Wow, I just learned we're in the "renewable energy" era.

[NNadir]

I came across a paper today in a journal I read regularly, Enabling Superior Electrochemical Performance of Lithium-Rich Li1.2Ni0.2Mn0.6O2 Cathode Materials by Surface Integration (Guo et al., Ind. Eng. Chem. Res. 2020, 59, 43, 19312–19321) which begins like this:

Since the dawn of the renewable energy era, lithium-ion batteries have played a crucial role in the renewable energy field.(1?4)Among all cathode materials, lithium- and manganese-rich (LMR) layered cathode oxides with the chemical formula Li2MnO3–LiMO2 (M = transitional metal) are regarded as the most promising cathodes because of their extraordinary specific capacities (>250 mA h g–1) at high potentials.(5?7) It is well known that the ultrahigh discharge specific capacities of LMR cathodes are ascribed to the joint participation of anions and cations in the redox reaction...

Wow.

I had no idea. I keep thinking that carbon dioxide concentrations are going up at a record pace, but here were are past the "dawn of the renewable energy" era that I've been hearing about my whole damned adult life, and I'm not young.

I always thought that the "renewable energy era" would mean the end of the climate change problem. I guess I'm missing something.

It's a new strategy, very popular in some circles I think: When you've lost and failed, claim you won and succeeded.

Nice cathode, though, no cobalt, which should reduce the reliance on the child slaves who dig cobalt in the Congo River region.

[Beakybird]

1. One ETF in my IRA portfolio (TAN) is up 133% for the year. Renewables are up big.

[NNadir]

2. Making money off "investments" has nothing to do with environment.

We have "invested" over two trillion dollars in so called "renewable energy" in the last decade, with the result that the annual accumulations of carbon dioxide in the planetary atmosphere have reached an unprecedented 2.4 ppm/year on average, after being well below 2.0 ppm in the 20th century.

There's lots of money to be made in entertainment, and even the fantasy business.

Here's what I think about the massive "investment" in solar and wind energy: History will not forgive us, nor should it. Someone's going to have to clean all this trash up, and it's not going to be the people who made money off of it.

[Finishline42]

3. Your hatred for renewable energy shows

The worldwide shutdown/slowdown of economic activity this year didn't stop the increase in CO2 at Mauna Loa. Doesn't that tell you something?

Renewables are about 15% of US electrical production. Where would we be without that 15%?

All that money already spent has gotten wind and solar down significantly in price, where they are cheaper than fossil fuels - especially coal. Every hour that a utility uses electricity from wind and solar drives up the price of coal and nat gas which leads to further investment in wind and solar.

Things are going to change drastically with a Biden admin.

[Miguelito Loveless]

4. Don't try logic with him

I’ve tangled with him before. He is immune to facts and reality.

[Finishline42]

5. I know I'm on ignore

You might be as well.

I swear every time he jumps up and down complaining about renewable energy another windfarm goes online.

Very smart no doubt. But he tries to dazzle with numbers. He once said that to build out enough windmills to power the world would require more aluminum than exists in the world. Of course he seems to ignore the billions of soda and beer cans made every year. LOL

[NeoGreen]

6. It's almost as if...

... Every time a Nadir whines, a windmill gets it wings.

[NeoGreen]

7. and Indium...

...

https://www.democraticunderground.com/1127109508

[Finishline42]

8. Blast from the past...

While their complaint that wind and solar need nat gas to fill the gaps is valid on a number of counts what they don't recognize is what is happening as a result.

Wind and solar are the cheapest power available when the sun shines and the wind blows. And every time wind and solar powers the grid they do so at the expense of a coal, nat gas or nuclear plant, reducing the amount of time those plants are able to sell their power which drivers up their cost. This is the feedback loop in our favor because it leads utility companies to acquire more wind and solar.

The Biden admin needs to put a full court press on HVDC transmission lines and battery storage.

[NeoGreen]

9. I even acknowledge that nuclear is a necessary component of the transition...

...it's the complete nay-saying of renewable energy that is just gob-smacking.

Plus ignoring the fact, that centralized electrical generation with grid distribution (of either nuclear or renewable energy) cannot solve the transportation fuel/energy problem, let alone our demand for thermal energy during the winter months in NA.

Yes...yes... electric vehicles are the future, but how to recharge them?
How many Exojoules can we push through the existing grid to continue to drive ourselves in 'shiny metal boxes' to work or get our Brazilian strawberries to the grocery store in February?

Are we going to use precious renewable-generated electricity to heat our homes?
I've read that using electricity to heat a home is akin to using a scalpel to chop wood...i.e. not the best end use.


We're winning the CO2 game on electricity generation, but we've a long way to go on the other major sectors of energy consumption.

