-
Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.
Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:- Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
- Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
- Access to private conversations with other members.
We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!
What's wrong with Wind and Solar?
- Thread starter KW
- Start date
Wildswanderer
Veteran Member
Slowly isn't working either.
Wildswanderer
Veteran Member
It has many points.
perhaps I'm blind, but I saw nothing that said "to view script etc."
edit: but I doubt that it's worth any further effort, since I'm seeing plenty of opinions on at least two sides of the issue...
stvdv
Veteran Member
No, you are not blind
The direct link can be tricky to get (worked on my PC and one smartphone, the other smartphone not). So I make it easy for you
AND
I will do a copy paste of the text in the first spoiler below (in case you like to read it). The second spoiler has a screenshot (600kB) showing where I needed to click to get the transcript)
Have you ever heard of "unobtanium"?
It's the magical energy mineral found on the planet Pandora in the movie, Avatar. It's a fantasy in a science fiction script. But environmentalists think they've found it here on earth in the form of wind and solar power.
They think all the energy we need can be supplied by building enough wind and solar farms; and enough batteries.
The simple truth is that we can't. Nor should we want to—not if our goal is to be good stewards of the planet.
To understand why, consider some simple physics realities that aren't being talked about.
All sources of energy have limits that can't be exceeded. The maximum rate at which the sun's photons can be converted to electrons is about 33%. Our best solar technology is at 26% efficiency. For wind, the maximum capture is 60%. Our best machines are at 45%.
So, we're pretty close to wind and solar limits. Despite PR claims about big gains coming, there just aren't any possible. And wind and solar only work when the wind blows and the sun shines. But we need energy all the time. The solution we're told is to use batteries. Again, physics and chemistry make this very hard to do.
Consider the world's biggest battery factory, the one Tesla built in Nevada. It would take 500 years for that factory to make enough batteries to store just one day's worth of America's electricity needs. This helps explain why wind and solar currently still supply less than 3% of the world's energy, after 20 years and billions of dollars in subsidies.
Putting aside the economics, if your motive is to protect the environment, you might want to rethink wind, solar, and batteries because, like all machines, they're built from nonrenewable materials.
Consider some sobering numbers:
A single electric-car battery weighs about half a ton. Fabricating one requires digging up, moving, and processing more than 250 tons of earth somewhere on the planet.
Building a single 100 Megawatt wind farm, which can power 75,000 homes requires some 30,000 tons of iron ore and 50,000 tons of concrete, as well as 900 tons of non-recyclable plastics for the huge blades. To get the same power from solar, the amount of cement, steel, and glass needed is 150% greater.
Then there are the other minerals needed, including elements known as rare earth metals. With current plans, the world will need an incredible 200 to 2,000 percent increase in mining for elements such as cobalt, lithium, and dysprosium, to name just a few.
Where's all this stuff going to come from? Massive new mining operations. Almost none of it in America, some imported from places hostile to America, and some in places we all want to protect.
Australia's Institute for a Sustainable Future cautions that a global "gold" rush for energy materials will take miners into "…remote wilderness areas [that] have maintained high biodiversity because they haven't yet been disturbed."
And who is doing the mining? Let's just say that they're not all going to be union workers with union protections.
Amnesty International paints a disturbing picture: "The… marketing of state-of-the-art technologies are a stark contrast to the children carrying bags of rocks."
And then the mining itself requires massive amounts of conventional energy, as do the energy-intensive industrial processes needed to refine the materials and then build the wind, solar, and battery hardware.
Then there's the waste. Wind turbines, solar panels, and batteries have a relatively short life; about twenty years. Conventional energy machines, like gas turbines, last twice as long.
With current plans, the International Renewable Energy Agency calculates that by 2050, the disposal of worn-out solar panels will constitute over double the tonnage of all of today's global plastic waste. Worn-out wind turbines and batteries will add millions of tons more waste. It will be a whole new environmental challenge.
Before we launch history's biggest increase in mining, dig up millions of acres in pristine areas, encourage childhood labor, and create epic waste problems, we might want to reconsider our almost inexhaustible supply of hydrocarbons—the fuels that make our marvelous modern world possible.
And technology is making it easier to acquire and cleaner to use them every day.
The following comparisons are typical—and instructive:
It costs about the same to drill one oil well as it does to build one giant wind turbine. And while that turbine generates the energy equivalent of about one barrel of oil per hour, the oil rig produces 10 barrels per hour. It costs less than 50 cents to store a barrel of oil or its equivalent in natural gas. But you need $200 worth of batteries to hold the energy contained in one oil barrel.
