Renewable energy - Thoughts?

[Iormlund]

There are certain technical hurdles that preclude renewable-based grids except in extreme cases (sparsely populated mountainous regions like BC or Norway).

For one, you can't transport energy that far without incurring in great costs.

Wind, which is otherwise promising, tends to introduce artifacts in the grid. It works well while piggybacking on a robust system, but as wind gains share it gets more and more difficult to clean things up. Think of this phenomenon as bad singers in a chorus. A few might get drowned by the rest. But as there are more and more bad singers and less good ones, things get ugly. Denmark can rely on its neigbours, and last I heard HVDC links were being built to isolate offshore farms.

Solar is largely uneconomical except for remote applications.


A nice mix would be nuclear to cover baseload, 20-30% wind, and hydro (where irrigation doesn't have priority over generation) and gas for peak/backup.

2)  Because of the lack of certainty of supply associated with many alternative energy sources they need to be subsidized in some manner in order to make them economically feasible.

Yes, and no. The main problem is that we are, in fact, already subsidizing fossil fuel generation by not taking into account the effects of pollution on agribussiness, healthcare and such (in Spain also coal subsidies). The alternatives cannot compete with that. They shouldn't have to. If coal/gas had to pay their full cost (via tax since there's no other way) we'd find that other sources would be competitive all of a sudden.

One up the road from me is Spanish owned.

Gamesa?

[The Minsky Moment]

1) Unless you live in a jurisdiction that has hydro power (like the paradise which is British Columbia) you will probably always need to rely on some form of carbon based generation.  The problem is that the power needs to be generated when it is required.  If you have a wind farm that generates power in off peak periods that is not going to help you very much.  As a result a carbon tax will simply make energy more expensive without solving the problem.

Making energy more expensive (and reflect its real costs) is a good thing.  For starters, it increases the return on efforts to use energy more efficiently and conserve use.  And Canada does have alternatives to fossil fuels, including nuclear and wind.  The peak power problem could be solved in part by improvements in energy storage technology, or you could simply have a situation where usage in peak periods is more expensive, which (again) seems to me good policy and good economics.

Nuclear is an answer to the problem of certainty of power generation.  But the resistance to it has little to do with the cost and so a carbon tax wont help that side of the debate.

It will clarify the costs of opposition, but you are probably right.

[Ed Anger]

I priced solar for my home a few years back and it just wasn't worth the expense.

Don't participate in the process in order to drive down costs or anything.

I'm not made of money.

[The Minsky Moment]

Agree with Joan.

How do you calculate an appropriate carbon tax?

In theory, you measure the negative externalities and set a tax rate sufficient to internalize those costs on a per unit basis. 

Even if you overshoot high, it isn't a huge problem because:
(a) the carbon taxes are substitutes for other forms of taxation that are econimically distorting in some way, and
(b) we are already imposing economic equivalents of partial carbon taxes in regulatory form, for example through the automobile fuel economy standards, and carbon taxes are far more efficient ways of achieving similar ends.

[Neil]

Wind energy is evil.  The mass slaughter of entire group of living things is unacceptable.

[Eddie Teach]

Wind energy is evil.  The mass slaughter of entire group of living things is unacceptable.

I'm sure the termites in your house agree with you.

[Neil]

Wind energy is evil.  The mass slaughter of entire group of living things is unacceptable.

I'm sure the termites in your house agree with you.

My house is made out of concrete, and I live too far north for your insectoid bullshit.

[Grey Fox]

Wind energy is evil.  The mass slaughter of entire group of living things is unacceptable.

I'm sure the termites in your house agree with you.

Except for Southern Ontario, we don't have that plague.

[Eddie Teach]

My house is made out of concrete, and I live too far north for your insectoid bullshit.

Superior creatures kill off hostile ones instead of running from them. You're getting soft.

[Neil]

When the Americans tried to invade, we killed them.  LOL.

[Eddie Teach]

I don't recall an American invasion of Alberta, unless you're talking about that one guy who brought his gun to the stampede.

[merithyn]

Wind energy is evil.  The mass slaughter of entire group of living things is unacceptable.

Except that I don't think that's much of a problem anymore. I know it was a major concern with the early wind turbines, but they've since made adjustments. At least, the wind fields around here rarely kill any birds anymore despite the huge number that fly through still.

[CountDeMoney]

Wind energy is evil.  The mass slaughter of entire group of living things is unacceptable.

Except that I don't think that's much of a problem anymore. I know it was a major concern with the early wind turbines, but they've since made adjustments. At least, the wind fields around here rarely kill any birds anymore despite the huge number that fly through still.

Changing the blades and turbines don't really change migratory patterns.  Bless your little heart.

[merithyn]

Changing the blades and turbines don't really change migratory patterns.  Bless your little heart.

Migratory birds have never been at risk. They fly far too high. It's the local birds that are at the greatest risk, but for the last four to five years the local ornithologists at UIUC haven't found many deaths around the wind fields. One of them (on NPR, of course) said that there are still the occasional corpses, but no more than are found on the highway or near electrical grids.

[Neil]

Because the bird population has been crushed.