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QB is apparently suggesting that Denman glacier disappearing would represent 'Antarctic ice being significantly destroyed' and that this will happen by 2030. Irontruth seems to agree that this is at least plausible.
Saying that a ~2% reduction, which is what the disappearance of Denman glacier would constitute, means that Antarctic ice has been "significantly destroyed" seems a stretch, but I'm good with it... because even that is just NOT going to happen by 2030.
Also note, I am not 'disagreeing with the scientists' or their research as you both claim. I am disagreeing with you. 2030 is your suggested date... and it is absolutely absurd.
I never claimed a date.
I quoted the scientists and their claims. If you are arguing with me, you are arguing with those claims by those scientists.
I'll repeat "my claims" here.
From the article posted recently:
That could be a threat to people living in coastal areas all over the world. If Denman were to collapse, it could raise global sea levels by nearly 5 feet.
The article goes on to say that we have no idea how fast this could happen, or how likely it is to happen. The key point is that it does appear to be happening, and it is happening significantly faster than anyone would have predicted 10 years ago.
I think any loss of Antarctic ice that results in 5 feet of sea level rise qualifies as "significant". These scientists say that this is something we should be concerned about, but they don't have a good answer for us. Do you have evidence that contradicts these scientists?
QB is apparently suggesting that Denman glacier disappearing would represent 'Antarctic ice being significantly destroyed' and that this will happen by 2030. Irontruth seems to agree that this is at least plausible.
Saying that a ~2% reduction, which is what the disappearance of Denman glacier would constitute, means that Antarctic ice has been "significantly destroyed" seems a stretch, but I'm good with it... because even that is just NOT going to happen by 2030.
Also note, I am not 'disagreeing with the scientists' or their research as you both claim. I am disagreeing with you. 2030 is your suggested date... and it is absolutely absurd.
You mention me by name. You say you disagree with me.
I said:
From the article posted recently:
That could be a threat to people living in coastal areas all over the world. If Denman were to collapse, it could raise global sea levels by nearly 5 feet.The article goes on to say that we have no idea how fast this could happen, or how likely it is to happen. The key point is that it does appear to be happening, and it is happening significantly faster than anyone would have predicted 10 years ago.
I think any loss of Antarctic ice that results in 5 feet of sea level rise qualifies as "significant". These scientists say that this is something we should be concerned about, but they don't have a good answer for us. Do you have evidence that contradicts these scientists?
You mentioned my name, and how you disagreed with me. Either tell me what you disagreed with in the above statement, or retract your earlier statement. I didn't force you to say anything. You chose to include me in your statement of disagreement.
In which case, your position is just meaningless bickering. Again.
You specifically called me out by name. I am responding to that.
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Germany, With Skies Cleared by Coronavirus Lockdown, Produces Record Solar Power
Germany hit 40% solar / 78% renewable electricity generation yesterday, and negative electric rates (i.e. consumers were paid to use electricity), in part because of the reduction in smog due to coronavirus lockdowns.
Of course, the same thing will happen as renewable power continues to grow. That is, deployment of more renewable power will decrease air pollution and result in solar panels working better... another self-reinforcing factor accelerating the decline of fossil fuels.
Likewise, every time the sale price of electricity goes below the operating cost of a fossil fuel plant, let alone negative, that plant becomes less profitable... until eventually you are losing money by keeping it open. That is happening to more and more fossil fuel power plants around the world, and will force both early closures and the end of new fossil power construction (i.e. nobody is going to pay to build a power plant that will only lose money).
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'Cause it seems to me, if the power company is having to pay the customer to use electricity, that said power company will be loosing money than the coal plant that can just spin-down/idle to match demand.
1: The whole reason that the price goes negative is that variable production (e.g. wind and solar) exceeds demand and they legally aren't allowed to just dump ('curtail' in industry lingo) it right away. Thus, they have to keep lowering the price until people buy up the excess.
2: Since wind and solar have virtually non-existent operating costs (i.e. no charge for the air or sunlight, no workers needed to deliver them) they always underbid coal and other thermal plants that have both fuel and salary costs to deal with.
3: Coal plants cannot just be shut down / started back up to follow demand. They take a lot of time (and money) to start and stop. As a result, coal plants generally keep running regardless of demand... which means they're still incurring the expense of burning coal and paying employees.
4: Obviously, the price is not negative all, or even most, of the time. German utilities make a profit.
So, coal plants in Germany have to keep running even when they aren't selling any of their electricity. Thus, the greater the percentage of electricity supplied by renewables (and the small remaining amount of nuclear power in Germany) the more they lose and the faster they will go out of business.
