Renewables reached nearly 50% of global electricity capacity last year It was a strong year for renewable power expansion in 2025, with solar installations helping push renewables to nearly half of global electricity capacity, but that does not mean the world is yet on pace to meet its renewable energy commitments. The International Renewable Energy Agency's (IRENA) 2026 Renewable Capacity …
Nearly 50% global installed electricity capacity is nice, but we know that much of that capacity goes unused. We pay wind farms in Scotland not to generate power, for example, and solar panel capacity is unused for around half the time (when it's dark).
It would be better to know what %age of global installed electricity demand is actually met by power from renewable sources annually. Otherwise this is just another meaningless "up to" statistic.
Actually the question you want is how much energy is generated by renewable power? Nameplate capacity in terms of power is not the same thing as energy actually generated. Typically wind systems average about 15% or so in terms of actually producing energy compared to name plate capacity. The rest of the time the wind isn't blowing enough, or is blowing too hard, wrong time of day, wrong season of the year, etc.
A study done by the regulator in Ontario Canada found that it would take somewhere around 18,000 MW of wind, solar, and battery capacity to equal the actual energy output of a new 1,200 MW nuclear power plant (a factor of roughly 7). This meant that nuclear was much cheaper than wind and solar in terms of supplying energy (as opposed to supplying nameplate numbers). And this was not including the cost of the increased transmission lines and the consumption of additional land required for wind and solar (the nuclear plant could be sited next to existing transmission lines). Transmission lines are very expensive and very time consuming to site and build, so this is not a minor consideration. This is what led to the decision to build the SMRs now under construction near Toronto.
I read the report cited by the story. It's only a list of nameplate capacity, not about energy production. This is useful from the perspective of a manufacturer selling equipment or of a developer selling a project in terms of knowing where the market for their equipment is. It doesn't say how much energy is actually produced however.
The other big problem with the report is that it tosses hydroelectric in with wind and solar in an effort to pump up the numbers. This is very misleading as hydroelectric has been around from the very earliest days of the electric generating industry and is not part of the "renewables" industry. It is a very conventional and very mature technology and does not suffer from the same sort of intermittency that wind and solar do. Hydroelectric technology and economics are much more closely related to nuclear power than they are to wind and solar.
The one thing that is interesting about the report is that it shows that biofuels, geothermal, and tidal power are insignificant in terms of actual commercial deployment and so are probably not even worth talking about.
Study done by nuclear generator shows big nuclear numbers.
And we quote solar on annual generating capacity not nameplate. It looks better to customers, all of whom are unsurprised that the sun does not shine at night.
Not sure how Ontario stacks up, but my guess is it is not a high wind zone, so probably has very low relevance to places people will want to build wind farms.
Note also that those nuclear numbers are for a reactor running full tit 24/7. Unless you have a load to take it, they don't, and if you built a lot more capacity, then, like wind and solar, you run into intermittancy, but of demand not supply. The outcome is the same - cost goes up. (Which is not to throw shade on the suitability of nuclear for Ontario)
My windfarm ran at 40% of nameplate, once they got the bugs out. There are no subsidies, and they are tearing it down after 15 years, long before wearout, and building new, bigger turbines to roughly 4x the capacity of the site.
I am tearing off solar panels that are only 5-10 years old, and showing no degradation for the same reason: new panel upgrade pays itself off in 1.4 years. Again, zero subsidies, no feed in tariff requirements here.
> biofuels, geothermal, and tidal power are insignificant in terms of actual commercial deployment and so are probably not even worth talking about.
Again, this is only relevant where you don't have a resource, like Ontario. If you have geothermal resource, then yes it is getting built out as fast as possible at present.
>Hydroelectric technology and economics are much more closely related to nuclear power than they are to wind and solar.
The hydro station I looked at had ~30% utilisation. This was set by the annual available water supply and storage, which is completely out of the generators control. While it is conveniently able to deliver 100% of nameplate at night, by mid summer the number of hours of nameplate is severely diminished. By an astonishingly convenient coincidence, summer is known for being especially sunny.
(Interestingly, night charging of home solar batteries and EVs during winter, could allow increased hydro utilisation, as they spill water through spring when there is insufficient night time demand to keep using the flow.)
Do you think standing on the tracks with your eyes shut will stop the future that is hurtling toward you?
How's that petrol, diesel and LNG working out for you? Are you wanting to be dependent on Russian or US enriched uranium instead?
> Study done by nuclear generator shows big nuclear numbers.
Study done by the independent energy regulator looked at different options and found that nuclear was cheaper for consumers, and so picked that option.
> And we quote solar on annual generating capacity not nameplate. It looks better to customers, all of whom are unsurprised that the sun does not shine at night.
Ah, so you're a "renewables" vendor looking to make sales to the public. If you are selling systems to consumers, then that's a completely different business than utility scale operations. As for me, I don't have a financial stake in this except for the size of my electricity bill every month.
