Happy about all those solar panels and wind turbines? Not so fast.

November 17, 2014 6:32 AM

A sobering look into the realities of "renewable" power sources. "As long as energy sources that are as carbon-intensive and destructive as fossil fuels are classed as "renewable," boosting renewable energy around the world risks doing more harm than good."
posted by crazylegs (13 comments total)

I don't know... this is a bit like calling a turn-of-the-20th century automobile 'inefficient'. We're living very much in the formative years of renewable energy here. I'd argue that we can expect decades of trial and error (and corresponding "we're getting it wrong" articles like this) before we get the processes working the way they should (high efficiency, no 'more harm than good' side effects). I remain optimistic.
posted by pipeski at 6:46 AM on November 17, 2014 [4 favorites]

No one with any sense is saying massive investment in alternative energy infrastructure us carbon neutral. Just like no one with any sense is saying unchecked growth is a good thing, or that renewable make unchecked growth better.

The whole point of renewable s to move the massive and necessary (if you think all people ought to have clean running water and other niceties of modern life) investment from the incredibly wasteful and commodity driven infrastructure we have now to something else.

Which takes money and carbon and whatnot.

Renewable have costs. Yes. But non renewables have even more costs, and key into the worst aspects of unchecked growth and globalism. You can't expect a commodity that is also the basis of an inflationary economy be anything than an exponential burn.

Given that renewable valuation is based in sensible things like gigagwatt-hours and non-renewables valuation is based on how much your corp is worth if it could suck all the reserves dry and sell them at best market price today, I think it's pretty clear that the problem here is not renewables, but rather how hard it is to actually change infrastructure.
posted by clvrmnky at 6:55 AM on November 17, 2014 [4 favorites]

This is the first post I 've ever considered flagging. I expect the engineering and science in this article is just wrong. This random snippet:

Solar PV panels are up to four times as energy and carbon-intensive to produce as wind turbines: Aluminum - used to mount and construct solar panels - is about as carbon and energy-intensive as steel.

The point is the cost is for the one time installation, not the day to day fuel. The actual carbon cost of N joules of wind or solar vs N joules of petroleum over M years would be a better metric.
posted by sammyo at 6:58 AM on November 17, 2014 [5 favorites]

There's some interesting stats here, but there's also a bit of sophistry, I'd say --- if you dive into the paper they mention stating that hydroelectric dams cause vast increases in methane output, this turns out to be because when you stick a hydroelectric dam in the jungle, your resevoir turns into a swamp. In more temperate climates, then, this would be considerably less of a concern --- the dams aren't so much the issue as where you locate them.

Further, they then blithely assert that the world can happily go back to the energy consumption levels of the 1970s; dunno about you, but in addition to the iPhone i'm writing this comment on, I can think of about a dozen other devices I personally own that didn't exist then and which substantially improve the quality of my life. I mean, suggesting that people suck it up and put on a sweater to save on energy costs went over like a lead balloon when Jimmy Carter tried it in the actual 70s. Possibly humanity would be much better off if we switch to an all-Brussels-sprouts diet; if you find a public advocacy group that can get majority of people to buy in on that then I suggest letting them loose on this whole "low energy lifestyle" idea, it seems like the former would be a good warmup for the latter, much more difficult task.
posted by Diablevert at 6:58 AM on November 17, 2014

This article is tremendously wrong. Full of breezy assertions, light on citations. I could spend hours refuting each point, but fuck it: I'm not going to waste my time. I'm not gonna get stuck in this (possibly deliberately set) honeypot.
posted by scruss at 7:03 AM on November 17, 2014 [2 favorites]

Aarg. It makes it very difficult to have a sane conversation about climate change and energy use with a click bait headline and an article with valid points mixed with wild assertions and bad science.
posted by gwint at 7:05 AM on November 17, 2014

It seems the article's source is this book, written by this dude who is an academic and served as chief climate change advisor to the UK government for 5 years. I was dubious about the assertions but at least after a quick look they seem legit.
posted by miyabo at 7:05 AM on November 17, 2014

Good for you scruss. Seriously.

Once you get beyond the obvious "Using less energy is less net-negative for the environment than putting up more *RENEWABLE POWER SOURCE*", which is a trivial solution to the energy and environmental side of things (albeit one we should all keep in mind and turn our thermostats up a bit this time of year), this article is really poorly done and not all that useful.
posted by RolandOfEld at 7:07 AM on November 17, 2014 [2 favorites]

Diablevert: There's some interesting stats here, but there's also a bit of sophistry, I'd say

I posit that those two ideas are immiscible - if there's sophistry, the stats aren't "partly interesting". To me, that's like "there's a turd in the punchbowl, but some of the punch is still tasty!"
posted by IAmBroom at 7:09 AM on November 17, 2014 [1 favorite]

This is the first post I 've ever considered flagging. I expect the engineering and science in this article is just wrong.
Add the pseudo stats.
posted by francesca too at 7:11 AM on November 17, 2014

No one with any sense is saying massive investment in alternative energy infrastructure us carbon neutral.

What? Lots of people are saying this. It simply means that they displace more carbon from the sources that would be used if the RE wasn't operational against the amount used in their construction. Both wind and PV currently pay back on their 'embedded' carbon use within a year, I have provided links to this previously on MeFi and don't have time to find them again. This is well established in the literature.
posted by biffa at 7:16 AM on November 17, 2014

posit that those two ideas are immiscible - if there's sophistry, the stats aren't "partly interesting". To me, that's like "there's a turd in the punchbowl, but some of the punch is still tasty!"

Fair point. The fact that the majority of Germany's renewable energy output is down to biofuels was new to me, and I did think that was interesting, since they're often held up as a model. But I can understand why you think the cruddier points taint the whole.
posted by Diablevert at 7:17 AM on November 17, 2014

Just expect more and more of this kind of thing for the next decade or so (and now that the conservatives are taking over whole Universities, expect to see all kinds of "science" in support of bad ideas).
posted by saulgoodman at 7:20 AM on November 17, 2014 [1 favorite]