Environment & Energy
Related: About this forumJon Stewart rocks.
In this interview with Al Gore from last night, Jon pulls no punches regarding Al's recent pocketing of $70M for selling his network to al-Jazeera, a mouthpiece for the emir of Qatar and OPEC.
Stewart asks, "Can mogul Al Gore co-exist with activist Al Gore?", after which Al ties his tongue in knots trying to explain how oil is sustainable:
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-january-30-2013/exclusive---al-gore-extended-interview-pt--1
Nihil
(13,508 posts)Goes nicely with people around here celebrating the increase in consumption of dirty coal
"as a stepping stone to more renewables" (not to mention the support for the dirty gas that
is a vital keystone of increased wind energy, irreplaceable in the timescale in which the
CO2 levels go through the roof).
kristopher
(29,798 posts)It isn't true. Full paper available at link:
Cost-minimized combinations of wind power, solar power and electrochemical storage, powering the grid up to 99.9% of the time
We model many combinations of renewable electricity sources (inland wind, offshore wind, and photovoltaics) with electrochemical storage (batteries and fuel cells), incorporated into a large grid system (72 GW).
The purpose is twofold:
1) although a single renewable generator at one site produces intermittent power, we seek combinations of diverse renewables at diverse sites, with storage, that are not intermittent and satisfy need a given fraction of hours. And
2) we seek minimal cost, calculating true cost of electricity without subsidies and with inclusion of external costs.
Our model evaluated over 28 billion combinations of renewables and storage, each tested over 35,040 h (four years) of load and weather data. We find that the least cost solutions yield seemingly-excessive generation capacityat times, almost three times the electricity needed to meet electrical load. This is because diverse renewable generation and the excess capacity together meet electric load with less storage, lowering total system cost. At 2030 technology costs and with excess electricity displacing natural gas, we find that the electric system can be powered 90%99.9% of hours entirely on renewable electricity, at costs comparable to today'sbut only if we optimize the mix of generation and storage technologies.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378775312014759
Nihil
(13,508 posts)As I said,
>> ... support for the dirty gas that is a vital keystone of increased wind
>> energy, irreplaceable in the timescale in which the CO2 levels go
>> through the roof.
Note the total absence of any "this will NEVER work" comment and a clear
pointer that things that have a "only this happens somehow" clause in
their claims are (literally) blowing smoke.
joshcryer
(62,276 posts)joshcryer
(62,276 posts)Well, we might have done it better ourselves, but it's better to just let someone else do it better since they have bigger pockets. It's partially market-oriented nonsense. "The sustainability of capitalism." I'll have to read this book.