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Denmark Plans To Be Coal-Free In 10 Years
merbs writes "Earlier this year, Denmark's leadership announced that the nation would run entirely on renewable power by 2050. Wind, solar, and biomass would be ramped up while coal and gas are phased out. Now Denmark has gone even further, and plans to end coal by 2025.
Russia has demonstrated that it is unwilling to engage in above-board transactions for their fuel exports. It is in every country's national interest to reduce dependency on imports when they can neither control the supply nor rely on the supplier to operate as a business rather than as a belligerent nation. If anything, Russia's recent behavior has reinforced this for Europe, and given the Europeans incentive to get off of Russia's exports.
It's a shame that Denmark can't get off of natural gas sooner than coal.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
What is the point? And what's the plan, dig out all the coal and ship it off somewhere?
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
Sorry I must have misread something. I saw no part that mentioned being more efficient or lowering energy usage.
Its just more morally acceptable to waste the same amount of power if it is 'green' power.
Our governments, and, oops, those who elected them.
The kind of target they are going for (especially the 2050 one) is in the ballpark of the kind of target we would all have to hit to avoid a complete screw-up on this file.
Are you a betting person?
I think it's great what Denmark's doing, but it saddens me to realize that political will in the rest of the world is so far far off the mark.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
Denmark has substantial shale reserves and could supply its own needs for many years without any Russian gas.
You didn't bother to provide a source but I will: New wind and solar plants generate cheaper low-carbon electricity than the latest nuclear reactors, a study shows, indicating they will lead a global push for green energy. There are lot of different factors that make this claim debatable, but even if wind is still somewhat more than nuclear, it's not "very expensive" which was the point.
The details here are important. What we need is an objective comparison of a renewable power system compared with a non-renewable system, as performance should be judged based on overall energy return. This is almost never done with energy comparisons as it reveals renewables in a rather diminished (though more accurate) light. We need to be able to predict what the economic impact will be if major investments are made in renewable systems.
What we do know is that when the energy return is calculated for the entire system, renewable intermittency greatly drives up the cost of energy. The implications of this relationship is quite profound. More details can be found here:
GETTING TO ZERO: Is renewable energy economically viable?
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/07/08/1221552/-GETTING-TO-ZERO-Is-renewable-energy-economically-viable
And yes, at least a good chunk of that is actual, honest-to-god lifestyle differences, not just situational.
http://shrinkthatfootprint.com...
Denmark pays a whopping 41 cents per kilowatt hour.
OUCH !!!!!!!
3.5 times the avg cost in the U.S.
It really doesn't take much for other energy sources to beat that. Going out on a limb here I suspect renewables could be cheaper by just not being subject to whatever it is they do that makes their current energy sources ridiculously expensive.
WInd is unreliable and takes up loads of space.
That said, I'm fully willing to believe that wind power is cheaper than nuclear on a per-megawatt basis. What I don't believe is that wind power can reliably provide baseload power. All the studies in the world don't change one simple and indisputable fact: present-day production of wind power is miniscule compared to present-day electricity usage. Wind power has not yet proved that it can supply large quantities of power. Nobody except the most blind zealot would deny this plain fact.
Nuclear power supplies one sixth of present-day electricity usage worldwide. This is a very large amount of power compared to any other carbon-free technology. Nuclear power is not directly subject to vagaries of the weather. Even including Fukishima and Chernobyl, nuclear power is by far the safest energy source (wind power comes in a very respectable second). Available supplies of nuclear fuel will outlast the lifetime of the sun. Nuclear power is proven and it works. Wind may work, and I'm happy to give it the benefit of the doubt, but it is without question an unproven technology at large scale.
Well for Denmark I'd say this is a belated step of a staggering drunk from light-pole to light-pole mapping out the way forward for the good of country and king, or queen or queer as it may happen to be given the time of day.
Here is an alternate source for comparison. Notice that offshore wind is 2.1 times as expensive as coal.
WInd is unreliable and takes up loads of space.
Yes, but still... It'll be a while before we run out of ocean :)
The only wind turbines build on land in Denmark are for testing and development...
Denmark pays a whopping 41 cents per kilowatt hour.....3.5 times the avg cost in the U.S.
Do you even care about the size of your electricity bill... Mine is mainly an annoyance, it's like 10-15 USD / month.
Also note, very few people in Denmark uses electric heating as you can get hot water from centralized production into your home (not clean only for use in radiators). My parents gets their heating from a power plant 20km away.
Also buildings have strict isolation requirements, and incandescent bulbs have been banned through out EU (presumably you can still get them, but not through regular retail; I'm not sure).
The price pr. kWh is 36.1 out of 220.2 where the rest is distribution, contribution to the net and tax. Tax and VAT is 124.6. (2010 prices - in øre - 1/100th of DKR)
Wind power has not yet proved that it can supply large quantities of power. Nobody except the most blind zealot would deny this plain fact. .
Wind power supplies 41% of Denmark's electricity consumption. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W...
That's negligible. Nuclear power supplies one sixth of the WORLD'S electricity supply. It's over an order of magnitude difference.
http://shrinkthatfootprint.com...
Denmark pays a whopping 41 cents per kilowatt hour.
OUCH !!!!!!!
3.5 times the avg cost in the U.S.
It really doesn't take much for other energy sources to beat that. Going out on a limb here I suspect renewables could be cheaper by just not being subject to whatever it is they do that makes their current energy sources ridiculously expensive.
As with many things i Denmark, most of this is taxes (approx. 75%). The rest is the actual cost of producing the energy.
