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19350
From: pamela, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Surprising science — There’s no such thing as clean energy
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Surprising science — There’s no such thing as clean energy Center for Environmental Research & Earth Sciences · Follow 6 min read · Oct 4, 2020 A meticulous new review published in the scientific journal, Energies, conducted by a team of Irish and US- based researchers including CERES researchers, raises surprising and unsettling questions about the feasibility and the environmental impacts of the transition to renewable energy sources. Concern for climate change has driven massive investment in new “green energy” policies intended to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and other environmental impacts from the fossil fuel industry. The world spent US$3,660 billion on climate change projects over the eight-year period 2011–2018. A total of 55% of this sum was spent on solar and wind energy, while only 5% was spent on adapting to the impacts of extreme weather events. Surprising environmental impacts The researchers discovered that renewable energy sources sometimes contribute to problems they were designed to solve. For example, a series of international studies have found that both wind and solar farms are themselves causing local climate change. Wind farms increase the temperature of the soil beneath them, and this warming causes soil microbes to release more carbon dioxide. So, ironically, while wind energy might be partially reducing human “carbon emissions”, it is also increasing the “carbon emissions” from natural sources. Green energy technologies require a 10-fold increase in mineral extraction compared to fossil fuel electricity. Similarly, replacing just 50 million of the world’s estimated 1.3 billion cars with electric vehicles would require more than doubling the world’s annual production of cobalt, neodymium, and lithium, and using more than half the world’s current annual copper production. Solar and wind farms also need 100 times the land area of fossil fuel-generated electricity, and these resulting changes in land use can have a devastating effect on biodiversity. The effects of bioenergy on biodiversity are worse, and the increased use of crops such as palm oil for biofuels is already contributing to the destruction of rainforests and other natural habitats. Perplexing financial implications Surprisingly, more than half (55%) of all global climate expenditure in the years 2011‒2018 was spent on solar and wind energy ‒ a total of US$2,000 billion. Despite this, wind and solar energy still produced only 3% of world energy consumption in the year 2018, while the fossil fuels (oil, coal and gas) produced 85% between them. This raises pressing questions about what it would cost to make the transition to 100% renewable energies, as some researchers suggest. As lead author Coilín ÓhAiseadha says: “It cost the world $2 trillion to increase the share of energy generated by solar and wind from half a percent to three percent, and it took eight years to do it. What would it cost to increase that to 100%? And how long would it take?” Daunting engineering challenges Engineers have always known that large solar and wind farms are plagued by the so-called “intermittency problem”. Unlike conventional electricity generation sources which provide continuous and reliable energy 24/7 on demand, wind and solar farms only produce electricity when there is wind or sunlight. Dr Ronan Connolly, co-author of the new review, points out: “The average household expects their fridges and freezers to run continuously and to be able to turn on and off the lights on demand. Wind and solar promoters need to start admitting that they are not capable of providing this type of continuous and on-demand electricity supply on a national scale that modern societies are used to,” The problem is not easily solved by large-scale battery storage because it would require huge batteries covering many hectares of land. Tesla has built a large battery to stabilize the grid in South Australia. It has a capacity of 100 MW/129 MWh and covers a hectare of land. One of the papers reviewed in this new study estimated that, if the state of Alberta, Canada, were to switch from coal to renewable energy, using natural gas and battery storage as back-up, it would require 100 of these large batteries to meet peak demand. Some researchers have suggested that the variations in energy production can be evened out by building continental electricity transmission networks, e.g., a network connecting wind farms in north-west Europe with solar farms in the south-east, but this requires massive investment. It is likely to create bottlenecks where the capacity of inter-connections is insufficient, and does not do away with the underlying vulnerability to lulls in sun and wind that can last for days on end. Hurting the poorest A series of studies from Europe, the U.S. and