The climate change consensus extends beyond climate scientists

[oil pan 4]

Originally Posted by NeilBlanchard

What would a 100% renewable energy grid look like where you live? Check it out here:

Our 100% Clean Energy Vision

That's a pipe dream. It says to get 80% to 90% of energy from sources that stop working before dusk or stop working shortly after the sun sets.
Then all you need to make it work is an impossible amount of battery capacity that doesn't exist.

[sendler]

Another good article on Resilience.org today. There are many people writing on the relationship between energy and economy.
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https://www.resilience.org/stories/2...ergy-collapse/
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[aerohead]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

Yeah, electric motors can be like 95% efficient. I expect the major losses to be frictional.

For the Tesla,it has a single-speed,planetary gear-reduction of 98% mechanical efficiency.Beyond that,it's just rolling resistance and aero drag like any other car.

[Xist]

Originally Posted by NeilBlanchard

Your price is way off - a PowerWall costs about $6,000; not $15K.

You provided a source, but irrelevant to the cost of a home installation. Posting for the third time:

Adding a battery can add from about $6,000 to $15,000.

A standard Powerwall has a capacity of 13.5 kilowatt-hours.

That is enough power to run lights in a home and maybe a refrigerator for several hours.

A standard air-conditioner draws about 4 kilowatts of power though, so a Powerwall could only supply that for a little more than three hours of constant use. And air-conditioners require a large surge of electricity just to start up, which may require more than a single battery.

$15,000 for two Powerwalls, an inverter, and installation.

https://www.azcentral.com/story/mone...els/772014002/

To buy and install the battery outside of financing a solar deal, the price is $7,140. [...] The price to go completely off the grid is even higher because that would require a rooftop solar system bigger than what is now usually installed, and at least two Powerwall batteries. That kind of system would cost $96,000 without subsidies, about 74 years of electric bills for an average U.S. customer. [...] Even assuming the cost of solar and batteries declines by 80 percent in the coming years and that it will be subsidized by clean-energy incentives, the system would still cost 2.5 times more than buying electricity from the grid.

https://www.azcentral.com/story/mone...tery/27820661/

So, there is another point that I have made, the standard solar installation would be inadequate to power the house, and charge the batteries, so you need even more solar.

[aerohead]

Originally Posted by Xist

https://www.energysage.com/solar/sol...-solar-panels/

I have provided sources showing that the average solar installation in the Phoenix area would cost $15,000 and have an ROI of eight years.

Enough batteries to run the air conditioning for three hours would also cost $15,000, making the ROI sixteen years--longer than the expected life of the batteries.

So, before you pay them off, you already replace them. If you replace them then the ROI is now twenty-four years, but that is probably longer than the batteries will last, and is approaching the anticipated life expectancy of the solar panels.

If installing batteries becomes 10% cheaper and they last 10% longer you should break even on them.

We're getting a little bit of utility-scale solar farms around here now.
Rather than deal with a home system,some are opting for the solar plan,and pay a modest premium to compensate the COOP for the land,hardware,install,maintenance,replacements,etc .,into the future.

[aerohead]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

That's where the fundamental disagreement comes from. I've not heard compelling evidence that humans go extinct if the temperature rises 3C. I've been to southern California before, and it's miserable being much higher than 3C above where I live, but people seem to make it work.

We're talking hundreds of years for the full impact from a 3C rise to kick in too, so it's not like people on the coast wake up under water the next day.

At what year can we declare that the global warming apocalypse has not happened? When we're all doing fine in 2060 can I stop worrying?



Is there evidence to support this claim? If this were true, then we'd all have battery storage and stop building peaking plants.

I can't participate on that one yet.I'm still screening and compiling materials, and hope to at some future juncture.I am seeing things that are alarming enough to make a person want to go into climate-related research though.Like reading JAMA might make you want to become a physician.

[aerohead]

Originally Posted by sendler

MacKay's book is available in print for loan at most libraries. It is focused on the scale of possible efficiency improvements and and available energy production techniques from an engineering standpoint. Murphy is similar and published his information online. There are many others going back to "The Limits To Growth" from 1972. Richard Heinberg has written several books.
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I can probably save you the trouble. I think you will find any of this too dissonant to your super optimistic view on renewables to accept.
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I honestly don't understand how anyone can look at a chart from 2017 that shows that after the concerted world build out of solar for the past 10 years it still only produces .3% of total energy, can cling to wishfully thinking it can power a modern civilization at even a fraction of the current scale.

Thanks.
I'm okay with reading them.Information is information.
I have The Limits To Growth,and will crack that open when I finish Passion of the Western Mind.
I get the fact that we aren't going to alter the energy landscape in any short term scenario,however,if climate model predictions turn out,retrospectively,to have reasonably predicted what's coming,I think we'd be pleased to have moved as quickly as possible.
It would be better to apologize from a position of strength rather than run in place,as we were overwhelmed in a runaway train wreck.
We need to spend a $trillion on infrastructure anyway,we could commit some of that.Jobs.

[Xist]

Ya'll need Jesus. I will see you in the other threads, but I do not see this one going anywhere.

Aerohead, and NeilBlanchard, you guys seem more interested in contradicting people than responding to what they actually write. Freebeard, you too, but you are also eager to share obscure things that are barely relevant.

Oil Pan, you are a complicated man. You say that everything is fine, but you love your Leaf, and are installing solar panels, although you explain how these save you money.

Sendler and RedPoint, you make good points, but people intentionally misunderstand you.

RedDevil, do you know what Mark Twain said about finding yourself in the majority?

Redneck, your posts are weird.

I skimmed all of the posts going back to #3841. I cannot imagine anyone feeling left out, but if you do, remember:

Nobody cares about my opinion anyway.

Do push-ups and eat your vegetables!

[aerohead]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

Aerohead doesn't seem to specifically advocate for renewables, but instead for government to mandate lower consumption of fossil fuels, regardless of consequence.

Viewing global warming as an existential threat means that priority #1 isn't maintaining order, or standards of living, but stopping warming immediately.

The point I wanted to make,is that in the past,when the US was threatened existentially,we've suspended the Bill of Rights,curtailed many civilian activities,nationalized industries,declared Marshall law,went to a command and control government,rationed energy and materials and even allowed vigilante 'Slacker Raids',which literally hunted down and killed Americans who displayed 'un-patriotic' behavior.
I don't advocate any of it and would rather see market-based solutions.It's just that Americans need to know the lengths a sovereign will go to,to preserve a Republic.It's Machiavellian.

[redpoint5]

I'd wager most of the people you mentioned are smarter than me. If I hold a more correct opinion about anything, it probably has more to do with being disinterested in fitting into political/religious groups. If something I say is found to be wrong, all the more exciting it is to me. I'm as willing to be moved toward aerohead as I am to being moved toward oil pan given well reasoned and objective argument. That said, I am sympathetic towards liberty, so any solution suggesting people surrender responsibility and individuality is a tough sell for me. It's something to be done as a last resort.