The coal-based plants in Denmark are very efficient and they produce many tons of acid and all sorts of chemicals from the emissions from the plants, before letting it out into the atmosphere.
As a side-story, the government recently cancelled a very popular funding-arrangment that made it very popular to install a local (6KW) solar plan on your roof. The ones who installed it in time, now have free electricity.
Wind is neither very expensive nor environmentally damaging.
You need to read up.
Look at "bird and bat deaths".
Also look at land use issues. Problems with soil erosion on wind farms.
Need I go on?
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Do you even care about the size of your electricity bill... Mine is mainly an annoyance, it's like 10-15 USD / month.
Now treble or quadruple it. Then tell me about how "insignificant" it is.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
I WANT your electricity bill... Mine is like $1000 a quarter.
Going out on a limb here I suspect renewables could be cheaper by just not being subject to whatever it is they do that makes their current energy sources ridiculously expensive.
What might make their current energy sources expensive? Going out on a limb here, but I'd guess it's raising taxes directly on the fuel to pay for its external environmental & military & health costs, rather than sweeping those costs under general taxation as we do here in the US...
Danes: Hey, we can do this because the people in California are doing it.
Californians: Hey, we can do this because the people in Denmark are doing it.
I sure hope that a small country sitting in the middle of Europe's main wind power farms (offshore not on land like on the photograph) can reach renewable self-sufficiency. if they can't no one can.
“The country has very large offshore wind resources, and large areas of sea territory with a shallow water depth of 5–15 m, where siting is most feasible” (quoted from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_Denmark)
Not sure how that is applicable elsewhere though. Sort of like claiming Texas hopes to reach oil self-sufficiency, and pretending it can apply to other states as-is.
Not sure if sarcastic, or just very stupid.
A lot of the Scandinavian housing stock is highly insulated so less energy is used to heat it, keep it warm or cool it and keep it cool. If all houses where built to or close to the Passivhaus specification , energy use would drop and people would spend less on energy.
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
they don't really take up much space but they can cover a large area.
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
They have little or no coal in Denmark so it makes perfect sense to be less dependant on imports.
Ocean no, shoreline yes. Especially shoreline where no one influental enough to block development happens to live. Windmills suffer considerably from NIMBY. All renewables do, due to the vast areas required by them.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
A lot of wind farms are being positioned in the sea. There are also methods for reducing any soil erosion, they just need to be deployed. Cats kill more birds than any wind farm, pollution kills more people than wind turbines. Nothing is perfect
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
Wind and Solar are the cheapest energy sources since years. ...
Nuclear never was cheaper than coal anyway
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Wind does not really take up space nor is it unreliable.
It is not dispatch able, that is something different!
Hint: look at some photos of wind farms and you realize: they are on farm lands and the crops just grow fine underneath them!
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
If it's large quantities relative to what is being consumed then it was proved before Don Quixote was written.
I really do not get why people lower themselves to make such utterly stupid statements that have been demonstrably wrong for centuries just because the political team they cheer for doesn't like windmills.
How about we have more tech and less politically motivated bullshit in the comment section. I thought the kids here were supposed to be the geeks and not the student politics tragics that are hoping for taxpayer or donor funded life support for the rest of their lives.
Err, going out on a limb here but I think someone has made a mistake regarding currencies. It is about 0.41 DKK not $... That is a about 7 cents. However, I think tax and other fees will raise that to approximately twice that number.
Denmark already produces a nice deal of its base load via wind. Germany is about to replace the base load nuclear plants with wind.
Instead of fear mongering and hanging in Angst yourself I suggest to read up a bit.
Hint: learn what base load is, it is not what you believe it is.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
No it is not.
You are bad in math. 1/6th is roughly 18%
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Why should the soil erosion on a wind farm be any different from an ordinary farm?
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Cats don't kill eagles and hawks; particularly endangered ones.
"That's negligible. Nuclear power supplies one sixth of the WORLD'S electricity supply."
That's neglible. Renewable energy now supplies over one FIFTH (22%) of the world's electricity supply.
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/twenty-two-percent-of-the-worlds-power-is-now-clean?trk_source=recommended
Also note, very few people in Denmark uses electric heating as you can get hot water from centralized production into your home (not clean only for use in radiators). My parents gets their heating from a power plant 20km away.
Not to nitpick, but danes refer to that centralized production as "surplus heat". The "surplus" heat is heat generated as a bi-effect from producing electricity.... - from coal. So, when the electricity all comes from wind, the danes need to find some other way to heat their houses during winter.
Reading slashdot one-liner: (irm http://rss.slashdot.org/Slashdot/slashdot).rdf.item | fl title,desc*
Windmills suffer considerably from NIMBY
So does coal and nuclear. No-one wants to live near those either.
Off shore wind, far enough out that no-one can complain, is getting cheaper all the time. In the UK it's already reached parity with nuclear, not sure about Denmark. Sure, there are challenges, just like there are with nuclear and cleaner coal.
If you are going to shoot down renewables because they are expensive or need some investment then you had better do the same with coal and nuclear, and get ready for the lights to go out.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
18% of the world is more than 43% of Denmark.
2. Renewable energy does not equal wind energy. It also includes solar and hydro energy. I do not believe wind alone can answer our power needs.
Do you have an actual technical comment or an actual source? Or are you just arguing for the hell of it?
What fear mongering? Did you read? I said point-blank that I am willing to give wind a test. I am not willing to claim that wind has passed its test. It's not there yet. You can't point to tiny countries and claim victory. There are some countries and regions that simply have no wind.
Also note, very few people in Denmark uses electric heating as you can get hot water from centralized production into your home (not clean only for use in radiators). My parents gets their heating from a power plant 20km away.