China shows that carbon taxes tend to lay the greatest burden on the poorest households and rural-dwellers. Although the primary motivation for green energy policies is concern over climate change, only 5% of climate expenditure has been dedicated to climate adaptation. Climate adaptation includes helping developing countries to better respond to extreme weather events such as hurricanes. The need to build climate adaptation infrastructure and emergency response systems may conflict with the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, because fossil fuels are generally the most readily available source of cheap energy for development. With regards to indigenous peoples, the review highlights the fact that all energy technologies can have severe impacts on local communities, particularly if they are not properly consulted. Cobalt mining, required to make batteries for e-vehicles, has severe impacts on the health of women and children in mining communities, where the mining is often done in unregulated, small-scale, “artisanal” mines. Lithium extraction, also required for manufacturing batteries for e-vehicles, requires large quantities of water, and can cause pollution and shortages of fresh water for local communities. As lead author, Coilín ÓhAiseadha, points out: “There was worldwide coverage of the conflict between the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and the Dakota Access Pipeline, but what about the impacts of cobalt mining on indigenous peoples in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and what about the impacts of lithium extraction on the peoples of the Atacama Desert? Remember the slogan they chanted at Standing Rock? Mni Wiconi! Water is life! Well, that applies whether you’re Standing Rock Sioux worried about an oil spill polluting the river, or you’re in the Atacama Desert worried about lithium mining polluting your groundwater.” Overview of the paper The review, published in a Special Issue of the journal Energies on 16 September, covers 39 pages, with 14 full-color figures and two tables, detailing the breakdown of climate change expenditure and the pros and cons of all of the various options: wind, solar, hydro, nuclear, fossil fuels, bioenergy, tidal and geothermal. For the review, the researchers searched meticulously through hundreds of research papers published throughout the whole of the English-speaking world, in a wide range of fields, including engineering, environment, energy and climate policy. The final report includes references to 255 research papers covering all of these fields, and it concludes with a table summarizing the pros and cons of all of the various energy technologies. Research team members were based in the Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland, and the United States. The review was published as an open-access peer-review paper and can be downloaded for free from the following URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/18/4839 . The full citation is as follows: ÓhAiseadha, C.; Quinn, G.; Connolly, R.; Connolly, M.; Soon, W. Energy and Climate Policy — An Evaluation of Global Climate Change Expenditure 2011–2018. Energies 2020, 13, 4839. Funding: C.Ó., G.Q., and M.C. received no external funding for works on this paper. R.C. and W.S. received financial support from the Center for Environmental Research and Earth Sciences (CERES), while carrying out the research for this paper. The aim of CERES is to promote open-minded and independent scientific inquiry. For this reason, donors to CERES are strictly required not to attempt to influence either the research directions or the findings of CERES. Readers interested in supporting CERES can find details at https://ceres- science.com/ . Climate Change Renewable Energy Energy Policy |
Responses:
[19370] [19372] [19373] [19374] [19383] [19371] [19352]
19370
From: ao, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: Surprising science — There’s no such thing as clean energy
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The only source, besides nuclear, that can meet the demands for energy, that is shovel ready and is environmentally clean with practically no impacts, is geothermal. All that other stuff, solar and wind, is a joke, and an environmental nightmare themselves. Wind turbines are a seriously flawed technology.. the propellers themselves are a nightmare to dispose of. And the same holds for solar panels. They are toxic waste piling up.. Whereas geothermal has come a long way.. with reinjection there’s no waste, no toxins no nothing but clean continuous, and seriously robust quantities of energy. And, besides, we are able to capture it from lower heat sources than the older geothermal plants relied on.. and with a very small footprint on the Earth. But hey, solar and wind are sexy… gets their developers all gaga over how cool they are.. and still, as the article points out we get very little for all the hoopla.. |
19372
From: ryan, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: Surprising science — There’s no such thing as clean energy
