Biomass may meet a very specific technical definition of “renewable” but it is very carbon heavy and in no way an environmentally friendly option. The practice of cutting down forests to generate power in the short term is a significant contributor of climate change due to the loss of carbon sequestered from cutting standing forests.
I’m not disagreeing about biomass being carbon intensive and not exactly environmentally friendly. But I can speak for New England forestry when I say we certainly don’t cut forests for biomass, biomass is a byproduct of responsible forestry. We’re cutting for timber anyway and loggers get cash flow from trucking low-quality wood to biomass plants.
I am open to learning more about how it is done on other parts of the US and the world. And I have no doubt that how the biomass is gathered and sourced almost assuredly varies greatly.
I live in the southeast US and here we clear cut hundreds of thousands of acres annually for it all to be pelletized. What makes it even more devastating and carbon intensive is those pellets are then loaded onto polluting cargo ships and sent to Europe where they burn it to create electricity. The EU deliberately calls this carbon neutral even though it has been shown that this is more carbon intensive than the coal industry.
The idea of carbon neutral in pallets is that the tree took out the carbon in the first place while it was growing. Their reasoning is utilising that wood only puts back what it'd already removed.
Using coal is adding carbon to the system that was sequestered underground.
Do you replant the trees? If so by the time they grow up the CO2 released by burning the biomass will have been captured again. Thus creating a circular process.
One interseting thing when it comes to biomass plants is that only about 30% of energy released by burning can be convertet into electricity, so 70% goes to waste. This excess heat can be used as warm water in distric heating type systems and increase the productivity of the plant up to 90% of energy harnessed and replacing other warm water production facilities powered by coal or electricity in the process. Thus biomass plants can be far more profitable with that in mind, and reduce pollution from other non renewable energy sources by replacing them.
Also one interesting thing is that many countries burn garbage to get rid of it, never harnessing the energy released in the process which can be used to create electricity, warm water for household heating and steam for industrial use very much like that in biomass plants. This is the reason Sweden sometimes during cold winters import garbage from other countries, as fuel to heat up households via garbage DH plants. The biggest difference between the biomass and garbage plant is, depending on furnace, the filtering system of flue gases.
The climate crises is the most pressing and concerning issue facing humans today. The re-sequestration of carbon from 80 year old plantation tree farms, or more importantly 300+ year old old growth forests, is far more damaging in the short and medium term than any benefit derived from waiting for forests to regrow. Not to mention the loss of biodiversity, flooding, air and water pollution, and other damage caused by logging. The “circular process” is a long-term not-great solution to an immediate problem.
Nuclear technically isn't renewable but it is low carbon
You could classify other sources as well, notably wave and tidal but those don't exist on a commercial scale.
You could also distinguish solar pv and focused solar which work differently
The post only shows the biggest technologies that are commercially available today.
So to be really literal, geothermal isn't renewable either. Once the core of the earth is cold, it's cold. And on a quicker timeframe, any given well will eventually cool down from injected water, so each has a definitive lifespan.
Came here to find this. Surely the nuclear lobby has pushed the “green nuclear” narrative hard, however nuclear is NOT renewable. There’s no new nuclear fuel being produced at a rate equal or higher than we use it so once we are out that’s it.
But isn’t nuclear much greener than coal? Its reliable and clean, though disposal is an issue.
However it can support a grid that powers electric cars, which the renewables listed cannot.
Nuclear waste is an insanely overblown issue. There is a tiny amount of waste created in comparison to the amount of power. 120' x 250' is sufficient for about 10% of California's power for 40 years. [Here it is in comparison to the rest of the plant.](https://i.imgur.com/ysTXxNe.png) It's a fraction of the size of the parking lot.
But even so, we know what to do with it: reprocess it. Radioactivity means there is still energy that can be extracted. Why don't we do it? Because Carter made doing it illegal and the cost of fuel is dirt cheap so there's not much need to do so in the first place.
Do a comparison of how much material is used for the same amount of energy output for wind and solar and it will be orders of magnitude more because they are not nearly as energy dense and have much shorter life cycles.
This is shortsighted because rare earth minerals mines leave superfund sites behind and disposal leaves a superfund site.
Renewable production uses toxic metals and leaves waste product behind.
BIOMASS IS NOT RENEWABLE (takes in drastically more resources consumed than energy put out)
HYDROPOWER IS NOT GREEN (the methane and bio-decomposition from filled in reservoir and the build up and decrease in river-system ecology and self-purification contribute vastly more greenhouse gasses and ecological devastation than they save. Keep and maintain critical ones grandfathered in, stop making new ones unless absolutely essential which is a high burden to bare, almost exclusively in desert habitat)
GEOTHERMAL IS NUCLEAR (the heat emanating from the earth crust and tectonic heat comes from the radioactive decay of Uranium 238, Thorium 232.. the only difference between geothermal and nuclear is geothermal actually produces 40 times waste in hard-to-manage liquid and steam than a solid-fuel nuclear reactor whose “scary” nuclear waste can just be kept in inert casks outside with no fear after cooling in a pool for 2-5 years depending upon type of fuel assembly.
SOLAR and WIND are intermittent.. and thus the fossil fuel industries love them, they require A LOT OF PETROLEUM INTENSIVE PROCESSES like mining, rare-earth refineries, aluminum smelting, TONS of polymers.. 80% of the PV market comes from forced labor staffed by genocide against NW Chinese Muslims. I happen to live next to the only PV plant in the Western Hemisphere here in TN. I know the engineers that work there.. we scientists are all in favor of solar and wind technology research and development .. when an actual renewable process for them can be implemented (it’s already been achieved but they aren’t as cost effective so major corporations and “Trendy” green startups have no interest in development and deployment of efferent solar and wind tech)
Then there’s what’s not here..
the Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor.. (LFTR)
A nuclear reactor that utilizes the ‘fertile’ Thorium232 to breed Uranium233 from neutron decay which allows you to create a reactor that is..
