Renewable Energy Passes 30% of World's Electricity Supply (theguardian.com) 153
Renewable energy accounted for more than 30% of the world's electricity for the first time last year, according to climate thinktank Ember. The Guardian reports: Clean electricity has already helped to slow the growth in fossil fuels by almost two-thirds in the past 10 years, according to the report by climate thinktank Ember. It found that renewables have grown from 19% of electricity in 2000 to more than 30% of global electricity last year. Solar was the main supplier of electricity growth, according to Ember, adding more than twice as much new electricity generation as coal in 2023. It was the fastest-growing source of electricity for the 19th consecutive year, and also became the largest source of new electricity for the second year running, after surpassing wind power.
The first comprehensive review of global electricity data covers 80 countries, which represent 92% of the world's electricity demand, as well as historic data for 215 countries. The surge in clean electricity is expected to power a 2% decrease in global fossil fuel generation in the year ahead, according to Ember. [...] World leaders are aiming to grow renewables to 60% of global electricity by 2030 under an agreement struck at the UN's Cop28 climate change conference in December. This would require countries to triple their current renewable electricity capacity in the next six years, which would almost halve power sector emissions.
The first comprehensive review of global electricity data covers 80 countries, which represent 92% of the world's electricity demand, as well as historic data for 215 countries. The surge in clean electricity is expected to power a 2% decrease in global fossil fuel generation in the year ahead, according to Ember. [...] World leaders are aiming to grow renewables to 60% of global electricity by 2030 under an agreement struck at the UN's Cop28 climate change conference in December. This would require countries to triple their current renewable electricity capacity in the next six years, which would almost halve power sector emissions.
slowing growth in fossil fuels (Score:2)
While we knew 40y ago how climate change was a thing, they still dare to say that "electricity has already helped to slow the growth in fossil fuels by almost two-thirds in the past 10 years"
"already" !?!?
So yes, almost 50y in, and we're still burning more and more every year. That's how sad a state we're in.
You really do deserve your holiday in the sun, amirite.
Re:slowing growth in fossil fuels (Score:4, Insightful)
> You really do deserve your holiday in the sun, amirite.
I know lots of people who virtue signal and not a single one has stopped taking hot showers even though they could.
They'll trade in their Prius for a Model X though. CO2 payback should occur in 2055 if they also install an acre of new solar in their yard and don't need to replace the battery before then.
Oh, and a new flagship iPhone every twelve months.
Maybe I'll meet somebody someday who actually walks the walk.
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Your calculation assumes the Prius is going into a junkyard instead of to its next owner, which isn't true.
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The Prius might. The Model X won't because the battery will need to be replaced and it costs as much as a new car, if you can even get one.
The battery will never need to be replaced. Other than defective units, EV batteries will outlast the rest of the vehicle, though they might only have 75% of the original range by the time the vehicle is recycled.
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Hot showers don't need to stop. If all houses put two square meters of solar hot water panels on their roof (which the vast majority of buildings in the US can manage), we could eliminate ~90% of domestic hot water carbon footprint. Add in electric on-demand water heaters and one square meter of solar PV, and you've eliminated the carbon footprint of domestic hot water generation.
Pre-WW2 US, even mid-sized cities had a comprehensive electric trolley system that usually connected to a region commuter rail s
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I looked into swapping the ailing oil furnace/on-demand hot water heater in my new house with an air-to-water electric heat pump, but the cost was astronomical: $30k+ outlay for the unit + installation. Also, because the make-up on electric is slower I would also need a 70 gallon hot water tank for a family of 4. Plus the load temperature of electric is 130F compared to 180F for oil, so all my forced hot water heat registers are now undersized and would have to be replaced.
Even with tax breaks and incentiv
Re:slowing growth in fossil fuels (Score:4, Insightful)
While we knew 40y ago how climate change was a thing
Knowing and caring are two different things. To change something you need to care about that, and 40 years ago no one gave a flying fuck about climate change except for a few scientists.
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And Al Gore. It was ironically almost exactly 40 years ago that, then Sen. Gore, invited Carl Sagan to testify before the Senate on climate change and the urgency of action needed. If Al Gore had been elected in 2000 over GWB, we'd be looking at a much different problem now. No ANWR drilling, less fracking, more climate subsidies, and a much smaller national debt would put us in a significantly different situation than we find ourselves.
Just FYI (Score:2)
Trees are renewable (Score:2, Insightful)
So let's keep clear cutting forests to save the environment.