Meanwhile, the utility usually gets to charge a rate that makes them a profit even at coal electricity costs... and thus actually make an even bigger profit when most of the electricity is coming from cheaper renewable power sources... except when renewables production exceeds demand and they are forced to lower their customer rates.
They could solve this by installing enough energy storage to temporarily hold the excess renewable energy for use when renewables are low... but that would basically wipe out most of the coal industry immediately, and the German government made a deal to instead phase out coal in exchange for them providing baseload stability in the interim. In short, back before electricity storage prices started to plummet, Germany made a deal to pay extra to have both growing renewables and stable coal power.
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At the start of 2018, coal was still the largest source of electricity production in the 'developed world'. By the end of 2019, it was in third place. The breakdown is now roughly;
29% Natural Gas (growing slowly)
26% Renewables (growing quickly)
22% Coal (declining quickly)
18% Nuclear (declining slowly)
5% Other combustibles (little change)
Overall, fossil fuel production declined 245 TWh from 2018 to 2019, while renewable production grew 119 TWh.
Within a few years, coal will have dropped below nuclear, natural gas will have peaked, and renewables will be the largest source... and thus likely tracked individually (e.g. solar, wind, hydro, and other... in that order of prevalence) rather than as a group.
In short, the 'developed world' has officially 'tipped'. The 'developing' countries lag (kinda right there in the name actually), but are following the same trends. Basically, we've passed the turning point on fossil fuels.
Also, in other 'negative pricing' news... the cost of a barrel of oil on the US market dropped below -$35 yesterday... oil producers were having to pay people to take it because there was almost no place left to store the excess amount.
Oil consumption has dropped about 30% while production has been largely unchanged. Hence the storage glut. Production should start declining in May, and many countries will be trying to 'open up' and increase consumption around that time too. However, oil demand is going to be down for quite some time. Indeed, I believe 'coronavirus effects', including changes in habits even after the virus has subsided, will linger long enough that there is a good chance that growing EV sales will prevent us from ever returning to previous oil consumption levels.
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Did I say "shut down"? I don't recall saying that.
You said "spin down/idle". In responding I described the same situation as "shut down". I'm allowed to use my own phrasing, and regardless of which words you choose... it still costs them a lot of time and money and thus they generally don't do it in reaction to production fluctuations.
I see now why the metalhead has issues with you.
Because you both like to play semantic games rather than admit you don't know what you are talking about?
So they invested in renewables before it made economic sense to do so? Yeah, that sounds about right.
Eh. I'd say this goes too far. When you consider health and environmental impacts even Germany's early move on renewables made economic sense.
That said, they could have gone about it a lot smarter. For example, they started out using renewables to replace nuclear rather than fossil fuels... which thus did nothing to improve emissions.
Now of course they still have to install all that storage capacity and charge their customers yet more money.
They don't HAVE to charge consumers for the development, but yes that is the way Germany has been doing it. They add an extra surcharge on electric bills to fund accelerated future development.
Of course that means the relatively poorer citizens will be footing the bill for this excessive power pricing*. Because you can bet the rich have ways around paying extra.
Not really. Corporations use more electricity than households (particularly in Europe), and thus are footing the majority of the bill.
But hey! Who cares about the little guy? Amiright? What matters is 'Green Energy' now so that we can look good on the world's stage.
Sorry, but this is nonsense. The 'little guy' is just fine. Public support for Germany's energy policy has consistently been around 85%.
* Last I heard the price is up about 300% over what it theoretically should be.
Again, nonsense. German electricity is about 50% above the average price for Europe. However, only about half of that is for the renewable development surcharge, and several European countries have higher rates.
As to EV sales going down this year. Yes, obviously... but so will ICEV sales. Nothing to do with long term trends.
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Sure! You can use your own phrasing. If you like talking to yourself.
If I don't use your words, you won't talk to me?
Promise?
The EU "everything's fine" only tells me they like the Kool-Aid for now. Eventually they'll start to choke on it.
Who cares what 'the little guy' thinks? They're Kool-Aid drinking fools and they can choke on their approval? That was a quick turnaround from your supposed concern for them.
Well "50% above average for Europe" is about 300% more than they need to. So hey! we agree for once.
So what they 'need to' be paying is just some imaginary number in your head with no basis in reality? Fine. Once you make what you said meaningless, your statement is no longer 'wrong'.
Just pointless.
Yes but it's the short term trend that sets the angle for the only long term trend I've been talking about. Namely that the year 2100 will be at least +2.5° over preindustrial.
Setting aside that this makes no sense, a year or two of EV (and ICEV) sales disruption will have a negligible (i.e. too small to measure) impact on the long term warming trend.
