PV Solar - If not Florida, Where? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: SgtRock
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: December 20, 2014, 04:18:46 pm
content: Greetings EEVBees:--If not Florida, where? The story at the below link, is very typical of what happens, with nearly all government PV Solar expenditures other than research. Namely that, they did or do not provide the financial payback promised. Not in dollars, not in electrons, not in BTUs. Fed and local money down the toilet as usual.http://mediatrackers.org/florida/2014/07/30/solar-panels-tampa-courthouse-fail-meet-promises"WFTS News in Tampa obtained copies of the courthouse’s electricity bills and confirmed the savings are no more than about $2,000 per month. WFTS also confirmed the panels are reducing electricity bills by only 15 to 18 percent, instead of the promised 40 percent. At $27,000 per year, it would take 45 years to recover the solar panels’ costs. Accounting for inflation, it would take closer to 50 years to recover the costs. However, solar panels have a typical lifespan of only 15 to 20 years. Also, the effectiveness of the panels decreases throughout the panels’ lifespan. As a result, the Hillsborough County Courthouse solar panels are likely to return only about one-third of their inflation-adjusted cost."--Yes I know that the people who wrote the article are not counting almost all of the environmental impacts,and subsidies of the other energy sources especially the dastardly capitalistic coal, oil, and energy companies. But of course the governments knew all of that before they foisted this atrocity on the working taxpayers.--Sold on the basis of cutting bill by 40% but only cuts it 15 to 17%, and the panels will be dead before they even get half way to breaking even, maintenance not included."Math is hard."Doll, Barbie - 1959 -Best RegardsClear Ether

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 20, 2014, 06:46:38 pm
content: Dave had an episode about the PV panels he installed at home. Would be interesting to have a follow up episode with the results and the economics of that installation.

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 20, 2014, 07:14:09 pm
content: The whole "going green" thing is a fleecing of taxpayers anywhere.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 20, 2014, 07:27:52 pm
content: Quote from: SgtRock on December 20, 2014, 04:18:46 pmSounds to me like someone made an error somewhere. Either in connecting the panels, the metering or simply paid too much for the solar panels. The story doesn't tell how many panels where installed so it is difficult to determine whether the $1.2 million is a good price for the panels.

author: SeanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 21, 2014, 08:16:56 am
content: Probably you could have made as big or better cut in the bill by simply insulating the building better, replacing windows with double glazes ones and doing a lighting upgrade with more efficient lighting ( though I would not use LED or T5 flourescent, rather T8 in a fitting that runs the ballast cool and which directs the light to where it is needed) and by installing motion sensing and occupancy sensors to cut light when not needed along with using daylight piped in to not run lights 24/7. Along with that an AC upgrade running at a higher set point temperature ( you do not really need to run the AC at 20C, for most places 24c is perfect and is a considerable saving) along with heat exchangers on the fresh air inlets to recover energy on exhaust air, and using natural cooling to utilise the cooler ambient morning air when possible to freshen the air. Along with large efficient HEPA filters, and a shade over the condensers to lower ambient temperatures. Painting the roof with a reflective coat or having a false reflective roof to shade the original helps as well.This would probably cost as much as the PV install, but would drop energy use by about half. A good thing though would be to have solar water heaters though, to save even further on hot water for washing, showers and such, or to use heat pumps from the AC condensers to recover the reject heat into the building as needed. A bolt on thing that is independent of the main unit and reduces power used in all cases.

author: bookaboo
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 21, 2014, 10:39:35 am
content: All valid points but one thing stands out to me..... $1.2million for a solar installation. What size of array is this? I can't see it in the article.

author: Seekonk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 21, 2014, 11:07:02 am
content: There is a story here, I say follow the money. How do you get 1.2 million on a courthouse?

author: george graves
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 21, 2014, 11:47:42 am
content: Quote from: dannyf on December 20, 2014, 07:14:09 pmNot true at all.Even where I live, in the Great Pacific Northwest of the US, solar is feasible.

author: nowlan
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 21, 2014, 12:00:57 pm
content: The largest is the 196-kilowatt solar photovoltaic system on the roof of the County’s Old Main Courthouse Building in downtown Tampa. The solar panels supply about 20 percent of the building’s energy load. This saved the County more than 300,000 kilowatt/hours ($27,000 in energy cost savings) in the first year. The solar panels also reduced the building’s carbon dioxide emissions by 225 tons. According to the Florida Solar Energy Center, this is the largest solar photovoltaic project in a downtown urban area in the nation!linkThe196-kilowattsolar photovoltaic system of1,350specially made solar panels was funded through the EECBG program. The solar panels will supply approximately 40 percent of the building’s energy load and is estimated to save the county more than $60,500 annually in energy costs.linkhttp://www.hillscty419piercepv.com/< real time monitor.Some nice pics, and shading issueshere.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 21, 2014, 12:05:14 pm
content: I seeSpecially made. I smell a night at a stripclub for getting a lucrative government contract job.

author: bookaboo
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 21, 2014, 01:01:05 pm
content: There's your problem... $1.2 million for 196kW is way over budget, probably 4-6 times what should have been paid. A few pockets lined along the way there no doubt about it.

author: nowlan
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 21, 2014, 01:23:31 pm
content: Surely such a large project would go to tender, plus be audited.You would think the Dept of Energy would have advisors/consultants who would double check if asked by local gov.

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 21, 2014, 01:33:19 pm
content: QuoteThanks to those advisors we have great deals like A123 or Solyndra,

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 21, 2014, 01:34:16 pm
content: I support everyone's rights to pay for their own solar / green energy endeavors;What offends me is their insisting that I pay for such endeavors.

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 21, 2014, 01:44:49 pm
content: The most perverse part of those "green energy" subsidies is that it is a reverse Robin hood: it is the average tax payers who struggle to pay his/her daily bills force into subsidizing the wealthy who could afford to buy a Tesla, or put up solar panels and tell their solar - generated electricity into the grid at above market prices, which is essentially another form of taxation for the rate payers.Where is the fairness there?

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 21, 2014, 04:23:42 pm
content: Quote from: dannyf on December 21, 2014, 01:34:16 pmWell said.

author: mtdoc
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 21, 2014, 04:43:24 pm
content: More politically motivated clap-trap from the usual suspects.Consider the source of this article:Media Trackers.As usual, follow the money: " Media Trackers is primarily sponsored by the Tea Party non-profit and training group American Majority, which is funded for the most part by the Sam Adams Alliance"For example the claim:Quoteis factually incorrect.In reality the lifespan is much longer. I personally know people still using panels made in the 1970sFromEngineering.com"For monocrystalline silicon, the most commonly used panel for commercial and residential PV, the degradation rate is less than 0.5% for panels made before 2000, and less than 0.4% for panels made after 2000. That means that a panel manufactured today should produce 92% of its original power after 20 years"I have no doubt the courthouse installation in question suffered from the usual bureaucratic missteps, waste and corruption:.Let's see 1.2 million for 196 kW = $6.12 per watt. Much more than should have been paid for an installation of this size, even in 2010.Of course bureaucratic missteps, waste and corruption never occurs in the heavily tax payer subsidized fossil fuel or nuclear power industries, does it?Considering that prices have continued to drop (currently at about $3 per installed watt) and thatgrid parity has currently been achieved in 10 states and is projected to be achieved in all 50 states in 2016and it's fairly obvious that this is not a fact based report.Meanwhile in the real world,growth of photovoltaics continues along at an exponential rate.Of course it is still all too little, too late....

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 21, 2014, 06:19:50 pm
content: If you listen to the fanatics, solar or green power is the greatest since man kind and make all of us swim in money.What I don't quite understand is that why do they always insist on me having some of it?That part sounds like every one of those cons I have encountered.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 21, 2014, 07:55:50 pm
content: Quote from: mtdoc on December 21, 2014, 04:43:24 pmBy this 'analysis' the shingles on our roof should last forever. They don't, and so are our fence and water pipes.

author: G7PSK
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 21, 2014, 09:07:03 pm
content: Why is always assumed that the oil company's are trying to do down solar power and other alternative .BP used to be one of the bigger players in solar and only got out as it found that it could make more money from other alternative energy sources such as wind.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BP_Solar

author: miguelvp
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 21, 2014, 11:44:47 pm
content: But reality doesn't agree.http://www.thelocal.es/20140511/sun-sets-on-spanish-solar-power-dreamshttp://theresilientearth.com/?q=content/germanys-solar-failurehttp://www.pv-tech.org/news/spanish_solar_cuts_force_ikea_to_hand_pv_plant_back_to_the_bankhttp://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21587782-europes-electricity-providers-face-existential-threat-how-lose-half-trillion-euros

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 21, 2014, 11:51:25 pm
content: Quote from: mojo-chan on December 21, 2014, 11:14:22 pmLong term low interest loans are also subsidies, and so are tax break, tax on the competition and millions of other forms.

author: mtdoc
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 22, 2014, 12:28:47 am
content: The fundamental issue is not whether PV is a viable source of electricity production. That debate was settled long ago and the exponential growth of installed solar worldwide attests to that.Citing some specific example where the economics did not pan out as rosy as the financiers initially projected is besides the point, whether one is referring to a courthouse in Florida or the Spanish countryside.One could just as easily argue that nuclear or oil is not a viable energy source citing their enormous public subsidies or the multiple examples of nuclear power or oil exploration and development financial failures - the (heavily subsidized) tight oil industry implosion that is happening right now being a prime example.Citing this or that financial miscalculation and trying to use that as argument against solar PV as a whole is just cheap and transparent political propaganda.Bottom line -ALLcurrent forms of energy used to produce electricity are heavily subsidized by society. The question is which are going to be viable long term and cause the least damage to the resources needed to sustain healthy habitat for life on earth (yes, including humans).Those predisposed to short term thinking and immediate self-interest focus on this or that short term cost and what's in it for them here and now. Some are so caught up in the false and destructive Red vs Blue political gamesmanship that they don't really seem interested in what the facts are. Such is the reality of the current social climate...The question is why does someone like Sgt Rock feel the need to repeatedly start these threads that have an obvious political agenda on an electronics forum?

author: XynxNet
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: December 22, 2014, 12:31:34 am
content: Well here in Germany solar fails for political reasons.- Renewables were highly subsidized, but the grid upgrade isn't.- Grid owners were the big power companies, which had no interest in renewables. Today they aren't any longer grid owners...on paper...due to shifty business transactions.- Subsidaries for renewables are only paid by consumers, not by the industry, which conveniently raises their visibility and present costs for the consumers.- Subsidaries for non renewable energy production are not accounted. Furthermore they are not financed by a dedicated tax. So their visibilitty is quite low.- Costs of non renewable energy are externalized. 'Nuclear waste management? - Tax payers childrens problem' 'Climate change due to carbon dioxid? - Not or problem. If needed we can buy co2-certificates, which are essentially government sanctioned fakes.'....Why is it this way and why do some people sabotage every shift to renewables? Because in the good old times (2008) a conventional nuclear or coal power plant made half a billion euro profit a year... for it's owner.

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 22, 2014, 01:05:38 am
content: QuoteThat has been a standard line they teach at the school for the fanatics,The equivalent of it is "Doesn't compute" for the robots. Dumb and dumber.

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 22, 2014, 01:11:46 am
content: QuoteSo transparency is a bad thing?You have just been Grubered,

author: miguelvp
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 22, 2014, 01:45:55 am
content: Quote from: mtdoc on December 22, 2014, 12:28:47 amThat might be the case but we still need those electrons for electronics

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 22, 2014, 02:21:48 am
content: QuoteLiberals welcome all sorts of views, as long as they are in agreement with the liberals' views.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 22, 2014, 03:11:06 am
content: Quote from: dannyf on December 22, 2014, 01:05:38 amIt's called 'thought terminating cliche'.

author: mtdoc
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 22, 2014, 03:30:26 am
content: Quote from: zapta on December 22, 2014, 03:11:06 amWell when the facts aren't on your side - resort to multiple posts empty of facts or original thought. Accuse the other of being some convenient scapegoat: "liberal", "socialist", "enviromentalist", etc, etc.Or portray a simple statement of fact (that the debate of whether solar power is a viable source of electricity production is over) as a "thought terminating cliche"Simple fact:Solar power produced 125Terrawatt hours of electricity in 2013and is growing exponentially.Apologies if that fact terminates your thinking.

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 22, 2014, 01:09:29 pm
content: QuoteWhen did facts come into play in the thinking of liberal socialist environmental parasites, in the climate gate scandal or the solyndra scandal or the latest Peruvian scandal?If those green energy initiatives are so good, why do they have to drag us into funding them?All those guys care about is lining up their pockets with somebody else's money.

author: Rufus
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 22, 2014, 03:04:19 pm
content: Quote from: mtdoc on December 22, 2014, 03:30:26 amWhile the 8 ancient nukes in the UK produced 357 TWh in the same year. So the global solar power install produced less than 3 small 30 year old nukes.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 22, 2014, 03:12:29 pm
content: Quote from: mojo-chan on December 22, 2014, 11:42:15 amOne form of oppression doesn't justify another.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 22, 2014, 03:17:50 pm
content: Quote from: Rufus While the 8 ancient nukes in the UK produced 357 TWh in the same year. So the global solar power install produced less than 3 small 30 year old nukes.[/quote

author: mtdoc
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 22, 2014, 03:38:10 pm
content: Quote from: Rufus on December 22, 2014, 03:04:19 pmNot surprising at all. Sadly PV, despite it's rapid growth, is still a very small portion of global electricity generation.Of course, that's irrelevant to the question at hand: Is it a viable source of electricity production and what will its role be going forward?What percentage of power production was nuclear or even natural gas in the early days of their adoption?Leaving the juvenile name-callers and political hacks aside, the question becomes how will we be making electricity in 30, 50 or 100 years from now? Do we burn all the remaining, accessible fossil fuels before we develop alternatives?Bottom line is that renewables are a viable way to make electricity BUT will never be able to completely replace fossil fuels in electricity production and there is NOTHING that will replace oil as a liquid fuel or substrate for multiple industrial needs.Nuclear will not be the answer for lots of both practical and social/political reasons.In my view we'll be in a world of much less energy availability and much lower standard of living 30 years from now. The question is how much less - and that will be determined in part by how much political ideology and short term greed impacts the development of alternatives.

author: SgtRock
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: December 22, 2014, 04:09:56 pm
content: Greetings EEVBees:Quote from: mtdoc on December 21, 2014, 04:43:24 pm--As fas as I know the facts as set forth in by WFTS News Tampa are correct and have nothing to do with the Tea Party. There have been a number of articles and the facts have been vetted. Also I do not recall anyone saying that sales of solar panels were declining. Abhorring government waist is not the same thing as hating solar panels. Panels do survive after the warranty period, but without warranty. There are a number of installations out there with China made panels. I wonder how many are 25 years old. I also wonder why banks do not like to lend money on 50 year solar payback projects. Oh, right, Greed! As a general matter in large solar system installations they compute the number of panels required say for a 20 year payback, and then add say 10% for panel degradation, and another 5% or to account for soilage. So for a brand new installation like this to be performing at half of that promised is probably not something to be proud of.--If the facts about the return on investment, are as stated, then the provenance of the article hardly matters, and I hardly think that WFTS News in Tampa is a Tea Party conspirator.--See below link for another article on the catastrophe, which includes a few additional facts.http://energy.tdprofiti.com/tampa-solar-panels-fail-to-meet-promises.html"County Director No Longer SupportsHillsborough County Energy Director Randy Klindworth, who primarily upheld a solar row project, told WFTS he would no longer support spending taxpayer dollars on such projects. “I’ve got to be clever how a county spends taxpayer money. we wish to be really correct in how we do that, make certain we get a good lapse on investment,”--Oh well, Randy probably goes to Tea Party meeting with the folks from WFTS News Tampa.--Thanks to all for the posted articles.“Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts.” "Richard Feynman 1918 - 1988Best RegardsClear Ether

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 22, 2014, 04:22:05 pm
content: Quote from: mtdoc on December 22, 2014, 03:38:10 pmThe winning technology should win on its own merit, not by forcing others to pay for it.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 22, 2014, 04:35:29 pm
content: Quote from: mojo-chan on December 22, 2014, 04:20:54 pmThanks Mojo Chan, and have a merry Christmass.

author: SeanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 22, 2014, 05:12:11 pm
content: Hey, I live in south Africa, we already do that.Solar power here is unsubsidised at consumer level, but already there are many installations paid for fully by the owners, no subsidy for solar electric systems. There is a program on the supply side to install solar water heating, where there is a subsidy ( and I will not comment on that cluster bomb either) that is doing well to supply water heating to the residents of low income areas instead of electric water heating. Quite a few people have installed for themselves as well, at own cost, and are reaping the benefits.Sales of gas cookers and gas water heaters are doing well, even though gas is more expensive than electricity, but you use it more efficiently. Solar heaters are good, though the cheap ones might not last the warranty period they have, and you often have problems from either the installation being poor or the product being cost cutted too far.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 22, 2014, 05:37:33 pm
content: Quote from: mojo-chan on December 22, 2014, 04:42:35 pmThe fallacy of the extreme. No, everybody pays for their own consumption. Want to have charity on the side, make it visible, not hidden in other people costs. Think liberty.