| another energy producing method that is fairly clean is wave and ocean current generators...but in reality, all these methods are 19th century technology, except solar...that is newer...but using wind, water or steam to turn generators is really basic stuff...there must be ways we have not discovered yet to produce electricity that are efficient and non-toxic...but producing electricity will always have a downside...it is a basic law of physics...even geothermal will eventually cool the interior of the earth and produce unexpected results...same kind of problem with exchanging wind for rotation or sunlight into the release of electricity...gurdjieff said anything we can perceive in any way that is in the universe/creation is material...meaning nothing is infinite...and that our wasteful production of electricity robs us of energies we could utilize for our own growth and benefit...and there is a limit to what we can produce from the environment...we are so stupid in our cleverness...so ignorant in our "technology"...we light up the night because we are afraid of the dark, and we disrupt our natural cycles... |
19373
From: ao, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: Surprising science — There’s no such thing as clean energy
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I am only pointing out that today, with the current technologies, and our rate of consumption, of all the possible and practical, and not CO2 emitting, options geothermal is the best suited in that it does not have any waste to dispose of, the brine is recycled back into the Earth, and there's very little infrastructure beyond the well and the pipes to a turbine. Here, in Hawaii we have a 35MW plant on less than ten acres working at peak production 24/7 with no waste, no toxic, no pile of something to dump in a landfill and it can continue to do the same for a long time to come. Of course if we are talking a need to get away from centrifugal motors then solar is the only one that comes close.. but solar is a big investment for a short life span and a major impact on land and a lot of trash in the end. As to the heat that geothermal would be tapping into.. I think there’s millions of years left of the stuff. Here's a U.S. Department of Energy report on what they envision as geothermal’s potential nationally.. https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy23osti/84822.pdf An interesting aside.. one of the pics at the top of that document, the one of a skylight with a lava flow within, is mine.. Besides the intense full blown tapping into real heat of a geothermal plant we could be using the Earths temperature to heat, and cool our homes.. buildings, with systems that tap into the very shallow regimes of the planet.. even measured in dozens of feet below the surface.. the Earth has a temp, and it’s nice.. 50s-60s F… and can be used passively. Some may recall the article written by Wendell Thomas which was first published in Mother Earth News in 1971.. titled Creating an Eco-Friendly Passive Solar Earth-Sheltered Home https://www.motherearthnews.com/sustainable-living/green-homes/passive-solar-earth-sheltered-home-zmaz71jazgoe/ I always liked that idea.. get below the atmospheric effects., even permafrost, and the earth is an enjoyable.. balmy.. sustainable temperature.. It’s a real shame we don't take advantage of it.. And still, I think we’re due to outgrow the motor entirely.. and think we need to to realize our place here psychically. I suspect all the electromagnetic radiation we are constantly bathed in ain't our friend. Personally I have always wondered if our fascination with the electron is misplaced? I think we should be taking our clues from nature. She’s already shown us how to capture the sun’s energy. Plants, every leaf a solar cell, all of life springs from that process.. and we’re trying to swim against the current. Do it another way.. and it’s not as efficient.. has all sorts of unintended consequences.. waste.. harm.. as well as the good it does. But, methinks, it’s at too high a price. It's like we think we should wield the power of suns rather than just take the rays of our sun and be happy about it. Silly humans. |
19374
From: ryan, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: Surprising science — There’s no such thing as clean energy
| i agree that of all available options geothermal seems the best...tesla it seems had some insights into better ways to get power, directly from the earth's gravitational field and the spin of earth, but the big money people did away with him and opted for something that would go through confined delivery and a meter...generating an extremely large and steady monthly income. ..i think living underground is going to be necessary as we move into an extremely hot and radical environment caused by global warming...that is if we make it through the next 4 years... |
Responses:
[19383]
19383
From: ryan, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: Surprising science — There’s no such thing as clean energy
