How green are the Tory leadership candidates this time round?

[C_Clayton_Jones]

‘Liz Truss has fought a “war on nature” unique in recent British politics, managing within a few short weeks to incur the wrath of conservation groups with more than 8 million members, foreign governments, climate activists and members of her own party.

Her successor may be expected to learn from this chastening experience and adopt a less confrontational attitude.

[…]

Truss provoked the rage of the RSPB, National Trust and Wildlife Trusts, as well as scores of other groups, by threatening to rip up more than 570 rules inherited from the EU on environmental protection. She proposed new investment zones with minimal regulation, scrapping the new farming payment system and restarting fracking.

[…]

Cutting energy use will be essential to keeping the lights on this winter, and renewable energy is up to nine times cheaper than gas at present, so measures that increase efficiency and spur more clean energy production will pay off rapidly.’

How green are the Tory leadership candidates this time round?

After Liz Truss’s ‘war on nature’, we look again at the environmental record of the most probable crop of hopefuls

www.theguardian.com

Rightwing madness on both sides of the Atlantic.

 

[1srelluc]

Maybe it's important to you but really.....

.....about what goes on in the land of bad teeth.

 

[TroglocratsRdumb]

‘Liz Truss has fought a “war on nature” unique in recent British politics, managing within a few short weeks to incur the wrath of conservation groups with more than 8 million members, foreign governments, climate activists and members of her own party.

Her successor may be expected to learn from this chastening experience and adopt a less confrontational attitude.

[…]

Truss provoked the rage of the RSPB, National Trust and Wildlife Trusts, as well as scores of other groups, by threatening to rip up more than 570 rules inherited from the EU on environmental protection. She proposed new investment zones with minimal regulation, scrapping the new farming payment system and restarting fracking.

[…]

Cutting energy use will be essential to keeping the lights on this winter, and renewable energy is up to nine times cheaper than gas at present, so measures that increase efficiency and spur more clean energy production will pay off rapidly.’

How green are the Tory leadership candidates this time round?

After Liz Truss’s ‘war on nature’, we look again at the environmental record of the most probable crop of hopefuls

www.theguardian.com

Rightwing madness on both sides of the Atlantic.

You should stop using electricity, cars, planes, trains, plastic, cellphones, computers, internet ...... if you think that climate change is caused by Man.
Have you done that yet?

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

Cutting energy use will be essential to keeping the lights on this winter, and renewable energy is up to nine times cheaper than gas at present, so measures that increase efficiency and spur more clean energy production will pay off rapidly.’

Nine times cheaper? LOL!

Is that why Germany has the highest electricity costs in the world?

 

[Crick]

Nine times cheaper? LOL!

Is that why Germany has the highest electricity costs in the world?

What German households pay for power​

Cost & Prices

Power prices in Germany are among the highest in Europe. The high costs partly are due to the mandatory support for renewable energy sources – but most customers continue to support the country's energy transition regardless. Wholesale electricity prices on average have been in decline in recent years, but surcharges, taxes, and grid fees raise the bill for Germany's private households and small businesses. However, market observers say that power costs are often not even high enough for customers to look for cheaper alternatives. At the same time, the 2021 energy price hike in Europe is upsetting government plans to ease the financial burden on housheholds by reducing fees and surcharges on consumption.

What German households pay for power

Key facts on household power prices in Germany, which are among the highest in Europe due to surcharges, taxes, and grid fees.

www.cleanenergywire.org

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

What German households pay for power​

Cost & Prices

Power prices in Germany are among the highest in Europe. The high costs partly are due to the mandatory support for renewable energy sources – but most customers continue to support the country's energy transition regardless. Wholesale electricity prices on average have been in decline in recent years, but surcharges, taxes, and grid fees raise the bill for Germany's private households and small businesses. However, market observers say that power costs are often not even high enough for customers to look for cheaper alternatives. At the same time, the 2021 energy price hike in Europe is upsetting government plans to ease the financial burden on housheholds by reducing fees and surcharges on consumption.

What German households pay for power

Key facts on household power prices in Germany, which are among the highest in Europe due to surcharges, taxes, and grid fees.

www.cleanenergywire.org

Power prices in Germany are among the highest in Europe. The high costs partly are due to the mandatory support for renewable energy sources – but most customers continue to support the country's energy transition regardless.

Yeah, except the poor ones who can't afford energy.

It'll be interesting to see how that support does this winter.

 

[Crick]

Power prices in Germany are among the highest in Europe. The high costs partly are due to the mandatory support for renewable energy sources – but most customers continue to support the country's energy transition regardless.

Yeah, except the poor ones who can't afford energy.

It'll be interesting to see how that support does this winter.