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 22, 2014, 05:43:28 pm
content: The problem with subsidies is they distort the market.The UK has cut subsidies for wind and solar because it was costing too much and meant valuable farmland was being used for energy.The worst thing was home owners used to be able to get grants for wind turbines and solar panels, even if they lived in the shadow of large buildings where there's little wind or sun.Of course wind and solar can be profitable forms of energy generation but it doesn't mean they're suitable for all.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 22, 2014, 06:51:16 pm
content: Quote from: mojo-chan on December 22, 2014, 06:34:24 pmMore doom and gloom as an excuse for oppression. Mojo Chan, you are wasting your time. Cherish liberty and buy your PV with your own money.

author: ajb
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 22, 2014, 07:14:58 pm
content: Quote from: zapta on December 22, 2014, 05:37:33 pmGood idea. Let's start by internalizing the cost of the environmental impact of fossil fuels. Keeping those costs hidden in the cost of our children's health and prosperity is oppressive government-sponsored charity!

author: mtdoc
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 22, 2014, 07:32:52 pm
content: Quote from: ajb on December 22, 2014, 07:14:58 pmOne needn't even include the hidden costs you rightly cite. The overt subsides to the nuclear and fossil fuel industries both historical and current dwarfs the relatively tiny subsidies to the nascent PV industry.It's incredibly hypocritical to continue to drum on about subsidies to promote development of renewable energy while ignoring the historical record of such subsidies for nuclear an fossil fuels.

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 22, 2014, 07:39:18 pm
content: QuoteTo understand return on investment, one has to understand division and economics.Those tree huggers are still learning addition using fingers so you have to be patient with them.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 22, 2014, 08:06:23 pm
content: Quote from: mtdoc on December 22, 2014, 07:32:52 pmOne needn't even include the hidden costs you rightly cite. The overt subsides to the nuclear and fossil fuel industries both historical and current dwarfs the relatively tiny subsidies to the nascent PV industry.It's incredibly hypocritical to continue to drum on about subsidies to promote development of renewable energy while ignoring the historical record of such subsidies for nuclear an fossil fuels.If nuclear and fossil products and services are subsidized then they shouldn't, but one wrong doesn't justify yet another one.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 22, 2014, 09:09:32 pm
content: Matter of scale. About $20bn in US subsidies for oil, <$1bn for solar, and ~$5bn for wind.http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1901197/thumbs/o-SUBSIDIES-570.jpghttp://instituteforenergyresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/Federal-Subsides.pngArgue it however you want, if you want to reduce the amount of subsidies focus on oil not renewables when the renewables might actually create some net benefit for this world.

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 22, 2014, 09:47:47 pm
content: QuoteFor example, one of those guys doesn't even know that a below-market-rate loan is a form of subsidy. How do you expect him/her to understand return on investments?Actually, I think s/he did attempt to engage in a discussion on time value of money, only to prove that it is impossibly complicated for that individual to understand.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 23, 2014, 12:32:48 am
content: Quote from: tom66 on December 22, 2014, 09:09:32 pm1. A png from Huffington Post is not a proper reference. Need more information what aspects of fossil energy are subsidized and how.2. You forgot to normalized it by number of extend of consumers.3. All subsidies of products and services are bad and justifying one by another is silly and perpetuate the corruption.

author: mtdoc
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 23, 2014, 01:04:36 am
content: 1. Subsidies for fossil fuel and nuclear power with several references have been presented on this forum multiple times and are repeatedly ignored by those pushing a political agenda. They are readily available to anyone who knows how to use Google. For those too lazy to do that you can startHEREandHERE2. Current subsidies are only a small part of the picture. The mature electricity production industries required much larger per annum/ per capacity subsidies in their early years.3 Direct financial subsidies of electricity production are only a small fraction of the total subsidies.4. Nuclear safety, fuel management and storage is a large taxpayer subsidized endeavor.5. Monitoring and managing air pollution from coal fired power plants is a large taxpayer subsidizes endeavor.6. Military spending and foreign aid spending to secure supplies of oil and gas of course dwarf all of it. How much has been spent on wars to secure oil and gas supplies? How much lower would the US military budget be if we were not dependent on foreign oil?7. The public health care costs associated with burning of fossil fuels are also enormous.8. Adding these up and the cost normalized per unit of energy produced or per consumer for fossil fuel and nuclear power production dwarfs that of renewables.9. It may be a legitimate political stance to say that all subsidies are bad but using that in the context of this discussion is an obvious cop out and tacit admission of a failed argument. Unless of course one is arguing against all electricity production.

author: HackedFridgeMagnet
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 23, 2014, 07:55:22 am
content: Can most of us agree that energy subsidies, whether fossil, renewable or nuclear are generally bad then? And are are thus better kept to a minimum.Also should the all the cost of the pollution and other side effects should be borne by the producer?Side effects being bird kill, safe nuclear safeguards, loss of value of land if used for the energy plants, risk of climate change etc, cost of upgrading distribution infrastructure to handle micro generators.Obviously impossible to put an exact figure on these but as a general principle.I personally think get rid of all subsidies but charge the entire cost of generation including side effects.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 23, 2014, 10:31:49 am
content: Quote from: mtdoc on December 22, 2014, 03:30:26 amThe page you quote shows a straight line increase in solar energy production for the past 4 years. There is no hint of exponential growth in their figures. The increase in capacity looks like its pretty much at the rate that existing production facilities can produce additional cells and panels. However, in the last year panel prices seem to have been in free fall. Is that because of a lot of new production capacity, or a collapse in demand?

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 23, 2014, 12:40:50 pm
content: What the liberal socialist environmental fanatics could never answer is that if green energy is so good, why do they insist on me funding it for them?I am perfectly fine that the tree huggers keep this good stuff all to themselves, no sharing is required, please,

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 23, 2014, 12:44:30 pm
content: You will notice that Spain has many entries on that list.That's also a country where its solar power market is collapsing due to the unexpected cut in subsidies to the solar power generators. Good luck to those investors in those solar projects, and good luck to the rate payers.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 23, 2014, 02:27:12 pm
content: Quote from: mojo-chan on December 23, 2014, 08:55:56 amIf they direct subsidies are real I am paying for them anyway (guess where the government gets its money?). As for the indirect ones, as usual the PV proponents make up stuff to extract more money from others. The war necessity for example is a myth, China gets its oil without being involved in wars.Mojo Chan, your ongoing attempts to scare us to support your pet cause is futile.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 23, 2014, 02:48:49 pm
content: Quote from: mtdoc on December 23, 2014, 01:04:36 amOk, let's look at your first link, in the US section it says (I am taking it on its face value)"Oil, natural gas, and coal benefited most from percentage depletion allowances and other tax-based subsidies, but oil also benefited heavily from regulatory subsidies such as exemptions from price controls and higher-than-average rates of return allowed on oil pipelines."percentage depletion allowances - a quick search suggests that this allows to deduct as expense amounts higher than the initial investment to acquire the resource. I am not an accountant but this looks like a subsidy to me and should stop.exemptions from price controls - calling this a subsidy is a stretch.higher-than-average rates of return - that's government interfering less with the market. calling this a subsidy is a stretch.This small subsampling suggests to me that the fossil subsidies you claim are exaggerated.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 23, 2014, 03:16:59 pm
content: Quote from: mojo-chan on December 23, 2014, 01:38:03 pm2010 30.4 0.14%2011 58.7 0.27%2012 93.0 0.41%2013 124.8 0.54%Those last 4 years, where the percentage had finally become significant, look like averystraight line. Before 2010 there is some tendency for their numbers to ramp in an ascending curve, but the figures are so low there that a real trend is hard to see.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 23, 2014, 04:20:50 pm
content: Quote from: mojo-chan on December 23, 2014, 03:28:29 pmChinese/Japanese conflicts happened way before we started to rely on underground fossil resources.If PV is such a great technology, it will succeed on its own, without forcing people to pay for it.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 23, 2014, 04:23:53 pm
content: Quote from: mojo-chan on December 23, 2014, 03:28:29 pmFree people don't need to prove anything to you or to their government so they can keep their money. Your view on personal liberty looks very awkward from here.

author: SgtRock
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: December 23, 2014, 06:14:15 pm
content: Greetings EEVBees:--The Governments subsidize nuclear projects, because they want the power, else wise nuclear power would not exist because fearmongering has made it impossible for insurance companies to provide coverage.--The oil companies in the USA are provided various subsidies for drilling in places where the government wants them to drill. It is important to note that the governments make three to six times as much per gallon of gas in taxes as the oil companies make in profits, then come the corporate income taxes. Thus the net subsidy is from the oil companies to the governments and not the other way around.http://www.forbes.com/2011/05/10/oil-company-earnings.html--And now that gas prices in the USA are way down the Democrats are itching to increase Fed tax by 200% or about 50 cents per gallon.--The NY Slimes likes to have it both ways. First they say that no weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq, then the say soldiers were injured when thousands of artillery rounds of mustard and sarin gas were found. But how can this be because we all know that "No weapons of mass destructions were ever found, nya, nya ,nya."http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/10/14/world/middleeast/us-casualties-of-iraq-chemical-weapons.html--But of course the fact still remains that the courthouse solar project is a dead loser financially, and no one is arguing otherwise. If, harumph, the equipment lasts 50 years, the government might get its money back. This is so typical of the large projects. I cannot for the life of me see why anyone would want to continue making loosing investments like this one."I always cheer up immensely if an attack is particularly wounding because I think, well, if they attack one personally, it means they have not a single political argument left. "Margaret Thatcher 1925 - 2013Best RegardsClear Ether

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 23, 2014, 06:17:43 pm
content: Quote from: mojo-chan on December 23, 2014, 03:21:33 pmAh, I see, the old no real argument so say something random trick.

author: XynxNet
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: December 23, 2014, 08:38:02 pm
content: Quote from: dannyf on December 23, 2014, 12:40:50 pmThey want a level field and a fair market.Epic payback of all non-green-energy subsidaries past and present would be an alternative. Unfortunately it would sink our economy. So that's not an option.

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 23, 2014, 09:32:28 pm
content: QuoteIsn't that how Michael Mann and Company arrived at those hockey stick temperature chart used as basis for global warming?

author: SgtRock
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: December 23, 2014, 09:36:52 pm
content: Greetings EEVBees:--There is a definite pattern here with these government funded ripoffs of the taxpayers, be they millions like in Tampa, hundreds of millions like Solyndra or the Big Casino, the Ivanpah Bird Burner. The 2.2 billion dollar Ivanpah solar thermal project is producing a forth of the energy promised. So Google and company are trying to obtain a federal grant for 539 million to help pay back the 1.6 billion federal loan, meanwhile these deadbeats are stiffing the government for the loan payments. Have been expecting same.http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/111114-725969-rich-ivanpah-owners-want-taxpayers-to-pay-for-their-mistake.htm"According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, it's produced only a quarter of the power it was promised to generate."--Again, the same pattern; Promise the moon. Have a bunch of glad handing politicians pose with shovels and cutting ribbons. Then deliver crap, avoid paying the money back, and beg for more, while the press moves on to promoting the next juggernaut renewable project, and the taxpayers bear the brunt.http://www.wsj.com/articles/ivanpah-solar-project-owners-delay-repaying-loans-documents-say-1411488730[quote only, rest of article behind pay wall""The world's largest solar thermal electricity project is applying for a federal grant—to pay off its federal loan.In order to pull that off, the owners of the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System project, NRG Energy Inc., Google Inc. and venture capital-backed BrightSource Energy Inc., have delayed repaying hundreds of millions of dollars of the project's federal loans from several months to a year, according to documents.""Noise proves nothing. Often a hen who has merely laid an egg cackles as if she laid an asteroid."Mark Twain (Samuel Langhorne Clemens ) 1835 - 1910Best RegardsClear Ether

author: mtdoc
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 24, 2014, 04:31:21 am
content: It's pretty amazing that someone can still claim with a straight face that the Iraq Invasion was about WMD's. Is there anyone but the Neo-con kool-aid drinkers who still believes that?But even if one did believe that - it still does not discredit the historical record of trillions of dollars of both foreign aid and military spending to protect access to oil in the Middle East and Africa - either directly or by protecting our partners in the House of Saud.From our long history of involvement with Iran and Saudi Arabia to theThe Carter Doctrinethat basically said "that oil is ours", to the gulf war which of course lead to our military bases in Saudi Arabia, the rise of Al Queda, 9/11, Afgahnistan, the "search for WMD's" and the Iraq War, the "war on terror", Libya, ISIL, and on and on.Any student of our history of involvement in the Persian Gulf and North Africa understands that it has always been about access to oil. Even politically conservative scholars acknowledge that.As for the worldwide exponential growth of installed solar power - the facts are the facts:

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 24, 2014, 04:47:03 am
content: Quote from: XynxNet on December 23, 2014, 08:38:02 pmThen advocate stopping future subsidies (I mean the real ones, not the imaginary ones some posters keep mentioning) rather then perpetuate the problem. Two wrongs to not make right. Let your technology win on its merit, not on its politics.

author: SgtRock
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: December 24, 2014, 05:11:30 am
content: Greetings EEVBees:--I am not aware of anyone in this thread discussing the rationale for the second Iraq war. I merely cited a NY Times article which mentioned that 5000 gas artillery rounds had been found, shortly after that war, to correct a previous erroneous statement to the contrary. So far, Tea Partiers and Kool Aid drinkers, who are not present in this discussion have been cited as red herrings. What next? Thirsty fundamentalists and conservative coffee klatchers.--Back on topic. I really cannot see how energy subsidies to fossil and nuclear, can justify a 2.2 billion dollar project that performs at one forth of what was promised. Fossil subsidies are a very small fraction of what the government takes in from taxes on them. I doubt very much that the same can be said for renewable subsidies.“Had his brain been constructed of silk, he would have been hard put to it to find sufficient material to make a canary a pair of cami-knickers.”P. G. Wodehouse 1881 - 1975Best RegardsClear Ether

author: mtdoc
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 24, 2014, 05:16:59 am
content: Quote from: zapta on December 24, 2014, 04:47:03 amAnd that sentence right there reveals the underlying motivations behind the incessant efforts of some to deny the ongoing and inevitable continued growth of renewable energy. For some it's all about winning and politics.As for winning strictly on it's merits - you'd have to believe in fairies and unicorns to believe that any technology threatening the profits of the fossil fuel and nuclear power industries would be allowed to do any such thing.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 24, 2014, 05:28:04 am
content: Quote from: mtdoc on December 24, 2014, 05:16:59 amYour paranoia is a poor justification to take my tax money to subsidize your pet cause.