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Energy Secretary Chris Wright throws support behind geothermal boom by Saul Elbein - 03/06/25 6:00 AM ET Adobe Stock A geothermal power plant is seen in operation. This story was produced in partnership with the Pulitzer Center. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright on Tuesday threw his support behind a vast expansion in geothermal energy. Emerging forms of geothermal use technology from the fossil fuel industry to generate power on demand without air pollution — something Wright’s company, Liberty Energy, invested millions in. While geothermal “hasn’t achieved liftoff yet, it should and it can, Wright told attendees at MAGMA, a Republican-facing pro-geothermal event in D.C on Tuesday. A mature geothermal industry, he said, “could “better energize our country, improve the quality of life for everyone. It could help enable AI, manufacturing, reshoring and stop the rise of our electricity prices.” “I look across this room and I see people that are going to make geothermal happen,” he added. Wright name-checked geothermal as one of his department’s primary areas of focus, and it was one of the zero-carbon forms of energy — along with nuclear and hydropower — specifically cited by President Trump in his National Energy Emergency executive order. But Wright’s comments on Tuesday were by far his most fulsome on the subject of geothermal as secretary. They came as a significant coup for an industry that has feared wholesale cuts to the support it has received through Biden-era tax credits and programs at the Department of Energy — where it sits exposed as part of the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. Wright’s remarks allayed some of those fears. “I want to be a service provider and help the government get out of the way. Make it easier to get regulatory approvals, easier to do innovations, easier to take that next step.” “Let’s bring abundance,” he added. MAGMA (which stands for Making America Geothermal: Modern Advances) was the latest in a series of moves by renewable energy — notably the solar industry — to cast itself in terms palatable to an administration skeptical of climate action and focused on fossil fuels. In February, for example, solar industry leaders traveled to Texas to pitch local lawmakers on the their sector’s potential role in a broader Republican campaign for “energy dominance.” Geothermal’s advocates say that it is particularly well-placed to make that pitch, because it can generate pollution-free power round-the-clock, on-site and on-demand — something in high demand from both military bases and data centers. Years of lobbying by the industry around the national security case for geothermal have borne fruit — even among the sort of Republican lawmakers prone to throwing shade on solar and wind. “My friends across the aisle, they’re touting all wind and all solar, I’m saying, ‘I don’t know if y’all know this, but the sun goes down at night,” said Houston-area Rep. Randy Weber (R) at MAGMA. But unlike wind and solar, Weber said, “geothermal is 24/7, so it’s something we can count on year in, year out.” Many wind and solar advocates argue this is based on an obsolete idea of their industry. They say utility scale batteries — including some based on similar technology to geothermal — mean that renewables can now provide something close to around the clock power themselves. But Weber’s remarks pointed to a new Republican cultural embrace of geothermal, which was based in part on its overlap with an energy source far more in favor with the party in power: Fossil fuels. Geothermal isn’t the “red headed stepchild of renewables” — it’s the “smokin’ hot trophy wife of the oil and gas industry,” Matt Welch of the Texas Geothermal Energy Alliance told The Hill. In their pitch to the right, geothermal leaders have emphasized the extensive overlap between oil and gas technology and geothermal, as well as work it offers for fossil fuels drilling crews idled in an increasingly efficient oil sector, where fewer than ever rigs pour out record amounts of oil. In his keynote, Wright himself hit that point. The technology that squeezed oil and gas from shale, opening an era of record American oil and gas production, was “tailor made for geothermal.” Fracking and horizontal drilling had opened up key technologies which made it possible to transfer heat from rock — which is reluctant to give it up — and into water, which is slow to take it, Wright said. Those technologies meant a “large contact area and cheap-water based plumbing [that let operators] mine massive heat from underground,” he said. He added that geothermal resources could generate electricity, district heating for neighborhoods, process heat for industry. “They can even produce cooling. It’s an awesome resource under our feet.” There is strong cultural overlap and technical overlap between the fossil fuel and geothermal worlds, exemplified by Wright himself. He