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GABA ghoul posted:I agree with you in general. The accelerated phaseout was a mistake and I opposed it back then and still do. I'm going to again point out that the accelerated phaseout was pushed by the German Energy Ministry who, after leaving, then left and joined the Gazprom Board of Directors. It was literally the Russians making sure Germany was more dependent on Nordstream 2 Natural Gas. Meanwhile, the Russians themselves are building more Nuclear Plants. https://www.dw.com/en/gerhard-schr%C3%B6der-russia-germany/a-54829142 GABA ghoul posted:The problem is when people try to portrait it as some major ecological disaster (the short uptick in fossil fuel usage from nuclear plant shutdowns in 2011 was within the range of the usual year to year fluctuations). Fact is, nuclear energy in Germany is absolutely dead and it's never coming back. Renewables adoption has been a huge success and, at least for Germany, the only viable option moving forward. So I really don't get the obsessive need to try to discredit and badmouth the whole industry by spreading misinformation or spouting extremely outdated information (like overstating the need for storage, citing outdated carbon footprint data for PV or make false claims about grid stability). I see a lot of these stupid talking points trickle down into everyday political discourse and causing damage by driving scepticism of renewables expansion. It's bad enough when it was coming just from the right but now the left/greens are also joining the choir and it's just sad. I wish people would keep an open mind, fact check claims and try to keep up with development in the industry more. But this isn't true. Germany is missing their emissions goals. Germany is building more fossil plants than they had prior. We have every reason to be skeptical of Germany's renewable expansion because its pretty much entirely stalled and they are stuck on more fossil fuels than they started with. Its not a roadmap of success. I am not saying Renewables are not essential, but if Germany is the example of success, nobody will succeed. Period. GABA ghoul posted:No, they didn't. Electricity generation from fossil fuels has decreased since 2011 both in total Wh and as a share of total generation. Here is the development since 1990. Red is nuclear power, everything below are fossil fuels, everything above are renewables The VERY GRAPH you cite shows a massive increase in Natural Gas. This is not good. And frankly Biomass needs to be included in their fossil, as they are basically burning wood pellets. Its coal without the centuries of pressure and they are sacrificing carbon sinking wood doing so. The point stands: they traded their nuclear, which emitting NO Carbon, for Natural Gas, both weakening their global position by making themselves dependent on Russian sourced fossil fuels, and shooting their carbon footprint in the foot. Germany also imports more than half their energy, Nuclear and Hydro energy from Nordic and France. That's also not helping overall since it masks their actual energy usage. CommieGIR fucked around with this message at 14:22 on May 21, 2021 |
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May 21, 2021 14:11
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CommieGIR posted:I'm going to again point out that the accelerated phaseout was pushed by the German Energy Ministry who, after leaving, then left and joined the Gazprom Board of Directors. The amount of misinformation is absolutely staggering. Everything is just plain wrong. Electricity generation from natural gas was 59.76 TWh in 2011, but 57.10 TWh in 2020. German electricity imports in 2020 were 33.7 TWh, exports were 52.3 TWh. Germany has met its emission goals for 2020 (the target was -40% below 1990 emission level, actual reduction was -42.3%). And your article is talking about former chancellor Gerhard Schröder, who hasn't been active in German politics since 2006, 5 years before Fukushima. You have no idea what you are talking about with Nordstream 2 or its significance for the domestic gas market. Jfc
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May 21, 2021 14:40
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Hey, so I've been skimming this thread for a while, and I think understand the trade-offs of all energy generation systems except one. Nuclear is probably the best option, but it's hard to get people onboard politically and costs a lot to build in the U.S. Solar and Wind are great and getting cheaper by the year, but they are intermittent so require a massive increase in battery technology that creates material acquisition headaches down the line as you try to scale. Hydro is cool, but also creates downstream environmental issues and has basically been tried anywhere it can be tried. (It can also exacerbate geopolitical tensions such as in Sudan-Ethiopia mess). So, what's the pitfall with geothermal? You'll hear it doing the rounds of a lot of techno-optimist twitter, including people who work directly in the industry, which obviously induces suspicion, but I haven't seen as much direct push back with them as I have with pretty much every other energy generation proposal. On paper, it seems to solve the problems of nuclear (the public hasn't soured on it, it's comparatively cheaper to build) and Solar/Wind (can be built basically anywhere, isn't intermittent). So, what's the catch? Is it just another vaporware case like fusion? Or are there deeper structural problems that make it hard to scale? Sorry if this has been asked before, just curious as to what the current consensus on it is.