author: SgtRock
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: December 24, 2014, 05:36:51 am
content: Greetings EEVBees:Quote from: mtdoc on December 24, 2014, 05:16:59 am--So, the (exponential) continued growth of renewable energy is inevitable. And if you do not believe in a conspiracy of nuke and fossil to prevent this inevitability, then you are a nut cake, right? Next we will be hearing about the suppression, by fossil energy company skulduggery, of the 700MPG carburetor."People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf."Eric Arthur Blair - George Orwell 1903 -1950Best RegardsClear Ether

author: SeanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 24, 2014, 05:39:06 am
content: Sarge, and if you looked at where they came from originally you will find the Made in USA stickers on them, or at least on a lot of the parts, and the plant. Saddam was the proud owner of presses that could forge US currency flawlessly, as he bought the presses, the inks and the paper from the US treasury, and had everything from the USA, including the numbering dies, just needing the copied plates to do the work. Bought to make Dinars.South Africa also supplied some serious firepower to them, and the US military was pretty worried about the artillery that they had, seeing as it was developed in SA and both would pound them from far away, out of their range, and still hit with better accuracy at extreme range. Those 155m shells were supplied in some quantity, but the US has not as yet found all of them, orall the G6 and G5 launchers. There is also is a lot of small arms and such that just "disappeared" and still is missing. There is a lot of desert to hide stuff there, though a lot did move over borders. Then there is the stuff that was designed and built in house as well.We joked that the only places the US invaded was for the oil and minerals. If they discover oil you get worried.

author: SgtRock
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: December 24, 2014, 05:59:09 am
content: Dear Sean:--Good points. The USA and UK were also quite happy to sell Saddam the parts for the Gerald Bull Super Gun, which Israel would have no doubt destroyed long before it went into action. It does seem likely that the guns purpose was to deliver something other than high explosive. Fascinating technology in any case.http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/babongun.htm"Does not squirrel crack nuts on bough of oak tree."Lao Fu 1411 - 1623Best RegardsClear Ether

author: mtdoc
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 24, 2014, 07:03:05 am
content: Quote from: SgtRock on December 24, 2014, 05:36:51 amHuh? who said anything about conspiracies? Is it really that difficult to understand why those industries spend hundreds of millions a year to actively lobby for their financial interests?The continued growth of Solar PV is inevitable -despite those like yourself who seem to make a career out of starting topics on discussion forums to discredit it.But - as I've said before it will never be able to fully replace fossil fuels - nothing will. In fact without fossil fuels there would be no ability to manufacture, transport and install solar PV. It's not as black and white as you and others seem to want to make it out to be..

author: mtdoc
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 24, 2014, 07:42:31 am
content: Quote from: zapta on December 24, 2014, 05:28:04 amIf you believe solar PV is my or anyone elses "pet cause" then I really don't think you understand the issue at all.You might as well call building roads and bridges the "pet cause" of someone driving a car, or the physics research the "pet cause" of an engineer. How about the building of the dams on the Columbia and Colorado rivers? Where those the "pet cause" of the hundreds of millions who have benefited from them?I get the whole Libertarian thing, really I do. I even agree with a large portion of it. But I think it's pretty obvious that there's something more than a few pennies on their tax bill motivating those who feel the need to constantly be badgering about "my tax money" only when it involves Solar PV, EVs, etc.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 24, 2014, 04:13:42 pm
content: Quote from: mtdoc If you believe solar PV is my or anyone elses "pet cause" then I really don't think you understand the issue at all.[/quote

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 24, 2014, 04:17:25 pm
content: Quote from: mojo-chan on December 24, 2014, 11:11:24 amIf America is screwed it's because it follows the socialist practices of Europe inserted of being true to it's core values, liberty and self reliance.

author: mamalala
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: December 24, 2014, 04:47:30 pm
content: Quote from: mtdoc on December 24, 2014, 07:03:05 amYou did. Right here:Quote from: mtdoc on December 24, 2014, 05:16:59 amLet's put a little thought experiment out here. Companies are not charities, they want to make as much profit as they can. Now, given that, what do you think is more likely what they will do:1) Sell one kW/h for price X to you, while they have to pay for some part of price X for of fuel to generate that kW/h, thus lowering their profit margin when it comes to fuel cost per kW/h?- or -2) Sell one kW/h for the same price X to you, but they don't need to pay for any fuel, thus increasing their profit margin when it comes to to fuel cost per kW/h?Both scenarios assume that there is a given cost to build and operate the actual power plant.Why do you think they are still burning fossil fuels at an alarming rate, when there are allegedly usable alternatives available that require no constant fuel supply? Just because they love to lower their profit margins and throw out money for fuel?And while we are at it: Can you please provide a back-of-the-envelope calculation as to how much name-plate capacity in PV/wind generating power has to be installed to supply an average base-load of 1MW, plus the normal load-curve demands above that, considering that there can be periods of up to a week or more where the is next to no wind and very, very little sun? And what amount of storage capacity is needed for that?Greetings,Chris

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 24, 2014, 05:24:54 pm
content: Quoteperforming a thought experiment can be challenging for the fanatics.

author: SgtRock
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: December 24, 2014, 05:56:57 pm
content: Greetings EEVBees:--Once again, Ivanpah is producing about 1/4 of "promised output". Not 1/4 of the name plate capacity. They only wish it was producing 1/4 of nameplate capacity. Neither the Government nor BrightSource is buying this "nameplate confusion" crap. BrightSource warned the administration of embarrassment if the 1.6 billion was not provided, and the project went bankrupt. Now they are not paying back the loan, and angling for a 539 million grant. BrightSource blames weather for the shortfall in promised output and not nameplate confusion. Everybody knew what the nameplate capacity was, and they also knew what the promised output would supposedly be. This nameplate confusion story, is a completely desperate ruse, that is not even supported by BrightSource itself. We are all familiar with nameplate capacity because that is what is always quoted by the UK Wind Power bamboozlers, instead of actual output.--Not paying back loans and seeking a 539 million grant is proof of a resounding success? I think not.http://www.climateconversation.wordshine.co.nz/2014/11/dazzling-solar-generator-fails-promise/"So Ivanpah has failed its early production targets before a year is up, having produced only a quarter (254,263 MWh) of the planned electricity, and it’s applying to burn more fossil fuel which will emit 60% more CO2 to warm the globe." [US Energy Administration figures]http://instituteforenergyresearch.org/analysis/google-asks-bailout-federally-funded-solar-plant/"They’re asking for a government handout to cover the payment they must make on a government loan. Adding to the plant’s woes is a request to use 60 percent more natural gas in auxiliary boilers than was allowed under the plant’s certification that was restricted to 5 percent of the total annual heat input from the sun."--And now BrightSource is saying it will probably be 2018 before the plant reaches its promised output. In a pig's eye."Before I came here I was confused about this subject. Having listened to your lecture I am still confused. But on a higher level."Enrico Fermi 1901 - 1954Best RegardsClear Ether

author: SgtRock
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: December 24, 2014, 07:34:43 pm
content: Greetings EEVBees:--The below article give some of the best details yet on the Ivanpah fiasco. Be careful not to confuse Watt hours, with Watts. One million mega-Watt hours was promised, and 250 thousand mega-Watt hours actually produced, and more than half of that is from burning natural gas.http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2014/11/is-obamas-latest-green-energy.html"the plant has not lived up to its clean energy promise. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the plant produced only about a quarter of the power it's supposed to, a disappointing 254,263 megawatt-hours of electricity from January through August, not the million megawatt-hours it promised.""In addition, the plant recently filed with regulators to greatly increase the fossil fuels burned by the "solar" plant's inefficient boiler system, due to insufficient heat input from the Sun on cloudy days and at night. The plant wants to burn 1,575 million standard cubic feet  of natural gas every year, which will increase its CO2 emissions 59% to 94,749 tons per year."To get a sense of that volume, an average U.S. natural gas-fired power plant [using much more efficient and clean-burning turbines instead of boilers] might be expected to produce about 200,000 MWh from 1,575 mmcf of gas, according to the EIA."Therefore, the plant is producing about 254,263 * 12/8 = ~381,000 megawatt-hours of electricity per year using natural gas that could otherwise supply 200,000 megawatt-hours of electricity per year. Thus, over one-half [about 52%] of the plant electricity output is from inefficient use of fossil fuels."--And that does not include rises in power bills, from building the transmission lines.Wun Hung Lo 1948 -Best RegardsClear Ether

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 24, 2014, 07:53:50 pm
content: QuoteThat's the P25 valuation approach,.Most windfarms are valued at P50 (50% of the time, they generate more than their rated power).what happens in the other 50% of the time?

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 24, 2014, 08:01:22 pm
content: Quote from: SgtRock on December 24, 2014, 07:34:43 pmDo they actually transmit to their customers energy they generate from fossil fuel or just use it to power the renewable operation?(I know, it's doesn't matter from bottom line perspective but I wonder what is behind those numbers).

author: SgtRock
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: December 25, 2014, 05:52:24 am
content: Dear EEVBees:--Below is a link to the energy.gov web site which clearly shows that the government and NRG/BrightSource are promising an output of 1,065,000 Megawatt hours. I hope this puts to rest any attempts to confuse the issue with the nameplate capacity. If you look at the picture provided you can clearly see that the nameplate capacity is 392MW and that the promised Annual Generation Output is 1,065,000 MWh. So far however the rate of annual output has been about 250,000 MWh or 25% of what was promised. NRG/BrightSource now says it expects to achieve the promised output by 2018. Do not hold your breath!http://energy.gov/lpo/nrg-energy-inc-brightsource--Meanwhile Google has announced it will not be funding any more Solar Thermal projects, because wholesale prices for PV solar panels has dropped by 50% since the time Ivanpah was planned."If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it."Ronald Reagan 1911 - 2004Best RegardsClear Ether

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 25, 2014, 04:19:21 pm
content: Quote from: mojo-chan on December 25, 2014, 12:52:22 pmIf it's paid with my tax money than it's not.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 25, 2014, 06:29:55 pm
content: Quote from: mojo-chan on December 25, 2014, 05:41:38 pmIn both cases I will not get it back but two wrongs do not make right. It's interesting though that you want to declare this bait and switch project as a success. It shows your low expectations from 'green' energy and your tolerance for lying to the public in the name of your cause.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 25, 2014, 09:06:28 pm
content: Two wrongs may well not make a right, but while subsidies do exist for fossil fuel (*including* the indirectly and unrealised externalities, such as health problems created by coal, nuclear waste disposal, etc.) it is necessary for them to compete on a level playing field. Which means subsidies.Anyone suggesting the energy market is in any way representative of a free market is having a hearty laugh at the expense of Joe Q. Public. It's probably one of the greatest examples of government meddling. For one example of many, see Russia's refusal to supply natural gas to Ukraine. Or the Iraq war and oil. Or the Keystone Pipeline.Coal should be heavily taxed to represent the serious harm it causes to individual health. Coal power kills more people in just ONE YEAR than nuclear power has EVER killed in any accident. (http://www.catf.us/fossil/problems/power_plants/) And the one most serious accident, Chenobyl, can be put down to serious design errors and lack of proper operator training.Just because a technology cannot be necessarily economically competitive (for example coal will almost always be cheaper than solar) does not mean it is superior, because in one way or another, you will be paying for it, just not in the electric bill.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 26, 2014, 12:16:11 am
content: Quote from: mojo-chan on December 25, 2014, 05:41:38 pmIMHO it is not about getting your money back. If you got all your money back then it wouldn't be necessary to earn it in the first place. The way I see it tax is like paying rent to the government. On their turn they spend money on things you may not benefit from. Like your landlord pays for fixing a leaking roof on the top floor of an apartment building while you live on the bottom floor.The fact is that fossil fuels will run out at some point in the future and we will need alternatives. Those alternatives do cost money to develop.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 26, 2014, 01:27:13 am
content: Quote from: nctnico on December 26, 2014, 12:16:11 amHmm, so no reason for us to earn money unless we can give it to the government?Quote from: nctnico on December 26, 2014, 12:16:11 amThe main role of the government is to protect our liberty, not to provide us food or energy. What you promote is the other way around. Cherish freedom.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 26, 2014, 10:34:55 am
content: It would be nice if we could rely on the free market to provide everything that citizens want or need, but in reality, it does not work. The free market is great at optimising profit for few and the expense of many. It doesn't work because consumers have imperfect information (i.e. few are aware of the health effects of coal.)In theory, I think libertarianism (or otherwise very limited government influence) is an ideal goal, but I just can't see it working, unless there was some way that every individual had all information available to them and acted appropriately upon that information. Maybe if we were all clear-thinking, reasonable individuals.The financial crisis of 2007 ongoing was in part due to this idea that if we let banks regulate themselves the system will sort itself out. I think that we can see this does not work because the executives and other staff of such companies optimise their own short-term profit over long-term stability and growth of a business or the wider economy.

author: HackedFridgeMagnet
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 26, 2014, 11:28:15 am
content: QuoteThen when they fail they get a government bailout, but that is ok as they are libertarians at heart and are not infecting the grid with green power. </sarcasm>

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 26, 2014, 04:00:26 pm
content: Quote from: tom66 on December 26, 2014, 10:34:55 amPeople mismanaged their businesses and the businesses collapsed, this is how it should be. Bailing them with other people money is immoral.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 26, 2014, 04:57:15 pm
content: Quote from: zapta on December 26, 2014, 04:00:26 pmAgreed; and some have argued that the banks were aware they would be bailed out, influencing their choices. However, it is also immoral to allow such large corporations to effectively gamble with the economy in the way they did.They caused millions of people to lose their jobs, likely triggered many suicides or bouts of depression, destroyed many industries and small businesses, and did trillions of dollars of damage to the economy.So it's also not moral to allow such businesses to operate without sufficient oversight. The free market doesn't work (here), except to maximise the profit of a few individuals at the expense of everyone else.More on topic, you need to address the unrealised externalities caused by fossil fuel usage, such as health harm, pollution, environmental damage, etc. There are two ways you can do this: You can heavily tax fossil fuel usage, and use that to fund clean up and health programs. Or, you can subsidise renewable/"green" technology, putting it on a more level playing field.Politically speaking, it's a lot more palatable to fund renewables than it is to tax fossil fuels, especially as tax on such significantly increases the apparent cost to the average individual (the cost is still there but it's not written on a bill any more.)It doesn't matter even if you don't agree with AGW. It's happening. But even if you deny it, you can see that coal power kills 7,500 people every year. That's just the USA. If you take a rough approximation and say the density of coal power plants is similar across the world, that's ~165,000 people per year. That's something like 50 September 11 attacks every year. Can we please do something about this?!

