The World Can Be Powered by Alternative Energy

[ReeferMadness]

This is not a new study. It came out several years ago and has been thoroughly debunked as unworkable nonsense because it grossly underestimates the true cost of connecting widely dispersed intermittent power sources to the grid. Some of the criticisms can be found here: http://nucleargreen.blogspot.ca/search?q=jacobson

I think that everyone should open your link and note the source: Charles Barton

And then check out the credentials of the guy he's criticizing: Mark Jacobson

So, for the folks at home, let's do a side-by-side comparison

Mark Jacobson

Occupation

Professor, Civil & Environmental Engineering at Stanford

Education

B.S. Civil Engineering, M.S. Environmental Engineering, MA Economics, PhD, Environmental Science

BA Philosophy, MA Philosophy, work towards PhD in History, other study in couselling, psychology and sociology

Other Positions

Director, Atmosphere/Energy Program

Senior Fellow, Woods Institute for the Environment

Senior Fellow, Precourt Institute for Energy

Achievements

125 peer reviewed articles

American Meteorological Society Award

Numerous scientific discoveries (see link)

Charles Barton

Occupation

“unoccupied”

Education

BA Philosophy, MA Philosophy, work towards PhD in History, other study in counselling, psychology and sociology

Other Positions

?????????????

Achievements

"mentioned by the Wall Street Journal"

father was a reactor chemist

Way to go, TimG. You really found a winner here.

Barton mentions that Dr. Jacobson hasn't responded to his criticisms. Gee, I wonder why.

Edited August 20, 2013 by ReeferMadness

[TimG]

I think that everyone should open your link and note the source:

A valid argument is a valid argument no matter who the source. Your pathetic attempt credential-ism is simply a excuse to avoid responding to the main flaws in Jacobson's argument:

1) It attempts to deal with the reliability problem by building 5 times the capacity that would be required for conventional sources. This means at least 5 times the cost for any given energy capacity (assuming renewables are equal cost per MW which they are not). There is no planet where spending 5 times as much for a given amount of energy makes sense.

2) Even with the massive overbuilding wind and solar still are not reliable and Jacobson's argument is people should stop expecting power when they want it and turn off their air conditioners or heaters if the wind is not blowing or the sun is not shining. IOW - Jacobson's solution requires that the standard of living be lowered. It would be a lot less compelling if he had put that little detail in the headline.

Lastly, I gave you two references. You ignored the second which talked about the absolutely massive footprint required for wind and solar. A footprint that is so large that there is zero chance of developing the public consensus required to support such a build out.

Final comment: There are many idiots with credentials and there are many extremely informed people with no credentials. If you think that the credentials matter in this case then you have to support your claim with an actual "argument". Simply posting credentials and saying an argument should be ignored simply shows you have no argument.

Edited August 20, 2013 by TimG

[ReeferMadness]

A valid argument is a valid argument no matter who the source. Your pathetic attempt credential-ism is simply a excuse to avoid responding to the main flaws in Jacobson's argument:

Credentialism? You sound a little sore that I found out your guy has no training, no experience, no education, no nothing. Credentials do matter because neither you nor I have any independent means of verifying the claims. If you have 2 people saying 2 different things, who are you going to believe? In your case, it's the guy who tells you what you already believe.

Final comment: There are many idiots with credentials and there are many extremely informed people with no credentials. If you think that the credentials matter in this case then you have to support your claim with an actual "argument".

You think credentials don't matter? If you have stabbing stomach pains, who do you go see? Your butcher? Your barber?

No, not your doctor! That would be credentialism!

[TimG]

Credentialism? You sound a little sore that I found out your guy has no training, no experience, no education, no nothing

I have no idea who he is and I don't give a damn. That site was the first one I found with google that spelled out the counter arguments. Others have said the same thing.

I also notice that you yet again refuse to address the actual arguments made which simply proves you dont have any and you are using this as an excuse to avoid addressing them. This intellectually dishonest tactic used by greens all of the time. It is dishonest because greens will call qualified people "industry stooges" whenever their opinion goes against what greens want to believe.

Why don't you try addressing the arguments made?

Credentials do matter because neither you nor I have any independent means of verifying the claims.

Except your guy is not any more qualified. He has a degree in civil engineering. He knows nothing about power generation and distribution (unless he is self taught). The only credentials that I would consider to be authoritative on this topic is an electrical engineer with experience building power generation systems. And even then the bias introduced by the engineers way of making money would have to accounted for. Edited August 20, 2013 by TimG

[ReeferMadness]

I have no idea who he is and I don't give a damn. That site was the first one I found with google that spelled out the counter arguments. Others have said the same thing.

I'm upgrading the wiring in my house. My interior decorator made a better argument than the electrician so I'm going to ask her to do the wiring.

