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Author | Topic: 2014 was hotter than 1998. 2015 data in yet? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
RAZD Member (Idle past 1430 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
See Solar (alternative energy) economics, Message 253 of Climate Change Denier comes in from the cold: SCIENCE!!!
Return on investment between 7% and 10% -- sufficient to make it economical to borrow (at lower interest) to install panels and still be ahead in the near future, way ahead beyond that. All my bulbs are LED and before panel installation I was one of the "more efficient houses" in my neighborhood based on total energy use (gas and electric). My electric bill has been negative since the panel installation. Enjoyby our ability to understand Rebel☮American☆Zen☯Deist ... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share. Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click)
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1430 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
It is January 2, 2016. I seem to remember that the 2014 data came in by the time of the State of the Union Speech. But the argument that there was "no warming in 16 years" that we heard for all of 2014 shopped finally. See We have seen the enemy, and it IS us., Message 245 of Climate Change Denier comes in from the cold: SCIENCE!!!:
Bloomberg - Are you a robot? Go to the site as it is interactive. Go through each of the graphics to see. Sorry, I was not able to capture the images, as they are active. The ones of greater interest are on: page 5 - all natural factors combined page 10 - all human factors combined. And from Message 242 of that thread we have
and I have not seen any evidence that this trend did not continue if not get worse. Enjoyby our ability to understand Rebel☮American☆Zen☯Deist ... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share. Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click)
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1430 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
And, that means that the energy you are no longer sucking from the grid is available for others (so reduced demand). Indeed, I intentionally oversized my installation so that
I can also add to it or supplement it with other solar or wind generation. Wind especially interests me, but I tend towards the vertical axis type best realized with http://artturbine.com/ style pieces of art as well as productive. For instance I also use a single small panel wired to a deep-cycle battery that powers a 12vdc bilge pump in my sump, making the AC pump a backup (and the water powered pump a backup backup -- I live in a flood zone).
It should, in theory, reduce prices for others. But Al Gore said in the Rolling Stone interview that your panels actually increase prices on the grid because the utility companies will want to make up for the lost profits. That would be true if the utilities are run as capitalist corporations, which is not always the case. In my case for instance the local utility just announced a reduction in rates because production costs were down (you're welcome, neighbors).
The standard thinking among environmentalists is that the "utility death spiral" (as Gore called it) of higher rates for consumers on the grid combined with cheaper solar panel prices will lean to a greener future (albeit much further down the road as it is a long, winding, slow path ahead). I believe the higher rates Gore and others are anticipating are due to higher costs to obtain fossil fuels as resources become used up. Curiously, I don't anticipate the utilities disappearing because the grid will still balance the flow of electricity, but I do expect it to become more of a web of interconnected sources. This will reduce incidence of blackouts\brownouts and provide better overall protection from storm damage. But then I also expect utilities to become either public owned or non-profit as well.
The thinking assumes that there won't be a political backlash during the long, slow transition. I think the higher energy prices could cause a wave election (eventually) which will sweep in those who want to remove all regulations on power plants (to reduce prices somewhat). A wave could come if gas prices at the pump increase and that frustration combines with those who feel the crunch paying the utility companies. (remember, it isn't even guaranteed that regulations set to kick in next decade banning inefficient light-bulbs wont be trashed with a new administration - despite all the forward progress) Which is why we need to separate real economics from political (corporatist) economics. Note that the use of coal to generate electricity is down, not because of political regulations, but because it is cheaper and more efficient to use natural gas. Note as well that surveys of actual installations of solar panels is far higher than was expected. Solar farms and wind farms are also ways that corporate utilities are moving to provide electricity without fossil fuels and to reduce their production costs long term. They have to reduce costs to remain competitive as corporations, and as public utilities or non-profits they would have a mandate to provide service at minimum rates. Because everyone can do what I have done. The way things are currently (no pun intended) structured, any electrical company can become your provider and you agree to pay their rates for generation,* much like you can choose any internet provider for (bad) service. This means that a non-profit cooperative company could provide solar panels on your roof, sharing the cost and the power with you, and sharing the grid wire maintenance costs with the other utilities or a sub-utility that specializes in line maintenance. Enjoy * - including a "line fee" to the utility company that owns the lines, and as that company see decreased demand for generation of electricity it would evolve into a utility for maintaining the lines. Edited by RAZD, : ..by our ability to understand Rebel☮American☆Zen☯Deist ... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share. Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click)
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1430 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined:
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So what do you think about that article? Is it accurate? Objective?