Also, you've been making this claim for quite some time now. Yet it is only now with the advent of the coronavirus outbreak causing a short term reduction in EV sales that 'the angle is set' to achieve that result?
They have seasonal cycles and typically fine tune the seasonal output based on near term forecasts when those forecasts show a significant change in power usage is imminent.
Funny. That doesn't sound like they are "idle"... or that it has anything to do with variations in production over the course of a single day. Why, it is almost like this doesn't support your initial position at all.
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Well duh. If we aren't using the same terms - and here I point out that the terms I used are not the least bit ambiguous nor peculiar to my vocabulary - then you'll be talking right past me. Just like you do with the metalhead and thejeff.
So you can't figure out that a response quoting your text and using similar words is referring to that text. It has to use exactly the same words or you just can't follow it.
"Over a single day" you say. OK, but when did I say that?
When you responded to my text about excess power production in Germany "yesterday", and said that it indicated utilities would lose money faster than coal plants.
You see? Just one more example of your (purposeful?) misreading of others' posts.
You based your position on what I had written about "yesterday". You even quoted it. You now want to pretend that you were talking about seasonal shifts. However, that would mean that YOU misread the topic of conversation and were talking about something else.
That said, I don't believe your claim that you were talking about seasonal shifts all along... because a coal plant that goes "idle" (your word) for entire seasons is going to go out of business. Not outperform utilities as you suggested.
Either way, what you actually wrote or what you are now pretending you intended... it doesn't make any sense... and you keep avoiding addressing ANY of those substantive issues to focus on ever more convoluted re-interpretations and digressions. Plus the obligatory personal insults.
I told you not to read too much into the short term reduction of CO2. Wait until after the economic recovery actually starts to analyze what effect this economic crisis is going to have on the climate.
If governments push fossil fuels as part of a jobs program, then the short term environmental benefits will all disappear. If they push more renewable programs, then the gains could become permanent. I suspect several small nordic countries are likely to engage in the latter, but I'm highly suspicious of similar claims everywhere else.
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By your math all coal plants should've been decommissioned over a decade ago.
I could certainly make the argument that "should've" happened, on any number of grounds (e.g. financial, environmental, moral, etc), but I don't know what "math" of mine you are referring to.
By my math (the "math" of all the #### ####### that people do for all of recorded human history) I'd say we've got between 10 and 30 years of coal power in our global future.
The 'conflicting' positions you are presenting here could BOTH be true. What "should've" happened and what will happen are two different things.
This also seems a dramatic reversal. Coal power possibly being gone in as little as 10 years is much more in line with my past statements than it is with yours. You've been claiming that new coal power construction will still be going on over that timeframe.
BTW - "avoiding substantive issues" is what you and the metalhead have done for pages now on this thread.
Not true. I consistently respond to any on topic points raised.
The only issue in your entire post which addressed the substance of the conversation was the 'math' on the future of coal... and that's a new point which you just inserted. In short, you ignored everything about climate change in the post you were supposedly 'responding' to. You didn't even try to dispute any of my points about climate change because you couldn't. You know you are wrong, but rather than admit that you change the subject. THAT is 'avoiding substantive issues'.
China announces plan to continue building electricity infrastructure during the pandemic to help boost the economy. No mention that such construction will be of renewable energy.
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No CB, I didn't respond to your "points" because they are not even wrong, so why would I go down that rabbit hole after you?
Yeah, it is just so ridiculous of me to say that coal plants sitting idle for seasons at a time would go out of business... rather than it being a sound financial strategy for them as you suggest. Everyone knows that NOT selling your product is the best way to make money.
Coal Power won't be gone in 10 years.
So... why did you write, "I'd say we've got between 10 and 30 years of coal power" if 10 years isn't a possibility?
Then it'll be another 20 years, more or less, for those to run "end of life" and be decommissioned.
Modern coal plants last considerably longer than 20 years. Try 50. So 10 years of continued construction and operation through end of life would be ~60 years. Not your new figure of '10 to 30... but also not 10'.
Your math says it was impossible for coal power to be a thing anymore a decade ago. Somehow the fact that it was still a thing 10 years ago, continued to be a thing for the next 10 years, and will continue to be a thing for another 10 years just doesn't compute for you.
You still haven't explained what 'math' of 'mine' you are referring to. It seems like you are claiming I can't observe that coal plants exist currently (it "doesn't compute" for me) based entirely on complete nonsense you just made up in your own mind.
"It's not economical! It's not moral! It's not ...!" you scream again and again.
Those are false quotations and even the general sentiment expressed is a gross misrepresentation. No screaming. No 'again and again'. I simply said that the argument could be made that coal plants "should've" all been shut down more than a decade ago. Hardly an unreasonable position.
