The ldsfaqs / Climate Change MEGATHREAD

[Guest]

Highly distributed grids composed of renewable micro generation aggregated to meet the demands of the whole. Way more resilient to single points of failure than the current model. Look to the state of California's grid modernization efforts for an example of how this will work.

[_Res Ipsa]

Non-nuclear renewables are catching up so fast in the area of electricity generation, that I don't think it is correct any longer to argue that nuclear is a necessary cost of rapid transformation of the electric grid into carbon neutral options. I'm not opposed to nuclear per se, but I come down on the side of those who argue it is not needed.

When it comes to decarbonization, the electricity aspect is increasingly looking like the most manageable part. If there was even a little bit of political will, it could be done in the US without too much of a shock. Decarbonizing agriculture to the level that needs to happen in the timeframe it needs to happen is more of a head-scratcher.

The price of generating wind and solar is competitive with nuclear, but there is a huge amount of infrastructure to be needed before we can stop using oil, gas and coal to generate electricity. How are we going to provide the storage necessary to make interruptible sources meet demand? There are lots of proposals and ideas, but how will they be implemented and who will pay for them? The US power grid needs to be updated so that utilities can quickly and efficiently obtain power from a myriad of generating and storage locations across the country. But ownership of the grid is fragmented among thousands of different entities. Who’s going to decide how to modernize the grid so that it all works together? Who’s going to make sure that it gets done? And, given public ownership of many utilities, how does one compel ratepayers to pay for the upgrades. And, most importantly, how far along are we in the process.

At least there are designs and blueprints for a nuke plant. Do we have blueprints for the necessary grid upgrades? The storage facilities?

On top of all that, our solution to decarbonizing the transportation sector involves replacing internal combustion engines with electric motors, requiring even more generation of electricity?

As a practical matter, conservatives appear to have a hard-on for nukes. Including nukes in a program to decarbonize generation of electricity may help overcome the political obstacles.

And time is critical. We’re now starting to incur the cost of waiting. Funds that could be used for prevention are going to increasingly be needed for repair and adaptation. It’s a multi-front war, and I don’t think we can afford to leave out any means of attack.

[_Chap]

I have the impression from the preceding post that the infrastructure problems of the US are likely to add to the difficulty of making the best use of renewable resources.

The US power grid needs to be updated so that utilities can quickly and efficiently obtain power from a myriad of generating and storage locations across the country. But ownership of the grid is fragmented among thousands of different entities.

I am not trying to sound superior here, but I quite honestly did not realise that this was the situation Americans face. Elsewhere in the world, the flexibility given by a functioning national (and international) distribution grid has led to situations where for several days in a row it has been possible to burn no coal at all, as in this example from last year:

That milestone in turn was smashed on Monday afternoon and the UK passed the 72-hour mark at 10am on Tuesday. The coal-free run came to an end after 76 hours.

Without the fossil fuel, nearly a third of Britain’s electricity was supplied by gas, followed by windfarms and nuclear on around a quarter each.

The rest came from biomass burned at Drax power station in North Yorkshire, imports from France and the Netherlands, and solar power. Drax said it expected to go without coal on Tuesday.

As per my post above, nuclear power will be an essential ingredient in the low-carbon mix for some time to come. But as storage technology advances (and if state subsidies for fossil fuels are not allowed to distort pricing), the falling price of renewables will eventually win the game.

[_Gunnar]

Mikwut is fond of disparaging my quips upthread, but the fact still remains that he cannot come up with an even slightly plausible reason why the vast majority of the world's climate scientists should be regarded as more unreliable than the hugely wealthy and powerful fossil fuel industry who have such an enormous vested interest in denying the reality of AGW, even if true.

In addition, his claim that third world countries can only afford to improve their economic success by relying heavily on fossil fuels is seriously outdated and oblivious to the most recent developments:

Developing countries lead in clean energy.

The West may have begun the clean energy revolution, but developing countries are no longer playing catch-up – in fact, they are now leading the way

Renewable energy used to be deemed unaffordable for developing countries. Wind and solar were rich country luxuries, while third world economies could only be expected to grow on a diet of dirty fossil fuels. As recently as June 2014, Bill Gates blogged: “Poor countries… can’t afford today’s expensive clean energy solutions and we can’t expect them to wait for the technology to get cheaper.”

However, the past two years have seen this received wisdom turned on its head. Latest figures from the United Nations Environment Programme and Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) show that in 2015 total clean energy investment in developing countries actually surpassed that of developed countries for the first time at $156 billion compared with $130 billion.

Taking the lead

The biggest renewable investors included Chile ($3.5 billion, up 157 per cent) South Africa ($4.5 billion, up 329 per cent) and Morocco ($2 billion, up from almost zero in 2014). India saw investments rise 22 per cent to $10.2 billion while China, now the world’s biggest investor in renewable technology, spent $102.9 billion on renewables (36 per cent of the world total).

