The decline of reneweable energy

[Skybird]

Such unfriendly numbers can really ruin your daydreams, eh?

http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/the-falling-share-of-renewables-in-global-energy-production-by-bj-rn-lomborg

[BrucePartington]

Such unfriendly numbers can really ruin your daydreams, eh?

http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/the-falling-share-of-renewables-in-global-energy-production-by-bj-rn-lomborg
I wouldn't dismiss it just yet. After all, this trend is still in its infancy.
Remember when a music CD cost a small fortune? And the CD player another small fortune?
We really need to keep moving forward.

[Skybird]

The current methods and ways are uneffective and only kill our fiscal options without achieving any significant effect.


To be sure, wind and solar have increased dramatically. Since 1990, wind-generated power has grown 26% per year and solar a phenomenal 48%. But the growth has been from almost nothing to slightly more than almost nothing. In 1990, wind produced 0.0038% of the world’s energy; it is now producing 0.29%. Solar-electric power has gone from essentially zero to 0.04%.


At that pace we will have exhausted our economic resources completely and then will have fallen off a cliff over producing the money needed to pay for this insane way of making energy. Wind and solar energy are simply too uneffective as if they could , in the forseeable future, become economic.

Economy and ecology must go together. Ecological measure must pay off, else the economy will not be able to stem them. If you erode the basis of social stability over excploding energy costs, not even socialist promises of coming utopias (all free) will manage to tempt the mob forever. The Greens have established a surrogate religion where economy and the big enemies of mankind, the "rich", are Satan, and believing the Green credo frees you from all sins and paves your way into recycled heaven with wholemeal manna and bio-produced ambrosia raining from heaven, all vegan of course.


According to International Energy Agency data, 13.12% of the world’s energy came from renewables in 1971, the first year that the IEA reported global statistics. In 2011, renewables’ share was actually lower, at 12.99%. Yet a new survey shows that Americans believe that the share of renewables in 2035 will be 30.2%. In reality, it will likely be 14.5%.


I do not question the need. But I question the methods used to adress it.


The solution is to innovate the price of renewables downward. We need a dramatic increase in funding for research and development to make the next generations of wind, solar, and biomass energy cheaper and more effective.
(...)
When green renewables are cheaper than fossil fuels, they will take over the world. Instead of believing in the Tooth Fairy, we should start investing in green R&D.

[Dan D]

The author you have cited is probably Ideology-driven and/or on the payroll of fossil fuel vendors and nuke supporter?

10 Huge German Solar Energy Myths Bjørn Lomborg is Trumpeting (http://cleantechnica.com/2012/03/02/solar-energy-myths-lomborg/ )
"Lomborg is infamous for denying the need for clean energy action to stop human-caused global warming, and for claiming that scientists’ concerns about global warming are overblown", says cleantechnica.com.

There is a political polarisation surrounding environmental issues.

If I may quote you for example when you say in the above posting:

"The Greens have established a surrogate religion where economy and the big enemies of mankind, the "rich", are Satan, and believing the Green credo frees you from all sins and paves your way into recycled heaven with wholemeal manna and bio-produced ambrosia raining from heaven, all vegan of course."

[Simmy]

The idea that wind and solar will replace oil has always been a pipe dream.
Its a nice though but not very practical. We would need to give up all of our farmland to put up windmills and solar panels.
Not to mention there are very powerful companies sitting on a whole lot of oil that don't want the world to run on anything but oil.

[Skybird]

The author you have cited is probably Ideology-driven and/or on the payroll of fossil fuel vendors and nuke supporter?

10 Huge German Solar Energy Myths Bjørn Lomborg is Trumpeting (http://cleantechnica.com/2012/03/02/solar-energy-myths-lomborg/ )
"Lomborg is infamous for denying the need for clean energy action to stop human-caused global warming, and for claiming that scientists’ concerns about global warming are overblown", says cleantechnica.com.

There is a political polarisation surrounding environmental issues.

If I may quote you for example when you say in the above posting:

"The Greens have established a surrogate religion where economy and the big enemies of mankind, the "rich", are Satan, and believing the Green credo frees you from all sins and paves your way into recycled heaven with wholemeal manna and bio-produced ambrosia raining from heaven, all vegan of course."
The author is controversially received, because his opinions swims against the mainstream. Some of the ten points in the list you linked, are wrong and false in themselves.

He does not say to skip renewables, but he shows a trend that is oppsoite of many of the mondern believes held in public dicussions. He says that in the curreent format, Germany's Ernergiewende-model is unsustainable and that so heavily subsidized wind and solar power necessarily must mean to increasse its incompetitveness. Since I pay may own electroicity bill and see how it has coinstantly risen sharply due to the solar and win electriocty, and kn owing that our model makes power the more expensive the sunnier and windier the day is thanks to the state-intervention in price regulation, I think he is right.

