Germany makes histroy. 50.6% of it's energy in June from Solar!

[Toma]

Pretty impressive feat!

http://www.sciencealert.com.au/news/20142306-25725.html

New data reveals that Germany broke a record at the start of June by generating half its energy from solar power, demonstrating the country's impressive renewable energy capabilities.
Research from the Fraunhofer ISE research institute showed that German solar panels generated a record 24.24 GW of electricity between 1pm and 2pm on Friday, June 6th. And on Monday June 9th, a public holiday, solar power production peaked at 23.1 GW, which was 50.6 percent of total electricity demand.

[ExtraSlow]

That's interesting and positive news, but it's got as much spin on it as the dirty oil and gas press releases.

They didn't generate 50% of the total demand for the month of june, they did it for a couple of hours.

Still cool.

I would be interested to know what the average cost to generate a kWh of solar electricity is in germany vs the other options over there.

[Toma]

Yup. And on a holiday lol. But still! Cool .

[benyl]

How much was generated between 1am and 2am? haha

That is pretty cool that they have been able to produce that much.

[schocker]

They are shutting down all of their nuclear power plants though so that will be replaced with coal power.

Still neat though

[Xtrema]

Solar panel degrades about 1% per year. Most manufacturer will give you 25 year warranty @ 80% of original production at 25 year.

Other than it's ugly, I think they are great idea. I think car parks fill with these are excellent ideas. Cars are protected from hail and cheap energy source for a few decades.


Originally posted by schocker
They are shutting down all of their nuclear power plants though so that will be replaced with coal power.

Still neat though

http://www.dw.de/scrapping-nuclear-plants-to-cost-billions/a-17439221

Germany's goal is noble but their taxpayers will be in major debt due to this policy in short term.

[mazdavirgin]

Seeing as Canada generates 60% of it's needed electrical power from hydro 24/7/365 I fail to see how this is a significant accomplishment. Looking forward to seeing all those coal plants firing up in Germany in the near future... Hilariously German CO2 emissions when it comes to power generation are rising year to year and expected to increase even more as the nuclear plants come offline and new coal fired plants come online.



While wind and solar nameplate capacity represented 84 percent of Germany’s average electric power generation of 70.4 GW, it ultimately generated only 11.9 percent of total electricity (up from 11.2 percent in 2011). There are simple reasons for that discrepancy: night, cloud, and calm. The output of wind and solar generators varies wildly with weather and the time of day; during most hours they produce a small fraction of their nameplate power—or nothing at all.


Hurrah?

[Mista Bob]

Originally posted by mazdavirgin
Seeing as Canada generates 60% of it's needed electrical power from hydro 24/7/365 I fail to see how this is a significant accomplishment. Looking forward to seeing all those coal plants firing up in Germany in the near future... Hilariously German CO2 emissions when it comes to power generation are rising year to year and expected to increase even more as the nuclear plants come offline and new coal fired plants come online.



Hurrah?

Even more hilarious, those coal power plants produce more radiation contamination than nuclear power plants.

[BavarianBeast]

“I’d put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don’t have to wait until oil and coal run out before we tackle that.”

-Thomas Edison

[Toma]

Newest coal technology is very efficient and bad ass.

You oil and gas guys are such pessimists when it comes to change. Lol

[BavarianBeast]

Originally posted by Toma
Newest coal technology is very efficient and bad ass.

You oil and gas guys are such pessimists when it comes to change. Lol

Maybe because we all make a boatload of money from oil & gas?

[mazdavirgin]

Originally posted by Toma
Newest coal technology is very efficient and bad ass.

You oil and gas guys are such pessimists when it comes to change. Lol

Has nothing to do with Oil and Gas and instead a lot to do with environmentalist stupidity thats not based on science or fact just feel good feelings. Look at France 90% of power generated with no carbon emissions. I would call that significantly better than Germany and their half assed coal and solar solution. Oh but it's all Nuclear and ignorant people are afraid of Nuclear hence why we have a bunch of people cheering on Germany as they move into burning more coal and producing more carbon emissions. :facepalm: I swear people are so stupid.

[Xtrema]

Originally posted by Toma
Newest coal technology is very efficient and bad ass.

You oil and gas guys are such pessimists when it comes to change. Lol

I applaud Germany on solar but also think they are stupid in replacing Nuclear with coal. Nuclear is safe. We just need a place to stock pile waste and keep plants away from ocean and faults.

