluate that study and find significant shortcomings in the analysis. In particular, we point out that this work used invalid modeling tools, contained modeling errors, and made implausible and inadequately supported assumptions. Policy makers should treat with caution any visions of a rapid, reliable, and low-cost transition to entire energy systems that relies almost exclusively on wind, solar, and hydroelectric power.
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"Many previous studies of deep decarbonization of electric power illustrate that much can be done with wind and solar power but that it is extremely difficult to achieve complete decarbonization of the energy system, even when using every current technology and tool available, including energy efficiency and wind, hydroelectric, and solar energy as well as carbon capture and storage, bioenergy, and nuclear energy "
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Evaluation of a proposal for reliable low-cost grid power with 100% wind, water, and solar | PNAS
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Here is the Jacobson paper in question which is the blueprint reference that he uses on SolutionProject.org
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Low-cost solution to the grid reliability problem with 100% penetration of intermittent wind, water, and solar for all purposes | PNAS
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[freebeard]

Solutions are obtained by prioritizing storage for heat (in soil and water); cold (in ice and water); and electricity (in phase-change materials, pumped hydro, hydropower, and hydrogen), and using demand response. No natural gas, biofuels, nuclear power, or stationary batteries are needed.

Their missing the best opportunity, gravity. It's everywhere and it's cheap.

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=energy+storage+with+gravity

Gravitational potential energy storage with solid masses
Changing the altitude of solid masses can store or release energy via an elevating system driven by an electric motor/generator.

Companies such as Energy Cache and Advanced Rail Energy Storage (ARES) are working on this.[15][16] ARES uses rails to move concrete weights up and down.[17] Stratosolar proposes to use winches supported by buoyant platforms at an altitude of 20 kilometers, to raise and lower solid masses.[18] Sink Float Solutions proposes to use winches supported by an ocean barge for taking advantage of a 4 km (13,000 ft) elevation difference between the surface and the seabed.[19] ARES estimated a capital cost for the storage capacity of around 60% of pump storage hydroelectricity,[20] Stratosolar $100/kWh[21] and Sink Float Solutions $25/kWh (4000 m depth) and $50/kWh (with 2000 m depth).[19]

Potential energy storage or gravity energy storage was under active development in 2013 in association with the California Independent System Operator.[22][23][24] It examined the movement of earth-filled hopper rail cars driven by electric locomotives) from lower to higher elevations.[16]

ARES claimed advantages including indefinite storage with no energy losses, low costs when earth/rocks are used and conservation of water resources.[16][25]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy...energy_storage