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Son of Rodney
Feb 22, 2006

ohmygodohmygodohmygod

suck my woke dick posted:

in German, but tl;dr:

Czech government halts tender to build nuclear reactor because they're going to re-tender for 4 reactors instead.

You missed the part where due to projected costs and current interest rates the entire project is deemed essentially "science fiction" and by first planning 2 reactors, then reducing that to 1 due to issues with cooling, and now 4 with no realistic financing options, the entire thing is "essentially already failed".

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Electric Wrigglies
Feb 6, 2015

Son of Rodney posted:

You missed the part where due to projected costs and current interest rates the entire project is deemed essentially "science fiction" and by first planning 2 reactors, then reducing that to 1 due to issues with cooling, and now 4 with no realistic financing options, the entire thing is "essentially already failed".

I agree with you but it was the four reactors by the 2050's, it was not stupendously ambitious either.

Capt.Whorebags
Jan 10, 2005

GABA ghoul posted:

Yes, "windmill cancer" is a thing that certain interest groups have been pushing. What's supposedly causing the cancer is infrasound and electromagnetic radiation.

You can read about all the fun propaganda talking points the coal & gas industry has been coming up with here

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_turbine_syndrome

And that's just the health related claims. There are vast numbers of other insane claims like them eradicating bird populations, changing the weather, leading to blackouts or not being deployable in large numbers, their shadows disturbing wildlife, etc.

Funnily enough the "windmill cancer" doesn't affect the landowners who are receiving an income from having wind turbines on their property. The effect only starts at the neighbouring property.

PhazonLink
Jul 17, 2010
the best electromagnetic radiation people are the ones barking about telecom devices that arent even built yet.

Potato Salad
Oct 23, 2014

nobody cares



GABA ghoul posted:

Yes, "windmill cancer" is a thing that certain interest groups have been pushing. What's supposedly causing the cancer is infrasound and electromagnetic radiation.

You can read about all the fun propaganda talking points the coal & gas industry has been coming up with here

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_turbine_syndrome

And that's just the health related claims. There are vast numbers of other insane claims like them eradicating bird populations, changing the weather, leading to blackouts or not being deployable in large numbers, their shadows disturbing wildlife, etc.



every once in awhile, I am reminded that Facebook is essentially a knife in our collective backs

Saukkis
May 16, 2003

Unless I'm on the inside curve pointing straight at oncoming traffic the high beams stay on and I laugh at your puny protest flashes.
I am Most Important Man. Most Important Man in the World.
Matt Ferrell did an interesting video of the concept of two-sided solar panels installed vertically in east-west orientation, bifacial vertical solar panels. I hadn't thought that kind of installation could be viable.

Apparently they produce more electricity than one might expect and their production peaks in the morning and evening, so they could help a bit to alleviate the duck curve. A company making the investment for a large installation might not be willing to settle for reduced total, but if the price increase during evening was big enough, maybe.

Have we been doing Solar wrong all along? - Undecided with Matt Ferrell


GABA ghoul posted:

There are vast numbers of other insane claims like them eradicating bird populations, their shadows disturbing wildlife, etc.

Admittedly, the wind turbine's effect on wildlife does seem to be one of the bigger cons with them, animals really do seem to avoid them and this reduces their habitat.

Natural Resources Institute Finland released a systemic review on the issue few months ago, taking account 84 studies in 22 countries.
How far are birds, bats, and terrestrial mammals displaced from onshore wind power development?

A study by Groningen University found that even earth worms are reduced by 40% near turbines, possibly because they are sensitive to the increased vibratios.


quote:

Wind power is a rapidly growing source of energy worldwide. It is crucial for climate change mitigation, but it also accelerates the degradation of biodiversity through habitat loss and the displacement of wildlife. To understand the extent of displacement and reasons for observations where no displacement is reported, we conducted a systematic review of birds, bats, and terrestrial mammals. Eighty-four peer-reviewed studies of onshore wind power yielded 160 distinct displacement distances, termed cases. For birds, bats, and mammals, 63 %, 72 %, and 67 % of cases respectively reported displacement. Cranes (3/3 cases), owls (2/2), and semi-domestic reindeer (6/6) showed consistent displacement on average up to 5 km. Gallinaceus birds showed displacement on average up to 5 km, but in 7/18 cases reported to show “no displacement”. Bats were displaced on average up to 1 km in 21/29 cases. Waterfowl (6/7 cases), raptors (24/30), passerines (16/32) and waders (8/19) were displaced on average up to 500 m. Observations of no displacement were suggested to result from methodological deficiencies, species-specific characteristics, and habitat conditions favorable for certain species after wind power development. Displacement-induced population decline could be mitigated by situating wind power in low-quality habitats, minimizing the small-scale habitat loss and collisions, and creating high-quality habitats to compensate for habitat loss. This review provides information on distance thresholds that can be employed in the design of future wind energy projects. However, most studies assessed the effects of turbine towers of <100 m high, while considerably larger turbines are being built today.