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May 21, 2021 14:44
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GABA ghoul posted:The amount of misinformation is absolutely staggering. Everything is just plain wrong. Electricity generation from natural gas was 59.76 TWh in 2011, but 57.10 TWh in 2020. German electricity imports in 2020 were 33.7 TWh, exports were 52.3 TWh. Germany has met its emission goals for 2020 (the target was -40% below 1990 emission level, actual reduction was -42.3%). And your article is talking about former chancellor Gerhard Schröder, who hasn't been active in German politics since 2006, 5 years before Fukushima. You have no idea what you are talking about with Nordstream 2 or its significance for the domestic gas market. Jfc The only reason Germany made their 2020 climate goals was COVID. Sorry bout that. If COVID hadn't happened, they would've missed their target. They were well on their way to missing the goal. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...p-idUSKCN25F26N Germanys Electricity imports INCREASED in 2020, and while their exports are nearly double that, its not a good sign. https://www.reuters.com/article/germany-electricity-statistics/german-power-export-surplus-shrank-46-2-in-2020-idUSL8N2JF16X And I stand corrected on Schroeder, but he did set the stage for fully shuttering the nuclear fleet that Fukushima drove the nail into, and DID help ensure Germanys dependence on Nordstream 2 CommieGIR fucked around with this message at 14:51 on May 21, 2021 |
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May 21, 2021 14:48
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They were only 2.5 percent away from their goal in your own article. That doesn't seem like well on their way to me.
Monaghan fucked around with this message at 15:10 on May 21, 2021 |
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May 21, 2021 14:59
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GABA ghoul posted:No, they didn't. Electricity generation from fossil fuels has decreased since 2011 both in total Wh and as a share of total generation. Here is the development since 1990. Red is nuclear power, everything below are fossil fuels, everything above are renewables Where “renewables” includes “chopping down forests and burning them, turning carbon sinks into a carbon source.” https://globalforestcoalition.org/plans-for-burning-namibian-wood-in-german-power-plants-denounced/ It’s a huge dodge to say they’re not burning fossil fuels and are using “renewables” instead when what they’re doing is burning wood in their coal plants. CourtFundedPoster posted:So, what's the catch? Is it just another vaporware case like fusion? Or are there deeper structural problems that make it hard to scale? You can't put a geothermal power plant just anywhere anymore than you can put a dam anywhere. Yes, if you drill down deep enough anywhere you'll reach a thermal source, but in most locations "deep enough" is prohibitively expensive, and there are things like seismic stability, etc, to be concerned with. Basically, like hydroelectric, if it's a good site for a geothermal plant there's already a plant there, and if it isn't there's not much point to building a plant there. Phanatic fucked around with this message at 15:23 on May 21, 2021 |
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May 21, 2021 15:16
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The tech that gave us deep shale drilling is being applied to Geothermal and it appears to be bringing down costs.
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May 21, 2021 15:54
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Monaghan posted:They were only 2.5 percent away from their goal in your own article. That doesn't seem like well on their way to me. No, he is right about that one. Germany is now entering its 16th year of Conservative government and its climate protection policies are highly insufficient. This pisspoor climate performance is the primary reason for why the Greens are poised to take over the government this fall. The thing is, development of the renewables industry in the last decade has been absolutely fantastic and has exceeded even optimistic predictions and this is picking up the political slack. Germany succeeds not because of its government, but despite of it. With the Greens in power(or at least in government) there is a decent chance to meet the 2030 goals. The major obstacle right now is not the power sector anyway but transport. Phanatic posted:Where “renewables” includes “chopping down forests and burning them, turning carbon sinks into a carbon source.” Yeah, the whole scheme is highly questionable. But AFAIK wood is currently not burned in any coal plants. IRC the overwhelming majority of biomass used is either domestic or imported from within Europe. When it's imported from outside Europe it needs be to from a certified, sustainable operation. There is definitely some abuse and shady poo poo going on, but in the greater scheme of things it's a pretty negligible fraction of used biomass.