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Trees are only renewable if you plant new ones to replace the ones you cut down.
And even then, only if removing them doesn't negatively impact the local environment in some other way that the new ones don't compensate for.
That number is going down (Score:2)
As we move automotive and home heating off of fossil fuels and to electricity, won't electricity demand outpace renewable sources?
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This is why utility companies like National Grid in the UK employ analysts with big brains to build complex models forecasting future demand and supply: it's hard to get right, and you can't do it based on vibes, you need data, maths and robust tyre-kicking of your assumptions. Even then, if you're sensible, you build a range of scenarios into your models so that you can do business planning that doesn't assume the world is deterministic.
Here is a layperson explanation of work done back in 2017: https://www [nationalgrid.com]
Good News, But... (Score:2)
This is great news and one of the few hopes I have for some semblance of civilization surviving the next three centuries. But it's still not enough.
First, the 19% renewables in 2001 figure is almost entirely hydro power, which does come with significant environmental costs. But hydro doesn't even make up that much of the 2023 renewables figure as there hasn't been that much new hydro capacity built since then. The areas where it's possible to build hydro dams are limited and most of the low hanging fruit w
Who funded the study? (Score:2)
Think tanks don't operate in a vacuum. So who funded this?
Re: Hydro (Score:5, Interesting)
They are certainly being mass produced. In the last year, there has been a lot of overproduction. Panels have been piling up in warehouses. Many manufacturers have gone out od business.
The problem isn't the supply of panels, but the cost to install them. For a typical residential rooftop install, things like labor and permits are typically 50%, and can be as high as 70%.
That is not the case for solar farms, which have economies of scale.
One problem is that some places have too much solar, eg. California, which instituted a NEM 3.0 tariff that's so detrimental to solar that installations have dropped by 80% over the past year. Many CA solar installers are going out of business, unfortunately as a result of NEM 3.0. This is partly to blame for the panels glut, as well, as CA was one of the top markets for solar.
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That is not the case for solar farms, which have economies of scale.
Indeed. The future of solar is vast arrays in the desert, not bespoke installations on rooftops.
One problem is that some places have too much solar, eg. California
We need better storage so solar energy can be used 24/7.
Sodium batteries might fix that problem.
Re: Hydro (Score:5, Interesting)
Solar farms have high transmission losses, though, as they are not located near residences. Residential has fewer losses but at much higher cost. In some places there isn't enough land for Solar farms. The US still has a lot of empty land, though.
Batteries don't have to be fully centralized as they don't require as much land as solar. There could be local battery storage plants, also to reduce transmission losses
I don't particularly want batteries at my home due to fire risk. Also, there isn't really enough space on the lot without flattening it and building another structure. Solar is all on the roof and takes no additional ground space. I live in a wildfire area in the hills and only one insurer will still write a policy. If they don't renew, it's CA Fair plan after that. Or no insurance, since there is no mortgage.
I hope you are right about new battery chemistries saving the day. That can't happen soon enough. But there have been so many stories on Slashdot about battery breakthrough that never made it out of the lab that I'm rather skeptical
Re: Hydro (Score:5, Insightful)
Solar farms have high transmission losses, though, as they are not located near residences.
No, they don't. Coal and nuclear plants aren't located near residences either, but we still lose under 5% in transmission in the USA. The losses are higher than local, but not anything you could reasonably call "high".
Re: Hydro (Score:4, Interesting)
And worth noting - a lot of that âoehydroâ is pumped hydro storage of renewables.
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So why in god's name is California doing that?
Re: Hydro (Score:5, Informative)
https://www.solar.com/learn/ne... [solar.com]
To force people to invest in battery storage alongside solar, so that maximum savings are achieved by first becoming self-sufficient before selling excess.
Previously maximum savings were achievable by selling surplus during the middle of the day when demand is lower, and then receiving power from the grid in the evening when demand is higher. You can still do that under the new billing, but you won't save as much money as before. The lifetime savings are still significant, though.
Also note that the new billing only applies to new installations, existing installations remain under the rules they were built under for 20 years.
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Informative, thanks!
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And to add to this, one of the major issues California in particular has had is that residential solar was tending to co-locate far more than anticipated. As in, the Jones' down the street get solar panels, start gabbing it up at dinner parties, and all of a sudden it becomes a social driver for the rest of a relatively affluent neighborhood to get solar panels. So instead of solar power spreading in a relatively distributed manner that's useful, it would pop up in hot-spots and overwhelm the transmission i
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The problem isn't the supply of panels, but the cost to install them.
