The real green energy
Green energy is not solar power and wind turbines. It’s the gradual improvements in electronics over the last thirty years. There’s probably been more saving of energy through efficicienes created through the invention of new devices than that created by all the solar panels and wind turbines in the whole world.
As an example this is the power supply for an old Apple III. Big, chunky, wasteful of energy, generates lots of heat, and expensive to make.
Compare that to the latest Apple power supply. One for your iPhone/iPad. This one is tiny. And I mean tiny, it’s an inch cube. It’s also extrmely efficient in terms of energy use, both while charging and when not. And because it doesn’t use much energy it stays cool. And lastly it’s very cheap to make, at around $4 each.
Continual improvements in engineering have also done a lot for green issues. Wind power will do nothing towards saving the planet as it only provides something like 1-2% of the UK’s energy. Photovoltaic solar power in the UK just does not work what with our typical weather. Hydro does work – a little. It’s just that we don’t have huge rivers able to provide more than a few percent of the UK’s energy.
If we don’t want to cut back our energy consumption to levels in the pre-industrial age then we have to live with gas, coal and nuclear providing over 90% of the UK’s energy. We can cut back our energy usage by small levels by switching our lights off and also by buying more efficient electrical products. For instance, modern TVs in use as much as power as old TV used in standby.
I’m a oldish lad who is sad that so much of life is making him mad.
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June 15, 2012 at 08:25 -
Another set of energy savings from those same technological improvements is their portability and the fact that people can work/play ‘remotely’ or on-the-move.
Face to face meetings (and hence transport energy) are reduced; work can be done at home rather than having to commute to an office.
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June 15, 2012 at 08:54 -
You make a great point – modern technology can be extremely energy efficient compared to old tech, and the savings can be dramatic. Similarly, in a household context, the most efficient way to reduce energy consumption is probably insulation, insulation, and insulation. Followed by a careful selection of modern appliances and lighting fixtures (e.g. LED lighting).
But I think you underestimate the efficiency of photovoltaic, even in blighty. And, of course, there are other technologies which are in practical use elsewhere, but seem largely absent from the discussion in the UK, such as heat pumps.
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June 15, 2012 at 09:33 -
If pv was so ‘efficient’, it wouldn’t need such massive subsidies.
It is instrumental (by adding unnecessary costs) in causing fuel (energy) poverty in the UK, which accounted for some of the 3,000 deaths.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17365137
I hope its proponents have a clear conscience.
Eliminate all subsidies for pv & wind – these subsidies are a tax on the poor, given to the rich who own a roof & can afford a substantial ‘investment’, or, land on which to site windmills.
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June 15, 2012 at 09:54 -
You do realise that fossil fuels are also heavily subsidised?
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June 15, 2012 at 11:49 -
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June 15, 2012 at 15:21 -
Chuckles heartily? International Energy Agency estimates put global government fossil fuel subsidies at 400 billion USD in 2010.
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June 15, 2012 at 16:29 -
Not in the UK it isn’t. Have you bought any fuel for your car lately?
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June 16, 2012 at 17:36 -
Look at the SEC filings for Exxon in 2009. Not only did they not pay any federal income taxes on their $19bn profit, but the IRS gave them over $150 million rebate!
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June 16, 2012 at 19:53 -
Doesn’t relate to UK energy supply or use.
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June 15, 2012 at 14:59 -
Using the warped logic of looney greens, fossil fuels are subsidized because they are a store of sunlight from 1 million years ago. But in the real world not so much.
In the UK fossil fuels are not subsidized*. Some oil producing nations (Saudi for example) do subsidize oil/gas for their domestic market.
* If you exclude fuel payments for the elderly
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June 15, 2012 at 16:31 -
“* If you exclude fuel payments for the elderly”
And the “Winter Fuel Allowance” isn’t a ‘fossil-fuel’ subsidy; its a subsidy towards all energy sources including wind/pv.
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June 15, 2012 at 11:10 -
Agreed.
Milliband minor has a lot to answer for- he introduced the unsustainably high FIT rate just before leaving office. Hardly helpful to those who can’t afford or are unable to install pv; they have to pay for the subsidies.