SpeedFreek
Jan 10, 2008
And Im Lobster Jesus!

Potato Salad posted:

every once in awhile, I am reminded that Facebook is essentially a knife in our collective backs
The crap being passed around about the solar farm they were putting in by my dad's house was insane, only a few of the claims had any basis in reality but were horribly distorted. Yes distribution systems are generally not set up for regulating reverse power flow but this isn't residential rooftop solar, its a generation facility at that scale and will be connected to at least the sub-transmission lines.

QuarkJets
Sep 8, 2008

Did you know power corrupts absolutely? This is why you should OPPOSE the new solar farm proposal!

GABA ghoul
Oct 29, 2011

Saukkis posted:

Matt Ferrell did an interesting video of the concept of two-sided solar panels installed vertically in east-west orientation, bifacial vertical solar panels. I hadn't thought that kind of installation could be viable.

Apparently they produce more electricity than one might expect and their production peaks in the morning and evening, so they could help a bit to alleviate the duck curve. A company making the investment for a large installation might not be willing to settle for reduced total, but if the price increase during evening was big enough, maybe.

Have we been doing Solar wrong all along? - Undecided with Matt Ferrell

Admittedly, the wind turbine's effect on wildlife does seem to be one of the bigger cons with them, animals really do seem to avoid them and this reduces their habitat.

Natural Resources Institute Finland released a systemic review on the issue few months ago, taking account 84 studies in 22 countries.
How far are birds, bats, and terrestrial mammals displaced from onshore wind power development?

A study by Groningen University found that even earth worms are reduced by 40% near turbines, possibly because they are sensitive to the increased vibratios.

This varies by country, but in Germany the current consensus is luckily that the overall effect on animal populations is pretty insignificant compared to other habitat killers like high-intensity agriculture. Where it might actually cause significant damage to populations, i.e. in protected areas for endangered species, construction is already illegal.

And for species that are exceptionally affected by wind power like bats, some wind park operators have started turning turbines off during certain weather conditions that trigger large scale bat movements. This seems to work extremely well and massively reduces the population effects. It will probably become mandatory for wind parks that are close to forests in the future.

Overall Germany plans to zone out 2% of its land area for wind park to fully decarbonize electricity production. Most of this will be taken from the 50% that is currently farmland. German farmland is mostly a toxic sterile wasteland extremely hostile to any life that is not maize, sugar beets, wheat or canola and that is mostly used for producing animal feed. Building wind parks there is going to create habitats and massively increase biodiversity.

Zudgemud
Mar 1, 2009
Grimey Drawer

GABA ghoul posted:

This varies by country, but in Germany the current consensus is luckily that the overall effect on animal populations is pretty insignificant compared to other habitat killers like high-intensity agriculture. Where it might actually cause significant damage to populations, i.e. in protected areas for endangered species, construction is already illegal.

And for species that are exceptionally affected by wind power like bats, some wind park operators have started turning turbines off during certain weather conditions that trigger large scale bat movements. This seems to work extremely well and massively reduces the population effects. It will probably become mandatory for wind parks that are close to forests in the future.

Overall Germany plans to zone out 2% of its land area for wind park to fully decarbonize electricity production. Most of this will be taken from the 50% that is currently farmland. German farmland is mostly a toxic sterile wasteland extremely hostile to any life that is not maize, sugar beets, wheat or canola and that is mostly used for producing animal feed. Building wind parks there is going to create habitats and massively increase biodiversity.

As far as I know plonking down a wind tower in the middle of a field will only create a very minor reduction in farmable land. So wind farms are not going to displace agriculture to any meaningful degree thus I doubt wind parks will create new wild habitats free of agriculture.

GABA ghoul
Oct 29, 2011

Zudgemud posted:

As far as I know plonking down a wind tower in the middle of a field will only create a very minor reduction in farmable land. So wind farms are not going to displace agriculture to any meaningful degree thus I doubt wind parks will create new wild habitats free of agriculture.

Even if every wind turbine only has a m² of grass around it it's still an infinite increase in biodiversity. Like, when you go from 0 worms in a wasteland corn field to 1 sickly worm with windfarm cancer, that's infinite growth

suck my woke dick
Oct 10, 2012

:siren:I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!:siren:

Put this cum-loving slave on ignore immediately!

GABA ghoul posted:

This varies by country, but in Germany the current consensus is luckily that the overall effect on animal populations is pretty insignificant compared to other habitat killers like high-intensity agriculture. Where it might actually cause significant damage to populations, i.e. in protected areas for endangered species, construction is already illegal.

And for species that are exceptionally affected by wind power like bats, some wind park operators have started turning turbines off during certain weather conditions that trigger large scale bat movements. This seems to work extremely well and massively reduces the population effects. It will probably become mandatory for wind parks that are close to forests in the future.