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 26, 2014, 05:19:23 pm
content: Quote from: tom66 on December 26, 2014, 04:57:15 pmQuote from: tom66 on December 26, 2014, 04:57:15 pmI don't understand the whining. We live longer than ever have stuff and food than even and can travel and communicate faster than ever, all thanks to fossil based energy and some ungrateful people are still complaining and want to take my money for their pet causes. Chill up.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 26, 2014, 05:25:50 pm
content: @tom66:I'm not comfortable with the 'coal kills' slogan. IMHO that is just FUD. There are so many things which are bad for us: McDonalds et al, sugar, smoking, alcohol, traffic, etc, etc. If a coal based power plant is emitting too much polution it should have exhaust filtering (over here that is mandatory). That means you'd have to 'target' a specific power plant and have the authorities do something about that. Maybe it turns out the local power plant already has state of the art filtering and your numbers are old.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 26, 2014, 05:37:39 pm
content: McDonalds, sugar, smoking, alcohol: all personal choices (all to different extents)Coal power and pollution from traffic: It affects EVERYONE. Essentially the only thing you can do is move away from the source, but for many people that's not practical. And if you live somewhere like Indiana/Ohio/Virginia... good luck!I'm actually in favour of support for people who want to quit smoking/alcohol consumption, or longterm alcoholics. I do understand it's often a personal choice in which case I don't think intervention is a good idea.Data is from here:http://www.catf.us/fossil/problems/power_plants/and is for 2014, which includes new power plants. The figure HAS reduced, which reflects the improvements in carbon capture and scrubbing, but it is still far too high for me, personally, to be comfortable.Some more data on this:http://climate.nasa.gov/news/903/http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20928053.600-fossil-fuels-are-far-deadlier-than-nuclear-power.html#.VJ2eMDk0

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 26, 2014, 05:56:35 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on December 26, 2014, 05:25:50 pmCoal gives life. Look at all those hospitals that are powered by coal.

author: mtdoc
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 26, 2014, 06:35:01 pm
content: Zapta, you've jumped the shark! Posting pictures of premature infants to support your argument. Really?While I agree that the "coal kills" slogan is hyperbole, there's no denying that coal - especially non "clean coal" burning power plants are a major source of major adverse health effects.Should I be posting pictures of atmosphere in those many Chinese cities powered by "life giving" coal. How about pictures of children with severe asthma in a hospital ICU on a ventilator after a dirty air induced asthma exacerbation?BTW - that premature infant will be much more likely to grow up with chronic lung problems and be highly susceptible to the effects of the types of air pollution that coal fired power plants are notorious for.

author: mtdoc
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 26, 2014, 06:45:52 pm
content: Quote from: mamalala on December 24, 2014, 04:47:30 pmWell, no. Just because a highly entrenched industry (coal,nat gas, oil) has amassed incredible power (thanks in part to government subsidies) now exerts tremendous economic and political power (thanks to hundreds of millions spent on lobbying) does not mean there is a "conspiracy"Jeez, I'd think someone posing on an engineering forum could thinks of several examples where a superior product is not able to achieve significant market share strictly on its "own merits" due to the current market dominance and political/economic power of established corporations.

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 26, 2014, 06:56:17 pm
content: QuoteWhat's "unrealized externalities"? What an oxymoron.As to externalities, everything has its externalities. Your very existence has a negative externality on the environment, this forum, and the rest of humanity.What are you going to do about it?

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 26, 2014, 07:00:27 pm
content: Quote from: mtdoc on December 26, 2014, 06:35:01 pmWith all the coal kills FUD it's useful to have a more balanced perspective. Fossil energy improved any aspects of our lives including infant mortality. Look at the big picture.

author: mtdoc
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 26, 2014, 07:24:46 pm
content: Quote from: zapta on December 26, 2014, 01:27:13 amThe problem with this line of simplistic reasoning is that it does not work. Plenty of examples of countries whose leaders fail to be interested in the basic needs of it's citizens - citizens who have lots of freedom. I've traveled enough in Latin America and Africa to see plenty of countries where the average citizens have plenty of personal freedom and the government provides very little support for basic infrastructure.Look around: every country on the planet whose citizens have a decent standard of living have governments who historically and currently have invested in the infrastructure needed to ensure electricity, transportation, education and communication (and with the exception of the USA, health care) for its citizens.The truth is that without that government investment, economic activity will not flourish on anything but the most rudimentary level.Lack of basic government regulations does not lead to economic or personal liberty - quite the contrary it leads to Crony Capitalism, oligarchy and/or corporatocracy.I absolutely believe that government has grown excessively, wastes large amounts of money and has become in many case way too invasive and intrusive into peoples lives -in some cases it has become outright dangerous in it's attempts to preserve its power in the name of "national security".But too many of the libertarian/"conservative"/Tea Party acolytes want to throw the baby out with the bathwater.I've known plenty of Libertarians (including the former head of the California Libertarian Party and my local Libertarian candidate for congress) and the problem is that for many of them the mantra of "less government, lower taxes, no subsidies, etc" becomes the hammer and every problem they see as a nail. Some are intellectually honest and truly believe they can make the world better but way too many are in my opinion just consciously or unconsciously greedy people with an "I got mine" attitude. They hide behind the idea of personal freedom above all in an effort preserve what they have. That is their "pet project"

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 26, 2014, 07:46:38 pm
content: Quote from: dannyf on December 26, 2014, 06:56:17 pmMaybe a poor way of writing it; I'm not an economist. I mean, an externality that is not immediately obvious to the average Joe.For example, they might not associate city traffic or coal pollution with increased rates of childhood asthma. The cost of this is on Joe, not on the producer of the pollution, so it is an externality. And it is unrealised, because Joe may not associate it immediately as causing it.Of note is that asthma cases are significantly higher in city neighbourhoods; I wonder why?Quote from: dannyf on December 26, 2014, 06:56:17 pmNothing. Really, there is very little I can or want to do about it. However it is possible to replace coal power with nuclear, which I am personally in favour of. Nuclear waste is still a concern but future reactors can run on the waste of older generation reactors. The problem is, there is an enormous amount of red tape regarding nuclear reactor design that the industry is too slow to adapt. It is now far more expensive per lifetime MWh to construct a nuclear power plant over a coal or nat gas power plant hence why they are rarely built these days.As far as safety is concerned, nuclear is extremely safe, but like airline disasters, when it goes wrong, it can go really wrong. This makes promoting nuclear a big PR problem. As far as I am concerned, Greenpeace's anti-nuclear stance is not helping and I wish they could see the big picture. There is no current practical level of grid storage that could support a pure solar/wind solution that they seem to promote. In the mean time, nuclear can provide the necessary base load.Personally I think gen 3/4 nuclear + wind + mild solar is the way to go in the UK, with low-waste nuclear representing about 75 to 80% of the contribution. Where possible geothermal & hydro can be used, location dependent.Quote from: zapta on December 26, 2014, 07:00:27 pmI agree that fossil fuels have been very beneficial to our economy and development as a species. Enormously beneficial in fact. But that has come at a huge cost to us and future generations. We have reached a level of technological development at which we can change this and make it better for everyone.

author: SgtRock
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: December 26, 2014, 08:31:17 pm
content: Greetings EEVBees:--The financial crisis was in large part caused by the collapse of the real estate market. The collapse of the housing bubble was caused in large part by the Community Reinvestment Act, which along with threats from federal banking regulators forced banks to make loans to people whose credit worthiness would not otherwise allowed them to obtain home loans. Before the collapse the banks were accused of "redlining" and forced to make bad loans to people with bad credit. After the collapse, banks were accused of predation for making these loans. Heads we win, tails you lose. For an exhaustive article on the CRA and the collapse of the housing bubble, see the below article.http://www.businessinsider.com/the-cra-debate-a-users-guide-2009-6--Now, back to topic before the moderators close this thread. I just cannot see how pounding sand down a rat hole like Ivanpah, which even Google says it is not going to repeat, does anything but increase the use of fossil fuels. Oh well it is the thought that counts, right? Ivanpah is going to be using in its inefficient boilers, enough natural gas to produce 200,000 MWh if used in efficient steam turbines, in order to produce maybe 350,000 MWh if they are lucky.--I was hoping someone would bring up another large solar project that was performing better than Ivanpah, but alas no joy. Instead we are told that it does not make any difference if any of these rat holes perform as promised because coal is dirty. And AGW, for der warmers (settled science nya nya nya) is really really important, until nuclear is mentioned, then it is not so important, Tom66 being the exception."I don't know what the term is in Austrian ..."Barack Hussein Obama 1961 -Best RegardsClear Ether

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 26, 2014, 08:38:37 pm
content: QuoteAll the coal-power plants are built in the cities, not in the countryside where asthma cases are significantly lower?Had that premature infant been burn in the alternative universe where only expensive green energy is available, her parents would not have been able to afford to light up the room. Worse yet, she was born at night, none of the electronics would had any power to assist her.Talk about "externality".

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 26, 2014, 08:52:46 pm
content: Quote from: dannyf on December 26, 2014, 08:38:37 pmCompletely agree, which is why solar and wind are not practical as a significant part of the energy supply. Nuclear, although a fossil fuel by definition, is far cleaner than other options, and there are proven reserves of >200,000 years-nuclear-power of uranium available in the US alone.Grid storage is the only way to make solar/wind work practically, but you'd need something like ~500GWh for the UK. For comparison that's nearly 6 million Tesla 85kWh packs which cost about $25,000 each to make, or $150 billion dollars, if you assume all materials cost the same.So anyone who suggests solar PV or solar thermo-electric, or wind, can supply the electrical load of a country is an idiot or worse, a Greenpeace supporter. Solar can supply a portion of daytime electrical load, reducing the load on nuclear. And wind can contribute something as well. I prefer wind over solar myself.Renewables are part of the solution: but they are not the only solution.Quote from: dannyf on December 26, 2014, 08:38:37 pmQuite a few coal power plants in the UK are built near large population centres. But the main contributor to the increased rates of asthma in cities is pollution from ICE vehicles, not coal power.

author: mtdoc
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 26, 2014, 09:15:50 pm
content: Quote from: tom66 on December 26, 2014, 08:52:46 pmI agree - but there is no solution. Nothing will ever be able to completely replace fossil fuels. Solar, Wind and hydro combined could have - had we dedicated a larger effort into their development - gone a long ways towards sustaining widespread electrification over the long term - but we've waited too long and done too little to transition to it. Nuclear - for lots of reasons - will not (and should not IMO - though there's room for honest disagreement on this) be a solution either.

author: mtdoc
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 26, 2014, 09:26:22 pm
content: Quote from: tom66 on December 26, 2014, 08:52:46 pmBut not true in Beijing and several other large Chinese citties. For example:Beijing Shuts Big Coal-Fired Power Plant to Ease Smog

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 26, 2014, 09:29:46 pm
content: It sure would be great if fusion had a massive breakthrough soon. I think a lot more resources should be diverted to be. To be honest if it was a choice of solar subsidy or fusion research grant I'd chose the latter.I still have concerns that there are practical issues with the technology that may well mean it's not that practical, such as sustaining the extremely high fusion density inside the core.Fission has a lot of issues, including waste disposal. However, of all the currently available solutions, I think fission is the "least worst".

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 26, 2014, 09:35:07 pm
content: Quote from: mtdoc on December 26, 2014, 07:24:46 pmThis countries are typically corrupt with the politicians skimming the public fund. This is not liberty, this is corruption.Quote from: mtdoc on December 26, 2014, 07:24:46 pmYou are confusing libertarians/Tea Party with anarchists.Quote from: mtdoc on December 26, 2014, 07:24:46 pmPersonal liberty and collectivism are on the two ends of a continuum. I don't bother myself with the theoretical extremes. It's more important to me to identify where we are now on that continuum and in what direction we should push the needle. The quote above suggests that you would like to move it toward liberty and if so we are in agreement.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 26, 2014, 09:37:37 pm
content: Quote from: dannyf on December 26, 2014, 08:38:37 pmAt night, the parent could use this green energy technology to keep their infant alive:

author: mtdoc
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 26, 2014, 09:39:52 pm
content: Quote from: zapta on December 26, 2014, 09:35:07 pmAnd history has shown that is the natural outcome when the libertarian ideal of no subsidies and no regulation of private enterprise is put into practice.Please name one developed nation with a high standard of living which has not historically and currently subsidized development of infrastructure including electrification.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 26, 2014, 09:49:08 pm
content: Quote from: mtdoc on December 26, 2014, 09:26:22 pmLook at the big picture, life expectancy in china keeps growing and is higher than ever, heavily driven by fossil energy.

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 26, 2014, 09:52:13 pm
content: QuoteThe average Joe would be smart enough to know 1) what externality is; or 2) to not use terms that they don't have firm grasp on -> that's call common sense, something extremely uncommon amongst the elitists who think they are smarter than they really are.If you want to talk about the cost of coal power, you may also want to know how many family will have to go to bad cold and hungry because of higher energy cost; how many kids would not be able to use their computers as much as they could; how many poor infants would die because the world has suddenly decided that it is more important for some elitists to feel better to fly their private jets, or to heat up their swimming pool, or to keep their 10,000sqft mansion cooled in the summer, or to get a bigger fatter carried interests from their VC investments, ...If you want to talk about being immoral, being unfair, being greedy, being evil, think about taking money from those who can least afford such costs and give it to the rich and powerful and the entitled.Unfortunately, for the tree huggers and the liberal socialist environmental extremists, being moral, being fair aren't part of their vocabulary.QuoteYou may want to want to learn up on "rational expectation" (Muth) and "efficient market" (Fama).If you want to sound smart, you better be smart.

author: mtdoc
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 26, 2014, 09:54:54 pm
content: Quote from: zapta on December 26, 2014, 09:49:08 pmAnd that is relevant how? I've seen no one argue here that fossil fuels have not provided some benefit to society. But that is irrelevant to the point that Coal fired electricity is very dirty and can cause heavy amounts of air pollution and ill health effects.The question is can't we do better than late 19th century technology? And how do we extend the availability of a very finite resource (fossil fuels) so that the things only they can do (not make electricity) are available for as long possible.

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 26, 2014, 09:55:06 pm
content: QuoteThat's just embarrassing, even by the lower-than-low tree hugger standard.Even a "Wallmart" goer would be able to tell the difference between association and causation.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 26, 2014, 10:16:35 pm
content: Quote from: dannyf on December 26, 2014, 09:52:13 pmI think if you ask 100 average Joes what an externality is, when refering to economics, less than 20% would know or be able to explain it. But, maybe I'm just too cynical? They would probably understand the concept if explained, it's just common sense.Quote from: dannyf on December 26, 2014, 09:52:13 pmWell, for the record I don't own a private jet or a mansion and my swimming pool is made of rubber.What about the increased health costs of lung/respiratory diseases caused by coal pollution? In the USA for example, it's very rare to have 100% health cover. So in your example, why don't you consider the costs to the family if that child suffers a serious asthma attack? Except, in that case it's a few families with a massive bill. Even if you consider a country like the UK where health cover is near universal, this raises the cost of healthcare for everyone else. So while it might not impact on the per kWh cost, it will impact on the per family cost.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 26, 2014, 10:27:01 pm
content: Quote from: zapta on December 26, 2014, 09:49:08 pmOne thing to consider about life expectancy charts is a great deal of it is driven by improvements in the life expectancy of infants and children, and less by people actually living longer.Young life expectancy is driven mainly by improved medical care and pollution is less important.