Those whining about damage to the so important pv business caused by reducing the FIT forget to mention that all they do is hang the things on the roof and wire them in; the panels are imported.
Having said that I used to solar heat my swimming pool with a coil of black plastic pipe on a roof. But that was Africa. I do think economies of scale could be used to make cheap and reliable solar water heaters for the south of England.
I just don’t think we should pay huge subsidies which by their nature discourage development and cost reduction.
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June 15, 2012 at 10:05 -
Pv is not all it is hyped up to be. You would think that here in the south of France it would be the ideal place to use it – it’s not.
I have friends that lives too far from the mains supply for it to be economically viable to run a line to their house, so after much faffing about EDF said they would install a Pv system.
They started with 18 panels, a very large battery bank and a couple of large inverters. The battery bank and inverters and control equipment had to have their own concrete building. This setup was supposed to give 4 days autonomy with them using energy efficient light bulbs, a top energy efficient rating refrigerator and likewise freezer, oh, and they changed their desktop computer for a laptop because it was more energy efficient.
They ran out of power over the first Christmas and several times in the next 2 months. Eventually they managed to persuade EDF to add more panels, they now have 36 and that was it. The second year saw several power cuts but they were told that nothing more could be done.
A couple of years ago I got a 15kw diesel generator for them and installed it into the system, the inverters have auto genset start. They have not had power cuts since and it does not cost that much for fuel for the generator as it uses the same heating oil they use for heating, cooking and hot water.
The only way Pv and wind appear to work is because of the subsidies paid by the tax payer to the owners of such systems. Remove those subsidies and they cease to be cost effective.
I forgot to mention, the setup for my friends cost them €25000 and they still pay EDF for the power they use although the power from their generator is deducted.
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June 15, 2012 at 13:24 -
Almeria is the sunniest part of Europe, and even there, domestic solar pv is conspicuous by its absence.
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June 15, 2012 at 09:26 -
Improvements in electronics have been achieved by an increase in density, smaller devices in a smaller space.
In a similar way industrialisation in general has been improved by utilising ever more dense energy sources, i.e. wood, charcoal, coal, oil through to nuclear.
According to the politicians our past was coal, energy density about 25MJ/kg; our future is wind, 9.98J/kg (10 m.p.h. wind speed). In other words a reduction in density of two and a half million. That would be like replacing your new Apple power supply with one in a cube of side 3.3m.
We truly are doomed.
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June 15, 2012 at 10:13 -
Your point is well made, but it’s a bit unfair to compare a PSU that probably kicked out 500W or so to power an old-fashioned PC with one that probably delivers 100mW.
A better comparison would be between the actual Apple III and the iPhone: one did pretty much everything you needed, but rather slowly and clumsily, the other does loads of things you don’t need, at incredible speeds
btw weren’t Apple III’s a bit rare and odd? I used one years ago (Visicalc!) but you didn’t see many. A bit of a dead end iirc.
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June 15, 2012 at 10:21 -
“the setup…cost them €25000 and they still pay EDF for the power they use”
wtf?
They have a totally independent off-grid system and they still have to pay someone else for the power it generates?
Is this the wonders of nationalisation at work? Thank God we got rid of all that sh*** back in Maggie’s day.
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June 15, 2012 at 13:50 -
the €25000 was a reduced price – like 50% and EDF is responsible for maintenance and replacements.
We looked at them doing it on their own and it was just too expensive – €55k to €75k.
At least I managed to get a hefty reduction for the energy produced by their genset.
As you say this is nationalisation at work.
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June 15, 2012 at 10:46 -
Does nobody think that subsidies are a small price to pay for energy security and independence, given that we are heavily subsidising fossil fuels at the minute anyway? Would anybody be in more favour of renewable energy if it was locally owned and thus separate from government?
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June 15, 2012 at 11:56 -
People might be in favour of ‘renewable’ energy if it provided the energy the country needs to function, at a price we could afford. It can’t, and it never will be able to.
The answer is nuclear, coal and gas. I suspect we’ll have about another decade of bullshitting before that simple and blindingly obvious conclusion (advised to gummint by the power generation sector and everybody with any engineering nous except those who’s wages are paid by ‘renewables’ companies) is finally reached.