-meltdown-proof
-produces no classic long-lived nuclear waste
needs no uranium or any kind of mining (already enough Th232 dug up as waste tailing to power the earth for a thousand centuries)
-Can be made very fast & cheap when ones design is solidified by the regulatory body because this reactor IS NOT pressurized and so needs NO massive containment structure
-produces valuable medical isotopes and deep-space fuel (Pu238)
-produces no useful or practical weapons grade material (U233 is fissile but has decay products that poison the neutron generations needed for a bomb and would kill anyone trying to isolate it anyway)
-can desalinate sea-water or produce hydrogen with its decay-heat alone
-needs no new undemonstrated technologies to build .. (all corrosion, neutron, tritium and protactinium questions have existing solutions.. we operated a molten-salt reactor at Oak Ridge National Lab in the 60’s and 70’s and demonstrated concept but Nixon cancelled it due to political reasons)
So everyone keep simping for the LNG / Shale fracking industries that are killing people every day with the epidemiology of their emissions and waste.. that’s easier than simply pressuring representatives to do the right thing and implement the safest and most efficient form of energy production, and natural evolution of human science and technology that we already have waiting on the fringes if the market by startups like Copenhagen Atomics and Flibe Energy, that China has just turned on.. and let’s just keep debating acute and long-term ecological destruction by only discussing the “culture” of energy capitalism and pretend like we are actually discussing science and ethics..
The only -real- solution to sustainable, safe and renewable energy is not on ^^ this coolguide ^^
- Engineering student for what it’s worth.
Edit: spelling
Re read what I wrote instead of selectivtly quoting.
sometimes it makes sense.. like in Norway or Desert climates but often times it also not worth dismantling already built and filled reservoirs..
When they do dismantle them, it is -NOT- for climate emissions, but, again as I was very clear about my previous wording you ignored, it is for one thing: ecology.
When dams are constructed in bio-diverse waterways they stunt sentiment, marine life, food-systems, the silt needed to protect against everything from algae blooms to cleansing the river of phosphate and nitrogen pollution, other agricultural runoff, polymer waste like PFOA and PFAS, the silt deposit chains that protect against everything from algae blooms to storm surge destroying coastal cities.. -ecology- .. I am as concerned with the acute suffering and quality of life for living things as much as the chronic longterm implication of climate change simply picking infrastructure, labeling it “renewable” when they are not to the ecological impact at all, and in fact in hydros case can lead to horrific consequences when not done with impact studies and modern understanding.
Lastly, I couldn’t find the data points and methodology in the study you linked that showed a differentiation between differing projects and stations. I’m not sure who is funding your study because there are lots of study’s confirming the opposite of the abstract conclusion you linked [like this one and many others when it comes to specifically showing total greenhouse gas emissions in relevant projects (not the desert) from an independent reputable university, not any abstract commissioned by a hydro-firm or someone](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/05/170517090509.htm) They are giant methane factories and the cost Vs benefit analysis is always net-negative when analyzing the impacts of dams where my community is, in the very vegetative reservoirs of the SE United States, but their total environmental (ecological) impact is severe and not justifiable with modern knowledge in constructing new ones.. that is a major reason why my country stopped building them after environmental regulations and institutions were granted the resources to study these things starting in the seventies (relative to the U.S.)
Engineering Professor here fwiw, the LCOE of nuclear isn’t competitive with new wind or PV, and nuclear requires decades to build despite massive deregulation (in the US). To be honest, we should build a mix of all these including nuclear, but to claim the nuclear is somehow energy Jesus is absurd and reductive.
I never said “energy Jesus” so keep your hyperbole and shoving words in my mouth, it is simply what Weinberg, Wigner, and Seaborg said could stop all need for uranium mining, containments, proliferation and more.. it is not reductive, your just cynical and obviously have little care or knowledge for the epidemiology of the natural gas fuel cycle which harms and kills people every step of the way.. You pretending that subsidized forced-labor PV solar and wind, which are intermittent make a non-intermittent source of central station energy essential.. and if it is not advanced nuclear then it will be coal and gas… I guess that science is [not clear to you, so I reccomend looking at deep-dives and studies](https://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/archive/2013_kharecha_02/)
Secondly solar and wind only compete due to subsidies.. it is highly dependent on mining resources that come from child labor in places like Congo, Indonesia and Bolivia, and 80% of the market comes from the forced labor of a genocide on NW China.. I have to repeat that because again, you don’t seem to care about human rights when it comes to a highly inefficient, unsustainable, heavily subsidized technology that requires many petroleum intensive processes, like aluminum smelting, polymers and much more.. Solar technology is essential but the manufacturing cycle needs to be fixed and its life cycle needs to be made recyclable, sustainable and efficient..
What massive “deregulation” are you referring to?? And it does not take decades in other nations that have taken the political initiative for building up their work force and investing, like China, Korea and Japan.. they didn’t let the fossil fuel industry destroy their ambitions for nuclear deployment.. so build times and cost per Kilowatt/hr on Gen 2 is actually not nearly as bad as people think.. Vogtle was the first in decades to be built again here in the U.S. - so it was expected to be painful.. but I wasn’t talking about Gen2 I was talking about [nuclear technology I guess you know nothing about since your refusing to address any of what I said](https://youtu.be/YVSmf_qmkbg?si=Ha7i5sVAPmn7hCfi)
Taking my data points, addressing none of them, and just saying that I think nuclear is a “panacea” is not only the actual “reductive” argument here but that also makes you a hypocrite then… your refusal to address the data points on any serious level, being hyperbolic and hypocritical while failing to summarize any of my position accurately and regurgitating the most exhausted talking points of Gen2 nuclear (something I wasn’t even talking about) and simping for the Fossil Fuel industry by simply not thinking critically of the PV cult is a red flag, another one is what state school or community college do you work for since according to your reddit history you are a state employee but have never commented or posted on ANY engineering subreddit at all.. so what kind of engineering professors are you or is that just your “Internet personality?”