Overall Germany plans to zone out 2% of its land area for wind park to fully decarbonize electricity production. Most of this will be taken from the 50% that is currently farmland. German farmland is mostly a toxic sterile wasteland extremely hostile to any life that is not maize, sugar beets, wheat or canola and that is mostly used for producing animal feed. Building wind parks there is going to create habitats and massively increase biodiversity.
Yes, but also, no.

Yes, German farmland is a green-tinted toxic wasteland that's about as ecologically valuable as a parking lot. It will not be missed, and major farmland zones can be paved over as far as I care.

No, wind power planning does not take into account endangered or vulnerable species conservation outside of highly specific circumstances anymore. To deal with the recent slump in renewable construction, wind power planning has been simplified to the point where it's impossible to create a buffer zone around sensitive habitats where you don't build new turbines. The foundation is not literally in the boundaries of the nature reserve as marked on the map? Approved, gently caress you, birds are assumed not to fly unless the project is so horrifically sited it's going to cause a habitats directive violation proceeding on its own. As a bonus, certain bird conservation measures are now no longer permitted within iirc 2.5km of wind turbines to avoid making wind farms look bad when something rare gets smashed after trying to nest in the conservation area.

suck my woke dick fucked around with this message at 20:40 on Feb 13, 2024

Electric Wrigglies
Feb 6, 2015

The thing with wind is that it really likes to be on top of ridgelines etc, basically where it was not so ideal to farm and hence was likely the most left alone native habitat.

As long as Germany insists on energy security, it is going to have to pick something. It is hopefully getting out of coal, is using gas temporarily (a few decades at least, maybe best part of a century), doesn't want nuclear, has already tapped the best of hydro, is ramping up solar but is not ideal and doesn't solve overnight power anyway (and like fusion, the alternatives for overnight storage outside hydro are in the never never territory), biomass is coal/gas by a different name and geothermal maybe the savior (if that tech about cheapening the drilling substantially works out) but for the time being is a non-starter.

That leaves wind and to keep costs going down the way they have been (and especially if EU moves ahead with putting tariffs on Chinese renewable equipment like is mooted), then number has to go up and that means things need to be cheaper to permit and hence the environment has to take one for the team.

His Divine Shadow
Aug 7, 2000

I'm not a fascist. I'm a priest. Fascists dress up in black and tell people what to do.
The hope lies in Germany's neighbors picking up the slack

Shooting Blanks
Jun 6, 2007

Real bullets mess up how cool this thing looks.

-Blade



GABA ghoul posted:

German farmland is mostly a toxic sterile wasteland extremely hostile to any life that is not maize, sugar beets, wheat or canola and that is mostly used for producing animal feed. Building wind parks there is going to create habitats and massively increase biodiversity.

suck my woke dick posted:

Yes, German farmland is a green-tinted toxic wasteland that's about as ecologically valuable as a parking lot. It will not be missed, and major farmland zones can be paved over as far as I care.

Why is German farmland so toxic? How does it compare (in general) to other neighboring countries with a significant agricultural footprint? Can this be improved/resolved within a reasonable timescale, or are we talking about "Let it go fallow for a generation and see what happens." I've never heard this before and don't disbelieve these statements, it's just news to me.

cant cook creole bream
Aug 15, 2011
I think Fahrenheit is better for weather

Shooting Blanks posted:

Why is German farmland so toxic? How does it compare (in general) to other neighboring countries with a significant agricultural footprint? Can this be improved/resolved within a reasonable timescale, or are we talking about "Let it go fallow for a generation and see what happens." I've never heard this before and don't disbelieve these statements, it's just news to me.

As far as I know it's not particularly worse then the farmland in say France. It's just really effectively used to it's full extend in raising those particular crops to the point where the soil is drained. The other posters are mostly saying that it's nonsense to claim that it is an important factor for biodiversity, because aside from some mice and birds of prey, animals don't really live there. Taking some of that away wont cause some rare species of salamander to go extinct.

Kaal
May 22, 2002

through thousands of posts in D&D over a decade, I now believe I know what I'm talking about. if I post forcefully and confidently, I can convince others that is true. no one sees through my facade.
I’m all for putting wind farms in cropland, they actually work together pretty well and lots of fields have plenty of wind available (in fact that’s often a problem once all the trees get knocked down). That being said, 2% of German land is not even close to providing for 100% of current electrical needs, much less what they will be by the time this all gets built out. Currently Germany uses 0.8% of its land to create 61 GW. The 2% figure was intended to create 115 GW of onshore power by 2030, a goal which has now been pushed back to 2032. But today Germany has a baseplate capacity of 240 GW, which means it would take quite a bit more than 2% of German land to replace with wind power (which to be fair, the government is clear about).