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June 15, 2012 at 13:01 -
Generally agreeing, but you’ve omitted hydro-power.
There is a vast, reserve of available and continuous power in our inland waterways. This could be tapped with thousands of small, cheap turbines serving their locality, thus avoiding transmission costs and losses, in addition to avoiding the visual offence of those awful, subsidy-rich windmills.
And why not build more dams in the suitable parts of the country ? Not only storing up water, thus making more of it available in times of shortage, but also creating high-output power stations and a valuable leaisure feature as well.
Hydro seems to be the forgotten power-source, yet it is clean, available, continuous and, most important, indigenous – no messy imports from delicate parts of the world. We’re a small, hilly and wet nation, why not use what’s already been provided ?
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June 15, 2012 at 14:04 -
Hydro is only viable if you have a lot of space at a high enough elevation that can be flooded without causing problems.
Sticking waterwheels in waterways is about as good as getting the layabouts on jacked up bicycles with a belt drive to a generator in generating power i.e. totally impractical.
So called ‘renewable’ energy will never be able to supply base load electricity.
As Engineer says nuclear and shale gas will do the job but unfortunately it will take the lights going out in the winter to change the politicians viewpoint from green to reality and by then it will be too late.
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June 16, 2012 at 13:33 -
“Sticking waterwheels in waterways is about as good as getting the layabouts on jacked up bicycles with a belt drive to a generator in generating power i.e. totally impractical.”
So the 20, 000 watermills built across the country in the last few centuries were “totally impractical” were they? OK they didn’t generate a huge amount of power, but it was enough to justify the cost of building them at the time. The potential energy at all these sites is still there, and in many cases much of the infrastructure is still there, too, plus today we have much more efficient ways of extracting energy from water than the old waterwheels.
However, hydropower depends on rainfall although this might not seem a problem at the moment. Tidal power, however, is guaranteed to operate twice a day, every day and yet, AFAIK, we do not have a single large tidal power installation in the country, despite having some of the highest tidal ranges in the world.
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June 16, 2012 at 17:22 -
“Small, Hilly” doesn’t work. You need ‘Big, Mountainous’ for hydro to be significant. That is, you need big rivers with enormous catchments (Columbia, Missouri – low dams but lots of flow), and/or mountain lakes (France, Switzerland – high dams/head, lower flow) . Scotland as a source of hydro doesn’t really cut it by comparison, though I guess the current exploitation meets a useful fraction of Scotland’s needs. Trouble is, there ain’t much scope to increase that without compromising lots more scenery.
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June 15, 2012 at 14:41 -
Solar pv & wind give Zilch, Zero energy security. In fact they have negative security because extra fossil / nuclear resources must be provided as back-up.
As pointed out in a previous thread, fossil fuels are taxed, not subsidised.
Simple Yes or No answer please: “Would you be prepared to depend solely upon solar/wind generation, for a hospital providing you with a life-saving operation?”
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June 15, 2012 at 16:38 -
Let me think…. Fossil fuel importing nations (UK/USA/EU) pay higher prices to subsidize the domestic market for fossil fuel exporting nations.
Please provide links to these so called fossil fuel subsidies in the UK (or other importing nation)
Not sure if I should laugh or cry at all the green disinformation flying around these days.
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June 15, 2012 at 11:59 -
My standard server build now is 28tb of storage. That replaces about 28 computers, each with about 1tb. That means I’m using about 1/20th of the power. The old 1tb servers are all powered off, there as backups.
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June 15, 2012 at 14:40 -
Assuming you are taking about work servers. In the 80′s systems were restricted to basic accounts/invoicing/stock control. Most 80′s (mainframe) systems could now be run on a modern desktop machine.
But because computing is more efficient we use much, much more of it.
In my years I’ve seen data centres get bigger, use far more power, while using far more efficient / faster machines.
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June 15, 2012 at 12:24 -
I recently bought some enviroplugs for our mobiles. Like most we charge through the night, I had noticed that the wife’s phone would finish charging at midnight (it would wake me up, beeping). So for the next 8hrs it was plugged in and not really charging.