Not to nitpick, but danes refer to that centralized production as "surplus heat". The "surplus" heat is heat generated as a bi-effect from producing electricity.... - from coal. So, when the electricity all comes from wind, the danes need to find some other way to heat their houses during winter.
It also comes from trash burning, but yes. There are issues to be solved for sure.
No we are paying 36 Ãre/kwh, which is around 6 cents, the rest is taxes, transmission and other fucking bullshit stuff. (Which basically means, you can save close to 0 by switching providers, as the main part of your electricity bill is fixed).
Ok. 60 USD/month is insignificant.
In some decades we won't have any choice. De-evolution is going to happen. We won't have enough energy to keep going the way we are now so enjoy the information age, accessible worldwide travel, hot running water and electricity while you still can. If we're lucky, we'll reduce population in a couple of generations without too much of a shock. If not, it won't be pretty.
farmers do as well and the badly designed and old Northern California Altamont Pass wind farm which was built smack dab in the middle of a major migratory route for large birds does as well. Have a read of this article to compare which man-made structures cause the most bird deaths (but cats win the prize) http://science.howstuffworks.c...
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
The ones who installed it in time, now have free electricity
They have free electricity when they have paid off the investment. If the solar panels and inverter still work at that time. And the government hasn't changed the ability to use the grid as a lossless battery, in the meantime.
Like the people in the US even realize you could "switch" providers. You pay the company whose wires come to you house, right, right?!? How could it be otherwise.
Are you really so out of touch with reality that you need a source to tell you that windmills are more than decoration?
Oh, because of 'catastrophic man-made global warming', which has been renamed 'climate change', which obviously doesn't mean 'catastrophic man-made global warming', but we are supposed to believe it does, every time it is used.
Good luck with that, Denmark.
www.climatedepot.com
www.wattsupwiththat.com
Do you even care about the size of your electricity bill... Mine is mainly an annoyance, it's like 10-15 USD / month.
I'd like to see some proof of that. Assuming you're not in a studio apt living alone and spend all of your time at work, this energy usage would be considered phenomenal 15 years ago, let alone today.
Denmark tried using the heat from cremation of people a decade ago.
But religious people got angry and stuff.
Such a waste of perfectly good heat :-(
This Danish goal, getting rid of coal plants by 2025, may not be hard to achieve, as they can import electricity, using sub-sea HVDC, from Norway, which has plenty of hydro, or by importing it from Sweden, which has plenty of nuclear and hydro. Running all of the country on wind power is a mirage. Where does the power come from when the wind doesn't blow, which may happen from time to time ?
Good idea beyond the "renewable" fad
Renewable will have to become a lot more than a fad, and sooner rather than later, I think. Not because I think the Apocalypse is nigh or anything like that, but because it takes time for this new technology to mature, and the benefits, once it is mature, are going to be immense. It will of course be painful to some - all change is - but isn't it better to go through those changes voluntarily and being able to control the pace, than being forced because we are choking in our own filth?
It's your own fault for using vague language like "large quantities". When someone, as a counter, points out that wind is providing 41% of a country's power, you move the goalposts and get whiny. Stay classy.
There you go moving your goalposts again. Plus, Germany isn't really a tiny country. Heck, Denmark isn't either if you want to play your vagueness game and compare it to the Vatican. Get a grip - you sound like a whiny child. Give it up. You're only making yourself look abjectly pathetic.
"Ocean no,.." - that may just be a matter of time since they can have oil rigs in the North Sea
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
Under no reasonable goalpost is even 100% of a small country's power a large quantity. You don't get to pick the country. I mean, there are very small countries. This is simple logic.
I would love to bicycle to work every day. Unfortunately in Michigan half the year the roads are too icy and snowy or else it is rather warm and none of my work places have showers. Also my house is 23 miles from one contract and 55 miles from the other and the only good routes are freeways which rather frown on bicycle traffic. I'm already spending 12 hours a day between driving and working, I would rather not up that to 14-16. Relocating would not help as the two contracts are 55 miles from each other and never provide full time work by themselves.
Sounds like a situational difference for this US person but YMMV.
I'm happy to let readers decide on their own who is being whiny here. I agree Germany will be convincing, but they haven't deployed their farms yet. It's a future deployment. Obviously a future deployment is no good for the purposes of establishing a present-day track record. There is no goalpost being moved here. I said all along that wind lacks a track record. If you come back and five years and tell me that Germany has done it, then I will agree you have a valid point. But right now, you don't have a valid point.
So how's the high-tech serfdom working out for you? Working more hours than in the 19th century for a more precarious social contract, but hey, the rich are getting richer!
Compared to my neighborhood's power, a small country's power is very much a large quantity. The poster was correct that "large quantity" is vague.
This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
bollocks, wind is far more fucking expensive than nuclear
the Gov just fiddled the fucking figures and "forgot" about certain costs. (like having to have alternate generation available for then the wind stops.)
When it comes to renewables, one can't transport energy inputs from one country to another. This is a big difference compared to, say, nuclear power, where transporting uranium is relatively trivial. I mean, my country (Canada) generates 59% of its power from hydro, but I would not be so obtuse as to suggest that just because Canada can do it, so can everybody else. For example Chad is not going to use hydro power in a million years. Not every country has the appropriate wind/water/sun needed to produce wind/hydro/water power. Nuclear power is one of the few renewable technologies where there are no technical barriers to universal deployment.
What we do know is that when the energy return is calculated for the entire system, renewable intermittency greatly drives up the cost of energy. The implications of this relationship is quite profound.