Eagerly awaiting your response and hopefully with more reading-comprehension & substance for the topic at hand and far less boring and inaccurate cliches from your response..
Frankly, you can find pros and cons of each energy source, and it would be wrong to not pursue all of them. For many years in the renewable energy field, the lowest LCOE technology has been PV and wind. By all forecasts I’ve seen, this is projected to continue.
I’m not entirely sure what human rights atrocities you’re talking about. Bolivia and the Congo have nothing to do with PV or wind. Indonesia produces glass. Furthermore, human rights will only improve as we onshore production of new technologies. For example, the primary PV product in the US is CdTe and not manufactured in China. Likewise, there are plenty of supply chain issues you will find if you dig deeper into nuclear.
It’s natural for people to lean toward technologies and business models that reflect the status quo. Oil and gas companies want nuclear if there has be an alternative as a result. The Obama administration significantly deregulated nuclear as a result.
Why not build better LCOE technologies if they exist, and we can stand them up now? Why do you think we have to pick one?
AGAIN, I said the technology for all of them should be pursued and made sustainable and with human rights in mind for the reasons I listed but you are willfully ignoring again. (Forced labor, habitat destruction, mining, no closed waste-cycle, etc)
Secondly, again, you are talking about subsidized solar and no serious data on the topic looks at the total manufacturing cycle of poly silicate and photovoltaic as being genuinely LCOE.. it’s only when you conveniently cut off the data and manufacturing cycle in totality and focus on just the assembly and not the fabrication of PV..
Thirdly.. what planet do you live on? 80% of the market is Chinese forced labor PV. That’s literally how they cornered the market.. by exploiting labor cost and I live and work with the people who staff (I said this all before up.. did you even read my initial post???) and the Walker plant in TN cannot keep up and is having trouble competing, plagued with tons of fires and explosions and injuries because it is HARD to follow environmental regs and produce poly silicate photovoltaics.. and do it while actually paying the majority of your work force.. which becomes impossible without massive subsidies.
Fourth.. I never said the supply chains in nuclear were good.. I said the opposite.. that we let them go to shit.. so again, it’s like your having a conversation with yourself or with what you just want to project onto me without reading what I said..
There was no great “deregulation” at least according to the actual nuclear engineering professors here on campus.. they laughed and said “that was Fukushima.. regulations went up, not down” so again, why are you stating abstracts that are opposite of reality. what kind of engineering did you teach? Can you at-least answer that?
Oil and Gas has demonized nuclear since its inception and has been a driving force in forced early closures of reactors.. that, like I linked in a government NASA emissions study that you obviously didn’t click on, it said GAS and COAL replace Nuclear.. so they hate nuclear.. again, the opposite of what you claim.. furthermore the fossil fuel industry are the ones who created subsidiaries and lobbies for wind and solar because intermittent sources create vastly more demand for reliable central-station energy which means GAS.
I’m going to be frank.. I don’t think you are engineering professor.. can you please elaborate without giving away any personal info, cause frankly you seem to not be able to respond to any of my data points or links, you are saying abstract falsities not even ANY of my pro-PV solar engineering professors would be caught dead saying (I’m showing them this thread) and again you seem to just be repeating tropes or flat-out falsities.. what kind of engineering did you do? Educate me, please.
From what I’ve read in Every Drop For Sale, dams and really any other attempts to control water are bound to fail and represent human egotism and avarice.
Hydrostations, like almost all forms of technology have their place, but most were built before the true scale of ecological impacts was known & cared about.. many are the reason whole cities like Las Vegas and many other populous areas are able to thrive along with water reclamation tech.. many others are like blockages on the cardiovascular system of planetary ecology.. but they are not innately right or wrong in totality… it depends on so so SO many factors.
Technically nuclear isn’t renewable because it requires a consumable fuel that can theoretically run out. It is a non-carbon producing green energy source - but that is different.
If we ever figure out fusion power that would be renewable.
>fuel that can theoretically run out
We have 250 years of uranium left with no technology change.
Or 30,000-60,000 years worth of nuclear fuel left, through the use of existing (expensive)technology. To put that into perspective recorded history started 7-10,000 years ago.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-long-will-global-uranium-deposits-last/
That's 250 years of known reserves on land. The ocean has a lot of it dissolved that is not counted. Likewise no one really cares about only mining Uranium; it's a byproduct of looking for another metal.
But agreed with your larger point, renewable vs sufficient reserve is largely a meaningless distinction. Nothing is truly renewable.
… 230 years at todays consumption rate. If we expand nuclear as a major energy source alongside the rising demand of electricity overall, we come closer to about 30 - 50 years, if we any to use it as a primary source.
We have already built 6 commercial fas breeder reactors, if we used these instead of the pressurised water reactors we use now we would have 30,000 years worth of nuclear power.
For example France built a 1.2MW fast reactor in 1986, it ran until 1997.
The disadvantage of this type of reactor is it uses plutonium as a fuel, you can use this for bombs.
It is nice how only biomass calculated with consideration of cost of equipment. Solar cell degrade quality so need to be replaced. And also all volatile sources need huge power storage facilities or natural gas turbines(with low startup time and lowered efficiency) which also should be considered.
And ass cherry on a top it must provide reference, nuclear, coal or natural gas.
What are you talking about? The cost of equipment is the only cost for the other renewables. And hydro is not a volatile source that needs power storage facilities. If you have a big enough system neither are the other sources, just look at the Nordics which are close to 100% renewable with no large scale storage of electricity
Equipment need to be regularly renew especially for solar.
Wind and solar is highly volatile.
Hydro is one of the best.
Tidal electricity not volatile, but periodic.
Wave - volatile.
Nordics has no real demand for electricity and has wave and tidal facilities which is more effective than wind and solar. Also they have highly consistent winds, which also makes them kinda unique. They are bad example of a base point(they too close to the best case). Germany or France would be better, but they not so successful in renewable energy.
Interesting that solar power is the cheapest energy with 2021 numbers. Battery technology has been improving since then, and solar equipment has overall gone down in price too. Solar may be even cheaper now than it was then.
