torsdag 22. februar 2018

Renewable energy




In 2013 renewables accounted for almost 22% of global electricity generation, and the IEA Medium-Term Renewable Energy Report 2015 foresees that share reaching at least 26% increase in 2020.

https://www.iea.org/about/faqs/renewableenergy/

..the world met 13.7% of its energy needs from zero-carbon sources in 2014. Solar and wind, in particular, are growing fast, with output more than doubling in the five years to 2014. A quarter century ago, wind and solar energy provided 0.1% of global needs.


A new report released by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) reveals that solar jobs in the US (and other nations) are expanding quickly. As of November 2016, the American solar industry employed 260,077 workers. This is an increase of 24.5 percent from 2015, with a growth rate that is 17 times faster than the United States economy as a whole.


Solar and wind power cheaper than fossil fuels for the first time

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/solar-and-wind-power-cheaper-than-fossil-fuels-for-the-first-time-a7509251.html




Renewable energy will be cheaper than fossil fuels by 2020.

This is how coal dies — super cheap renewables plus battery storage

Kineserne er ledende i verden på solenergi og el-biler er i fremmarsj.

https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2018-china-pollution/

The biggest solar parks in the world are now being built in India

http://www.latimes.com/world/asia/la-fg-india-solar-20180319-story.html

China has already reached its solar energy installation target for 2020, reaffirming its position as the largest producer of solar power on earth.

A comprehensive survey of the wind industry shows wind energy is routinely purchased in bulk for just two cents per kilowatt-hour—and turbines are only getting cheaper, bigger, and better.

Ny solenergiteknologi bekrefter hvor fremtidens energi må hentes fra.

Why 100% renewable energy is feasible.


Last year was the first during which Britain got more energy from wind than coal – 11.5 percent compared to 9.2 percent.

Morocco turns the Sahara desert into a solar energy oasis.

Wind Energy’s Carbon Footprint
https://www.factcheck.org/2018/03/wind-energys-carbon-footprint/#.WqrnyjQEid8.facebook

Number of Cities Powered Mostly by Renewables Has Doubled Since 2015


German coal mining could end by 2030s, says Merkel’s coalition negotiator
In a Stunning Turnaround, Britain Moves to End the Burning of Coal

https://cleantechnica.com/2017/05/08/germany-breaks-solar-record-gets-85-electricity-renewables/

Scotland’s wind turbines provided more electricity than the country needed four days in a row
Look, no lithium! First rechargeable proton battery created 

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/mar/09/look-no-lithium-first-rechargeable-proton-battery-created

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-06-27/where-3-million-electric-vehicle-batteries-will-go-when-they-retire

http://www.jackkerfoot.com/2018/06/americas-growing-interest-electric-vehicles/

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/28/10-massive-corporations-going-big-on-solar-power.html

Renewables, not natural gas, were main driver behind drop in U.S. power sector emissions in 2017
https://thinkprogress.org/carbon-emissions-decline-with-renewables/

Two new records for Scottish wind power ‘underline the massive progress Scotland is making in securing an ever increasing proportion of its electricity needs from wind power and other clean renewable sources’, says WWF Scotland director Lang Banks 


The Largest Wind Farm in the U.S. Is Growing in Oklahoma. It’s a Sign of the Times.

https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/a19136723/the-first-floating-wind-farm-is-ridiculously-efficient/




More Than 100 Cities Worldwide Now Powered Primarily by Renewable Energy

These cities get more than 70 percent of their electricity from wind, solar, geothermal and other renewables. That’s up since the Paris climate agreement

https://insideclimatenews.org/node/51884

This company may have solved one of the hardest problems in clean energy.The “hydrogen economy” may be a thing after all.

Her i Norge er en godt i gang med Hydrogen-satsingen allerede.

Tenk om alle midlene som blir brukt til å tåkelegge klimadebatten kunne blitt brukt til å tenke nytt isteden? Når en ser hvilke enorme summer som er blitt brukt: Klimafornekting er storindustri.


