Fracking

[Gnomatic]

Doesn't seem to be very popular on your side of the pond. But here in the US, specifically Texas and North Dakota, the practice has been wholly embraced leading to staggering headlines like the one below.

U.S. becomes net exporter of oil for first time in nearly 70 years

If someone would have told me this would happen 10-15yrs ago I'd have said they were crazy. Getting oil out of shale formations was widely believed to be impossible. Maybe it'll prove to be unsustainable, but as of today the US surpassed both Saudi Arabia and Russia to become the largest oil producer in the world.(natural gas too)

[greybeard]

Well done USA!

Fracking's popular with those who think with their brains rather than their emotions. Like the US we HAVE to become self sufficient in fuel and our large shale gas deposits will help. Lots of opposition from the Greens and other disrupters who think they're saving the planet or just don't want UK to be successful. The Brexit shambles has shown there to be a disappointing and surprisingly large number of the latter.

[Burgerman]

Well the lefty greens are just another form of socialism. They push the global warming and any other possible thing to take money from taxes to waste on trying to save the planet from their made up scare stories.
Same as the riots in France are about. Making people poorer to push their CO2 targets bullshit.
And in the UK our fuel costs a fortune, they shut all the coal stations down and replaced them with intermittent super expensive windmills, while subsidizing anything green with our own taxes heavily.
Trump thinks thats all bollox and I do too. The difference is he has the ball to do something about it. While all the lefties cry.

Just so that you know, for decades now the idiots in the EU and UK have been ripped off in the cause of reducing C02 output. Causing a worse standard of living, and problems for business such as the closing of steel plants etc due to the direct fuel increase costs. And as expected, this year was by far the highest CO2 output of any previous year. As has been the case since the industrial revolution. So thats working well...

[Gnomatic]

Don't get me wrong, I like renewable energy sources too. And while some complain that renewables get subsidies, well the oil and gas industries gets lots of subsidies too. But I'm okay with both.

And then Trump. Trump likes to frame energy(specifically coal) in terms of jobs. Well, if energy jobs in the US are the primary concern, then solar needs pushed more. In fact, here in the US, the solar industry employs more people than the coal, oil and natural gas industries. COMBINED.

Coal specifically, is dying in the US, and Trump is not more powerful than the laws of economics. More coal plants in the US closed in the first 8 weeks of Trump's admin than Obama's first four years in office. Coal is simply noncompetitive with cheap abundant fracked natural gas. If fact, nat gas pipelines in the US are saturated to the point where new supply(a byproduct of fracking for shale oil) gets burned off as waste simply because the pipelines necessary to support bringing it to market aren't being built fast enough.

[Burgerman]

And then Trump. Trump likes to frame energy(specifically coal) in terms of jobs. Well, if energy jobs in the US are the primary concern, then solar needs pushed more. In fact, here in the US, the solar industry employs more people than the coal, oil and natural gas industries. COMBINED.

Directly yes. Its indirectly where coal, oil made not only jobs but everything! It was cheap energy that drove the industrial revolution, and most of the planet out of abject grinding poverty, cold, desease, and that doubled lifespans, increased leisure time, decreased suffering and desease and that allows the shelves to be full of food, clean water, feeds 7 billion on the planet and produce products and wealth. And still does. Yet the liberals, lefties, greenies are all taught to demonize it, its a religion.

Solar, is not that. And neither is wind. Neither of those can do that. Its HUGELY too expensive, and doesn't work at night, in short winter hours for 4 months of the year, and wind too only works if its windy. Theres many hundreds of square miles of windmills out at sea here - visible from the coast. They cost a fortune. Most of the time they are stationary. And the rest seem to be corroding at a highly accelerated rate. They are lasting about 10 years only with serious and expensive maintenance. Employing an army on this, isn't profitable, its just more expense for businesses and consumers with added fuel costs. Its paid for out of added taxes on gas, oil, vehicles, road fuel, and VAT. Or a reduction in living standards and an increase in people no longer employed due to shrinking industry.

Even with our country heavily pushing (subsidizing) solar, for 20 year, and around 1/3rd of all houses having solar, and many acres of solar farms, due to the gov paying much more than its worth per kwh, we have this:
UK solar PV installed capacity at the end of 2017 was 12.8 GW, representing a 3.4% share of total electricity generation. The all-time peak generation from photovoltaic s was 9.34 GW on 14 May 2018.

And of course in winter its negligible. And after we all buy EV cars, we will need to generate at least 3x more electricity than today. And wind adds less...