[TimG]

I'm upgrading the wiring in my house. My interior decorator made a better argument than the electrician so I'm going to ask her to do the wiring.

If you want. You are the one turning to a civil engineer for advice on electrical power systems simply because the civil engineer is telling you what you want hear. It makes as much sense as letting your interior designer do your electrical work.

There are lots of quack doctors out there and simply being doctor does not mean they should be believed. Being able to look beyond the credentials for evidence of actual knowledge is an essential life skill.

Your response illustrates why it is largely a waste of time to provide references to sources to greens. If I had not provided a link and simply posted the critiques as my opinion you would have been forced to respond to the substance of the argument instead of disparaging the credentials of the source (I guess you could have disparaged my credentials but that would make you look even more idiotic for posting a comment on a public board and refusing to participate in the discussion that followed).

I will ask again: why don't you respond to my concrete criticisms of the paper? What was the point of posting the paper if you are not willing to actually discuss its merits?

Edited August 20, 2013 by TimG

[dre]

I don't find your figures credible since I separate support for R&D from policies designed to force the adoption of an uneconomic source of power before it is ready.

Thats exactly what was done with both nuclear and oil. We arent talking about R&D here we are talking about public utilities building plants and commercializing power, and government agencies harvesting fuel.

The fact is those industries got way more help from the government getting started than any renewables.

[dre]

If you want. You are the one turning to a civil engineer for advice on electrical power systems simply because the civil engineer is telling you what you want hear. It makes as much sense as letting your interior designer do your electrical work.

A 12 yearold could do residential electrical. Its the easiest trade Iv tried so far... The hardest part is drilling the holes without spraining your wrists from bite. Its kinda fun, mindless work.

[TimG]

Thats exactly what was done with both nuclear and oil.

No it was not. You are basically making stuff up to to justify what you want to believe.

With oil, subsidies were for exploration which resulted in companies finding resources within a governments territory that would generate royalty revenue. If a source was found but not commercially viable it was left alone until the market justified exploitation. Once the market conditions were right private capital was used to fund exploitation and governments earned money that allowed them to recoup their investment.

For example, tight oil fracking was developed in the 80s with government subsidies. It was not really used commercially until the 2000s when market conditions were good enough to attract private capital. If governments used the mentality that you seem to think makes sense for renewables they would have set targets for tight oil extraction back in the 80s and paid oil companies premium prices if they extracted the stuff. Such policies would have been absurd and they are no less absurd if you replace tight oil with renewables.

With nuclear a similar story played out. Governments subsidized nuclear facilities for R&D and (in the case of Ontario) saddled rate payers with huge debts as a result of poorly managed programs but these programs were quietly shelved once the dubious economics became clear. But in places with limited alternatives (Japan or France) nuclear power subsidies dropped fairly quickly to a couple cents per kWh which is peanuts compared to 20 year contracts for renewables at vastly inflated prices.

On top of that nuclear, unlike renewables, completely eliminates the need for fossil fuel plants so paying a price to eliminate dependency on imported fuel makes good public policy in places like Japan and France. Renewables, OTOH, increase the need for imported fossil fuels because all renewable capacity must be matched with backup fossil fuel capacity to cover the times when the wind does not blow or the sun does not shine.

Edited August 20, 2013 by TimG

[GostHacked]

All I am reading here is that the renewables wont be big unless someone can make lots of money off it. If all this climate change is a real problem, then money should not be an issue right? We can do the right thing, but doing the right thing is not always profitable. Very very sad.

[dre]

No it was not. You are basically making stuff up to to justify what you want to believe.

No you are just wrong. Both oil and nuclear have recieved massive ammounts of non r&d subisides. Hell, in most countries early oil production was completely subsidized and exploration and extraction were handled by crown corporations. Not only did the government manage R&D but they had to do virtually everything.

Even today national oil companies control the majority of the worlds supply.

Same goes for nuclear. The the government has been on the hook for the entire fuel cycle and had to build most of the early reactors themselves which were owned and operated by public utilities.

The government went way beyond R&D and in fact owned and operated these ventures backed by tax dollars. A differerent approach is being tried with renewables. Instead of the government and public utilities building wind and solar farms, they are trying to get the private sector to do it by providing a variety of incentives which are miniscule to what conventional energy sources recieved early on in the development/commercialization cycle.

So really in terms of government intervention you just could not be more wrong. The government is taking in fairly passive role in the development of renewables. For the most part they arent extracting resources themselves through crown corporations and gse's as was done by national petroleum companies with oil. They arent building and operating plants entirely with public money and managing the commercialization and delivery to the end user like public utilities did with nuclear.

Its almost like you are claiming that the private sector commercialized oil, and nuclear with "just a little bit of help early on" from the government. This is just an absolute falsehood. These industries were carried to maturity by national petro companies, and public utilities that were run like government ministries, and funded by the tax payer.

