Notices tagged with renewables, page 4

#Hungary - Change of #electricity production by source between 2000 and 2022 (in TWh) #renewables #fossilfuel

https://ember-climate.org/data/

Powering just one megawatt of capacity requires at least five acres, meaning a 200-megawatt project (roughly 3,000 panels) takes up as much space as 550 American football fields. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/business/2024/03/06/tech/solar-farms-creative-space-use/ #business #tech #solar #energy #renewables

The phrase “a spill at the #solar power plant just means it’s a sunny day” is a brilliant bit of marketing because it implies that #solarpower doesn’t involve some of the unpleasant things associated with *other* forms of electricity generation, like mineral extraction, health and safety hazards to workers, environmental impacts, and hazardous waste.

It does, though. #renewables do. All forms of #electricity generation do.

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So when you try to compare #renewables like #solar and #windpower to other forms of energy generation in terms of hazards, environmental impacts, and pollution from associated extractive industries and waste streams, people often have unrealistic base assumptions or get upset because they were under the impression that renewables don’t have any of these issues at all.

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Costs for li-ion #batteries have fallen dramatically over the last years. In 2014 Tony Seba predicted $50/KWh by 2027. As of today, this looks incorrect. China might hit this milestone already this year. #renewables #energy

"This analysis makes clear that the pat notion of “affordable clean #energy” views the world through a narrow keyhole that is blind to innumerable economic, ecological, and social costs. These undesirable #externalities can no longer be ignored. To achieve #sustainability and salvage civilization, society must embark on a planned, cooperative descent from an extreme state of overshoot in just a decade or two."
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/15/4508 @climate

#transition #renewables #EnergyTransition #capacity

#Finland - Change of #electricity production by source between 2000 and 2022 (in TWh) #renewables #fossilfuel

https://ember-climate.org/data/

#EU - Change of #electricity production by source between 2000 and 2022 (in TWh) #renewables #fossilfuel

https://ember-climate.org/data/

We are back from the holidays and wish you all a #happynewyear! Here's to a faster expansion of #renewables and #phaseout of fossil fuels, the transition to a #circulareconomy and all other things we need to achieve for a sustainable transformation in all areas. Let`s do this!

No miracles needed’: Professor Jacobson on how wind, sun and water can power the world

"The influential academic says #Renewables alone can halt the #ClimateCrisis"

https://x.com/ProfStrachan/status/1743417161488416967?t=R4oCZVIeyhlUMltnLlOQTg&s=09

@passenger @TomSwirly @largess @subjacentish

Thank you Tom, this was a great summary!

Environmental action is much more effective when paired with some other non-environmental issues (like children's health in this case).

The car ownership being unaffected by this is quite distressing though. It's my fear the same thing will happen with #renewables: they will find their niche in certain places, but will not replace fossil fuels altogether.

1 m² of solar panels now give you 38% more power for 83% less money than eleven years ago!
From @solar_chase and her BloombergNEF team.
#SolarPV #solarenergy #solarpower #renewables

Global consumption of coal reached an all-time high in 2023, the IEA energy watchdog has said, as Earth experienced its hottest recorded year. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/environment/2023/12/16/coal-demand-new-high/?utm_content=buffer07b76&utm_medium=social&utm_source=mastodon&utm_campaign=bffmstdn #environment #climatechange #coal #iea #emissions #energy #renewables #china #india

Complexity of building electricity grid based on #renewables is probably best illustrated on days like this in #Germany[^1]:

• instantaneous electricity consumption is 67 GW
• Germany has 66 GW in wind, but it’s merely potential output if there was wind - and there’s now enough wind to produce 3.8 GW satisfying 5.67% of the demand
• Germany also has 69 GW in PV, but same story here - there’s enough light to produce 5.3 GW (7.74%)

Note that each of these, wind and PV, have installed capacity alone exceeding the current demand! But installed capacity isn’t much worth when it doesn’t produce any electricity. Statistically that’s the case with wind and PV most of the time (capacity factor <50%)🤷 I think this gives you some idea about the feasibility of postulates such as “we just need to build more renewables!”

Now let’s factor in time. Watt is the unit of instantaneous power, how much the country uses electricity right now. At this load (66 GW) to survive one hour Germany needs 66 GWh (unit of amount of electricity). Lower than that, and you need to start switching off factories, electricity supply to houses, trains, hospitals etc.