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 26, 2014, 10:27:24 pm
content: QuoteThat's the beauty of living in a free country: you have the right to think as you wish, however ludicrous such thinking may be.QuoteThank God for some justice,QuoteWe the average Joe would first try to establish the linkage between asthma attacks and coal power plants. After that, we the average Joe would perform rigorous analysis, listing a set of options / alternative, performing a cost-benefit analysis, and letting the people decide what the course forward would be.If we happened to live in a totalitarian society, the elitists / rulers would then impose a solution, however ludicrous / inefficient / irrationale that may be, onto the rest of the society, under the false pretense that they know what's better for us because we the average Joe are deemed to be too stupid to realize the 'unrealized externalities" of coal power plants.History has shown, repeatedly, which system has worked out better, however imperfect it is. And millions of people have paid dearly when such decisions have been imposed onto them.Yet, there are countless elitists who are not smart enough to know just how stupid they are.

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 26, 2014, 10:30:15 pm
content: QuoteSince those infants are children have all been supposedly killed off by those evil power plants, wouldn't they have seen the biggest ***decline*** in life expectancy?Seriously, I have not seen a person who is as good as you are in arguing against your own positions.The best strategy for you to win your argument apparently is to not say a single word,

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 26, 2014, 10:38:14 pm
content: Quote from: dannyf on December 26, 2014, 10:30:15 pmHuh? I did not ever say pollution **kills** young children?It can cause life long health problems which cost money to treat and cause problems in later life.It CAN also cause immediate health problems, but that is less of a concern, than say the lifelong problems and cost to society.

author: miguelvp
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 26, 2014, 10:38:40 pm
content: Quote from: tom66 on December 26, 2014, 10:16:35 pmYes you are too cynical. Just because they might not know the word it doesn't mean they don't know what it is or how to explain it.Ask your 100 average Joes about what they think about the decline of the bee population, they might not know what colony collapse disorder means but they know the economic impact of the bee population decline.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 26, 2014, 10:46:40 pm
content: Quote from: dannyf on December 26, 2014, 10:27:24 pmI agree - there is a balance between cost (health issues, environmental damage) and benefit (improvements to living, health, social status, wellbeing, etc.)Where exactly this balance should be met is under debate here, not whether or not there is a balance. I personally am not convinced the free market can appropriately select this balance because most people cannot choose who provides their electricity (on the power plant level, not the reseller level) or have any control over its production.In the UK you can buy a "green tarriff" from providers; it costs a few extra pence per kWh (that's maybe a 10~20% rise in total cost of electricity.) But, all our energy comes from the grid. These providers just claim to invest the extra in renewable power. I really can't see how that helps much, if anything. Seems more like a "feel good" factor than anything.

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 27, 2014, 08:14:28 pm
content: QuoteWow!Say it ain't so,

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 27, 2014, 10:59:56 pm
content: I never thought there would be 150k strong "people" who would pay premium prices so dear Al Gore could live in his 30,000sqft mansion, with heated in-ground pool and breezy a/c on full blast, and jet around the world telling people how to minimize their carbon footprint, and to drum up demand "green energy" to maximize the return on his "green energy" investments, while harassing masseuses, etc.The only thing green I can see is his bank account.What has happened to our education systems?If we ever needed the government to play a role, those folks would have benefited tremendously from some governmental protection from their own actions,

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 27, 2014, 11:03:32 pm
content: Not sure how it works in other countries, but in the UK, there are multiple electricity suppliers which compete for customers. A good example of a lightly regulated free market working well.Each supplier buys the amount of energy that their customers use from appropriate other suppliers (or in the case of larger companies they own the power plants themselves, EDF and npower being two examples.) They then sell this into the grid, to everyone.They all connect to the same grid so essentially everyone uses the same energy mix but by buying it from Ecotricity or other suppliers they are contributing their energy into the grid. Which makes the grid slightly greener - but it's still far from actually being clean by anyone's definition.But if all the coal plants went offline tomorrow - even in mid-day sun - you'd lose your supply. I don't think much of feed-in tariffs. An enormous amount of renewables would need to be constructed to supply a low-solar and moderate-wind country like the UK and give anyone "true" green energy. Which means nuclear... or lots and lots of grid storage.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 28, 2014, 01:29:32 am
content: Quote from: mojo-chan on December 27, 2014, 08:03:17 pmMojo Chan, you are regressing, in August you were 100% renewable for only 1-2% surcharge and now you claim only 89% for 10-20% surcharge.https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/this-is-why-we-should-all-leave-the-eu/msg500802/#msg500802

author: Red Squirrel
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 28, 2014, 03:49:07 am
content: I've always been intrigued by the "free solar" programs, but I am also sceptical. There has to be a catch. I would rather buy and install my own system. Would not work very well where I live though, we barely get any sun. We get maybe 2-3 months of summer and maybe half the time it's cloudy and raining. In winter the days are maybe like 7 hours long and it's rare that the sun is out as well but even when it is, it's a pretty limited time.Would be interesting to go wind though, while the wind is not really all that constant here at least it can happen any time within the 24 hour period instead of limited to a fraction of the day. The key to any renewable energy system is lots and lots of batteries and avoid deep cycling them. You can never have too many.

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 28, 2014, 04:07:32 am
content: QuoteWhat are the environment problems associated with manufacturing, transportation, storage and recycling of batteries?There are sound reasons that most batteries (particularly lead batteries) are made and recycled in developing countries where environmental protection is lax, at best.

author: NiHaoMike
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 28, 2014, 04:12:01 am
content: Those who live in a strongly heating dominated climate would probably be better off with a CHP setup running off of natural gas or whatever you already use for heating. Could be as simple as a small car engine coupled to a large induction motor (used as a generator) plus some heat exchangers to capture and make good use of the heat.

author: Red Squirrel
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 28, 2014, 04:23:13 am
content: Quote from: dannyf on December 28, 2014, 04:07:32 amTrue, and same can probably be said for the actual solar cells themselves. We definitely need better energy storage technology there's no doubt about that. Mind you lead acid batteries are probably not that bad if they're properly recycled but I imagine that process and the manufacturing still may output some pollution.Hydrogen fuel cells may be viable too but not sure what the energy density is like. I don't think it's very high or we'd see them in use more in use.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 28, 2014, 04:39:37 am
content: Quote from: Red Squirrel on December 28, 2014, 04:23:13 amFew weeks ago I saw a production UAV that operates on a fuel cell. It was chosen for density, refueling time and quiet operation (no ICE). The majority of the weight goes into the high pressure tank. It was made of a composite material of some sort. I don't know what it take to generate hydrogen but it if can be done with heat and/or electricity than it could be produced with nuclear energy. Yes, I know, the devil is in the details.

author: SeanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 28, 2014, 05:17:32 am
content: Quote from: Red Squirrel on December 28, 2014, 04:23:13 amI was chatting to a battery supplier the other day, and they told me that in a lead acid battery about 60% of the lead is directly recyclable as lead, with the rest being oxide that is either dissolved into the plastic separator or the casing. The plastic is normally granulated and used to make new battery casings, while the oxide and separators go off to a smelter to be burnt and reduced back to lead. While lead is not exactly the most environmentally friendly stuff around, the recycling channel for it is both old and established. I would guess most batteries are recycled, I know that around here in SA very few go out to landfill, as the users are well aware that they are worth money as scrap. I keep all my old SLA batteries till I get enough, or take to the scrap as part of another load. While you do not get much each, it does add up, especially as I just bought 300kg of them

author: SgtRock
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: December 28, 2014, 06:54:54 am
content: Greetings EEVBees:--It seems that rather a lot of the panels made by certain Chinese companies are failing prematurely, see below link.http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/solar-panel-degradation"The German solar monitoring firm, Meteocontrol, found that 80 percent of the 30,00 solar installations it reviewed in Europe were under performing. Enertis Solar tested solar panels from 6 manufacturers at two power plants in Spain and found rates of malfunctioning as high as 34.5 percent. An inspection of a solar plant in Britain found that 12 percent of its Chinese modules failed. In the United States, an American solar manufacturer, First Solar, budgeted $271.2 million to replace defective modules it manufactured in 2008 and 2009."--Now, I do not think that PV Solar is doomed, but I do think it is due for a shake out. The current boom is in part generated by US and European subsidies for acquisition on one hand and Chinese subsidies (dumping) on the other hand. Chinese dumping has led to the closing of many European and US panel producers. What with cheap oil at the moment, it is about time for the exponential growth rate of PV Solar to reach an inflection point, and for the rate of increase in installations to level off somewhat for a while at least. Likewise Nuclear is not looking as doable as it was just a few shot years ago, and Solar Thermal is moribund for the foreseeable future.--Welcome to Red Squirrel from the land of Moose Head beer."Does not squirrel crack nuts on bough of oak tree."Lao Fu 1411 - 1623Best RegardsClear Ether

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 28, 2014, 05:57:09 pm
content: Quote from: mojo-chan on December 28, 2014, 04:50:46 pmGas? Does it mean that you dilute even the 89% Ecotricity claim?Also, I wonder what is behind their 89% claim. Assuming perfect transmission, if they generate during the day and their consumers consume at night, does this count as renewable consumption (if so they use other people fossil based generation as storage).Would be interesting to see a reasonable size town disconnect itself from the grid and run only on sun or wind energy. This will be a proof that it's feasible indeed. What we see now are niche low hanging fruits that fall back to fossil fuel when things get tough.

author: Rufus
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 28, 2014, 07:13:51 pm
content: Quote from: Red Squirrel on December 28, 2014, 03:49:07 amAnd they cost more than the mains electricity they will charge and discharge in their lifetime. The key to most renewable energy systems is to use the non-renewable energy grid as a huge battery that someone else pays for.

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 28, 2014, 07:26:43 pm
content: I don't think anyone is saying we can run everything off renewables just yet.The idea is to use renewable energy when it's available to supplement fossil fuels and nuclear.It's silly not to use solar power when lots of energy is needed for cooling.There's no sense in not installing wind turbines around the coast of the British isles where is very windy.

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 28, 2014, 07:27:44 pm
content: QuoteBingo!Fleecing of rate payers (for the infrastructure) and taxpayers (for the subsidies).The only thing "green" in those "green energy" is the pockets of some people.

author: Rufus
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 28, 2014, 07:34:20 pm
content: Quote from: mojo-chan on December 27, 2014, 08:03:17 pmIn your almost completely rational thought free mind anyway....

author: Red Squirrel
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 28, 2014, 08:49:52 pm
content: Quote from: Rufus on December 28, 2014, 07:13:51 pmDo you have a source on this? I'm genuinely curious. I could see that being a big incentive for building your own batteries if going with a big system. Not sure where you'd get the led plates and sulfuric acid though, I don't imagine any random person can buy that. Though you could probably build your own hydrogen fuel cell or other type of storage too. Lead acid is probably the simplest though.The point of the batteries is so you can rely on the grid less and less. If ever I produce my own electricity I want to store it, and only use the grid when I'm not producing enough. If you are grid tied and the power goes out and you have no way of storing your energy then you're stuff is going to go on and off every time there's clouds, if you have power at all. A grid tie inverter would have to stop producing till you disconnect it from the grid.

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 28, 2014, 09:16:34 pm
content: QuoteThat brings in a new but interesting dynamics: if sufficient number of utility users adopted that strategy, their usage of the grid would decline. The grid operator would have to charge more for given amount of electricity delivered, or per access. That will drive more people off the grid, ...In no time, you will have no grid to access.That's the "free rider" issue economists so worry about,

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 28, 2014, 09:46:22 pm
content: Quote from: Hero999 on December 28, 2014, 07:26:43 pmThere are two problems with that: first of all solar and wind are unpredictable and therefore need coal powered backup generators which are very inefficient. In other words: you loose a lot of what you gain. Secondly a lot of so called green electricity isn't green at all. Most of the green electricity is washed clean by buying CO2 certificates (emission trade scam).

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 28, 2014, 10:02:15 pm
content: Quote from: mojo-chan on December 28, 2014, 07:00:38 pmMy point is that it has inherit storage problems with no solution in sight.

author: SgtRock
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: December 28, 2014, 10:09:50 pm
content: Greetings EEVBees:--When I quoted the below article from the Canada Free Press, I was much more interested in the quoted statistics for premature solar panel failure rather than payback time, which can be a complicated issue. Moreover, I naively assumed that everyone would understand that an article in a Canadian newspaper when talking about PV Solar payback times was talking about Canada, and the payback times in Canada. That was foolish of me.--In the USA where most PV installations qualify for a 30% tax credit (subsidy), if you own the installation you get the the 30%, if you lease, the installing company gets the 30%. So if you cannot afford to pay out of pocket for premature panel failure you may want to consider leasing, and your banker may want you to consider lease as well.http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/solar-panel-degradation--True the author of the Canadian Free Press article when talking about payback times in Canada quoted times of around 25 years. That is because he was being generous. As general matter actual payback times in Canada are very much more than 25 years and have never been anywhere near a hallucinatory 5 years. It may surprise some but Canada is rather far down the list of locations favourable for PV Solar. Please see the below article which shows payback times for Solar Thermal Water Heat , and PV Solar. Did I mention we are talking about Canada not Florida.http://latitude51solar.blogspot.com/2011/03/solar-payback-good-bad-and-ugly.html"To summarise.... Payback for Solar PV and Solar Water HeatingIf you spend $8000 on either a solar Water Heating System OR a 1 kW Solar PV System...1) A solar water heating system payback = approx 7.8% per year investment or about 9 Years2) Solar PV System, payback = approx 1.4% per year return on investment or about +45 years!--Lastly please note that since PV Solar generates electricity and not subsidies (government does those), the payback time for the buyer, and the actual pay back time for the government plus buyer are two different things. So an installation that costs $20,000 including tax tag and title and not including subsidies has not reached payback until is saves $20,000, plus miscellaneous additions for interest, maintenance and repair. If a PV Solar installation makes economic sense for you, by all means go for it. But do not let anyone tell you that the subsidy money was grown on trees."When ignorance is bliss 'tis folly to be wise.William Shakespeare 1564 - 1616Best RegardsClear Ether

author: mtdoc
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 28, 2014, 10:37:40 pm
content: Grid tied solar currently costs approx $2-3 per watt installed in the US. Less for very large installations. That isbeforeany tax credits.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 28, 2014, 10:40:21 pm
content: Quote from: mojo-chan on December 28, 2014, 10:19:45 pmI agree Sgt Rock's numbers are completely wrong. For example: In the NL the pay back time is about 7 years for a PV solar system. In a sunny area in the US it should be possible to have a much shorter pay back time. But you have to make sure you don't pay too much for someone else's hyper inflated profit margin. Importing the panels yourself may be a good option.http://www.aliexpress.com/item/140Watt-12V-monocrystalline-solar-panel-140w-12volt-pv-mono-power-module/592006581.htmlOr this one: 2.5kW for $2000 ($800 per kW including shipping):http://www.aliexpress.com/item/250W-monocrystalline-solar-panel-with-sea-shipping-cost-to-local-seaport-CFR-only-available-for-the/1982545168.htmlFor example: I'm always amused by how airconditioning companies get agitated when comparing their prices to buying an airconditioning system directly from China. Guess where they buy their systems...

author: mtdoc
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 28, 2014, 10:48:30 pm
content: Solar Panels can be purchasedfor less than $0.50 per watt in the US. Sometimes much less. Of course installation and grid tie entails other costs - a lot of which is labor.Sgt Rock has an agenda and is simply not reporting unbiased information.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 28, 2014, 10:52:16 pm
content: There's a guy on the Tesla Motors Club forum who's taken a battery pack from a wrecked Model S and used it as part of a 25kW off-grid solar system.http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/showthread.php/34934-Pics-Info-Inside-the-battery-packTesla are paying somewhere from $250 to $300 per kWh at the cell level, the pack parts (cooling, balancing, wiring, etc.) add a little extra.If you say $350 per kWh then at $0.10/kWh then each cell needs to do about 3,500 total cycles to contribute its cost (if you say the solar input is free, ignoring sunk costs.) That's doable for some types of li-ion cell, but it's pushing it if you do 0-100-0% cycles, so you need to use even less of the capacity.So right now, li-ion grid storage doesn't make much sense. (The guy with the Tesla pack got it closer to $180/kWh as it was surplus.) You can of course use NiMH or lead-acid but they have worse energy density and in the case of lead acid poorer cycle life.One possible alternative is with EVs, to use about 20-30% of the battery as grid storage. Say you need 200 miles range to get safely home & back to work the next day, the car would charge up at the office to say 230 miles with cheap daytime solar/wind/etc electricity, when it gets home with X miles left it would sell the energy back into the grid at the higher, non-solar/wind/etc prices and make sure that you'd have as much range as needed. All you'd say is "I need at least 200 miles range to get where I want" and it would also act as a nice second income source as you'd in essence be renting your battery to the grid. (With the understanding that this will increase pack degradation.)I think that the only way grid storage could work right now would be in the manner of the pumped water storage systems like Dinorwig (in Wales), but they aren't small and they cost a lot of money to build. It contributes about ~2GW peak... but not for long.There are other issues with solar, if you ignore night-time supply for now, in the day-time they can supply way too much energy leading to a big sag in demand in daylight hours... This means that it's very difficult to use larger power plants like coal and nuclear which take much longer to "spin down". Those are the most efficient and cheapest to operate. Although it does make daytime electricity very cheap...