> Note also that those nuclear numbers are for a reactor running full tit 24/7. Unless you have a load to take it, they don't, and if you built a lot more capacity, then, like wind and solar, you run into intermittancy, but of demand not supply.
Intermittency of demand is mainly very predictable and so is easy to plan and schedule for. Intermittent and unpredictable supply on the other hand is a big problem for a grid operator.
> My windfarm ran at 40% of nameplate, once they got the bugs out.
You not understand the problem of operating at grid scale. The question from the government and regulator standpoint is not how much money can an operator make off the feed in tariffs if and when they have wind. The question is how much capacity needs to be built and paid for to meet the required demand 365 days a year. This is a completely different problem and it is where wind and solar get very expensive.
The regulator looks at population growth, economic growth, and these days, numbers of electric cars and electric heating. They then project demand in terms of "need another 1,000 MW of base load in 10 years" and then asks for proposals. To supply 1,000 MW 24/7, 365 days a year, would be more expensive using wind and solar than using nuclear because it would need 7 times as much capacity to deliver what was required. They therefore pick nuclear and ask someone (OPG in this case) to provide it.
This is an analysis based on benefits to the electricity consumer, not the benefits to wind and solar vendors.
> Again, this is only relevant where you don't have a resource, like Ontario. If you have geothermal resource, then yes it is getting built out as fast as possible at present.
The actual numbers published by IRENA are what said that biofuels, geothermal, and tidal power are insignificant on a global basis. If we are talking about providing energy to the world, they are not making a contribution that is even worth talking about.
> The hydro station I looked at had ~30% utilisation. This was set by the annual available water supply and storage, which is completely out of the generators control.
You are cherry picking one individual hydro plant. Ontario has more than 200 hydro plants. If we look at all of them together, they deliver the same proportion of energy in TWh as their proportion of nameplate capacity. They deliver reliably according to demand rather than intermittently according to the weather.
Wind and solar on the other hand are operated in parallel with fossil fuel plants. If you build more wind and solar you need more fossil fuel plants to go with them in order to provide electricity to consumers (and it is the consumer whose interests are paramount).
This is why hydro is so similar to nuclear. Both tend to be large capital projects with low operating costs but which can deliver reliably on demand, without requiring a different technology to be run in parallel with them to deliver reliably. You can have a 100% hydro grid or a 100% nuclear grid and it will work and be economically feasible.
Wind and solar on the other hand are more or less joined at the hip to fossil fuels. You cannot have a 100% wind or solar grid without needing massive overcapacity to make up for intermittency.
> How's that petrol, diesel and LNG working out for you?
We don't have to worry about that, we get most of our electricity from nuclear and hydro, and so have one of the cleanest energy supplies in the world. We shut down all our coal plants years ago and replaced them with nuclear.
Meanwhile the countries that bet everything on wind and solar are looking at electricity shortages due to lack of LNG on the market.
> Are you wanting to be dependent on Russian or US enriched uranium instead?
All currently operating nuclear power plants in Ontario use natural uranium, no enrichment needed, all mining and fuel fabrication taking place in Canada.
Ontario independent and energy is quite a lot to stuff into a sentence.
Ontario electricity has been a seething pool of corruption for ages.
Despite the amount of taxes I pay to the Ontario government each year, I wouldn't trust them for much.
In the current go around, Hydro One idles renewables, including niagara falls, in favour of methane reactors.
Why? Enbridge bought the Ontario government a decade ago; so they call the shots.
That, and the premier, like all cartoon crime bosses, loves a supply chain, and
there is no way to put a, uh, tariff , yeah that's right, on sun + wind.
"Nameplate capacity in terms of power is not the same thing as energy actually generated. "
Or needed.
Solar installers are happy to quote people a system that works for the sales company, but might not match what the customer needs. Sure, the system can generate the monthly power a customer uses, but perhaps not at the times the customer is at home so the power gets sold to the grid (in many cases) at pennies rather than being used to offset the more expensive incoming rates.
For me, I hope to have an EV sometime this year and the majority of the time if I had 50% in the battery, I'd be covered. That could mean a useful sink for any excess solar generation. I'm hoping to get paid for a couple of jobs this week and put some of that money towards 20kWh of batteries I found for sale. By running the freeze dryer and other white goods during the day, I could use and store a fair bit of power. 100% off-grid is all fine and dandy, but local ordinances require that there is service for the home to be considered habitable. If I'm just paying a little bit rather than trying to cover that last few percent, the finances would be better.
Oh joy, the Artemis crew (Christina) is in "plumber mode" to troubleshoot the toilet. That's one apparatus I don't think they have any redundancy on. At least not one that doesn't use the word "absorbent" in the description.
> Sure, the system can generate the monthly power a customer uses, but perhaps not at the times the customer is at home so the power gets sold to the grid (in many cases) at pennies rather than being used to offset the more expensive incoming rates.