Next time someone tells you that wind, solar and batteries are the magical solution for all our energy needs ask them if they have an idea of the cost... to the environment.
"Unobtanium" works fine in the movies. But we don't live in movies. We live in the real world.
I'm Mark Mills, Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute, for Prager University.
It's the magical energy mineral found on the planet Pandora in the movie, Avatar. It's a fantasy in a science fiction script. But environmentalists think they've found it here on earth in the form of wind and solar power.
They think all the energy we need can be supplied by building enough wind and solar farms; and enough batteries.
The simple truth is that we can't. Nor should we want to—not if our goal is to be good stewards of the planet.
To understand why, consider some simple physics realities that aren't being talked about.
All sources of energy have limits that can't be exceeded. The maximum rate at which the sun's photons can be converted to electrons is about 33%. Our best solar technology is at 26% efficiency. For wind, the maximum capture is 60%. Our best machines are at 45%.
So, we're pretty close to wind and solar limits. Despite PR claims about big gains coming, there just aren't any possible. And wind and solar only work when the wind blows and the sun shines. But we need energy all the time. The solution we're told is to use batteries. Again, physics and chemistry make this very hard to do.
Consider the world's biggest battery factory, the one Tesla built in Nevada. It would take 500 years for that factory to make enough batteries to store just one day's worth of America's electricity needs. This helps explain why wind and solar currently still supply less than 3% of the world's energy, after 20 years and billions of dollars in subsidies.
Putting aside the economics, if your motive is to protect the environment, you might want to rethink wind, solar, and batteries because, like all machines, they're built from nonrenewable materials.
Consider some sobering numbers:
A single electric-car battery weighs about half a ton. Fabricating one requires digging up, moving, and processing more than 250 tons of earth somewhere on the planet.
Building a single 100 Megawatt wind farm, which can power 75,000 homes requires some 30,000 tons of iron ore and 50,000 tons of concrete, as well as 900 tons of non-recyclable plastics for the huge blades. To get the same power from solar, the amount of cement, steel, and glass needed is 150% greater.
Then there are the other minerals needed, including elements known as rare earth metals. With current plans, the world will need an incredible 200 to 2,000 percent increase in mining for elements such as cobalt, lithium, and dysprosium, to name just a few.
Where's all this stuff going to come from? Massive new mining operations. Almost none of it in America, some imported from places hostile to America, and some in places we all want to protect.
Australia's Institute for a Sustainable Future cautions that a global "gold" rush for energy materials will take miners into "…remote wilderness areas [that] have maintained high biodiversity because they haven't yet been disturbed."
And who is doing the mining? Let's just say that they're not all going to be union workers with union protections.
Amnesty International paints a disturbing picture: "The… marketing of state-of-the-art technologies are a stark contrast to the children carrying bags of rocks."
And then the mining itself requires massive amounts of conventional energy, as do the energy-intensive industrial processes needed to refine the materials and then build the wind, solar, and battery hardware.
Then there's the waste. Wind turbines, solar panels, and batteries have a relatively short life; about twenty years. Conventional energy machines, like gas turbines, last twice as long.
With current plans, the International Renewable Energy Agency calculates that by 2050, the disposal of worn-out solar panels will constitute over double the tonnage of all of today's global plastic waste. Worn-out wind turbines and batteries will add millions of tons more waste. It will be a whole new environmental challenge.
Before we launch history's biggest increase in mining, dig up millions of acres in pristine areas, encourage childhood labor, and create epic waste problems, we might want to reconsider our almost inexhaustible supply of hydrocarbons—the fuels that make our marvelous modern world possible.
And technology is making it easier to acquire and cleaner to use them every day.
The following comparisons are typical—and instructive:
It costs about the same to drill one oil well as it does to build one giant wind turbine. And while that turbine generates the energy equivalent of about one barrel of oil per hour, the oil rig produces 10 barrels per hour. It costs less than 50 cents to store a barrel of oil or its equivalent in natural gas. But you need $200 worth of batteries to hold the energy contained in one oil barrel.
Next time someone tells you that wind, solar and batteries are the magical solution for all our energy needs ask them if they have an idea of the cost... to the environment.
"Unobtanium" works fine in the movies. But we don't live in movies. We live in the real world.
I'm Mark Mills, Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute, for Prager University.