With the enviroplug thing I got it switches off at midnight and doesn’t charge. There is a little usage of the battery, but we just plug it back in when we get up and by the time we’re going out the door it’s fully charged.
No idea on the cost savings, but I’ve heard it’s reasonable, especially as the plug only cost £10 each.
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June 15, 2012 at 14:08 -
I’d be careful on your assumptions about energy efficiency.
My LCD uses twice the power than the old CRT. My LCD is more efficient than a CRT, problem is my LCD is 4x the size. Oh and dont forget an old CRT contained its own (low power) tuner. I now also own a separate set top box…
When the Apple II came out it was the only computing device I owned. Now I own 1 server (on 24/7), 1 Notebook (on when I’m awake). 1 x cable modem, 1 x wifi router, 2 x gigabit routers all on 24/7. An XBOX 360 & Wii. At that time I was <1% of the population that owned a computing device. Now ~80% of the population own (multiple) computing devices.
Also PC's (CPU's) use far more power than PC's of old. An old Apple II 6502 CPU used minimal power. Now both the CPU and Graphics Card use so much power they require large heatsinks to remove the waste heat. A modern PSU is more efficient, but the electronics use far more energy than before.
I was an early adopter of CFL lightbulbs, which only used ~10w power each, but where not very bright. Today all my CFL's are now nice and bright 20w models. I've tested LCD lights, but they dont work as advertised yet – 6 month lifetime sucks badly – badly designed (cheap) driver circuits are the main culprit.
I used to eat a lot of fast food & ready meals. Now I cook all my own food, which has increased my energy usage. I now source my food as locally as possible (low food miles), but have a new (A+) freezer. (more increased energy usage).
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June 16, 2012 at 14:48 -
I wonder why I get the impression that all those advocating ‘renewable’ energy to get baseload electricity have never studied science let alone physics.
Water power (hydro) is fine IF you have enough head to give that energy. There are standard equations to calculate how much electricity you can get from a known head of water – assuming you know the efficiency of the type of turbine you want to use.
We then get the argument that water wheels were used in the past. Indeed they were BUT, there is always a but, they only made sense for one specific job in one specific location and they were only cost effective because it meant the owner did not have to house, feed and look after several horses or donkeys needed to turn whatever the water wheel was turning.
Tidal power sounds fine until you look at it in depth. So you want electricity for a couple of hours twice a day – fine, just ask the hospitals to organise themselves around that. But, that but again, no one looks at the cost of generating electricity by tidal power. There is the capital cost but that will be dwarfed by the maintenance costs – salt water and the equipment used do not get along very well but it will be marginally better than the maintenance on off shore wind turbines.
I could go on but why bother when I know I’m flogging a dead horse and the sunshine on the terrace is calling.
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June 16, 2012 at 16:31 -
Strictly speaking, tidal power, for what it’s worth, is not renewable, though arguably it is, for practical purposes, ever lasting.
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June 16, 2012 at 20:04 -
Two other factors rarely mentioned.
Firstly, balancing the National Grid. Demand is not controlled, so the only way to balance the grid (ensuring that supply voltage is within specified limits) is to control the supply side. A significant proportion of electricity (more than about 5% of load) coming from uncontrollable and unpredictable sources – such as wind – makes the grid a nightmare to balance.
Secondly, many of the renewables may have huge energy potential, but that potential is spread over huge distances. That means a LOT of kit to harvest the energy, so that’s high capital cost and high maintenance. To harvest the tidal energy from the West coast of Britain means installations from Cornwall to Cape Wrath. What cost that lot?
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June 16, 2012 at 21:34 -
“they only made sense for one specific job in one specific location”
No they didn’t, they were used whereever energy was available. Many mills started doing one thing and were converted to do others. Anyway that’s beside the point. The potential energy that was captured by those mills is still there in the stream or river and available to generate electricity. No, it’s not going to solve all our energy problems, but yes, it’s available and a damn sight more reliable than wind, but I suppose you think that nothing that isn’t going to provide 100% of our energy needs 100% of the time is worth even considering.
