When I used to live in Glendale, California, I noted from reports from the Glendale DWP that most of the power used by the city--and by the state--was imported from places like Utah. Power would be generated in Utah, then shipped by power transmission lines to Glendale.
I live in Utah... I wonder what effect this will have on my power prices.
You are, assuming, there _is_ excess energy from solar (which only happens during the day)... and we have huge racks of batteries nearby to store the "excess"
Using excess solar for electrolysis of water is one possibility of energy storage. While batteries are an option too, the disposal of battery technologies like lithium-ion, lead acid, and nickel-cadmium present their own problems. Sodium-ion seems to be a better possibility in the future as well but they have only recently been available..
1 - The drop in Russia fossil fuel dependence isn’t voluntary
In your earlier post, you said: "Europe has massively INCREASED dependence on Russian energy". Did you lie?
Germany’s zero fuel production is a misleading stat - there are very significant natural gas reserves in nearby European nations,
When I say Germany for example has zero oil and gas production I mean the country of Germany. Your claim that it is misleading because countries near Germany has production is basically another lie.
yet Germany chose to expand GAZPROM. One of their leaders - Schroder IIRC - even joined the company after stepping down.
Comrade, you just gave up the fact you are Russian. Nice try Putin.
It’s been calculated that Europe has sent at least as much money to Russia to purchase its oil and natural gas as Europe has spent on supporting Ukraine’s defense.
Citation needed, Comrade Putin.
Did I ignore that coal requires machines to produce energy?
You left out the fact coal needs machines to collect.
No. I'm pointing out that in every case we need to build machines to collect and convert energy that exists in our environment into something useful. It is because we need these machines that no energy is "free". Most of all we need energy to produce these machines, and that forms a basis for comparing the utility of different energy sources.
Terrible comparisons does not excuse your misstatements.
How do the different energy sources compare on the energy return on energy invested
You presented none of this. Your only statements were how bad solar was while not disclosing the coal was far worse.
Fossil fuels land around 30 on EROEI. Onshore wind, hydro, and nuclear fission do better. The other options most people would considerr do worse or aren't listed.
Pure EROI does not factors like pollution, supply chains, and practicality. Ignoring things seems to be your modus operandi.
Did I "rig the comparisons" on solar power?
Presenting the costs and requirements of one thing while ignoring the other option has higher requirements is rigging. Like I said you can say renting a house is cheaper than owning because owning requires a mortgage and utilities.
Only if you believe I had some influence on studies done in Germany.
What studies? Is this yet another thing you did not present to anyone?
I can't speak German but I visited the place once. It's a nice place, great food, and as someone that grew up in an area with plenty of people with German ancestry it was a bit like "going home" for me. Germany has been quite committed to renewable energy for some time now so they'd be quite interested in getting the most out of their investment in wind, solar, hydro, or whatever but they could not reach the EROEI of nuclear fission.
Again. You are relying on a single factor. Other factors have no place in your world. By your logic, every country in the world should use nuclear then coal despite the fact coal and nuclear fuel do not exist everywhere.
If you have a better metric to choose for a fair comparison then I'd like to see it.
How about looking at the real world? Coal plants are being shut down even in red states. The main reason: they are more expensive (despite your EROI factor) to operate than other types of plants. That operating cost does not include the fact they pollute more.
Based on studies I've seen on varied energy sources I've become convinced that it is only a matter of time before nations all over the world, including Germany, will learn that for the best return on investment they should be producing energy from hydro, onshore wind, geothermal, and nuclear fission. Failure to use energy sources with the highest return will put them at a disadvantage economically compared to nations that do use the energy sources with the highest return.,
So no one should use solar because you only rely on one factor in your calculation for the entire world. You don't see a problem with your analysis?
I'm sorry, are you saying to deploy solar panels to power water/electrolysis to generate electricity from water so you can have electricity when the sun is down?
I am saying using burning hydrogen is one method that can used when solar is not available.
Why not simply store the excess solar energy?
There are alternatives like battery banks, molten salt, compressed air. All of these will depend on what is available in the location. Using a closed loop hydrogen/water loop is a possbility.
Do you want a rifle to look like a cane to be legal? That's their choice, right? It's deceptive and people could be harmed by this deception,
Talk about false comparisons and outright lies. A veggie burger is LABELED as vegetarian (and sometimes vegan). To say it is "deceptive" is as idiotic as saying it is deceptive that margarine looks like butter and is not butter. It is on the label.
such as in another comment about the poster's daughter having an severe allergic reaction because something was labeled as "yogurt" when it was some kind of artificial concoction that contained nuts. Granted, the product was labeled as containing nuts but this was in small print and easily missed.
So in another post unrelated to your demand that the world conform to you, someone misread the label for an ingredient to which his daughter was allergic. Do you have a point?
I don't know any true vegetarians. I live in the Midwest USA where (if I recall correctly) the pigs outnumber the people.
So you don't know of anyone who actually uses these products but everyone should conform to your wishes. Basically: it does not affect you if veggie burgers are sold in your local store, but screw any vegetarians as the stores should not offer it.
Without realizing I had visited a kosher sandwich shop and asked for a ham and swiss on rye only to be told they had no ham. As I recall a beef and cheddar sandwich wasn't on the menu either. I don't remember what I ate but whatever it was didn't land in my top five list of sandwiches I like. I learned to pay better attention to the sandwich shops I visit.
Dude, what is the point of this story? To illustrate how ignorant you are of other people's dietary restrictions? As soon as you said, "kosher", I already knew they would have 0 pork products. Zero. That's part of being "kosher".