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May 21, 2021 17:09
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GABA ghoul posted:Yeah, the whole scheme is highly questionable. But AFAIK wood is currently not burned in any coal plants. https://www.dw.com/en/burning-wood-under-fire-are-forests-going-up-our-chimneys/a-41586050 https://e360.yale.edu/features/carbon-loophole-why-is-wood-burning-counted-as-green-energy https://www.powermag.com/the-shift-from-coal-to-biomass-is-on-in-europe/ quote:Now a decade after the policy was enacted, it’s finally having an effect on regional generation as more plants turn to biomass. Under EU rules, biomass is considered carbon neutral—and a growing number of large coal burners are finding it a viable option. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/259138597_Economic_viability_of_biomass_cofiring_in_new_hard-coal_power_plants_in_Germany quote:Worldwide, about 150 cofiring plants are in operation
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May 21, 2021 17:22
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Monaghan posted:They were only 2.5 percent away from their goal in your own article. That doesn't seem like well on their way to me. 2.5% on the edge of the year they need to make that 2.5% only to have it satisficed by a global pandemic is a significant percentage. VideoGameVet posted:The tech that gave us deep shale drilling is being applied to Geothermal and it appears to be bringing down costs. There's a bunch of good stuff going on in the geothermal realm, but Phanatic covered why its still out of reach for most places, its also a matter of: Magma flows change in places where you are not on a thinner area always directly exposed like Iceland or other places, so there's a risk you fund a huge deep drill and in a few months the magma flow changes or hardens and there's less heat there. Really helps when you can park your geothermal on the outer edge of a semi-active volcano. CommieGIR fucked around with this message at 18:42 on May 21, 2021 |
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May 21, 2021 17:37
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Is it Europe and or Germany where US wood was burned and each party determined that the other party had accounted for the carbon and marked it as "0 carbon" on their end?
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May 21, 2021 17:58
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Phanatic posted:https://www.dw.com/en/burning-wood-under-fire-are-forests-going-up-our-chimneys/a-41586050 You claimed specifically that Germany is currently burning wood in coal plants, which is not something that I've heard of nor found in any of your links. Generally, total forest area has been constantly increasing in Europe for the last hundred years or something. There are certainly some places with local decrease, but the overall trend is upwards. I don't know about other countries, but at least in Germany only one or two percent of the forest areas are actually natural forests(and they are protected from exploitation). The rest are commercial forest, i.e. high performance monoculture tree plantations. It's not like someone is going around here and destroying rainforest to burns for power
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May 21, 2021 20:28
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GABA ghoul posted:You claimed specifically that Germany is currently burning wood in coal plants, which is not something that I've heard of nor found in any of your links. You seem to be correct; while German utilities are co-firing coal plants with pellets in plants outside Germany, and exploring it for plants in Germany, wood only seems to be used in dedicated biomass-burning plants in Germany and there's no large-scale co-firing going on there.
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May 21, 2021 20:49
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CourtFundedPoster posted:So, what's the pitfall with geothermal? You'll hear it doing the rounds of a lot of techno-optimist twitter, including people who work directly in the industry, which obviously induces suspicion, but I haven't seen as much direct push back with them as I have with pretty much every other energy generation proposal. On paper, it seems to solve the problems of nuclear (the public hasn't soured on it, it's comparatively cheaper to build) and Solar/Wind (can be built basically anywhere, isn't intermittent). I'd say the biggest is what is the intent with geothermal, do you use it for heating or generating electricity. If you want electricity, then you probably need a place with volcanic activity like Iceland, so the plant produces hundreds of degrees hot steam that can be used with turbines. If you want just heat, then it becomes possible in lots of other places. There is a geothermal plant in Espoo right next to Helsinki with 6km deep holes. Cold water is pumped down one hole and returns up the other at 110°C, which is useable for district heating network. But this is only practical in places that already have extensive district heating.