Also, that’s all without getting into the gnarly topic of effective production (ie while Germany has 61 GW of wind power, it only produced 139 TWh of wind power in 2023, rather than a full 534 TWh). Still, hopefully they will continue to pursue their goals despite their political troubles. The economics of it are pretty clear - that’s why the US already had 146 GW of wind power in 2022, and hopes to keep adding 5-10 GW each year for the foreseeable future. The irony of states like Texas (with 44 GW) competing with Germany’s 61 GW on wind power continues to amaze.

cant cook creole bream
Aug 15, 2011
I think Fahrenheit is better for weather

Kaal posted:

Also, that’s all without getting into the gnarly topic of effective production (ie while Germany has 61 GW of wind power, it only produced 139 TWh of wind power in 2023, rather than a full 534 TWh). Still, hopefully they will continue to pursue their goals despite their political troubles. The economics of it are pretty clear - that’s why the US already had 146 GW of wind power in 2022, and hopes to keep adding 5-10 GW each year for the foreseeable future. The irony of states like Texas (with 44 GW) competing with Germany’s 61 GW on wind power continues to amaze.

That comparison feels a bit stupid. Texas has twice the landmass and only about a third of the population. It's basically an empty void.

VictualSquid
Feb 29, 2012

Gently enveloping the target with indiscriminate love.
Someone once told me that building the access road to the wind turbines causes more ecological damage then the turbine operation itself. Never found actual data on that though.

And saying that wind turbines cause damage higher then other non-urban land uses is questionable. It causes different damage then an Autobahn or Canola field though. And the animals that were disturbed, but got used to those things haven't done so with wind turbines yet.

Even that worm study doesn't mention Germany's favourite worm. And its wikipedia page still lists tourism related traffic and agricultural runoff as the biggest dangers.

VictualSquid fucked around with this message at 22:25 on Feb 14, 2024

GABA ghoul
Oct 29, 2011

suck my woke dick posted:

No, wind power planning does not take into account endangered or vulnerable species conservation outside of highly specific circumstances anymore. To deal with the recent slump in renewable construction, wind power planning has been simplified to the point where it's impossible to create a buffer zone around sensitive habitats where you don't build new turbines. The foundation is not literally in the boundaries of the nature reserve as marked on the map? Approved, gently caress you, birds are assumed not to fly unless the project is so horrifically sited it's going to cause a habitats directive violation proceeding on its own. As a bonus, certain bird conservation measures are now no longer permitted within iirc 2.5km of wind turbines to avoid making wind farms look bad when something rare gets smashed after trying to nest in the conservation area.

Thats interesting, do you have more information on this? From everything I've read about the changes the effects on endangered populations were not supposed to be that serious. But of course there are huge regional variations. So 'not concerning' can still mean that a windpark in some area will be the final nail in the coffin for some bird species there, even if the total population is not affected much.

The big elephant in the room is of course that leaving these habitats in pristine condition now is not gonna do much good when all the various effects of >2.5 °C of warming start hitting us. Inaction means death to those species too and there is no alternative to wind power in sight to achieve current emissions goals. The plan is for 80% of the energy sector to be decarbonized by 2030. That's in less than 6 years. It's gonna be close as hell, if we really manage to pull that off and there is absolutely no way to do it without speeding up wind power expansion from the piss poor state that the Merkel governments left us.

Shooting Blanks posted:

Why is German farmland so toxic? How does it compare (in general) to other neighboring countries with a significant agricultural footprint? Can this be improved/resolved within a reasonable timescale, or are we talking about "Let it go fallow for a generation and see what happens." I've never heard this before and don't disbelieve these statements, it's just news to me.

It's just the usual stuff. Overreliance on problematic monocultures like maize, excessive use of herbicides/insecticides/fungicides, excessive use of fertilizers, soil degradation, etc. IIRC the poison flowing from those fields is one of the primary reasons for habitat destruction. Insect biomass has been in free fall for years now. It's really, really bad.

I don't know what the situation is like in other developed countries, but I hear the Netherlands also has constant farmer protests when the government tries to enforce environmental laws or water pollution limits. My guess is it's the same poo poo everywhere in western Europe.

The situation can be easily improved of course. We don't need most of the agricultural production and could easily enact and enforce laws that limit the worst practices. Whether that will happen is a different question. German farmers have just started a war with the current "Green terror regime government". There have been massive protests across the whole country with them blocking cities and highways. They attacked a Green party event today and managed to get it cancelled. Apparently our Green party agriculture minister had to flee the scene after they started throwing stones. The car of his security escort had a window smashed in. Police was completely helpless.

QuarkJets
Sep 8, 2008

Watched this interesting video on vertical bifacial solar arrays, it's really interesting if you have any interest at all in solar panels:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqizLQDi9BM

For anyone not watching, vertical bifacial panels (PV panels that absorb photons from both sides and are mounted in an east-west orientation) may be a bit more efficient on sunny days than traditional panels mounted with a fixed southern-facing angle, they may be even more efficient on cloudy days, and they may have a longer operating lifetime. For flat roofs that are common on commercial buildings, it may be more effective to build vertical panels instead of adding a bunch of infrastructure for angled panels

cat botherer
Jan 6, 2022

I am interested in most phases of data processing.

