What to do about competing arguments

[Pangloss]

And if it's not scarce or expensive?

 

We know energy can be cheap and efficient. We already know how to do this, and we're well on our way to implementing that future -- the first Chevy Volt rolled off the assembly line yesterday, just another step in the right direction. President Obama has stated a commitment to increasing nuclear energy production in this country. We're already increasing wind and solar production, and dramatically increasing efficiency across the board.

 

Will you still oppose suburban sprawl when it doesn't cost anything and doesn't hurt anyone, and if so what will the logical, scientific basis of your opposition be?

[JohnB]

swansont, I'm not sure that Germany can really be used as an example. I've been doing some rough reading on the various figures.

 

According to Wiki in 2002 Germany imported 2/3 of it's energy needs. As a nation it is nowhere near energy self sufficient so I doubt that "massive overhaul" can be an appropriate term. Even if they replaced all domestic energy production with solar and wind, it would still only amount to 1/3 of the national energy needs.

 

Also the 8% from solar that is often used is Nameplate power, not real and actual power. Nameplate power says that Germany got 8% from solar, reality says it was 1.1%. Wiki again. Again, 1.1% is hardly a massive overhaul.

 

Wind power is a different matter and figures are interesting to say the least. Wind provided 6.7% of Germanys power last year, which is a good chunk but nothing really to crow about from a national POV. However, wind is concentrated in the northern states and in some of those the effect is dramatic. Saxony-Anhault got 47% of it's power from wind in 2009. That is a massive overhaul and an amazing percentage.

 

I think the thing that counts most against the "renewables" is the poor nameplate to actual output ratio that would lead to vast amounts of waste. Obviously there must be "point of best energy generation mix", but for the moment if we consider the extreme. If you want wind to reliably provide 1 terawatt of power then you are going to have to build enough towers to generate at least 9 terawatts. The simple figures of factual, real output show that you have to build at least 9 times as much generating capacity as you really need if you want reliable power supply. Even then, you'd better have a few reactors on standby for worst case scenarios.

 

The habit of using nameplate power output is distorting the picture. Sure, you can build enough nameplate power to source 25% of the national grid from wind as the Brits are suggesting. But if you want that 25% to be reliable then you actually have to build enough wind farms by nameplate to supply the national grid twice over. It's just silly.

 

For this reason, the "renewables" will only ever be a minor player in the energy supply game.

[swansont]

swansont, I'm not sure that Germany can really be used as an example. I've been doing some rough reading on the various figures.

 

According to Wiki in 2002 Germany imported 2/3 of it's energy needs. As a nation it is nowhere near energy self sufficient so I doubt that "massive overhaul" can be an appropriate term. Even if they replaced all domestic energy production with solar and wind, it would still only amount to 1/3 of the national energy needs.

 

Also the 8% from solar that is often used is Nameplate power, not real and actual power. Nameplate power says that Germany got 8% from solar, reality says it was 1.1%. Wiki again. Again, 1.1% is hardly a massive overhaul.

 

 

The 8% number I gave was for wind + solar.

 

To recharacterize my example of two countries as the only two is disingenuous. But wind and solar already account for more than 15% of Spain's electrical power and 8% in Germany. The fossil fuel infrastructure took many decades to install and expand (it has never really stopped), so they averaged less than 1% of the current infrastructure per year. In reality, it serves as a caution that delay is costly. Even disregarding AGW, oil won't last forever.

 

 

 

From that wikipedia article: "The government has set the goal of meeting half the country's energy demands from renewable sources by 2050."

 

I guess we can debate whether that counts as major/massive or not; the current output I quoted meets cypress's arbitrary threshold of 5%

[JohnB]

The 8% number I gave was for wind + solar.

Arrrrgggghhhh!!!!! My reading skills seem to have dropped markedly of late.

 

A bit of checking with the CIA factbook lets me know where I made the mistake in the last post. (Aside from not reading swansonts properly.)

 

The Wiki entry says that Germany imported 2/3 of it's energy needs in 2002. I misread this to mean importing electricity. Germany is self sufficient in electricity generation and produces some 50 billion kw/hrs more than it consumes. I think that the 2/3 figure is for natural gas and oil. Germany imports some 2.862 million bbl/day for oil and some 94.57 billion cu m of natural gas annually.

 

Since nuclear accounts for roughly 3 times as much nameplate power than solar/wind does, it will be interesting to see how they handle the phase out of nukes by 2021. If they intend to use the renewables, they will need to expand capacity by about 400% in the next 10 years. That's a very ambitious project.

 

I also wonder how, since they are under EU pressure to reduce the budget deficit and have a public debt that rose from 66.1% of GDP in 2008 to 73.2% of GDP in 2009 (compared to the USA 53.5%) and have the third largest external debt on the planet (behind the USA and UK) they intend to pay for it. Although their current account looks very good.

Edited December 3, 2010 by JohnB

[cypress]

I wouldn't be too quick to apologize for mixing up the numbers. Swansont seems to somehow think that 8% of Germany's 2008 total electrical output of 544.47 Billion KW-hrs or 43.558 Billion KW-hrs meets my 5% threshold for reduction in total fossil fuel energy consumed, which for Germany in 2008 was 2,571.61 thousands of bbl oil, 3,461 billion SCF gas, and 267.882 million short tons of coal, or 12.499 Quadrillion BTU's.

 

Unless I too have the numbers wrong, 43.588 Billion KW-hrs is less than 1.2% of the Germany's fossil fuel consumption.

 

I agree John, Germany's renewable electricity is a start, but it is not a "massive overhaul".