The climate change debate continues.

[spacesailor]

Never offered me one .

I just use old truck batteries .

But , if they offered . Who am I to refuse .

They could offer me " P V panels " For Free .

Save me dragging the portable solar panels out , whenever the sun shines . LoL

spacesailor

[Marty_d]

38 minutes ago, spacesailor said:

Never offered me one .

I just use old truck batteries .

But , if they offered . Who am I to refuse .

They could offer me " P V panels " For Free .

Save me dragging the portable solar panels out , whenever the sun shines . LoL

spacesailor

Kevin Rudd did give us free panels back in 2008 / 2009 or whenever.  We had a little 1.2kw installation done then for nothing.

[spacesailor]

But there's that $ 150 per month minimum power bill cut off. 

So left me off that list . not wealthy enough to get the grant . 

Now no rebates for the Poor, that need them .

spacesailor

[old man emu]

Hooray for wind turbines! They let us generate electricity without burning carbon-based fuels, thereby reducing the amount of extra CO2 being put into the atmosphere. However, these blades do wear out and have to be replaced. So what do you do with the old blades? Here's one solution. Watch until the end and then decide if it i actually an environmentally sound solution.

 

 

 

[pmccarthy]

[kgwilson]

A mix of solar, wind and storage is quite capable of maintaining a 24/7 supply of electricity.  In less than 5 years California has installed more than 10,000 Megawatts of storage batteries an increase of 1250%. In 40 of the last 45 days (20/4/24) clean energy exceeded grid demand during the day. This is just a start but remember that California has a population of 45 million with per capita energy demands far exceeding Australia.

 

https://www.gov.ca.gov/2024/04/25/california-achieves-major-clean-energy-victory-10000-megawatts-of-battery-storage/

 

If they had decided to go nuclear, apart from the astronomic cost the plant would not even be half built by now and they have nuclear experience with 2 plants operating now and 3 in various states of de-commissioning. Remember the cost of decommissioning a nuclear power plant can be multiple billions of dollars and take between 15 & 30 years.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_decommissioning#Costs

 

 

[old man emu]

Taiwan has been in the news due to being affected by a typhoon. Got me wondering how an island nation with such a big manufacturing base generated its electricity. Total Electricity generation of Taipower system in 2023 was 245.5TWh. Thermal power accounted for 81.8% of all; renewable energy, 9.9% (including wind, PV, hydro, methane and waste-fed power); pumped storage power, 1.2%; and nuclear power, 7.0%.

 

Now I know.

[onetrack]

"Thermal power" is a bit misleading. I was thinking geothermal power, but the definition "Thermal power" largely refers to gas-powered power plants, although coal is also called "Thermal".

Large areas of Asia, including Taiwan, are highly dependent on Australian LNG and coal, and will be, for a long time yet.

[old man emu]

I didn't know what PV renewable energy was. Deerrr. It's solar, Why can't they just call it that?

[kgwilson]

Because solar come in various forms using mirrors to melt salt or to heat water to produce steam to drive turbines and to heat various minerals and objects which then release the energy when it gets dark or cold. PV solar is the most common now and it it stands for Photo Voltaic Arrays where electrical energy is generated in PV cells by sunshine.

[spacesailor]

I have seen that " thermal solar " were the sun was directed onto an area creating steam! .

Also used for cooking 

by boiling Food in " hot springs " .

Not for me , I like my food fried/ roasted .

New fanged " camp cooking " .just isn't the same without that " camp fire " for the ' marshMallows ' . LoL

spacesailor

[pmccarthy]

The climate craziness continues in the UK. In 2021, 9.1m tonnes of wood pellets for use in energy production came from abroad – about 76% from North America and 18% from the EU. But this isn’t enough, so they are negotiating supply contracts with countries including North Korea, Bhutan and places in South America. Burning wood to generate electricity makes the same CO2 as coal, but apparently it is friendly CO2. And to hell with the forests.

[Jerry_Atrick]

We should be investing in solar and wind,but they are used in biofuel plants here. 

