A Skeptic Looks at Alternative Energy

IEEE Spectrum ^ | July 2012 | Vaclav Smil

[neverdem]

It takes several lifetimes to put a new energy system into place, and wishful thinking can’t speed things along

In June 2004 the editor of an energy journal called to ask me to comment on a just-announced plan to build the world’s largest photovoltaic electric generating plant. Where would it be, I asked—Arizona? Spain? North Africa? No, it was to be spread among three locations in rural Bavaria, southeast of Nuremberg.

I said there must be some mistake. I grew up not far from that place, just across the border with the Czech Republic, and I will never forget those seemingly endless days of summer spent inside while it rained incessantly. Bavaria is like Seattle in the United States or Sichuan province in China. You don’t want to put a solar plant in Bavaria, but that is exactly where the Germans put it. The plant, with a peak output of 10 megawatts, went into operation in June 2005.

It happened for the best reason there is in politics: money. Welcome to the world of new renewable energies, where the subsidies rule—and consumers pay.

Without these subsidies, renewable energy plants other than hydroelectric and geothermal ones can’t yet compete with conventional generators. There are several reasons, starting with relatively low capacity factors—the most electricity a plant can actually produce divided by what it would produce if it could be run full time...

--snip--

This past March, stung by the news that Germans were paying the second highest electricity rates in Europe, the German parliament voted to cut the various solar subsidies by up to 29 percent...

--snip--

Some countries, such as France and Germany, have banned the technology for fear of possible environmental effects, but such concerns accompany all new energy technologies, even those touted for their environmental virtues...

[neverdem]

The Germans not only banned nukes besides cutting subsidies to renewable energy, they also banned fracking!

[hadaclueonce]

Paint it green and someone will give you money.

[KSCITYBOY]

Physics trumps politics.

[Ben Ficklin]

This is good assessment.

But, looking at the last paragraph"

"displace this system in a decade or two--or five"

In decades one and two the growth is mostly linear while decade 5 is mostly exponential. You can't get to the exponential growth of decade 5 until you actually start and go thru the early decades.

[xzins]

I’ve got some alternative energy that works in a way I want it to work. I want energy independence.

It’s an outdoor wood furnace to go along with acres of trees. Last year my heating and water heating bill for 2 buildings was zero.

Now I need a way to stop paying the electric company. I don’t want to pay the solar company for that privilege. I don’t want to pay anyone at all.

Decentralize power distribution. Do your own.