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 28, 2014, 11:18:21 pm
content: QuoteJust think about how expensive it is to operate a grid like that. If you size your base load on 12gwh, anything from that to 18gwh or even 26gwh would be subject to merchant pricing -> typically 10x or more of the base load in terms of rates. So 4 hours of base load and 20 hours of merchant power at 10x the pricing.Vs. the current situation where you are mostly on base load until 6pm and then 5 hours of merchant power (from 20ghw to 26ghw).If that curve comes to be true, Californians would pay dearly to save money on "green energy". And the people who will get paid handsomely are the merchant plants, which runs almost exclusively on gas.Isn't that some irony?

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 28, 2014, 11:49:57 pm
content: Electricity cost in Cali is actually already quite high, about 30c/kWh... and this is part of the drive behind the rapid up-take in solar generation.

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 29, 2014, 12:10:51 am
content: If you look at a typical dispatch curve - PJM for example, as it has the most data on. The pricing goes almost vertical on the right, meaning there is very little elasticity, as the capacity there is dominated by gas and oil powered plants. Those plants don't get plugged into the grid. So if / when they do get plugged into the grid, you pay through the nose and then some.People in the know keep saying that green energy is expensive. Fortunately, the tree huggers will never understand it.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 29, 2014, 12:23:21 am
content: Well, it's a positive feedback loop. As prices per kWh go up, more people will install solar, which will lead to increased cost of operation for traditional, large power plants.It'll probably lead to a rapid increase in prices followed by a complete market crash as suppliers are unable to purchase at the price their customers are paying for. I'll get the popcorn and watch.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 29, 2014, 12:49:04 am
content: Over here the price per kWh is made up of production costs, transportation costs (30%) and taxes (40%). If I would put solar panels on my roof I and feed back to the grid I only get the production costs paid. In other words: the people operating the grid always get paid.

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 29, 2014, 12:58:01 am
content: Connecting giant battery packs to the grid to store surplus power is currently being trialled. China already has a massive battery bank and the largest battery in Europe is here in the UK.http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2012-01/china-builds-worlds-largest-battery-36-megawatt-hour-behemothhttp://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/jul/29/biggest-battery-energy-technology-trialWhether of not these projects pay off, they will make renewables more viable in the future.

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 29, 2014, 01:14:15 am
content: QuoteYes, as long as you don't operate the grid. My operator had two large incidents a couple years back and had wide spread outage, each a week or so, mostly due to downed trees. Total cost for the repair for that year, above and beyond its budget, is $350MM.It is always easy to make money, as long as you are not the one making it.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 29, 2014, 01:22:39 am
content: Quote from: dannyf on December 29, 2014, 01:14:15 amWell said.

author: Rufus
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 29, 2014, 01:40:58 am
content: Quote from: Hero999 on December 29, 2014, 12:58:01 amQuoteIf it had any chance of being technically and economically viable then you wouldn't need to have 70% of the funding coming from taxpayers would you.

author: NiHaoMike
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 29, 2014, 05:38:07 am
content: Thermal storage is far cheaper and more reliable than batteries and works nicely for HVAC, hot water, and refrigeration, the main energy uses in most homes. A few common deep cycle batteries easily handle the rest.

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 29, 2014, 01:50:55 pm
content: Quote from: Rufus on December 29, 2014, 01:40:58 amAt the moment, yes but what about the future?

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 29, 2014, 01:53:29 pm
content: Quote from: Hero999 on December 29, 2014, 01:50:55 pmBut they are taking our money now.

author: Red Squirrel
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 29, 2014, 02:19:13 pm
content: Quote from: NiHaoMike on December 29, 2014, 05:38:07 amYeah one project that would be cool to try is thermal solar panels. Basically an insulated box painted black inside with a double pane glass over it with liquid (glycol maybe?) pipes running through it. Use the heat for the house and perhaps run a sterling engine or something for power. Could even have it run through some kind of large sand barrel for storage. If you get a full day worth of sun that barrel would probably store the heat for a good part of the night. You'd then have thermal sensors everywhere and electrically controlled valves that direct the water/heat based on temperature. Ex: if outside panels are no longer warm you stop circulating liquid through them.

author: Red Squirrel
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 29, 2014, 02:47:21 pm
content: Quote from: mojo-chan on December 29, 2014, 02:37:15 pmI wonder how those batteries look like. We have 4 strings of -48v banks of 4800AH batteries and they are huge. That's about 19,000 amp hours total between 4 strings. Not sure how you convert to watt hours, just divide by nominal voltage I guess? So ours is 400wh as a comparison. That does not seem right though, seems low...I imagine the grid ones are the size of swimming pools!

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 29, 2014, 03:10:16 pm
content: I don't know what chemistries the batteries in Japan and China use but the one here in the UK are lithium ion, probably similar to those used for laptops because they are cheap.I often thing the UK energy system was better when it was publicly owned. At least then it was obvious there was no free market and there didn't need to be taxes as the profits went directly to the state. It may not have been the most efficient system but it was more transparent in some respects.

author: Simon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: December 29, 2014, 03:15:18 pm
content: Quote from: Hero999 on December 29, 2014, 03:10:16 pmAs I keep telling you things would be much better if we owned much more of our infrastructure because then we wouldn't be paying dividends to shareholders and the profits would go to the state which would be us. The problem with privatised industries that run our national service is is that at the end of the day they just want to make money and we are the ones that pay for that. And as we now know private companies don't really care for safety records.

author: SgtRock
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: December 29, 2014, 04:25:37 pm
content: Greeting EEVBees:--See below link to a Canadian pro solar blog, which says that Canadian PV Solar paybacks times can run to many more years than the 5 touted in this thread.http://ecoliving.scotiabank.com/articles/should-you-go-solar"Depending on your province, it will take anywhere from seven to 80 years to recoup your costs, explains Marc Melanson. That’s because electricity is relatively cheap in Canada, from 5.3 cents per kWh in Ontario to 11.8 cents in P.E.I. Ontarians recover costs fastest because of the microFIT program."--If Simon is correct, and that UK ownership of the means of power production would allow the government to keep the monies otherwise kept as profits by the energy providers. Then indeed it would make sense, would it not, to just have the government own all companies?"To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize."François, Marie Arouet - Voltaire1694 - 1778Best RegardsClear Ether

author: G7PSK
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 29, 2014, 04:32:08 pm
content: A very large chunk of the UK power industry is now owned by EDF a French company that is still largely supported by the French government, the laugh being that the UK power network was sold off due to EU regulations about state ownership so ours is now privatized to the French state. Our politicians need a large chunk of plutonium tied to them and then be thrown into a tank of heavy water.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 29, 2014, 05:03:22 pm
content: Quote from: mojo-chan on December 29, 2014, 02:53:14 pmI had a chance to witness the difference between the greed driven West Berlin and the common good driven East Berlin before the wall failed. The difference mind boggling. Same people, same language, same history, same culture and yet the greed driven side was flourishing and the common good driven side looked like a depressing desert of building.Greed is good motivator. We wouldn't have most of the good things we have now without grid, probably no not youtube and eevblog.Edit: fixed 'grid' to 'greed'.

author: SgtRock
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: December 29, 2014, 05:06:20 pm
content: Greeting EEVBees:--And here is another interesting article about the huge German PV Solar fail which is part and parcel of their energy revolution, which it turns out will be powered by ever increasing usage of lignite, or brown coal, the very dirtiest.http://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2013/10/04/should-other-nations-follow-germanys-lead-on-promoting-solar-power/"If you pay close attention, all the pro-solar advocates are still using charts with data that stops after 2011. That’s because 2011 was the last year solar was growing exponentially. Using data through July 2013 and official predictions for the rest of this year, it’s now clear that solar is not on an exponential growth curve. It’s actually on an S-curve like pretty much every other technology, ever. Limitless exponential growth doesn’t exist in the physical world." [See chart below]"This explains why per-capita solar uptake is so high in Germany. The government has engineered a well-intentioned but harmful redistribution system where everyone without solar panels is giving money to people who have them. This is a tax on anyone who doesn’t have a south-facing roof, or who can’t afford the up-front cost, or rents their residence, etc. People on fixed incomes (eg welfare recipients and the elderly) have been hardest hit because the government has made a negligible effort to increase payments to compensate for skyrocketing energy prices. The poor are literally living in the dark to try to keep their energy bills low. Energiewende is clearly bad for social equality. But Germany’s politicians seem to have a gentleman’s agreement to avoid criticizing it in public, particularly since Merkel did an about-face on nuclear power in 2011.""Get ready Little Lady Hell is coming to breakfast"Chief Dan George 1899 - 1981Best RegardsClear Ether

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 29, 2014, 05:32:31 pm
content: Quote from: zapta on December 29, 2014, 05:03:22 pmThere is a huge difference between a command economy, like the old eastern bloc and a mixed economy, like modern day China or most of western Europe back in the 70s.A command economy will always fail to deliver growth because one central governing body can't possibly meet everyone's needs and there's a total lack of any competition, in every sector.In a mixed economy, the state owns the infrastructure, i.e the power grid, road, rail network etc. where competition can't exist anyway and the rest of the economy is privately owned and regulated by the government as necessary.With the current system. If one gets pissed off with the electricity grid, they can't choose who distributes the power to them. It's not possible to change. The wires, circuit breakers and distribution transformers will always be owned by whoever operates the grid, whether it be the sate, EDF or whatever, irrespective of the energy supplier, so competition cannot exist.The grid is better off state owned. At least then our government can control it, rather than EDF, a French company and it can be operated as a public service, not for the benefit of a foreign power. that way, if people get pissed off with the grid, they can protest and vote in a different government who'll do something about it. At the moment, with a French company controlling our grid, we're fucked.

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 29, 2014, 09:37:53 pm
content: QuoteYou mean, looking at solar power from 2000 to 2011 and projecting exponential growth into eternity?Or looking at the temperature decline in the 1970s and worried about global cooling into eternity?Or looking at the temperature rise in the 1990s and worried about global warming into eternity?Or looking at the halt of temperature rises in the 2000 and insisted that global warming means both global warming and global cooling?...

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 30, 2014, 01:44:32 am
content: Quote from: mojo-chan on December 29, 2014, 10:03:57 pm... which the alarmists' models didn't account for.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 30, 2014, 12:55:27 pm
content: Quote from: zapta on December 30, 2014, 01:44:32 amI don't think any (respectable) climate scientists have predicted global temperature rises for individual years or even decades. The best case estimates put it somewhere around 2 to 6 degC in 2050, which is a wide error bar.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 30, 2014, 04:14:15 pm
content: Quote from: tom66 on December 30, 2014, 12:55:27 pmYes, the margin is wide but the fear mongering was based on the high end and the current data is well below it. It's just like this Florida project that raised money based on exaggerated estimations that don't match reality but the zealots still call it a 'success'. This AGW/EV things has strong aspects of a religion (which is fine as long as I am not forced to pay for it).

author: SeanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 30, 2014, 05:11:09 pm
content: Also note that the error bars depend on the model, and no model to date has passed the simplest verification of inputting a decade or three of historic data, running the model till last year and seeing if the result actually corresponds, without massive amounts of "correction coefficients" ( or fudge to fit the curve you want irrespective of the input info) either during or in post processing.While you had in the 1990's "global cooling OMG we are going to be popsicles" the same data now is "Global Warming OMG we are going to cook". While the climate is forever changing ( you know, entropy, a slightly variable star providing most heat input, varying amounts of cosmic dust compressing the star's magnetic field, the cooling of the core being expressed by varying volcanic activity) there is no "perfect climate" ever, you will always have some place too hot, some place too cold, some place where it is drought, some place where there are floods, and it will never be the same from even one year to the next, let alone for decades.I am for reducing waste, reducing energy use and recycling what we have, along with having it last for a decent period and be relatively easy to maintain and repair. Buying a new one because the colour has changed, or the new one has a feature that you never use, or because it is "new shiny flavour of this month", is not a sustainable model.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 31, 2014, 06:29:21 am
content: Quote from: mojo-chan on December 30, 2014, 04:46:26 pmMojo Chan, I doubt that facts will convince you but since you asked here is one (there are many more):http://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com/2014/07/climate-forecasting-methods-and-cooling.html

author: magetoo
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 01, 2015, 11:14:31 am
content: Quote from: SeanB on December 30, 2014, 05:11:09 pmBut that's not the point. The point is not that "everything should be perfect", the point is that the climate and environment varies around the globe; so our society and our ecosystems are adapted for this variation, but only for how things are right now.If you start changing things around at random, that is going to affect this variation and we'll end up with something different from what we currently are adapted to. That's not just numbers on the weather map, it'll have an effect on things we depend on - like changed weather patterns messing up agriculture, rising sea levels putting land under water, and so on. Sure, in the long run things will settle into a new equlibrium, and society and nature will adapt to the new situation, but getting there isn't going to be pretty.Just because you don't like the snake-oil solution that some people are pushing doesn't mean the problem isn't real.

author: magetoo
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 01, 2015, 12:01:15 pm
content: Quote from: zapta on December 31, 2014, 06:29:21 amTry to read that with a critical eye. The first paragraphs, the ones about reductionism and climate models, quote a piece that seems to be in favor of the thesis at the blog. Here's from the blog:QuoteWhat do Harrison and Stainforth say? Well, basically they say that climate change is a threat, and we need better climate models. Here's a snippet (apologies for any typos):QuoteOk, so human influence on the climate is profound, and nothing in the past ten thousand years is comparable to the change we are likely to see. Does this support the assertions made at the climate skeptic's blog? Not at all. In fact it says the exact opposite that the author would have us believe.And that's just first paragraph. Maybe there are some truths further in, but that sort of misrepresentation right at the start makes me skeptical. Perhaps you should be too.

