Posted on 11/22/2014 11:38:11 AM PST by Vince Ferrer
A research effort by Google corporation to make renewable energy viable has been a complete failure, according to the scientists who led the programme. After 4 years of effort, their conclusion is that renewable energy “simply won’t work”.
“At the start of RE < C, we had shared the attitude of many stalwart environmentalists: We felt that with steady improvements to today’s renewable energy technologies, our society could stave off catastrophic climate change. We now know that to be a false hope … Renewable energy technologies simply won’t work; we need a fundamentally different approach.”
http://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/renewables/what-it-would-really-take-to-reverse-climate-change
There is simply no getout clause for renewables supporters. The people who ran the study are very much committed to the belief that CO2 is dangerous – they are supporters of James Hansen. Their sincere goal was not to simply install a few solar cells, but to find a way to fundamentally transform the economics of energy production – to make renewable energy cheaper than coal. To this end, the study considered exotic innovations barely on the drawing board, such as self erecting wind turbines, using robotic technology to create new wind farms without human intervention. The result however was total failure – even these exotic possibilities couldn’t deliver the necessary economic model.
The key problem appears to be that the cost of manufacturing the components of the renewable power facilities is far too close to the total recoverable energy – the facilities never, or just barely, produce enough energy to balance the budget of what was consumed in their construction. This leads to a runaway cycle of constructing more and more renewable plants simply to produce the energy required to manufacture and maintain renewable energy plants – an obvious practical absurdity.
According to the IEEE article;
“Even if one were to electrify all of transport, industry, heating and so on, so much renewable generation and balancing/storage equipment would be needed to power it that astronomical new requirements for steel, concrete, copper, glass, carbon fibre, neodymium, shipping and haulage etc etc would appear. All these things are made using mammoth amounts of energy: far from achieving massive energy savings, which most plans for a renewables future rely on implicitly, we would wind up needing far more energy, which would mean even more vast renewables farms – and even more materials and energy to make and maintain them and so on. The scale of the building would be like nothing ever attempted by the human race.”
I must say I’m personally surprised at the conclusion of this study. I genuinely thought that we were maybe a few solar innovations and battery technology breakthroughs away from truly viable solar power. But if this study is to be believed, solar and other renewables will never in the foreseeable future deliver meaningful amounts of energy.
I might tie it to the grid, but I’d have to study up on it more. I appreciate you mentioning what you’re already doing, and the pros and cons of the batter usage.
Thank you. Another good thing to know.
Thank you folks. I’ll keep you in mind if I have more questions. Appreciate the input.
I’ll be venturing out in the coming years, so don’t give up on me just yet. LOL
Yes. Comparatively (to a business), it’s probably a pittance.
“Doesn’t that allow the large providers to scale back their operations?”
No, if you are connected to the grid as a public utility the power company has to have the capacity to power your needs when you flip the switch.
If the power is available anything you add to generate your own power is redundant waste, and would never pay for itself in savings.
If you want backup in case of power failure buy a gas/diesel generator. That gives you power on demand when needed, and isn’t running when you don’t need it.
I think you posted that to the wrong person.
That article is already two years old. I’d wonder what’s been happening in north america in the subsequent two years as this is a fast moving technology sector. The Chinese for example have Pushed forward their development time for a thorium reactor by 15 years in March this year.
I’ll be venturing out in the coming years, so don’t give up on me just yet. LOL
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Get while the getting is good. We will always have room for you up here.
I was trying to be funny....I guess it didn’t work... :(
Technology Bump
Thanks ChickenSoup. I’ll keep that in mind. Appreciate the thought.
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