Yeah, I saw that. I was just trying to be informative. And don't fail to note that the line you've quoted says "partly due"

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

Yeah, I saw that. I was just trying to be informative. And don't fail to note that the line you've quoted says "partly due"

Partly due to cheaper green energy? LOL!

 

[Crick]

Partly due to cheaper green energy? LOL!

No. That the high electric rates are partly due to the mandate to move to renewables.

What I was suspecting but failed to find was that Germany may have had the world's highest electric rates before they put up a single wind turbine or solar panel.

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

No. That the high electric rates are partly due to the mandate to move to renewables.

What I was suspecting but failed to find was that Germany may have had the world's highest electric rates before they put up a single wind turbine or solar panel.

A mandate to move to cheaper renewables should bring costs down.

 

[Crick]

No. That the high electric rates are partly due to the mandate to move to renewables.

What I was suspecting but failed to find was that Germany may have had the world's highest electric rates before they put up a single wind turbine or solar panel.

Some info from Wikipedia, but it's a little dated. Electricity sector in Germany - Wikipedia

In 2020, Germany generated electricity from the following sources: 27% wind, 24% coal, 12% nuclear, 12% natural gas, 10% solar, 9.3% biomass, 3.7% hydroelectricity.[5]

I know you folks have been making fun of the Europeans using wood and other biomass, but the CO2 trapped in that material originated relatively recently from the atmosphere and would be released back to the atmosphere as soon as it was broken down by bacteria, insects, animals, other plants or human campfires. It is NOT the same thing as pulling hydrocarbons out of the Earth that had been there securely for a hundred million years and burning them.

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

Some info from Wikipedia, but it's a little dated. Electricity sector in Germany - Wikipedia

View attachment 714150
View attachment 714152
View attachment 714154
In 2020, Germany generated electricity from the following sources: 27% wind, 24% coal, 12% nuclear, 12% natural gas, 10% solar, 9.3% biomass, 3.7% hydroelectricity.[5]

I know you folks have been making fun of the Europeans using wood and other biomass, but the CO2 trapped in that material originated relatively recently from the atmosphere and would be released back to the atmosphere as soon as it was broken down by bacteria, insects, animals, other plants or human campfires. It is NOT the same thing as pulling hydrocarbons out of the Earth that had been there securely for a hundred million years and burning them.

What I was suspecting but failed to find was that Germany may have had the world's highest electric rates before they put up a single wind turbine or solar panel.


The new system, using intermittent power from wind and solar, accounted for 110 GW, nearly 50 percent of all installed capacity in 2019, but operated with a capacity factor of just 20 percent. (That included a mere 10 percent for solar, which is hardly surprising, given that large parts of the country are as cloudy as Seattle.) The old system stood alongside it, almost intact, retaining nearly 85 percent of net generating capacity in 2019. Germany needs to keep the old system in order to meet demand on cloudy and calm days and to produce nearly half of total demand. In consequence, the capacity factor of this sector is also low.

It costs Germany a great deal to maintain such an excess of installed power. The average cost of electricity for German households has doubled since 2000. By 2019, households had to pay 34 U.S. cents per kilowatt-hour, compared to 22 cents per kilowatt-hour in France and 13 cents in the United States.

Germany's Energiewende, 20 Years Later

Germany's far-reaching program to reduce the share of fossil fuels in energy has achieved almost exactly what the United States achieved, but at greater expense

spectrum.ieee.org

Doubled since 2000? Yowsa! All that cheap wind and solar (free fuel!!!)
but only a capacity factor of 20%? I guess that explains why cheaper renewables
means higher electricity bills. You build 5 times what you actually get AND you have to keep
the coal and nat gas plants running for when the wind is calm and when it's cloudy or night time.

At least they're doing a much better job of saving the planet than the US, right?

We can measure just how far the Energiewende has pushed Germany toward the ultimate goal of decarbonization. In 2000, the country derived nearly 84 percent of its total primary energy from fossil fuels; this share fell to about 78 percent in 2019. If continued, this rate of decline would leave fossil fuels still providing nearly 70 percent of the country’s primary energy supply in 2050.

Meanwhile, during the same 20-year period, the United States reduced the share of fossil fuels in its primary energy consumption from 85.7 percent to 80 percent, cutting almost exactly as much as Germany did. The conclusion is as surprising as it is indisputable. Without anything like the expensive, target-mandated Energiewende, the United States has decarbonized at least as fast as Germany, the supposed poster child of emerging greenness.

Damn!

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

Some info from Wikipedia, but it's a little dated. Electricity sector in Germany - Wikipedia

View attachment 714150
View attachment 714152
View attachment 714154
In 2020, Germany generated electricity from the following sources: 27% wind, 24% coal, 12% nuclear, 12% natural gas, 10% solar, 9.3% biomass, 3.7% hydroelectricity.[5]

I know you folks have been making fun of the Europeans using wood and other biomass, but the CO2 trapped in that material originated relatively recently from the atmosphere and would be released back to the atmosphere as soon as it was broken down by bacteria, insects, animals, other plants or human campfires. It is NOT the same thing as pulling hydrocarbons out of the Earth that had been there securely for a hundred million years and burning them.