There was a big study in Denmark that came out this year (scenario analysis reports from Energistyrelsen) where they projected the costs for the whole country, and I'm sorry, but you are simply wrong.
Why don't we just change the site name to "ClimateChangeDot.org"? It'd be more accurate these days.
It's mainstream now with real advantages and disadvantages, has been for years. Live with the reality instead of attacking it as a political symbol.
Show me a country that runs on 100% gasoline, 100% hydro, 100% whatever - oh wait, such a request is incredibly fucking stupid and ignores the problems of monocultures. How about a sensible discussion instead of the political wank of being a useful idiot attacking what you see as "green" political symbols?
Who the fuck fed you that bullshit? The peaking power is not nuclear for a start, there's base load coal at places like Cordemais, there's hydro and there's even tidal hydro at Le Havre that's been running since the 1960s! What an utterly stupid and pathetic bluff - I'm really insulted that you have some much contempt for the people who read your comments that you tried it.
I really don't get why people decide they want to shed 100 points of IQ if there is a political barrow to push.
I have nothing booked for the end of 2025, so i've added it to my calendar. Someone needs to check up on these claims ;P
actually they don't have free electricity, they have subsidized electricity. (unless they have a bank of batteries that last all night)
The poor who cannot afford the solar panel's are now paying over the odds to provide base load for the rich twats with the solar, literally a reverse robin hood!!!
Yes, and it is a complete pointless comparision :)
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
The power does not care if it is created renewable or not.
The european grid shows: we transport electric power since half a century accross several countries, like from norway to germany or from germaby to spain or from slovakia to france. In fact the whole scandinavian, european and pan asian continents is interconnected in one huge synchronized grid!
I'm tired to hear all the time "X can't be done" when dozens of nations are doing said X since dacades just fine.
Get your head out of your arse and catch up with the technologic developments of the last 50 years!
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
So a country like denmark or german has not tested wind?
Or portugal? Or even France?
In what braindead world do you live? Are you an autist? Do you have perception problems?
Please give the world a specification how you want to test wind, so the power companies I used to work for become confident over time that wind really works.
Or google for research wind farms like BALTIC I and BALTIC II ... or simply switch you ranting to philantrophy or collecting butterflies ...
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
While this is undoubtedly good idea, it's hardly remarkable or aggressive. The province of Ontario in Canada is completely coal-free today. The last coal-fire plant here shutdown in April. To keep this in perspective, Canada has the fifth largest coal reserve in the world and the province of Ontario has a population (13.6 million) ~2.4 times that of Denmark (5.614 million in 2013).
I hav'nt seen any studies on the environmental impact of wind power. But I have seen two medical studies of low frequency noise on human health. Bad. And several more studies on power production, ground frequencies, and backup needed as reserve capacities. Bad. Costs doubled. I have seen studies, political in nature, that say effectvly, why did you put that there?, like wtf? Live in the Midwest, wind is natural around where I tend to be, downstream from me there is a wind farm, several within a two state area, no one is reporting or studying the effect of harnessing the wind. Changing laminar flow to turbliant flow means a damn big butterfly effect. Maybe that's why the weatherman has been wrong the last several years, could that be as bad as coal?
argh, "free electricity"?
A propery installed quality6Kw PV roof system install by a decent company(that you would expect would exist after the boom) was around 23.000$.
It takes some time before it becomes "free" electricity, and that is providing that there are no faulty roof installation that leaks water into the structure, that the inverter keeps on running, no problems with the panels and the politicians does not have a change of heart the next 20 years.
So lets see in 10 years when the "investment" should start to pay off.
And I know you could buy cheaper installations than 23.000$ at the end but I have already seen many people who had problems with faulty panels, inverters or maybe bad installations where the voltage to the inverter never gets high enough to be efficient. And in many of these cases, the local installer and importer of the panels have vanished, the chinese manufacturer of the panels are gone and people already have repair expenses on those cheap installations.
So surprising number of things can go wrong before people will be able to make a profit on those installations.
I guess that is achievable when your population is flatlining and possibly about to decline.
Here in the US it'll be about 300 years until we're coal free because we have so much of the stuff. Too bad Denmark ran out so quickly :(
Do you have ESP?
Not too bad given the hourly paycheck.
Stupid exaggeration has everything to do with politics. The article mentioned it as part of the energy mix, and FYI biomass generation includes existing gas from sewerage generators - the sort of thing that everybody with every sort of politics used to like until it was seen to be a green political symbol and thus something to attack.
I think they should build windmills and solar power ray things in the same location so that when the birds fly into the blades and fall out of the sky they can be cooked on the way down and hey, free fried food.
I agree Germany will be convincing, but they haven't deployed their farms yet. It's a future deployment.
Really?
On the other hand, unless fusion arrives before 2050 (not very likely), fission is a much better idea than "rewneables" like wind and solar which are very expensive and (with wind) environmentally damaging..
Solar is also environmentally damaging. No form of energy exists without damage to the environment. Some damage less than others. Also, there is no such thing as renewable versus non-renewable energy. There is no renewable energy. The difference between what we call nonrenewable and what we call renewable is all a matter of scale. Oil was also a renewable resource when it was first discovered because not much of it was being used. There was a million year supply.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
If we get up to 10% of the world supply, then we're talking. I don't understand what other goalposts you could possibly have in mind when the topic is planetary-scale global warming. Of course we need to measure things on a planetary scale in the context of this discussion. The goalposts must obviously be planet-scale supply. This is so obvious that I am amazed I even need to explain it.
I don't think wind will ever get up to even 10% of world supply. It's certainly not there yet. I'd be happy to be proved wrong. At best wind is part of a solution together with other renewables. I include nuclear in the renewables category -- we need all the extra percents we can get.
