Renewable Energy

Casual conversation between friends. Anything goes (almost).
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JoaoRodrigues
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Re: Renewable Energy

Post by JoaoRodrigues »

Most of ecological activism, not just ecological, is crowded with second intentions, strong ideals and extremism. They fell they have a need to save the planet, and, with a certain hostility against the human race, because they see human nature as a defect, deformed entity, and nature as perfection, and they in a way are not totally wrong. I'll quote Shunryu Suzuki in Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind:

"To live in the realm of Buddha nature means to die as a small being, moment after moment. When we lose our balance we die, but at the same time we also develop ourselves, we grow. Whatever we see is changing, losing its balance. The reason everything looks beautiful is because it is out of balance, but its background is always in perfect harmony. This is how everything exists in the realm of Buddha nature, losing its balance against a background of perfect balance. So if you see things without realizing the background of Buddha nature, everything appears to be in the form of suffering. But if you understand the background of existence, you realize that suffering itself is how we live, and how we extend our life. So in Zen sometimes we emphasize the imbalance or disorder of life."

If we, in any way, lose our temper trying to implement change, we already lost. If we destroy the planet we go extinct, but the planet will eventually reconstruct itself, it might take millions of years, but it will. Most of activism is self-centered, and they don't seem to realize it.
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Nemo
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Re: Renewable Energy

Post by Nemo »

JoaoRodrigues wrote: Mon Apr 27, 2020 10:28 am Most of ecological activism, not just ecological, is crowded with second intentions, strong ideals and extremism. They fell they have a need to save the planet, and, with a certain hostility against the human race, because they see human nature as a defect, deformed entity, and nature as perfection, and they in a way are not totally wrong. I'll quote Shunryu Suzuki in Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind:

"To live in the realm of Buddha nature means to die as a small being, moment after moment. When we lose our balance we die, but at the same time we also develop ourselves, we grow. Whatever we see is changing, losing its balance. The reason everything looks beautiful is because it is out of balance, but its background is always in perfect harmony. This is how everything exists in the realm of Buddha nature, losing its balance against a background of perfect balance. So if you see things without realizing the background of Buddha nature, everything appears to be in the form of suffering. But if you understand the background of existence, you realize that suffering itself is how we live, and how we extend our life. So in Zen sometimes we emphasize the imbalance or disorder of life."

If we, in any way, lose our temper trying to implement change, we already lost. If we destroy the planet we go extinct, but the planet will eventually reconstruct itself, it might take millions of years, but it will. Most of activism is self-centered, and they don't seem to realize it.
Activism was so much easier in the 80s. Capital was trapped here and could be regulated. Science was not political. Politicians were not on the corporate payroll yet. Most polluters did not have even a single person employed in PR. They learned during the campaign to fix the ozone layer how dangerous the public could be to making a profit by externalizing costs onto the environment. Luckily tobacco industry lobbyists were there to help them.

This isn't very complicated stuff. Don't poop near your well. Don't eat spoiled meat. Don't deplete you land or use poisons on your food. Don't change the climate.
Malcolm
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Re: Renewable Energy

Post by Malcolm »

Kim O'Hara wrote: Sun Apr 26, 2020 11:52 pm
Subsidies distort the market and are (as far as I'm concerned) impossible to measure accurately.
Yup.

While I'm sure everything you say is correct, I don't believe it is the whole story and I don't believe it alters the clearly observable cost trends.
And if the (real) costs of renewables keep dropping - as they have been for years - while the (real) costs of fossils keep rising (as they have to extract more difficult and lower-quality resources) then there must be a crossover.
Umm, oil is trading at 0 dollars per barrel right now...

In media interviews over the past week, the energy and emissions reduction minister, Angus Taylor, has called for a “gas-fired recovery” from the Covid-19 pandemic after the collapse of oil and gas prices.
See, it is hard for renewables to compete with that.
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Kim O'Hara
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Re: Renewable Energy

Post by Kim O'Hara »

Malcolm wrote: Mon Apr 27, 2020 3:07 pm
Kim O'Hara wrote: Sun Apr 26, 2020 11:52 pm In media interviews over the past week, the energy and emissions reduction minister, Angus Taylor, has called for a “gas-fired recovery” from the Covid-19 pandemic after the collapse of oil and gas prices.
See, it is hard for renewables to compete with that.
Yes.
The problem is political, not technological, or at least more political than technological.
We need a new government - as do lots of other places - and some of us are working towards that.