is the former chief executive of Liberty Energy, which under his leadership invested $10 million in Houston-based geothermal startup Fervo energy. Most of the startups featured at MAGMA were similarly led by oil and gas veterans, and oil companies like Devon or their service companies Baker Hughes now boast in-house geothermal divisions. Asked what oil and gas skills transferred to geothermal, “you almost have to ask what’s not transferrable,” Alex Biholar of Devon Energy’s low-carbon unit said during one panel. These professional connections, added to the role fossil fuel burning — and methane venting — plays in the rapidly heating planet, have led some geothermal leaders to suggest that their industry represents a natural off-ramp for the oil and gas industry. When faced with staunch fossil fuel opponents, “I say, ‘Well, if you really don’t like oil and gas that much, you should really love geothermal. Because if it takes off, [oil and gas companies] are going to take all their capital” and pivot to geothermal, said Rob Klenner, president of geothermal company Greenfire. In a sense, Klenner was describing his own trajectory: He spent most of his career at oilfield services company Baker Hughes. For senior executives at oil companies, geothermal offers an exciting chance to be “part of the new energy,” said fellow Baker Hughes veteran Ghazal Izadi — herself now chief operating officer at Palo Alto-based geothermal firm XGS. By way of describing the outer limit of the possible, a 2021 University of Texas study found that if the world’s oil and gas drilling fleet was used to tap heat, geothermal could generate 80 percent of global energy by mid century. Those numbers, Klenner said, were almost certainly overheated — barring a revolution in materials science, chemicals manufacture will require oil and gas drilling well into the century. But even if geothermal represented 15 percent of power demand, he said, that would be a thirty-fold growth over its current level. “But it’s actually more than that,” he said, “because total electric generation is growing that whole time.” A December report by the International Energy Agency suggests that the limit is the willingness to drill, rather than the available resource. The authors, which included MAGMA co-host Project Innerspace, found that there was enough accessible geothermal to meet 140 times the current global electric demand. Geothermal companies say they urgently need permitting reform to drill at the scale that will let them cross-pollinate and drive costs down. The 2005 energy omnibus bill that laid the foundation for the renewables boom largely deregulated fracking and left geothermal out. One result: It currently takes twice as long to permit a geothermal well on federal land as it does an oil and gas well. The other obstacle is finance. The current round of geothermal startups is now caught in the “valley of death” between their early stage — when venture capital funds risky new ideas in exchange for a chance at high profits — and their mature form, when cheap project finance helps companies with healthy cashflow expand. That, not technology, is now the bottleneck, said Cindy Taff, chief executive of Houston-based geothermal company Sage Geosystems. She recalled being asked by data center developers at Meta about whether geothermal could provide 5 gigawatts of power by the end of the decade. “We said, ‘Yes, we can: it’s 500 wells per year to be drilled over five years. That’s leveraging less than 5 percent of the oil and gas industry, which is ready to go, ready to be pivoted.” What they lacked, she said, was money. “We need to get in the field, drill wells and actually demonstrate the technology.” Wright offered help on both fronts. The idea of “natural resources” was flawed, he argued: There was nothing natural about them. “It’s very hot underground,” he said. “It was very hot underground a long time ago, too, and that wasn’t of value to anyone. That’s just a condition of the material,” he said, “It only becomes a resource when technology and people and action turn it into a resource.” The industry, he said, had “to put money to work. We’ve got to put capital to work. But that condition is underground,” he said. “Let’s make it a resource.” |
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19371
From: pamela, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: Surprising science — There’s no such thing as clean energy
| thanks for reply ao, appreciate your comment |
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19352
From: akira, [DNS_Address]
Subject: solar is economically competitive in sunny places
URL: https://ifp.org
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Alec Stapp, co-founder, Institute for Progress : "Texas solar power increased 64% (!) in one year. This isn't because the Texas government favors solar over fossil fuels. It's because solar is economically competitive in sunny places." https://x.com/AlecStapp https://ifp.org |
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