The topic being discussed is (or certainly should be) global climate change. 4% is not going to affect global climate. We know this. Wind has not been demonstrated to scale much beyond 4%. I agree it could get to 6% of world supply. I'd be surprised if it gets to 10%. You can't transport wind from one place to another, so some countries will be left out of the windfall (bad pun). The grid doesn't cut it for power transport -- our grid is overloaded already. At best some countries can use wind as part of their solution. We will need other technologies in concert with wind. I hope for your sake that this statement is utterly uncontroversial.
Those other technologies include solar, hydro, and yes, nuclear. Nuclear power is safer than wind. We have plenty of nuclear fuel. I see that neither you nor anybody else has contested these points. At worst nuclear might be a bit more expensive than wind, but we need it nonetheless.
The grid is straining at capacity right now. I do not believe it can be expanded to the scale that you claim.
Cats don't kill giant endangered hunting birds, not matter how much you wish to obfuscate the issue.
Return to the Dark Ages. Where all food was natural to boot!
p>Not to nitpick, but danes refer to that centralized production as "surplus heat". The "surplus" heat is heat generated as a bi-effect from producing electricity.... - from coal. So, when the electricity all comes from wind, the danes need to find some other way to heat their houses during winter.
When I lived in Copenhagen, I never had to turn up the heat - literally, the heaters were set to defrost/off all year long. By the time I left Gentofte, I was actually surprised to find that one of the Calorimeters weren't showing 000. ...in fact, was reading an article about a (specially designed) house, where the actual issue was keeping it cold at times, due to being very energy-and-heating efficient.
With decent insulation, you don't have to do much to keep an apartment or decently designed villa heated. Bodyheat, sunshine, electronics, heat from the evening-dinner, all adds up and all helps to keep the place nice and cozy.
(I'll leave googling it up to you)
But they do kill large numbers of small birds, including endangered ones.
Very true. The country is likely different in many other specs, like shorter commutes that allow people to use bicycles. Compare that to NYC, where people commute 45 miles from the suburbs. What's achievablein one situation isn't always applicable to another.
Okay, now start watching the price of pretty much EVERYTHING rise, as the added costs of power in various industries trebles or quadruples.
If you think that you're just going to pay more on your power bill, you quite simply haven't looked at this issue AT ALL.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Recently, because several coal and nuclear stations have been out of order for a while, the shortfall of energy here in the UK ***IS BEING BLAMED ON RENEWABLES***.
Quite how it works in their heads I have no idea, but one vague "reasoning" appears to be that we've spent little (as a % of installed base) on nuclear and coal for the last 20 years, but spent a lot (as a % of a tiny size installed base) in renewables *for the sake of renewables*. Ergo, penny pinching by the energy companies meant that the small amount spent on wind and solar made them not spend a much larger amount necessary for fossil fuels.
I think.
We both have an excellent quality of life, food and housing, it's just that in the EU we've never gone into the US suburbia thing, nor see the need to drive around in a truck when a small Korean car will do nicely.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
http://www.eia.gov/electricity...
Average U.S. Electricity Bill. $107/mo (2012).
I suspect most people who have things like refrigerators, ovens, electric lights might object to seeing their electric bills go up 300 bucks a month.
It's pretty clear that the goalpost originally was, and has always been, worldwide usage. The original poster never moved the goalpost. You imagined that.
Actually I'm living in the country as it is much quieter than the city but still nearby. Also my little car gets plenty of gas milage. But it doesn't matter a lot when my primary work is split between two cities that are a distance apart.
My neighbors sometime make me wish we had some stricter isolation requirements over here! :)
Some of the largest ships are bulk carriers, and they can carry a few hundred thousand tons of ore. They don't fit in the major canals, but it doesn't really matter. The low transportation cost makes iron and coal mining feasible, near any shore in the world.
They are also starting to invest in electric heating that can kick in when there are wind power production peaks.
It is less expensive than paying Norway or Sweden to accept the surplus power.
This is a common issue with wind power enthusiasts. They are quick to say that installed MW is cheaper with wind than for example nuclear.
But they don't take into account the fact that wind on average only supplies about 20% of installed effect.
Nor do they take into account the investments needed to be made in storage and stand-by power, or more expensive power grids.
Less people have to for the same amount of power generated. Also, don't underestimate the "out of sight, out of mind" -effect - a nuclear power plant is far less conspicious than acres after acres of windmills. Finally, the complaints about windmills are typically about the appearance, noise and other actual effects while the complaints about nuclear are about highly unlikely disaster scenarios, which eventually fade from people's minds when nothing happens.
You could put it mid-Atlantic and someone will complain. Everything has consequences - or at least potential consequences - and nothing whatsoever is acceptable to an enviromentalist. Or at least that's what it seems like to me.
Which seems the most likely result right now. Also, the main problem with renewables is that since efficient grid-scale storage doesn't exist nor seems likely to exist anytime soon, reaching anything approaching reliability with them requires a long-term coordinated - centrally planned, with all objections to any part of the plan overruled - rollout, which is simply not possible in a democratic, capitalistic society. By contrast, a nuclear coal or nuclear plant can be simply built and hooked into the grid by a single, if large, company.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
No exaggeration, no technicality to get out on, no "would you believe two boy scouts and a pen knife" joke - it's an obvious bald faced lie used as a bluff, and then you turn around and make some sort of demand after being caught out in such an obvious lie. How about less politics and less stupid implications like your new one that implies that wind is useless for all purposes if it's not 75% of everything. Less politically motivated "end justifies the means" bullshit and this place would be better for everyone, just like it used to be.