:namaste:
Kim
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Kim O'Hara
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Re: Renewable Energy

Post by Kim O'Hara »

This report doesn't say much about the politics, but they are there in the background: basically, the transition is being driven by state governments because of federal foot-dragging and outright opposition (sound familiar?) and would proceed faster with more sensible national policies. Nevertheless...
1. Australia on track to exceed 75% renewables by 2040

As noted in our earlier outlooks, we continue to forecast Australia will reach 50 per cent renewable energy generation by 2030 under our Central case, despite the absence of a federal policy framework beyond the Underwriting New Generation Investment (UNGI) scheme. Even without further policy, renewable energy generation is forecast to grow to 75 per cent of NEM generation by 2040.

New capacity additions are expected to initially be driven by state renewable energy targets, with the Queensland Renewable Energy Target (QRET) forecast to drive almost 28,000 GWh of new renewable energy generation, and the Victorian Renewable Energy Target (VRET) forecast to drive more than 5,000 MW of new capacity in Victoria.

Solar is expected to make up the largest component of new generation, at almost 22 GW of new large-scale capacity, along with 11.5 GW of distributed PV to 2040. Rooftop solar installation achieved record levels in 2019, and although lower rates are forecast we continue to anticipate growth in small-scale solar, representing around 27 per cent of all renewable capacity needed for the NEM to reach 75 per cent renewables by 2038.
:reading: https://www.reputex.com/research-insigh ... -scenario/

We can do it. :twothumbsup:
In fact we will do it, regardless of politics or the environment, because economics is now on the side of renewables.

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Kim
Malcolm
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Re: Renewable Energy

Post by Malcolm »

Kim O'Hara wrote: Mon Apr 27, 2020 10:49 pm
Malcolm wrote: Mon Apr 27, 2020 3:07 pm
Kim O'Hara wrote: Sun Apr 26, 2020 11:52 pm In media interviews over the past week, the energy and emissions reduction minister, Angus Taylor, has called for a “gas-fired recovery” from the Covid-19 pandemic after the collapse of oil and gas prices.
See, it is hard for renewables to compete with that.
Yes.
The problem is political, not technological, or at least more political than technological.
We need a new government - as do lots of other places - and some of us are working towards that.

:namaste:
Kim
The problem is cultural and systematic.
Danny
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Re: Renewable Energy

Post by Danny »

Politics being down stream from culture. People prefer to be asked and not told.

Good luck


Regards
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Nemo
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Re: Renewable Energy

Post by Nemo »

Malcolm
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Re: Renewable Energy

Post by Malcolm »

Kim O'Hara wrote: Mon Apr 27, 2020 10:49 pm
The problem is political, not technological, or at least more political than technological.


https://www.filmsforaction.org/articles ... he-humans/

Richard Heinberg has some interesting things to say on this issue:
I feel fairly confident commenting on the first of these claims, regarding renewable energy, having spent a year working with David Fridley of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory to assess the prospects for a complete transition to solar and wind power.

We found that the transition to renewables is going far too slowly to make much of a difference during the crucial next couple of decades, and would be gobsmackingly expensive if we were to try replacing all fossil fuel use with solar and wind. We also found, as the film underscores again and again, that the intermittency of sunshine and wind is a real problem—one that can only be solved with energy storage (batteries, pumped hydro, or compressed air, all of which are costly in money and energy terms); or with source redundancy (building way more generation capacity than you’re likely to need at any one time, and connecting far-flung generators on a super-grid); or demand management (which entails adapting our behavior to using energy only when it’s available). All three strategies involve trade-offs. In the energy world, there is no free lunch. Further, the ways we use energy today are mostly adapted to the unique characteristics of fossil fuels, so a full transition to renewables will require the replacement of an extraordinary amount of infrastructure in our food system, manufacturing, building heating, the construction industry, and on and on. Altogether, the only realistic way to make the transition in industrial countries like the US is to begin reducing overall energy usage substantially, eventually running the economy on a quarter, a fifth, or maybe even a tenth of current energy.