[Burgerman]

And the above only talks about electricity. Heating homes uses way more energy than the amount of electricity generated. And thats all oil, gas, and coal other than one or two percent using old electrical storage heaters etc from the 60s and 70s...

I am all for renewable too. But they must compete on their own merit, not because the government subsidize them with your money to make them happen. Because thats senseless. We could have built half a dozen big nuclear plants instead of unreliable solar/wind. But no...

[sacharlie]

unreliable solar/wind.

It's OK. Just because the sun goes away every night doesn't mean that it will not return the next day. Don't worry.

[Gnomatic]

I don't hate fossil fuels.(I think my post makes that self evident) But renewable wind and solar prices have been dropping precipitously in the last couple decades. Can they be part of the needed energy mix? Yes. Can they replace fossil fuels in the near future? Not close. Math says so.

Coal just isn't competitive now here in the US. Thats okay. We are literally producing more nat gas than we can use or have the infrastructure to export. So Trump or no Trump the coal industry here is going to fade.

In 2014, OPEC+ Russia tried to knock the newly fledged US shale industry out. They turned on the pumps , betting they could endure more pain than the new kids in the US pumping from shale. Lots of shale drillers went bankrupt, and US oil production began to fall. But some survived. OPEC after two years of declining prices threw in the towel and cut production back. Oil prices rose and with it emerged Fracking 2.0. The drillers that survived became much more efficient. And I suspect that trend will continue.

[foghornleghorn]

unreliable solar/wind.

It's OK. Just because the sun goes away every night doesn't mean that it will not return the next day. Don't worry.

You live somewhere sunny though. Burgerman isn't wrong saying unreliable solar given his location.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_c ... e_duration

[Burgerman]

Right now, it IS bright and sunny. And around mid day. The total power from my 3kw solar system is as good as its going to get in December. And its doing 128 watts. Whats more it was weaker earlier today, and will be weaker in an hour.

So as far as actual generated kWh is concerned it is at best around 5% of April to Septembers figures daily.

And right now, my van is in the sun with its 50 watt panel on the roof. Its charging at 12mA... Instead of 3500mA in the summer. Why so bad? The angle of the sun is low. For half the year.

And as usual theres not a breath of wind. So wheres the towns power coming from? Not the multi billion pound wind farms off shore. Not solar. So Gas, Coal, Nuclear.

A quick calculation of the amount of solar panels needed to support the traffic on a typical motorway shows that you would need around 1/4 of a mile of panels, each side of the motorway in summer around noon. And around 10 miles in winter. Alongside every road. And all the traffic stops around 3 hours before dusk when the sun is too low. Its not practical.

[Gnomatic]

Geography matters a lot. And in addition to the shale oil revolution taking place in Texas, wind generation of electricity makes up 20% of Texas's grid, and thats growing.(it has 3X more wind generation than any other state) While solar energy makes up a tiny fraction of generation there now, its set to explode. Exxon Mobile of all companies has a 250MW solar project in the works. Thats just the beginning. In Texas, the wind blows strongest at night, so the the injection of solar there will provide some balance.

Texas is anything but an eco-friendly. Its sheer economics driving renewables there. Its a vast sunny, windy state. And producing more natural gas than it can handle. So lots of coal plants there seeing early retirements there. In a very Trumpy state. Coal cannot compete with renewables there anymore, let alone nat gas.

[Burgerman]

I have no problem with renewables at all. As long as they are used for the corrects reasons. I.e. that they make more sense economically WITHOUT being subsidized by the government or by other fuels. Because used in that way, they will help grow the economy. But I suspect that one way or another, even in sunny/windy Texas that there will be some distortion of the market somewhere to make renewables make sense.

Because on paper its never even close. Unless the oil or gas companies are being fined or taxed a Carbon cost or something.

Of course the winter in texas still makes less power, and the first non windy night then non of it generates a thing. So you must still have carbon powered generating capability one way or another regardless.

Texas, 2017, solar made only 0.47% of all the electrical power generated (wikipedia). And only 4% of all the renewable power generated. And it makes 5X less in winter than in summer.
Not exactly a huge amount. And of course non at night. Wind maybe makes more sense there.

[Burgerman]

Wind is more useful.