These policies have been crucial to the growth of solar power. But net metering represents an existential threat to the future of electric utilities, the so-called utility death spiral: As more consumers install solar panels on their roofs, utilities will have to raise prices on their remaining customers to recover the lost revenues. Those higher rates will, in turn, drive more consumers to leave the utility system, and so on. Let's review this objectively: (1) "utilities will have to raise prices on their remaining customers to recover the lost revenues." -- this is typical corporatist propaganda with the logical fallacy of appeal to (unfounded) consequences. The use of logical fallacies should raise big red flags in any argument. They also will have reduced costs, so all they "lose" is their unearned profit margin on people that put up solar power. Their appropriate response is any combination of (a) investing in solar and wind farms themselves (see Duke Energy Commits To Largest Solar Farm East Of Mississippi, (b) to charge a user fee to transmit power over the lines and through the transformers they have installed and which they would continue to maintain and (c) enter into cooperative agreements providing solar panels and installation to consumers in exchange for giving them an equitable share of the value of the produced electricity (they become share holders in the coop venture). (2) "Those higher rates will, in turn, drive more consumers to leave the utility system, and so on." -- consumers are already opting to use solar panels in increasing numbers (a) because they want to help lessen greenhouse gases, (b) it is economical (as I have demonstrated) and (c) costs of production are dropping and efficiency is improving (and will continue to) making them more and more affordable even without government subsidies. Consumers are also worried about the ability of the utility companies to expand production, or even to maintain production, as electrical use increases and population increases, and having an alternate source for backup and to reduce peak demand makes sense.
In Georgia, the Atlanta Tea Party joined forces with the Sierra Club to form a new organization called — wait for it — the Green Tea Coalition, which promptly defeated a Koch-funded scheme to tax rooftop solar panels. Not surprising at all. One of the things I saw from participation in the Occupy movement was that there was a lot of cross-over with Tea Party positions and utilities are like government and corporations combined, while people have virtually no say in how they operate: disenfranchised people disenchanted by arbitrary power.
The most seductive argument deployed by the Koch brothers and their allies is that those who use rooftop solar electricity and benefit from the net-metering policies are "free riders" — that is, they are allegedly not paying their share of the maintenance costs for the infrastructure of the old utility model, including the grid itself. This deceptive message, especially when coupled with campaign contributions, has persuaded some legislators to support the proposed new taxes on solar panels. That gets me back to the user fees. I can sign up with a power company in Arizona and pay them for power they generate plus fees to use the grid to distribute it here to Rhode Island.
But the argument ignores two important realities facing the electric utilities: First, most of the excess solar electricity is supplied by owners of solar cells during peak-load hours of the day, when the grid's capacity is most stressed — thereby alleviating the pressure to add expensive new coal- or gas-fired generating capacity. But here's the rub: What saves money for their customers cuts into the growth of their profits and depresses their stock prices. As is often the case, the real conflict is between the public interest and the special interest. Companies are already shifting away from coal because of cost. Companies are also investing in solar and wind farms to reduce production costs.
... But here's the rub: What saves money for their customers cuts into the growth of their profits and depresses their stock prices. ... Why should I worry about the amount greedy banks\corporations suck out of a necessary system rather than about providing the best overall service at the best price? In other words: boo hoo, the world is changing and you either keep up with it or you become extinct (and that not fast enough for me, imho). The argument that rich people won't be able to make as much money out of something they are not really entitled too is a losing argument in my book, and would incline me to install even MORE solar panels. Enjoyby our ability to understand Rebel☮American☆Zen☯Deist ... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share. Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click)
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1430 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
I wish we could get around to helping Indians buy solar panels (they don't have expensive electrical wiring and phone poles in most places, so panels are a much cheaper way to get electricity) but we don't even buy them for our citizens. But many places are installing solar panels as stand-alone systems without need for transmission lines and poles.
The idea of the government purchasing panels for Americans is a taboo subject despite the fact that it is economical from a pure energy standpoint(before one even considers the environmental benefits and the economics of such). So they provide subsidies and grants to get them purchased
The environmental issues should teach us that we are one world, but we don't even have our act together here in our neck of the nationalist woods. There is no planet B. Enjoyby our ability to understand Rebel☮American☆Zen☯Deist ... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share. Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click)
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1430 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined:
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... However, since many plants are implementing those scrubbing systems, there must still be economic incentive to do so. Indeed, the cost/kw is cheaper to scrub the smoke than to scrub the plant and replace it. We have a plant near us that is slated to go off-line in ~2 years now (originally in 2013), and they just built two giant 500' cooling towers to reduce impact on Narragansett Bay.