What he wants is that more money if funded in technological research and innovation to make renewables what they currently are not: competitive. When they are cheaper than fossil and nuclear, then they will conquer the world.

If you do not like him, you will like this book even worse, although it is reasonably arguing and very substantially researched:

http://www.amazon.de/Die-kalte-Sonne-Klimakatastrophe-stattfindet/dp/3455502504/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1377700914&sr=8-3&keywords=Vahrenhold

http://www.welt.de/politik/deutschland/article111770467/Es-wird-angstgetriebene-Energiepolitik-betrieben.html

Even the IPCC panel , highly dubious in itself, recently cautiously moved and admitted that the climate plateau of the past 15 years does no longer meet any of the so far used model'S predictions. This does not mean that Eath is not warming up, I think it still does, but it means that we have no solid understanding of how the process materialises over time in phases and symptoms (storing energy from sunlight not in the atmosphere but in the oceans, for example).

Too much fear-mongering, to recruit new believers and make them pay willingly. Also, it is about huge transfer payments from North to South.

I was forced to revise some of my earlier views from several years ago, when I realised that theories I based on no longer worked reliably, when certain timetables collapsed. It then is good scientific habit to admit that they do not work too well.

The truth may be out there, yes. But it is more complex than recently imagined. It is claimed to be heresy to say that, however. Too many interests, last but not least powerpolitical and financial interests, depend on the green dogma being kept alive in the form it was preached over the past 15 years.

[Dan D]

@electricity prices in Germany

"German Solar Bringing Down Price of Afternoon Electricity, Big Time! "(More Charts & Facts) (http://cleantechnica.com/2012/03/23/german-solar-bringing-down-price-of-afternoon-electricity-big-time-more-charts-facts/)

AND: Mr. Terium, the CEO of German Energy giant RWE:

CEO of Energy Giant RWE: 'The Nuclear Power Chapter Has Come to an End'
(http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/rwe-s-new-ceo-terium-to-halt-nuclear-power-and-invest-in-renewables-a-841260.html )

„Terium: The impact of current political decisions and market changes extends far beyond Germany. The large amounts of wind and solar energy that are being fed into the grid, together with the economic crisis, have led to a sharp decline in electricity prices.

SPIEGEL: But consumers in Germany now have to pay more for their electricity.

Terium: Yes, because government levies for new, renewable forms of energy, electricity grids and storage facilities drive up the price of electricity. The price we receive for generating power is currently so low that it's simply irresponsible to build an expensive nuclear power plant in Europe. The nuclear power chapter has come to an end for us.“ [in Germany]

[mapuc]

I live now in a area where we get our electricity from solar panel and wind power and we get our warmwater a.s.o from solar collector and we pay about 5 times more than an average danish person do in his house in other place in Denmark.

Markus

[Skybird]

You just confirm what i say, DanD. In Germany the power price becomes the higher, due to the subsidies, the more renewable from wind and solar is produced. Take away the subsidies, and nobody would have bought solar panels.

That is not a functioning and healthy system.

The powergrid is also not ready to transport power from the windy North to the industrial South. More money there is needed, making it even more expensive, forseeably.

Germany in Winter has been repeatedly close to blackouts since three years now. Reserves had to be bought from Austria, Poland and France. Nuclear and coal-produced reserves :)

Before Germany suffered so dearly from Fukushima, our energy situation was stable. Now it is not.

And the private households have to pay significantly more every year. My bill has climbed constantly, too. Although I managed to slightly reduce energy consumption for the fourth year in a row now. The price per kW-hour has risen and more than ate update the saved difference.

The energy revolution is not run by market logic, but ideology. Thats why it sooner or later will be so expensive for the ordinary households that they cannot afford it anymore. Demand for more socialist robbing of the wealthy will grow louder then. A subsidized system does not develope competitiveness. That is the purpose kf subsidies, a workaround for something that is not competitive.

You see the same with the jnsanity Germany has installed regarding house. isolations and making them energy-efficient. The gains are small, are causing many negative sideeffects and followup-costs, and the costs are so high that many ordinary house owners cannot stem them and that even after 20 years the costs have not been compensated by energy-savings. It is ideology-driven madness.

Too little is gained at too high costs, and with too many negative side-effects. That is the main criticism here.

http://deutsche-wirtschafts-nachrichten.de/2013/07/05/erneuerbare-energien-treiben-strompreise-fuer-unternehmen-in-die-hoehe/

And as you know as well as I do, electricity costs for the industry are protected and lower than for private people. The trend for households is even sharper.