If you consider investments relative to annual GDP, the top five investors globally were actually Mauritania, Honduras, Uruguay, Morocco and Jamaica. Meanwhile, Costa Rica is remarkably close to becoming the first developing country to have 100 per cent renewable electricity.

Renewable energy used to be deemed unaffordable for developing countries. Wind and solar were rich country luxuries, while third world economies could only be expected to grow on a diet of dirty fossil fuels. As recently as June 2014, Bill Gates blogged: “Poor countries… can’t afford today’s expensive clean energy solutions and we can’t expect them to wait for the technology to get cheaper.”

However, the past two years have seen this received wisdom turned on its head. Latest figures from the United Nations Environment Programme and Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) show that in 2015 total clean energy investment in developing countries actually surpassed that of developed countries for the first time at $156 billion compared with $130 billion.

Taking the lead

The biggest renewable investors included Chile ($3.5 billion, up 157 per cent) South Africa ($4.5 billion, up 329 per cent) and Morocco ($2 billion, up from almost zero in 2014). India saw investments rise 22 per cent to $10.2 billion while China, now the world’s biggest investor in renewable technology, spent $102.9 billion on renewables (36 per cent of the world total).

If you consider investments relative to annual GDP, the top five investors globally were actually Mauritania, Honduras, Uruguay, Morocco and Jamaica. Meanwhile, Costa Rica is remarkably close to becoming the first developing country to have 100 per cent renewable electricity.

“Wind and solar power are now being adopted in many developing countries as a natural and substantial part of the generation mix,” says Michael Liebreich, chairman of the advisory board at BNEF. “They can be produced more cheaply than often high wholesale power prices; they reduce a country’s exposure to expected future fossil fuel prices and, above all, they can be built very quickly.”

While Europe is looking to more expensive offshore wind options to appease not-in-my-back-yard voters, many developing countries are happy with cheaper on-shore and solar options. This in turn means the companies selling those technologies are increasingly looking towards emerging markets. Total renewable investment in Europe actually slipped 21 per cent to $48.8 billion in 2015 and today’s growth market is in the global south.

Kirsty Hamilton, an expert in renewable energy investment at Chatham House, outlines the mix of factors at play, including cost-reductions, strong government policies and investors actively looking for opportunities. The big European projects, such as Germany’s Energiewende, may have driven the growth in renewable energy technology, says Ms Hamilton, but recent political flip-flopping has seen investors “head to the least risky countries”.

Developing countries can now afford renewable energy and the major energy corporations can’t afford to miss out on these growth markets

It may be true that increasing nuclear power capacity is, at least initially, an essential part of the mix of strategies to successfully replace our dependence on fossil fuels, but I am not entirely convinced that this is necessarily true.

[_EAllusion]

The price of generating wind and solar is competitive with nuclear, but there is a huge amount of infrastructure to be needed before we can stop using oil,

I think we might be talking past each other on this point. What I was saying is that the technology to largely decarbonize our electrical grid already exists and is economically feasible to switch over to. We could theoretically have a new-deal style government program that subsidizes this transformation without too much of an economic shock (i.e. not sending us into an economic depression). What we lack is the political will to make it happen. This seems like a relatively good deal given the projected costs of global warming looming on the horizon.

I think this differs from other aspects of what decarbonization looks like. By contrast, it's still not really clear how we are going to decarbonize agriculture and and maintain sufficient output to feed people without there being a major economic shock or people unrealistically going along with significantly changing their eating behavior.

[_Chap]

By contrast, it's still not really clear how we are going to decarbonize agriculture and and maintain sufficient output to feed people without there being a major economic shock or people unrealistically going along with significantly changing their eating behavior.

Unless action is taken to cut carbon emissions and stop global heating, a country like the US will in eventually find:

(a) Its agricultural output, far from being 'maintained' starts to fall as areas now productive for (e.g.) grain production cease to be so with rising temperatures.

(b) People end up "significantly changing their eating behavior" simply because they can no longer obtain sufficient quantities of the foods they prefer to eat.

Maybe things will seem clearer then?

But nah, no need for hard choices, because Jesus will have returned by then, or else the present generation of politicians will be either be dead or enjoying cushioned retirements in habitable countries. Then we'll see what that Greta kid and her cohorts can do when they have to face up to the real world ...

[One thing they may feel like doing by then is to pass laws and launch prosecutions against the old guys who did nothing when there was still a chance to avoid disaster. Don't forget the 'we will never forgive you" bit in her speech.]

[_EAllusion]

(a) Its agricultural output, far from being 'maintained' starts to fall as areas now productive for (e.g.) grain production cease to be so with rising temperatures.

(b) People end up "significantly changing their eating behavior" simply because they can no longer obtain sufficient quantities of the foods they prefer to eat.

Maybe things will seem clearer then?