A bunch of uncritical solar customers put their brains out of gear, and told themselves that after they put in solar they wouldn't pay for power. Because. The suppliers didn't even lie about the deal, or overly mislead them, it was mostly complete self delusion. The guy up the road is just such a butt-hurt customer. When I look at the deal he got, he is getting >10% ROI. That well exceeds mortgage rates and bank deposits. But he is still butt-hurt.
Many people just don't want change. They aren't satisfied with good enough, or better. Anything short of perfection is failure. It's all just a pretext for inaction.
It depends on where you live, and how you use electricity. I'm fortunate that I have a small solar system (3kW), and where I live is very sunny. I paid AU$4,000 (+ government subsidy). It's been in for 64 months and "paid for itself" after 47, and has generated 27.9MWh. I'm retired, so often at home during the day. Newer systems around here are now typically 6+kW. The government is also subsidising batteries to even out the evening demand when workers get home start cooking and turn on reverse cycle systems. Last year, renewable energy sources accounted 52% of electricity production in the whole State (including large batteries storing peak supply).
" I'm retired, so often at home during the day. "
I work from home 50%+ of the time so I'm in a similar position. I've been adding solar to run things such as the chest freezer and evaporative cooler. I don't have the budget to redo the roof at the moment so it's pointless to put a solar system on top just to need to take it down in the not too distant future and put it up again after the roof gets a makeover. My goal is to be able to use 100% of what gets generated and save the cost and red tape of something that can be tied to the grid. I'm waiting on a couple of checks to come in before I go pick up about 20kWh of Li batteries a person not too far away is selling.
Hydro is far better than wind and solar, because it can provide power when needed (unless flooding or drought etc). Heat storage or battery storage is starting to to change things, but whoever says they fully understand what things will look like in ten years on that front is either a liar or doesn't understand the complexities - of all kinds - technical, process, market, political... up to and including implied or explicit threats of military action simply to stop any successful green transitions from taking place.
Hydro is also far better than nuclear, because it can run at less than 100% economically and respond rapidly to peak demand periods. Technological developments could change that, too, but move fast and break things is not a very promising way to try to launch a nuclear revolution. The blowback to the efforts of the psychotic techbros could very easily bury nuclear again, and this time without any need to exaggerate things.
Hydro is far better than fossil fuels because no CO2, acid rain, radiation or other toxic waste in the environment (from coal burning or fracking wastewater). It ain't great for wildlife, though. The alleged windfarm effects are nothing compared to big hydro plants' disturbance of the environment. No such thing as a free lunch.
Hydro is not CO2 free, any sizeable installation has an enormous construction cost. It is best by far at a level all of its own once up and running though, but still not entirely CO2 free turbines do require maintenance. But even granting that they are leagues ahead of any other option reservoirs usually take up land that could be used to grow critical food for our ever increasing billions of people, or reduce even more the rapidly diminishing habitat for critical biodiversity in this current mass extinction event that we are engineering.
Pumped storage is a kind of hydro. Maybe a condo tower covered in solar panels with windmills on top could store power in a cistern on the roof when the sun is shining and the wind is blowing and residents are away at work. Etc. We can be clever, we need to be like right now since we sure weren't yesterday. Anyone who tries to tell you that there is anything obvious and/or simple about providing required power to our current and/or future civilization is obviously a moron who shouldn't be listened to. We need to try everything nothing should be off the table. Every solar panel can help, every windmill can help. The wind might not be blowing near your house today, but it must have been at some point and it is currently blowing somewhere so why not tap into that and figure out how to spread it around usefully. Renewables are better than burning fossil fuel unless you are a dumb stupid idiot who can't figure out how to use them properly. Burning fossil fuels is lethal and must be minimized.
"Hydro is not CO2 free, any sizeable installation has an enormous construction cost."
Most of the best spots for damming up rivers have been used up thus far. There's also the concept of TANSTAAFL. Dams have a cost of installation and also other costs such as ecological. They'll silt up over time and a failure can be very deadly.
In many places, the addition of reservoirs is a very good idea to buffer against drought. Some form of power generation can be used, but there may not be a good way to do a pumped storage at a very large scale.
Thank you for explaining things in simple words and numbers - something that Ed Milibrain struggles with (or intentionally ignores).
As Ed is obviously one of your downvoters, there must be another low IQ Climatard still confused by facts - but hey, they keep banging their head as they walk around ;)
Now I'd be more interested in a report that said how much of our demand could be reliably met by renewables all the time. Or in other words, if we got rid of non-renewables, how much the lights would have to go out - especially during those long still dark cold spells we often get in winter.
Now I'd be more interested in a report that said how much of our demand could be reliably met by renewables all the time.
You won't get the truth from IRENA because they're a NGO that exists to lobby for the installation of parasitic loads. Never mind the costs, or inefficiences, tremble at the sight of 11TW of powah! Or as others have pointed out, the 'renewables' scumbags have a very bad habit of glossing over nameplate vs actual power, so 11TW becomes 1TW, sometimes.
According to IRENA Director General Francesco La Camera, conflicts like the Iranian mess are a perfect reason to push for more renewable adoption.