Still not the right problem. Solar panels don't need to be on roofs, and there's no shortage of installers. The bigger problem is the process involved in doing something meaningful with them. In many places around the world the benefit of rooftop solar is being eroded with changes in approach from government policy and electrical companies. Right now despite the low cost of panels and the lower than ever cost of installation, demand has plummeted due to lack of incentives and in some cases actual punishment
Lack of incentives (Score:2)
Everything you spend money on, whether it is raw materials, finished goods, or wages for people, percolates through the economy and results in energy consumption, much of which emits CO2. If you pay someone to install a solar panel on your roof, that person in turn needs to consume resources to feed and shelter themselves and the people they support.
There is a role for incentives and subsidies, mainly, to climb up the adoption S-curve by achieving economies of scale. Beyond that, if you incentivize one
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Everything you spend money on, whether it is raw materials, finished goods, or wages for people, percolates through the economy and results in energy consumption, much of which emits CO2.
I'm not sure what point you wanted to make in the post, but if you open with the whole "it uses CO2 in the construction, therefore bad" line no one will take you serious. Like me. Who stopped reading at the end of this sentence. I wish you luck making another post and hope you can do so in a way that will not cause people to write it off as bullshit ramblings.
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For solar on your own building you generally don't need permission in Europe. For open spaces it varies, but the EU recently passed a new regulation requiring any permits to be issued or rejected within 28 days of application.
Re:Hydro (Score:5, Informative)
Not true at all. The source [ember-climate.org] (that the Guardian and the summary failed to link to), says that solar and wind together " generated 13.4% of the world’s electricity, with other renewables such as hydropower also contributing to renewables 30% combined total." That means solar plus wind make up 44.6% of the total renewable generation. I don't know where you get the "single figures" claim, you're like 20 years out of date, I think.
Re:Hydro (Score:5, Interesting)
Think again. The EU market has been flooded with Chinese solar panels in a successful campaign to destroy the EU solar industry. Solar panels are so cheap here that people don't know what to do with them. They are even used as wall decoration for fences. My neighbour used it as roofing for his shed. As a response, the energy companies decided that they should charge customers 11 ct per per KWh energy that's delivered to the grid. And now people are disconnecting their panels.
We don't need solar panels. We need giant batteries or other means to store the energy.
Re:Hydro (Score:5, Insightful)
The EU market has been flooded with Chinese solar panels in a successful campaign to destroy the EU solar industry.
People were saying the same thing 20 years ago: That the Chinese were flooding the market to drive everyone else out, and then they'd jack up the prices.
Well, here we are after 20 years, and Chinese panels are cheaper than ever. There isn't a jacked-up price anywhere.
Protectionists have cried wolf on this too many times.
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Did they destroy the EU solar industry?
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Yes. Almost all European solar panels makers have gone bankrupt, because chinese solar panels are 4 times cheaper.
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Then China has already achieved its goal despite what ShanghaiBill might say to the contrary. Why raise prices if their margins are already great and their only competition is themselves? Besides, destroying foreign industry has strategic value along with economic value.
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Over time, the cost basis for production in China will go down. Chinese industry has been dumping for years.
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the cost basis for production in China will go down.
Good. The world needs cheaper panels, and no one else is even trying.
Chinese industry has been dumping for years.
China has been massively subsidizing the world's transition to renewable energy.
If you wanna call that "dumping", then so be it. But it is still a very good thing.
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Call it whatever you want. Their margins improve over time, and they get to eliminate foreign competition. Disagree with CCP policy? They can cut you off and watch your arrays slowly go dark from not being able to get replacements. Also no new buildouts. Oops.
They are not operating a charity.
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And when it reaches the point where it becomes economical to produce locally again, investors will be willing to fund new start ups to do so. Funny how that works.
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Greenies: "We need to switch to solar energy."
Deniers: "Whaaa! We don't wanna pay for that. We don't want solar!"
Greenies: "No problem. China is paying for it."
Deniers: "Whaaaa! China is destroying our solar industry!"
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Probably not, but hey you never know.
