The folly of wind and solar as energy sources

[Anonymous]

What makes some people want "intermittent" power like those ugly turbines that destroy natural landscapes  or ruined / wasted fields of solar panels?

They only want YOU to have intermittent power. They will have diesel powered generators for their mansions.

[cc]

Good point for the filthy rich, but what I can't wrap my head around is what drives the legions of regular (or no) income lemmings following them

[Anonymous]

The denier label scares them.

[Thiel]

Energy is neither renewable nor sustainable. Energy generated for human use cannot be 'green', 'clean', 'renewable' or 'sustainable'. These words are all part of the 'greenwashing' or 'sugar-coating' vocabulary used for the benefit of corporate or political interests, or simply words of misunderstanding. They have no foundation in rigorous scientific language or thought.



Humans increasingly wish to convert solar radiation into different forms of energy such as electricity or fuel, that can do work. This can only be achieved by creating devices or machines to convert one form of energy into another and the resources for those devices come from the Earth's crust. Those devices have a finite life span and depend on yet further infrastructure (transport, cities, factories, universities, police, etc.) to maintain and operate them, which in turn has a finite life span. Continued mining, refining and manufacturing is required.



The amount of energy captured from the sun by such devices can never be enough to restore the Earth to its original condition. This is determined by the second law of thermodynamics. So the process of mining, building and manufacturing, to convert and use energy, inexorably depletes and degrades the Earth's mineral resources. It is irreversible and unsustainable. It makes no difference whether we consider solar, wind, hydro, coal, bio, nuclear or geothermal energy. They are all unsustainable according to the laws of physics.

[Thiel]

Surprising science — There's no such thing as clean energy



A meticulous new review published in the scientific journal, Energies, conducted by a team of Irish and US-based researchers including CERES researchers, raises surprising and unsettling questions about the feasibility and the environmental impacts of the transition to renewable energy sources. Concern for climate change has driven massive investment in new "green energy" policies intended to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and other environmental impacts from the fossil fuel industry. The world spent US$3,660 billion on climate change projects over the eight-year period 2011–2018. A total of 55% of this sum was spent on solar and wind energy, while only 5% was spent on adapting to the impacts of extreme weather events.



https://miro.medium.com/max/2370/1*dGRiGI5ZS5AwHwglDC7VTg.jpeg">

Surprising environmental impacts

The researchers discovered that renewable energy sources sometimes contribute to problems they were designed to solve. For example, a series of international studies have found that both wind and solar farms are themselves causing local climate change. Wind farms increase the temperature of the soil beneath them, and this warming causes soil microbes to release more carbon dioxide. So, ironically, while wind energy might be partially reducing human "carbon emissions", it is also increasing the "carbon emissions" from natural sources.

https://miro.medium.com/max/2400/1*b8dmmbm7aIzmdWm8XV-qRg.jpeg">

Green energy technologies require a 10-fold increase in mineral extraction compared to fossil fuel electricity. Similarly, replacing just 50 million of the world's estimated 1.3 billion cars with electric vehicles would require more than doubling the world's annual production of cobalt, neodymium, and lithium, and using more than half the world's current annual copper production.

Solar and wind farms also need 100 times the land area of fossil fuel-generated electricity, and these resulting changes in land use can have a devastating effect on biodiversity. The effects of bioenergy on biodiversity are worse, and the increased use of crops such as palm oil for biofuels is already contributing to the destruction of rainforests and other natural habitats.

https://medium.com/@ronan_51814">https://medium.com/@ronan_51814



Politicians, crony capitalists and NGO's make very false claims about solar and wind energy.

[Thiel]

Perplexing financial implications

Surprisingly, more than half (55%) of all global climate expenditure in the years 2011‒2018 was spent on solar and wind energy ‒ a total of US$2,000 billion. Despite this, wind and solar energy still produced only 3% of world energy consumption in the year 2018, while the fossil fuels (oil, coal and gas) produced 85% between them. This raises pressing questions about what it would cost to make the transition to 100% renewable energies, as some researchers suggest.

As lead author Coilín ÓhAiseadha says:

"It cost the world $2 trillion to increase the share of energy generated by solar and wind from half a percent to three percent, and it took eight years to do it. What would it cost to increase that to 100%? And how long would it take?"

https://miro.medium.com/max/700/1*tw0BDpTZjPz-uVJgOG8RiQ.jpeg">



Daunting engineering challenges

Engineers have always known that large solar and wind farms are plagued by the so-called "intermittency problem". Unlike conventional electricity generation sources which provide continuous and reliable energy 24/7 on demand, wind and solar farms only produce electricity when there is wind or sunlight.