He's paid to spew bollocks like that. And like many scammers, he mixes up cause and effect. It isn't an 'Iranian mess', it's a US-Israeli mess. And it's a mess that may suit those nations given their potential for LNG exports. Annex Gaza and 30km of Lebanon, extend coastline, claim rights to the off-shore gas fields and profit! But the UK and most of Europe don't burn oil for electricity. We do rely on gas because countries like the UK and Germany that's drank deeply of the kool-aid need gas to keep the lights on when the wind isn't blowing.
So the 'Iranian mess' should highlight that we need less 'renewables' because of their dependency on gas. And then because of the insane UK energy policy, where the most expensive source sets the electricity price, when the gas price goes up, so does the 'renewables' subsidy farmers profits.. Which is the issue the UK is wrestling with. Energy costs are unsustainable, Starmer kicks the can over to Millibrain, but Millibrain is thoroughly captured by the 'renewables' lobby. The UK could slash electricity prices just by reforming our energy market and removing the subsidies.. But Millibrain won't do this.
There's also the small matter that the 'Iranian mess' highlights other issues that 'renewables' can't replace. So as an example, 'Green' policies like diesel emmisions lead to demand for DEF, which is urea based. 'Renewables' take the piss, but can't produce urea... That needs petrochemicals, as does fertiliser and explosives production. So what it actually highlights is the need to expand oil & gas production, along with nuclear expansion.. And remove all the subsidies the 'renewables' lobby have won for themselves.
Renewables can produce urea. It's just expensive - mainly hydrogen, which now mostly comes from steam reforming of natural gas (instead of electrolysis).
Everything about 'renewables' is expensive. So yup, we can make synthetic fuels, with the Sabatier Reaction thrown in for good measure. But then our current little problem-
Worldwide demand of jet fuel has been steadily increasing since 1980. Consumption more than tripled in 30 years from 1,837,000 barrels/day in 1980, to 5,220,000 in 2010. Around 30% of the worldwide consumption of jet fuel is in the US (1,398,130 barrels/day in 2012
And one of the reasons behind the US liberating Kuwait was to liberate a.. err.. sweet deal they had for jet fuel. And the US is back at it again, with Israel & the US busily burning a LOT of jet fuel, along with fuel for US warships. And lots of commercial flights being cancelled so fuel can be diverted towards producing war crimes instead.
But it would take a LOT of energy to produce 5m bpd just of jet fuel. And then there's all the other fuel oil needed for non-nuclear powered warships. The nuclear ones can merrily steam around the world for years without needing fuel. XKCD again-
https://xkcd.com/1162/
'Renewables' advocates don't seem to understand this. So sure, we could go back to the good'ol days of sailing ships. Except we know that doesn't really scale, hence why those ships were obsoleted. Plus having a sail-powered aircraft carrier would make flight operations just a tad exciting. Then we're 'decarbonising' for no good reason other than profits, so increasing demand for electricity. The neo-Luddites just scream 'More windmills!', except that doesn't work when high pressure weather systems can affect most of Europe and those doldrums the old sailors knew about. Then they scream 'batteries!', except storing electricity is hard and expensive, although extremely profitable providing grid stabilisation to smooth over the fluctuations created by 'renewables'. And then other displacement activities like 'Green' hydrogen, except that increases electricity demand yet again. No wind, run off batteries, batteries need recharging and there's no electricity surplus to do that because the neo-Luddites try to reform/reinvent the wheel.
And then AI datacentres..
Luckily sanity seems to be slowly creeping into the EU thinking, and a growing realisation that 'renewables' really aren't the answer. Nuclear is.. But that's going to take time to build, and the 'renewables' scumbags have used regulatory capture to lock in 20+ years of indexed and thus guaranteed profit increases. Gas prices go up, windmill operators make windfall profits. And nothing will change until morons like Millibrain get fired. But smart lawyers can probably break 'renewables' contracts, because they're demonstrably not living up to the hype of 'cheap energy'. The more we 'invest', the more our energy costs increase, which isn't what scumbags like IRENA promised.
Yes we can, and have, used synthetic fuels. They are generally more expensive, but not impossible. Historically when constraints on oil supply occurred, like South Africa under apartheid, or Germany in WW2, the Fischer–Tropsch process (Wikipedia) was used. A number of plants around the world are producing significant amounts of liquid fuel. Estimates indicate that process can be cost competitive at crude oil costs of US$70-100/barrel. The fuel produced is cleaner (no sulphur) and easier to "green" (carbon capture etc.). Typically the products are a substitute for diesel and jet fuel. Current indications are that there is roughly 5 times the amount of coal reserves as petroleum, and they tend to be in less politically sensitive places. The indications are that gas and petroleum will run out at current consumption levels in ~50 years, coal >120 years.