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May 21, 2021 21:16
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Taking about wind and solar replacing nuclear is nice in the abstract but I am not seeing much discussion of the local hurdles for such a proposal. If Dresden shutters in IL, there'd need to be between 20-50 square miles of solar PV installed to replace the nameplate capacity (which ignores the necessary ungodly amount of storage capacity to account for diurnal cycles and power smoothing). IL is mostly valuable arable land or prairie land that provides significant benefits to native species of concern. Wind resources in the Chicago metro area aren't as good as in more distant parts of the state (along IL river, southern rolling hills), and are inversely seasonal. They generate more power in winter, when demand is lower. This is helpful in generating headlines ("all power generated for moment by renewables!") and worse at avoiding brownouts on 100 degree August days. Chicago is where the power is needed. Chicago is where you can't feasibly replace nuclear with renewables. There will be more fossil fuels burned to offset Dresden's closure. We are either in a climate emergency or we are not. If we are, it's hard to tell. People crowing about the low cost of solar seem to be making the implicit case that free market incentivization will save us from atmospheric carbonization, which gobsmacks me. "If we only make it economically inviting enough, surely corporations will choose only our good solutions over the other, awful, evil, profitable solutions." Good luck with that. And in the other hand, nuclear is expensive to site, to engineer, to build, and potential fuckups create catastrophic economic risks. These cost drivers render nuclear infeasible as is. Maybe a tech sea change and/or regulatory shift will change that, but I'm pessimistic. I want to join the thread in banging the drum that only nuclear can realistically save us, but I just don't see a path forward for it in the next 5-10 years. So...all hail king natty gas.
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May 23, 2021 15:04
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Only nuclear can realistically save us is a fairly obvious fact if you look at material inputs and what we need to do. That's why we are doomed. The oil companies successfully propagandized it to the point that while their waste destroys the planet, people fret that nuclear waste in yucca mountain might get harm a sentient octopus in million years.
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May 23, 2021 15:13
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I'm all about nuclear but America seems incapable of doing anything unless they can buy it from China. Any major governmental project gets methodically sabotaged by anti-social Republicans. Leveraging the market for smaller solar and wind projects, while also disrupting the oil and gas infrastructure wherever possible, seems like the only real way forward until America is able to root out the destabilizing corruption emanating from the GOP. Other countries have their own challenges, but they generally involve resisting the same kind of petrocorporate influences (such as Europe's self-destructive love of German coal, American wood, and Russian gas). Carbon taxes, green subsidies, and engineering research on affordable megaprojects like off-shore wind are ultimately the sustainable way forward. The more they succeed, the weaker the petrocorporate opposition becomes, which in turn opens up new possibilities that they are currently blocking like Gen4 nuclear. Kaal fucked around with this message at 16:18 on May 23, 2021 |
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May 23, 2021 16:06
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Harold Fjord posted:Only nuclear can realistically save us is a fairly obvious fact if you look at material inputs and what we need to do. That's why we are doomed. The oil companies successfully propagandized it to the point that while their waste destroys the planet, people fret that nuclear waste in yucca mountain might get harm a sentient octopus in million years. I disagree with the often touted theory that it is a powerful and effective conspiracy of oil companies to destroy nuclear than the far simpler answer that Greenpeace et al successfully agitated against nuclear leading to laborious and much delayed construction and every other step involved with nuclear power. Some environmentalists want to walk it back and say all their activism didn't have any impact anyway but the reality is that Greenpeace et al were/are completely wrong on nuclear being a bad idea and correct in that invisible atoms are easy to agitate against. Oil companies are funded (and actually run a lot of the time) by money people and while line operators, Saudi Arabia and some technical background people might prefer the fossil hydrocarbon extraction industry keep going, the money people give no shits if it is oil pumped from the ground or nuclear power stations that provides the investment and return opportunities. Greenpeace organising protests against the nuclear closure plans of Germany and France instead of doing truck ram raids on French nuclear sites would be transformative for getting a supportive legislative framework and making working for the nuclear industry attractive for the bright young minds required to plan and execute a build out.
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May 23, 2021 16:20
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There's also dumb poo poo like the Linear No-Threshold Model for radiation exposure being written in the 1940s, and having that guide every nuclear safety practice since then. Kind of like marijuana scheduling, willful sabotage means that it can't even be studied to prove various Threshold models would be more accurate, and world make polices and treatment of low level waste much, much simpler. And crying that the 20000 ton foundries are gone and nobody can make reactor vessels anymore... loving build a new foundry then! Or figure out how to build a vessel out of smaller parts! They are actually pretending that 50+ years of computing advancements can't model and test new designs that are as effective as simple and overengineered 20000 ton monolithic structures? Which is especially ridiculous given that measured neutron embrittlement is far less of a factor than originally predicted in the 1960s and 1970s. Just using modern science and methods would be nice.