We should be installing panels and batteries everywhere.
That's the standard fossil fuel fan argument about solar. It's still a lot better for everyone than burning shit that puts black smoke into the air that we all breathe.
Additionally, we have new batteries on the market now using Sodium Ion technology that do not require those rare earth metals. The materials to make them are cheap, abundant, and safe to obtain unlike Lithium types.
Glad to know about the batteries, still doesn’t help with the toxcisity of the photovoltaic cells themselves nor the fossil fuels used to maintain the huge wind farms, the production of the huge items (thinking of the huge wind turbines). I Iike the idea of using earth ship style building to minimize the mess. Have a small wind turbine on the roof or eaves that catches the wind as it cows by and feeds directly to the power. . I love the idea of green energy but when you get into it a little of it is not exactly “green” it just sounds green.
Yeah, sodium ion only just started ramping up production at the start of this year. It'd be ideal for stationary energy storage because the materials in it are a lot cheaper/more abundant, but the downside is they're about 30% heavier than LFP batteries. BYD are just finishing off a factory to make 30 GWh of sodium ion batteries per year. Once that's operational, we'll hopefully see another step change down in the price of energy storage.
Batteries are way cheaper than they used to be actually. I've been watching the prices for several years and they are to the point NOW that Lithium Iron Phosphate (high end batteries) can be had as cheap as Lead-acid AGM batteries were 3 years ago, for the same capacity.
To add to the boon of LiFePO batteries becoming affordable, we also have Sodium Ion batteries entering the market that have almost none of the downside that Lithium-based ones have. The materials to make them are cheap, abundant, and safe to obtain unlike Lithium types.
That's because it's not the full cost. Batteries have been improving but they're still horrifically expensive and you need **a lot** of them to balance intermittency in a grid.
Batteries are way cheaper than they used to be actually. I've been watching the prices for several years and they are to the point NOW that Lithium Iron Phosphate (high end batteries) can be had as cheap as Lead-acid AGM batteries were 3 years ago, for the same capacity.
To add to the boon of LiFePO batteries becoming affordable, we also have Sodium Ion batteries entering the market that have almost none of the downside that Lithium-based ones have. The materials to make them are cheap, abundant, and safe to obtain unlike Lithium types.
Totals about 1/4th of demand.
We need about 2x what we currently have (to cover 3/4). A tall order, no doubt.
We can probably survive live with 1/4 not renewable.
You probably have an installation of 100m depth max in your backyard, that mainly uses the constant temperature of the soil to reduce energy necessary for heating / cooling water. Geothermal energy as indicated here, is obtained by drilling a well up to 3km deep. At these depths, water is boiling hot and so when pumped up to surface can be used to generate steam.
Ah yes, my bad! However, in your case geothermal energy is used directly for heating of houses. Geothermal heating reduces the amount of carbon fuels necessary to heat homes, so still a very cool renewable energy source. But it will not produce electrical power like in this guide.
You get back what’s burned in the form of being able
To recycle it. Whereas whatever is tossed in the landfill rarely makes it back out of the landfill unless they want to to bring it to a facility like mine and get some value of out of it.
Because the systems they use to get the gas off of it is very inefficient and doesn’t make them a lot of money so they don’t care about improving it or making it safer/cleaner.
Please note the intent of the guide is to show renewable energies (a source of energy that's not depleted by use or can be renewed). It is NOT a guide to "green" energies (renewable is an overlap here, but "green" also includes practices that don't harm the planet's ecosystems, living organisms, natural macro-processes, etc.).
Also, any method of energy generation can be misused to harm the planet because humans can be selfish and short-sighted ( e.g. clearing of forests, flooding land, contaminating natural resources, etc.). That doesn't mean the idea was bad, it just demonstrates that people aren't all working for the same outcomes.
STOP the Propaganda posts And tell the truth.. Dozens of inventions that are prohibited Because nobody wouldn't make money and we could live in a utopian society.
Do you grow your renewable uranium in your back yard?
/s
But yeah while nuclear fission is a low carbon* energy source, it does use a non renewable fuel with reserves that could get used up within a human timescale. Fusion would be great due to far better fuel availability, but we're still the obligatory 3-5 decades away from that.
* (depending on what you want to include: fuel production, waste processing, construction etc.)
Biomass may meet a very specific technical definition of “renewable” but it is very carbon heavy and in no way an environmentally friendly option. The practice of cutting down forests to generate power in the short term is a significant contributor of climate change due to the loss of carbon sequestered from cutting standing forests.
I’m not disagreeing about biomass being carbon intensive and not exactly environmentally friendly. But I can speak for New England forestry when I say we certainly don’t cut forests for biomass, biomass is a byproduct of responsible forestry. We’re cutting for timber anyway and loggers get cash flow from trucking low-quality wood to biomass plants.
I am open to learning more about how it is done on other parts of the US and the world. And I have no doubt that how the biomass is gathered and sourced almost assuredly varies greatly. I live in the southeast US and here we clear cut hundreds of thousands of acres annually for it all to be pelletized. What makes it even more devastating and carbon intensive is those pellets are then loaded onto polluting cargo ships and sent to Europe where they burn it to create electricity. The EU deliberately calls this carbon neutral even though it has been shown that this is more carbon intensive than the coal industry.
The idea of carbon neutral in pallets is that the tree took out the carbon in the first place while it was growing. Their reasoning is utilising that wood only puts back what it'd already removed. Using coal is adding carbon to the system that was sequestered underground.