I very much doubt 75% is the case apart from a absolute yearly maximum in the middle of a summer night either considering the size of Cordemais (2.6GW), other coal fired plants and there's 18.2GW of hydro. One site lists France as having 76.4% "conventional capacity", by which they mean non-renewables including nuclear - how the hell can there be only 1.4% coal when one single plant is 2.6GW - that's nearly 2% of France's total capacity.
You seem to have forgotten that this site is visited by people that do not spend their lives coding in basements.
I'm unsure of your point. Are you arguing that our inability to use power sources that don't slaughter animals of any kind is okay because of this issue?
I never said wind was useless. I said wind will never be a large contributor. There's a big gap between that and useless. I pity you that you cannot understand this.
Then link to a primary source instead of the fan material that google may be showing - plus that neither makes up for your 100% bluff above or answer how it fits with 76.4% conventional when a single coal fired power station makes up 2%.
Don't shift the goalposts - what I object to is the following:
Except it already is doing so in modern power grids and it has been supplying a large quantity of power for some societies ever since before Don Quixote was written. Those machines were grinding grain and were not just there for decoration.
No, you pity that I'm not an ignorant little boy that cannot see through your bluffs like your "100% nuclear". It's a bit ridiculous that somebody like me who works with coal has to step in when advocates of one alternative energy (nuclear) tell lies to try to pretend another alternative energy (wind) is useless. A sane power grid requires a mix of energy sources, and it certainly doesn't involve 100% base load systems like nuclear. Even kids in high school know better than that until people like you attempt to mislead them.
It's on page 7, in case you can't read.
The discussion is about global warming. Wind will not amount to anything on the planetary scale. It can power a grain mill, a city, or even a (smaller) country, but it's not going to change the course of global warming on its own. I agree we should pursue it. Even fractions are helpful. But that's all it is, a fraction.
For that matter, I never said nuclear was enough on its own. You made that up. Nuclear is also only a fraction of the solution. I believe it is a bigger fraction than wind.
Actually I don't even know what we're arguing about anymore. We both agree that a mix of energy is necessary. Unless you bring a debatable point to the table, I'm out.
Ah yes, but you are supposed to be the exception, just like me who has the word 'Global' as first part of his job title ;)
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
Nice that Denmark can be coal free in ten years... Yet they still can't treat people normally. I know of a young Pakistani woman that got a three year visa to stay in Denmark *without* a work contract, received a working citizen number (CPR number) that entitles her to free education and health care, yet I came along with my partner who got a job at the European Environment Agency, so being together I had to be registered at the Ministry of Foreign affairs instead of Imigration. I'm from the U.S., but I've been in Copenhagen for 7 years, have a good job *and* pay taxes, yet I don't have access to education or health care, and buying a telephone on a contract (or any other contract service like buying a TV on a payment plan) is like pulling teeth. I'm essentially a non-person just because my girlfriend works for an EU agency (her work gives her a 'diplomat' status, and i inherit that just because I live at the same address). And Denmark is the *only* country that does this nonsense currently. They are great with energy, but horrible with basic citizen rights and equality for people living in it's borders.
http://about.me/jimm.pratt
You did - 100% for all of France right up there above. It's that sort of misleading political bullshit that is poisoning the minds of the kiddies and you should not be perpetrating it.
Those numbers in the PDF make zero sense for national capacity since the "Charbon" amount is less than the capacity at this power station alone:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cordemais_Power_Station
Either you have been misled or you are actively trying to mislead.
Besides, it's just a distraction from your 100% stupidity which strongly indicated that you are and "ends justify the means" type of person with your favourite alternative energy, and once again it does not appear to match reality - even back in 2006 (how pathetic to go back eight years).
But when it comes to the 75% figure, I'm right, and you're wrong, but you just can't admit it yet.
A lot of the Scandinavian housing stock is highly insulated so less energy is used to heat it, keep it warm or cool it and keep it cool. If all houses where built to or close to the Passivhaus specification , energy use would drop and people would spend less on energy.
But how much more energy is expended to fabricate, transport, and assemble the materials needed for these houses? What kind of environmental impact does that process have? How much more energy is needed to get the money to build them? Does the government subsidize this? If so, are there alternative uses for that money that could make more sense? Are they not using that money on basic things like research, because they are free loading on somebody else's research?
How about some real substance to your claims, and not just propaganda?
As someone who has lived in Denmark for 20+ years I don't remember energy prices ever being something anybody cared about... With all the different kinds of taxes and fees mixed in, nobody even knew what they were paying for...
Btw, I suspect price is higher because energy delivery was suddenly privatized... So you could choose who to buy your energy from, though connection fee is the same... Essentially nobody cares... and different pricing schemes are all a waste of time... Because you're literally buying the exact same product from all vendors...
The "surplus" heat is heat generated as a bi-effect from producing electricity.... - from coal.
And wood... which is farmed responsibly, so CO2 neutral.
I'd like to see some proof of that. Assuming you're not in a studio apt living alone and spend all of your time at work
Guilty... Also live in San Francisco.. so heating is rarely needed, and but heating is electric which sucks...
btw, is 10 USD / month high or low?
Electricity Bill. $107/mo (2012). I suspect most people who have things like refrigerators, ovens, electric lights might object to seeing their electric bills go up 300 bucks a month.
When I lived in Denmark (studio) my electric bill was 200 USD per year or so... Of course I had proper insulation, no electric heating (remote heat by water), and my appliances weren't shitty old and of decent quality and energy friendly. Here in the US, my expensive studio has an old shitty fridge... Old stove and old dish washer... None of it with any energy labeling...