Germany, like most of us, is not ready for these consequences of variability of renewables. And this is the sole reason why it runs on gas and coal, including lignite, the dirtiest form of coal: these can be switched on and off whenever needed (they are dispatchable).

Of course, there are other dispatchable sources of electricity which are also as safe and low-carbon as renewables, such as #nuclear (see #France for comparison)[^2]. However, Germany governments in the course of #Energiewende decided that 0.03 deaths/1 TWh (nuclear)[^3] is too much and instead chose to switch to 24.6 deaths/1 TWh (coal) as the dispatchable source.[^4]

Of course, there are days when wind and PV perform much better so would electricity storage help? Let’s take the 66 GWh hourly consumption: there was much talk about how battery storage is going to fix the whole variability of renewables. ElectricityMaps doesn’t show the total capacity (GWh) of available batteries directly, but it can be somewhat estimated from 30 days average (at the bottom)[^1].

Over the last 30 days German batteries supplied 1 TWh to the grid, which makes ~53 GWh per day, which makes ~2 GWh per hour. While we don’t know their total capacity to estimate maximum period they could keep the country running, that’s still 30x less than the hourly consumption. A very rough guess, the battery farms built in Germany in over a decade (Energiewende started in 2011) could power the country for around 2 minutes.

I guess from now on you can make your extrapolations and assess the feasibility of statements like “we just need to build some more storage!”

[^1]: https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/DE

[^2]: https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/FR

[^3]: https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy

[^4]: https://write.as/arcadian/ideological-origins-of-energiewende

@dw

#OPEC is disgusting. The whole globe needs to suffer so that some #PetroOligarchs can live in a stolen paradise.

The transformation to #renewables must be made the number one priority of any non-gas-producing country.

All goods and services from #OPEC and #Russia-allied member states should be boycotted by consumers worldwide.
Many have significant travel-industry interests, like the #UAE.
Go elsewhere on vacation, don’t fly if you can avoid it.

#BoycottOPEC

https://c.im/@dw/111550818210137826

@MattMastodon

Renewables could be online quicker and cheaper.

Germany has the Europe’s largest installed capacity in #renewables. Yet, it runs on coal and gas today, plus some imports from #nuclear France:

https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/DE

Germany’s CO2 emissions intensity right now is nearly 10x worse than France, cost of electricity in Germany is 3x higher than in France, and they had to restart coal mines after Russian pipeline was severed. There’s a simple explanation for that: for most of the time renewables don’t produce electricity, but people want 24/7 supply.

And where are we going to get fuel for them, from Russia?

There’s like 30 countries on the global uranium market and it’s much easier to supply nuclear power plants: a single nuclear power plant consumes maybe 100 tons of uranium fuel per year. That’s around how much a single wind turbine weights, including concrete base, the tower and the blades, and you need hundreds of turbines along with hundreds of MWh in batteries to replace a single plant. In total, renewables consume 300x more mined resources (metals, concrete) than nuclear per MWh of electricity produced.

2,000 MW of solar PV, built at an average rate of 10 MW per day!
Will probably produce around 4 TWh per year, at a very low cost, claimed to be $0.0132 per kWh (but @solar_chase always warns us that these auction prices aren't real costs ;).
https://taiyangnews.info/2-gw-al-dhafra-solar-plant-commissioned-in-uae/?s=09
#renewables #renewableenergy #SolarPV #solarpower

People working on #Climate Solutions are encountering #disinformation & #ConspiracyTheories about their work.

#ClimateDisinformation in the past —sometimes paid for by #FossilFuel interests— were often misconceptions like #GlobalWarming is a scam or its threat overblown. Those endure, but now there are attacks on #ClimateSolutions… such as attacks on #renewables; e.g. the myth that #WindTurbines cause cancer or birth defects.

#ClimateCrisis
https://www.npr.org/2023/10/05/1203893268/climate-change-conspiracies-disinformation?origin=NOTIFY

#Drax #ClimateCrisis #Canada #UK #Biomass #Greenwash #Renewables #Clearfelling

Biomass power stations burn plant material to produce steam to drive a turbine. UK's largest power station, Drax, is a former coal-fired power station converted to burn wood pellets. Drax imports most of its wood pellets, by clearfelling irreplaceable old-growth forests in Canada

UK classifies biomass wood pellets as "renewable" despite biomass releasing 8% more CO2 than coal

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-63089348