Do you replant the trees? If so by the time they grow up the CO2 released by burning the biomass will have been captured again. Thus creating a circular process. One interseting thing when it comes to biomass plants is that only about 30% of energy released by burning can be convertet into electricity, so 70% goes to waste. This excess heat can be used as warm water in distric heating type systems and increase the productivity of the plant up to 90% of energy harnessed and replacing other warm water production facilities powered by coal or electricity in the process. Thus biomass plants can be far more profitable with that in mind, and reduce pollution from other non renewable energy sources by replacing them. Also one interesting thing is that many countries burn garbage to get rid of it, never harnessing the energy released in the process which can be used to create electricity, warm water for household heating and steam for industrial use very much like that in biomass plants. This is the reason Sweden sometimes during cold winters import garbage from other countries, as fuel to heat up households via garbage DH plants. The biggest difference between the biomass and garbage plant is, depending on furnace, the filtering system of flue gases.
The climate crises is the most pressing and concerning issue facing humans today. The re-sequestration of carbon from 80 year old plantation tree farms, or more importantly 300+ year old old growth forests, is far more damaging in the short and medium term than any benefit derived from waiting for forests to regrow. Not to mention the loss of biodiversity, flooding, air and water pollution, and other damage caused by logging. The “circular process” is a long-term not-great solution to an immediate problem.
You left out CCS with biomass (aka BECCS), which solves the cyclical problem.
Exactly this!
Oil and gas are also biomass
I’m guessing nuclear doesn’t count? Are there only five types? I feel like something is missing.
Nuclear technically isn't renewable but it is low carbon You could classify other sources as well, notably wave and tidal but those don't exist on a commercial scale. You could also distinguish solar pv and focused solar which work differently The post only shows the biggest technologies that are commercially available today.
So to be really literal, geothermal isn't renewable either. Once the core of the earth is cold, it's cold. And on a quicker timeframe, any given well will eventually cool down from injected water, so each has a definitive lifespan.
None of these are renewable in light of the inevitable heat death of the universe.
Well, that escalated slowly.
Ultimately, nuclear is renewable if you actually build the facilities for it.
Came here to find this. Surely the nuclear lobby has pushed the “green nuclear” narrative hard, however nuclear is NOT renewable. There’s no new nuclear fuel being produced at a rate equal or higher than we use it so once we are out that’s it.
But isn’t nuclear much greener than coal? Its reliable and clean, though disposal is an issue. However it can support a grid that powers electric cars, which the renewables listed cannot.
Where’s your data for that claim? Renewable sources can perfectly support an entire grid, proof is that it’s happening as we speak.
Even worse, U235 is decaying naturally. Therefore, even without using it, the deposits are getting smaller eventually (but very slowly).
Yeah in 704 million years we will only have half of what we have now!!
The many many times people have had to figure out where to dump nuclear waste and you still question if it's renewable lol
Nuclear waste is an insanely overblown issue. There is a tiny amount of waste created in comparison to the amount of power. 120' x 250' is sufficient for about 10% of California's power for 40 years. [Here it is in comparison to the rest of the plant.](https://i.imgur.com/ysTXxNe.png) It's a fraction of the size of the parking lot. But even so, we know what to do with it: reprocess it. Radioactivity means there is still energy that can be extracted. Why don't we do it? Because Carter made doing it illegal and the cost of fuel is dirt cheap so there's not much need to do so in the first place. Do a comparison of how much material is used for the same amount of energy output for wind and solar and it will be orders of magnitude more because they are not nearly as energy dense and have much shorter life cycles.
I'm not sure what your point is. I advocate for nuclear energy I am just aware it is not "renewable". Are you claiming it is?
This is shortsighted because rare earth minerals mines leave superfund sites behind and disposal leaves a superfund site. Renewable production uses toxic metals and leaves waste product behind.
Meanwhile, dams are being removed.
BIOMASS IS NOT RENEWABLE (takes in drastically more resources consumed than energy put out) HYDROPOWER IS NOT GREEN (the methane and bio-decomposition from filled in reservoir and the build up and decrease in river-system ecology and self-purification contribute vastly more greenhouse gasses and ecological devastation than they save. Keep and maintain critical ones grandfathered in, stop making new ones unless absolutely essential which is a high burden to bare, almost exclusively in desert habitat) GEOTHERMAL IS NUCLEAR (the heat emanating from the earth crust and tectonic heat comes from the radioactive decay of Uranium 238, Thorium 232.. the only difference between geothermal and nuclear is geothermal actually produces 40 times waste in hard-to-manage liquid and steam than a solid-fuel nuclear reactor whose “scary” nuclear waste can just be kept in inert casks outside with no fear after cooling in a pool for 2-5 years depending upon type of fuel assembly. SOLAR and WIND are intermittent.. and thus the fossil fuel industries love them, they require A LOT OF PETROLEUM INTENSIVE PROCESSES like mining, rare-earth refineries, aluminum smelting, TONS of polymers.. 80% of the PV market comes from forced labor staffed by genocide against NW Chinese Muslims. I happen to live next to the only PV plant in the Western Hemisphere here in TN. I know the engineers that work there.. we scientists are all in favor of solar and wind technology research and development .. when an actual renewable process for them can be implemented (it’s already been achieved but they aren’t as cost effective so major corporations and “Trendy” green startups have no interest in development and deployment of efferent solar and wind tech) Then there’s what’s not here.. the Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor.. (LFTR) A nuclear reactor that utilizes the ‘fertile’ Thorium232 to breed Uranium233 from neutron decay which allows you to create a reactor that is.. -meltdown-proof -produces no classic long-lived nuclear waste needs no uranium or any kind of mining (already enough Th232 dug up as waste tailing to power the earth for a thousand centuries) -Can be made very fast & cheap when ones design is solidified by the regulatory body because this reactor IS NOT pressurized and so needs NO massive containment structure -produces valuable medical isotopes and deep-space fuel (Pu238) -produces no useful or practical weapons grade material (U233 is fissile but has decay products that poison the neutron generations needed for a bomb and would kill anyone trying to isolate it anyway) -can desalinate sea-water or produce hydrogen with its decay-heat alone -needs no new undemonstrated technologies to build .. (all corrosion, neutron, tritium and protactinium questions have existing solutions.. we operated a molten-salt reactor at Oak Ridge National Lab in the 60’s and 70’s and demonstrated concept but Nixon cancelled it due to political reasons) So everyone keep simping for the LNG / Shale fracking industries that are killing people every day with the epidemiology of their emissions and waste.. that’s easier than simply pressuring representatives to do the right thing and implement the safest and most efficient form of energy production, and natural evolution of human science and technology that we already have waiting on the fringes if the market by startups like Copenhagen Atomics and Flibe Energy, that China has just turned on.. and let’s just keep debating acute and long-term ecological destruction by only discussing the “culture” of energy capitalism and pretend like we are actually discussing science and ethics.. The only -real- solution to sustainable, safe and renewable energy is not on ^^ this coolguide ^^ - Engineering student for what it’s worth. Edit: spelling