I don't bother looking up the stats, but I suspect the problem is shitty old appliances, electric heating, A/C and poor isolation.
I WANT your electricity bill... Mine is like $1000 a quarter.
How do you manage to get that? Electric heating? A/C?
Have you considered energy saving light bulbs? Do the math it pays of...
And do the same for electrical appliances like fridge, washing machine, and things that is always on or used often.
Ocean no, shoreline yes.
Typically they are placed on shallow water far from the coast... There is plenty of this space to go around :)
Let's take one problem at the time... Besides wind energy can't be the only solution... I was just reading how Denmark sells a lot of surplus electricity abroad for cheap when wind is high and energy demand is low...
Erm, how should wind not have demonstrated to scale? ... if certain countries have not had the time or the money or the initiative to build wind plants, that only shows how badly governed, how less they care or how poor they are. ... only two countries so far managed to lamd a man on the moon, and only two more landed a lander ... wow ... you realize how stupid your argument is?
Sorry, you are not very logical.
What has the percentage of world wide wind tallation to do with that?
I could argue the fact that in african deserts you rarely see a car, that cars have shown they don't scale.
Sorry mate
You know, moon rockets don't scale either
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
The grid is not 'straining'. ... just lay another wire. Sorry in what world do you live?
If at all parts of the grid in germany are at the edge as we sometimes have extreme high overproduction and can not sell everything to neighbours.
Grid expansion is extremly easy
The only problem with grid expansion is: it takes time especially the legal paper work, getting the land/rights/concessions etc.
Thechical it is trivial.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
I DID use google and it very quickly showed that a single coal fired power station in France has a larger capacity than you suggest is the total for that type of energy generation. You have failed to address that error. Not a lot of "reality" going on I must say and I do not see why you expect to be taken on your word without question after your errors about wind being of no consequence, France with 100% nuclear and now France with an energy mix with coal total less than a single one of their coal fired power plants (although the example I have given is their largest). I'm sure that you are very good at something but you have been very misleading on this topic and have demonstrated a great deal of contempt to the readers here by doing so. It certainly pissed me off despite not having direct involvement in the electricity generating industry since 1998.
You can't insist that I am not allowed to use secondary sources and then claim that your secondary source beats my primary source. That's totally ridiculous.
I have LED lighting throughout. Aircon does push it up a bit I will admin that.
My electricity cost is 24c / kwh and my main problem is I have 3 servers which run constantly (work from home). These essentially eat about 33c per hour... Immediately that is over $700 just for them.
Anyone who has a bill of under $500 per quarter here has a low bill. I have seen bills of over $2500 for people who have full ducted aircon in the hot summer months.
According to my electricity monitor, I am currently pulling 1.5kw. It adds up quick.
I've got no idea why you expect some sort of trust of something in a different language that we are supposed to take you word for - especially after your vehement 100% rubbish above.
I suggest you stop making a fool of yourself.
Resorting to semantics to protest that your deliberate attempt to confuse was in some way more valid than my pointing out that it does not actually describe the situation as you pretend - with a huge 2.6GW example? Your "we can define our own reality" political bullshit is pathetic. That single example I gave above, a coal fired power station larger than what you pretended was the maximum for coal, was enough to demonstrate the the figures in your source did not represent what you said it does. And now you rabbit on about requiring more "technical contributions" to counter your politically motivated lies?
I'll remind you that you are making the extraordinary claim so you are not in the place to be demanding evidence are you? It's a petty little control game on your part Mr 100%. Are you enjoying this rubbish because why are you continuing when we both know you are lying and that the report you linked above does not support your argument.
So tell me then. If the existence of a single coal fired plant in France that is larger than your supposed maximum coal capacity in France is not enough of a "technical contribution" then what is? Do you really dispute that it does not exist?
You've established a pattern - the wind thing was a lie, the 100% was a lie and even the 75% turned out to have at least a 2.6GW hole in it. Why so much lying on this topic? Is it some sort of petty election fever due to your countries upcoming senate election and some desire to exhibit a Soviet style devotion to "The Party" or do you have some other dog in the fight? I've worked with nuclear scientists (there's some stuff that crosses over with high temperature pipework under stress in comparison to neutron damage under stress) and they did not try to mislead me in the way you have been attempting to gull the readers here. What's your game? Why are you playing it? Why is it ok for you to dismiss the utterly stupid 100% with the excuse "if you want to get technical" yet now are demanding a "technical contribution" other than one that has better references listed at the bottom if you really want to see if it's authentic.
3 servers is not normal house hold :)
But A/C is a big eater... so LED vs cheap ordinary energy saving bulbs does not matter, if you have A/C.
Perhaps you should look at how low the A/C and what level of isolation you have...
That said, I have not here in San Francisco nor in Denmark ever paid for A/C. SF is the only place I've had electric heating.. tsk tsk..
You are making the claim - you provide something other than a source that not only does not say what you suggest it does but you also appear to not understand it - and are deliberately using it as a bluff in the hope that others do as well.
I suspect the multiple 75% stuff is a guess rounded up to the nearest 25% - however you've been bleating about accuracy so much and have been deliberately lying and mucking people about with the language bluff so I'm expecting better from you than a guess. If you haven't worked it out yet - it's not the number I object to, since it's probably wasn't a lot less than that back in 2006, but the slimy underhanded way you attempted to baffle me with a report in a language that I'm not good at reading (and apparently you cannot read any of it at all and you were hoping I could not!). Coming on top of the other tricks it was not a good look.