Obviously the wind doesn't blow and sun doesn't shine all of the time - but it doesn't need to. We can clean up gas and coal, but because their usage is likely to be running as a low level base load with intermittent highs, they probably should be publicly owned. Gas and coal are not economically or environmentally favoured; but they are cheaper than nuclear, even with CO2 clean-up. Most nuclear systems expect the taxpayer to chip in for the construction and implementation costs, and then pick up all the tab for clean-up and storage of waste. If we want to go that way, perhaps we should nationalise those industries, so that the taxpayer gets the advantages as well as the cost? Maybe one of these days, fusion will work? I'm elderly, and it's been 10-20 years away for most of my life.
We might suspect that one of the biggest constraints on diversifying energy supply and production is the $1 trillion a year of profit that is generated by the petroleum industry; or the need for global capital to generate profit from what often used to be public utilities - large oligopolies are not really more efficient that publicly owned enterprises.
Estimates indicate that process can be cost competitive at crude oil costs of US$70-100/barrel. The fuel produced is cleaner (no sulphur) and easier to "green" (carbon capture etc.). Typically the products are a substitute for diesel and jet fuel. Current indications are that there is roughly 5 times the amount of coal reserves as petroleum, and they tend to be in less politically sensitive places. The indications are that gas and petroleum will run out at current consumption levels in ~50 years, coal >120 years.
Syngas and fuels aren't easier to 'grren', other than no sulphur. CCS is the same cost & inefficiency overhead whether it's natural or syngas burned in a CCGT when the wind isn't blowing. But they're also the usual 'Green' freakonomics. Syngas feedstocks are basically H2 and CO2. In a Millibrain-world, H2 is produced by electrolysis, which converts electricity into H2. The CO2 would have to come from.. somewhere, so perhaps air recovery, which converts electricity into CO2. UK taxpayers have been forced to subsidise CO2 production, currently at massive costs and to produce a product that will get pumped into holes in the ground. If you own say, the Rough gas storage field, you get paid £££ to store it. Which is nice, and a former owner (Enron) would be proud of the way we've come up with methods to tax thin air.
So currently CCS is a cost applied to gas & coal generation, reducing efficiency and increasing the cost of energy. But we're 'decarbonising', so if that works, there will be less CO2 from CCS, increasing the costs of any product derived from it. Which is a bit of a snag for syngas production.. Unless of course you're getting paid for that CO2, which is inverse economics, because normally producers would be expected to pay for their ingredients. But the most expensive form of CO2 production, DAC (Direct Air Capture) is estimated at around £2-300 per tonne.. Then you've got the energy costs, ie electricity. So £120/MWh vs £40-50/MWh for gas or £80/MWh for nuclear. So any product that requires electricity is automatically going to be a lot more expensive, if it relies on 'renewables' as an input cost.
Hence why inflation is so high, energy poverty on the increase, and 'developed' economies are busily de-industrialising. This is also self-inflating and locked in, ie indexed contracts mean that as 'renewables' create inflation, their profits are increased automagically. Gas goes up, wind farmers profit even though there's no cost relationship other than the UK's insane energy policy. But the 'renewables' lobby glosses over the costs, which is why existing contracts could (and should) probably be broken.
And then there's oil. Currently in the news because of US & Israeli antics to seize oil. Gaza has gas offshore and clear rights to exploit that.. But erase Gaza from the map, and Israel gets to exploit the Gaza Marine field, along with Leviathan and more of what used to be Lebanon's mineral rights.. Plus potential reserves under the Golan Heights that used to belong to Syria. Or there's Venezuala. Kill a bunch of people and kidnap a President, seize their mineral rights.. Which is much the same with Iran. Steal that oil, profit!
Or there's the UK, where Millibrain is being especially dishonest-
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2026/04/05/the-lost-gas-fields-that-could-power-britain-for-decades/
Some of that gas lies in areas that are already licensed, but the rest – perhaps the majority – is in unlicensed sectors. This means Miliband would have to lift his ban on exploration before it could be drilled. He has made clear there is little chance of such a move.
The UK is reliant on imported oil & gas because Millibrain won't allow exploration & exploitation, which would increase UK revenues, and reduce UK costs. I'm not sure who Millibrain is working for, but it isn't the taxpayer, or UK industry.. Except of course high gas prices means 'renewables' make more profit. Then there's his bullshit claims that lifting the ban wouldn't help because oil & gas prices are set globally, which is utter bollocks because contracts can, and are arranged off-market. Then there's this-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrocarbon_exploration#Licensing
Production Sharing contract (PSA)
A PSA is more complex than a Tax/Royalty system - The companies bid on the percentage of the production that the host government receives (this may be variable with the oil price), There is often also participation by the Government owned National Oil Company (NOC). There are also various bonuses to be paid. Development expenditure is offset against production revenue.
Or service contracts, and royalty mechanisms. So the UK could licence under a PSA where UK gets enough product to be self-sufficient on a cost-plus basis, and the rest can be exported at market prices. And then there's all the other stuff the petrochemicals industry produces, from tarmac to tights to explosives, fertilisers, pharmaceuticals and more, few of which can be substituted by 'renewables', or could be produced economically due to high costs and intermittency. Oh, and also why 'renewables' is a death cult because nuclear can also produce medical and industrial isotopes, and 'renewables' can't.