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Thoroughly destroyed. China waged economical war and won. Germany had a large solar industry. Both the manufacturers of the panels and the manufacturers of the tooling closed (e.g. Roth&Rau). Public research institutes underwent restructuring and changed topics. There are some remaining small companies under government subsidies that work in solar for high-value applications (e.g. space) but no hope of getting a technological lead again.
The EU solar ecosystem is ruined and this is an immense waste of kn
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For the same reason eliminating competition in any industry is a bad idea: it causes complacency. Why would a monopoly hav
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Protectionists have cried wolf on this too many times.
You are only talking about the wolf. You failed to acknowledge that all the sheep are dead, which was the OP's point. There was an EU wide debate about whether to bail out the bankrupt solar panel manufacturing industry and only two months they decided against it.
EU solar panel manufacturing is dead. https://www.politico.eu/articl... [politico.eu]
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Where is anyone *paying* to feed energy into the grid? I'm not aware of any European countries doing that. The UK still pays for feed-in, Germany has moved to an auction system but gives priority to solar and pays out. Spain pays for solar generation, and electricity is extremely cheap there much of the time.
While we do need more batteries, and at this point the feed-in tariff is not very generous in most places, it doesn't make any sense to charge customers to supply power to the grid. At least not domesti
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California. [latimes.com] The state needs more energy storage, also more water storage so excess rainfall doesn't all drain into the ocean.
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Ah, sorry, I meant consumers paying directly, like a negative feed-in tariff.
We actually have that in the UK too, not as sunny as California but we have quite a bit of wind. When there is an excess of it, the price of electricity goes negative. People on tracker tariffs get paid to use electricity. The current system doesn't allow for people with solar to be charged though, and probably never will. More likely, at some point there will be a mandate for smart inverters on new installs that stop feeding if ne
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That's a bit confusing because it says that there is a fee of 11.5 c/kWh to feed in, but that customers will still get the 14.5 c/kWh feed in tariff paid out. So a net of +3 c/kWh?
Also it says it only applies to customers on variable tariffs. I'm not an expert on how it works in NL, but usually that refers to business customers who pay a rate for their electricity based on the market price at the time of consumption. Consumers usually have a flat rate, or maybe a normal and an off-peak rate. There are tarif
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Variable tarrifs just means its price is indexed every three months based on the Endex103 indexation parameter [energyprice.be].
It is available for consumers and quite common in certain parts of Europe (France, Germany, Spain and Switzerland offer it for instance, some other countries may too). However, it can be somewhat risky because fluctuations in wholesale prices, such as those triggered by the conflict in Ukraine, can make a variable contract more expensive than a fixed-rate contract. Depending on the length of the co
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Thanks. The pay-back period before solar is all profit depends on both the feed-in tariff and the cost of grid generated electricity. The latter is in flux in Europe, with some places like Spain having nearly free electricity some of the time, with others seeing higher costs (e.g. France).
If feed-in costs ever exceed the payments, people will just stop feeding in. If the tariff is only set every three months and the feed-in payments change even less often than that, they can just manually disable feed-in on
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The latter is in flux in Europe, with some places like Spain having nearly free electricity some of the time, with others seeing higher costs (e.g. France).
For higher costs, an actual better example would be Germany [ember-climate.org] (look at the daily/1 year curves), and its green-washing campaign of deploying solar/wind while closing nuclear plants.
Spain has lower wholesale electricity prices due to a unique regulatory exception. The European electricity market is overseen at the European level, which means that electricity prices are often tied to the costliest energy source, such as gas, especially since the start of the Ukrainian conflict. This is why Germany and France ty
Electricity (Score:2)
And electricity is just a slice of the pie of total energy use.
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Here are a couple of graphs that give a clearer picture of the situation. If you want to predict the future, extrapolate by looking at the graphs.
That's a bit difficult to do, with solar and wind looking exponetial to me. Where am I supposed to put them in 10 years time?
https://ourworldindata.org/gra... [ourworldindata.org]
Re:ok but (Score:4, Insightful)
What are you talking about? China is the country most responsible for this growth in renewables. Reference: https://e360.yale.edu/features... [yale.edu]
"In 2022, China installed roughly as much solar capacity as the rest of the world combined, then doubled additional solar in 2023"
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That is a straight lie. China permitted more coal power plants last year than any time in the last seven years. It's the equivalent of about two new coal power plants per week. source: https://www.npr.org/2023/03/02... [npr.org]
Re:ok but (Score:5, Informative)
China is also installing lots of wind and solar.
The wind and solar are growing faster than the coal.
