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Renewable Energy

Like solar panels are currently only about 26% efficient. In real terms this means 260 megawatts per square kilometer.

It doesn't say why solar panels can't be more than 33% efficient, who knows what new technologies are being developed.
Edit: there's a link but that's based on current technology not an absolute limit. There's some interesting research being done at Cambridge https://phys.org/news/2019-11-messy-production-perovskite-material-solar.html

Likewise with battery technology, can we expect any advances in the future? How much storage capacity is required?

How about other storage options like hydrogen production (inefficient I know) or pumped hydro power? Can the millions of electric cars in America's not too distant future play a part in a networked storage system?

It talks of the damage that will be done by mining, but no mention of the damage saved by ending fracking.

It's no surprise that these climate change deniers are funded by fracking billionaires.
 
In practical terms, for a typical house that uses electricity for everything - hot water, cooking, washer/dryer and heat/air conditioning in the moderate zone (Boston) we are able to supply about 40 percent of our usage with rooftop solar panels -16 units. We generate a bit over 5mwh in a year.

I was thinking of adding more panels, but that requires land, of which we have very little. Nonetheless, it is very nice to get an electric bill for $25 in the summer months, with air conditioning running most of the time. Once in a while, the meter runs backwards.

The project was made possible by tax rebates that offset about 25 percent of the total cost and energy generation credits that pay us a few hundred dollars per quarter.

Certainly, our carbon footprint is reduced considerably. Garbage is the next challenge...
 
Like solar panels are currently only about 26% efficient. In real terms this means 260 megawatts per square kilometer.

It doesn't say why solar panels can't be more than 33% efficient, who knows what new technologies are being developed.
Edit: there's a link but that's based on current technology not an absolute limit. There's some interesting research being done at Cambridge https://phys.org/news/2019-11-messy-production-perovskite-material-solar.html

Likewise with battery technology, can we expect any advances in the future? How much storage capacity is required?

How about other storage options like hydrogen production (inefficient I know) or pumped hydro power? Can the millions of electric cars in America's not too distant future play a part in a networked storage system?

It talks of the damage that will be done by mining, but no mention of the damage saved by ending fracking.

It's no surprise that these climate change deniers are funded by fracking billionaires.

You obviously don't know much chemistry, which answers most of your questions. Take a look at what a battery actually is, for instance, and how they produce electricity (hint - REDOX, another hint - look at lithium's position in the periodic table and its molecular weight).

As for fracking - as has been pointed out many times by various UK University professors, it has been done in the UK for many years, just not for oil or gas, and has raised no complaint or problem. FAR too complicated, but you should read more science and fewer sensationalist newspaper articles. Where are you going to build these huge dams and what valleys are you going to flood for pumped storage (don't forget that you ideally need two reservoirs one above the other and the bigger the height difference, the smaller they need to be, and vice versa) - have you ever seen Port Dinorwig?

You have fallen foul of EXACTLY what the video makes great play on - theory great - reality doesn't figure anywhere.
 
In practical terms, for a typical house that uses electricity for everything - hot water, cooking, washer/dryer and heat/air conditioning in the moderate zone (Boston) we are able to supply about 40 percent of our usage with rooftop solar panels -16 units. We generate a bit over 5mwh in a year.

The UK as a whole generates about 40% of its electricity from renewables - wind, solar and a small amount of bio. I am pretty sure that on any one day, over 50% is regularly achieved, on the good days.

Somewhere online there are figures for the cost of the UK going all electric for private transportation, including how much more electricity would have to be generated, but I can't currently find it, but it is a horrifying set of figures.

There is no current or even blue-sky solution for getting the huge majority of larger vehicles away from combustion engines.
 
You obviously don't know much chemistry, which answers most of your questions. Take a look at what a battery actually is, for instance, and how they produce electricity (hint - REDOX, another hint - look at lithium's position in the periodic table and its molecular weight).
What are you saying?
Do you think battery technology is at the end of the road?
Is the glass battery a hoax?
Does Musk have nothing significant to unveil on Tuesday?
You might want to study some quantum physics, it might open your mind a little.
As for fracking - as has been pointed out many times by various UK University professors, it has been done in the UK for many years, just not for oil or gas, and has raised no complaint or problem. FAR too complicated, but you should read more science and fewer sensationalist newspaper articles.
I read science.
It has never been done on anything like the current scale in the US and like you say never for oil or gas. Not the same thing at all. It uses huge quantities of fresh water - a vital resource that's becoming increasingly difficult to source here. It contaminates ground water with fracking fluid - see above. It releases large amounts of methane to the atmosphere - I suppose that doesn't matter to you if you're a climate change denier.
https://cfpub.epa.gov/ncea/hfstudy/recordisplay.cfm?deid=332990

The subsequent burning of the gas results in the release of large quantities of CO2, which also doesn't matter to science deniers.
Where are you going to build these huge dams and what valleys are you going to flood for pumped storage
We can start with the hydro dams that have already been built. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_hydroelectric_power_stations_in_the_United_States
You have fallen foul of EXACTLY what the video makes great play on - theory great - reality doesn't figure anywhere.
The video suggests we should keep burning gas but the scientific consensus is that this approach is not sustainable. I'm talking mainstream environmental science not sensationalist tabloid articles or energy industry propaganda.

You sound like you're cutting and pasting snippets from an oil industry argument sheet. I mostly asked questions, which you gave no answers to. You argue with insults in place of facts.
 
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The UK as a whole generates about 40% of its electricity from renewables - wind, solar and a small amount of bio. I am pretty sure that on any one day, over 50% is regularly achieved, on the good days.