Most nuclear systems expect the taxpayer to chip in for the construction and implementation costs, and then pick up all the tab for clean-up and storage of waste. If we want to go that way, perhaps we should nationalise those industries, so that the taxpayer gets the advantages as well as the cost?
Not really, ie Hinckley has decommissioning and storage baked into the contract price.. Which in the wonderful world of PFI-style contracting, just means the price is jacked up to cover those costs. And in Hinckley's case, also bail out EDF. It's strange that a country that pioneered nuclear generation, we pay massively more now than our competitors. But I agree that nationalisation would make a lot of sense. Government borrowing costs are lower than industry, and if we're sharing the costs & risks, we should also be sharing the profits.. But again that's a problem with 'renewables' because we just get loaded with massive costs.
But that's all part of the lies spewing from the likes of IRENA. If 'renewables' are so wonderful, why is it that countries like the UK & Germany that have 'invested' massively in them have just seen their energy costs climb to the highest in the world?
The cheapest form of hydrogen is currently from natural gas.
Much also comes from coal, steam, and oxygen (air if you don't want to capture CO2) : 3C + H2O + O2→ H2 + 3CO
More hydrogen can be produced by the "water gas shift reaction" by additional reaction with water vapor: CO + H2O → CO2 + H2
The Fischer–Tropsch process produces hydrocarbons: (2n + 1)H2 + nCO → CnH2n+2 + n H2O
So for something like decane, a component of JP-4 jet fuel: 21H2 + 10CO → C10H22 + 10H2O
Syngas processes are mainly useful to create diesel and jet fuels for transport that cannot be easily electrified. As, I posted above, similar processes can be used for fertiliser production.
The USA is the larger producer of petroleum, followed by Russia and the Middle East. Generally, coal comes from parts of the world that are currently more stable? Reserves at current extraction rates look to last for >120 years, petroleum and gas reserves are expected to last ~50 years. Nuclear fission may well, or may not, have a significant future, but current costs indicate that it might need to be "nationalised".
As for the Hinkley Point "C" Contract: Section 9.1 SPENT FUEL MANAGEMENT – ACTIVITY 01 ...Fuel produced by operation of the reactors will be stored in a purpose designed ISFS constructed on the site. This will store the Spent Fuel until such time as a final repository for spent fuel becomes available and the fuel is considered sufficiently cooled for packaging and disposal at the repository... - Estimates are that the spent fuel will need to be stored for 70+ years, after which it will still be "low level" waste - So good luck enforcing that after everybody involved has retired or died, and the company folded up.
If 'renewables' are so wonderful, why is it that countries like the UK & Germany that have 'invested' massively in them have just seen their energy costs climb to the highest in the world. Because they were reliant on "cheap" gas, that wasn't after the Russia - Ukraine war?
If it was you, thanks for the down vote, my post was at least accurate...
Syngas processes are mainly useful to create diesel and jet fuels for transport that cannot be easily electrified. As, I posted above, similar processes can be used for fertiliser production.
But again, at what cost? 'Renewables' still have the same fundamental problems that our ancestors knew, and hence obsolecence in the face of cheaper and more efficient alternatives. But it's something that's being widely studied, ie containerised fuel generators for the military, or NASA's been using methanation to create closed-loop CO2->H2O & oxygen generation with hydrogen as a waste product. Or a fun example, methane production to create a Martian fuelling station-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabatier_reaction#Importing_hydrogen
An optimised system of this design massing 50 kg "is projected to produce 1 kg/day of O2:CH4 propellant ... with a methane purity of 98+% while consuming ~17 kWh per day of electrical power (at a continuous power of 700 W). Overall unit conversion rate expected from the optimised system is one tonne of propellant per 17 MWh energy input
The Martian atmosphere has lots of CO2, so then just need a way to extract that. Or this issue-
The methane can be used on-demand to generate electricity overcoming low points of renewable energy production. The process is electrolysis of water by electricity to create hydrogen (which can partly be used directly in fuel cells) and the addition of carbon dioxide CO2 (Sabatier reaction) to create methane. The CO2 can be extracted from the air or fossil fuel waste gases by the amine process.
Which gets interesting. So 17MWh is around £2,000 based on a £120/MWh UK wind cost. Google's AI provided a.. curious cost when asked how much 1t methane costs-
The cost of 1 tonne of methane varies widely, with the social cost often estimated between $933 and $4,000 per metric ton due to its high global warming potential. As a commodity, methane (as natural gas) is much cheaper, while abatement costs for reducing emissions can be around $450 per tonne
Which wasn't my question, but such is AI. Asking it how much LNG costs gave around $550/tonne. So the first answer was the usual 'Green' garbage with 'cost' artificially inflated by woo-science and sin taxes. And then there's other costs, eg-
Long-Term Amine Price: Long-term prices for MEA are estimated around $1,700/tonne (or $1.70/kg).