[August]

I live now in a area where we get our electricity from solar panel and wind power and we get our warmwater a.s.o from solar collector and we pay about 5 times more than an average danish person do in his house in other place in Denmark.

Markus


Nah, it's the same thing in Maine. They're putting up these godawful looking wind turbines on every mountain, hill and bump but the local people who have to look at the ugly things don't get any benefit from it. In fact their taxes will likely go up to pay for infrastructure improvements to ship the electricity off to Canada where it will be sold back to them at a profit.

[WernherVonTrapp]

These babies are popping up all over New Jersey. They're meant to collect electrical energy from the sun and pump it back into the grid in order to save on the fuels that run the generators.
Savings for the comsumer? $0.00
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2011/04/28/nyregion/SOLAR1/SOLAR1-articleLarge.jpg

http://www.theblaze.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/solarpanelonpoles.jpg

[Dan D]

You just confirm what i say, DanD. In Germany the power price becomes the higher, due to the subsidies, the more renewable from wind and solar is produced. Take away the subsidies, and nobody would have bought solar panels.

That is not a functioning and healthy system.



Not necessarily did I confirm what you say, Skybird.
I am not even sure, if I understand what you are aiming at by bringing this topic up the way you did.

@subsidies
There are subsidies not only for renewable energy but also for fossil fuels and nuclear power.

What happens if you take away the subsidies for fossil fuels and nuclear power? What about EU subsidies for farmers?

Germany has recently cut its subsidies for renewal energy actually, but also notice that “ since 2007 the nation (Germany) has accounted for 30 to 50 percent of the planet's annual solar PV capacity“.

Put the quoted statement into the context of the Lombergs statement, which was: „To be sure, wind and solar have increased dramatically. Since 1990, wind-generated power has grown 26% per year and solar a phenomenal 48%. But the growth has been from almost nothing to slightly more than almost nothing. In 1990, wind produced 0.0038% of the world’s energy; it is now producing 0.29%. Solar-electric power has gone from essentially zero to 0.04%.“

„Vot iss“???

Germany`s problem surely lies somewhere else:
"The Renewable Energy Act (EEG), which costs about €7 billion a year, is structured to degress as installations climb, thus maintaining steady internal rates of return (IRR) for projects, and generally keeping pace with plunging PV costs. "

Read: EEG „structured to degress, maintaining steady internal rates of return, keeping pace with plunging PV costs.“

"In the first few weeks of 2012, though, German officials realized they had a big problem: preliminary estimates indicated new solar PV installations in 2011 leaped to a record 7.5 GW in 2011, far outpacing the country's 2.5 to 3.5 GW plans -- with a whopping 3 GW in December 2011 alone, thanks to mild weather and desires to get installs done before the next scheduled FiT reductions in January."
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2012/02/germanys-new-solar-containment-policy

A study by the German Solar Industry Association has found out that „Solar power reduces electricity trading prices by up to ten percent“

If that true, how does the German Solar Industry Association explain the fact that electricity costs for households are rising?:

„However, household consumers do not benefit from the price-reduction effects. In fact, the opposite is true: The calculation methodology for the EEG Apportionment actually results in higher prices for private consumers because they have to cover the differential costs between cheap, peak demand power and guaranteed feed-in remuneration. If the price-reduction effect of photovoltaics was factored into EEG Apportionment payments, it would result in a price reduction of 0.15 cents per kilowatt-hour for household consumers.“

The wholesalers and large-scale power users on the other hand:
„At the present time, the price-reduction effect primarily benefits wholesalers and large-scale power users who obtain their power on the spot market. Thus, current solar policies allow lucrative double dipping on the part of power-intensive industries. Firstly, they benefit from lower purchase prices on the power market, and secondly they gain significant exemption from EEG Apportionment payments (apportionment payments set down by the Renewable Energy Sources Act)“
http://www.solarwirtschaft.de/en/media/single-view/?tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=14492&cHash=6caa4a57ebf519654a3a1c8151c31d62

[Tribesman]

That article is weird, not only does it somehow include coal in its warnings about biomass, but it also warns of a "growing" risk to health that somehow has halved in a short time.
So.... Such unfriendly numbers can really ruin your daydreams, eh?
....applies to the daydreams of the author, who is also very light on broaching things like water, as I suppose those numbers would ruin his daydream too:rotfl2:
That graph seems very iffy too:hmmm:
How can all global renewables amount to 12% when a single renewable currently provides 16%?
Actually when you look at the sources he cites you find most of the claims are absolute bollox, if he has to make up figures to make a point he has very little real point to make.:down: