The climate change consensus extends beyond climate scientists

[sendler]

World capacity factor for Nuclear electricity is 81.1%
.
Capacity factor for wind looks like about 34%
.
Solar looks like about 24%
.
Gallery - World Nuclear Association
.
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/1...326/aae102/pdf
.

[sendler]

Originally Posted by aerohead

'was looking at EIA data in the 2019 World Almanac yesterday.A few observations:
*In 2017,for domestic energy production,renewables exceeded natural gas condensates.
*In 2017,renewables exceeded nuclear.
:

EIA USA electricity production data for 2018:
Natural Gas 35.1%
Nuclear 19.1%
"renewables total" 17.1%
.
https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3
.

[NeilBlanchard]

Please take the time to watch this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9qYyrgzoII

[freebeard]

Thank goodness for 1.5x. It get tiring watching someone pointing offscreen with his laser pointer.

I guessed wrong. I though the answer would be biochar, not an old fence row.

Actions are preceded by decisions, as he says. Decisions are precede by intentions. Instead of focusing on actions and decisions, we could focus on intent. The hardest thing to prove by law.

[aerohead]

Originally Posted by sendler

"Renewables" including hydro (which has topped out decades ago and no one will let us build anymore) for ELECTRICITY production.
.
The words renewable electricity and the word energy are commonly erroneously conflated. Multiply electricity production 5x to get it's proportion of energy. The fact that big hydro is actually (foolishly) being lobbied to tear down rather than increase also makes lumping it into the word "renewables" misleading when the inference is that someone is referencing wind and solar build out.
.
The PROPOSED data on the new 12 MW wind turbine is vaporware. We must wait and see what the actual output over a year is.
.
Pollyanna optimism of wind and solar replacing all energy along with a complete electrification retrofit of all systems breeds complacency to undertake the real societal changes that are required for a controlled step back down toward sustainable levels.

Renewable is a term used freely since 1974 when the Arab Oil Embargo hit.I use it since it's been in the public domain since then.
I don't have any control over what language the US Department of Energy uses.They use renewable to encompass geothermal,solar,hydro,biomass,and wind.
For 2017,the US produced 87.64-quads.
Renewables were 11.14-quads.That's 12.71% of the total.
We had to buy 23.70-quads of foreign energy to make up our shortfall to satisfy Barbie and Ken's eleven trips to town per day in their Mattelmobile,uninsulated house,and running their incandescent light bulbs 24-7-365.
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Would you like to flesh out your comment about 5X to get the proportion?
I'm not acquainted with that metric.
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Is there an explanation for tearing down hydro? There's no discussion about it in the media,or articles about US energy policy addressing it.Any info would be welcome.
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Since 'renewable' is the term some love to hate,I use it when it's used in formal discourse by those intimately familiar with it.
Hydro is part of the official mix,and until it's gone,it should be included in all discussions about renewable.EIA uses it.I'll share that.
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As to the GE turbine.They built it,perhaps they're the experts on it's performance.Wind surveys have been conducted long before the 1970s,for the entire US.Direction,amplitude,frequency,duration,spatial distribution,have been catalogued and archived.I suspect that GE has a pretty good statistical confidence of their products performance.
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For vaporware,look to the 3-nuclear plants recently abandoned after cost and timescale overruns.The smartest people on Earth couldn't make those happen.
GE will sell you a turbine 'today.'
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I'll go with Pollyanna.A creation of Walt Disney,who's corporate-owned television networks,today, advertise renewable energy on a daily basis.
The Republicans imply that there's no problem satisfying demand with renewables.They're the smartest people in the room,yes?.It's just that their client's campaign contribution golden goose,and golden parachutes are threatened by disruptive technology.
Nobel Prize-winning economist,Kenneth J. Arrow's endogenous growth theory may win out over the doom and gloom your economist favorites promote.
Arrow said that he learned that economics,as a 'science', was no guarantee of exactness.He was one pot that was authorized to call the kettle black.

[redpoint5]

...and outcome only responds to action, and doesn't care about intent. "the facts don't care about your feelings".

I generally assume good intentions, but imperfect understanding of the facts, and therefore decisions that have less than optimal outcomes.

[aerohead]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

What capacity factor are the best wind doing? I can't imagine 50%+. That would mean that on average, the wind was blowing such that the turbine was producing an average of at least half the maximum rated output. So days where it produced less than half would have to be made up on days that produced more than half.

I thought 1/3 was what to expect from wind and solar?

GE's Haliade-X-12 MW turbine is rated @ 63% Capacity Factor.It's the world's largest extant wind turbine, with 220-meter turbine,for offshore,deepwater applications.It can 'start' producing in a lighter wind.The aerodynamics of the blades are state-of-the-art.
They've already got 30-MW at the Block Island Wind Farm,off the coast of Rhode Island;with 67-GW annual production (16,000 European homes/turbine), and are adding to it,with a new commitment of $200-billion (US).
Rhode Island has already seen 11-inches of sea-level rise since 1930.They've warmed 3.4-degrees F since 1895.Their winters are 4-F warmer than 1970.
Their electric bills went down 40%,not up.
The rumor in Texas,is that we could be zero carbon,easy.

[aerohead]

Originally Posted by sendler

World capacity factor for Nuclear electricity is 81.1%
.
Capacity factor for wind looks like about 34%
.
Solar looks like about 24%
.
Gallery - World Nuclear Association
.
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/1...326/aae102/pdf
.

For 2010-through 2017,The EIA rates nuclear @ a 92.2% capacity factor.
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As to wind,as farms go to sea,rather from terrestrial locations,we may expect to see the capacity factor aggregate improve into the future.
The winds are better.It looks to be good for sport-fishermen and biodiversity.The pylons are artificial reefs.
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At some point,with excess capacity,grid-scale battery storage would allow transmission during lulls,as well as dog days of summer,solar augmented power,with it's own storage.
It takes a village to power America.

[sendler]

Originally Posted by aerohead

Would you like to flesh out your comment about 5X to get the proportion?
I'm not acquainted with that metric.

ELECTRICITY is approximately 20% of total primary ENERGY. Stating renewable ENERGY, when you mean to say renewable ELECTRICITY, is overstating the percentage contribution of wind and solar (and all of the traditional renewable electricity generation) approximately 5x. As I have stated here dozens of times previously.
.
It may be slightly different now 1 year later but this EIA chart from 2017 shows wind energy in the USA has finally surpassed wood at 2.3 % of total energy.
.
Solar is .66%
.
Let's keep the discussion true people.
.

.

[aerohead]

I wanted to thank all of you who share the videos.
I see the computer only two days a week and only on Saturdays do I have access to the audio portions.So it takes me awhile to catch up with you speed-racers!