There’s no such thing as clean energy

https://medium.com/@ronan_51814/surprising-science-theres-no-such-thing-as-clean-energy-9f6f02081c0

by georgecmu • 6 years ago

14 16 6 years ago

This is the organization pushing this "research": https://www.ceres-science.com/index.html

I'll leave the hopefully scientifically literate crowd here to see how reputable they are. I skimmed the paper, it seems to be making a "there's no free lunch"/"renewables aren't magic free energy" so let's just keep using fossil fuels argument. None of the authors are economists, physicists, or climate scientists, yet they make assertions that are very much the domain of those experts. I expect better from the HN crowd.

aoesuthaoeusnh3• 6 years ago

Actually Ronan Connolly has a PhD in computational chemistry/polymer physics, has has published many "Climate Science" articles, such as :

- Comparing the current and early 20th century warm periods in China

- Northern hemisphere snow-cover trends (1967–2018): a comparison between climate models and observations

- Re-calibration of Arctic sea ice extent datasets using Arctic surface air temperature records

- How Much Human-Caused Global Warming Should We Expect with Business-As-Usual (BAU) Climate Policies? A Semi-Empirical Assessment

And much more, see: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=8JOBXYEAAAAJ

jackdeansmith2• 6 years ago

He runs this website which claims that CO2 doesn’t cause global warming: https://globalwarmingsolved.com/faq/#physics. Calling him anything more than a crank is extremely generous

gigel82• 6 years ago

Why are they not upfront about who is funding the research? A couple of Google searches later lead to interesting finds: try "Ronan Connolly Koch" or "Connolly Willie Soon funding".

I'm not saying that taking money from oil&coal companies (and hiding it) necessarily implies that the research is biased, I'm just saying to take it with a big grain of salt.

But even with all of that, if you look at the charts they still clearly show the total impact (direct + indirect) of solar and wind is an order of magnitude lower than coal and oil.

aoesuthaoeusnh3• 6 years ago

Why are they not upfront about who is funding the research?

They don't need to be upfront about their funding because they know it's the first thing that ecologists will search on google to build an ad personam as we can see in the comments here /s

At least, someone's paying research that does not go in the mainstream direction, so we can be thankful for that which protects us from an unilateral debate: given that politics fund the mainstream research with the IPCC.

The total impact (direct + indirect) of solar and wind is an order of magnitude lower than coal and oil.

Same goes for ROI: solar and wind is an order of magnitude lower than coal and oil.

FirstAuthor7• 6 years ago

We didn't need incentives to find what we found by reading the research. We reviewed the literature very thoroughly, seeking divergent opinions on every aspect, and we have presented our findings transparently. We recommend you read the full paper for yourself, and dig into the references where necessary, so that you can make up your own mind. We think you will find it very readable and thought-provoking. Enjoy!

FirstAuthor7• 6 years ago

I am the first author on this paper. Nobody paid me anything to write this paper. In fact, it cost me money, because I had to take time off to work on it.

I'll tell you what to take with a pinch of salt: allegations that the authors are taking money from vested interests. We are not.

Rather than searching for spurious grounds to discredit the authors, I recommend you read the paper for yourself. With the help of my co-authors, I searched the literature meticulously to investigate every aspect of the review, and we have cited our sources in the usual way - 255 previous papers, mostly peer-reviewed. By all means, read critically. Take all the research in this field with a heaped spoon of salt, because there may be bias in every direction. But there's no escaping the need to read the research literature if you want to assess the evidence for yourself. I hope you find it as intriguing as I did.

tommykins2• 6 years ago

Holy Moly. For the first time ever I'm nearly an expert on something on HN.

There's quite a few arguments in here which run the gamut from 'interesting point that people who work on clean energy think about a lot' to 'very close to, if not a straw man argument'

There are some really interesting micro-biome studies that show there are local effects that are caused by wind turbines and solar arrays, I don't think I've ever seen a study which has said that the amount of carbon produced by these local changes in biomes is anywhere near the carbon saved by the move to renewables.