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May 23, 2021 16:31
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Electric Wrigglies posted:I disagree with the often touted theory that it is a powerful and effective conspiracy of oil companies to destroy nuclear than the far simpler answer that Greenpeace et al successfully agitated against nuclear leading to laborious and much delayed construction and every other step involved with nuclear power. Some environmentalists want to walk it back and say all their activism didn't have any impact anyway but the reality is that Greenpeace et al were/are completely wrong on nuclear being a bad idea and correct in that invisible atoms are easy to agitate against. I agree that Greenpeace and similar anti-nuclear groups have been fairly successful at destroying public support for nuclear, to the particular detriment of the environment and the global poor, but on the other hand public policy isn't driven by public sentiment on a statistical level because we live in such an oligarchic society.
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May 23, 2021 17:00
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Electric Wrigglies posted:I disagree with the often touted theory that it is a powerful and effective conspiracy of oil companies to destroy nuclear than the far simpler answer that Greenpeace et al successfully agitated against nuclear leading to laborious and much delayed construction and every other step involved with nuclear power. Some environmentalists want to walk it back and say all their activism didn't have any impact anyway but the reality is that Greenpeace et al were/are completely wrong on nuclear being a bad idea and correct in that invisible atoms are easy to agitate against. Greenpeace literally sells natural gas, majority fossil, in Germany. And why is it hard to believe? They've done this before with leaded gas and other things, and no they are not beholden to customers they get subsides that make customers a non issue. Greenpeace is probably one of the most short sighted of environmental groups, with Sierra Club being a close second. They entirely act in ways that directly benefit fossil fuel groups despite their supposed opposition CommieGIR fucked around with this message at 17:40 on May 23, 2021 |
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May 23, 2021 17:37
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Fossil fuel industries funded anti nuclear activities by non profits and did some astroturfing, I'm not sure it's very useful to quibble over the exact % of responsibility falls to the industry vs the nonprofis themselves.
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May 23, 2021 19:29
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Harold Fjord posted:Only nuclear can realistically save us is a fairly obvious fact if you look at material inputs and what we need to do. That's why we are doomed. The oil companies successfully propagandized it to the point that while their waste destroys the planet, people fret that nuclear waste in yucca mountain might get harm a sentient octopus in million years. Duke. Exelon. Entergy. Who runs fossil fuel plans in the US? Duke. Exelon. Entergy. There isn't some loving grand conspiracy. These companies make more plants of whatever gives the best returns. For a while nuclear was cheap as hell and had good promise to be like 1-2c/kwhr, and for a whole variety of reasons the risk profile skyrocketed to where the capital investment isn't justified given the modest profitable and extreme risk curve. Nuclear suffers from challenging economics, not because cigar chomping guys in Texas plotted it's demise. Blaming Greenpeace is marginally more accurate because NIMBY movements have power at the local level on occasion.
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May 23, 2021 22:21
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Harold Fjord posted:Fossil fuel industries funded anti nuclear activities by non profits and did some astroturfing, I'm not sure it's very useful to quibble over the exact % of responsibility falls to the industry vs the nonprofis themselves. e: I would agree that it's the money that matters in terms of new generation, but optics/PR/activism certainly matters on the margin in terms of various struggles to shut down or not shut down existing plants like in Illinois or Diablo Canyon or similar.
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May 23, 2021 23:41
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Huge news in the energy industry today, paraphrasing from the tweet below but climate change aligned activists managed to put their own people on Exxon's board of directors, Chevron investors revolt to lower emissions and Shell must legally reduce emissions in the Netherlands. The only caveat is that approaching the issue of emissions from fossil fuels primary as a problem of supply I don't believe for even a minute is going to work long term. https://twitter.com/JavierBlas/status/1397547516980350976?s=20 https://twitter.com/JavierBlas/status/1397596174132125702?s=20 https://twitter.com/JavierBlas/status/1397603570044788743?s=20
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May 27, 2021 02:07
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Crosby B. Alfred posted:Huge news in the energy industry today, paraphrasing from the tweet below but climate change aligned activists managed to put their own people on Exxon's board of directors, Chevron investors revolt to lower emissions and Shell must legally reduce emissions in the Netherlands. The only caveat is that approaching the issue of emissions from fossil fuels primary as a problem of supply I don't believe for even a minute is going to work long term. Good. I don't know how much this will actually change things in the long run, but good.