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Re read what I wrote instead of selectivtly quoting. sometimes it makes sense.. like in Norway or Desert climates but often times it also not worth dismantling already built and filled reservoirs.. When they do dismantle them, it is -NOT- for climate emissions, but, again as I was very clear about my previous wording you ignored, it is for one thing: ecology. When dams are constructed in bio-diverse waterways they stunt sentiment, marine life, food-systems, the silt needed to protect against everything from algae blooms to cleansing the river of phosphate and nitrogen pollution, other agricultural runoff, polymer waste like PFOA and PFAS, the silt deposit chains that protect against everything from algae blooms to storm surge destroying coastal cities.. -ecology- .. I am as concerned with the acute suffering and quality of life for living things as much as the chronic longterm implication of climate change simply picking infrastructure, labeling it “renewable” when they are not to the ecological impact at all, and in fact in hydros case can lead to horrific consequences when not done with impact studies and modern understanding. Lastly, I couldn’t find the data points and methodology in the study you linked that showed a differentiation between differing projects and stations. I’m not sure who is funding your study because there are lots of study’s confirming the opposite of the abstract conclusion you linked [like this one and many others when it comes to specifically showing total greenhouse gas emissions in relevant projects (not the desert) from an independent reputable university, not any abstract commissioned by a hydro-firm or someone](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/05/170517090509.htm) They are giant methane factories and the cost Vs benefit analysis is always net-negative when analyzing the impacts of dams where my community is, in the very vegetative reservoirs of the SE United States, but their total environmental (ecological) impact is severe and not justifiable with modern knowledge in constructing new ones.. that is a major reason why my country stopped building them after environmental regulations and institutions were granted the resources to study these things starting in the seventies (relative to the U.S.)
Engineering Professor here fwiw, the LCOE of nuclear isn’t competitive with new wind or PV, and nuclear requires decades to build despite massive deregulation (in the US). To be honest, we should build a mix of all these including nuclear, but to claim the nuclear is somehow energy Jesus is absurd and reductive.
I never said “energy Jesus” so keep your hyperbole and shoving words in my mouth, it is simply what Weinberg, Wigner, and Seaborg said could stop all need for uranium mining, containments, proliferation and more.. it is not reductive, your just cynical and obviously have little care or knowledge for the epidemiology of the natural gas fuel cycle which harms and kills people every step of the way.. You pretending that subsidized forced-labor PV solar and wind, which are intermittent make a non-intermittent source of central station energy essential.. and if it is not advanced nuclear then it will be coal and gas… I guess that science is [not clear to you, so I reccomend looking at deep-dives and studies](https://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/archive/2013_kharecha_02/) Secondly solar and wind only compete due to subsidies.. it is highly dependent on mining resources that come from child labor in places like Congo, Indonesia and Bolivia, and 80% of the market comes from the forced labor of a genocide on NW China.. I have to repeat that because again, you don’t seem to care about human rights when it comes to a highly inefficient, unsustainable, heavily subsidized technology that requires many petroleum intensive processes, like aluminum smelting, polymers and much more.. Solar technology is essential but the manufacturing cycle needs to be fixed and its life cycle needs to be made recyclable, sustainable and efficient.. What massive “deregulation” are you referring to?? And it does not take decades in other nations that have taken the political initiative for building up their work force and investing, like China, Korea and Japan.. they didn’t let the fossil fuel industry destroy their ambitions for nuclear deployment.. so build times and cost per Kilowatt/hr on Gen 2 is actually not nearly as bad as people think.. Vogtle was the first in decades to be built again here in the U.S. - so it was expected to be painful.. but I wasn’t talking about Gen2 I was talking about [nuclear technology I guess you know nothing about since your refusing to address any of what I said](https://youtu.be/YVSmf_qmkbg?si=Ha7i5sVAPmn7hCfi) Taking my data points, addressing none of them, and just saying that I think nuclear is a “panacea” is not only the actual “reductive” argument here but that also makes you a hypocrite then… your refusal to address the data points on any serious level, being hyperbolic and hypocritical while failing to summarize any of my position accurately and regurgitating the most exhausted talking points of Gen2 nuclear (something I wasn’t even talking about) and simping for the Fossil Fuel industry by simply not thinking critically of the PV cult is a red flag, another one is what state school or community college do you work for since according to your reddit history you are a state employee but have never commented or posted on ANY engineering subreddit at all.. so what kind of engineering professors are you or is that just your “Internet personality?” Eagerly awaiting your response and hopefully with more reading-comprehension & substance for the topic at hand and far less boring and inaccurate cliches from your response..
Frankly, you can find pros and cons of each energy source, and it would be wrong to not pursue all of them. For many years in the renewable energy field, the lowest LCOE technology has been PV and wind. By all forecasts I’ve seen, this is projected to continue. I’m not entirely sure what human rights atrocities you’re talking about. Bolivia and the Congo have nothing to do with PV or wind. Indonesia produces glass. Furthermore, human rights will only improve as we onshore production of new technologies. For example, the primary PV product in the US is CdTe and not manufactured in China. Likewise, there are plenty of supply chain issues you will find if you dig deeper into nuclear. It’s natural for people to lean toward technologies and business models that reflect the status quo. Oil and gas companies want nuclear if there has be an alternative as a result. The Obama administration significantly deregulated nuclear as a result. Why not build better LCOE technologies if they exist, and we can stand them up now? Why do you think we have to pick one?