Shooting Blanks posted:

Why is German farmland so toxic? How does it compare (in general) to other neighboring countries with a significant agricultural footprint? Can this be improved/resolved within a reasonable timescale, or are we talking about "Let it go fallow for a generation and see what happens." I've never heard this before and don't disbelieve these statements, it's just news to me.
The EU common agricultural policy is somewhat infamous for promoting unsustainable farming techniques, but IDK if Germany is particularly bad.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Agricultural_Policy#Environmental_problems

bad_fmr
Nov 28, 2007

GABA ghoul posted:

The big elephant in the room is of course that leaving these habitats in pristine condition now is not gonna do much good when all the various effects of >2.5 °C of warming start hitting us. Inaction means death to those species too and there is no alternative to wind power in sight to achieve current emissions goals. The plan is for 80% of the energy sector to be decarbonized by 2030. That's in less than 6 years. It's gonna be close as hell, if we really manage to pull that off and there is absolutely no way to do it without speeding up wind power expansion from the piss poor state that the Merkel governments left us.

You could of course start by not shutting down the already built and existing nuclear power infrastructure.

Dante80
Mar 23, 2015

Sharing A couple of Nuclear pieces. First one, Albion!

Why Britain Is Struggling With Nuclear Power
The government wants more nuclear plants to help tackle climate change, but delays and soaring costs are complicating the effort.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/22/business/uk-nuclear-power.html?unlocked_article_code=1.XU0.n1yq.IFGDRSafKRwO&smid=url-share

quote:

A rust-colored dome looms over the muddy farmland of Hinkley Point, a headland overlooking the Bristol Channel in southwest England.

When a giant yellow crane hoisted the 150-foot-wide concrete-and-steel saucer into place this winter, it signified a milestone for what will be the first commercial nuclear power station built in Britain since the mid-1990s and a flagship in an effort to revive the industry.

Yet the capping of the first of twin cylindrical buildings for reactors was also a reminder of the prodigious, lengthy and increasingly costly effort to build what is known as Hinkley Point C.

Work has been underway on the plant for more than a decade, yet completion remains years away.

Recently, Électricité de France, the French state utility that is constructing the plant, warned of yet more delays. The start date, which two years ago was scheduled for 2027, has been pushed to the end of this decade, or perhaps 2031.

The additional time will add billions more to a final bill that could reach as much as 47.9 billion pounds, or about $60 billion, EDF said. In 2016, the price tag was pegged at £18 billion.

Nuclear power is regaining favor in the West as a tool for reducing greenhouse gases, and the British government last month announced the “biggest expansion of nuclear power for 70 years.” But nuclear energy’s track record in Western Europe and the United States is not encouraging, with delays and staggering cost overruns plaguing recent projects. The fate of Hinkley Point and another project, planned on England’s east coast in the village Sizewell, could determine whether the nuclear momentum in Britain gathers pace or peters out.

(...)

And the next one, a good podcast discussion on US Nuclear prospects by David Roberts on Volts.

Nuclear? Perhaps!
A conversation with Jigar Shah, head of DOE's Loan Programs Office.

https://www.volts.wtf/p/nuclear-perhaps

quote:

Nuclear power is a subject that elicits a lot of strong emotions. (Anyone who's ever written about it online will be laughing at the understatement.) Depending on who you listen to, it is either the key to solving climate change or an irrelevant distraction, either the best form of clean electricity available or the worst, either a savior on the verge of a renaissance or a dinosaur desperately scrabbling for a few last subsidies.

To try to cut through some of the noise, I went to the top: Jigar Shah, longtime clean energy investor and expert, friend and previous guest of the pod, and head of the Department of Energy's Loan Programs Office.
Jigar Shah

Shah is a solar guy at heart — he got his start founding and growing some of the earliest solar companies — but as head of the LPO, he has had a crash education in the state of the nuclear industry and what it needs to revive itself. The DOE's take on the subject can be found in its recent Pathways to Commercial Liftoff report for advanced nuclear. Long story short, the Biden administration believes that in order to hit its climate goals, the US needs to double or triple its nuclear capacity by 2050.

To do that, it needs to get its ballooning costs under control. How? That is one of the things I asked Shah when I talked with him. We discussed the factors responsible for nuclear's dismal recent performance, the strategies that could revive and accelerate it, new nuclear technologies and what small modular reactors (SMRs) actually are, and the role that nuclear will play in a decarbonized economy. Whatever your take on nuclear, I guarantee this pod will give you something to think about.


yes, there is a transcript (thank you apple podcasts for that). C:

TheFluff
Dec 13, 2006

FRIENDS, LISTEN TO ME
I AM A SEAGULL
OF WEALTH AND TASTE


I think Poland has ordered some South Korean APR-1400 nuclear reactors recently so they are doing something about that atrocious black bar at least

TheFluff fucked around with this message at 22:55 on Feb 22, 2024

Phanatic
Mar 13, 2007

Please don't forget that I am an extremely racist idiot who also has terrible opinions about the Culture series.