I grew up on a dairy farm in a largely Catholic community with many people that have ancestry from Ireland and Germany. We eat a lot of beef and cheese, with fish being the most popular option on Fridays though apparently that's a rule that's not followed as rigorously today as when I was a kid. So, if there's an objection to pork for maintaining kosher or halal then there's beef. If there's an objection to red meat because of Christian tradition then it's fish. While i was in the Army I noticed the dining facility kept peanut butter sandwiches on hand if there was some objection to whatever protein was offered, the staff got a bit annoyed at one recruit that kept asking for the peanut butter sandwich at a certain point in our training cycle but the Army rules on diet required them to comply with the request in spite of their annoyance.
Again: You don't have to eat the veggie burger. But you are adamant that no one else have them either because they are made in a certain form factor for convenience.
I've been to gatherings to watch a game before and I don't recall anyone offering a vegetarian option. I'd guess that if someone was a vegetarian they'd fill up on cheesy chips. If they believed dairy was also something they'd rather not eat then maybe they'd eat only the chips? Not eat anything? Bring their own food? Ask for a peanut butter sandwich like that picky eater.
So in summary: in your world there are no vegetarians. But in your world you find it deceptive that no one has offered something that looks like meat but isn't. In other words, it has not affected nor will affect you but the world must conform to your wishes regardless.
Most of these statements are at best half true. The issue is the poster uses "local" to mean country only while discussing all of Europe.
Europe has massively INCREASED dependence on Russian energy by phasing out local energy production
Europe has decreased dependence on Russian energy overall since Ukraine. While imports increased this year, Europe has reduced their dependence by 90%. This is simply not true.
Europe has massively INCREASED foreign industry dependence by phasing out local industry
The phrasing of this is somewhat true and somewhat false. Individually countries have phased out certain national initiatives. For example, Germany has closed their nuclear plants; however, German has massively installed wind power to replace these plants. From the standpoint of oil and gas, Norway has replaced Russia by becoming Europe's largest exporter of oil and gas.
Europe could easily have instead phased out dependence on foreign energy while maintaining its own industrial and energy production
For individual countries that has never been true. Germany for example has zero oil and gas production. They rely on Norway, the Netherlands, and the US for these things. However Germany has the largest base of wind power.
... all their climate destroying economic growth? Concrete dwarfs many other carbon contributors, and last time I went to California there was a f-ton of concrete. They even built roads out of the stuff. But pay no attention to that, look over here, we just stopped using coal!
[sarcasm]Yes because no other state or country uses concrete any more. Red states avoid concrete entirely as concrete is too "woke". Texas replaced concrete is their massive highway system with hopes and prayers. [/sarcasm]
I'm fine with onshore wind power for the most part as that doesn't consume land like solar power does but it is still limited in power per land area which means island nations like Japan and UK can't rely on wind power to meet their energy needs. They will need nuclear fission and I'm seeing announcements from leaders that recognize this.
1) You do know that offshore wind power exists right? 2) Japan's wind power generation as of 2023: 5.2GW. UK in 2023: 16GW onshore, 15 GW offshore. The UK in fact has the largest offshore capacity than any other country in Europe.
How can I call coal power free? It's just sitting there waiting to be dug up an burned. How is solar power different from this? Sure, the sun shines down upon us with regularity but we'd still need to build the devices to collect the sunlight and turn it into useful energy. As those devices experience wear they need to be replaced now and then to keep the energy flowing. This costs money.
And I am not sure how you ignored all the requirements of one technology while listing the requirements of the other? Coal production requires machinery and labor for coal "to be dug up." Then there is transportation costs. Coal needs steam boilers at a minimum to produce power. All of these cost money and plants need maintenance. In fact the main reason why coal power plants has been closed in the US is they cost more to operate than other plants especially natural gas plants.
Solar power is not free. If solar power can be defined as "free" then so can most any other energy source we use.
Only if you are willing to rig the comparisons. It would be saying renting a house is cheaper than owning a house as long as I don't include the rent and utilities on one side and the mortgage on the other side.
Surely you're going to spend more money cracking water to get the hydrogen molecules than you'll get burning the hydrogen gas later.
Most likely the process will use solar power for electrolysis of water into hydrogen gas. From the standpoint of timing, excess solar power would be used to create hydrogen gas which could be store and used at night or other times when solar cannot be used.
And what cthulhu-inspired process are they using that "environmentalists" are clutching their pearls about H2 and O2 gasses?
Environmentalists are rightfully concerned that the most common source of large scale hydrogen gas creation is processing natural gas, coal, and oil. Such processes release CO2 as the main byproducts.
But they're all sensitive to extreme cold for different reasons. Not sure what oil's problem was (besides not having enough), but nuke plants need cooling water and have to shut down when their source freezes, and natural gas pipe lines actually have hydrates in them that makes the pipes ice up and clog in the cold.
The problem detailed in the aftermath report was that the power companies did not winterize operations despite a warning 10 years earlier that predicted a major snowstorm would cripple the network. In 2013, a major storm almost took down the Texas grid. Being deregulated, there was no state body that could force the companies to do so in the 10 years after the first warning.
The Aptera is an expensive, low function, unsafe unrepairable two seat car that is at best 20% more efficient than a Model 3.
You might be right about the rest, but the Aptera is far more efficient than a Model 3. The published numbers put it at about 110 Wh/mile, while the Model 3 is at 230 Wh/mile. And, frankly, the Aptera numbers seem a little high for a vehicle with a 0.13 drag coeffiecient and with one less wheel. I think the Aptera design should be able to do better than 100 Wh/mile. Obviously, it's hard to make an accurate comparison between a real-world car and one that is basically vaporware, but something would have to be seriously screwed up for a design as light and aerodynamic as the Aptera to be barely better than a Model 3.
A list is only as strong as its weakest link. -- Don Knuth