Its remarkable that someone could have such strong opinions about the energy sector while having so little knowledge of how it has worked.

Edited August 20, 2013 by dre

[TimG]

If all this climate change is a real problem, then money should not be an issue right? We can do the right thing, but doing the right thing is not always profitable.

"Doing the right thing" because of climate change does NOT imply that we must use renewables. We could completely decarbonize our power supply with nuclear for a manageable cost but there are too many people like you who are obsessively paranoid about small risks.

IMO - doing the right thing would mean using nuclear and since you are part of the problem you should look in a mirror before you whine about how people refuse to use renewables because they cost too much.

[FutureCanadian]

"Manageable cost" of nuclear. That just made my day.

[FutureCanadian]

The US subsidizes almost every segment from ground to market for fossil fuels by an amount of $4B a year. All distortion of the true cost and big handouts to major donors. Doesn't this sound familiar? Maybe we should just all agree that everyone has their hand in the cookie jar?

[FutureCanadian]

It is worth noting however that subsidies renewable have an ending point because there is no need for exploration or "fuel". Fossil fuels however will always need subsidization. Yuck.

[dre]

All I am reading here is that the renewables wont be big unless someone can make lots of money off it. If all this climate change is a real problem, then money should not be an issue right? We can do the right thing, but doing the right thing is not always profitable. Very very sad.

Its really tough to say and it depends what developments we see in both new technologies and old, what progress is made in tackling some of the challenges presented by these technologies. And it depends on what happens with conventional energy prices as well.

One thing thats clear is that their is a considerable commitment to it in both the private and public sectors and a lot of smart people working on it.

[cybercoma]

If you have 2 people saying 2 different things, who are you going to believe? In your case, it's the guy who tells you what you already believe.

I have no idea who he is and I don't give a damn.

Well, yeah, Tim. That's exactly what RM said.

[GostHacked]

"Manageable cost" of nuclear. That just made my day.

And I'll take elevated CO2 levels over elevated radiation levels any day.

"Doing the right thing" because of climate change does NOT imply that we must use renewables. We could completely decarbonize our power supply with nuclear for a manageable cost but there are too many people like you who are obsessively paranoid about small risks.

Nuclear is not an option for replacement.

IMO - doing the right thing would mean using nuclear and since you are part of the problem you should look in a mirror before you whine about how people refuse to use renewables because they cost too much.

Doing the right thing means getting away from nuclear as well. I don't think we need another 3-Mile Island, or a Chernobyl, or a Fukushima incident to happen again to remind us of the issues nuclear energy provides. Where you storing all the spent fuel rods again? IN the case of Fukushima all the spent fuel rods from Reactor 3 are littering the prefecture and beyond. They found parts of fuel rods miles away from the site. Going 'nuclear' seems to have a different meaning to some.

Nuclear is not a green energy. The misconception is that it since it does not pump out Co2, it can be considered green technology. This is the wrong line of thinking. I'll dump a barrel of spent fuel on your doorstep. I am sure you won't mind the very low levels of radiation coming from the barrel.

Part of my goal is to convert my future house to partial renewable energies. I'll do what I can afford. Currently with renting an apartment, it does not allow me the opportunity of using any renewable sources of energy. So no matter how much I look in the mirror, my present situation does not facilitate this ideology.

We also have a problem with this and new housing developments. Single homes are outpaced by multiplexes. Condos, row homes, apartment buildings, are going up all over then place. The beauty of condos, you get to pay for a house that has no yard or in some cases a roof. Which provides you zero opportunity to engage in renewable technologies. I am starting to see a small shift where new apartment buildings and large buildings are implementing some renewables like solar panels for example.

It's all about money and you know it. That is the reason many of these technologies than can really be beneficial to us are being kept down. Once people get self sustainable to a point, you no longer need to depend on these oil companies. And by that you are saving money and not giving it to oil tycoons and corrupt governments. Simply put, it's a racket.

It's like having a garden to mitigate the cost of high groceries and dependance on the grocery distribution system.

These companies WANT you to be dependent on them. This demands a mental shift on everyone on the collective scale. IF we don't take action ourselves, you can bet that the gravy train will keep on running. This facist-like relationship between government and large international and multinational corporations is the biggest hurdle in bringing us into a new era of energy creation and use. CEOs turn politicians and back again after they lobbied for changes in their favour.

It's been proven that cars can run on water with some tweaking. So, why don't we see this everywhere if it eliminates the need for foreign AND domestic oil. Reducing the CO2 footprint. Not to mention no carbon MONOXIDE out exhaust pipes on vehicles.

The technology is there, the demand is there. However the money is not there.. to be made that is. Worried about cost? How much higher can gasoline go before you say 'hmm something needs to change'. We don't have to give up this lifestyle with new renewable technologies. We can actually have more of it if we do.

