Green energy 'stagnates' as fossil fuels dominate

[Woodznutz]

You claimed it didn't. Clearly sometimes it does...certainly in most places.

True. The wind blows all over the place, but you have to search hard to find those windmills.

 

[Hellbilly]

no wind no power
cloudy day no power
nighttime no power

I can’t believe you actually buy into that.

 

[Anathema]

…With effective storage technology the whole game will change

I highlighted the important word in your post.

Yes it WILL change; IF we can eventually come up with a clean, reasonably sized battery structure that doesn’t degrade too quickly.

Unfortunately that technology does not currently exist and isn’t likely to in the immediate future. Even when it does, it’s going to take time to upgrade existing distributed generation sites with the new technology.

 

[Woodznutz]

I highlighted the important word in your post.

Yes it WILL change; IF we can eventually come up with a clean, reasonably sized battery structure that doesn’t degrade too quickly.

Unfortunately that technology does not currently exist and isn’t likely to in the immediate future. Even when it does, it’s going to take time to upgrade existing distributed generation sites with the new technology.

Green energy storage won't be limited to chemical batteries. Lots of mechanical storage research going on.

 

[Anathema]

Green energy storage won't be limited to chemical batteries. Lots of mechanical storage research going on.

Regardless of how it’s stored that will require space and have to be designed to accommodate being retrofitted into existing sites as much as being installed with new sites.

 

[The Sage of Main Street]

BTW, fossil fuel is Mother Nature's way of storing sunshine.

Drill Deeper, or Dig Mankind's Grave

How much sunlight has been absorbed by plants in these past dozens of millions of years? That's how much fossil fuel we have underneath us?

 

[KissMy]

what makes you think that the wind always blows?

Politicians produce endless renewable source of wind. We can stand one in front of every wind turbine.

 

[The Sage of Main Street]

Politicians produce endless renewable source of wind. We can stand one in front of every wind turbine.

Ilk of the Ill Wind

Won't work. The benefit will be canceled out by the Greenhouse methane blowing out the politicians' other end.

 

[KissMy]

True
But we should not screw ourselves over by dumping fossil fuels before we have that new technology
BTW, fossil fuel is Mother Nature's way of storing sunshine.

Who is dumping fossil fuels? They were replaced by renewables that have been very reliable for years. Nat Gas is why Texans froze a couple years ago. Renewables were working fine.

 

[Captain Caveman]

Renewables are already 20% of US electricity production. By next year they will overtake every source other than natural gas.

The point of the thread is that the global energy transition is not happening, it's stagnated.

What happened after Covid, countries just increased fossil fuel use -

In response to high energy prices, many countries responded with short-term strategies to diversify fossil fuel imports, ramp up production and subsidise energy use to shield consumers. China announced plans to increase coal production by 300 million tonnes (equivalent to 7% of current levels), the United States witnessed a boom in new fracking and drilling projects, and the European Union (EU) initiated a series of short-term measures. Most of these have benefited the fossil fuel industry, leading to rapidly rising profits and dangerously locking the world into a path of even faster global warming.

Renewable's Achilles Heal is that it can't respond, you can't suddenly build several wind or solar farms to meet demand, but you can ramp up coal, gas, and nuclear power stations.

 

[Woodznutz]

Politicians produce endless renewable source of wind. We can stand one in front of every wind turbine.

Manure as well. Good for crops.

 

[Woodznutz]

Who is dumping fossil fuels? They were replaced by renewables that have been very reliable for years. Nat Gas is why Texans froze a couple years ago. Renewables were working fine.

I thought the windmills froze up.

 

[Woodznutz]

Drill Deeper, or Dig Mankind's Grave

How much sunlight has been absorbed by plants in these past dozens of millions of years? That's how much fossil fuel we have underneath us?

Two very different ecospheres. The way we're managing it earth doesn't have the capacity to sequester the CO2 released by burning the sheer amount of fossil fuels that we burn. Like most things we do it's completely out of whack.

 

[Woodznutz]

Regardless of how it’s stored that will require space and have to be designed to accommodate being retrofitted into existing sites as much as being installed with new sites.

An interesting challenge for the engineers.

 

[JohnDB]

Who is dumping fossil fuels? They were replaced by renewables that have been very reliable for years. Nat Gas is why Texans froze a couple years ago. Renewables were working fine.

Not quite true....

Texas actually has surplus generation capacity. Has had a problem with the generating plants going broke because of too much competition for decades.

Meanwhile California has not had enough for decades....so....they created transmission lines between California and Texas....now all the excess power is being transmitted to California at better prices than they would get locally.

California is the sinkhole for power....they haven't built any generating plants in decades. They continue to have rolling blackouts as well even though they are draining Texas of all the electricity they generate.
And because of this the effects are felt all the way into the SE of TN. GA and Alabama and Florida. It's the ripples in the pond of an electrical grid.

We can generate more power....but it's going to require more coal plants being fired back up. And coal mining which has been abandoned as well. And rail lines controlled by the new conglomerate....about to go on strike.
We got a huge mess brewing.

We need leadership....not someone who can't form a sentence but is Meanwhile celebrating someone with a sexual perversion and so confused they can't even define male and female.

 

[Anathema]

An interesting challenge for the engineers.

A challenge that needs to be met, and perfected BEFORE we continue taking conventional generation sources offline and hamstringing our society.

 

[Sunsettommy]

Renewables now produce 23.5% of US electricity.

I notice you didn't post the link, maybe because a large chunk of "renewables" is HYDRO!

Can't take your unsourced chart seriously until I see the link you didn't post.

 

[Leo123]

Energy is consumed, it is not ‘renewable.’ Windmills wear out, solar panels lose output year after year and eventually need to be replaced. Fossil fuel is needed to manufacture those things as well. There is no such thing as free energy.

 

[Woodznutz]

Energy is consumed, it is not ‘renewable.’ Windmills wear out, solar panels lose output year after year and eventually need to be replaced. Fossil fuel is needed to manufacture those things as well. There is no such thing as free energy.

That depends on how the energy is collected. We have avoided very effective but simple systems because there's no profit to be had.

 

[Leo123]

That depends on how the energy is collected. We have avoided very effective but simple systems because there's no profit to be had.

If there is 'no profit to be had' then funding so-called 'renewables' and building an appropriate infrastructure will never take place. Try setting up a windmill or solar array for free, then find maintenance people to take care if it for free.