Doesn't change the fact that you're wrong every time.
When 'my' arguments are complete fictions, made up by you, that doesn't make me wrong. It makes you dishonest or delusional.
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Bloomberg New Energy Finance's latest annual report on world electricity development is out. Some highlights;
Onshore wind and PV solar are now the cheapest sources of new electricity for more than two-thirds of the world's population (including US, EU, China, & India)... with most of the rest living in areas with too little development for accurate calculations.
Battery storage costs have dropped by roughly 50% in just the past two years and are now cheaper than natural gas peaker plants (i.e. the type that actually 'spin up' and 'shut down' in response to intermittent power fluctuations, since it would be impossible to do that effectively with coal plants) in Europe, Japan, China, and most other markets. Average battery costs are still ~50% above the cheapest natural gas peakers (in the US), but expected to drop below that mark in a few years.
Newly built Solar PV plants in China now cost about $38/MWh. At the rate those costs have been dropping, that puts them less than a year from falling below the ~$35/MWh it costs to operate already existing Chinese coal plants.
Worldwide, BNEF estimates that 71% of existing coal plants will be more expensive to operate than building new renewables by 2030... and 52% would actually be losing money (due to power sale prices dropping below their operating costs) if they were still running.
None of this is really surprising, which is why investors have been ahead of these trends and ~75% of new electricity added last year was renewable. The question is no longer why a shrinking minority cannot see the renewable transition coming... it is why they can't see that it is already here.
Newly built Solar PV plants in China now cost about $38/MWh. At the rate those costs have been dropping, that puts them less than a year from falling below the ~$35/MWh it costs to operate already existing Chinese coal plants.
None of the sources of information that I've seen indicate that price is the primary driver on energy source choice in China. Price is probably a factor, but it's not one of the primary ones.
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CB always partitions my posts (and others as well) into independent statements, while dropping certain inconvenient-to-his-logic sections entirely, instead of reading them as a single post.
Like most people, including you, I only quote the text I am responding to. That has been fairly common internet etiquette for decades now.
The claim that I drop sections 'inconvenient to my logic' is untrue. Most of what I drop when responding to your posts is gratuitous insults, dishonest whining, and random tangents.
You could prove otherwise by quoting the text in that last post which 'countered my logic'... but you won't, because this lie is just another of your desperate attempts to obfuscate how foolish your claims were.
Now to the topic of your “math”:
For you coal power plants are uneconomical and therefore of imminent demise (even your most recent post exclaims accounting forces are on the side of renewables).
You previously claimed that 'my math' said "it was impossible for coal power to be a thing anymore a decade ago". Now you say that 'my math' has their demise imminent.
Which lie are you going with? A decade in the past or the 'imminent' future?
You can't present a consistent argument even when you are completely fabricating 'my' position.
While it’s pedantically true that a coal power plant built today* has a good 50 year life span I, looking at the past 20 years, figure that most such coal plants will not be torn down at end of life but be retrofitted to natural gas well before their 50 years is up.
* Older plants, ones built in previous decades - which is to say the majority of presently active coal power plants - will more likely be decommissioned than retrofitted depending somewhat on their location and design.
Directly contradicting your previous claim that newly built coal plants would be decommissioned after their ~20 year "end of life";
I challenged the relevance of your “math” by noting the uneconomical nature of coal power plants 10 years ago, today, and for the next 10 years; while also noting the presence of coal power plant construction for the past 10 years, the present, and the 10 years to come. Somehow clear logic doesn’t remedy your math problem. Go figure.
No, you didn't.
Go ahead. Look at your two previous 'math' posts and quote where you said that coal plants have continued being built despite being uneconomical for the past ten years.
Doesn't exist.
If you HAD made that claim previously, I'd have pointed out that 10 years ago coal plants were significantly cheaper than wind and solar... unless we include large markups for environmental, health, and other 'external' costs.
Also, while it is nice that you now agree with me that we are nearing the end of new coal plant construction AND that vast numbers of coal plants will cease operations long before reaching end of life... what exactly do you think will drive those changes?
You contemptuously dismiss my belief that it will be the "uneconomical nature" of coal plants... so, what? The wisdom and foresight of the human race driving us to end carbon emissions?
CB always partitions my posts (and others as well) into independent statements, while dropping certain inconvenient-to-his-logic sections entirely, instead of reading them as a single post.Like most people, including you, I only quote the text I am responding to. That has been fairly common internet etiquette for decades now.
