Can a renewable energy economy work?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_by_country
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_natural_gas_proven_reserves
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_proven_oil_reserves

Coal alone we have 90+ years with current technology IF we were forced to use it.

No, it's about the waste. It's a good reason to be concerned, mishandling of nuclear energy waste is a BIG deal, but the standards these plants are already held to really comforts a normie like me.

We shouldn't be implementing alternative energy yet. Its a waste of materials that could be used when alternative energy is far more efficient. I'd give it 30 or 40 years imho

Coal is the biggest resource but the projections are at current rates. Meanwhile the population is projected to grow to over 11 billion by the end of the century. And developing economies are growing rapidly. This double whammy makes reserves less impressive than they look.

Example: In spite of claimed small recent declines, China's coal production and consumption has tripled in the last 15 or so years.

Hmm I don't think so... Other energy technologies were used well before they reached efficiency limits. Implementing renewable technology is the best way to find out what works and what doesn't. Gotta start that alpha phase.

Counting Canada's tar sands as oil reserves just shows how desperate the situation is becoming.

This is getting silly. I could post a bunch of things like coal producers filing for bankruptcy and how energy is getting cheaper but I won't. There is no energy shortage. If there was an energy shortage developing economies wouldn't be growing rapidly and consumption would fall. This is just sad.

Coal is dead. Banks refuse to fund new coal power plants in my country. To keep global warming to an acceptable level most of the coal left has to stay in the ground. Gas has replaced it for all intents and purposes. Also there's more to renewables than photovoltaic.

This started because of his assertion that non-renewables are going to run out within decades which isn't true. If they are NO longer produced its because something better has replaced them.

>use nonrenewable energy
>globe warms
>ice melts
>more carbon deposits are uncovered
>repeat
:)

>Without breeder reactors this is also a very limited resource
You know you can extract uranium from the sea, right? And that there's billions of tonnes in the sea.

Yes, and what helped push the development (funding) of alternatives? The idea that these resources are scarce. Instead of being like the Mayans, who had an incredibly developed society until they over harvested trees for lime production leading to the loss of their source of fertile soul, we are prepared for the loss of our sources of energy.

> You know you can extract uranium from the sea, right? And that there's billions of tonnes in the sea.

The book takes this into account. Of course he vast majority is U238 which is useless without breeder reactors. And it takes a vast amount of energy and materials to extract it.

I would really like to see a solid quantitative argument that is more optimistic than the book I mentioned. Not hand waving arguments.

>If they are NO longer produced its because something better has replaced them.

It's not right to say they are no longer produced. For example, world coal production is double the levels just 20 years ago.

The problem is not today or tomorrow but a few decades away.

When you take into account massive economic growth in the third world, massive population grown and the fact that high standards of living depend on high energy consumption, then even apparently high reserves can be burned up surprisingly quickly.

>Banks refuse to fund new coal power plants in my country.

This is true in my country too. This is not due to fundamental economic reasons but regulatory risk.

South Australia recently had severe blackouts because the fossil plants has shut down because the government did not allow an economic price for baseload capacity. The government is not building a $500m fossil fuel plant to solve the problem they created.

The federal government's latest report on the electricity grid in Australia is predicting blackouts across the East coast due to the shutdown of a large coal plant.

Again this plant closed because the risk that the government would impose taxes that confiscated all their profits was too high.

The short term problem is that the government is forcing a move to renewable technologies that don't work.

The long term problem is that as fossil fuels run about, such a transition will be mandatory.

Nuclear can act as a stop-gap and possibly clean coal if there is such a thing. Medium term we will need breeder reactors.

>This is true in my country too. This is not due to fundamental economic reasons but regulatory risk.
>South Australia recently had severe blackouts because the fossil plants haD shut down because the government did not allow an economic price for baseload capacity. The government is noW building a $500m fossil fuel plant to solve the problem they created.
>The federal government's latest report on the electricity grid in Australia is predicting blackouts across the East coast due to the shutdown of a large coal plant.
>Again this plant closed because the risk that the government would impose taxes that confiscated all their profits was too high.
>The short term problem is that the government is forcing a move to renewable technologies that don't work.
>The long term problem is that as fossil fuels run about, such a transition will be mandatory.
>Nuclear can act as a stop-gap and possibly clean coal if there is such a thing. Medium term we will need breeder reactors.

>the population is projected to grow to over 11 billion by the end of the century
by the end of the century we will probably have fision, economically efficient solar panels or another gamebreaker like that. and short-term the population is expected to platoon at 9billion

i think humans will have enough time after shit gets bad but before it gets too bad so that technology will save us

we should adopt the precautionary principle just in case

>precautionary principle
what does that mean in practice though? one could argue it would have been more cautious to invest in research, instead of producing OP's picture

>Also in limited supply, worse than Uranium 235.