[Finishline42]

10. There has been a push to support coal fired power plants as baseline

At the expense of nuclear plants. That needs to change.

Exelon Generation announced Thursday it is retiring its Byron and Dresden generating stations in fall of 2021.

The Byron location will close in September of next year, and Dresden, in Morris, will close in November of next year.

Together, the units provide energy to more than four million homes.

Dresden is licensed to operate for another decade and Byron for another 20 years, Exelon said. Together, they employ more than 1,500 full-time employees and 2,000 supplemental workers during refueling outages.

"Although we know in our heads that shutting down the uneconomic Illinois plants is necessary to preserve even more jobs elsewhere, our hearts ache today for the thousands of talented women and men that have served Illinois families for more than a generation and will lose their jobs because of poorly conceived energy policies," said Christopher Crane, president and CEO of Exelon. "But we are only about a year away from shutdown and we need to give our people, the host communities, and regulators time to prepare."

Dresden and Byron face revenue shortfalls in the hundreds of millions of dollars because of declining energy prices and market rules that allow fossil fuel plants to underbid clean resources, Exelon said.

https://abc7chicago.com/exelon-nuclear-plants-illinois-dresden-plant-byron/6393383/#:~:text=Exelon%20Generation%20is%20closing%20two,in%20November%20of%20next%20year.

I don't see us building any new nuclear plants but I think we should use the existing plants as long as possible.

[NeoGreen]

11. Agree...

...

I don't see us building any new nuclear plants but I think we should use the existing plants as long as possible.

[progree]

12. I changed just a few words

I had no idea. I keep thinking that carbon dioxide concentrations are going up at a record pace, but here were are past the "dawn of the nuclear energy" era that I've been hearing about my whole damned adult life, and I'm not young.

(I also remember hearing the phrase about nuclear energy many times in my youth, "electricity too cheap to meter" -Progree).

I always thought that the "nuclear energy era" would mean the end of the climate change problem. I guess I'm missing something.

It's a new strategy, very popular in some circles I think: When you've lost and failed, claim you won and succeeded.

We have "invested" over (however many) trillion dollars in "nuclear energy" in the last 60 years, with the result that the annual accumulations of carbon dioxide in the planetary atmosphere have reached an unprecedented 2.4 ppm/year on average, after being well below 2.0 ppm in the 20th century.

Here's what I think about the massive "investment" in nuclear energy: History will not forgive us, nor should it. Someone's going to have to clean all this trash up, and it's not going to be the people who made money off of it.

[Finishline42]

15. turn about is fair play LOL

And we are stuck with all that nuclear waste too!

[John ONeill]

13. Why Nnadir is right

The largest source of non-fossil power in both the US and the EU is nuclear. When unreliable sources like wind and solar are built out, they will reach the point where they are making most of the power on a grid occasionally, but because of their low capacity factors, they're still only a bit player overall. Solar averages in the low twenties, and wind in the mid thirties. That leaves a lot of room for gas, which has low costs for installation, and can profitably surround the bell curve of solar output - even on a sunny day. Nuclear has much higher capital costs, but its fuel cost is very low. Its forte is putting out a lot of moderately priced, low emission power for months at a time, without a break, but it has to sell all that power to pay off its construction costs. Gas turbines, whose only cost is fuel, and wind, which is often paid even when power it produces cannot be used, destroy that business model. The result is always a rise in emissions -full time nuclear always outperforms part-time unreliables. The storage built so far is grossly inadequate to change this. It would need to be several orders of magnitude cheaper, and W&S would have to be built out to three or four times maximum grid demand, before they could get anywhere close to the consistently low emissions of a predominately nuclear grid like Ontario's or France's.

[Finishline42]

14. Europe's main advantage

If you look at the European grid they have a lot of inter-connected transmission lines which allows them to take advantage of renewables when they are there.

This year England went over 67 days without using coal for electricity generation.

Over the period of the coal-free run, renewable energy sources made up the biggest share of the mix, generating nearly 36 per cent of power, while gas provided around 33 per cent, and nuclear 21 per cent.

As recently as 2015, on many days of the year, coal contributed more than 50 per cent of the power used by the grid, and it still made up 25 per cent of the total power mix in 2016, according to records kept by Drax Electric Insights.

The first coal-free day was recorded in 2017, and until this month’s record, the previous longest period without coal was in May 2019 when coal power contributed nothing to the grid for two weeks.


https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/coal-free-power-uk-record-time-2020-how-long-renewable-energy-a9570891.html

Renewable energy is a process. Every year more comes on line. Every time a windmill or solar panel is brought online, it reduces the need to burn fossil fuel for 20-30 years.

The key in the US will be HVDC transmission lines and battery storage.