DirectLink to page of Transcript
What's Wrong with Wind and Solar? | PragerU
Screenshot showing (arrow) where to click)
What's Wrong with Wind and Solar? | PragerU
Screenshot showing (arrow) where to click)
Last edited:
Father Heathen
Veteran Member
How so? Granted having a sizable number of misinformed and uneducated people push against it has been a speed bump.
exchemist
Veteran Member
PragerU is short for Prager University, whereas in fact PragerU is just an American right wing political advocacy group, i.e. not an academic institution in any way. So that's already deceitful: a bad start.
They are in the business, essentially, of generating right wing slanted videos. The Wiki article on PragerU's output contains this passage:
PragerU releases one video per week on various topics from a conservative viewpoint that according to its site "advances Judeo-Christian values." As of May 2020, its YouTube channel included 968 videos.[34] Each video costs between $25,000 and $30,000 to create.[4] Its guests cover a range from the secular right, the far-right, and the theocratic right.[35]Some prominent video presenters have included Tucker Carlson, Nigel Farage, Charles Krauthammer, Michelle Malkin, Bret Stephens and George Will.[7]
Among topics covered, PragerU videos have argued against a $15 minimum wage, against increased gun control, and in support of capitalism.[4] Although topical, PragerU videos largely avoided mentioning Donald Trump during his presidency.[7][29][36]
Dave Rubin stated in a video that "racism, bigotry, xenophobia, homophobia, and Islamophobia" are "meaningless buzzwords". In a video about the alt-right, Michael Knowles argued that it has nothing in common with conservatism and instead is close to leftism, except the left is much larger.[4][35] PragerU videos also promote the Electoral College, arguing that it thwarts voter fraud and that "pure democracies do not work".[13]
Over a dozen videos promote fossil fuels and dispute the scientific consensus on climate change.[9] According to the non-profit think tank InfluenceMap, targeted ads posted on Facebook included misleading material that cast doubt on science, framed climatic concerns as ideological and hysteria and promoted a conspiracy theory that "big government control" is the real motivation behind energy policies to reduce gas emissions.[37]
Why should any of us bother to watch videos from a source like that, when we know in advance that the arguments will be biased? There are huge amounts of crap on YouTube. One could go down a rabbit hole and spend weeks debunking all the junk one can dredge up. What would be the point?
If however you find there are specific issue these people raise, that you think are good points, and you are prepared to summarise them here, in words, then we can perhaps usefully discuss their merits. But I'm not watching their videos.
Let's see...
Current solar energy efficiency is 25%
Effective solar radiation energy reaching per square meter of earth's surface every day is around 15 MJ/m^2 (assuming we lose about 6 MJ to clouds). So yearly solar energy input is 5475 MJ/m^2 of earth's surface. With a conversion efficiency of 0.25, a solar panel can deliver about 1368 MJ/m^2 of energy per year per sq meter of land surface. Assuming 1/3 is land, the land surface area of earth is 150*10^12 sq meter. The total energy consumption by humans from all sources per year is 720*10^12 MJ. So land surface needed to provide for all of energy that humans consume today from solar cells alone will be 0.52*10^12 sq. metre. So currently only 0.35% of the total land area of the earth is needed to be covered by solar panels to fully deliver all of the energy needed by entire humanity at current efficiencies.
Energy Production and Consumption
Solar irradiance - Wikipedia
So the first five minutes of the video criticizing the current physical limits of solar and wind technology to deliver all of our energy is dead wrong.
Hopefully you will take down the video as promised?
Such videos are probably created by the panic caused by the continued exponential growth of renewable energy and the rapidly falling prices that are making solar energy actually cheaper than gas and similar to coal without subsidies.
Take a look
https://www.wri.org/insights/growth-renewable-energy-sector-explained
For example, in the past decade, each time that the amount of solar capacity deployed worldwide has doubled, the price of installing solar capacity has declined by 34%. As renewable energy technologies are modular and standardized, cost improvements or technological advances made in one place can be quickly copied elsewhere. Here is the actual growth plot of wind and solar
The market share of solar and wind in global electricity generation grew at a compound average annual growth rate of 15% from 2015-2020. If exponential growth continued at this rate, solar and wind would reach 45% of electricity generation by 2030 and 100% by 2033.
Last edited:
Here is another interesting point.