The REE exploration problem is also a good point on current EVs, but there's a good chance that new batteries will have no Cobalt in them at all (as an aside, the reason that companies are looking to migrate from it has little to do with the scarcity, but more to do with the fact that it's largely mined in very, very poor ways, I'm looking at you, Glencore).

The point about intermittency and "Wind and solar promoters need to start admitting that they are not capable of providing this type of continuous and on-demand electricity supply on a national scale that modern societies are used to" is not an overly well made one, there are a bunch of ways around this and it's one of the biggest challenges being faced today in the industry. HDR, battery technology have come a long way in the last little bit.

Anyways, take the article with a grain of salt as you should do with everything.

aoesuthaoeusnh3• 6 years ago

I don't think I've ever seen a study which has said that the amount of carbon produced by these local changes in biomes is anywhere near the carbon saved by the move to renewables.

Right, but I think you have seen a lot of propaganda about wind & solar being "clean energy" when in reality it's an inflated expectation.

In reality, we're still measuring the negative impact of these offshore wind farms on the climate.

there are a bunch of ways around this and it's one of the biggest challenges being faced today in the industry

I'm non native sorry, but confused as of how this could be "one of the biggest challenges" if "there are a bunch of ways around this".

Anyways, take the article with a grain of salt as you should do with everything.

The article bases on what's happening now and not on what might happen when the battery technology will pass a major milestone at industrial level or whatnot.

I think the essence of the article is that renewables are not the silver bullet many hoped it would be.

We seem falling from the top of the "peak of inflated expectations" (from the Hype Cycle).

tommykins2• 6 years ago

I'm not sure I'm quite following your train of thought, is the implication that offshore wind farms are going to have a greater negative effect on the planet than our current energy mix? I don't think anyone who works in this field from a technical level has an opinion that you can plonk down a solar panel farm and have a net zero effect on the local environment, but there's a bunch of examples of where there's been an accidental positive feedback loop that's occurred with solar panels in certain regions. This is specifically not cited by the article.

Apologies for the lack of clarity in that sentence, there is a recognition that intermittence is one of the biggest challenges that is currently faced by the power grid in it's current form. But we actually have ways to get around this currently, it's just very rare for them to be put in place (there's also some large omissions from the current state of the South Australian power grid that is mentioned).

We still have to explore for coal as an industry, too. So should we presume that the moment our current coal reserves run out that this is the end of all coal power?

No.

Anyways, no-one has really made a case for renewables being a silver-bullet who works in energy policy, I would not be inclined to use this article as a touchstone for the problems the industry faces.

FirstAuthor7• 6 years ago

I don't think I've ever seen a study which has said that the amount of carbon produced by these local changes in biomes is anywhere near the carbon saved by the move to renewables.

I recommend you read the paper for a review of research evidence that this might be true for large-scale wind energy installations.

4.2.4. Increase in Biological CO2 Emissions Caused by Wind Farms

"Typically, the annual emissions from soil respiration are roughly balanced by the absorption of CO2 via photosynthesis ... However, the total emissions from soil respiration are known to increase with temperature. Estimates of the exact rates of increase vary between studies, and there are many complexities in extrapolating from the results of e.g., a mid-latitude forest or a tropical region to global estimates ... Nonetheless, most studies suggest that the warming of soils generally leads to an increase in biological CO2 emissions from soil respiration. Therefore, given that the global CO2 emissions from soil respiration are an order of magnitude greater than anthropogenic emissions, we suggest that the increase in biological CO2 emissions caused by wind farms warming the night-time soil temperatures could potentially be similar in magnitude to the reduction in anthropogenic CO2 emissions from the wind farms."

https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/18/4839/htm

lazylizard• 6 years ago

ok but there surely is "cleaner energy"?

FirstAuthor7• 6 years ago

Yes, there is cleaner energy. For example, natural gas is cleaner than coal, and nuclear is cleaner than biomass.

See Table 2.

There’s no such thing as clean energy

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