Well then. Letâs read a selection of quotes from the video (Warning: the punctuation is mine; it may be wrong; unintentionally):
In the United States we have almost completely displaced coal from our fuel mix with natural gas because, as cheap as coal is, itâs not free. So itâs about 50% of our power now. Thatâs really the source of our emissions reductions as well.
True or False? Fact or disinformation?
Partially true in the US, renewables have played a role. In the U.K. and most of EU itâs due to Renewables displacing coal.
⌠my solar panels work great. However, thatâs not how it works for most people. Now, what this map does is it shows solar radiation per year on average. Any place thatâs in red is a zone where solar panels make great economic sense, great environmental sense, thatâs good. Orange starts to fall off, no longer makes economic sense at all. Youâll probably, itâll probably be a wash for you but no better than that. By the time you move into green, you will never generate enough electricity to pay down the carbon debt that it took to build the panels in the first place. So red good, green bad. Thatâs solar.
No idea whoâs map this is. But solar works well into the norther climes. Huge chunks of the US and Europe are perfectly good for Solar. Likewise with the rest of the world. Yes, more irradiation is better produces more power. The carbon debt is a complete red herring thatâs being trotted out for years. Technical to get into but itâs been disproved.
Same basic concept here for wind. Red good, green bad. Here we combine them. The blue is good wind, the green is good solar, the dark green is good for both. [âŚ] If you live more than a thousand miles from where the power is generated the load loss from the transmission basically makes the entire exercise pointless.
This is total nonsense.
If you have solar panels over a corn field youâre not growing corn. If you have wind turbines above about 3000 meters the density of air is not enough to turn them. [âŚ] This removes over 90 percent of the worldâs land surface. So thatâs problem one. The technologies, as we have them right now, just donât work very well.
This is utter garbage. Renewables can be deployed all over the world with high penetration into the energy mix. See U.K., Germany, Spain, Scandinavia. The US has a problem with grid integration generally but if it resolved this, renewables could supply anywhere across the length and breadth of the country - it has huge geographic diversity.
Is the information on the maps True or False? Fact or disinformation? See answers above
When transporting energy over large distances, from the point of production to the point of consumption, thereâs a loss of energy. Is this True or False? Fact or disinformation?
True but thatâs true of any energy source so ultimately a pointless statement.
If you have solar panels over a corn field youâre not growing corn. True or False? Fact or disinformation?
Donât put your panels in a corn field. Actually panels take up around a third of the area so plenty of space to grow crops beneath them. Think this a random, pointless statement.
If you have wind turbines above about 3000 meters the density of air is not enough to turn them. True or False? Fact or disinformation?
This may well be true. No idea. Wind speeds maybe higher to negate this. But if itâs true then you wouldnât put them 3kms high. I think the largest are around 300m high. So again, a random nonsense statement thatâs maybe true but ultimately meaningless. Seems to be a pattern here.
The technologies, as we have them right now, just donât work very well. True or False? Fact or disinformation?
Total nonsense and disinformation. The U.K. has near 40% renewable penetration annually, other countries have similar large chunks. The tech is still improving but works perfectly fine.
Problem two [âŚ] itâs finance. This is the cost structure for the entire life cycle of a natural gas plant. And as you can see, about three-quarters of the cost of the plant is fuel. And only about a fifth of the cost of the plant is actually up front. In this environment, the financial world weâre going trough, is normal, it works. Because youâre paying for it as you go. But that doesnât work for green tech. In the case of wind specifically, two-thirds of the cost is construction. On solar panels itâs closer to three-quarters, which means you have to finance it up front.
True or False? Fact or disinformation?
This is true and a fair point. But ultimately this is a totally misunderstanding of how finance works. Finance looks at RoI and IRR/ NPV on an investment over a given investment horizon. The ongoing operational costs are just as important as the upfront capital.
If you want to spend money on an energy transition, I strongly encourage you to do the math first. Most environmentalists donât do that. [âŚ] And so⌠you put solar panels in Toronto or New York, and youâre actually making the problem worse.
True or False? Fact or disinformation? Just dumb.
Do they think Greta does the sums? These sums are done by scientists, economists etc. Not environmental activists if thatâs what they mean.
Now, thereâs a material science question coming through that might change this in a few years. Not today, not tomorrow, but in a few years. And thatâs with batteries. We know that lithium is not energy dense enough. And we know that the process of making lithium batteries is so carbon intensive that itâs actually contributing to the problem. If youâre driving an ev anywhere, except for where youâve got your grid fully powered by hydro, youâre actually increasing your carbon footprint locally. If we can crack the code on batteries then this map changes. Because right now we canât store. Now, California, our greenest state, our most pro-green political system, only has one minute of energy storage right now. Los Angeles is the american metro that is furthest along with plans to install grid storage. They hope by 2045 to have one hour. And until you can get to three hours you canât even smooth out the day night cycle. So, I mean, weâre nowhere close. But if we can get a better battery, the math changes and all of a sudden all the orange zones make a lot of sense. [âŚ] if you want to make a net zero goal, we canât even pretend to make that math work until we have a better battery system.
Lithium is not energy dense enough. True or False? Fact or disinformation?
Energy dense enough for what? Battery storage is being deployed all around the world at scale. Itâs a rapidly evolving tech. Not all batteries are lithium, there is a move away from it
The process of making lithium batteries is so carbon intensive that itâs actually contributing to the problem. True or False? Fact or disinformation?
Probably just plan disinformation based on the track record above but would need to research. Whatâs the source of there information? Might be worth questioning that
If we can crack the code on batteries then this map changes. True or False? Fact or disinformation?
True in the sense that it opens up the path to close to 100% renewables.
Battery systems are not good enough yet if we want a to achieve a net zero goal. True or False? Fact or disinformation?
Probably true right now but as mentioned evolving very rapidly. There are other paths to net zero that include nuclear and hydro, tidal etc.
Renewables arenât ready. Youâre not going to crack that code and get it ready to go in two years, so I would put that one to the side. That doesnât mean you canât do green tech in general for things like energy conservation.
Renewables arenât ready. True or False? Fact or disinformation?
False. Already extensively dealt with above.
Personal note: I want energy to be cheap, sustainable and clean.
Renewables are not the entire answer but part of it. It doesnât have to be black or white but same as most things it is grey. For example Nuclear is an important part of the energy sector to reduce carbon but many green people hate it.
Using things like the corn field bend an argument that isnât really the issue as you donât need to build it in a corn field. This to me is misinformation.