Using amines for CO2 recovery is a lossy process, both in terms of direct evaporation, and large amounts of energy needed to regenerate the MEA and extract the CO2. And of course, you need to produce MEA, which requires more energy. So massive energy costs to produce something that has no real economic value, other than the random numbers Greens attach to the 'social cost' of CO2.. Which in UK terms is err.. Net Zero because despite billions being thrown at CCS scammers & 'renewables', it will have a Net Zero effect on UK or global temperatures.
And because of this-
https://gridwatch.co.uk/Wind
minimum: 0.084 GW maximum: 18.415 GW average: 7.839 GW
Last years daily wind power averages.. It's a very wide spread, which isn't what you want, if your processes require constant temperatures to maintain reactions. Or thnk if aluminium production, which is basically congealed electricity. Wind speeds drop, smelter cools, and then a rather large challenge to re-melt the aluminium. Or the dreaded AI datacentres. Sorry, we can only feed your 1GW with 100MW because there's no wind...
Because they were reliant on "cheap" gas, that wasn't after the Russia - Ukraine war?
Nope. Germany & the UK were reliant on cheap gas because of 'renewables' intermittency problem, which is also the problem with syngas production and costs. So when there's a wind shortage, syngas would need to be burned to provide the electricity that syngas production needs, which is ruinously expensive and unsustainable. So 'Energiewende' in Germany may have bought the SDP Green votes and allowed the SDP to maintain their stranglehold on Germany's politics, but it also created the dependency on gas to solve 'renewables' intermittency problem. Then of course they closed their NPPs because of an irrational fear of technology and tsunamis.
Deindustrialisation followed.
As for Russia, there was the small matter of the unsolved bombing of the Nord Stream pipelines. The largest act of economic sabotage in Europe's history. One pipeline remains operable, the other 3 could have been repaired long ago, but the EU decided to sanction Russia instead. Russia doesn't really care & just found other customers, so the EU ended up sanctioning itself instead. And now is in a bit of a mess because it can't import LNG from the Gulf States, and has created a dependency on expensive LNG from the US instead.. and the US isn't exactly behaving very rationally at the moment. So the EU could attempt to restore relationships with Russia and getting the gas flowing again, but Russia might just say 'No', and watch the EU continue to implode.
But Ursula's belatedly figured out that maybe nuclear is a good idea after all, except reversing anti-nuclear & technology policies is going to take time, as would building new NPPs..
Estimates are that the spent fuel will need to be stored for 70+ years, after which it will still be "low level" waste - So good luck enforcing that after everybody involved has retired or died, and the company folded up.
Not really a problem. Windscale.. I mean Sellafield has been storing spent fuel for probably that long. Just needs ensuring ponds don't leak and the water's kept topped up.. And of course 'spent' fuel can be reprocessed and nuclear 'waste' burned as fuel. Which is where picking the right fuel cycle is important, especially as many existing reactors were 'once through' and fuel rods not recycled.
If it was you, thanks for the down vote, my post was at least accurate...
Nope, not me. And sure, your post was reasonably accurate, it just omitted an awful lot of the costs and policies that have lead us down the 'renewables' dead end.
Take a look at the gulf or Russian gas supplies to Europe and tell me if you think the word "reliable" is appropriate for any single source of energy.
More generally I do get the argument against dependence on solar in northern Europe, but I'm of the opinion that the most reliable "reliable" lies in building oversupply and grid interconnections, not shifting our single-point-of-failure back to the Strait of Hormuz. That's my point of view from the UK and the logic for your region may be different - something else we shouldn't lose sight of.
"Our oil and gas supply wouldn't be constrained by the Straits if we were allowed to use our own gas, oil and coal."
Petroleum is a global market so even if you aren't getting products from that region, disruptions will be felt across the whole market. In the US, Chevron can pull up crude oil, but that doesn't mean they get to refine that same oil and sell it's products themselves. The regulations are hard to work through without fists full of Ibuprofen and subsequent counseling.
The rules for supply from the oil company are whatever the Government wants to put in the license. So, if we want to always have supply, we put "no export sales until domestic orders are fulfilled" in the license terms, and the "global market" can go hang. We'd end up paying for it, possibly with reduced production levies, but it is possible.
"More generally I do get the argument against dependence on solar in northern Europe"
There's dependence and then there's going full steam ahead when supplies are constrained. Having solar as a fair portion of the mix can be good. It's easy to deploy and getting cheaper all of the time. If that's good for a majority of the time without having to worry about supply/demand issues, great. On dark and calm winter nights, there may be a need to economize. The only way to make that work might be through dynamic pricing. A large energy bill can be quite painful and pain is an effective teacher.
It depends on where you live. Here in Southern California a domestic solar installation plus storage can provide all the power you need plus surplus to charge the car. Wind is nothing like as reliable. The state itself now generates a power surplus from renewables.
Its the mix that's important. We get usable power from panels even in mid-winter. On the other hand wind is likely to be a lot more reliable in the UK and there's also tidal and wave (assuming it can be made to work reliably).
