What does it take to succesfully transition to a green energy economy?

[Doodski]

The climate is changing and is always changing...it's not anthropomorphic, it's driven by the sun and orbital mechanics...there is nothing we can do about it so learn to adapt...the absurd amount of money being wasted on this idiocy could be wasted in many more productive ways....

Well.... not exactly. The transition not only creates a entirely new business model for businesses to operate on in the form of alternative energy sources rather than the same old oil and gas stuff but it makes it so more people can participate in the energy generation and the distribution of it.

 

[Axo1989]

The climate is changing and is always changing...it's not anthropomorphic, it's driven by the sun and orbital mechanics...there is nothing we can do about it so learn to adapt...the absurd amount of money being wasted on this idiocy could be wasted in many more productive ways....

Hard to count the number of times that's been debunked.

 

[Blumlein 88]

Hard to count the number of times that's been debunked.

Oh come on now. What's wrong with bringing it up just one more time after the first million times?

Saw this recently.

An ominous heating event is unfolding in the oceans

Average sea surface temperatures have soared to record highs—and stayed there.

arstechnica.com

 

[Axo1989]

Oh come on now. What's wrong with bringing it up just one more time after the first million times?

Haha.

Saw this recently.

An ominous heating event is unfolding in the oceans

Average sea surface temperatures have soared to record highs—and stayed there.

arstechnica.com

Yes, I saw that article also. It's deeply disturbing. Not to belittle the graph interpretation we like to do here, but if there was ever a case where we really want people to see a line on a graph and understand what it means, that's surely one of them.

 

[droid2000]

If we only give the government more money to change the weather and stop eating food and consuming energy I think we can do it.

 

[Blumlein 88]

If we only give the government more money to change the weather and stop eating food and consuming energy I think we can do it.

I don't know. The US Gov't last year used a total of roughly 250 terrawatt-hours of energy. They aren't really that thrifty energy-wise.

 

[SIY]

I don't know. The US Gov't last year used a total of roughly 250 terrawatt-hours of energy. They aren't really that thrifty energy-wise.

But we'll have an all-EV military by 2030. That should do it!

 

[Willem]

Oh come on now. What's wrong with bringing it up just one more time after the first million times?

Saw this recently.

An ominous heating event is unfolding in the oceans

Average sea surface temperatures have soared to record highs—and stayed there.

arstechnica.com

I had already read about it, and it is scary, particularly if 50% of your country is below sea level.

 

[Willem]

Currently the problem with solar and wind is not their low efficiency but rather that they are seasonally and weather dependent. The solution is large scale storage which does not currently exist at scale.

Wind is fairly stable. Solar has the greatest variability. So I am a bit surprised nobody here mentions solar water boilers. Compared to PV they have the advantage that they actually store the energy until it is needed, so are great for smoothing the daily cycle of domestic installations. I had a sabbatical at the Institute for Advanced Study in Jerusalem and like everywhere in Israel my appartment had a solar boiler. The technology was crude because they had more than enough sun to bother about efficiency, but some people are now even installing solar boilers in the Netherlands, connected to the main heating system.
The Dutch government has just posted their plans for the energy transition, and one of the plans is that for large solar farms a battery storage system will be mandated. On top of that, the grid currently already switches off solar panels remotely to stabilize the grid if there is too much excess output. It is a bit wastefull, but it is one way to cope with the excess output.

 

[Blumlein 88]

Wind is fairly stable. Solar has the greatest variability. So I am a bit surprised nobody here mentions solar water boilers. Compared to PV they have the advantage that they actually store the energy until it is needed, so are great for smoothing the daily cycle of domestic installations. I had a sabbatical at the Institute for Advanced Study in Jerusalem and like everywhere in Israel my appartment had a solar boiler. The technology was crude because they had more than enough sun to bother about efficiency, but some people are now even installing solar boilers in the Netherlands, connected to the main heating system.
The Dutch government has just posted their plans for the energy transition, and one of the plans is that for large solar farms a battery storage system will be mandated. On top of that, the grid currently already switches off solar panels remotely to stabilize the grid if there is too much excess output. It is a bit wastefull, but it is one way to cope with the excess output.