 

In 2022 there was a 30% drop in the imports, and according to this,https://www.resourcewise.com/forest-products-blog/uk-wood-pellet-imports-fell-30-to-a-ten-year-low-why, the co2 absorption during the trees' growth offsets the carbon produced in burning pellets made from them. I am not sure I entirely buy it, but there has to be at least partial offset so better than coal, which for power generation here is a thing of the past.

 

 

[nomadpete]

At least the trees can grow back. Dare I  use the word 'renew'?

 

Coal mines do not.

Edited October 9 by nomadpete

[spacesailor]

" trees can grow back, but coal "

I wonder were that coal came from .

spacesailor

[facthunter]

Trees and stuff like that. It's the next step on from PEAT. Shale is in there too.   Nev

[Jerry_Atrick]

1 hour ago, spacesailor said:

" trees can grow back, but coal "

I wonder were that coal came from .

spacesailor

While I don't entirely buy the carbon neutrality of it because ultimately it will depend on demand and time for regeneration, the time to use trees to generate coal sort of makes the above post a bit of a red herring

Edited October 10 by Jerry_Atrick

[old man emu]

No coal-fired generation in Great Britain. I guess anyone trying to get a contact to supply wood pellets is barking mad.

[spacesailor]

No coal ! .

There's lots in the ground .

Pity 'nasty thatcher' shut the " training colliery "

All the collieries are closed & no trained person to run them .

spacesailor

[onetrack]

The coal mines will never be missed. The cemeteries of every area where the coal mines are, are full of coal miners who died young - gassed, drowned, killed in rockfalls or gas explosions, killed when winders failed, or who died of "black lung disease".

 

My Scottish grandad lost his leg in a rockfall, and his only son, a mine manager, was gassed at age 44, leaving a young family. Only those who have never been in a coal mine still want them.

 

They incurred massive levels of deaths and injuries, and many of the victims were little more than children. Even when they didn't go down the mines, they were killed by mining machinery.

 

http://scottishmining.co.uk/5.html

 

 

[nomadpete]

10 hours ago, Jerry_Atrick said:

While I don't entirely buy the carbon neutrality of it because ultimately it will depend on demand and time for regeneration, the time to use trees to generate coal sort of makes the above post a bit of a red herring

Just pointing out that plantation trees are regenerative, so at least they don't deplete a finite resource (coal) and I suspect they produce far less methane during production (mining), and less toxins during burning. As such would be a 'least bad' option.

 

And better than the negatives of nuclear to fill the quiet times of solar/wind power.

[old man emu]

54 minutes ago, nomadpete said:

plantation trees are regenerative, so at least they don't deplete a finite resource

While it's true that they don't deplete those finite fossil resources, they do create the problems associated with monoculture. Consider two results of monoculture, palm oil and radiata pine production.

 

Palm oil plantations spread rapidly, resulting in deforestation impacts which wildlife habitats and human communities. Similarly, radiata pine plantations in Australia make our already poor soils worse. In China the Great Green Wall project is resulting in monoculture over vast areas.

 

 

 

[nomadpete]

Although Radiata pine and palm oil industries are in need of revusion, they are not part of the power industry. That was what the statement addressed.

 

In the case of radiata pine (a wood that I don't like anyway), it is mostly used for making things such as furniture or houses. Would you rather see timber totally harvested from old growth forests, to avoid the monoculture problem posed by plantations?

 

And palm oil could be avoided by ethical food production.

 

Both the above industries definitely deserve scrutiny.

 

Generating electricity however, is intimately connected to GDP, and world economies. And that industry is presently undergoing tumultuous reinvention in attempts to reduce pollution of nany types that directly affect the wellbeing of billions of people.

 

[old man emu]

5 hours ago, nomadpete said:

Although Radiata pine and palm oil industries are in need of revision, they are not part of the power industry. That was what the statement addressed.

I only picked those two as examples of the expansion of monoculture and to raise a red flag over the detrimental effects on the broader floral and animal environment of any sort of persistent monoculture.

 

I wonder what trees are the source of these wood pellets. Are they from natural forests or plantations? 

[spacesailor]

In Europe the ' old growth forests ' are being felled

as those brown paper bags , don't need bleached wood  in their manufacture. 

spacesailor