Is it true that mainstream enviros have oversold renewables? Yes. They have portrayed the transition away from fossil fuels as mostly a political problem; the implication in many of their communications is that, if we somehow come up with the money and the political will, we can replace oil with solar and continue living much as we do today, though with a clear climate conscience. That’s an illusion that deserves shattering.
He also says:
But the film does make some silly mistakes. Gibbs claims that a solar panel will generate less energy than it took to build the panel. That’s a misleading claim. Many teams of researchers have addressed the question of energy return on energy invested for solar power, and even the most pessimistic results (with which I mostly agree) say that the technology can yield a marginal energy gain. Much of that gain goes away if we have to “pay” for the energy investment entailed in providing batteries or redundant capacity. Wind power generally has a better energy payback than solar, but the location of turbines matters a great deal and ideal sites are limited in number. Assessing solar and wind power calls for complicated energy accounting, but the film reduces that complexity to a blanket, binary dismissal.
And:
I agree with Gibbs, however, that renewables are realistically incapable of maintaining our current levels of energy usage, especially in rich countries like the US. Transitioning to electric cars may be a useful small-scale and short-term strategy for reducing oil consumption (I drive one myself), but limits to lithium and other raw materials used in building e-cars mean we really need to think about how to get rid of personal cars altogether.

Mainstream enviros will hate this movie because it exposes some of their real failings. By focusing on techno-fixes, they have sidelined nearly all discussion of overpopulation and overconsumption. Maybe that’s understandable as a marketing strategy, but it’s a mistake to let marketing consultants sort truth from fiction for us.
And finally:
Planet of the Humans paints environmental organizations and leaders with a broad and accusatory brush. One target is Jeremy Grantham, a billionaire investment analyst who created the Grantham Foundation for the Protection of the Environment in 1997. Grantham was already a mega-rich investor before he “got religion” on environmental issues. I’ve had several face-to-face meetings with him (full disclosure: the Grantham Foundation has provided modest funding to Post Carbon Institute, where I work) and it’s clear that he cares deeply about overpopulation and overconsumption, and he understands that economic growth is killing the planet. He’s scared for his children and grandchildren, and he genuinely wants to use whatever wealth and influence he has to change the world. To imply, as the film does, that he merely sees green tech as an investment strategy is a poorly aimed cheap shot. Bill McKibben, who is skewered even more savagely, also deserves better; he has replied to the film here.
Mirror
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Re: Renewable Energy

Post by Mirror »

I'm really fond of ecology. I found out that new technologies can't save us, because everything is interconnected. How many things did we need to discover in order to make a solar panel? Our technology is more and more ecological, but the condition of our planet is worse and worse. Maybe technology itself isn't the problem, but we use it in a harmful way. The risk of misusing technology is too high. We should rather move to the stone age, accept the sufferings of samsara and focus on our pursuit of enlightenment, because that's really meaningful. We can't avoid all sufferings no matter what we invent. If everyone engaged in worldly activities only in order to live, then the concept of the global warming wouldn't exist.

In my opinion: the older technology, the better.
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Re: Renewable Energy

Post by Mirror »

Nemo wrote: Wed Apr 29, 2020 8:41 pm The video
I share the same opinion. We need to stop the material/worldly growth. Be happy with what we have.
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Grigoris
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Re: Renewable Energy

Post by Grigoris »

Isn't it funny that in a discussion about energy 90% of the conversation is about money?

Doesn't it make you think that maybe it is the economic system which is to blame for the problem? That if developing renewable energy was about concern for our environment and not concern for profits, we would have solved the problem ages ago?
"My religion is not deceiving myself."
Jetsun Milarepa 1052-1135 CE

"Butchers, prostitutes, those guilty of the five most heinous crimes, outcasts, the underprivileged: all are utterly the substance of existence and nothing other than total bliss."
The Supreme Source - The Kunjed Gyalpo
The Fundamental Tantra of Dzogchen Semde
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Kim O'Hara
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Re: Renewable Energy

Post by Kim O'Hara »

Grigoris wrote: Thu Apr 30, 2020 10:51 pm Isn't it funny that in a discussion about energy 90% of the conversation is about money?