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It's great renewables are growing faster than coal in China but their continued rapid roll out of coal plants is still a huge problem in terms of global warming. They wouldn't be opening new coal plants if they didn't plan on running them for several decades thus every new coal plant they open is decades worth of some of the worst sort of pollution.
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Sure. Unlike China we're not only not opening more coal power plants but are actively shutting down existing ones https://apnews.com/article/coa... [apnews.com].
Overall our reduction efforts have been making good progress as well
https://www.macrotrends.net/gl... [macrotrends.net].
Meanwhile China's global warming emissions keeps growing and growing and at a faster rate than we are reducing ours thus more than canceling our progress out.
https://www.macrotrends.net/gl... [macrotrends.net].
I'm curious though if you even care about any of this like anyone who
Re:ok but (Score:5, Informative)
People always misunderstand what this means.
New coal plants don't always mean more coal consumed, if they are replacing older plants. Germany had the same issue, people said they were "building new coal plants", but in fact the net change was -4 because the new ones were replacing multiple older plants. As well as older plants simply reaching EOL, newer ones tend to be a bit cleaner, and most importantly better able to integrate with renewables by adjusting their output more frequently and quickly.
China is due to peak emissions in the next year or two, and then fall. That is 5 years ahead of their Paris goal. In a few years we will know if they did it or not, but they are on track for it.
Not sure what the whatabouters are going to do then, especially once the rate of decline accelerates past us. Their peak is going to be a fraction of the per capital emissions that we had.
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China is due to peak emissions in the next year or two, and then fall. That is 5 years ahead of their Paris goal. In a few years we will know if they did it or not, but they are on track for it.
Good point. They are actually one of the only country serious about decreasing their emissions asap, while maintaining their economy afloat, which is why their energy grid is/will mainly be made of nuclear, wind/solar/hydro, and some storage.
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>> permitted more coal power plants last year
Permitting coal plants isn't the same as building them. And then there is the utilization factor for plants already built, which reportedly is only about 50%.
https://www.nature.com/article... [nature.com]
"Under the 2C scenario, operating hours on average will be reduced from today’s 4350h to 3750h in 2030"
There are 8765 hours per year.
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Are you saying we should follow China as an example on energy policy? I could be convinced to go along with that since China has 27 nuclear power reactors under construction now.
https://www.world-nuclear.org/... [world-nuclear.org]
We are going to need nuclear power to lower CO2 emissions.
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Why can't we do this? Oh I know, it's too communist, but we have a climate emergency. During war time we have the government direct manufacturing to produce the materials we need. Time to spool that up for solar panels and wind turbines, get every rooftop covered and every square kilometre of the North Sea filled with windmills.
Make it into a huge jobs and industry programme, give our economies a nice stimulus package. Invest now to save money later.
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Re:Coal (Score:5, Informative)
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Poe's law strikes again!
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Now, maybe it's reversed Poes law and you originally responded to a crazy person thinking it was a joke. In a sense it's still Poe's Law, just more vicious.
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That's a fine answer, as long as we remember all the hidden subsidies that fossil fuels get. The biggest subsidy is the ability to dump pollution into the atmosphere and demand everyone else deal with the consequences. Fossil fuel use should be paying for removal (not just sequestration) of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere equivalent to what they admit. There's also a load of transport of the fuels which risks pollution on other people's land (pipelines) or causes pollution itself (trucks). Lots of securi
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The common definition of "renewable" is quite different. It means that it is regenerated (renewed) at least at the rate it is consumed. Hence, coal is not renewable, as it right now is consumed at a far higher rate than it renews itself. At no point the definition says "sequestered solar energy" or something similar.
Coal was very likely a one-off geological occurrence, as in the late carboniferous, a fungus evolved that could directly digest lignin.
So we likely will stop at the peat stage, and coal is by all definitions not renewable.
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Hey, that's cool....
As long as all this "green" movement doesn't endanger our continued manufacturing of good single malt scotch!!!
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Hey, that's cool....
As long as all this "green" movement doesn't endanger our continued manufacturing of good single malt scotch!!!
We are safe.
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All matter heavier than Hydrogen was forged in suns, so really pretty much everything in E=mC^2 is of solar origin.
Re:Coal (Score:5, Informative)
So the first stars were formed mainly from Hydrogen, a sizeable portion of Helium and some miniscule traces of Carbon and Oxygen.