Thorium is more abundant than uranium 238, what the hell are you talking about

when it comes to environmental stuff, the precautionary principle generally means reducing dependence on things that are thought to harm the environment as opposed to continuing with business as usual or just being confident we'll find alternatives in time
you what's called the technocentric view (which is valid)

>and short-term the population is expected to platoon at 9billion

9.8 billion in 2050, 11.2 billion in 2100

phys.org/news/2017-06-world-population-billion.html

Birth rate in developing world, especially in Africa/middle east is higher than expected. There will be no plateauing anytime soon.

>>Also in limited supply, worse than Uranium 235.
>Thorium is more abundant than uranium 238, what the hell are you talking about

From th book "If we assume, as with ura-
nium, that these resources are used up over 1000 years and shared equally
among 6 billion people, we find that the “sustainable” power thus generated is 4 kWh/d per person."

Which is sweet f**k all.

The issue with Thorium is that there is none in seawater. In contrast to Uranium.

As with all these things there are unproven speculations that they can be used more efficiently e.g. “accelerator-driven system”. But the vast majority of these have not worked out historically.

>by the end of the century we will probably have fision

At the end of the century fusion will be 50 years away, as it always has been and always will be.

And bear in mind that we really need Deuterium-Deuterium fusion as the amount of Tritium is not sufficient to last very long.

D-D requires temperatures of 200,000,000 degrees.

To be clear my (OP) view is that we should aggressively research alternate energies and also aggressively pursue contributions like

1. Home insulation
2. Incentives to limit population growth.
3. Solar hot water
4. Electric cars.
5. Public transportation especially powered by electricity.
6. AI technology - maybe the AIs can help solve the problem.

But we should not think it is easy or assume that current living standards are sustainable. This has yet to be determined.

>2. Incentives to limit population growth
that would be literally racist

this graph sucks from an econometric POV.

explain how faggot

what about solar freaking roadways?

German electricity price is indicative of nothing other than the failure of its politicians.
The way the energy price is calculated in Germany is absolutely retarded right now.
So retarded in fact, that the consumer feels no difference in electricity prices whatsoever despite the fact that Germany is overproducing electricity by a large margin in summer and struggles to get rid of it.
And that's just one of many problems with the system right now. Doesn't help that while all that's going on, Germany still draws most of its energy out of coal plants that are absolutely terrible at adapting to changes in the grid. So right now we have a situation where wind and solar offer enough electricity for the whole fucking country already on a good summer day, but we're still burning almost exactly as much coal as we used to because those things need to be running at night.

The so called Erneuerbare Energien Gesetz (Renewable Energy Law) is one of the dumbest ways you could finance renewable energy.
I think a lot of stuff could be done a lot better if it weren't for several lobbies pushing and pulling a few politicians that have no idea what to change exactly.

>as the amount of Tritium is not sufficient to last very long.
Can't you breed tritium from lithium or something?

QQ plot, residual plot not included,

Single regression,

BCI, ACI not included,

Small sample size

>fusion

This is the oldest meme in the energy industry/research, while there have been some advances in the research field, especially with the JET-tokamak achievements, we are still away to reach a sustained break even energy balance with a reactor.

Environmental issues and impact isn't low at all, the neutron emission rate per Kw is pretty high, even higher than fission! The reactor's inner wall will get pretty radioactive after months operating.

And we are still away from a practical design that could extract heat from the reactor.

We still have a tot of Uranium and Thorium to burn up, so people should stop repeating the fusion meme, and concentrate with these technologies.

If people is so afraid for the bomb, then we should consider a thorium cycle with a fusor as neutron source to run up the Th-U cycle.

Anyways , at least, for the solar energy, this one has a special application, solar energy will never be efficient nor productive with centralized centrals or power plants, it just don't have enough power to become practical in that way.

But as part of a decentralized energy grid, that would help the central power grid to release power demand, solar seems to have a bright, very bright future.

5 years and solar+wind are the only commercially viable option. Backed by nat gas. They'll be dirt fucking cheap. 10 years and nobody buys ICE cars either. Because EVs will be dirt cheap as well.

>that would be literally racist
So?

None of this invalidates it. All I was pointing out was

* If solar is so cheap, where are the people paying cheap prices for solar electricity?

>failure of its politicians.

Maybe true, but as the book I referred to points out, politics is part of the process.

Is England going to cover its picturesque coastline with wind towers, etc?

>Can't you breed tritium from lithium or something?

Maybe, at a cost. But lithium is already in short supply (price doubled in the past year).

This is an issue with the whole thing - solving one problem, even partially, makes another one worse.

The east coast is basically all major cities lel