"Now I'd be more interested in a report that said how much of our demand could be reliably met by renewables all the time."
A report like that would have to be considered from a couple of different assumptions. If there were a way, such as dynamic pricing, to get people to adjust their usage according to supply, that would be one way to look at it. If people just use electricity without any consideration like always because the cost is level, that's a different assumption.
Once I'm geared up with more solar, if I have a readout that's telling me what percentage of what I'm making is being used and how much the grid is charging at the moment, I might want to put off doing the laundry for a bit. Even better if there is also a prediction curve moving forward. I might want to do the laundry now if the predictions are that later will be more expensive. If the forecast is for wind overnight and I know my power mix has a bunch of wind in it, running the washer might be really cheap later.
It's a bit more thought required by people, but a bit of sorting is fine by me. The have-nots will be digging a deeper hole if they don't monitor their usage more closely than once a month when the bill arrives.
"Now I'd be more interested in a report that said how much of our demand could be reliably met by renewables all the time."
The two main renewables of Wind and Solar can often be unavailable at the same time. Small hydro and other sorts of renewable options are a vanishingly small amount so should be ignored.
Local battery storage is probably the best from a consumer standpoint. If your lights and heating depend a lot on your own limited power storage, you might be more cognizant of your usage. You also have control over that rather than just hoping your idiot neighbor with the stadium outside lighting is doing any conserving at all.
"Then there's also the way they act as bird, bat & bug blenders."
I'm not that keen on bugs. They are menacing my garden right now. I haven't seen any reports on bats v. turbine blades. There are some wind farms near me and I've yet to spot bird remains when I go by those. If they smack down ravens, I'm ok with that. Corvids are assholes and crap all over. They've also been dropping dead things in the birdbath which forces me to do some unpleasant cleans including the reservoir and pump. I'm trying to find some fencing that has openings around 100x100 so the small birds can get through, but the owls and ravens have to use the water trough on the other side of the house that's easy to dump out and clean. I can buy a whole roll, but that's far more than I need and expensive.
"A more decentralised energy system, with a growing share of renewables and more market players, is structurally more resilient," La Camera said in a statement. "Unless the sun doesn't shine and the wind doesn't blow much for a few weeks, in which case we're all totally fucked"
"China led that drive, with 100 GW of non-renewable capacity added last year, most of which was coal"
China has an absolutely massive footprint of solar panels now with transmission lines stretching hundreds of miles. Since 80% of solar panels are made in China, that makes sense. They also have a Thorium MSR up and running as a test article. While they may be still adding some coal plants, that has slowed down dramatically and they are trying to bootstrap into cleaner power generation as they continue the march to owning nearly all of the world's manufacturing capacity. Energy underpins everything we humans do so making sure that foundation is as solid as a really solid thing means lots can be built on top. Germany has learned that lesson. A country with a tradition of engineering prowess is being kneecapped by energy costs and limitations.
It's quite remarkable how the most ignorant people in this comment section post the longest rambling nonsense here.
Whether they like it or not, the current war has just given the energy transition another nice boost globally. The fact that they still talk about intermittency issues like it's 2016 is telling. Anyway, enjoy your high gas bills. I'm off to cook some dinner on my induction hob.
PS: When resource economic clashes with manufacturing economics there's only one possible winner and fossil fuels ain't it.
It's quite remarkable how the most ignorant people in this comment section post the longest rambling nonsense here.
It's also remarkable that the most ignorant people tend to post the short, insulting comments demonstrating they lack any basic clue about the issues. But then IRENA and the 'renewables' lobby has spent millions on lobbying and marketing.
The fact that they still talk about intermittency issues like it's 2016 is telling. Anyway, enjoy your high gas bills. I'm off to cook some dinner on my induction hob.
The fact that people ignore intermittency issues and the enormous costs is like they think it's 1716. The neo-Luddite death cult wants the world to go back to the Age of Sail and build windmills again, rather than reliable modern technology like nuclear. But cooking your dinner will get ever more expensive, thanks to 'renewables', and when demand exceeds supply, you may have to skip hot meals entirely.
You would think that when a significant power draw like a large data center was being planned that the planners would include sourcing the power and disposing of the heat it generates. Currently power supply appears to be "someone else's problem" and waste heat is expected to take care of itself. This isn't good enough. One of the reasons why we're in a bit of ecological mess is a history of 'grab that resource and let the consequences fend for themselves:. Energy flow needs to be managed and energy itself not ignored (wasted) just because all the headline profits are elsewhere.
"You would think that when a significant power draw like a large data center was being planned that the planners would include sourcing the power and disposing of the heat it generates. "
If they can push that off onto somebody else, that saves them heaps of money. If water companies are only in the business of selling water and not also managing the source(s), that's a problem. The same for electricity. It's dead easy for a utility to bang in some pylons, string lines and sell power at high KV levels so they can be wringing their hands with glee at the prospect. Another downside of completely private utility companies.