Rhode Island is pretty flat and these monsters can be seen for miles (and they have affected property values nearby), but at the time it was more economical to keep producing electricity while they were built. What do we do with these when the plant shuts down? (a) paint them like Devil's Tower and have rock climbing on them? (b) install large vertical axis windmills with them as the axis (constant wind up the bay)? (c) demolish them and clean the site (likely contaminated)? Enjoyby our ability to understand Rebel☮American☆Zen☯Deist ... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share. Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click)
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1430 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
Actually the newer, more dirty sources of petroleum that have been discovered aren't that expensive it seems. The Tar Sands of Alberta ... ... have been known about for decades. They were talked about in the 70's when I was at uni (and a global warming activist then). What was missing was the technology to extract it, and a price that made it economical.
The Tar Sands of Alberta can break even at $47 a barrel (or $67 if it is the type obtained by scraping or something). ... ...by ignoring the cost to the environment, especially drinking water acquifers, and the cost to return that envionment to what it was like before. The true cost has not yet been paid. Enjoyby our ability to understand Rebel☮American☆Zen☯Deist ... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share. Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click)
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1430 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
... What should our goal as a species be? To survive and reproduce, and adapt to the ecology around us ... or adapt it to to suit us. The later option has worked well for some time, but it could be reaching the point where we are no longer able to "terraform" (human-form?) it to our desired ecology\habitat. We do display a large variation in adaptations to different ecologies, so it may be a matter of shifting people from one less habitable ecology to one more habitable. This will of course result in political chaos, as we already see in Syria (unrest started with several years of extreme drought due to climate changes in that area). Enjoyby our ability to understand Rebel☮American☆Zen☯Deist ... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share. Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click)
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1430 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined:
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Me go for citations? Curiously I think you both need to provide citations to objectively review this argument:
Nothing beats solar. If you're really talking about the supply of energy, lots of things beat solar: coal, oil, hydro, a horse on a treadmill. Especially the horse on a treadmill bit ... (a little hyperbole perhaps?) Personally I think LamarkNewAge is right in the long view, and that in the short view the costs are fairly balanced. And I've put my money where my mouth is. Enjoy.by our ability to understand Rebel☮American☆Zen☯Deist ... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share. Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click)
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1430 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
I think it very foolish for the environmental movement to spend so little time shouting all over and on (top of the issue of) the acidification of the oceans. Again, back in the 70's this was discussed with acidification of rain due to use of coal caused widespread tree damage in Canada (I was there at the time) and affecting the rivers, lakes and ocean. It does have far reaching effects on the ecology of the habitats and the species inhabiting them. btw -- I found this recent article on 2015 temps:
quote: Second only to 2012. Unfortunately this is only for the lower 48 states, not the world. Enjoy Edited by RAZD, : .by our ability to understand Rebel☮American☆Zen☯Deist ... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share. Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click)
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1430 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
You seem to take a "let's sit back and see" approach when you casually say "the costs are fairly balanced". Gee lets just watch the market play itself out for 50 years so solar can slowly grow from 1% up to 5%. Actually what I was referring to was that the costs for new production of electricity was fairly balanced - ie we have reached the tipping point where from this point forward it will become increasingly cheaper to produce electricity with solar and new fossil fuel plants. The evidence for this is not only the rapid growth of home solar installations, such as mine, across the nation: a trend that will continue to replace grid production facilities; but the fact that utility companies are also increasingly turning to solar power for new production. Enjoyby our ability to understand Rebel☮American☆Zen☯Deist ... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share. Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click)
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1430 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined:
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(all PDFs which my computer doesn't read however) This is the second time you have said this. What is your OS? have you tried to download adobe reader? (adobe created the pdf format) It is a fairly small free program or ap. I have it on my tablet, my linux computer and my windows computer, and can read PDF's and even copy from them to excerpt for comments. by our ability to understand Rebel☮American☆Zen☯Deist ... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share. Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click)
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1430 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
quote: The decline in the installed cost of solar should have slowed down two or more years ago, and the fact that it hasn't is surprising even the most experienced energy analysts. The production costs keep dropping and the efficiency of the panels keeps increasing as technological advances make improvements. This industry is still in it's infancy, and like computing power I would expect the trend to cheaper solar energy to continue for some time. Enjoy.by our ability to understand Rebel☮American☆Zen☯Deist ... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share. Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click)
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1430 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined:
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What matters most is the cost-benefit analysis of the two situations. They both have their good and their bad, and we need to consider the good and bad about both of them. Agreed, as long as ALL the costs are included in the equations.
