Renewable Energy

[VicParticipant @vic]

This is a long video so not for those with a short attention span.

https://youtu.be/Zgxb8I1nk2I?si=KrArXKxpJ6401Kl0

 

[Harry WilkesParticipant @harrywilkes58467]

That rules me out then 🙁

H

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

Only slightly overweight American who wants to spend time pontificating to camera instead of doing some exercise. I wish these people would learn that for men over 25 only your mother wants to see a picture of you.

[Paul KempParticipant @paulkemp46892]

Hmmm, well I watched 55 minutes of it out of interest.  What is your take on it Vic as you linked it?  Fact or fiction?  Mine is there are fundamentally correct facts stated but they are then distorted and as the gentleman says he has ignored some of the associated costs for his potential domestic installation and his sums on the commercial picture sound a little dubious / optimistic too, maybe you can spot them?

Solar is good but it’s not a silver bullet and even if it works as he claims in the US that does not mean it will work the same elsewhere.  As Joseph Nocci so ably and eloquently put the case for third world countries in the thread on diesel.  Even the UK that is supposedly first world has the most expensive commercial electricity costs in the world and that isn’t going to change anytime soon despite the amount of power already generated from supposed renewable sources.

Paul.

[VicParticipant @vic]

Paul, I’ve watched a few of his videos and found them all good. I would think he’s probably fairly accurate on this? The farming of corn in the US to produce ethanol was something of an eye opener. Here in the UK we have a really scandalous disconnect between the cost of energy and what we actually end up paying for it.

”Only slightly overweight American who wants to spend time pontificating to camera instead of doing some exercise. I wish these people would learn that for men over 25 only your mother wants to see a picture of you.”

What a puerile comment Bazyle.

[Paul KempParticipant @paulkemp46892]

Vic,

Happy for you that you think they are good videos.  Undoubtably correct that corn has one yield a year and it is inefficient use of land, no idea on his numbers for that though.  However, do a quick fact check on the size of his 27GW solar farm which suggest to me his claims are a little far fetched even if you take the latest most efficient panels at 100% coverage.  If you take it at face value it sounds fantastic, sadly like a lot of YouTube tripe the fundamentals of what he is saying is correct but his conclusions are somewhat distorted.

Paul.

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

The very high electricity costs in the UK are due partly, though not solely, to using the bills to subsidise “renewable” energy… which may result in buying electricity from China albeit generated in UK territory or waters, using plant bought from China even if physically made here.

I suppose the USA making ethanol from grain reflects in part a strong resistance in that country to electric cars.

Although their days of ridiculous “gas-guzzlers” are over apart from so-called “SUVs” and gigantic motor-caravans, it seems many US motorists want only petrol-fuelled cars on principle. Given the sheer size of their country perhaps they have a point if they need, or wish, to make very long-distance journeys. Yet battery-powered cars are made or imported and sold there; and outside of city-centres I think a much larger proportion of American motorists’ homes have drives than here in the UK.

Nevertheless, industrial-scale grain growing merely for vehicle fuel rather than for food, is not good.

That love of SUVs has crept Eastwards though, rather like the domestic waste-bin lost from Alabama that recently washed up, all barnacle -y, on the beach near Weymouth. There are plenty of lumpy Toyota Landcruisers and Ford Rangers on British roads, along with big commercial-type vans, that seem owned as status-symbol cars for everyday use.

The US railways also still use mainly Diesel locomotives because electric traction is largely confined to major cities and their surroundings with considerable commuter traffic. I  don’t know if Amtrak is planning or building trans-continental electrification; but there is a 400-mile “HS2” equivalent being built in California – despite no “HS1” experience, and apparently as relatively costly and contentious as our attempt.

(A hurricane had washed the polythene wheelie-bin into the sea.)

 

I have just finished reading an eye-opener of a book, Not The End Of The World, by the statistician Dr. Hannah Ritchie (senior researcher in the ‘Programme for Global Development’ at Uni. of Oxford, and an honorary Fellow of Uni. of Edinburgh). Pub. Penguin – Random House, 2024.

She has made a particular study of climate-change and its effects, and of agriculture, and our world-wide responses to it. Optimistic that we can deal with the problem, and feed ourselves – if we have the will to approach it properly -Dr. Ritchie shows and explains very clearly not only the problems and solutions; but also the ignorance, simple misunderstandings and surprising myths hampering the efforts.

What is particularly surprising perhaps is that Dr. Ritchie shows we already further along the way in environmental, food and health matters, than many of we, and the policy-makers and headline-writers, might imagine. Though not of course everywhere, and we should not be complacent.

 

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

It is not just an electricity bill or car fuel that is energy use. Everything converts to use of energy. A sandwich only costs what it does because energy was used to grow the wheat and bake the bread, the labour that made it costs what it does because the worker needs to pay for their energy, including their own food, and so on. Thus if people in the UK are spending £20k per year on every aspect of living their actual use of energy is that £20k not just the £1k on petrol. And if they want a house to live in then that is another £200k of energy – though spread over many years.
What we really need is a plan to halve the world population but there are people who oppose that because the most people selfishly having more that 2 children (almost justifiable replacement) are certain ethnic and religious groups.

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