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............it probably won't, because they won't allow any more discussion.:rolleyes:
https://www.manhattan-institute.org/green-energy-revolution-near-impossible
So many examples of reality........ and just so hard to pick only one. :D

"It costs less than $1 a barrel to store oil or natural gas (in oil-energy equivalent terms) for a couple of months.[20] Storing coal is even cheaper. Thus, unsurprisingly, the U.S., on average, has about one to two months’ worth of national demand in storage for each kind of hydrocarbon at any given time.[21]"

"Meanwhile, with batteries, it costs roughly $200 to store the energy equivalent to one barrel of oil.[22] Thus, instead of months, barely two hours of national electricity demand can be stored in the combined total of all the utility-scale batteries on the grid plus all the batteries in the 1 million electric cars that exist today in America.[23]"

"So how many batteries would be needed to store, say, not two months’ but two days’ worth of the nation’s electricity? The $5 billion Tesla “Gigafactory” in Nevada is currently the world’s biggest battery manufacturing facility.[52] Its total annual production could store three minutes’ worth of annual U.S. electricity demand. Thus, in order to fabricate a quantity of batteries to store two days’ worth of U.S. electricity demand would require 1,000 years of Gigafactory production."

(let alone the world's supply):rolleyes:
 
Reality is just so fun.
"
Tesla, which now sells more cars in the top price category in America than does Mercedes-Benz, has inspired a rush of the world’s manufacturers to produce appealing battery-powered vehicles.[66] This has emboldened bureaucratic aspirations for outright bans on the sale of internal combustion engines, notably in Germany, France, Britain, and, unsurprisingly, California.

Such a ban is not easy to imagine. Optimists forecast that the number of EVs in the world will rise from today’s nearly 4 million to 400 million in two decades.[67] A world with 400 million EVs by 2040 would decrease global oil demand by barely 6%. This sounds counterintuitive, but the numbers are straightforward. There are about 1 billion automobiles today, and they use about 30% of the world’s oil.[68] (Heavy trucks, aviation, petrochemicals, heat, etc. use the rest.) By 2040, there would be an estimated 2 billion cars in the world. Four hundred million EVs would amount to 20% of all the cars on the road—which would thus replace about 6% of petroleum demand."

Need I say more? :D
..........probably. ;)
 
I would believe almost anything when it comes to energy BS. Look at ethanol. It is used for one reason, the farm vote. It takes more energy to produce a gallon of ethanol than it gives when burned. It lowers gas mileage. It decreases engine life. It raises the price of other foods made from corn.
 
People can have their own batteries too. Just think how much energy it takes to get coal, oil and gas out of the ground and ship it, process it plus pipe lines and maintenance.
 
I'm not saying solar and wind are bad. There's just some reality involved in producing energy from those sources. I think his Moore's law part near the bottom tells us what we can expect as far as increasing the efficiency of these energy sources.
 
Read it all. What's being touted as saving the earth is the largest pipe dream ever imagined.
Tho not mentioned here, the "water battery" is another pipe dream......... pumping water into a reservoir up on dat dere hill during off hours. That won't be possible because there will never be enough wind and solar, so why store the elusive "extra power"
Mining like he mentioned would have to be ramped up to ecological disaster levels to satisfy battery demand.
In AZ and sunny areas, it's probably good as long as it's cheaper than other forms of electrical generation. If it's more expensive, they need to fix that problem....... I mean their fuel is free.
 
And lets remember oil pipeline spills, polluting the entire gulf of mexico and hundreds of places on the land and sea, fracking makes water wells non usable, the polluted air from refineries and coal burning smoke stacks. The cancer it causes.
Add it all up and your costs are sky high with fossil fuels .
Not saying we can live without them but we can certainly be less dependent on them and free ourselves from the OPEC like scoundrels that use that money to support terrorism across the world.
 