[dre]

Theres lots of focus on storage and intermittency when it comes to renewables...

This is an interesting attempt to solve some of those issues...

Thats a seg IV hybrid plant. Theres a few prototypes in operation now, and plans to build a bunch more around the world. It has a number of advantages over PV. The plants are natgas solar hybrids that use the sun to heat oil in the day time, and natural gas to heat oil at night. Its a 400 MW plant that produces power 24/7 and uses the sun for 72% of its generation and natgas for the other 28%. It can also store a pretty large ammount of power by storing the heated oil in a large insulated vessel, which can then be used to create steam to power a conventional steam turbine when needed.

[TimG]

Well, yeah, Tim. That's exactly what RM said.

Yep. But in his case it was a pathetic excuse to avoid addressing a criticism. Frankly, it is quite absurd that people post on a public forum and then claim they don't have to address responses because they decide the responder is not qualified to comment. If you are not prepared to address comments then don't bother to post. Edited August 20, 2013 by TimG

[TimG]

It's all about money and you know it. That is the reason many of these technologies than can really be beneficial to us are being kept down. Once people get self sustainable to a point, you no longer need to depend on these oil companies. And by that you are saving money and not giving it to oil tycoons and corrupt governments. Simply put, it's a racket.

If the technology costs too much then it has no benefit. Our entire economy requires energy - that cannot or will not change. A few zealots would be willing to accept a reduction in standard of living to satisfy their religious quest for 'sustainability' but the majority will not. Society will change its energy sources when and only when alternatives to fossil fuels provide better value for less money.

These companies WANT you to be dependent on them.

So do governments. Why is there any difference?

It's been proven that cars can run on water with some tweaking.

Nonsense. Fuel cells are extremely expensive and the process of separating hydrogen from the oxygen is either too slow to be useful or extremely energy intensive.

[TimG]

No you are just wrong. Both oil and nuclear have recieved massive ammounts of non r&d subisides. Hell, in most countries early oil production was completely subsidized and exploration and extraction were handled by crown corporations. Not only did the government manage R&D but they had to do virtually everything.

You need to learn some history. Oil was made commercially viable by private US corporations. Once they had demonstrated that there were huge amounts of money to be made governments jumped on the bandwagon and often kept private corporations out because they wanted to keep the profits for themselves. If governments ran loss making oil corporations it is because governments are generally incompetent at such things - it has nothing to do with oil needing government support.

The one place were government subsidies made any difference when it came to finding ways to get at oil in problematic locations (oil sands, offshore drilling, fracking and tight oil). But in those cases it was pure R&D that went no where until the tech/oil price made the deposits commercially viable. No government ever engaged in an across the board scheme to pay oil corporations to extract as much oil as they can and sell it at a loss - yet this is what every government in the world is doing with renewable power today.

Its remarkable that someone could have such strong opinions about the energy sector while having so little knowledge of how it has worked.

Actually, you are the one who is shamelessly twisting history to fit the narrative that you want to believe. Edited August 21, 2013 by TimG

[cybercoma]

Yep. But in his case it was a pathetic excuse to avoid addressing a criticism. Frankly, it is quite absurd that people post on a public forum and then claim they don't have to address responses because they decide the responder is not qualified to comment.

Evaluating sources is important, Tim. Most people don't have time to get over a decade of post-secondary education in environmental science to understand what's going on, so they rely on certain indicators of credibility. For instance, your doctor is a more credible source of medical advice than the bartender at the local pub. Oh sure, the bartender may be correct in his assessment. But if that bartender is giving you the opposite advice of your doctor, chances are you should probably believe the guy who makes it his living to study medicine. The credibility of sources is important when dealing with complex issues for which we don't have the time to study for years on end ourselves.

[TimG]

Evaluating sources is important, Tim. Most people don't have time to get over a decade of post-secondary education in environmental science to understand what's going on, so they rely on certain indicators of credibility.

If someone is in that situation then they should not be posting on a public forum or at least, they should simply acknowledge that they cannot respond because they don't have the knowledge. Posting a response that says 'you are wrong because you have no qualifications even though I cannot explain why you are wrong' is extremely childish and goes against the entire point of a discussion forum.

Contrast RM's response with Kimmy's on the Dark Matter thread - Pliny is clearly wrong from the perspective of anyone who has studied physics but Kimmy made a valiant effort to explain why he is wrong in her own words. That is what a discussion forum is about.

Edited August 20, 2013 by TimG

[FutureCanadian]

So we are ok with subsidizing fossil fuels companies that are PRIVATE and PROFITABLE and pollute freely to the tune of a little north of $4B/yr in the US alone but we are not ok with subsidizing for renewables?