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 01, 2015, 12:07:49 pm
content: QuoteBut is it prettier than not getting there?The only thing constant about our climates is that it changes. Has always been so and will always be, billions of years in the past and hopefully billions of years in the future.Changes are natural. Trying to prevent changes is not. Especially when those trillions on climate changes can be used somewhere else, on more worthy causes, like saving kids, fighting cancer, bettering education, etc.The fact that something isn't pretty doesn't by itself means you should spend all your money fight it: because fighting it could be even uglier.A bad outcome can be your best outcome.

author: Simon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: January 01, 2015, 12:39:33 pm
content: Quote from: dannyf on January 01, 2015, 12:07:49 pmYou could say the same about money spent on armaments and war finally we often stop talking about the cost of those. Certain thing is that money is always wasted on the wrong thing. It is only now that the UK government has cut the ridiculous payouts to people with solar panels that the costs of installing said solar panels has crashed, how funny isn't that a coincidence. It's easy to criticise the money spent on any particular endeavour by a government. Usually the problem is that the money is being misspent not that it does not need spending. Whilst the price of solar panels plummeted by 30% per year the costs of installations was extortionate. Then the government pulled the plug on the payouts, I pay less than 20p per kilowatt for my electricity yet if I had solar panels and I was selling it back to the grid a few years ago I would be paid 50p per kilowatt. This is an unsustainable model and a complete farce but because of these huge returns nobody cared about the cost of the systems and the government was handing out money hand over fist to pay for them with due criticism. Now that the laws have been changed and owning solar panels is not so lucrative the cost of the installations has also plummeted I wonder if there just happens to be a connection. I'm sure that much of the weaponry that our government buy is very very overpriced. I get a slight whiff of the sort of costs which are involved working for a company that supplies military equipment but very very far down the line still we will buy something and resell it for quite a bit of profit quite often to another company who then sells it to the military making even more profit and wasting even more money when the military could simply go out and buy the same product straight from the manufacturer or their distributor rather than involving another two lines of distribution.If the investment in combating climate change and rationalising the way we consume energy was in the private sector I'm sure it will be done much more efficiently. Fact is whether or not you want to believe in climate change or rather global warming as climate change is something you cannot deny I have been able to witness it over my short life which is nothing in comparison to the global scheme of things it would be a very good idea that we seek out cleaner and more efficient methods of obtaining energy because the fossil fuels we depend on are not infinite.As I pointed out to a guy at work recently who was also saying he could not understand how people can't see the change in the climate, during the ages of the dinosaurs we know that there was global warming or what we call global warming at the time it was the natural state of the earth the temperature was very hot things grew very big and very quickly and it was not a climate we could have survived in easily, but the Earth was covered in forests and greenery and the atmosphere was rich in carbon dioxide we know. So what happened? All of that greenery that was growing absorbed the carbon dioxide out of the air and turned it into wood and then what happened to those trees? They died and became buried and then what? They became coal! And the temperature of the Earth reduced because the amount of carbon dioxide that had been taken out of the atmosphere. What are we doing right now? Oh yes that's right, we are digging up all of this carbon that used to be in the atmosphere when there was global warming millions of years ago and we are burning it and putting it back into the atmosphere and going back to the climate we had during the age of the dinosaurs, global warming!Maybe it's my slight dyslexia that allows me to put two and two together and see the overall picture because most people seem to get endlessly lost in detail and argue about non-arguments.

author: magetoo
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 01, 2015, 01:10:21 pm
content: Quote from: dannyf on January 01, 2015, 12:07:49 pmSort of true. Like the guys I quoted above said, the Holocene has been a period of climatic stability.Sure it changes, but only over very long timescales. Now we're seeing change over a much shorter period of time, and timescales matter. Slow change is much easier to adapt to.QuoteLike I say all the time, we can have disagreements on how to fix the problem; I don't think that subsidies towards solar and wind is the way to go, but don't let the availability of politically acceptable solutions dictate whether the problem exists in the first place. Better solutions can be found.QuoteOr it might not. Feel free to pursue the bad outcomes, if that's what seems right to you. Most people won't joining you in burning down their houses because "hey, something good might come of it".

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 01, 2015, 01:45:49 pm
content: QuoteA period of climatic stabilty means climate instability over a longer horizon. As you pointed out, timescales matter.QuoteTaking your advice earlier, if you look over a short enough period of time, you have climatic stability! Guaranteed.QuoteAbsolutely correct. Extrapolating based on a few decades' experience over a horizon of millions / billions of years isn't probably wise, especially among other competing priorities.For example, who's to say that we / the earth wouldn't thrive in a hotter climate? You sure will help cure famine for example.We should pay attention to climate changes, as it impacts our long-term well beings and the survival of all of us as a being. However, we should have a rationale and honest discussion, we should evaluate all of our options and get everyone behind it.The current global warming discussion is anything but that, because it is dominated by a bunch of religious bigots who refuse to let science and rationale work its magic, or who are more interested in lining their pockets with other people's money.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 01, 2015, 02:25:48 pm
content: Quote from: magetoo on January 01, 2015, 01:10:21 pmIf the problem does exists, it's magnitude and implications wee greatly exaggerated. It's not science anymore, it's religion and politics.

author: magetoo
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 01, 2015, 03:46:13 pm
content: Quote from: dannyf on January 01, 2015, 01:45:49 pmExactly. And over a long enough period, we have time to adapt. But, like I believe I have said earlier, it is not the long timescale we are worried about. In the long term, we're all dead, and all that.QuoteOf course. And if you look at a short enough period of time, Zeno can show that Achilles can never catch up with the turtle. But we all know that Achilles still outruns the turtle every time, and we're not interested in arbitrarily short spans of time that are "short enough" to make a clever argument on a forum either.We, as in "the people who live on this planet", do worry and should worry about what will happen to the generations ahead.QuoteAgreed. But that is not what happens in climate science. What is actually done is closer to extrapolating a couple of hundred of years of increasing CO2 and temperatures to about 50-100 years forward. And that's when we see a problem, in the medium term.QuoteAnd who's to say you wouldn't thrive if your house burned down? Doesn't mean you shouldn't change the batteries in the smoke detectors.I mentioned exactly this point. At some point in time, we reach a new equilibrium and we adapt. But that doesn't mean that everything is fine if agriculture and ecosystems crashed in the time leading up to that point.QuoteI agree with those two paragraphs 100%. Of course, we disagree on who the bigots are, but if we can agree to go where the data leads us there is at least hope.

author: magetoo
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 01, 2015, 04:02:43 pm
content: Quote from: zapta on January 01, 2015, 02:25:48 pmIt's politics in the US and the English speaking world, it seems. There is pretty broad political agreement on the science of AGW in most of Europe though (but not on what the solution is, that is definitely where politics and green dogma come in). China also adopted new climate targets recently. Why would they do that, if it's so obvious there are no negative effects from increasing the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere?And consider, if a noob like me could pick apart that link you posted earlier in fifteen minutes, how good are the sources of information you have? Are you sure you're on the right side of the fence?

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 01, 2015, 04:34:33 pm
content: Quote from: mojo-chan on January 01, 2015, 04:19:06 pmExactly.I wonder how many people here are truly qualified to comment on the climate change?Does anyone here have a degree in climatology?I doubt it. Just because you're good at electronics, physics and maths, it doesn't make you a climate scientist.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 01, 2015, 04:56:01 pm
content: Quote from: magetoo on January 01, 2015, 04:02:43 pmPick apart? You must be kidding.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 01, 2015, 05:03:22 pm
content: Quote from: mojo-chan on January 01, 2015, 04:19:06 pmLook at the observed data (red, below) in the link you posted and compare to IPCC's hokey stick predictions. As I said, grossly exaggerated.

author: magetoo
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 01, 2015, 05:13:26 pm
content: Quote from: zapta on January 01, 2015, 04:56:01 pmGo ahead and read the paper linked in the introduction for yourself and see whether it supports the assertion made in the blog post. I dare you.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 01, 2015, 05:25:02 pm
content: Quote from: magetoo on January 01, 2015, 05:13:26 pmYou completely ignored the data shown in that graph. Huge discrepancy between the hockey stick behavior that the alarmists claim and reality.Happy new year!

author: magetoo
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 01, 2015, 05:27:38 pm
content: Quote from: zapta on January 01, 2015, 05:03:22 pmUm. The famous "hockey stick" graph has nothing to do with predictions, it is a graph of historical data.And you are inviting us to compare a graph over a thousand years that shows warming in recent times with a graph over forty that shows warming in recent times. Can you put some numbers to it so I can at least understand what you are disagreeing with?Quote from: zapta on January 01, 2015, 05:25:02 pmWhat graph? If you mean something from the blog post, tell me which one.(Also I already explicitly said that I stopped after seeing that the first paragraph misrepresented the article it was quoting for support.)

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 01, 2015, 05:41:01 pm
content: Quote from: magetoo on January 01, 2015, 05:27:38 pmMagetoo, you keep going around the main point. The huge discrepancy between IPCC predictions and reality. Look at that graph.

author: magetoo
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 01, 2015, 05:42:46 pm
content: Looks like our posts crossed there - I rewrote much of mine. Just mentioning it in case there's confusion.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 01, 2015, 08:28:57 pm
content: Quote from: zapta on January 01, 2015, 05:41:01 pmThe discrepancy is less than one kelvin. Pretty close, all considered.

author: Galenbo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 01, 2015, 11:09:14 pm
content: Quote from: mojo-chan on December 23, 2014, 01:40:35 pmI do. Belgium. You just had to want to take a look at bancrupcy sellers likehttps://www.troostwijkauctions.com/and you saw every week some new entries about the typical 20-50 employees company. Most are down now because the day they closed the oversubsidies, was also the day of their last sale.There's a huge hidden extra cost of the greenwashing industry: The money al these bancrupt companies still had to pay to other companies and banks.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 01, 2015, 11:55:33 pm
content: Quote from: mojo-chan on January 01, 2015, 11:19:03 pm20 20 hindsight. Predicting the past is easy. I can predict last week's lottery numbers.

author: magetoo
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 02, 2015, 08:29:02 am
content: Quote from: zapta on January 01, 2015, 11:55:33 pmAnd predicting the future is hard. Which is why models have to be tested against past data to see that they don't give nonsense results. That's common sense.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 02, 2015, 08:47:08 am
content: Quote from: wilfred on January 02, 2015, 08:30:49 amI am using Bohr's notion of predictionshttp://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/n/nielsbohr130288.html

author: miguelvp
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 02, 2015, 04:25:04 pm
content: Quote from: mojo-chan on January 02, 2015, 02:30:12 pmThe ones that won and have been extracting a lot of our hard earned money are the so called 'GIGO' Scientists:http://www.c3headlines.com/2013/06/documented-billion-dollar-climate-models-cant-predict-squat.htmlhttp://www.c3headlines.com/2011/06/a-spectacular-failure-latest-hadcrut-nasa-temperatures-significantly-below-ipcc-climate-model-predic.htmlMore here:http://www.c3headlines.com/Or google "Hide the decline"Alarmists, Meh.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 02, 2015, 05:19:41 pm
content: Quote from: mojo-chan on January 02, 2015, 02:30:12 pmBaghdad Bob, is it you?

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 02, 2015, 05:31:07 pm
content: Quote from: miguelvp on January 02, 2015, 04:25:04 pmThis is the first result for me, and it seems to make quite a bit of sense:http://www.skepticalscience.com/Mikes-Nature-trick-hide-the-decline.htm

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 02, 2015, 07:45:11 pm
content: QuotePeople who don't know science tend to consider it to be 100% objective, and they tend to treat scientists as "saints". In real life, it couldn't have been more divorced from the truth. Scientists are humans and as such, they are impacted by humanly biases, like funding, power, .....Many of those "climate models" are not subject to the minimal amount of validation and their "predictions" are heavily influenced by assumptions about mechanisms we don't have good understanding of. For example, modeling of water vapor in atmosphere is just starting, yet 90%+ of the green house effect on the earth is caused by water vapor (which is not considered a green house gas, incidentally).It wouldn't surprise me that if you perform an out-of-sample or out-of-time validation on those models, they will fail.Anyone with basic knowledge on model risk management would recognize the issues we have with those models.

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 02, 2015, 07:48:34 pm
content: QuotePredicting the future is easy: I can predict what will happen to you 1000 years from now with 100% certainty, or the earth's temperature with high degree of confidence.Plus, what consequences are there if my prediction about the next millennium turns out to be false?Unverifiable predictions are always right.Predicting what happened in the past is incredibly difficult.

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 02, 2015, 08:45:40 pm
content: QuoteLet's say that I measured a temperature rise of 0.1C between 8am and 8:00:0.2, every day consistently. Extropolating that leads you to conclude that everyone would be cooking by noon. "OMG, that's the end of the world!!!!" We must do something about it, right?For a 4 billion+ year old earth, that 0.2 second is equivalent to 10,000 years of temperature data.Hopefully those extropolatists understand that,If you look back at the earth's temperatures, you will see lots of ups and downs - we call them ice ages. Between ages, you have warming up and cooling offs, for reasons we don't fully understand.If you look at the long-term tread, we are now below the average temperature for the earth. So we should see some reversion to means -> temperature rises.Sure, CO2 will have an impact on temperature but we don't know exactly how. For example, CO2 is a fertilizer to plants. More CO2 + high temperature means better plant growth -> bigger carbon sinks -> a negative feedback.To say that we know little about planet earth is an under-statement. Only fools like those tree huggers and climate fanatics don't understand that.

author: SgtRock
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: January 02, 2015, 09:22:50 pm
content: Greetings EEVBees:--I would like to thank DJ and the moderators for tolerating this thread, and for helping to keep it polite and professional. I will strive to help them do this and promise to try not to go mental myself.--AGW is promoted by the mainstream media, as a theory which which 97% percent of scientists agree. This is somewhat true. Scientists were ask do you think the increase in atmospheric CO2 is responsible for any portion of the recent (not in the last 18 years though), increase in global atmospheric temperature. So if you are a scientist and you agree that anthropocentric CO2 might be responsible for 1% of this increase, you qualify as one of 97% who agree with the AGW hypothesis. Both Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" and Tree Ring Circus Impresario Michael Mann's Hokey Shtick have been caught out, misrepresenting facts, deliberately trying to deceive, and playing fast and loose with the facts, which is obviously the reason they have never be mentioned in this thread by der warmers. And, oddly enough, when being ask to agree with AGW, scientists are not disqualified because they are not climate scientists. Hmmm, but if you would like to submit documented facts on the matter, you are disqualified for not being a "Climate Scientist", this is known in Logic and Debate circles and the fallacy of the "Appeal to Authority".--AGW is built on modeling, and the assumption as to the reactivity of global atmospheric temperature to the CO2 fraction is an educated guess by the modellers. It might me much less than the models assume. In which case, the 97% would still be correct (nya nya nya) but all of these huge government juggernauts would be completely insane.--For instance, having increased UK electric bills by 50%, and having built 5000 Wind Turbines, should the UK should go ahead and build the other planned 85,000? I would bet my burro that it is all going to come crashing down before even another 5000 are built. Picture for yourself huge offshore rusting hulks that never even saw service, let alone having transmission line run ashore, and the same for Germany.--If anyone thinks I am just woofing, then let them try to prove that Al Gore and Michael Mann are correct and honest."The lady doth protest too much, methinks."William Shakespeare 1564 1616Best RegardsClear Ether

author: magetoo
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 02, 2015, 11:59:13 pm
content: Quote from: dannyf on January 02, 2015, 08:45:40 pmIn the absence of any other data than those 0.2 seconds perhaps. And if you could show a 0.1 degree temperature risesimultaneously around the whole planetin just 0.2 seconds, that would mean a staggering amount of energy being released and everything we think we know about the Earth would have to be scrapped. So yeah, I would say that would be pretty damn important.But the flaw here is that we have an everyday experience that tells us that small variations over short timescales don't matter. We don't have that sort of direct experience with climate over hundreds and thousands and millions of years. We need models.QuoteWhy "should" we see a reversion? We've rolled ones four times in a row, so now we're due for a six? The argument assumes that there is something like a natural equilibrium that the planet naturally strives towards, and not just a bunch of random changes piled upon each other. What's the mechanism for that?The more parsimonious explanation is that such changes happen for a variety of unrelated reasons, and that rising temperatures now are due to basic physics, not some magical gamblers-logic Gaia BS.And, of course, we can't send thermometers back in time. The reason we know that temperature was different is in part due to - you guessed it - climate models.So can we agree that climate models do tell us something important about temperatures?QuoteWe know pretty well what impact CO2 has. Higher temperatures, as you mentioned.More plant growth does not imply negative feedback, recall this thing called the "carbon cycle" that you probably read about in biology class. For there to be a sink, you need plants to grow,and then be taken out of circulation. If you just grow more trees, they still eventually fall down and decompose, releasing the carbon back into the atmosphere.QuoteAnd to say that we therefore know nothing is nonsense. Wedoknow that CO2 traps heat (since the 1800s!), and that more CO2 will trap more heat.