After so much crying wolf you've hit the point where you need to put up something other than a prop used to baffle or shut up. Your distraction didn't work and there's a REAL 2.6GW plant you can VISIT so who gives a shit if it's also listed on wikipedia. Fuck your semantics. Google fucking streetview is a "primary source" if you wish.
I'm amazed that you just keep on digging. If i'd made that stupid 100% claim about something you are not a fan of I'm betting you wouldn't be leaving me alone on that - you've were almost rabid with just a suggestion that windwills were not entirely useless!
However all of that aside, since you appear to know very little about this topic the only thing of interest at this point is why you feel so compelled to lie about it. The unanswered questions I asked above are all that matters at this point:
What's your game?
Why are you playing it?
Why is it ok for you to dismiss the utterly stupid 100% with the excuse "if you want to get technical" yet now are demanding a "technical contribution"?
No the three servers aren't - but on our electricity bill our house is marked as average for a 5 person household.
I live in Brisbane, so summers are 30c+ that means a lot of people use aircon. My house is fully insulated so I have the costs down there but it still eats it. We only tend to run the AC on the really hot days.
I certainly do understand enough to identify that it does not say what you pretend it does - for instance the total capacity of coal generation in that document is less than that of the Cordemais Power Station, let alone the sum of all the other coal fired plants in France.
So your silly bluff failed because I can read a bit of French even though I'm rusty. I suppose you depended on an audience of young and naive American tightly focused computer technicians when you decided to use that report that you do not understand yourself as your trump card.
I'm still participating in this long and tedious thread because I wish to discover the motivation behind your deceptions. What are you still doing here apart from having tantrums as I call you out on each of them?
If you haven't noticed by now my posts have all been about your deception. France does appear to have something slightly less than 75% nuclear generating capacity now, and had potentially a bit more in 2006, however instead of getting something that stated as such initially you threw another bluff in my face after being caught out with your utterly ridiculous and vehement 100%, hence all these posts.
So all a game to you? You want a medal because you told the truth on the 4th attempt? Makes sense and explains why you will not take responsibility for your own actions when the object of your fanaticism is being discussed.
You deliberately got it wrong 3 times out of four and you clearly know almost nothing about this field. Why are you still rabbiting on to someone with more than a twenty year head start on the issue? You do not have the foundation or the integrity to even begin to participate in a serious discussion on the issue, and as for the name calling, you've been doing either all of it or pretty damned close to all of it.
I suggest you discuss a topic you know something about instead of tilting at windmills merely because you see them as a "green" symbol and it offends your politics. Even China, where they lock people up for "green" politics, has a lot of windmills for purely practical reasons.
The message I've been trying to get through to you for a long time is I do not think this should be the place to subvert naive young techies to your politics via lies and misdirection. Your "proof" that you could not even read in response to being called out on your utterly ridiculous and vehement 100% was especially slimy. We should be here to let the kids know what is real and not groom them as useful political idiots - such an action intensely disgusts me, especially since folk like you are not pushing nuclear for any practical reason but merely because major players in the industry donate to The Party you follow. Those are the sort of people that want to build 1970s dinosaur nuke plants at vast taxpayer and consumer expense instead of doing R&D - hence you pushing the pathetic "also involves engineering challenges, but those have been solved already" line. Meanwhile Russia, India and even China are trying to solve the real challenges to build viable modern plants far better than the current ones, but of course they get ignored by you pretending it's all a solved problem since they are not donors to The Party. Small startups in the USA are working on improvements based on military reactors, but they are not considered because they don't donate either. This utterly pathetic tilt at windmills on your part wasn't even brought on by a pathetic envy between two alternative energies - it's all about fucking politics isn't it and far more pathetic?
Search this thread for how many times you said those words. Search for how many times I said those words. And you still think I am doing "all of the name-calling or pretty damned close to all of it"?
If you are this wrong on easily measurable objective facts then I don't even want to know the rest of your purported argument.
Can you make a single argument that addresses any of the actual issues?
I have never attacked you personally in this thread. If you think otherwise prove me wrong with a quote.
And all of it was warranted due to your deliberate misinformation. Why are you back asking for a medal for finally telling the truth about a topic you know next to nothing about?
That only matters in scrabble or whatever. This is clearly a topic you know almost nothing about, otherwise you would never have attempted your 100% bluff, and the issue at hand is your pontificating despite that and deliberate attempts at deception. All that just because I dared to suggest that windmills are not entirely useless - and if you need a citation to back that up you must be wandering around with your eyes shut and your ears blocked up.
Look, I can take name-calling, even warranted name-calling, but I will not stand for you accusing me of doing all the name-calling when in reality you are doing all the name-calling. That's a blatant bald-faced lie.
Personally I think you lost the moral high ground on name calling when you called me dense for challenging one of your lies.
How about we just agree to disagree - you appear to think that despite knowing very little about this topic it's important enough to mislead people on it and I don't. How about that?
I have already admitted my earlier mistakes. Am I now misleading anybody in any way?
That's even worse! Now you have no excuse for the 2006 report that does not say what you pretend it does.
Just give it up Mr 100%. It's clear the topic does not matter as much to you as influencing young minds does.
"Wind power has not yet proved that it can supply large quantities of power"
Yet somehow it's been driving machinery for centuries. It really offends me that you pretend to be so stupid just for some meaningless squabble between alternative energies.
You can have more than one windmill :)
You could have actually learned something about power generation in all this time you've wasted in this thread. I suggest start with learning about peak load sources, small distributed power sources, spinning reserve, base load and then try looking at the emerging technologies on the nuclear side that show that thinking of it as a solved problem is counterproductive.