TheFluff posted:



I think Poland has ordered some South Korean APR-1400 nuclear reactors recently so they are doing something about that atrocious black bar at least

It bugs the hell out of me that for the big countries the indicator is centered on the bar, for smaller countries it's at the bottom of the bar, and I can't tell WTF with Estonia and Luxembourg and Malta.

M_Gargantua
Oct 16, 2006

STOMP'N ON INTO THE POWERLINES

Exciting Lemon
Excuse my 60 seconds with the scale tool.

Accuracy guarenteed.

Saukkis
May 16, 2003

Unless I'm on the inside curve pointing straight at oncoming traffic the high beams stay on and I laugh at your puny protest flashes.
I am Most Important Man. Most Important Man in the World.

Phanatic posted:

It bugs the hell out of me that for the big countries the indicator is centered on the bar, for smaller countries it's at the bottom of the bar, and I can't tell WTF with Estonia and Luxembourg and Malta.

The bar for Estonia is actually barely visible between Italy and Poland. I think Cyprus, Luxembourg and Malta are just so thin they are not visible.

in a well actually
Jan 26, 2011

dude, you gotta end it on the rhyme

Height is total power generated per country. I guess they’re sorted by CO2 output per watthour, so luxembourg’s tiny generation is high on the list but doesn’t register on the twh scale.

Groda
Mar 17, 2005

Hair Elf
Luxembourg's generation can be found under France.

Electric Wrigglies
Feb 6, 2015

I am suspicious of the bio-energy generation accounting and also, it would be handy to see the import/export volumes as well.

Oracle
Oct 9, 2004

cant cook creole bream posted:

As far as I know it's not particularly worse then the farmland in say France. It's just really effectively used to it's full extend in raising those particular crops to the point where the soil is drained. The other posters are mostly saying that it's nonsense to claim that it is an important factor for biodiversity, because aside from some mice and birds of prey, animals don't really live there. Taking some of that away wont cause some rare species of salamander to go extinct.

Do they not practice crop rotation in Germany? Like at least alternating maize and soybeans so the beans can replenish the nitrogen in the soil? That’s like baby’s first farm lesson here and we aren’t exactly a Mecca of hippie dippy farming practices.

Femtosecond
Aug 2, 2003

An article following up on the Biden pause on LNG exports.

quote:

Coal Is Bad for the Environment. Is Liquified Natural Gas Any Better?
The contentious debate over whether liquefied natural gas is cleaner than coal has been elevated by President Joe Biden’s move to halt approvals of gas export terminals


CLIMATEWIRE | The White House decision to pause approvals of liquefied natural gas terminals has fed a contentious debate: Is LNG dirtier than coal?

Many environmentalists argue that it is, challenging the conventional wisdom that gas is a sort of diet fossil fuel that could help reduce climate pollution as the energy system shifts to renewable power.

But the picture is more complicated than that, say many researchers who study the carbon content of fuels. Gas — and LNG exports in particular — most likely contributes more to planetary warming than previously thought, but it still can reduce greenhouse gas emissions compared to coal in some instances.

The idea is a bombshell in the world of energy politics, where gas has long been touted as having about half as many emissions than coal. In December 2023, 170 climate scientists signed onto a letter asking President Joe Biden to reject plans to build more LNG export terminals, mostly along the Gulf of Mexico, on the grounds that liquefied gas is “at least 24 percent worse for the climate than coal.”

Biden's announcement last month to temporarily halt the approval of future projects until it examines their climate impact took a step in that direction — and fanned the flames of the gas versus coal debate.

The argument that LNG is dirtier than coal runs against previous academic and government studies, which have found that LNG can reduce planet warming emissions. Claims to the contrary are often based on a forthcoming Cornell University study, which has yet to be peer reviewed.

Robert Howarth, a professor at the university who wrote the study, said previous research about LNG’s climate impacts failed to account for the carbon dioxide emissions associated with liquefying the gas, a process that requires chilling it to extremely cold temperatures.

“We need to move away from all fossil fuels. But the U.S. is hugely increasing our production of natural gas. We’re the world’s largest producer of natural gas. We were not 10-15 years ago. We are the largest exporter of natural gas. We didn’t export any 10 years ago,” Howarth said in an interview. “It’s totally the wrong trajectory.”

This is not the first time he has argued that gas's emissions exceed coal's — or courted controversy.

His assertions come as carbon emissions in the U.S. power sector fell by a third between 2005 and 2022, thanks in large part to a shift from coal to gas-fired power generation.

But the climate advantages decrease when methane — the primary component of gas — is flared, vented or leaked into the atmosphere at wellheads, pipelines and other gas industry infrastructure.

Comparing the greenhouse gases that are released by coal and gas is complicated because the characteristics of the emissions are different. Methane is a much more powerful greenhouse gas in the short-term, but it breaks up in the atmosphere after several decades, whereas carbon dioxide can remain in the air for more than a century.