[Canmorite]

Originally posted by Xtrema


I applaud Germany on solar but also think they are stupid in replacing Nuclear with coal. Nuclear is safe. We just need a place to stock pile waste and keep plants away from ocean and faults.

Agreed.

What a feat for them to accomplish on the solar aspect :thumbsup:

[Toma]

Nuclear is short sighted imo. Just like in 1900 when we thought oil would last forever, and could not impact the environment or climate.

And WHEN accidents happen, they are bad. With the potential to be EXTREMELY bad.

Coal is questionable, but I feel it is far superior to oil. In terms of war, and stability that is. The mid east is a mess because of oil and western influence there.

The us has spent roughly $4 trillion "protecting their interests" and supporting dictatorships in the mid east. That money could have gonna a LONG way in alternative energy.

[ExtraSlow]

Even " Next-gen" or "Clean Coal" is generally dirtier than existing natural-gas fired power generation.

The mining of it is also atrocious in terms of environmental impact in most countries, including the USA.

[Xtrema]

Originally posted by Toma
Nuclear is short sighted imo. Just like in 1900 when we thought oil would last forever, and could not impact the environment or climate.

Nuclear would have helped in the electric car revolution you wanted. Wind and solar won't help as everyone will be charging their cars at night. Nuclear is cheap and cause very little air pollution.

What Germany doing is short sighted by ending Nuclear before the end of life of the plants.

In the end, most governments are not capable of making 50 year long decisions when most officials are on 4 year terms.

[Toma]

Originally posted by Xtrema


Nuclear would have helped in the electric car revolution you wanted. Wind and solar won't help as everyone will be charging their cars at night. Nuclear is cheap and cause very little air pollution.

What Germany doing is short sighted by ending Nuclear before the end of life of the plants.

What's the hang up with "at night"??

That's pretty well a non issue anymore.

Did you notice what happened in Japan? You really wanna take the chance of irradiating our food supply?

Human's seem to be too stupid and error prone to pull of Nuclear without serious incident.

[Xtrema]

Originally posted by Toma


What's the hang up with "at night"??

That's pretty well a non issue anymore.

Did you notice what happened in Japan? You really wanna take the chance of irradiating our food supply?

Human's seem to be too stupid and error prone to pull of Nuclear without serious incident.

Battery? But pushing the pollution to mining the materials for them?

Again, Japan geographic location means it should not have any Nuclear plants period. Germany on the other hand doesn't even have earthquakes over 6.

[Sugarphreak]

...

[codetrap]

Originally posted by Toma
Newest coal technology is very efficient and bad ass.

You oil and gas guys are such pessimists when it comes to change. Lol



The Dirty Facts on "Clean Coal
Top Ten Reasons Clean Coal is Dirty


#1: "Clean" Coal Increases Rates of Disease
The United States burns more than a billion tons of coal each year – that’s 20 pounds of coal for every person in the country, every day.

According to the American Lung Association, 24,000 people a year die prematurely because of pollution from coal-fired power plants. And every year 38,000 heart attacks, 12,000 hospital admissions and an additional 550,000 asthma attacks result from power plant pollution.

#2: "Clean" Coal Kills Jobs
Despite coal industry claims that coal mining creates lots of jobs, the truth is that coal mining employment has been declining for decades, due to increased use of machinery instead of manpower.

In West Virginia alone, coal mining employment has plummeted from 126,000 miners in 1948 (who produced 168 million tons of coal), to just 15,000 miners employed in 2005 (who, with the help of machinery, produced 128 million tons of coal).

#3: Burning "Clean" Coal Emits Mercury

Coal-fired power plants are the largest source of human-generated mercury pollution in the U.S. Mercury emissions from electrical generation continues to rise.

Mercury in mothers' blood and breast milk can interfere with the development of babies' brains and neurological systems and can lead to learning disabilities, attention deficit disorder, problems with coordination, lowered IQ and even mental retardation.

#4: Burning "Clean" Coal is Fuel for Global Warming
The U.S. produces about 25 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels.

Burning coal contributes 40 percent of U.S. CO2 emissions. Coal is the most carbon intensive fossil fuel. According to the United Nations Environment Program, coal emits around 1.7 times as much carbon per unit of energy when burned as does natural gas and 1.25 times as much as oil.

#5: "Clean" Coal Kills Miners
The Center for Disease Control (CDC) estimates that 12,000 coal miners died from black lung disease between 1992 and 2002.



#6: "Clean" Coal Wastes Huge Quantities of Water
Coal mining requires an estimated 70 to 260 million gallons of water every day.