We are the OPEC scoundrels now. Not sure if they even make the top 5. We're finally somebody! (thanks to Trump)
What amazes me with that article is the Moores Law makes it make complete sense. 400 years ago we had rocks. 200 years ago they made magnets from them. 20 years ago we got super magnets....... and in the last 20 years.......... we still have super magnets.
He put into very understandable terms, that the efficiency of wind power is maxing out. That means we can't make them much more efficient, so we just need a lot more of them. There aren't enough windy places close enough to make transmission doable. We'll it's doable, but not on a large enough scale in most places to make a noticeable dent.
We have a a decent of wind in one part of the state.................. and thanks to Trump, they are experimenting with water pumping. I'll have to look to see what they are actually trying to achieve. I think wind farms are pumping water from below the dams and dumping it back into the reservoir above. Recirculating it. I suppose in a super dry year that may help. But then again, why not just use the wind power.
.......oh, I forgot, it's not consistent like hydro or LNG. :D
 
I agree less is better (fossil fuels), but since windmills and solar can't be the replacement, I like what that guy said about subsidies. Stop the subsidies for current solar and windmills and research for a new way of making energy that could actually replace fossil fuels some day down the road. He makes a lot of good points about the reality of ever becoming 100% renewable.
 
So our power company is starting a huge windfarm in southeasten NM. Figure that out. Do you realize how far away that is from Tucson?
 
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"Thanks to Trump"

Wow really, Trump invented fossil fuels?
He's trying to stop coal from becoming a fossil itself. Its doing it all o its own.
Even the coal miners hate it. Half are dying from black lung and what does the GOP do? Cut their heslth insurance.
 
Coal is going out and being replaced by natural gas....... because of price/market demand, just like it's supposed to happen. .....without government help. Pretend you live in coal country and that's how everyone in the county makes a living. Now pretend Obama makes regulations so expensive everyone you know is out of work.
Dangerous? Doesn't even make the top 10.
I live in logging/fishing country.
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/01/04/the-10-most-dangerous-jobs-for-men.html
I worked alongside a contractor yesterday. He has a 40' boat and commercial fishes for salmon and tuna. It's about 12 feet wide. He fishes solo. Said he has a line like a lot of people have in their pickup beds to keep their dogs from falling or jumping out. .........a zip line of sorts.
He started using this zip line contraption that he's attached to because he realized one day, that what he does is dangerous. He was down in the hold when a wave hit the boat so hard it flushed him out of the hold and he ended up clinging to a vertical steel upright on the boat.
Not saying coal mining is safe, but I know the workers safety regulations are a lot different that 30 years ago.
The issue here is the physical reality of solar/wind and the perception that 100% or even 50% is virtually actually possible on a global scale............. It isn't. ...not until someone comes up with a power source not known yet.
 
https://www.bizjournals.com/portlan...orge-energy-storage-project-wins-federal.html
"Pumped storage works by pumping water uphill into a reservoir when energy is cheap and plentiful, then releasing the water downhill through generating turbines when the energy is needed.

Dozens of projects were developed in the U.S. from the 1950s into the ’80s to accompany large baseload power plants, especially nuclear. After a long lull in development, the technology is getting a fresh look as a tool for providing the grid flexible, carbon-free capacity and other services like frequency regulation.

As proposed, the Gorge project would produce up to 1,200 megawatts, more than double the power output of the Boardman Coal Plant that Portland General Electric operates in Eastern Oregon, and store 14,745 megawatt-hours of electricity.

Water for the project would come from the Columbia, but because the system would include a lower reservoir and operate in a closed loop, it would require only periodic recharging from the river. That could alleviate some environmental concerns.

A bill recently signed into law by President Donald Trump includes a provision that speeds up the licensing process for such projects. Sandvig said that could help the Golden project get built a year or two sooner than a 2028 target."
Put it in big print in case you eyes are bad. :D