Howarth raised alarms about the climate downside of gas in 2011, when he co-authored a study that found that as much as 7.9 percent of methane associated with gas production was vented or leaked into the atmosphere. His numbers were far bigger than government estimates and, he argued, would make gas a greater contributor to warming than coal, particularly over the short-term.

Subsequent studies found that methane leaks were bigger than the government had suggested, though few duplicated the numbers put forward by Howarth. A peer-reviewed 2018 Environmental Defense Fund study estimated that 2.3 percent of methane entered the atmosphere during gas production, or 60 percent higher than EPA estimates. A peer-reviewed 2020 study estimated that methane emissions in the Permian Basin, America’s largest oil-producing region where flaring is common, were 3.3 percent. A peer-reviewed 2022 EDF study estimated that low producing oil and gas wells are a particularly large source of methane emissions, with leakage rates of 11 percent.

Industry groups have frequently criticized Howarth’s work as politically motivated, saying his numbers are inflated.

“It's just extremely frustrating to even deal with claims like this, because we talk about settled science,” said Dan Byers, vice president of policy at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, where he works on environmental issues. “The notion that, you know, LNG and natural gas reduce emissions by displacing coal is completely well established. So it feels like we’ve got like a flat earth situation going on with these claims.”

The benchmark study for LNG’s climate impact is a 2019 analysis conducted by the Department of Energy. It found that the life-cycle emissions of U.S. LNG that's exported to Asia ranged from 54 percent to 2 percent less than local coal over a 20-year period. In Europe, those figures ranged from 56 percent less than coal to 1 percent more than coal. A peer-reviewed 2015 Carnegie Mellon University study echoed those findings. It found that LNG emitted 32 percent less than coal when used for power generation. But it found LNG emissions were 4 percent higher than coal when used as a substitute for industrial heat over the short-term.

The DOE study assumed methane leaks from the U.S. gas supply chain were 0.7 percent. To critics like Byers, that is evidence that Howarth's numbers are inflated. But his supporters say it shows that DOE needs to update its assumptions. Howarth's newest analysis assumes a leakage rate of 2.6 percent. Carnegie Mellon researchers, for their part, assumed a 3 percent leakage rate for U.S. gas production.

While governments and companies are stepping up their efforts to monitor for methane leaks, it might be years before complete data are available about the climate impact of gas production, said Deborah Gordon, a researcher who co-runs the Oil and Gas Solutions Initiative at RMI, a clean energy think tank. Her research suggests U.S. leakage rates vary widely by region.

In a 2023 study published in the journal Environmental Research Letters, Gordon and a team of RMI researchers cited recent aerial surveys that suggested leakage rates range from 0.65 percent of gas production to 66.2 percent across various U.S. gas basins. The study found that gas systems with a 4.7 percent leakage rate are on par with emissions from coal mines, another major source of methane pollution.

“This whole push for LNG writ large because people are still playing this trope that it's half as much CO2 as coal just doesn't hold water,” Gordon said in an interview. “The only way to get off coal that's better for the climate is to substitute it with renewables, and it's infinitely doable and affordable.”

The U.S. and Canada have abundant natural gas resources, which makes the fuel cheap and has helped displace coal in the power sector, said Sara Hastings-Simon, an associate professor in the Department of Earth, Energy and Environment at the University of Calgary. But whether other countries can reduce their own coal use with imported American LNG is an open question, she said.

Some regions, like Europe, have extensive pipeline networks that would make it relatively cost-effective to swap coal for gas. But European coal plants tend to be older, meaning they are closer to retirement and offer diminishing climate benefits of replacing them with gas.

India, by contrast, has a relatively young coal fleet and could conceivably reduce emissions by switching to gas. But that would require a massive build-out of gas infrastructure, which would be expensive and make gas even less competitive with coal, Hastings-Simon said. It would also risk locking in gas infrastructure for decades, diminishing its climate benefits, she added.

In 2022, Hastings-Simon co-authored a study published in Environmental Research Letters that found expanded LNG use was incompatible with limiting global temperature rise to 2 degrees Celsius or less. But it also concluded the fuel could help stave off temperature increases in excess of 3 degrees Celsius by preventing additional coal consumption, making LNG a sort of "insurance policy" against runaway warming.

"The nature of LNG is that it is lower-emitting, but it's not zero emissions,” Hastings-Simon said.

She declined to comment on Howarth’s research showing that LNG is dirtier than coal, but she said, “This idea of, well, gas is better than coal, therefore LNG is better for the climate, full stop — it's pretty clear, that's not the case.”


The interesting part for me here is the notion of upstream emissions in the liquifaction process because it's that aspect that is why British Columbia is marketing its LNG as especially low emission, in that the power required to liquify is all from hydro electricity. So LNG from BC would already be a lower CO2 emission product that the same such product created elsewhere in the USA or Australia where the liquifaction process is driven by burning the gas itself.