Dr Ronan Connolly, co-author of the new review, points out:

"The average household expects their fridges and freezers to run continuously and to be able to turn on and off the lights on demand. Wind and solar promoters need to start admitting that they are not capable of providing this type of continuous and on-demand electricity supply on a national scale that modern societies are used to,"

The problem is not easily solved by large-scale battery storage because it would require huge batteries covering many hectares of land. Tesla has built a large battery to stabilize the grid in South Australia. It has a capacity of 100 MW/129 MWh and covers a hectare of land. One of the papers reviewed in this new study estimated that, if the state of Alberta, Canada, were to switch from coal to renewable energy, using natural gas and battery storage as back-up, it would require 100 of these large batteries to meet peak demand.

Some researchers have suggested that the variations in energy production can be evened out by building continental electricity transmission networks, e.g., a network connecting wind farms in north-west Europe with solar farms in the south-east, but this requires massive investment. It is likely to create bottlenecks where the capacity of inter-connections is insufficient, and does not do away with the underlying vulnerability to lulls in sun and wind that can last for days on end.

[Thiel]

Hurting the poorest

A series of studies from Europe, the U.S. and China shows that carbon taxes tend to lay the greatest burden on the poorest households and rural-dwellers.

Although the primary motivation for green energy policies is concern over climate change, only 5% of climate expenditure has been dedicated to climate adaptation. Climate adaptation includes helping developing countries to better respond to extreme weather events such as hurricanes. The need to build climate adaptation infrastructure and emergency response systems may conflict with the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, because fossil fuels are generally the most readily available source of cheap energy for development.



With regards to indigenous peoples, the review highlights the fact that all energy technologies can have severe impacts on local communities, particularly if they are not properly consulted. Cobalt mining, required to make batteries for e-vehicles, has severe impacts on the health of women and children in mining communities, where the mining is often done in unregulated, small-scale, "artisanal" mines. Lithium extraction, also required for manufacturing batteries for e-vehicles, requires large quantities of water, and can cause pollution and shortages of fresh water for local communities.



As lead author, Coilín ÓhAiseadha, points out:

"There was worldwide coverage of the conflict between the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and the Dakota Access Pipeline, but what about the impacts of cobalt mining on indigenous peoples in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and what about the impacts of lithium extraction on the peoples of the Atacama Desert? Remember the slogan they chanted at Standing Rock? Mni Wiconi! Water is life! Well, that applies whether you're Standing Rock Sioux worried about an oil spill polluting the river, or you're in the Atacama Desert worried about lithium mining polluting your groundwater."



Overview of the paper

The review, published in a Special Issue of the journal Energies on 16 September, covers 39 pages, with 14 full-color figures and two tables, detailing the breakdown of climate change expenditure and the pros and cons of all of the various options: wind, solar, hydro, nuclear, fossil fuels, bioenergy, tidal and geothermal. For the review, the researchers searched meticulously through hundreds of research papers published throughout the whole of the English-speaking world, in a wide range of fields, including engineering, environment, energy and climate policy. The final report includes references to 255 research papers covering all of these fields, and it concludes with a table summarizing the pros and cons of all of the various energy technologies. Research team members were based in the Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland, and the United States.

The review was published as an open-access peer-review paper and can be downloaded for free from the following URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/18/4839">https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/18/4839 .

[Anonymous]

replacing just 50 million of the world's estimated 1.3 billion cars with electric vehicles would require more than doubling the world's annual production of cobalt, neodymium, and lithium, and using more than half the world's current annual copper production.

Solar and wind farms also need 100 times the land area of fossil fuel-generated electricity, and these resulting changes in land use can have a devastating effect on biodiversity. The effects of bioenergy on biodiversity are worse, and the increased use of crops such as palm oil for biofuels is already contributing to the destruction of rainforests and other natural habitats.

Wind and solar suck up more finite resources than fossil fuels.

[Anonymous]

https://scontent.fyxd1-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/162032691_10158672595710995_5191437582997834945_n.jpg?_nc_cat=104&ccb=1-3&_nc_sid=8bfeb9&_nc_ohc=qPs0nNoue2kAX-RCqOe&_nc_ht=scontent.fyxd1-1.fna&oh=3864b22fabdcf3884764fe2a780d24cf&oe=60799968">

[Anonymous]

https://scontent.fyxd1-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/162126308_616387845965947_9136830414803467547_o.jpg?_nc_cat=108&ccb=1-3&_nc_sid=730e14&_nc_ohc=A-dM_vKHhUsAX_2fsSJ&_nc_ht=scontent.fyxd1-1.fna&oh=aa6ec065be5823cb731b0f3818a47b33&oe=607C6214">

[Anonymous]

https://scontent.fyyc3-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/159208179_2824131021140489_3153877368808889194_o.jpg?_nc_cat=104&ccb=1-3&_nc_sid=730e14&_nc_ohc=EBpCUL1UpeIAX_wbaJd&_nc_ht=scontent.fyyc3-1.fna&oh=91c4913731bf82f42c2ed2414738b1bc&oe=6080862D">

[Anonymous]

We keep throwin good money after bad. We keep holding back real energy sources to create an artificial demand for diffuse energy sources that don't work, provide no jobs and require importing wind and solar panels to use land we can't spare.