Re: Coal (Score:5, Informative)
All you need is an environment that lacks microorganisms that can break down ligind. Let a bunch of trees pile up in the forest without breaking down then after millions of years you have yourself a coal seam.
Unfortunately I don't see trees piling up meters thick, modern microorganisms break them down and release CO2 and methane. I suspect there will never be more coal made on Earth.
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We call that biomass energy production, and can easily distinguish it from coal.
Sesame Street taught me: same vs different (Score:3)
The chemical composition of coal and charcoal are significantly different. If you've ever heated your home with both, as used to be common in the UK, you'd note that it takes way less coal to do the job. Coal is just a whole lot denser than charcoal, which is mostly a porous matrix of amorphous carbon.
You can cook coal into coke, which is more like charcoal than it is like coal. In practice they burn a bit differently, as a coke fire can go out on you if you aren't constantly feeding it air. But charcoal bu
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So you dig a meters deep hole first, then fill it with felled trees.
We could have little solar powered, AI-controlled digger bots to dig those holes, cutter bots to cut down trees (starting with non-native ones), tugger bots to drag the trees into the holes, bucket bots to pile dirt back on top, and stomper bots to pack it all down and make it airtight to prevent aerobic decomposition.
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Where is this happening? Nowhere you say? So, no,imagining a way of starting the process (that would not complete for tens of millions of years) is not making it "renewable".
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Trees decompose and release CO2 and methane, which percolates up through the dirt.
Really what you want to do is truck some dense carbon material down into an old gypsum mine or any other deep geological formation that is sealed off from air and water. If that sounds more complicated and more expensive than digging any old hole several meters deep, well now you know why we haven't cheaply solved the problem.
AI-controlled digger bots to dig those holes,
exciting. Can we pay them with stablecoin backed cryptocurrency?
tugger bots to drag the trees into the holes
I think they sell "tugger" bots on Ali
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No, coal is not renewable as nearly all of the coal now being mined was produced during the late Carboniferous (hence its name) and early Permian periods prior to 280 million years ago. It takes (took) unusual geological/climatic/biological conditions to lay down large coal reserves. It requires a high burial rate of plant matter which is not now occurring.
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Well it's technically renewable. After we go extinct from burning all this coal, we'll become coal and oil ourselves. Maybe some future primate or dolphin can dig up and use it. They'll probably be too smart to do that though.
Re:Coal (Score:4, Funny)
I imagine the dolphin archeologists will be baffled as to how we went extinct. Some may speculate meteor, others a virus, or a super-volcano. When some young dolphin proposes that we offed ourselves he'll get laughed at .. "no species could be that dumb".
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The correct term thus would be: "Coal might become renewable in the future, when its usage has nearly stopped, thus the coal content of Earth gets replenished."
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That is not what renewable means, because literally nothing renews anywhere near the rate at which it is consumed, let alone more.
Anything that depends on the sun does not meet that definition, but is considered renewable.
Re:Coal (Score:5, Informative)
I wonder if they count coal as renewable energy.
No.
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I wonder if they count coal as renewable energy.
Along the lines of, "Anywhere is walking distance if you have the time."? (Steven Wright)
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Does a car move at 100 mph the instant you step hard on the accelerator?
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A good one does in about 6 seconds or so....
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Only if we fully stop adding Carbondioxide to the Eart
Re:Still waiting for evidence of success (Score:4, Funny)
What do we do about the flaming colostomy bag that is Joe Biden? That seems to be a runaway exothermic reaction at this point.
Huh? It's Donald Jesus Trump that's farting up a storm in court, not Biden.
Re:Still waiting for evidence of success (Score:5, Interesting)
Waiting for what? What will you do then? You're not going to acknowledge any positive developments until everything is done and climate change is over?
Frankly I don't care about climate change, we're fucked in this department. But the development of alternate green energy along with EVs has resulted in a reduction in the amount of smelly diesel cars driving in my street, and the shutdown of a coal power station which was within nose range from us if the wind was blowing in the right direction.
I.e. Green energy has already had a positive impact on my life, even if you are waiting for something else.
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Peak oil in 2008? Sorry but the data doesn't support that at all https://www.statista.com/stati... [statista.com] . We might have hit peak by then had fracking not become a thing but that kept things going for a while longer.
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Yes, you're correct, it's excluding fracking. Nevertheless, it stopped increasing like crazy because we've tapped pretty hard on the natural reserves, not because of renewables.