Somewhere online there are figures for the cost of the UK going all electric for private transportation, including how much more electricity would have to be generated, but I can't currently find it, but it is a horrifying set of figures.

There is no current or even blue-sky solution for getting the huge majority of larger vehicles away from combustion engines.

I’m sure none of this will deter Boris Johnson from declaring we’ll be carbon neutral by whatever date he chooses.

Just replacing domestic gas boilers is going to take decades. And there’s no sign we’ll do that anytime soon or what will replace them or who will pay for it.

Stephen
 
I’m sure none of this will deter Boris Johnson from declaring we’ll be carbon neutral by whatever date he chooses.

I am unsure what Boris or Keir or anyone else has to do with this as all the facts are the same for all. Naff all to do with politics except in the minds of the obsessed.

In principle, domestic heating would be the easier carbon reduction to tackle - dilute natural gas with hydrogen - it couldn't eliminate natural gas, beyond a certain level boiler burners would need modifying or replacing (not the entire boiler in all probability), and where would the hydrogen come from? Best bet for the hydrogen would be cheap renewable electricity to electrolyse water.
 
Abour PragerU:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PragerU
The organization depends on donations to produce its content.[6] Much of the early funding for PragerU came from hydraulic fracturing (fracking) billionaires Dan and Farris Wilks.[2][4] Two members of the Wilks family are on PragerU's board.
Mark Mills, the speaker in the video, is described as a "senior fellow" at the Manhattan Institute:

https://www.manhattan-institute.org/about
The mission of the Manhattan Institute is to develop and disseminate new ideas that foster greater economic choice and individual responsibility. The Institute serves as a leading voice of free-market ideas, shaping political culture since our founding in 1977...
So free market fundamentalists, basically.

I leave it as an exercise for the reader to decide whether the video presents an impartial account of the prospects for renewable energy.

PS: The YouTube user Shaun has a nice, chilled-out way of debunking material from the alt-right, including PragerU:


Not directly relevant to the current topic but fun, nevertheless.
 
I am unsure what Boris or Keir or anyone else has to do with this as all the facts are the same for all. Naff all to do with politics except in the minds of the obsessed.

In principle, domestic heating would be the easier carbon reduction to tackle - dilute natural gas with hydrogen - it couldn't eliminate natural gas, beyond a certain level boiler burners would need modifying or replacing (not the entire boiler in all probability), and where would the hydrogen come from? Best bet for the hydrogen would be cheap renewable electricity to electrolyse water.
I think the difficulty with hydrogen is that it is very corrosive to metals. I'm not sure how the pipework would fare.
 
Like solar panels are currently only about 26% efficient. In real terms this means 260 megawatts per square kilometer.

It doesn't say why solar panels can't be more than 33% efficient, who knows what new technologies are being developed.
Edit: there's a link but that's based on current technology not an absolute limit. There's some interesting research being done at Cambridge https://phys.org/news/2019-11-messy-production-perovskite-material-solar.html

Likewise with battery technology, can we expect any advances in the future? How much storage capacity is required?

How about other storage options like hydrogen production (inefficient I know) or pumped hydro power? Can the millions of electric cars in America's not too distant future play a part in a networked storage system?

It talks of the damage that will be done by mining, but no mention of the damage saved by ending fracking.

It's no surprise that these climate change deniers are funded by fracking billionaires.
Plenty of work on perovskite being done all over the world, including my home university of Sheffield.

Also the 34% limit applies to a simple, "single junction" solar cell and has already been exceeded by multi-junction cells in the lab and in specialist applications in the space industry. The challenge is to drive that price/performance ratio down, as ever, but who would bet against it? Who, looking at the first computer, the size of a room, could have predicted the iPhone?

I found the above info after a few minutes of googling. It repudiates the very first claim made in the video and at that point, knowing what I do about PragerU, I decide not to waste any more time on it.
 
Drood,

I leave it as an exercise for the reader to decide whether the video presents an impartial account of the prospects for renewable energy.

PregoU's video on the dangers of lefties in our universities is spot on. It provides unequivocal evidence that the radical lefties of the 1960s are now teaching our children!

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That hippie totally morphed into an academic (or maybe Tony Stark) right before my eyes. ****ed if I know, but it's clearly the same bloke!

Joe
 
I ran some figures for fun.

To generate USA's approximate 4*10^12KWh annual electricity consumption, you would need about 44,000km2 of panels, assuming 25% efficiency and 8 hours average sunshine per day.

That's less than 0.005% of the total land area of the USA and a small fraction of the non-arable land.

I think it's fair to say that panel efficiency is only a real issue in urban environments.
 
I am unsure what Boris or Keir or anyone else has to do with this as all the facts are the same for all. Naff all to do with politics except in the minds of the obsessed.

This is all about politics.

The only way we'll get anywhere near carbon natural is by the use of subsidies (and removing them) and the imposition of legal frameworks and deadlines.

Look at the peat burning situation and what kind of power stations we build and how we get our energy. All driven by ideology, lobbying and political pressure.

Johnson doesn't do facts. Haven't you noticed?

Stephen
 
Interesting that you suggest that Boris will be around in 2050.

As for facts - you seem blissfully unaware of many. The only realistic way to go carbon free is nuclear, and the reason no-one goes for that? First the initial investment needed, and the second - public, ill-informed, opinion, albeit that drives policies OF ALL PARTIES.

Boris and facts - no more or less so that any of the rest of the Westminster crowd, except when people get selective amnesia and/or myopia.
 


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