 

TOP SOLAR ENERGY MYTHS

 


Myth #1: Wind power is the Ted Bundy of bird-killers.

Fact: The myth that turbines kill birds is one of the most common arguments against wind energy, but it is not grounded in fact.

According to a 2007 report by the National Research Council (NRC), wind turbine losses account for "a minute fraction" of bird deaths caused by human activities. In 2003, wind turbines killed an estimated 20,000 to 37,000 birds in a year. And while this may seem like a lot, it makes up less than 0.003% of bird deaths for that year. In comparison, collisions with buildings kill 97 to 976 million birds annually; cars are thought to kill 80 million birds per year; toxic chemicals kill more than 72 million birds each year; And cats? Yeah, they kill hundreds of millions of birds each year.

Not to mention that, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, up to one million birds are killed every year in oilfield production pits. 

Myth #3: Solar power won't work in places that are cloudy or cold.

Fact: Thanks to organic photovoltaic (OPV) technology, solar panels work even in cold or cloudy places. In fact, in places like London or Seattle, OPV devices could actually generate more solar energy than their more traditional, silicon counterparts. Silicon cells require direct sunlight, but OPV generates energy regardless of whether the angle is direct or not. This means that even though there is less overall sunlight on cloudy days, OPV is still able to capture diffuse and reflected light. 


RENEWABLE ENERGY MYTHS

6 MYTHS ABOUT RENEWABLE ENERGY,
BLOWN AWAY

https://www.greenpeace.org/archive-international/en/campaigns/climate-change/energyrevolution/renewable-energy-myths/ 


Mer fornybar energi myte-debunking.

The seven megatrends that could beat global warming: 'There is reason for hope'

Det er åpenbart at elbiler er mer energieffektive i bruk enn fossilbiler. Men hva med all energien som går med til produksjonen?

Det er feil å hevde at elbiler har små, om noen, miljøfordeler sammenlignet med fossilbiler. For å beregne hvordan ulike biler påvirker miljøet, må man undersøke utslippene for hele bilens livsløp.

En livsløpsanalyse finansiert av Europakommisjonen slår fast en miljøgevinst på mellom 50 og 60 prosent, målt etter utslipp i form av drivhusgasser. Flere andre studier viser også betydelig reduserte utslipp for elbiler sammenlignet med andre biler

https://www.faktisk.no/faktasjekker/XDR/elbiler-har-sma-om-noen-miljofordeler 

https://cleantechnica.com/2020/02/20/coal-gas-emissions-are-1500-3000x-the-mass-of-waste-wind-turbine-blades/?fbclid=IwAR1ZgMGZGGf4hg7oGOnwjLmxIAb_Bhm3hcBbRxjGFlb5_0PQNgjuQVxehmM



https://www.aerialpower.com/

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20121119-cleaning-solar-powers-dirty-side


30 stater har sagt at de vil fortsette sitt arbeid med å få ned utslippene.


California ignores the White House and signs climate deal with China



MORE COAL USE WILL NOT CREATE MORE JOBS



President Trump has called the Paris climate accord “very unfair” for the United States, especially the coal industry, and pledged to restore coal miners’ jobs. But bringing back coal isn’t the same thing as bringing back coal miners’ jobs. Almost all coal use in the United States is for producing electricity. Coal mining jobs are declining partly because low natural gas prices have cut coal’s market share from 50 percent in 2000 to 30 percent in 2016. Også i Australia går kull tilbake.






Toxic air, water, soils and workplaces are responsible for the diseases that kill one in every six people around the world, the landmark report found, and the true total could be millions higher because the impact of many pollutants are poorly understood. The deaths attributed to pollution are triple those from Aids, malaria and tuberculosis combined. The vast majority of the pollution deaths occur in poorer nations and in some, such as India, Chad and Madagascar, pollution causes a quarter of all deaths. The international researchers said this burden is a hugely expensive drag on developing economies.

https://thinkprogress.org/lamberts-point-coal-dust-pollution-6dbec60d1e9e/

More and more countries are preparing for the end of the Petroleum Age:
And that’s just cars. Flying on Alternative Fuels.
Og den er jo hinsides ironisk denne påstanden om at global warming is a "leftist hoax" når en ser på disse tallene: Fossil fuel companies are benefitting from global subsidies of $5.3tn (£3.4tn) a year, equivalent to $10m a minute every day, according to a startling new estimate by the International Monetary Fund.