Most of the rare earth materials that the second half of the video was lamenting about is required for the electronic industry, catalyst industry, internet fiber optic cables and only a part of it is going to the solar or wind or battery industry. The exponential growth of electronics, digitization and data storage is not going to end anytime soon and they will be the major consumers of the rare earth materials that are going to be mined. Take a look at this infographic which shows that catalytic industry, including petroleum refining, is a major part of rare earth demand.
Once again...severely misleading.
KW
Well-Known Member
So what?
They produce fact based information gathered from experts in their respective fields This attack is typical of the left because it has no substance.
Feel free to provide something concrete that you believe is inaccurate or deceptive on prageru.
KW
Well-Known Member
Here is another interesting point.
Most of the rare earth materials that the second half of the video was lamenting about is required for the electronic industry, catalyst industry, internet fiber optic cables and only a part of it is going to the solar or wind or battery industry. The exponential growth of electronics, digitization and data storage is not going to end anytime soon and they will be the major consumers of the rare earth materials that are going to be mined. Take a look at this infographic which shows that catalytic industry, including petroleum refining, is a major part of rare earth demand.
Once again...severely misleading.
There was nothing misleading about it. He provided specific data about the quantities required to provide for future energy needs.
What statement from the video do you claim is deceptive?
KW
Well-Known Member
Let's see...
Current solar energy efficiency is 25%
Effective solar radiation energy reaching per square meter of earth's surface every day is around 15 MJ/m^2 (assuming we lose about 6 MJ to clouds). So yearly solar energy input is 5475 MJ/m^2 of earth's surface. With a conversion efficiency of 0.25, a solar panel can deliver about 1368 MJ/m^2 of energy per year per sq meter of land surface. Assuming 1/3 is land, the land surface area of earth is 150*10^12 sq meter. The total energy consumption by humans from all sources per year is 720*10^12 MJ. So land surface needed to provide for all of energy that humans consume today from solar cells alone will be 0.52*10^12 sq. metre. So currently only 0.35% of the total land area of the earth is needed to be covered by solar panels to fully deliver all of the energy needed by entire humanity at current efficiencies.
Energy Production and Consumption
Solar irradiance - Wikipedia
So the first five minutes of the video criticizing the current physical limits of solar and wind technology to deliver all of our energy is dead wrong.
Hopefully you will take down the video as promised?
Such videos are probably created by the panic caused by the continued exponential growth of renewable energy and the rapidly falling prices that are making solar energy actually cheaper than gas and similar to coal without subsidies.
Take a look
Explaining the Exponential Growth of Renewable Energy
For example, in the past decade, each time that the amount of solar capacity deployed worldwide has doubled, the price of installing solar capacity has declined by 34%. As renewable energy technologies are modular and standardized, cost improvements or technological advances made in one place can be quickly copied elsewhere. Here is the actual growth plot of wind and solar
The market share of solar and wind in global electricity generation grew at a compound average annual growth rate of 15% from 2015-2020. If exponential growth continued at this rate, solar and wind would reach 45% of electricity generation by 2030 and 100% by 2033.
Which fact specifically do you claim is wrong? The whole video is only 5 minutes and you are claiming the first five minutes is wrong. I’m assuming you didn’t even watch it.
KW
Well-Known Member
That is true and will be for decades. It’s not a matter of acres of space needed. You didn’t address the reasons.
KW
Well-Known Member
You are wrong.
I’m in the iron and steel industry and we can’t get enough rate earths now.
exchemist
Veteran Member
Funny that you think I am on the "Left", when I am a retired middle manager with a career in the oil industry, of all things (!) , who has voted mainly Conservative during my adult life. I am not by any means on the Left. But I do have a degree in physical science, plus over 30yrs experience in the energy industry. So that's where I get my stance on climate change from, not from politics. This is not an issue of politics. It is an issue of science and of energy technology.
Regarding these PragerU people, contrary to your assertion, I posted a substantive account of what they do and why they cannot be trusted. They do not produce fact based information, evidently. Just read the Wiki extract I posted and then read the posts from @sayak83, which confirm perfectly the substance of the Wiki extract.
What PragerU produces, apparently, is rhetorical talking points, seemingly aimed at mugs who don't know their science.
Because of the growth in electronics and semiconductor industry, not because of renewable.
Thank you for admitting that metallurgy is a major consumer of these rare earths by the way. The boom in heavy industry in the developing world has also been a large contributor of the demand.
In fact since oil refining and chemical industry requires a lot of rare earths, their replacement by renewables will mean that rare earths meant for oil refining will go to solar and wind. That is it.