The segmented response... quote/response/quote/response/quote/response/quote/response is a really bad format for reading, makes it easy to make mistakes when quoting that post, and it separates portions of an argument that might be related, but treats them as independent.
I suspect it leads to really myopic reading of posts as well. In general, I think the best solution is if we are disagreeing with EVERYTHING people say and have to respond to it line by line... the conversation is improved by writing shorter posts.
To clarify, I am not being argumentative here. I am pointing out how we can have a clearer discussion by reducing miscommunication.
The numbers won't be in for a few more weeks, but we're probably already at around 14-15% unemployment, which would be the highest since 1940. The current official number is 4.4%, but that was accurate up to March 13. There is no actual distinction between recession and depression. It just used to be that economic downturns were called depressions. Then, cause they didn't want to spook people, they started calling them recessions. It's possible in the future we'll call them bagels.
If this is a bagel, it's likely going to be a severe one.
US economy contracted by 4.8% in Q1. It is likely to drop by another 20% or more in Q2, but it could by as much as 30%. This bagel is going to be as painful as the worst of the 1930's bagel. I still think it is possible that we start to see recovery start to happen by 2022, and whatever the new normal will be by 2025... depending on a lot of factors (i'm severely hedging here; I have no idea how likely a quick recovery is, I just believe it is possible).
A lot of it will depend on who finishes the vaccine, and how that vaccine is manufactured and distributed.
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The International Energy Agency just released a review of energy use thus far in 2020 and revised projections for the remainder of the year.
As expected, consumption of coal, oil, natural gas, and nuclear power have all declined sharply due to the impact of covid-19 on economic activity.
Yet, while total world power usage has plummeted (only the Great Bagel had a steeper drop, and that only in percentage terms), consumption of renewable electricity is up 5%. That equates to a 1% increase in terms of total power (i.e. electric, non-electric combustion, non-electric / non-combustion heating, etc).
Renewables will still be impacted, as construction of NEW plants has been slowed by covid-19, but existing renewable plants are actually doing better because of the virus.
This has happened because of the same economic realities I outlined recently with supply exceeding demand in Germany. The whole world is now generating more power than it needs due to the sharp drop in demand. In such circumstances, renewable power plants will always win because they have lower operating costs (due to no fuel and fewer workers). Supply > Demand drives down prices. Renewables cost the least to operate and thus become MORE competitive as the price drops below levels various fuel based power plants can afford. This effectively increases the 'capacity factor' of renewable plants while decreasing that of fuel based power plants... shifting the split of both production and profit.
Even the slowdown in construction may be a net benefit for renewables, as their costs continue to drop. Thus, they will be more competitive when the construction boom to meet pent up demand (due to population growth) begins.
As I've said before, the big question now is whether fuel consumption will ever return to previous levels. The longer the covid-19 disruption lasts, the less likely that becomes. Realistically, nuclear likely already peaked in 2006 and coal in 2013. I'd put the odds against natural gas ever getting back to where it was, but oil is probably still more likely than not to have another future peak... though it would be short lived.
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You say that, and one day it will be true,
The results for 2020 thus far will be true one day? That'd be... today.
but it doesn't explain this:
Post 3978 above.
What is there to explain? That fossil fuel power hasn't completely disappeared yet doesn't change the fact that it is on the way out.
If you're running China, and you need to keep 800 million people employed, the part where you say,
"Renewable power plants will always win because they have lower operating costs (due to no fuel and )"Might just be the key to your inability to understand.
Doesn't track.
First, wind and solar require far more workers to build. So, if you are worried about employment any time from now to the end of the transition (20 years minimum) you'd be better off going with those power sources rather than building more coal plants.
Second, the number of workers we are talking about just isn't big enough to be a major issue on the national level. Coal plants would occupy an insignificant portion of the workforce, and even wind/solar construction would be a bit player.
True, but the science they're banking on is that the area under the curve is the same whether you flatten it or not. So the only thing they need to do is keep it "flat" enough so that they don't overwhelm healthcare in the short term.
That's the science EVERYONE is relying on. It's what 'flatten the curve' means... keep the peak from significantly exceeding healthcare capacity so that you don't increase the number of people dying.
The difference is that Sweden isn't doing much at all to flatten the curve. They're mostly just hoping that it will be 'flat enough'.
Now, given that they have an excellent healthcare system AND some unusual/favorable demographic features (e.g. more than 50% of households are single occupant) they are likely to have both a lower peak than most countries AND a higher healthcare capacity to deal with it... but it's still a risk management failure. They're hoping for the best rather than planning for the worst. Maybe they get lucky, but it's a foolish gamble.
Based on the data available thus far... it's looking to me like they are likely going to have a higher death rate AND economic calamity.