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.
Sounds like ethanol - takes more energy to make than can be gotten out of it... Same with most 'renewables'. But that will change with one breakthrough invention... It'll happen IF we can keep our free market economy going - (without a lot of social chaos) and have strong incentives in place for 'garage type' innovation.
If the government is to spend money on research, it should be on nuclear and fusion. Those can supply us with energy for thousands of years.
IMO people like Gore, CLinton, Bam bam know its a scam. Thats why it was invented, to push govt control.
Doesn’t that allow the large providers to scale back their operations? One of the problems we have on the West Coast is that they don’t want to build any more infrastructure. We skim by each summer with barely enough electrical power to avoid brown-outs or even black-outs.
This should ease that pressure somewhat. What’s your take on that?
Does it matter if it GMO ethanol or non GMO ethanol? (sarc)
You probably know this, but at times you’ll produce more than you need, and your meter runs backwards. Then at times you’ll need some from the grid too. Of course this depends on whether you set it up this way and are still connected to the grid.
Yes, and if you plan from the beginning with that goal in mind, you can accomplish a lot.
That sounds interesting. The heat differential topic is one I’d like to know more about. Seems to me it could be utilized a lot more than it is.
Here in the People's Republik of Kalifornia, electricity is delivered at subsidized rates for a low baseline usage, with the price doubling or quadrupling at higher levels of usage.
The result is a transfer of money from heavy users to light users. For the heavy users, this creates the possibility of installing relatively expensive systems to decrease usage.
Without the redistribution of wealth created by the progressive agenda, the chances are probably pretty good that NOBODY would install such systems.
The kilowatt-hour rate for my daughter in Oregon is about one-fourth of my rate in the PRK.
“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”
Silly statement from a Lefty, fellow Libertards and the GOPe are fully invested in looting the Tresuries with Rebates for Electric Cars, Windmills, Solar panels and so on.
No. If we use it IN ADDITION solar power is useful but it can not carry the whole load. Neither can bio-mass (you would have to clear cut all the trees in Canada every year) or any of the other stuff they dream about. Certainly not wind.
In addition they are nice and if they quit this stupid "farm" idea and scatter them around they even add nicely to the energy grid.
On their own though they don't work. It is not the power for homes or personal transportation that is the problem. It is the power for everything else.
True.
California holds so much promise, and yet as a potential paradise it has been just about totally ruined by Leftists.
This is what our Legislature spends it’s waking hours on, sticking it to (basically) citizens who apply themselves, to those who don’t, many of which are illegals that take funds under the table.
You mean we’re not going to get that wind powered car or (even better) airplane the greenies promised? Totally disappointing.
It seems to me the single family dwelling, or at least single location power generation is much more feasible. Even if you just cut your publicly supplied energy consumption in half, you’ve accomplished quite a bit.
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Since private personal energy use is such a pittance of the grid, I cannot see that it is very helpful.
While I run my home mostly on solar I agree it is not for large scale yet. It may one day, but, like everything
from the lefties, they try to make everyone do what they want and hope that will force the industry to make it work.
Here in Southern California we are at the breaking point on power supply. If as you say the SFD is a pittance, even if it amounted to 10 or 20%, that would ease the pressure on the grid so there wouldn’t have to be rolling blackouts and the like.
They simply refuse to build new infrastructure, as if keeping the power off during the day is going to resolve problems in the long run.
Why is that a “shocker”?
Renewable energy has been an obvious fraud for years and years.
Here in Southern California we are at the breaking point on power supply. If as you say the SFD is a pittance, even if it amounted to 10 or 20%, that would ease the pressure on the grid so there wouldn’t have to be rolling blackouts and the like.
They simply refuse to build new infrastructure, as if keeping the power off during the day is going to resolve problems in the long run.
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Sounds like your masters need to be tarred and feathered or hanged. Why help them keep a boot on your necks. Let it get tough. That is how change happens.
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