If you were hoping that somehow #renewableenergy would exclude #nuclear power (most obviously due to its financial costs & the historic problem of its waste products)... the fact that the rising price of #uranium would suggest demand (by Governments' #energy programmes) is rising will be disappointing news.
Whether its a victory for sectoral lobbying or a lack of confidence in developments around energy storage from renewables, its not good news for anyone wanting the end of nuclear power.
They arrived about 10am, and just left now about 6pm. Four guys doing the install. We have 10 panels, five on the front and five on the back of the roof so should get good coverage, and a 5.5kW lithium battery. Alas they finished as the sun was going down so there was barely time for it to charge, but the battery did charge to 20% while they were hooking things up to it. We also have an app to check everything.
Bullshit. Constantly referring to results published nowhere from a study that never took place remains bullshit.
Reduce ocean swells, killing surfing.
Bullshit. You would have to build a literal wall of turbine towers to stop ocean swell, which developes over hundreds of kilometres. The best surf involves ocean swell and offshore winds, which simply can't be affected by offshore wind turbines.
Reduce onshore winds by 40%.
Bullshit. There is no indication that wind turbines reduce onshore winds. The wind continues past the turbine blades, they don't block it; they don't even slow it down by any reasonable measure. A couple of hundred metres past the turbine you can't measure any effect at all.
Reduce fishing catches.
Bullshit. The tower bases, buried in the ocean bed, provide safe places for fish nurseries and coral growth, increasing the local fish population.
Don't buy into the disinformation being spread in order to stop offshore wind turbine installations. Look at who benefits from them not going ahead.
In my opinion, it was a silly idea to replace natural gas infrastructure with hydrogen burning, primarily because it is not produced in an environmentally friendly way and the current method pumps out lots of #GreenhouseGases and #Pollution, thus negating the supposed benefit of burning it.
A major US state just achieved a critical milestone for nearly two weeks: 'It's wild that this isn't getting more news coverage'
"#California has set a benchmark for #RenewableEnergy, with wind, solar, hydro, and geothermal supplying 100% of the state's electricity demand for 25 out of the last 32 days (and counting)."
Theory of #RenewableEnergy is that it’s very low surface power density, and the practice is that because of this, it occupies vast amounts of one non-renewable resource that everyone forgets about: land surface. In terms of surface power density PV outputs 6.63 W/m2, wind power 1.84 W/m2. Nuclear - 240.81 W/m2. That means for one 1 W of power you need to allocate 120x more land for wind than nuclear, and that is not only for the space occupied by the actual plant but everything: mining, manufacturing, operations, decommissioning.
Some people will argue that utility-scale renewables are not good indeed, but we should stick to decentralised rooftop or wall PV installations. Except that decentralisation requires vast redundancy of infrastructure (cabling, inverters), much lower efficiency, which results in 4x higher production cost (LCOE) per kWh, thus nullifying the claimed lower cost of renewables.
Engineers have been trying to get that message to the broad public long ago: a PV farm or wind turbine look really nice at distance. But an utility-scale renewables power plant is what any other power plant is: a huge, industrial compound, installed on steel and concrete foundation interfering with the land it occupies.
"If #Biden continues his current course, extraction of the lithium, copper, cobalt, nickel, graphite, and manganese vital for a green-energy transition will come at the cost of Indigenous lands and trust... it could also cost Biden the election."
"In the #ClimateChange discourse, #Africa is typically cast as a victim. But what if it could instead become our #hero?
Some envision a different path for Africa, in which investors place its 54 countries at the heart of a green Industrial Revolution. The continent has three things going for it – a young workforce, abundant natural resources and the potential for #RenewableEnergy."
The world's 3rd largest copper deposit is in #Arizona. It's essential to #RenewableEnergy projects. Resolution Copper wants to extract it. But the copper is beneath Chí’chil Biłdagoteel, AKA Oak Flat.
“Oak Flat is like Mount Sinai to us,” says Wendsler Nosie (San Carlos Apache) of Apache Stronghold, a nonprofit fighting to protect the area.
It is so incredibly, irritatingly windy in #Kitchener especially in the concrete canyons downtown (you don't get a pass either #Waterloo :/) Given the whole innovation spiel we love to tell ourselves so much, why aren't we some hub of in-city wind-based technology? Let's at least put this frigging annoyance to work for us.
Which is just as well, because hydrogen mostly comes from fossil fuels today.
I can maybe see a case for hydrogen for fleet vehicles, if the operators actually have hydrolysis plants powered by renewables, because it allows for lighter and cheaper vehicles compared to BEVs, but retail hydrogen is not viable.
Six Flags Magic Mountain in California is building a massive canopy of solar panels over its 30-acre parking lot that will power all of the rides and offset 100% of the amusement park’s energy usage while providing shade to the cars parked beneath.
When completed, it will be California’s largest solar energy project & the world’s largest renewable energy site built by a for-profit organization.
#Renewableenergy is approaching an important possible inflection point... what happens when #windfarms reach the end of their (expected) technical lifespan?
Do owners of early windframs (often in prime wind locations) invest in upgraded & now much more efficient (if expensive) new installations, or will they walk away having already earned a return... & if the latter, what happens with those sites; will they remain wind farms ?
This may become the key Q. for #windpower this decade.
A UK government that would propose installing small rooftop wind-powered turbines everywhere would very substantially lift geopolitical liabilities - and tilt the import/export balance significantly.
In other words the wind blows, often, and strong, like today. Harvesting a tiny fraction of the wind’s energy, in combination with solar panels and home insulation, would transform this country.
If the chimneys of coal-burning fireplaces in every room were a fixture of the glorified past, let wind turbines be the distinctive trait of present-day roofs.
A few short weeks ago, some learned chaps were schooling me on all the reasons hydrogen isn't viable as an energy carrier for vehicles. They obviously forgot to communicate all this to the people actively developing hydrogen infrastructure in Aotearoa.