Burning fossil fuels has costs, but is also comes with huge benefits. ... And even larger hidden costs that are not included in your balance sheet: ecological disaster on a global scale. This is not something to be treated lightly. The lands where fracking is now being done to extract fossil fuel energy has laid the landscape as desolate and barren as 'Mordor,' causes earthquakes in surrounding areas and permanently poisons water aquifers that people rely on to live. I put that in the real costs outweigh the benefits column. The 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf is still wreaking havoc on the ecosystems there and poisoning the food supply. (and you can still find lingering effects of the Exxon Valdez spill). I put that in the real costs outweigh the benefits column. The number of explosions and oil spill from the Tar sands distributions have impacted ecologies and homes in a continuing pattern. I put that in the real costs outweigh the benefits column. The massive methane gas leak has caused evacuation of all residential areas down-wind at great disturbance to homeowners lives. And they still don't know how to cap it (BP oil spill scenario played out again?) I put that in the real costs outweigh the benefits column. Global climate change due to use of fossil fuels is causing increased extinction of species and alteration of livable areas, and has already caused civil unrest in Syria, with more to follow. The massive emigration from that area is impacting all of Europe. I put that in the real costs outweigh the benefits column. Then there are the Iraq wars fought to gain control of oil supplies at the cost of millions of lives and the disruption of whole societies not just families. I put that in the real costs outweigh the benefits column.
... In fact, those benefits have more than out-paced the costs in societies that burn large quantities of fossil fuels ... And those hidden costs that outweigh those benefits are catching up to us now, and it is time to pay the piper. Starting with getting off fossil fuels and onto renewable energy. The technology is there. The resources are there. What is missing is political will from corporate controlled governments. Enjoy Edited by RAZD, : . Edited by RAZD, : ..by our ability to understand Rebel☮American☆Zen☯Deist ... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share. Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click)
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1430 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined:
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You have your biases Jon and I have mine.
Included in that mix is the silly attempt to blame almost every ill on the things. Civil unrest in Syria from fossil fuels? Don't be ridiculous! Except that there actually is documentation of the cause -- several years of unnatural drought caused by global climate change caused by fossil fuel use caused collapse of agricultural farming and cattle raising. The farmers moved to the cities when they could no longer live on the farms and petitioned their government for assistance on the farms. Protests started and got larger as nothing was done to help them. Then the government started attacking and killing the protesters, and the rest you might know if you paid any attention. Yes -- fossil fuel overuse lead to the Syrian conflict. Look it up and educate yourself rather than blithely dismiss it. Here's some more hidden cost to balance against perceived benefit:
quote: Care to calculate the cost to repair the ocean ecosystems?
Fossil fuels have given us advanced societies with access to impressive amounts of cheap and reliable energy for improving lives. That's energy to build schools, hospitals, shopping centers, grocery stores, and the roads to get people to them. That's energy to light laboratories where life-saving medications are developed - and power all the energy-hungry lab equipment. That's energy to grow more food than we know what to do with and energy to get it where the hungry people are. And on and on; cheap energy makes the wealth and well-being of modern civilizations possible. And that cheap energy has almost all come from fossil fuels. And now we are paying the price for it. It was only "cheap" because not all the costs are included in your balance sheet. Look at the cost benefit of nuclear energy and include the cost to treat and dispose of the waste in a safe and sane manner. It should not take a rocket scientist to figure out that the cost of restoration of the extraction of energy costs more than you can realize from the fossil fuel and nuclear energy ... because entropy. The only way you beat that is with an external source of energy ... the sun.
So as I already said, all that's focused on re fossil fuels are the negatives. No Jon, it is balancing those negatives against what was borrowed in the past by NOT properly focusing on them at the time. But fossil fuels are no longer cheap either when those costs are still ignored. Every time I fill up my car and get giddy over prices under $2/gallon I remind myself that it used to cost $0.25/gal when I first started driving.
... That's energy to build schools, hospitals, shopping centers, grocery stores, and the roads to get people to them ... And the energy to advance technology like solar power generation and LED lights so that we can move forward to an even better society that doesn't have to destroy the earth to have those benefits. Look at India using solar panels to spread electricity to their rural areas and see that this is the future. Look at the tar sand wastelands and see that it is the past. The time has come to change, and the change that is available right now is better for us and for the planet, and it can only get better. Enjoy Edited by RAZD, : added oceans and nuclear to the listby our ability to understand Rebel☮American☆Zen☯Deist ... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share. Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click)
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