Fossil fuel subsidies are a staggering $5 tn per year

A new study finds 6.5% of global GDP goes to subsidizing dirty fossil fuels


https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X16304867
Oljen er jo i praksis gjennom-sosialisert.

Over the past century, the federal government has pumped more than $470 billion into the oil and gas industry in the form of generous, never-expiring tax breaks. Once intended to jump-start struggling domestic drillers, these incentives have become a tidy bonus for some of the world’s most profitable companies.
Taxpayers currently subsidize the oil industry by as much as $4.8 billion a year, with about half of that going to the big five oil companies—ExxonMobil, Shell, Chevron, BP, and ConocoPhillips—which get an average tax break of $3.34 on every barrel of domestic crude they produce. With Washington looking under the couch cushions for sources of new revenue, oil prices topping $100 a barrel, and the world feeling the heat from its dependence on fossil fuels, there’s been a renewed push to close these decades-old loopholes. But history suggests that Big Oil won’t let go of its perks without a brawl.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X16304867

How Big Oil Clings to Billions in Government Giveaways


A new paper published in Climatic Change estimates that when we account for the pollution costs associated with our energy sources, gasoline costs an extra $3.80 per gallon, diesel an additional $4.80 per gallon, coal a further 24 cents per kilowatt-hour, and natural gas another 11 cents per kilowatt-hour that we don’t see in our fuel or energy bills.

https://www.ucsusa.org/clean-energy/coal-and-other-fossil-fuels/hidden-cost-of-fossils#.WrI0pGrOWUl

The attacks on renewables:

Det er fossil brensel interesser som bruker mye penger på denne type sverting. Amerikanske frontgrupper og tankesmier er verstingene:

Koch Industries er USAs nest største private foretak, og er et konglomerat som har datterselskaper innen en rekke industrier.

Dette inkluderer energi, petroleum og gass blant mye annet.

Brødrene David og Charles Koch styrer familiebedriften.

Koch-brødrene har satt av rundt 10 millioner dollar i året for å bestride støtte til elbiler, og å fremme fossile drivstoff.

En del av denne virksomheten er såkalte opinion writers som spyr ut propaganda som ofte oversettes og sendes rundt i nettverket.

https://theintercept.com/2015/08/28/emails-show-koch-industries-backed-effort-undermine-renewable-energy-kansas/

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/jun/23/green-energy-subsidies-community-projects-fossil-fuels?CMP=share_btn_fb

https://thinkprogress.org/obscure-think-tank-gains-influence-1644feb0b813/

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-koch-brothers-dirty-war-on-solar-power-20160211

https://interestingengineering.com/koch-brothers-major-threat-clean-energy

https://www.tu.no/artikler/vi-ser-naermere-pa-elbilens-skitne-hemmeligheter/396938

https://cleantechnica.com/2018/02/06/evs-dont-run-electricity-coal-power-plants/

https://americansforprosperity.org/?s=tesla&post_type=post

____________________________

Children labour/slave labour cobolt claims pushed by petroleum industry lobbyists is a bit ironic:

is a very old problem not related to electric cars. Only a fringe amount of cobolt used in electric cars batteries comes from child laboured mines in Congo. Child labour in english coal and iron mines was common in the 19th century.