#7: "Clean" Coal Pollutes Seafood and Freshwater Fish
49 U.S. states have issued fish consumption advisories due to high mercury concentrations in freshwater bodies throughout the country.

Coal-fired power plants are the largest source of human-generated mercury pollution in the U.S.

#8: "Clean" Coal Destroys Mountains

Instead of traditional mining, many coal companies now use mountaintop removal to extract coal.

Coal companies are increasingly using this method because it allows for almost complete recovery of coal seams while reducing the number of workers required to a fraction of what conventional methods require.

Mountaintop removal involves clear cutting native hardwood forests, using dynamite to blast away as much as 800-1000 feet of mountaintop, and then dumping the waste into nearby valleys, often burying streams.



#9: "Clean" Coal Kills Freshwater Streams

More than 1,200 miles of Appalachian streams have been buried or damaged by mountaintop removal mining. At least 724 miles of streams were completely buried by valley fills from Appalachian mountaintop removal between 1985 and 2001.

400,000 acres of rich and diverse temperate forests have been destroyed during the same time period as a result of mountaintop mining in Appalachia.

#10: "Clean" Coal Costs Billions in Taxpayer Subsidies

The U.S. government continues to aggressively fund coal-related projects despite all that is known about coal’s impacts on health, climate and the economy.

The Department of Energy is currently seeking $648 million for “clean coal” projects in its 2009 budget request, “representing the largest budget request for coal RD&D in over 25 years.”
Want to do more?

How much coal is required to run a 100-watt light bulb 24 hours a day for a year?
http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/energy/question481.htm

Even NASA thinks coal==bad....
http://climate.nasa.gov/news/903

[Sugarphreak]

...

[codetrap]

Originally posted by Toma
What's the hang up with "at night"??

That's pretty well a non issue anymore.

Did you notice what happened in Japan? You really wanna take the chance of irradiating our food supply?

Human's seem to be too stupid and error prone to pull of Nuclear without serious incident. Ok there blinky. So you'd rather have GUARANTEED radioactive waste contaminating the environment, vs the chance IF an accident happens.

"Coal Ash Is More Radioactive than Nuclear Waste" - a somewhat misleading title that basically asserts that a coal power plant will over it's lifetime release 100 times more radiation into the environment per kWh than a nuclear plant. Death by a thousand small doses instead of one big one is still death...

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/coal-ash-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste/

[codetrap]

Originally posted by Sugarphreak
Codetrap, how old is that article?

Newer coal fired plants are far more efficient than 40% and scrub practically everything out; there is no Mercury or sulpher (among other things) being pumped out anymore from new facilities.

I also know coal Miners, actually one of my best friends is a coal Miner... I don't know of a single one of them that has gotten sick from it. They have an extensive air exchange system and good PPE that generally protects them from anything harmful they might inhale.

It also does create jobs, lots of jobs actually wherever these mines open... my friend was barely making ends meet before he got into it. Now he has a modest home of his own. He lives in a small BC town, and without that mine it would devistate what little is left of the economy there.

The only negative things I can think is the tailings ponds are absolutely atrocious (I've said it before, people who criticize the oils sands are totally out to lunch), and it destabilizes the ground around the mining site for at least a hundred or more years. Honestly, I don't know the age. However, it's pretty safe to say that the problems exist because the existing power plants exist. It would be far cheaper to ramp up an existing "dirty" plant than to build a brand new "clean" plant. Also, the way that they scrub that shit out is by more than doubling the water usage, so it's a catch 22. I read somewhere that a nuclear plant uses roughly 400 gallons/MWh, of which they only keep 1%. A "clean" coal plant uses 16,000 gallons/MWh, of which it apparently "burns" around 680g/MWh....

I agree that the newer plants are more efficient, and they scrub a lot out of the air, but that comes at a cost. Massively more water used in the process, as well as reduced output of power, due to power requirements of the capture/cleaning.. on par with 25%-40% reduction, which means that much more fuel to create each MWh..

As you can tell, I'm not a fan of coal, or coal technologies.

Here is more updated information..
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/energy-and-environment/-clean-coal--technologies/

[Sugarphreak]

...

[mazdavirgin]

Originally posted by Sugarphreak
Newer coal fired plants are far more efficient than 40% and scrub practically everything out; there is no Mercury or sulpher (among other things) being pumped out anymore from new facilities.