It generated 14.x percent recently, but again, its useless when calm. So you need 15% extra backup carbon power. Its also WAY more expensive than gas or oil generated power.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ ... _Chart.svg

The cost of wind, and solar keeps falling. By mid 2020 this is the projected cost of all the methods used in Texas (this presumes the cost of oil / gas keeps rising, and oil was expensive inn 2015 so this graph is now not showing the cheaper gas generation costs and its actually still dropping however de to shale) and wind is STILL 30% more expensive. And solar is now cheap. But it makes up 0.4% of the total so can be pretty much ignored for now unless you resurface texas:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ ... 015%29.png

So it has to be subsidized one way or another or it wouldn't get built. Gas or coal is cheaper. Theres some CO2 pricing adjustment going on somewhere. Maybe a carbon tax or something.

[Gnomatic]

From 2017.. Levalized cost, meaning after subsidies are removed.

In the next two years at least 4GW of solar generation is set to come online. Probably more, but according to Bloomberg, there are 4GW worth of solar projects in that state with grid tie in agreements already about to come online. And a crapton more where the grid tie piece is still being worked on.

[Burgerman]

Solar, 4gw? About to come online? The US has 440gw generating capability and uses 228gw average over a 24 hour day. So its like your car hitting a bug.

And that chart is using oil/gas price and prediction from nearly 3 years ago when there was less fracking, and so on. So its cheap non green fuel is twice as high as today's price. But coal still expensive.

Again solar has its place. Like on my roof. Because while it takes 7 to 8 years to pay its installation costs alone, it then makes free power as long as nothing fails like an inverter... That makes sense because we are talking about comparing solar costs to retail electricity prices rather than the industries 5 times cheaper kwh rates. A 3 kw solar system reduces my very careful usage power costs by around 1/3rd. And of course only in summer and only in the day. But is worth doing. Just about.

All of US:

[Gnomatic]

4GW watts was specific to Texas. Which will triple the state's tiny bit of solar generation it currently has. With a bunch more to follow in the the next decade. Wouldn't surprise me if it became the #1 solar generating state in the coming years.

What's the typical price of electricity in the UK per kwh? Its about ~$0.12/kwh in my area of the US.

[Burgerman]

17p or about 25 cents us. Because it is both subsidizing the renewables, as well as paying to close down the carbon options. And its crippling industry. For eg steel production. And all industry that needs power.Which is all of them! And bankrupting the user who is not able to afford products so also hurting the economy. Which is exactly why trump is right. Everyone's gas or power bill is doubled the "actual" cost. While we shut down all the cheap gas/coal stations. Marvelous no?

Do you know what good it does?
2018 was the highest C02 producing year by a large margin. As were the ten previous years. If the UK ceased to exist today, the chinese alone, would take up that slack and overtake it inside 9 months.

You have all this bollox to come when the lefty green socialist morons get back in.

[Gnomatic]

17p or about 25 cents us. Because it is both subsidizing the renewables, as well as paying to close down the carbon options.

Looks like the electricity tax you are paying on your side of the pond is subsidizing the deforestation happening on this side of the pond.

https://theecologist.org/2018/apr/16/ha ... hes-claims

[Burgerman]

Yes all perfectly true. And massively expensive. Still, since theres still very little real evidence that CO2 by humans actually does cause warming, or at least how much, and the fact that we still do NOT know if the actual effect of a warmer earth is worse or better in total sum, or even if it can be controlled anyway. And how much of it is natural regardless. We dont even know if the warming we see is significant. It only appears so if you cherry pick the very end bit of an extremely jagged curve! Take a look. http://www.wheelchairdriver.com/warming.pdf

And since the UK contributes less than 1% of the worlds EVER INCREASING C02 output, And is volunteering to bankrupt itself unilaterally. And if the UK was removed from the map entirely, the new coal plants coming online in china alone would make up the difference in 6 months, then you got to ask:

Why bother! And the fact that this doesn't ACTUALLY save C02 as shown in the link will not make any difference anyway. Since nobody has shown why warmer isn't better. During the brief warm periods, plants, animals, and humans flourished. And spread further north and south from the equator. And actually locked up more CO2.
Why cut down trees to save the planet... They are locking up carbon, and producing oxygen!

I may add. We were told several decades back, that in 20 years time the sea level would rise many meters. (A meter is a little over a yard). If I check the UKs hundreds of dock gate records, that have been recording the high and low tides for well over a century in the UK. I see that the rise in grimsby dock in 100 years has been 6mm. A 1/4 inch. It varies around the coast due to land moving, and measurement accuracy. But nowhere is greater than 13mm. And some are minus figures. All data averaged out means .4 to .8mm per year rise. So worst case, 4 inches per century. So colour me extremely unconvinced.