That the BC LNG is liquified using renewables another thing the left wing, environmentlist government has leaned into to suggest that they have an extra low emitting product here and to justify their support for exporting LNG.

Seems fair to me, tho I remain a bit skeptical about the benefits of using LNG as this sort of "bridge product" to get countries off of coal. I'm curious what others here think about this.

I think it's likely true the established belief here that Natural Gas, despite leaks, is lower emissions than Coal, but the thing I'd be concerned about is the last section I bolded, that exporters would be incentivizing a giant build out of Natural Gas infrastructure that is going to linger around for decades.

Seems to me that baking in CO2 emitting power generation for another several decades with brand new NG plants is worse than continuing with coal for the short term, while ramping up on zero emitting renewables like nuclear/etc.

Like how many more years can India continue on burning coal while planning to build nuclear power before it would have been better to pivot to building a natural gas plant and running it for a 50 year+ lifetime? Seems to me you're emitting a lot of CO2 over the lifetime of a NG plant.

Femtosecond fucked around with this message at 19:52 on Feb 25, 2024

cant cook creole bream
Aug 15, 2011
I think Fahrenheit is better for weather

Oracle posted:

Do they not practice crop rotation in Germany? Like at least alternating maize and soybeans so the beans can replenish the nitrogen in the soil? That’s like baby’s first farm lesson here and we aren’t exactly a Mecca of hippie dippy farming practices.

I assume they practice it to some extend? I don't find any data about that when searching for it.

PhazonLink
Jul 17, 2010
pretty sure modern industrial chemstry means all that hippie stuff can be brute forced.


cant have some slightly more holistic methods messing with minmaxing argo-fin

Gucci Loafers
May 20, 2006

Ask yourself, do you really want to talk to pair of really nice gaudy shoes?


Femtosecond posted:

:words:

Seems fair to me, tho I remain a bit skeptical about the benefits of using LNG as this sort of "bridge product" to get countries off of coal. I'm curious what others here think about this.

LNG already is a bridge and has been being used so for over a decade. The only issue is now transitioning from LNG to renewables, how long is that going to take?

Methane matters, but doesn’t eliminate gains from emissions reductions

Grey Area
Sep 9, 2000
Battle Without Honor or Humanity
The magnitude of methane leaks are understated by pretty much everyone involved in the gas industry.

There was a recent report on the use of LNG for marine propulsion, for example:

https://theicct.org/pr-real-world-methane-emissions-from-lng-fueled-ships-are-higher-than-current-regulations-assume-new-study-finds-jan24/ posted:

Real-world methane slip measured in the plumes of 18 ships using the most common type of LNG marine engine (LPDF 4-stroke) averaged 6.4%, whereas EU regulations currently assume 3.1% methane slip and the United Nations International Maritime Organization (IMO) assumes 3.5%.

This study demonstrates the importance of collecting and analyzing real-world data. Regulators need to use the best available data to develop effective climate policies. If methane slip assumptions remain too low, shipowners will be able to use LNG in high-methane-slip engines longer, effectively getting an unfair advantage over lower-emitting fuels and engines. This is contrary to the goals of rapidly decarbonizing the shipping sector to align with the Paris Agreement and counterproductive to reducing global methane emissions this decade, as called for in the Global Methane Pledge.

Phanatic
Mar 13, 2007

Please don't forget that I am an extremely racist idiot who also has terrible opinions about the Culture series.

Femtosecond posted:

An article following up on the Biden pause on LNG exports.

The notion that the only pollutant in coal worth worrying about is CO2 is asinine. We don't warn pregnant woman against consuming fish due to mercury emissions from LNG.

SpeedFreek
Jan 10, 2008
And Im Lobster Jesus!

Phanatic posted:

The notion that the only pollutant in coal worth worrying about is CO2 is asinine. We don't warn pregnant woman against consuming fish due to mercury emissions from LNG.

There is a lot more pollution that results from continued use of coal than just CO2, the coal dust, fly ash, groundwater pollution from the ash, everything else that goes up the stack with the CO2. I'm sure someone in this thread has detailed knowledge on the effects of mining the stuff. There are no good reasons to keep operating coal plants after the 1970s.

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Phanatic
Mar 13, 2007

Please don't forget that I am an extremely racist idiot who also has terrible opinions about the Culture series.

SpeedFreek posted:

There is a lot more pollution that results from continued use of coal than just CO2, the coal dust, fly ash, groundwater pollution from the ash, everything else that goes up the stack with the CO2.

Right, that's my point. The question that's posed in the article is "Is LNG dirtier than coal?" but the only pollutant even being considered throughout the article is CO2. You can't even begin to answer the question if you don't consider all that other stuff as well.

And I get that from a global warming perspective, CO2's the one to worry about, but even if LNG is responsible for more CO2 emissions, coal is *fantastically dirtier than LNG*.

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