The case for renewables, or more appropriately, against.

woodburner · Post by **woodburner** » 12 Dec 2013, 19:17

So it is against this backdrop of extreme emotional attachment to 'renewable energy' and extreme ignorance of the principles underlying power generation, and in the face of extreme opposition to any contradiction of its precepts, that we have to - perhaps vainly - attempt to lead those who are prepared to be led, down a path of a somewhat technical nature, in order to understand why, despite its seeming usefulness, it is in the end a deeply disappointing, wasteful and ultimately fruitless exercise.
And why simply spending more money on it will never achieve the hoped for results.

From here.

In essence it can be seen that renewable energy competes directly with other uses that the land, the sea and the spaces above it, have need to also utilise. We need farming, fishing, we employ air transport, we rely on sunlight hitting the ground to have an ecosystem, we rely on the wind to stabilise temperatures. Our wildlife uses these spaces and has its habitats in these places. Our line of sight radio and radar transmissions operate through these spaces. Our very vegetation needs the sunlight that solar panels have to block, to work, to trap carbon dioxide!

There is loads more in this document, which is referred to on the much lauded (and rightly so) gridwatch site. Perhaps it is time to give a little less adulation to so called "eco" power, and be honest about its downside.

Pepperman · Post by **Pepperman** » 12 Dec 2013, 19:48

I assumed that everyone knew that The Gridwatch site (which simply scrapes Elexon's bmreports website) was set up by an anti wind farm campaigner in order to bash wind power, so what do you expect?

As it happens, a website that was originally designed to allow renewables bashers to say "ooh look how crap it is" is now being used by renewables boosters to say "ooh look how good it is" because we have a lot more renewables in the mix and they're doing a good job of reducing emissions and providing low carbon electricity.

The picture on the front page of that 'paper' is enough evidence to label it as hopelessly biased.

But to address the point in the second paragraph (I'm going to ignore the immensely patronising first quote), I fail to see how renewable energy impacts farming, fishing or air transport. Perhaps large scale solar plants stop the light from hitting the field they're sited on but that kind of solar is, and always will be, a small part of our energy supply and land use so it really isn't anything to worry about.

Every energy source and every technology has its downsides, but the upsides of renewables vastly outweigh the downsides while the downsides of fossil fuels are going to vastly outweigh the upsides in the coming century. I don't know where you stand on nuclear but that's all we have if you reject renewables and take climate change seriously.

RenewableCandy · Post by **RenewableCandy** » 12 Dec 2013, 19:56

I hardly think he's comparing like drawbacks with like here.
Renewables "don't look nice" (and have some other issues which have since been fairly successfully addressed by siting and engineering):

deep and abiding concerns over noise, especially infrasound, and proven links to wildlife death with wind turbines, and proven interference with line of sight radio, radar and television transmission.
Additionally other industries are impacted by loss of amenity - tourism for example -

just out of interest does anybody have any evidence that wind turbines have had an effect on tourism?

Nuclear power has other issues, which we'll, erm, just set aside for now:

So leaving aside for now all the hype and concern about safety, decommissioning and waste disposal, how does nuclear power stack up?

I knew that Gridwatch was set up by a guy with an anti-wind agenda but I had no idea it was quite this bad.

To be fair, I think a lot of people get fed-up with some of us Renewables-fans who go round saying our tech of choice is completely harmless (as I don't) but this is a bit extreme.

Pepperman · Post by **Pepperman** » 12 Dec 2013, 20:24

Wow he even has a draft of the Heartland Institute / NIPCC (Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change) climate denial screed up there:

Climate Change Reconsidered II - Physical Science

You can see all of the pdfs on the Templar website here.

ceti331 · Post by **ceti331** » 12 Dec 2013, 20:31

Something I've always said, solar power competes with plants for sunlight,
which is why we shouldn't expect solar could ever continue the way of life we've built around fossil fuels.

woodburner · Post by **woodburner** » 12 Dec 2013, 20:33

Pepperman wrote:I assumed that everyone knew that The Gridwatch site (which simply scrapes Elexon's bmreports website) was set up by an anti wind farm campaigner in order to bash wind power, so what do you expect?

As it happens, a website that was originally designed to allow renewables bashers to say "ooh look how crap it is" is now being used by renewables boosters to say "ooh look how good it is" because we have a lot more renewables in the mix and they're doing a good job of reducing emissions and providing low carbon electricity.

Reducing emmissions? I don't think so. As others point out, if it comes out of the ground, it will get burnt. If not by you, then by someone else. Some of the renewables is now wood pellets, imported for use in power stations, all 82 million tons a year!!! That's a lot of land taken up so the UK can claim to be "green"

Every energy source and every technology has its downsides, but the upsides of renewables vastly outweigh the downsides while the downsides of fossil fuels are going to vastly outweigh the upsides in the coming century.

