> Now renewables are competitive with fossil fuels
This isn't true. They might be competitive in a shallow sense (price per kWh) but in terms of benefit (specifically, reliability and output capacity), they're barely a sniff—hence the nightmare in Europe right now.
That doesn't even factor in the fossil fuels and emissions that need to be expended to create those renewables (which are greater than the individual renewable will ever offset in its lifetime).
How would being more reliant on fossil fuels help them now? The problem is they are struggling to import enough. If they had more fossil fuel plants and less wind and solar they'd have to import even more fossil fuels.
> That doesn't even factor in the fossil fuels and emissions that need to be expended to create those renewables (which are greater than the individual renewable will ever offset in its lifetime).
False. There have been dozens of lifecycle analysis studies they find a more than 10x advantage of solar and wind over gas per kwh.
> How would being more reliant on fossil fuels help them now? The problem is they are struggling to import enough.
Right. That problem exists because they drew back their own fossil fuel production to switch to renewables which are not providing the commensurate energy required, forcing them to go to outside providers.
> False. There have been dozens of lifecycle analysis studies they find a more than 10x advantage of solar and wind over gas per kwh.
Now do the factories to produce the components in the renewables, the trucks to ship the components, the equipment to install the components, the trucks to get the workers to maintain the components, etc. Batteries? You need massive trucks that can only run on diesel to mine the metals necessary to make them work.
You're releasing insane amounts of emissions and wasting tons of energy just to say you're not on paper. It's absolute lunacy.
> Right. That problem exists because they drew back their own fossil fuel production to switch to renewables which are not providing the commensurate energy required, forcing them to go to outside providers.
The North Sea was by far their biggest field for oil and gas and it is in sharp decline despite continued exploration. Even Norway is still exploring. The other big producer was the Netherlands, they closed their gas field because of earthquakes.
> Now do the factories to produce the components in the renewables, the trucks to ship the components, the equipment to install the components, the trucks to get the workers to maintain the components, etc. Batteries? You need massive trucks that can only run on diesel to mine the metals necessary to make them work.
As I said, dozens of life cycle analysis studies take all of this into account and come to the conclusion of a more than 10x advantage.
> The goal of such assessments is to cover the full life of the source, from material and fuel mining through construction to operation and waste management.
So the studies should already be including everything you mentioned.
That still doesn't account for the scale of deployment necessary to make up for the missing power requirements (the entire point I'm making) which, if I had to guess, would make this "10x" number irrelevant, if not laughable.
For example, a quick check [1]:
> Peak power production for the coal power plant was in July 2020 (719GWh) which was also the month for the lowest output for wind (34.6GWh). In July, the wind turbines produced just 4.8% of the power produced by the coal power plant while operating at only 9.4% of rated capacity. In the month of July, it would require at least 3,764 similar sized wind turbines to replace the electricity generated by the coal power plant which was operating at just 47% of rated capacity.
Those figures are intentionally presented in as misleading as possible a way.
Cost of net power with sufficient availability is the relevant metric, as that's how things are compared cost wise.
So if we take the figures from the article, you're comparing a 128MW net wind farm (which is around $30/MWh) to a 1681MW coal plant (which is around $60/MWh for existing plants) and then doing a shocked pikachu face when that specific wind farm spends some time producing 36MW.
Put another wind farm in an uncorrelated or anticorrelated area, and you are paying the same per MW on the worst month, but you have 100% surplus to export or incentivise storage development in the average month.
Ah yes. Everything that is not solar or wind had massive failures due to market and climate.
The small contribution from the solar and wind is operating about as per normal.
Must have been because we built too much solar and wind, not too little.
What a hilariously bad argument.
> That doesn't even factor in the fossil fuels and emissions that need to be expended to create those renewables (which are greater than the individual renewable will ever offset in its lifetime).
This is a strict multiple of energy payback time, which is somewhere between 6 months and 5 years with current generation panels, and 1 month to 3 years with wind. Depending on how far down the fossil fuel pipeline that goes up a bit, but you have to multiply your fossil fuels by the same factor. It's so far from equal that it's not worth considering, and it gets further from equal as the renewable portion of silicon refining and composite manufacture increase.
> Must have been because we built too much solar and wind, not too little.
Is that what I said? No. They started turning off fossil fuel power plants—and ironically, nuclear—to precipitate the move to renewables and improve their emissions scores relative to in-country energy production.
That led to reliance on third-party producers like Russia for actual baseload energy (because they're well aware renewables can't/won't cut it) and then had the bright idea to place sanctions on Russia who promptly cut them off.
The whole thing is a giant circle jerk to fit into the PCA/ESG scams (which are low-key money laundering operations). The solution to climate change was/is nuclear power (and stuff like this [1]), which go figure, the same malthusian parasites who have found a blood source in government and NGOs continue to ignore in favor of less-viable solutions (wind, solar, and batteries).
The demise of the whole thing is all but booked and it's deeply enjoyable to watch all of the zealots backing it scramble. I only hope that their foolishness doesn't lead to people being hurt/killed.
> Is that what I said? No. They started turning off fossil fuel power plants—and ironically, nuclear—to precipitate the move to renewables and improve their emissions scores relative to in-country energy production.
Yes that's exactly what you said. You didn't say 'the total amount of slack in the system was reduced' or 'old powerplants were turned off before having a full replacement'. You framed it as a consequence of using wind and solar.
And keeping the nuclear power plants on wouldn't have helped during the heat wave because they were all failing too.
No, that’s what you inferred and presented as something I said.
They weren’t failing. They voted to phase them out [1].
And France made a similar bonehead mistake: there were regulations put in place by the government after the 2003 heatwave regarding water temperature limits [2] and wildlife which forced them to be powered down. Hilariously enough, they chose to do this not just during a heatwave, but also when there was a massive maintenance backlog due to the pandemic.
So, yes, they would have helped immensely.
As per usual, the government and their zealots created the mess and blamed it on someone else. These people are halfwits and their destruction will be of great benefit and security to humanity.
So how does nuclear, gas and coal being vulnerable to politicking making it less reliable relate to the wind and solar which was working just fine? Also being able to have a backlog of maintenance because your power generation is incredibly fragile and centralised sounds really bad. If only there was another way.
You're really selling small modular power generation with fewer failure modes quite well here. You're making the other options sound less reliable with each comment. Do you work for the solar lobby?
This isn't true. They might be competitive in a shallow sense (price per kWh) but in terms of benefit (specifically, reliability and output capacity), they're barely a sniff—hence the nightmare in Europe right now.
That doesn't even factor in the fossil fuels and emissions that need to be expended to create those renewables (which are greater than the individual renewable will ever offset in its lifetime).