Doesn't it make you think that maybe it is the economic system which is to blame for the problem? That if developing renewable energy was about concern for our environment and not concern for profits, we would have solved the problem ages ago?
:thumbsup:
You're nearly right.
If "concern for our environment" wasn't in direct conflict with "concern for profits" (at least in the short term, which is all capitalists think about) "we would have solved the problem ages ago."
And yes, "it is the economic system which is to blame for the problem" - mostly, at least. Our ballooning population has to bear another large lump of the blame.

:namaste:
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Queequeg
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Re: Renewable Energy

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Kim O'Hara wrote: Thu Apr 30, 2020 11:36 pm Our ballooning population has to bear another large lump of the blame.
One of the points the movie made was that our ballooning population is an effect of the easy energy that fossil fuels provide. Without fossil fuels, we don't have the machinery we do, but more critically, we don't have the fertilizers and pesticides we do. Crops would be much harder to grow in terms of effort and yields without fossil fuels. There's a lot less starvation because of fossil fuels. For a quick comparison, look at first generation immigrants to a place like the United States, and then look at their grandchildren - height, weight, life expectancy - all the metrics are better (well, maybe not weight since more is only better to a point). Add to that, the ancillary developments in medicine that have knocked out so many diseases. The likelihood of surviving to adulthood is unprecedented for our species, as is life expectancy.

We can adjust all the factors other than population, but only so much alteration of the coming future is possible. If we don't admit that population is the biggest problem of them all, its just rearranging deck chairs, I'm afraid.
There is no suffering to be severed. Ignorance and klesas are indivisible from bodhi. There is no cause of suffering to be abandoned. Since extremes and the false are the Middle and genuine, there is no path to be practiced. Samsara is nirvana. No severance achieved. No suffering nor its cause. No path, no end. There is no transcendent realm; there is only the one true aspect. There is nothing separate from the true aspect.
-Guanding, Perfect and Sudden Contemplation,
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Queequeg
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Re: Renewable Energy

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Mirror wrote: Thu Apr 30, 2020 3:17 pm We should rather move to the stone age, accept the sufferings of samsara and focus on our pursuit of enlightenment, because that's really meaningful.
You know, Buddha appeared during the bronze age. I don't think there's much opportunity for practicing Dharma when saber tooth tigers eat you if you slip up. It was the relative ease achieved with agriculture that let loafers like Buddha, Socrates, Confucius, etc. do their thing.
There is no suffering to be severed. Ignorance and klesas are indivisible from bodhi. There is no cause of suffering to be abandoned. Since extremes and the false are the Middle and genuine, there is no path to be practiced. Samsara is nirvana. No severance achieved. No suffering nor its cause. No path, no end. There is no transcendent realm; there is only the one true aspect. There is nothing separate from the true aspect.
-Guanding, Perfect and Sudden Contemplation,
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Grigoris
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Re: Renewable Energy

Post by Grigoris »

Queequeg wrote: Fri May 01, 2020 2:10 amWe can adjust all the factors other than population, but only so much alteration of the coming future is possible. If we don't admit that population is the biggest problem of them all, its just rearranging deck chairs, I'm afraid.
Malthusian nonsense.

Yes, population is part of the problem, but the main part of the problem is consumption. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_c ... per_capita
Energy_Use_per_Capita.png
Energy_Use_per_Capita.png (19.65 KiB) Viewed 1792 times
If we brought down the developed worlds energy consumption rate, the Earth could probably support even more people (if we wanted more people).

I agree that population control is necessary, bit it is not the root of the problem.
"My religion is not deceiving myself."
Jetsun Milarepa 1052-1135 CE

"Butchers, prostitutes, those guilty of the five most heinous crimes, outcasts, the underprivileged: all are utterly the substance of existence and nothing other than total bliss."
The Supreme Source - The Kunjed Gyalpo
The Fundamental Tantra of Dzogchen Semde
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Queequeg
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Re: Renewable Energy

Post by Queequeg »

Maybe nonsense. Short of collapse, which is possible, I don't see consumption going down. Maybe we switch to electric cars but that's a rather minor improvement in the scheme. I don't know if these are the final numbers but with the slow down of activity, carbon emissions are down about 8% only. The explanation is that power generation hasn't slowed.

