But, but, the narrative!
Since 1990 renewable energy generation has grown by a factor of over ten to the point where it now supplies 30% of Germany’s electricity. One would think that this would have had a visible impact on Germany’s electricity sector emissions, but as shown in Figure 3 it’s difficult to detect any impact at all.
h/t: em
Being skeptical about all claims for renewable share of electrical supply, I find the 30% a bit high.Especially I wonder how the Wind portion of supply is calculated. It is quite high, and from the graph seems to be # of kilowatt tonnes.But does this simply add all wind generated power together over the year, whether needed or not? Or, like Ont do they have the problem of wind power coming on when the grid is already full. In any case when there is no wind blowing, the portion would be closer to zero than the figure on the graph.
I am used to the Ont Wind Industry simply using the nameplate output capacity as actual power generated, when the actual amount is much less. And about 80% is generated when not needed.Perhaps someone can explain the German figures.
Repeat after me: “Installed capacity is not generated electricity”
Germany hasn’t reduced its greenhouse emissions … because … none of the Muslim migrants are heating their encampments with solar or wind. They are burning old tires and dung for warmth. Solution ? Angela Merkel has ordered the German Energy producers to provide FREE solar panels and wind turbines for ALL of the millions of Muslim … guests.
Just wait until they shut down the nuke plants.
And, of course, they include hydro in “renewables” to goose the claimed amount of renewables to a noticeable amount and lower the claimed cost per kWh of the renewables.
… nor is it Energy DELIVERED. For instance … the natural gas piped into my home is pretty near 100% of the energy “generated”. Which is then utilized by new 95% efficient condensing natural gas fired furnace. Solar and wind are absolute JOKES of efficiency by comparison … ohhhhhh dadddyyyy
In addition to hydro, they also include biomass in renewable without explicitly mentioning it. Biomass produces far more electricity than hydro in Germany’s power system. It’s also considerably more reliable than wind or solar. So, although it’s installed capacity is substantially lower than wind and solar, biomass’s actual production beats both. This isn’t the page I was looking for but it has interesting charts. See graph 2&3.
http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/germanys-energy-transition-explained-in-6-charts
The other problem with projections about the economics of wind power (and perhaps solar) is the accuracy of their lifespan. The projections use 20-25 years but other reports show that it’s closer to 10-12 years when significant reductions in output occurs. As usual with CAGW, there’s a lot of “he said, she said” conflicts, dodgy statistical models and cherry picked data instead of real world info. You’d think that with the number of wind turbines built since the 90s it wouldn’t be that difficult to compile the data. The cynic in me assumes that it’s because the data doesn’t favor the political policies but ??
C Bennet:
“The cynic in me assumes that it’s because the data doesn’t favor the political policies but ??”
None of the data on wind energy fits the political agenda. The reporters in the MSM are either too lazy, or too politicized themselves to report accurately on the observed economics of wind power. Thus we see them faithfully parrot some executive claiming the 150 turbines in Ashfield, Huron Co will power X nunber of homes. As mentioned above there is a substantial difference in nameplate capacity and delivered power.
Consumers would be very reluctant to buy a kettle that worked 1 in 5 times, but a wind turbine? No problem.
I think a better analogy would be this: would you buy a eco-car that costs twice as much as your existing car but only starts 25% of the time when you need it and lasts about half as long as a conventional ICE car? Oh, yeah, because the eco-car is so unreliable you’ll *also* have to buy and maintain a second car, a conventional one, to make for all the times the eco-cars won’t start. You still need to get to work and appointments on time, after all, and a car that only starts 2 or 3 mornings a week is basically useless. That’s pretty much the picture of the economics of wind/solar compared to natural gas.
Almost every MW of solar/wind capacity must be backed up with traditional power. This unnecessary overbuild plus subsidies guaranteed rates, selling excess power at below cost and FIT for wind/solar greatly increases the retail cost of electricity for consumers while also making the needed backup power (natural gas) unprofitable for producers because of the decrease in the wholesale cost. In a rational world,, even if you truly believe global warming is catastrophic, you’d skip wind/solar altogether and replace coal with natural gas until small modular nuclear or other technology replaces natural gas. Natural gas emits 50% less CO2, that’s pretty damned good.
Of course, wind/solar proponents only want to media to focus on levelized costs of wind and solar and ignore everything else but even a Brookings report admits that this is not the most accurate way to compare green and conventional power.
… and correct me if I am wrong … but “biomass” … = chipped, pelitized, TREES chopped-down in Canada, then shipped across the Atlantic Ocean, to be burned in giant ‘pellet stoves’ to power turbines via steam generation ?
It sounds sooooooo much better when you call it by its “Eco-friendly” name … BioMass. Kewl … it’s got “Bio” in its name … like that Bio -logy class I never took in college. Wow man … I’m all FOR “Bio” stuff !
would you buy a eco-car that costs twice as much as your existing car but only starts 25% of the time when you need it and lasts about half as long as a conventional ICE car? Oh, yeah, because the eco-car is so unreliable you’ll *also* have to buy and maintain a second car, a conventional one, to make for all the times the eco-cars won’t start. You still need to get to work and appointments on time, after all, and a car that only starts 2 or 3 mornings a week is basically useless. That’s pretty much the picture of the economics of wind/solar compared to natural gas.
Excellent analogy in terms most people can understand.
Oh yeahhhhhh !!!! Well … at least you will … F-E-E-L … better about yourself for driving the eco-box … while waiting for AAA to jump-start your car !!! And we all know that F-E-E-L-I-N-G-S are far more legitimate than science or math.
I’m not entirely sure what Germany uses for biomass. It could be trees that are cut, dried, pelleted and shipped overseas from North American forests like the UK uses. It could also be lumber waste or biogas from Germany industries.
It’s pretty obvious that wind and solar are uneconomical. Rather than building natgas as backup, they should just build natgas plants. Before natgas became cheap, most environmentalist embraced natgas as a transition fuel. Once natgas became cheap the business class environmentalists and politicians realized that there was more lucrative “investment” opportunities to be made in subsidizing ineffective energy and new trading markets (cap and trade). Taxing reliable, affordable electricity sources that are essential to survive in a cold northern climate is really just a fantastic bonus. There’s not very many policies that so blatantly transfers money from the poor and middle class to the rich and well connected.
The multi-billion-dollar U.S. biofuels industry — promoted and expanded for more than a decade by the federal government — may be built on a false assumption, according to a University of Michigan study
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Despite their purported advantages, biofuels — created from crops such as corn or soybeans — cause more emissions of climate change-causing carbon dioxide than gasoline, according to the study from U-M Energy Institute research professor John DeCicco.
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The study is the latest salvo in the expanding battle over whether biofuels, and the farmland increasingly devoted to them, are actually providing the environmental and climate benefits many expected.
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Michigan could better combat climate change by another method, DeCicco said.
“The name of the game is to speed up how much CO2 you remove from the air,” he said. “The best way to begin removing more CO2 from the air is to grow more trees, and leave them. Prior to settlement, Michigan was heavily forested. A state like Michigan could do much more to balance out the tailpipe emissions of CO2 by reforesting than by repurposing the corn and soybeans grown in the state into biofuels. That is just a kind of shell game that’s not working.”
http://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2016/08/25/u-m-study-biofuels-worse-climate-change-than-gasoline/89265358/]http://www.freep.com/story/new…n-gasoline/89265358/