Sure but no scrubber is 100% perfect and the problem with the "clean" coal is you produce tons of Mercury/Sulphur sludge that you need to dispose AKA coal ash ponds. Current disposal practice is burial. Not to mention wet scrubbers use tons of water that could be better used and instead ends up as toxic waste.

[Sugarphreak]

...

[codetrap]

Originally posted by Sugarphreak
Yeah there really is no perfect solution, but newer coal technologies are leaps ahead of the old facilities.

I am a big fan of Hydro, and also the Candu reactors... most green technologies are just too inconsistent or too expensive to be viable.

Plus to promote them the greenies ignore the damage they do, wind for instance kills something like 7000 birds in California alone every year, including endangered species, and is decimating Bat populations... yet nobody ever says anything, they just freak out when a few hundred ducks land in a tailings pond every 5 years or so.

I just get fed up with how hypocritical some of these "green" people are… I am always for solutions, but I am not for ignoring consequences just to switch it up. I totally agree with you on the nuclear reactors. I'm not such a fan of Hydro due to the massive environmental impact it has... I do see the advantages and all that, but I'm not really all for changing watersheds if we can avoid it.

I love the idea of the new reactors that take the spent fuel from the old reactors and use that, extracting 100 times the energy from them that the current ones do. There's literally no need to mine anymore, we can just use all that existing waste, and any additional weapons grade as it's decommissioned.

[hampstor]

This is definitely a great accomplishment however...

If you want to hold Germany on a pedestal for renewable energy, then you have to also weigh it against their construction of lignite coal power plants - which actually creates substantially more CO2 than the coal we use. Lignite is also surface mined (ie: Garzweiller mine) which make those mines look shocking like other ugly surface mining sites (oilsands).

But hey, sticking it to the oil companies is what its really about.

[Sugarphreak]

...

[M.alex]

Originally posted by Sugarphreak


I don't think Hydro is too bad, as long as there are fish ladders and they properly log the area that will be flooded (to avoid de-oxygenation of the water) it really isn't much different than any other natural lake. No toxic chemicals or pollutants, plus it helps with flood mitigation downstream.

Probably the biggest issue with dams is they need to be earthquake proof, and most areas which are suitable for hydro are naturally going to be earthquake zones because of the terrain.

Turbines have been getting a lot more efficient over the years too, especially for dams that don't have huge vertical drops. It is amazing how much power you can recover from hydro projects these days.

I like Hydro... given the choice between Hydro, Nuclear or Coal I think it is a clear winner.

How is it a clear winner - it's the most expensive of the three by a wide margin.

[Sugarphreak]

...

[M.alex]

..

[ekguy]

Love reading stuff like this. Totally agree that alot of money is being wasted on bullshit that does nothing for the advancement of humanity. War is stupid, religion is stupid.

Money spent to fuel wars could be used to extensively research alternative modes of transportation and to advance renewable energy technology.

What about trying to figure out perpetual energy...

So many things could be better if money weren't spent on ridiculous wars.

[ExtraSlow]

One part of the solution is distributed power generation. Apparently Dean Kamen has built a natural gas fired stirling engine that can generate power in your basement. Sounds excellent from the article. Natural gas is a good choice for small-scale generation because it's already availible near the largest power consumers in most cities in North America. It's also relatively cheap, abundant and clean.
Forbes.com - LINK (http://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherhelman/2014/07/02/dean-kamen-thinks-his-new-stirling-engine-could-power-the-world/)

[ZenOps]

Coal is free energy. All you have to do is shovel it into a furnace.

All those people who champion alternative energy are just topsoil salesmen. You could easily shovel topsoil yourself, and its pretty questionable that the other guys topsoil is better than the soil you already have between your toes - but they have to sell you something.

Selling solar panels so that they can buy more coal tonnage, win-win.

[sputnik]

Funny how no one stopped to mention the fact that power in Germany costs 35-40 cents/kWh.

Compare that to Alberta or Manitoba where electricity rates fluctuate between 5-10 cents/kWh.

[ZenOps]

Exactly... Assume that an average Canadian uses about 12,000 kwh per year (household and work)

http://shrinkthatfootprint.com/average-household-electricity-consumption

Red means gooder! :thumbsup:

At 8 cents per kwh, thats $960 a year. At 40 cents per kwh (more like Germany and Hawaii that do not have access to cheap coal) its $4800.

http://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.cfm?t=epmt_5_6_a

Hawaiian welfare recipents need $60,000 a year to keep the lights on, lol.

For $4,000 difference a year, I say - Burn that coal baby, burn!