"Until the mid-nineteenth century, the British state accepted that children as young as five years old were an acceptable part of the industrial workforce."

https://museum.wales/articles/2011-04-11/Children-in-Mines/ 

http://www.historyhome.co.uk/peel/factmine/childmin.htm 

Child labour was also common in US coal mines:

1911
Breaker boys employed by the Pennsylvania Coal Company. IMAGE: LEWIS HINE/LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

1911
Breaker boys at work breaking coal. The process produces clouds of dust which coat the workers' lungs. IMAGE: LEWIS HINE/LIBRARY OF CONGRESS



New batteries are coming:

Look, no lithium! First rechargeable proton battery created

There are better places to get cobalt than the artisanal mines in Congo, and alternative chemistries and cobalt recycling are also providing promising pathways toward lowering raw cobalt demand.

According to the Amnesty International report that first opened the world’s eyes to the troubles of cobalt mining in Congo, Tesla was not called out “because its main battery cell supplier, Panasonic, sources its cobalt from the Philippines and not Congo.” Tesla also has committed to sourcing cobalt and other raw materials exclusively from North America for its new Gigafactory battery production facility.

According to the U.S. Geological Survey, 58 percent of the world’s cobalt is mined in Congo. (CNN’s investigation claims in consecutive slides, that “two-thirds of the world’s cobalt come from Congo” and that 58.8 percent is cobalt produced in Congo, providing the London Metal Exchange as the source for the latter figure). Of the cobalt sourced in Congo, according to CNN, roughly one-fifth is mined by hand. Accordingly, roughly 7.5 percent of the world’s cobalt is mined in the disturbing manner portrayed in the CNN multimedia piece.

That’s still far too much, of course, but the startling conditions at the “artisanal” hand mines shown by CNN are still the minority fringe of the industry.

Additionally, electric vehicles — which CNN’s headline and language within the article blames for the unethical mining practices — are responsible for a relatively small percentage of the total cobalt that is mined, marketed, and put to use.

Rechargeable batteries (like lithium ion) make up about 42 percent of the market for cobalt, according to the Cobalt Development Institute.

Of the 42 percent that is used for batteries, roughly one-quarter is used for electric vehicles.

In other words, just over 10 percent of the world’s cobalt supply is currently being used for batteries to power electric cars.

The bigger culprits are portable consumer electronics — like cell phones and laptop computers — which use around 72 percent of the cobalt that goes into lithium ion batteries, or roughly 30 percent of all cobalt mined.

“let’s also not forget that the supply chain for gasoline-powered vehicles has its fair share of issues, ranging from human rights violations like the use of child labor, to disastrous oil spills like Deepwater Horizon.”

Electric cars are still a small, but growing, part of the market for raw cobalt. Electric carmakers, however, will continue to improve battery technology to reduce dependence on cobalt and can better source the cobalt that they do require from well-regulated mines and from recycled resources. Meanwhile, gasoline-powered cars will always depend on oil, which has a long and irrefutably exploitative supply chain that harms communities at the point of extraction, in the areas that is it refined, and then again when the byproducts of its combustion spew out of tailpipes.

CNN Wrongly Blames Electric Cars for Unethical Cobalt Mining

https://www.tu.no/artikler/vi-ser-naermere-pa-elbilens-skitne-hemmeligheter/396938

____________________________

Rare earths is a misnomer, because they are neither “rare” nor “earths.” They are rare in their pure forms, but plentiful as compounds. They are called “earth metals” because that used to be the term for metals that can dissolve in acid.

Quote from Wikipedia:

Neodymium

“Although neodymium is classed as a rare earth, it is a fairly common element, no rarer than cobalt, nickel, and copper, and is widely distributed in the Earth's crust. “

Neodymium - Wikipedia

Rare earth element - Wikipedia

Around 2010, some articles and commentators warned that shortages of rare earths, or China’s near-monopoly on them, could choke off the West’s shift to renewable energy and other clean technologies. This was never true—but the myth persists.

And if there ever was a minor problem, its about to go away.

Most modern turbines dont even use rare earth materials:

Rare earth magnets: not all new turbines are using them

Around half of the annual output of Siemens wind turbines now feature permanent magnet generators – they are incorporated into all new models as standard.

Siemens eases rare earth supply for wind turbines

The US coal industry’s future could be to mine rare-earth metals for wind turbines

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