Green program a 'market failure'



Federal auditors are calling the Renewable Energy Deployment Program a "market failure."



An internal report at the Department of Natural Resources that looked into the program from 2002-19 said that few green energy projects — like solar, wind and geothermal projects — can survive financially without subsidies, according to Blacklock's Reporter.



"The program clearly addresses a market failure," said the report, which added that "most projects would not have been financially viable" without aid from a program already costing $1.4 billion.



The program paid subsidies of a cent per kilowatt hour for greenenergy projects.



"None of the projects generated sufficient market revenues to be profitable without the Renewable Energy Deployment funding," the audit found. "The majority of the supported projects generated sufficient revenues to attain small surpluses with which they could pay off some of their capital costs."



The green-energy projects also qualified for provincial subsidies.



The auditors also said renewable energy, such as solar power, was unreliable in some harsh Canadian conditions.



"The energy outputs of the projects were in many cases different than what was anticipated," said the report.



"In most projects, natural conditions — such as (the intensity) of wind, solar and water sources — were different than anticipated, in some cases higher, others lower."



Hydroelectric dams accounted for most of Canada's electricity production — 60% — while nuclear plants in Ontario and New Brunswick contributed 15% of the nation's total.



Wind farms generated 5% and solar power accounted for only 0.6% of Canada's power production.

[Anonymous]

I want to see this.



How Canadian filmmaker and environmentalist Julia Barnes decided to take on renewable energy with Bright Green Lies

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/adv/article-how-canadian-filmmaker-and-environmentalist-julia-barnes-decided-to/?fbclid=IwAR1c8lbkSuWbSUG8IXUup9wZM-iYrhGFQ-KuvUHO-1SENt3QvwO33LlBnK0">https://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/ad ... wO33LlBnK0">https://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/adv/article-how-canadian-filmmaker-and-environmentalist-julia-barnes-decided-to/?fbclid=IwAR1c8lbkSuWbSUG8IXUup9wZM-iYrhGFQ-KuvUHO-1SENt3QvwO33LlBnK0



Renewable energy sources like wind and solar have long been seen as the key to reversing climate change. But a new documentary from Toronto-based environmentalist and filmmaker Julia Barnes challenges that notion. In Bright Green Lies, Barnes' second film based on a forthcoming book of the same name, the award-winning filmmaker highlights the environmental costs that come with building out renewable infrastructure – from the harms of mining for metals to create batteries and wind turbines to the adverse impact of dams on waterways and wildlife. The film argues the need for a radical reduction in how we consume energy, calling on Canadians to rethink how our society functions.



Here, Barnes talks about the process of making the film and the challenges her team faced.



What do you want the average viewer, or the average environmentalist, to take away from this film?



We need to understand that there is no green form of industrial energy production. We need to stop solving for the wrong variable and stop taking this high energy way of living as a given.



What was your most shocking discovery while making the film?

JB: The most surprising thing was finding out what the "green" tech industry's impact could be on the ocean. There are plans to mine the deep sea for materials that are used in batteries for electric cars and grid energy storage for solar and wind. The ocean could become a sacrifice zone in the name of consumption, including for green technology. We've got to wake up and realize there's nothing green about destroying the world.



Bright Green Lies will premiere virtually on April 22, Earth Day. The premiere will include a Q&A session with Barnes and the three authors of the book Bright Green Lies, Max Wilbert, Derrick Jensen and Lierre Keith. Visit brightgreenlies.com to get tickets.

[Anonymous]

Making concrete produces a lot of C02.

https://scontent.fyxd1-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.6435-9/169041199_10222661588901278_4726813754260368029_n.jpg?_nc_cat=106&ccb=1-3&_nc_sid=730e14&_nc_ohc=3GeTuDAk9NkAX_syZwH&_nc_ht=scontent.fyxd1-1.fna&oh=1e169b2daacb735f85fef64f35e2d3cf&oe=60918E2C">

[Anonymous]

"Green Energy"

Wind Turbine in Mahanoy, PA today 3/13/2021



[media]