I don't see an effective way to reduce energy consumption. No one is turning down heat when it's so cheap. No one is turning off lights or turning off tvs and computers. And I see consumption only going up as the developing world continues to progress. The ideal life of the impoverished third world is not inspiring anyone. China is the model for the developing world now and that requires lots of coal.

The only energy source that can help is nuclear and that's another set of problems.

Population is something we can affect over a couple generations, gently and humanely. We just need the will to talk about it and address it.
There is no suffering to be severed. Ignorance and klesas are indivisible from bodhi. There is no cause of suffering to be abandoned. Since extremes and the false are the Middle and genuine, there is no path to be practiced. Samsara is nirvana. No severance achieved. No suffering nor its cause. No path, no end. There is no transcendent realm; there is only the one true aspect. There is nothing separate from the true aspect.
-Guanding, Perfect and Sudden Contemplation,
Mirror
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Re: Renewable Energy

Post by Mirror »

Queequeg wrote: Fri May 01, 2020 1:49 pm Population is something we can affect over a couple generations, gently and humanely. We just need the will to talk about it and address it.
Population isn't the problem. The problem is consumption. If everyone lived as a citizen of Africa, then problems like global warming wouldn't exist. The only reason there are so many people in the world is that, they have money for food so they can have a huge families. Our demand has created many jobs in China, that's why they have more money, so they can support their families. Think about it in global scale. Everything is interconnected.
Queequeg wrote: Fri May 01, 2020 2:20 am You know, Buddha appeared during the bronze age. I don't think there's much opportunity for practicing Dharma when saber tooth tigers eat you if you slip up. It was the relative ease achieved with agriculture that let loafers like Buddha, Socrates, Confucius, etc. do their thing.
Tooth tigers disappeared when the climate has started warming up. Even so we were using tools made from stone and wood, long before the stone age. But it doesn't matter. Technology after all brings more pain and suffering in a global scale. Especially to animals, insects and other forms of life. We have to exploit others in order to develop.

All problems we face in our society such as global warming, wars, discrimination, etc. have the cause in self-cherishing, self-centeredness, cherishing the "I".
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Malcolm
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Re: Renewable Energy

Post by Malcolm »

Mirror wrote: Fri May 01, 2020 3:36 pm But it doesn't matter. Technology after all brings more pain and suffering in a global scale. Especially to animals, insects and other forms of life. We have to exploit others in order to develop.

All problems we face in our society such as global warming, wars, discrimination, etc. have the cause in self-cherishing, self-centeredness, cherishing the "I".

There isn't more suffering. There is always the same amount of suffering, this is why Buddha said, "sarvadukkhaṃ."
Malcolm
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Re: Renewable Energy

Post by Malcolm »

Queequeg wrote: Fri May 01, 2020 1:49 pm Maybe nonsense. Short of collapse, which is possible, I don't see consumption going down. Maybe we switch to electric cars but that's a rather minor improvement in the scheme. I don't know if these are the final numbers but with the slow down of activity, carbon emissions are down about 8% only. The explanation is that power generation hasn't slowed.

I don't see an effective way to reduce energy consumption. No one is turning down heat when it's so cheap. No one is turning off lights or turning off tvs and computers. And I see consumption only going up as the developing world continues to progress. The ideal life of the impoverished third world is not inspiring anyone. China is the model for the developing world now and that requires lots of coal.

The only energy source that can help is nuclear and that's another set of problems.

Population is something we can affect over a couple generations, gently and humanely. We just need the will to talk about it and address it.
The key to lowering population is the education of women. Also, there seems to be a positive correlation between lower fertility rates and meat consumption.

The real issue is that human beings still think of themselves as belonging to this or that nationality; when in reality we all live on the same planet, competing for same resources, etc. The problem is extremely easy to identify; the solutions, not so easy or obvious.
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