I know you folks have been making fun of the Europeans using wood and other biomass, but the CO2 trapped in that material originated relatively recently from the atmosphere

IR is trapped just as well by "recent CO2" as by "fossil CO2".

It is NOT the same thing as pulling hydrocarbons out of the Earth that had been there securely for a hundred million years and burning them.

No kidding. Wasting billions of dollars to buy a less efficient energy source and then wasting extra energy (and adding CO2 emissions) to transport it from the US, just to meet arbitrary government targets.

Why would anyone make fun of that expensive, pointless stupidity?

 

[Crick]

I know you folks have been making fun of the Europeans using wood and other biomass, but the CO2 trapped in that material originated relatively recently from the atmosphere

IR is trapped just as well by "recent CO2" as by "fossil CO2".

You're missing the point. A plant consumes CO2 from the atmosphere and uses it to live and grow. Much of that CO2 is trapped in the plant and then re-released when the plant dies and decomposes or is burned. Burning plant material returns that CO2 to the atmosphere much more quickly - and likely adds soot to the mix - but it is not as detrimental to global warming as releasing CO2 that has been sitting sequestered under the Earth for the last 100 million years

It is NOT the same thing as pulling hydrocarbons out of the Earth that had been there securely for a hundred million years and burning them.

No kidding. Wasting billions of dollars to buy a less efficient energy source and then wasting extra energy (and adding CO2 emissions) to transport it from the US, just to meet arbitrary government targets.

Why would anyone make fun of that expensive, pointless stupidity?

I doubt that billions are being spent on wood to burn. But, now, billions certainly HAVE been spent on petroleum which got burned for energy. That not only cost us money but at the same time was royally fucking the world. The pointless stupidity, Todd, is barking for fossil fuels.

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

You're missing the point. A plant consumes CO2 from the atmosphere and uses it to live and grow. Much of that CO2 is trapped in the plant and then re-released when the plant dies and decomposes or is burned. Burning plant material returns that CO2 to the atmosphere much more quickly - and likely adds soot to the mix - but it is not as detrimental to global warming as releasing CO2 that has been sitting sequestered under the Earth for the last 100 million years

I doubt that billions are being spent on wood to burn. But, now, billions certainly HAVE been spent on petroleum which got burned for energy. That not only cost us money but at the same time was royally fucking the world. The pointless stupidity, Todd, is barking for fossil fuels.

You're missing the point.

I'm really not.

Much of that CO2 is trapped in the plant and then re-released when the plant dies and decomposes or is burned.

Taking a full-sized tree, turning into pellets and shipping it across the Atlantic so an EU electricity plant can meet an arbitrary "green" target is a stupid waste of money and energy.

I doubt that billions are being spent on wood to burn.

Won't be the last time you're massively wrong on these issues.

Biomass is derived from organic material such as trees, plants, and agricultural and urban waste. It can be used for heating, electricity generation, and transport fuels. Increasing the use of biomass in the EU can help diversify Europe's energy supply, create growth and jobs, and lower greenhouse gas emissions. It is also needed in the electricity production to balance variable renewables.

Biomass for energy (bioenergy) continues to be the main source of renewable energy in the EU, with a share of almost 60%. The heating and cooling sector is the largest end-user, using about 75% of all bioenergy.

Biomass

Urban waste? Does that mean garbage?
Are they burning garbage instead of sequestering that carbon waste for thousands of years?

60% share? Wow! Sounds like billions is an understatement.

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

The pointless stupidity, Todd, is barking for fossil fuels.

Yeah, cheap, reliable energy.....advanced economies don't need that.
Maybe we should be like the third world and just have power for half the day?

 

[Crick]

Yeah, cheap, reliable energy.....advanced economies don't need that.
Maybe we should be like the third world and just have power for half the day?

The pointless stupidity is barking for fossil fuels.

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

The pointless stupidity is barking for fossil fuels.

Reliability is over-rated.

We should be more like Germany.

 

[Crick]

Reliability is over-rated.

We should be more like Germany.

Let's say I build a machine that collects rainwater and turns it into gold. When its raining, gold pellets come pouring out. When its not raining, the machine doesn't do anything. Do you really think that sort of behavior is accurately termed "unreliable"?

 

[westwall]

The pointless stupidity is barking for fossil fuels.

The Germans are chopping trees down by the hectare to heat their homes this winter.

So much for green energy.

You people are nothing more than anti science religious nutters.

You are one step removed from tossing virgins into volcanoes.