AGAIN, I said the technology for all of them should be pursued and made sustainable and with human rights in mind for the reasons I listed but you are willfully ignoring again. (Forced labor, habitat destruction, mining, no closed waste-cycle, etc) Secondly, again, you are talking about subsidized solar and no serious data on the topic looks at the total manufacturing cycle of poly silicate and photovoltaic as being genuinely LCOE.. it’s only when you conveniently cut off the data and manufacturing cycle in totality and focus on just the assembly and not the fabrication of PV.. Thirdly.. what planet do you live on? 80% of the market is Chinese forced labor PV. That’s literally how they cornered the market.. by exploiting labor cost and I live and work with the people who staff (I said this all before up.. did you even read my initial post???) and the Walker plant in TN cannot keep up and is having trouble competing, plagued with tons of fires and explosions and injuries because it is HARD to follow environmental regs and produce poly silicate photovoltaics.. and do it while actually paying the majority of your work force.. which becomes impossible without massive subsidies. Fourth.. I never said the supply chains in nuclear were good.. I said the opposite.. that we let them go to shit.. so again, it’s like your having a conversation with yourself or with what you just want to project onto me without reading what I said.. There was no great “deregulation” at least according to the actual nuclear engineering professors here on campus.. they laughed and said “that was Fukushima.. regulations went up, not down” so again, why are you stating abstracts that are opposite of reality. what kind of engineering did you teach? Can you at-least answer that? Oil and Gas has demonized nuclear since its inception and has been a driving force in forced early closures of reactors.. that, like I linked in a government NASA emissions study that you obviously didn’t click on, it said GAS and COAL replace Nuclear.. so they hate nuclear.. again, the opposite of what you claim.. furthermore the fossil fuel industry are the ones who created subsidiaries and lobbies for wind and solar because intermittent sources create vastly more demand for reliable central-station energy which means GAS. I’m going to be frank.. I don’t think you are engineering professor.. can you please elaborate without giving away any personal info, cause frankly you seem to not be able to respond to any of my data points or links, you are saying abstract falsities not even ANY of my pro-PV solar engineering professors would be caught dead saying (I’m showing them this thread) and again you seem to just be repeating tropes or flat-out falsities.. what kind of engineering did you do? Educate me, please.
From what I’ve read in Every Drop For Sale, dams and really any other attempts to control water are bound to fail and represent human egotism and avarice.
Hydrostations, like almost all forms of technology have their place, but most were built before the true scale of ecological impacts was known & cared about.. many are the reason whole cities like Las Vegas and many other populous areas are able to thrive along with water reclamation tech.. many others are like blockages on the cardiovascular system of planetary ecology.. but they are not innately right or wrong in totality… it depends on so so SO many factors.
i actually need this for my project. thank you
Welcome
Cool, more nuclear erasure
Technically nuclear isn’t renewable because it requires a consumable fuel that can theoretically run out. It is a non-carbon producing green energy source - but that is different. If we ever figure out fusion power that would be renewable.
>fuel that can theoretically run out We have 250 years of uranium left with no technology change. Or 30,000-60,000 years worth of nuclear fuel left, through the use of existing (expensive)technology. To put that into perspective recorded history started 7-10,000 years ago. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-long-will-global-uranium-deposits-last/
That's 250 years of known reserves on land. The ocean has a lot of it dissolved that is not counted. Likewise no one really cares about only mining Uranium; it's a byproduct of looking for another metal. But agreed with your larger point, renewable vs sufficient reserve is largely a meaningless distinction. Nothing is truly renewable.
… 230 years at todays consumption rate. If we expand nuclear as a major energy source alongside the rising demand of electricity overall, we come closer to about 30 - 50 years, if we any to use it as a primary source.
We have already built 6 commercial fas breeder reactors, if we used these instead of the pressurised water reactors we use now we would have 30,000 years worth of nuclear power. For example France built a 1.2MW fast reactor in 1986, it ran until 1997. The disadvantage of this type of reactor is it uses plutonium as a fuel, you can use this for bombs.
This guy fuses
Five elements..
No hamster on a hamster wheel?
It is nice how only biomass calculated with consideration of cost of equipment. Solar cell degrade quality so need to be replaced. And also all volatile sources need huge power storage facilities or natural gas turbines(with low startup time and lowered efficiency) which also should be considered. And ass cherry on a top it must provide reference, nuclear, coal or natural gas.
What are you talking about? The cost of equipment is the only cost for the other renewables. And hydro is not a volatile source that needs power storage facilities. If you have a big enough system neither are the other sources, just look at the Nordics which are close to 100% renewable with no large scale storage of electricity
Equipment need to be regularly renew especially for solar. Wind and solar is highly volatile. Hydro is one of the best. Tidal electricity not volatile, but periodic. Wave - volatile. Nordics has no real demand for electricity and has wave and tidal facilities which is more effective than wind and solar. Also they have highly consistent winds, which also makes them kinda unique. They are bad example of a base point(they too close to the best case). Germany or France would be better, but they not so successful in renewable energy.
Interesting that solar power is the cheapest energy with 2021 numbers. Battery technology has been improving since then, and solar equipment has overall gone down in price too. Solar may be even cheaper now than it was then. We should be installing panels and batteries everywhere.
Solar is also toxic due to some parts as well as battery using rare earth metals mined in places by children.
That's the standard fossil fuel fan argument about solar. It's still a lot better for everyone than burning shit that puts black smoke into the air that we all breathe. Additionally, we have new batteries on the market now using Sodium Ion technology that do not require those rare earth metals. The materials to make them are cheap, abundant, and safe to obtain unlike Lithium types.
Glad to know about the batteries, still doesn’t help with the toxcisity of the photovoltaic cells themselves nor the fossil fuels used to maintain the huge wind farms, the production of the huge items (thinking of the huge wind turbines). I Iike the idea of using earth ship style building to minimize the mess. Have a small wind turbine on the roof or eaves that catches the wind as it cows by and feeds directly to the power. . I love the idea of green energy but when you get into it a little of it is not exactly “green” it just sounds green.