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May 27, 2021 03:05
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Whatever happened to the whole “Peak Oil” thing? I remember back in 2011-2012 (a loving decade ago already christ) this was a very hot topic on the net. It has pretty much disappeared now. Was it all bullshit?
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May 27, 2021 06:24
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Vorik posted:Whatever happened to the whole “Peak Oil” thing? I remember back in 2011-2012 (a loving decade ago already christ) this was a very hot topic on the net. It has pretty much disappeared now. Was it all bullshit? Fracking and natural gas, mostly.
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May 27, 2021 07:15
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The shale revolution but also yes, it's bullshit. Political issues are a much bigger problem than finding and producing it, but repeat the Arab oil embargo and it won't take too long until we're drilling all over Los Angeles (we still have A TON of oil under LA). CommieGIR posted:Good. I don't know how much this will actually change things in the long run, but good. Attempting to lower the supply without lowering demand seems pointless to me, all that happens is we end up giving more money and jobs to places like Saudi Arabia and Russia. I'm going to pick on California as that's where I live, but I'm looking around my office right now and I can't think of one thing that doesn't depend on oil and/or gas. However, as your average person really has no idea how anything works, our voters would be happy to ban all O&G production in California so they can feel good about themselves, then just increase our imports of oil produced in a much dirtier manner from places with horrible human rights records (California has the most regulated O&G production you're going to find, but hey maybe Gazprom takes the environment seriously). The Chevron proposal is particularly stupid as it asks Chevron to reduce the emissions of the end users of its products. Maybe they can require a certain MPG rating to fill up at a Chevron gas station. The new members on the board of Exxon is an unknown for me, I don't have a handle on how much it will matter. Exxon historically has had the reputation of having the cream of the crop in terms of scientists and engineers, but they've been under pressure to cut capex to the bone and I don't see a tilt towards alternative energy working out well for them. It's a possibility, but there's a reason I own Chevron stock right now and not Exxon (excluding index funds) despite Exxon's traditionally better reputation. I dislike Shell to the point where I avoid their gas stations so I do think it's funny when they lose, but without knowing anything about the Netherlands' legal system my guess is they will win on appeal. My main reason for assuming that is Shell is by far the largest company there, and I'd be surprised if any country would allow their biggest corporation to take a hit like that. It's also really something that should be decided through the legislature rather than the courts and most high level judges are smart enough to see that despite their particular political leanings. However, my entire understanding of the Netherlands is from going there for five days for Hackers at Large 2001 but spending the entire time smoking hash and missing most of the speakers, so it's entirely possible I'm way off on this one. The only argument I see for things that just push production to other countries / away from the majors is that at some point something will go wrong and it will cause either a massive spike in the price of oil or even a lack of available supply, which would make BEVs/electrification/grid scale batteries more desirable. But if you thought getting toilet paper in early 2020 or semi-conductors now was bad, just imagine being 100% dependent on imported oil then facing a disruption in your supply. Despite the "we're all cutting our CO2 emissions by X by 2030" you constantly hear right now, I think we're going to see some massive spikes in the price of oil before 2030, so I guess we'll find out how much that helps in terms of reducing emissions. It's also not helpful at all to have the majors divest assets so they can be picked up by random shitcos with questionable practices.
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May 27, 2021 07:48
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Vorik posted:Whatever happened to the whole “Peak Oil” thing? I remember back in 2011-2012 (a loving decade ago already christ) this was a very hot topic on the net. It has pretty much disappeared now. Was it all bullshit? Peak production of easily accessible oil has likely been hit, but we got better at accessing the more difficult sources. It's also increasingly accepted that for large segments of the economy we will have to move away from oil anyway (such as personal transportation)
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May 27, 2021 07:59
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Senor Tron posted:Peak production of easily accessible oil has likely been hit, but we got better at accessing the more difficult sources. It's also increasingly accepted that for large segments of the economy we will have to move away from oil anyway (such as personal transportation) Yeah, the quote "The stone age did not end because we ran out of stone" will be applicable once again. Technology and circumstance as moved on time and time again and the hyperbolic predictions very rarely turn out. Hence why it is so easy to convince people (convince themselves?) that climate change is just another one of those things.