“So you want electricity for a couple of hours twice a day”
If you think that, you obviously know bugger all about tidal energy.-
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June 17, 2012 at 09:16 -
“So you want electricity for a couple of hours twice a day”
If you think that, you obviously know bugger all about tidal energy.I don’t think that, I know that from the point of view of USABLE electricity. There is little usable electricity beyond a hour either side of high water and nothing in the slack period at high water.
If we can’t provide for 115% of our energy needs 100% of the time then we might as well close down all industry and the hospitals as we know them.
The only way a country progresses is when there is a lot of cheap energy to run industry. The green movement would have us as subsistence farmers huddled round a candle at night but that wouldn’t matter because we wouldn’t need much light to read the books we wouldn’t have because there was no way to make them in quantity. The lack of TV might be a blessing in disguise because it would stop the brainwashing.
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June 17, 2012 at 18:35 -
Sorry, you obviously do know something about tidal energy, but that something just happens to be wrong.
I am not suggesting that hydro energy can provide anything like 100% of our energy needs but just because it can’t that is no reason to rule it out completely, which is what you seem to be doing. It’s not a case of fossil or renewable, it is possible to have both. Fossil fuels are, by their very nature, limited and anything that makes them last a bit longer has got to have advantages.-
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June 17, 2012 at 21:18 -
The only way to see if renewable energy sources are viable is to remove all subsidies from them and allow people to buy their power from who they chose.
The other thing that should be added to the cost of renewable energy is the cost of constructing, running and maintaining the backup power generators for when the renewable energy isn’t.
Also, the windmill owners should be charged for the power they use turning the blades when there is no wind.
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June 18, 2012 at 09:25 -
Why is Ivan incorrect about tidal?
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June 17, 2012 at 11:22 -
Bayard – the energy produced by an average watermill or windmill is less than that delivered by an average small car engine.
The largest windmill in East Anglia (a magnificent structure) was built to grind grain for human consumption and animal feed in the locality. In the 1950′s, it was replaced by an electrically-driven mill doing the same work – that mill was about the size of an office photocopier.
That’s the problem with small-scale power generation. The capital and maintenance costs make it totally unviable, except in areas such as the Hebrides where demand is low, and connection to the National Grid expensive enough to make it viable.
Adding all the ‘small generators’ together over quite a large area wouldn’t even come close to running a medium-sized town, never mind the whole country.
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June 17, 2012 at 18:58 -
The capital costs of most renewable energy systems have been artificially inflated by government subsidies, as shown by the recent drop in installation costs of PV panels following the cut in the FITs. It wasn’t that long ago that most small scale hydropower installations, be they watermills or generators were put out of business by the water boards charging them for every gallon of water that went through their installation. Also up until recently, the electricity boards simply wouldn’t buy electricity from small scale generators, but unfortunately, the pendulum has swung too far the other way and now hydropower is being subsidised. Yes, subsidies are a bad idea, not least because they generally end up in the hands of the “approved” installers, but if we didn’t have them, the market would be able to decide whether small-scale generation made economic sense.
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June 18, 2012 at 09:37 -
I’ve done a quick google and cant find any reference to water boards in the UK charging a hydro tariff. Can you provide a link please.
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June 18, 2012 at 14:37 -
I firmly believe windmill subsidies and the domestic FIT scheme to be some of the biggest scams of modern times. It’s informative on a journey to activity sample windmills- how many do you see, how many are moving. I got one in four working on a recent trip.
And yes, I can do the big sums on energy, and I think few people realise the miniscule power output of the romantic old world of wind and watermills. It wasn’t just reliability that drove mill owners to install steam engines and line shafts, it was a lack of power, as Engineer has pointed out. Power to drive machines that hadn’t previously existed. Those same steam engines themselves then being superceded by the economy, convenience and yet more power of mains electricity.-
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June 18, 2012 at 14:54 -
As I pointed out earlier it is all about energy density, going from coal to wind is a REDUCTION of two and a half MILLION in energy density.
This is a major reversal of the historical and necessary trend for technological advancement. We are not talking about sustainability here but literally going back to the dark age.
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