Agriculture is heavily dependent on carbon emission producing methods in several ways. Some of these are transformable with present day technology with significant, but manageable steps. For example, going to electrical farm equipment over fossil-fuel based options then generating that electricity in a carbon neutral manner.

Some of these are not nearly as easy to transform without there being a substantial cost that will have huge impact on GDP in the short term. For example, going to fertilizers that don't involve major carbon footprints or drastically reducing fertilizer input to almost nothing.

And some of these are related to the types of things people eat. While there is technology to make animal gases and manure less carbon emitting than it is now, the technology does not exist to decarbonize it in an economically feasible way. Remember, we have to stop emitting carbon into the atmosphere at this point - not simply slow the pace at which we are adding more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.

So given what you are saying? Maybe. But I seriously doubt you'll be able to make the US go quasi-vegetarian in present day circumstances. People probably will need a cost shock to modify their behavior.

In the meantime, the realistic goal is to cut into the carbon emissions produced by agriculture and try to create as much carbon sink offset as you can.

[_Gunnar]

Biodiesel for farmers.
A growing number of farmers are making their own biodiesel to run their farm equipment. Not only to they save a lot of money by doing so, the biodiesel burns better in their engines and reduces wear and tear on them, because of its lubricating properties. Burning biodiesel doesn't emit sulfur into the air, which is a serious pollutant, and they don't cause a net increase to atmospheric CO2 because they only return to the atmosphere carbon taken from the atmosphere in the first place by the growing plants from which the biofuel is extracted.

One of the many benefits of biodiesel is that it can be made from a long list of oil vegetable or animal oils. The list of seed crops that convert beautifully into ASTM-D6751 grade biodiesel includes sunflower, safflower, canola, camelina, mustard seed, peanut, olive, soybean, rapeseed, jatropha, sesame, palm, cottonseed, coconut, etc. and the list continues to grow. We've selected a few interesting crops to call out below, but there are many others. (See links on biodiesel made from animal tallows below).

As a result, we are seeing a growing number of farmers take the plunge and choose to make their own fuel. All a farmer needs is a BioPro™ and a seed crusher, and he can reduce his fuel operation bills significantly. We have yet to meet a farmer who isn't making their own fuel with a BioPro for less than the cost of regular diesel.

Harvest the oil seed crop, crush the seeds, collect the oil, process the oil in a BioPro™, sell the remaining high-protein bran as cattle feed, and save money!

Johhny Davis (pictured at left) is doing it.
Johnny is a semi-retired farmer and owner of the ARCO feedlot in DeWitt, AR. He operates a BioPro™ 380 and SpringPro™ T76 drywash system. With this set up, he is capable of producing 100 gallons every 13 hours.
He is one of several farmers in the Arkansas Delta region that is working to convert camelina and other winter crops into ASTM-grade biodiesel

Click on the link for other case studies of farmers who produce their own biodiesel.

See also: School Teaches Farmers to Brew Own Biodiesel

and: Energy Independent Farm concept

[_EAllusion]

Biofuels aren't truly carbon neutral. There's more that goes into the production of them than growing plants. That said, powering farm equipment is probably the least intractable problem to getting agriculture to a carbon neutral state.

[_Res Ipsa]

The price of generating wind and solar is competitive with nuclear, but there is a huge amount of infrastructure to be needed before we can stop using oil,

I think we might be talking past each other on this point. What I was saying is that the technology to largely decarbonize our electrical grid already exists and is economically feasible to switch over to. We could theoretically have a new-deal style government program that subsidizes this transformation without too much of an economic shock (i.e. not sending us into an economic depression). What we lack is the political will to make it happen. This seems like a relatively good deal given the projected costs of global warming looming on the horizon.

I think this differs from other aspects of what decarbonization looks like. By contrast, it's still not really clear how we are going to decarbonize agriculture and and maintain sufficient output to feed people without there being a major economic shock or people unrealistically going along with significantly changing their eating behavior.

Wouldn’t be the first time.

I see big plans by some utilities to modernize their grids. Edison in SoCal is spending billions over the next ten years. Right now, the Continental US has three independent AC grids, which run as isolated systems. There are some DC interties, but I don’t think they provide the inter connectivity that wind and solar will need. I saw a facility proposed in Texas to connect all three grids, but couldn’t tell if it had been started. Maybe it’s all technically possible, but I haven’t seen any large scale test of the tech involved in the grid upgrades. We’ve got lots of eggs, and I’m not comfortable tossing out the nuclear basket at this point.

I don’t see nuclear as a panacea or a significant long-term player. Just a bridge to decarbonizing that sector.

And I do agree with you that the agricultural sector will be very tough. We’ve known for lots of years that biofuels are not much better than fossil fuels when it comes to greenhouse gas production. They exist in the US simply as a farm subsidy. The big problem is cattle and cattle feed. Not sure how to tackle that.