You are entitled to your beliefs. IMO it is too late to prevent catastrophic climate change, and some of the things being done to supposedly reduce the effects will cause bigger problems.

40% of the rape crop in the UK is going into bio-diesel production, an area the size of Yorkshire is used to produce wheat which is going into bio-ethanol production. Rape is a very hungry crop, and both rape and wheat use substantial quantities of fossil fuel derived fertilisers. 10% of the agricultural land in Portugal is used to produce wood pellets burnt in UK power stations.

Just some of the effects of renewables on farming.

Tarrel · Post by **Tarrel** » 12 Dec 2013, 20:43

just out of interest does anybody have any evidence that wind turbines have had an effect on tourism?

Yep..

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/1 ... s-toursim/

Tarrel · Post by **Tarrel** » 12 Dec 2013, 20:47

Don't know why this hasn't occurred to me before, but isn't it ironic how Donald Trump is so anti Wind power?

RenewableCandy · Post by **RenewableCandy** » 12 Dec 2013, 20:47

Well all right: renewables are reducing emissions per unit time. They're (or more accurately, they allow us to) slow down the process and give us extra time: time to come 'round to (for example) vastly reducing lending-at-interest so that the economy doesn't have to keep growing in order simply to hold itself together.

And like I said, I'm not a big fan of biofuels, for "area-the-size-of-Yorkshire"-type reasons. Wind energy is different, in that one can farm happily around the turbine towers. Solar is good if put up on roofs, especially by ordinary people because it makes a dent in demand for electricity while also being a substitute for having bought (for example) holidays or new...er...bathrooms (nearly said the "k"-word there).

Pepperman · Post by **Pepperman** » 12 Dec 2013, 21:02

Ah well if you're talking about biofuels then I couldn't agree more, but the focus of this publication is on electricity generation in general and wind power in particular. As for imported biomass, this document suggests the amount consumed for electricity generation is considerably lower than what you suggest.

I take your general point regarding biomass for electricity generation though. It doesn't make sense to me as a source of electricity, except where it's waste biomass that would otherwise not have a use.

But I find it a very odd and nihilistic line of reasoning that you seem to have adopted.

I assume you're not a fan of nuclear power, you clearly hate renewables in just about all their forms and want to persuade others that they're bad and you reckon we have no hope that we'll be able to deal with climate change.

Does this mean that you think we should abandon everything and just burn fossil fuels until climate change makes the world uninhabitable? If you're someone who thinks society is not going to last more than a few decades then why do you expend so much energy trying to denegrate renewables?

Doesn't make sense to me but I still have a faint glimmer of hope that we can turn this around.

Tarrel · Post by **Tarrel** » 12 Dec 2013, 21:03

Surely there is a question of degree here. The argument for renewables starts to break down when they are positioned as a solution for continuing Business As Usual. In this case, the sheer scale of the challenge of replacing current fossil fuel use with renewables becomes overwhelming, leading to horrific projections about the amount of land they will use and the impact they will have.

The real issue is; how do we stop using fossil fuels? In this case, Renewables can be part of the solution mix, along with re-localising, insulation, reining in the consumption-based economy, moving to permaculture-based agriculture, etc.

RenewableCandy · Post by **RenewableCandy** » 12 Dec 2013, 21:08

Tarrel wrote:Don't know why this hasn't occurred to me before, but isn't it ironic how Donald Trump is so anti Wind power?

It had occurred to me, of course

Pepperman · Post by **Pepperman** » 12 Dec 2013, 21:21

Tarrel wrote:Surely there is a question of degree here. The argument for renewables starts to break down when they are positioned as a solution for continuing Business As Usual. In this case, the sheer scale of the challenge of replacing current fossil fuel use with renewables becomes overwhelming, leading to horrific projections about the amount of land they will use and the impact they will have.

The real issue is; how do we stop using fossil fuels? In this case, Renewables can be part of the solution mix, along with re-localising, insulation, reining in the consumption-based economy, moving to permaculture-based agriculture, etc.

Bang on.

woodburner · Post by **woodburner** » 12 Dec 2013, 23:40

I agree with that in general, the problem is, there is one big bogie. Renewables used to sustain the world until, give or take, 200 years ago. For this to happen again, the population demands will need to match the resources. That means a huge reduction in population.

Maybe GM corporates have been commissioned to undertake the task.

Pepperman · Post by **Pepperman** » 13 Dec 2013, 08:55

woodburner wrote:I agree with that in general, the problem is, there is one big bogie. Renewables used to sustain the world until, give or take, 200 years ago. For this to happen again, the population demands will need to match the resources. That means a huge reduction in population.

Maybe GM corporates have been commissioned to undertake the task.

Things have moved on a bit! When renewables last powered the world we had access to wood for heat and cooking and wind and run of river power for milling. That was it and all were used highly inefficiently. Now we have a much broader array of technologies that we can call upon and they are vastly more efficient.