Let me see. Some spitballing here. How about when you have excess power you run compressors to blow up huge balloons. Then later when you need power you release the balloons to blow on wind turbines. Might need some government subsidies to finish the R&D.

 

[Willem]

I wrote earlier about the meeting between governments of North Sea countries, planning the implications of the green transition and the construction of large numbers of wind turbines on the North Sea such as the demand for more cables and international grid connectivity.
Tennet, the Dutch state owned operator of the high voltage grid in the Netherlands and also of significant parts of the German grid is not only planning to expand the grid, but is also planning the conditions and business case for large battery energy storage systems: https://www.tennet.eu/battery-energy-storage-systems-bess These research and planning documents provide a wealth of information for anyone who really wants to know about the potential, and the challenges.

 

[monkeyboy]

It really amazes me as to how much faith people put in complex models (the past predictions of which have not panned out)...I have to assume they don't do any modeling themselves...it really is a cult of scientism....

 

[SIY]

It really amazes me as to how much faith people put in complex models (the past predictions of which have not panned out)...I have to assume they don't do any modeling themselves...it really is a cult of scientism....

I'm more concerned that the data points are derived (necessarily) using different measurement methods with different error bars and different biases. When I see a chart like this (from the article linked a few posts back), I have to admit that it gets me headscratching. I'm sure one of our experts here can explain why measurements in the 1880s and measurements in 2020 can be consistently used in the same dataset.

 

[JayGilb]

It really amazes me as to how much faith people put in complex models (the past predictions of which have not panned out)...I have to assume they don't do any modeling themselves...it really is a cult of scientism....

There is no faith, there is input data and output data. If the output data is flawed the models are examined looking for either incorrect algorithms or incorrect input data.
When the data for the models is enormous, (weather or climate analysis) petabytes of data being fed in for a brief period of simulation, as in the case for weather prediction, the algorithms need to be able to produce predictions in a timely matter and some accuracy is left on the table.

 

[JayGilb]

I'm more concerned that the data points are derived (necessarily) using different measurement methods with different error bars and different biases. When I see a chart like this (from the article linked a few posts back), I have to admit that it gets me headscratching. I'm sure one of our experts here can explain why measurements in the 1880s and measurements in 2020 can be consistently used in the same dataset.

US Weather Bureau thermometers have been accurate to .1 degree since the late 19th century.

 

[Willem]

I am an academic economic historian and I have published on past climate change from natural causes and the impact on economic performance. Of course the data are sometimes pretty bad but you learn to work with what you have. In this case as was posted the data are not actually bad at all.
One important intellectual tool is what a Cambridge colleague called the wigwam argument: individually particular data are problematic but between them they circumscribe truth. In this case there are so many sets of time series data that all show the same trend that it is unwise to cast them aside.
Denying the danger of climate change or its human causes is just bad science. Indeed the near universal scientific consensus is that climate change is real and has human causes (unlike the historic climate change I publish about).
Unfortunately historical research by e.g. E.A. Wrigley has also demonstrated that much of modern economic growth from the Industrial Revolution is owed to the use of fossil fuel. Can we abandon fossil fuel, as I believe we should, and still enjoy prosperity for the whole world? It is a challenge, but I believe we can. Denying science and postponing the inevitable transition is unhelpful.

 

[RandomEar]

It really amazes me as to how much faith people put in complex models (the past predictions of which have not panned out)...I have to assume they don't do any modeling themselves...it really is a cult of scientism...

Analysis: How well have climate models projected global warming? - Carbon Brief

Scientists have been making projections of future global warming using climate models of increasing complexity for the past four decades.

www.carbonbrief.org

Facts > Opinions

 

[monkeyboy]

Younger Dryas - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Willem]

Nobody denies that climate change can occur from natural causes. However, that is not what is happening now. And that is the scientific consensus.
What is relevant from these past climate changes from natural causes is that beyond a certain tipping point change can be extremely rapid and large.

 

[SIY]

US Weather Bureau thermometers have been accurate to .1 degree since the late 19th century.

So global sea surface temperatures are measured with thermometers in a process consistent for 150 years?