If every state had the availability of hydro like we do in the northwest, that would be nice. So this water pump thing has it's benefits in Oregon and Washington.................. but on a global scale the carbon reductions are virtually immeasurable. Good for us I suppose and good for the fishies. It's a very small win........... not that it's a bad win.
See,what that guy wrote isn't about how to reduce our carbon footprint. It's a blunt in your face (and mine) about the laws of physics, mankinds energy needs, the ever increasing world population and the fact that energy needs are probably growing faster than "green energy" is replacing it.
Look at this. Lets say that 80 years ago cars got 9 miles per gallon, and 20 years ago they averaged 18,
and 5 years ago they averaged 24,
and this year they average 26.
Efficiency doubled in 60 years, but in the past 5 years they could only squeeze another 1% out of the fuel.
The mythological 100mpg carburetor of the 60 or 70's......... never existed. A gallon of gasoline doesn not contain that amount of energy no matter how you slice it. Diminishing returns they call it.
Same with photo cells and same with wind turbines. In the past 20 years that have maxed out the efficiency to that 1% gain........ OK, maybe they have 5% or 10% more. Squeezing that last bit of efficiency costs 1000 X more than it's worth...... to gain another .05%
Once again, diminishing raises it's ugly head. The technological gains in the past 20 years are getting close to what we can get from this stuff. You aren't going to double the efficiency of a solar cell or a wind turbine. All we need are 500 million acres of windy and sunny property where nobody will issue a "not in my back yard" or an environmental denial. On top of that, the power transmission lines need to be close enough to where it's needed to be realistic.

Not that carbon free is bad. It's not, but we don't need to compare the US to Iceland......... you know the place where they heat their streets to keep them ice free in the winter. :D I'd continue typing but my fingers are sore. :D
 
https://www.newsweek.com/whats-true-cost-wind-power-321480

Tallying the true costs of wind
Depending on which factors are included, estimates for the cost of wind power vary wildly. Lazard claims the cost of wind power ranges from $37 to $81 per megawatt-hour, while Michael Giberson at the Center for Energy Commerce at Texas Tech University suggests it’s closer to $149. Our analysis in an upcoming report explores this wide gap in cost estimates, finding that most studies underestimate the genuine cost of wind because they overlook key factors.

Many estimates, however, don’t include costs related to the inherent unreliability of wind power and government subsidies and mandates. Since we can’t ensure the wind always blows, or how strongly, coal and natural gas plants must be kept on as backup to compensate when it’s calm. This is known as baseload cycling, and its cost ranges from $2 to $23 per megawatt-hour.

This also reduces the environmental friendliness of wind power. Because a coal-fired or natural gas power plant must be kept online in case there’s no wind, two plants are running to do the job of one. These plants create carbon emissions, reducing the environmental benefits of wind. The amount by which emissions reductions are offset by baseload cycling ranges from 20% to 50%, according to a modeling study by two professors at Carnegie Mellon University.

While the backup plants are necessary to ensure the grid’s reliability, their ability to operate is threatened by wind subsidies. The federal dollars encourage wind farm owners to produce power even when prices are low, flooding the market with cheap electricity. That pushes prices down even further and makes it harder for more reliable producers, such as nuclear plants, that don’t get hefty subsidies to stay in business.
 
Better off if the government just mandated that all new homes are 600 sq feet or less and home lots are 30 by 40 and R-100 in the walls floors and ceilings and two windows. Living room ......and bathroom. ;)
 
Snicker snicker.
https://www.spectator.co.uk/2017/05...or-green-and-they-provide-zero-global-energy/
Even put together, wind and photovoltaic solar are supplying less than 1 per cent of global energy demand. From the International Energy Agency’s 2016 Key Renewables Trends, we can see that wind provided 0.46 per cent of global energy consumption in 2014, and solar and tide combined provided 0.35 per cent. Remember this is total energy, not just electricity, which is less than a fifth of all final energy, the rest being the solid, gaseous, and liquid fuels that do the heavy lifting for heat, transport and industry.

Meanwhile, world energy demand has been growing at about 2 per cent a year for nearly 40 years. Between 2013 and 2014, again using International Energy Agency data, it grew by just under 2,000 terawatt-hours.
If wind turbines were to supply all of that growth but no more, how many would need to be built each year? The answer is nearly 350,000, since a two-megawatt turbine can produce about 0.005 terawatt-hours per annum. That’s one-and-a-half times as many as have been built in the world since governments started pouring consumer funds into this so-called industry in the early 2000s.
 

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