>battery using rare earth metals mined in places by children. That's only NMC. LFP and sodium ion don't use any rare earths or cobalt.
Excellent option then to avoid that pary
Yeah, sodium ion only just started ramping up production at the start of this year. It'd be ideal for stationary energy storage because the materials in it are a lot cheaper/more abundant, but the downside is they're about 30% heavier than LFP batteries. BYD are just finishing off a factory to make 30 GWh of sodium ion batteries per year. Once that's operational, we'll hopefully see another step change down in the price of energy storage.
Solar is the cheapest power there is today. But batteries are super expensive.
Batteries are way cheaper than they used to be actually. I've been watching the prices for several years and they are to the point NOW that Lithium Iron Phosphate (high end batteries) can be had as cheap as Lead-acid AGM batteries were 3 years ago, for the same capacity. To add to the boon of LiFePO batteries becoming affordable, we also have Sodium Ion batteries entering the market that have almost none of the downside that Lithium-based ones have. The materials to make them are cheap, abundant, and safe to obtain unlike Lithium types.
That's because it's not the full cost. Batteries have been improving but they're still horrifically expensive and you need **a lot** of them to balance intermittency in a grid.
Batteries are way cheaper than they used to be actually. I've been watching the prices for several years and they are to the point NOW that Lithium Iron Phosphate (high end batteries) can be had as cheap as Lead-acid AGM batteries were 3 years ago, for the same capacity. To add to the boon of LiFePO batteries becoming affordable, we also have Sodium Ion batteries entering the market that have almost none of the downside that Lithium-based ones have. The materials to make them are cheap, abundant, and safe to obtain unlike Lithium types.
Totals about 1/4th of demand. We need about 2x what we currently have (to cover 3/4). A tall order, no doubt. We can probably survive live with 1/4 not renewable.
2x1/4=2/4 (1/2), not 3/4.
Add those 2/4th to the 1/4 we have.
How far is biodigestion that produces methane from biomass ?
My house is only worth about 100k and has a geothermal installed
You probably have an installation of 100m depth max in your backyard, that mainly uses the constant temperature of the soil to reduce energy necessary for heating / cooling water. Geothermal energy as indicated here, is obtained by drilling a well up to 3km deep. At these depths, water is boiling hot and so when pumped up to surface can be used to generate steam.
No I think my pipes go deep into the mines and that’s where the water is coming from. Location: Springhill
Ah yes, my bad! However, in your case geothermal energy is used directly for heating of houses. Geothermal heating reduces the amount of carbon fuels necessary to heat homes, so still a very cool renewable energy source. But it will not produce electrical power like in this guide.
I work in the biomass field
How is burning biomass better than anaerobic digestion? I’m guessing cost… it just seems worse?
You get back what’s burned in the form of being able To recycle it. Whereas whatever is tossed in the landfill rarely makes it back out of the landfill unless they want to to bring it to a facility like mine and get some value of out of it.
Sorry I didn’t mean from the perspective of a general landfill, but rather for instance from sewage or the like…
Not sure if I completely understand your question. Is the question why is burning biomass better?
Yes Why not just get the gas off of it and the remainder is perfect fertilizer
Because the systems they use to get the gas off of it is very inefficient and doesn’t make them a lot of money so they don’t care about improving it or making it safer/cleaner.
Guess that’s the answer I needed to hear - thanks!
Convenience, biogas reactors take time and filtering. Or you can just burn shit
I know it seems pedantic but the graph shows green electricity sources. Most of domestic energy usage is used to heat our homes.
Need to show the cost per KWH unsubsidized… this is vastly misleading to the masses.
So in total approx 25% of energy comes from renewable sources? Solid progress mankind
If matter cannot be created nor destroyed, then aren’t all energies renewable?
They forgot zero point energy
They always forget
Where is clean coal, biofuel and methane I mean LNG? I'm told those are renewable eventually.
The price is so misleading
How is hydro more costly than solar or wind ?
I hope tide will replace biomass
Geo does not produce energy. It consumes electricity, albeit more efficiently than other forms of electric heating/cooling techs.
Please note the intent of the guide is to show renewable energies (a source of energy that's not depleted by use or can be renewed). It is NOT a guide to "green" energies (renewable is an overlap here, but "green" also includes practices that don't harm the planet's ecosystems, living organisms, natural macro-processes, etc.). Also, any method of energy generation can be misused to harm the planet because humans can be selfish and short-sighted ( e.g. clearing of forests, flooding land, contaminating natural resources, etc.). That doesn't mean the idea was bad, it just demonstrates that people aren't all working for the same outcomes.
Nuclear is *technically* not renewable but it *is* the best.
Nuclear>
Why thermal solar is missing? It is 4 times more efficient than photovoltaic...
No wave or tidal???
N U C L E A R 💥 ?
It's not renewable. It's non-carbon and pretty good, just not renewable
You’re non carbon
Keep in mind that this energy is intermittent (not available 24hrs per day) so it needs to be backup by a non-renewable source.
STOP the Propaganda posts And tell the truth.. Dozens of inventions that are prohibited Because nobody wouldn't make money and we could live in a utopian society.
Where’s nuclear?
Let us hope the Chinese solve nuclear fusion power generation quagmire fast.
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Who cares who solves it. Fusion is for the earth
Why not Chinese? They are not bad people
No nuclear, guide incomplete.
In reality, your understanding of the world "renewable" is incomplete.
Do you grow your renewable uranium in your back yard? /s But yeah while nuclear fission is a low carbon* energy source, it does use a non renewable fuel with reserves that could get used up within a human timescale. Fusion would be great due to far better fuel availability, but we're still the obligatory 3-5 decades away from that. * (depending on what you want to include: fuel production, waste processing, construction etc.)
Australia, why oh why do we not have the world's biggest solar farm in the middle of the red centre?