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 03, 2015, 12:09:24 am
content: QuoteSo look at the data we have over hundreds of thousands of years, millions of years, billions of years. Not decades, as that's no different than attempting to predict afternoon temperature by extrapolating from early morning observations.QuoteWe do, if you are willing to listen to science.QuoteQuoteAbsolutely. But that doesn't mean we have to address it, or address it now: your fart traps heat and the more you fart the more heat it traps.But I wouldn't propose that we plug you now.

author: magetoo
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 03, 2015, 12:16:16 am
content: Quote from: SgtRock on January 02, 2015, 09:22:50 pmWhat's this obsession with Al Gore? He's not a scientist, Inconvenient Truth is not a scientific paper, and both are completely irrelevant to any discussion about AGW.Mann, as far as I know has not been "caught out", and even if he were, that would make no difference. Here's why:Saying that "Michael Mann is lying and therefore AGW is false" is the exact inverse of saying "Michael Mann is honest and therefore AGW is true". I am sure if I were to claim the second statement as ironclad proof for AGW, you could spot the appeal to authority fallacy that you argue has no place in the discussion.QuotePutting all your eggs in the wind basket would be insane. Fortunately it seems that nuclear at least gets a go in the UK.

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 03, 2015, 12:29:57 am
content: QuoteEven though I don't share that particular belief of yours, I will fight to your right to believe whatever you want.That is the biggest difference between the global warming fanatics and the rest of us: To those global warming fanatics, you are evil, you don't care about the environment, you don't care about our future generations and their well beings, if you don't believe in global warming as much as they do.

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 03, 2015, 12:30:58 am
content: QuoteWhat's this obsession with science and scientists?At any given point, 99% of the scientists and 99% of the science are wrong on any given subject.

author: magetoo
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 03, 2015, 12:31:49 am
content: Quote from: dannyf on January 03, 2015, 12:09:24 amThat's what climate scientists do! And the data, over hundreds of thousands of years, shows that levels of CO2 is correlated with temperatures.QuoteNo we don't havedirectexperience. Unless you have a specially equipped Delorean you haven't told me about, we never will. There were no thermometers offering direct temperature measurement hundreds of thousands of years ago.That doesn't mean we know nothing, we still have climate models and enough data to plug into them.QuoteBut maybe later? I guess if we were sharing a room you might change your mind.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 03, 2015, 12:33:37 am
content: Quote from: magetoo on January 03, 2015, 12:16:16 amHe got a Nobel prize for his AGW scare campaign. Hard to ignore that.

author: magetoo
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 03, 2015, 12:39:56 am
content: Quote from: dannyf on January 03, 2015, 12:29:57 amBelieve what you want; that doesn't describe me at all.Sounds like you only talked to political activists who wanted to use AGW as a stick to beat someone with. We have greens here too, and I don't get along with green dogma either.Quote from: dannyf on January 03, 2015, 12:30:58 amScience is the most successful system of learning about the world that humanity has ever had. I'd say that makes it pretty relevant.QuoteAnd westillmanaged to invent vaccines and send probes to Mars. Science succeedsin spite ofpeople being flawed, which is why it is so great.Edit: Well, I disagree about 99% of science being wrong, obviously. Incomplete would be a better word.

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 03, 2015, 12:47:02 am
content: QuoteScientific advances are due to "flawed" people, people who refuse to accept the status quo, people who are willing to challenge the conventional wisdom, people who firmly believe in science being wrong and strive to come up with a better mouse trap.Science would die if we adopt the global warming fanatics' "science on that is settled" approach.

author: magetoo
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 03, 2015, 01:39:56 am
content: Quote from: dannyf on January 03, 2015, 12:47:02 amI don't know, most scientific advances seem to be due to really boring people.People who are willing to do the same experiment over and over again, with tiny variations, three hundred times in a row. People who spend days writing code to make sense of enormous datasets that are bigger than any sane person would deal with. People who can spend a decade preparing for launching a probe into space, watch it crash into the ground on another planet, and then go back to do another one.QuoteScience is never settled. But if you want to argue that CO2 has negligible impact on climate now, you'd have to come up with some pretty amazing data to demonstrate that, since so much of the evidence points the other way.If anyone is looking for people who are willing to challenge the status quo of AGW and put in the work, check out theBerkeley Earthproject.No, it may not confirm what you already believe, but the project was started in order to evaluate the methods used in climate science with a skeptical eye, and has run on no-strings-attached funding.

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 03, 2015, 01:41:16 am
content: QuoteI think the last time they had similar agreement was in the 1600s, about some flowers there. That didn't turn out great for those smartie pants, did it?Whenever there is broad agreement or "consensus", there is euphoria, there are systemic risks, there is a bubble coming your way. It is a sign that something bad is about to happen.Diversity in opinions is as much valuable to our survival as diversity of genes.

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 03, 2015, 01:45:11 am
content: QuoteSounds like some seriously flawed people there.QuoteFirst of all, that's not the assertion.But more importantly, it seems the burden is on the party advancing a point of view, asking for more favorable resource allocation.It is like it wouldn't fair to insist that you prove your innocence, or my assertion that you are a crook wins by default.That just doesn't seem to be the way science works, science man.

author: magetoo
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 03, 2015, 02:52:55 am
content: Quote from: dannyf on January 03, 2015, 01:41:16 amThe free market at work. Since we seem to have moved straight into snarkiness, let me just say I'm glad that bubbles and crashes in the financial system could never happen in the strictly regulated socialist utopia that you call home.No, tulip mania was bad for everyone who had the misfortune to be involved, but the "facts" of a bubble economy where everyone acts on what they think other people will do is not comparable to actual verifiable facts of the physical world.QuoteWe can agree on that, at least.

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 03, 2015, 03:38:10 am
content: QuoteYea, except that in all of the western world, the financial services industry is one of the most regulated industries.QuoteNot really - crashes like that are critical for a market to be efficient, for people to invest in price discovery so that it would not happen again. Someone won the nobel prize on that notion alone.QuoteOnly if you could verify the future predictions.That's why those climate models fail so miserably in predicting the past.

author: SgtRock
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: January 03, 2015, 03:52:00 am
content: Greetings EEVBees:--Below link is about recent energy rate increases in the UK, and history since 2005. See graphs at bottom showing marked increases in energy prices.http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-19921042"Britain's North Sea gas supplies are running out and British Gas has to pay the going rate for gas in a competitive global marketplace."--Meanwhile they are knee deep in frack gas and are refusing to tap it, cause that would be bad carbon policy, much better to buy it from Putler.--And a good article about UK wind power.http://www.breitbart.com/london/2015/01/02/as-britain-freezes-wind-farms-take-power-from-grid-to-prevent-icing/"As Britain shivers under a blanket of snow and ice, it has emerged that offshore windfarms have been idling to prevent icing up – and drawing electricity off the national grid to do so. Critics have pointed out the “folly” of having windfarms idle in a cold snap, but industry experts insist that all forms of power generation involve some electrical input.""Theoretically, Britain’s wind farms, both onshore and off, have a combined capacity of 12.1GW, enough to power 8.8 million homes. However, a report published last October by the Scientific Alliance and the Adam Smith Institute found that the chance of all Britain’s windfarms running at full capacity together was “vanishingly small”, meaning that actual output is often far lower. Rather, they found that the average output was just eight percent of the headline figure"“Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts.” "Richard Feynman 1918 - 1988Best RegardsClear Ether

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 03, 2015, 04:00:48 am
content: QuoteSo profound no wonder our "experts" have trouble understanding it,

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 03, 2015, 01:20:42 pm
content: QuoteSo if you bought a car rated at 100HP, and you found out that it can generate that much power only if the sun, the moon and your neighbor's dog are perfectly aligned.That's OK in your book, right?Maybe your boss should give you a salary like that.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 03, 2015, 05:10:54 pm
content: Quote from: dannyf on January 03, 2015, 01:41:16 amSilly example, but why does there need to be diversity on scientific opinions when one "opinion" is so close to being fact that it may as well be called a fact?For example, the existence of bacteria, or atoms, or a heliocentric solar system, it's OK to disagree with them, but you'd be rightly mocked for being an idiot because there is overwhelming evidence that they all exist. There are some who disagree with these points - a diversity of opinions if you like - but they're usually regarded as crackpots or religious zealots.Quote from: SgtRock on January 03, 2015, 03:52:00 amSee, I don't believe this. The capacity factor for British wind farms is about 0.2-0.3, or 20-30% of the nameplate capacity. Anyone who ever bought into wind farms thinking they would contribute 100% of their power 100% of the time is a fool.Real time data on UK grid, right now 2.5GW from wind:http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/Long term data shows 32% capacity factor:according to DUKES 2014 report from UK govt(page 194) for wind and about 10.2% for solar.Did you know that's actually higher than most CGGT stations, and only half that of nuclear? (pg 146 of same report)Shock fact! Did you know that coal power and nuclear power both require power to operate? You didn't really think they used magic pixies for the lighting? Or hamsters to turn the coolant pumps? And it's not negligible! A nuclear power plant can use 15MW backup diesel generators! (Source) And that's just for an emergency, to keep the plant ticking over.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 03, 2015, 05:23:27 pm
content: Quote from: tom66 on January 03, 2015, 05:10:54 pmEarth being flat used to be a fact.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 03, 2015, 05:24:42 pm
content: Quote from: zapta on January 03, 2015, 05:23:27 pmAlmost no-one believed the earth was flat. The earth being approximately spherical was a known fact by the ancient Greeks, including Erathosthenes who used a simple calculation to compute Earth's circumference to within about 15%. Unless you are referring to very early civilisations.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eratosthenes#Measurement_of_the_Earth.27s_circumferencehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_the_Flat_EarthQuote

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 03, 2015, 08:24:03 pm
content: Quote from: tom66 on January 03, 2015, 05:24:42 pmWrong again.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Earth

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 03, 2015, 08:55:04 pm
content: Quote from: mojo-chan on January 03, 2015, 07:44:09 pmMojo Chan, you are confusing life footprint with pollution and grossly exaggerate its implication. People are living now longer than ever so stop complaining.

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 03, 2015, 09:02:01 pm
content: It looks like no one's answered my questions either.Quote from: Hero999 on January 01, 2015, 04:34:33 pmIt seems like there a lot of nubetards around there.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 03, 2015, 09:39:46 pm
content: Quote from: zapta on January 03, 2015, 08:24:03 pmThe key is "almost". Humans have known about the earth being spherical for a long, long time, and it is now a solid fact. And, we also didn't know about bacteria or atoms up until a few hundred years ago, so does that discredit them from being considered facts, too?

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 03, 2015, 09:47:47 pm
content: Quote from: Hero999 on January 03, 2015, 09:02:01 pmI don't have a degree in climate science, but I can still comment on the subject. I've read the literature and research. A good start is this website as it has many arguments against denialist's claims:http://www.skepticalscience.com/Quote from: zapta on January 03, 2015, 08:55:04 pmYou could say that pollution is an accepted negative consequence to live in first world conditions and to an extent, I agree. However, I think that we can change this by investing in new technology and reducing emissions. If we do not, we will make it increasingly harder to live good lives. Just look at the pollution in cities like Beijing - admittedly not entirely from coal power, but it causes massive health problems. I don't call that OK, by any means, it needs to change. If anything is going to kill us as a species off, it is massive environmental change. Until we have an established Mars colony, we can't go about destroying the Earth.Solar and wind still cannot supply the necessary power that we as a population demand, and I do not see the demand reducing any time soon. So I am pro nuclear fission and hopeful that fusion will provide future needs. In the mean time, it is necessary to make changes to how power is generated. More nuclear, more wind, and more solar (where appropriate.) I support subsidies for solar/wind because in my mind, it levels the playing field. Coal and other technologies have huge unrealised externalities, that don't go accounted for. The coal plant doesn't pay for the harm caused by nearby residents, which makes coal cheaper than it really should be. I don't know at what level those subsidies should be set at but I think scrapping them altogether would be a bad thing.

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 03, 2015, 10:13:36 pm
content: QuotePeople in the UK and the world over still die from drawning, over eating, and oxygen poisoning. Maybe we should take away water, food and oxygen from you too?

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 03, 2015, 10:15:54 pm
content: Quote from: dannyf on January 03, 2015, 10:13:36 pmStraw man and plain stupid argument.People can decide to do all of those things: swimming, eating, inhaling unnecessary quantities of oxygen(?)... Their own stupid fault. Ain't gonna stop someone doing that, if they really wish.They can't decide to not breathe in the pollution from a coal plant or from an ICE. It affects -everyone-.Well, they can move to East Elbonia...

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 04, 2015, 12:18:49 pm
content: QuoteKeep telling yourself that and reality wouldn't be as painful to you anymore,You have been an expert on that.

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 04, 2015, 12:37:04 pm
content: Quote from: tom66 on January 03, 2015, 09:47:47 pmI agree, of course anyone can comment but the opinion of someone who has learned all they know about climatology from Google doesn't carry the same weight as someone who's studied the subject formally. Especially those who go around ranting about it all being bullshit when they know very little about the topic.Quote from: dannyf on January 04, 2015, 12:18:49 pmTalking of experts, where did you study climate science? Let me guess, the university of Google?

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 04, 2015, 02:23:53 pm
content: Quote from: mojo-chan on January 04, 2015, 11:35:27 amDeniers? You must mean the infidels.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 04, 2015, 05:05:44 pm
content: Quote from: mojo-chan on January 04, 2015, 02:45:45 pmMojo Chan, first you call us deniers, then you say that calling ourselves infidels is an ad-hominem on you.It's getting more and more bizarre.Quote from: mojo-chan on January 04, 2015, 02:45:45 pmMy point is that fossil energy brought us much more good than harm so no need to demonize it as you do. If and when a new technology that can provide reliable, scaleable and economic energy will be developed I will be glad to switch to it. Until then, don't take my money for your pet causes.As for being a 'green' religious zealot, people can judge from your posts here and come to their own conclusions. I have mine.I need to go to do some soldering.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 04, 2015, 10:51:01 pm
content: Sorry, I went soldering.....

author: miguelvp
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 04, 2015, 10:53:25 pm
content: Quote from: mojo-chan on January 04, 2015, 11:35:27 amPlenty of proof here which you conveniently didn't address:http://www.c3headlines.com/For example about CO2 and global temperature changes:http://www.c3headlines.com/2014/09/noaa-confirms-with-empirical-proof-co2-changes-not-causing-global-temperature-changes.html

author: Galenbo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 18, 2015, 10:44:35 pm
content: Quote from: mojo-chan on January 05, 2015, 11:19:21 amEspecially the ones with a green background.