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May 27, 2021 08:06
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CourtFundedPoster posted:Hey, so I've been skimming this thread for a while, and I think understand the trade-offs of all energy generation systems except one. Geothermal energy is great, for heat. As for electricity that's a very mixed bag and someone else will have to respond. If I take Sweden as an example. There's been a massive expansion in the last 20 years, basically wherever possible, of geothermal heating. The reason is that as long as electricity is cheap it is an extraordinarily effective way to heat a home. All you need is to front the initial investment and then you drill and pump. Downsides are an increased demand on the grid which can (and does) create problems downstream. But as for heating through electricity, I'm not even sure if there is a more effective alternative.
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May 27, 2021 09:13
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MomJeans420 posted:The shale revolution but also yes, it's bullshit. Political issues are a much bigger problem than finding and producing it, but repeat the Arab oil embargo and it won't take too long until we're drilling all over Los Angeles (we still have A TON of oil under LA). The oil industry is having to freeze melting permafrost to drill in the Artic because its melting so fast. We're running out of time. If things do not change and we continue to encourage Natural Gas production increases and petroleum demand remains, we're really hosed. I'm not really sure what you are really saying here, because you are basically accepting that there's no alternative and that's concerning. CommieGIR fucked around with this message at 14:59 on May 27, 2021 |
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May 27, 2021 14:57
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MomJeans has been a longtime O&G shill in this thread, regularly saying the industry can't or shouldn't be restricted because of some amorphous danger to society. You should not take them seriously.
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May 27, 2021 17:24
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Taffer posted:MomJeans has been a longtime O&G shill in this thread, regularly saying the industry can't or shouldn't be restricted because of some amorphous danger to society. You should not take them seriously. I'm aware, I also love that he drops that he's heavily invested in these companies and therefore worries about their restriction.
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May 27, 2021 17:26
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eh, going around artificially hindering efficient recovery and processing of hydrocarbons is nowhere near as useful as pricing carbon (and therefore both driving a change in energy sourcing and raising funds for more environmental development) and honestly I believe is counter-productive to the overall goal of making the world work way more efficiently to try and feed 8 billion people with a quality of life while diminishing environmental impact. Bit like going all in on banning nuclear to protect the environment being not very clever.
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May 27, 2021 17:45
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I mean that immediately brings up a definitional argument about what is efficient. Building a pipeline that can't pay for itself without externalizing all the health and environmental costs isn't actually efficient.
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May 27, 2021 17:53
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Kaal posted:I mean that immediately brings up a definitional argument about what is efficient. Building a pipeline that can't pay for itself without externalizing all the health and environmental costs isn't actually efficient. Sure, work on pricing in the externalities completely agree. That is not what was being talked about.
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May 27, 2021 18:08
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MiddleOne posted:Geothermal energy is great, for heat. As for electricity that's a very mixed bag and someone else will have to respond. You are probably mixing "real" geothermal energy, which uses the heat coming from the core of the earth with residential geothermal heat pump system. The heat pump system has shallow wells and gets its heat from the soil that is heated by sunlight, so it is technically solar heating system, which means that the temperature gradient is not that big. So it is only really usable for heating, not for creating electricity. But it is really efficient form of heating for sure. Just a bit expensive to install. The real geothermal power plants on the other hand have hunderds of degrees heat gradient can be and are used to create electricity.
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May 28, 2021 07:16
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bad_fmr posted:You are probably mixing "real" geothermal energy, which uses the heat coming from the core of the earth with residential geothermal heat pump system. The heat pump system has shallow wells and gets its heat from the soil that is heated by sunlight, so it is technically solar heating system, which means that the temperature gradient is not that big. So it is only really usable for heating, not for creating electricity. But it is really efficient form of heating for sure. Just a bit expensive to install. The real geothermal power plants on the other hand have hunderds of degrees heat gradient can be and are used to create electricity. I feel that is a bit semantical, but yes that was my point by putting anything other than geothermal heating under iffy. I know for instance that Iceland has lots of "real" geothermal power, but I also know that style is not really applicable anywhere not sitting upon a dormant/active volcano.
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May 28, 2021 07:31
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