Guest essay by Eric Worrall
According to climate scientists Ethan Coffel and Justin Mankin, we need to replace coal, gas and nuclear plants with solar and wind, because they are less affected by the heat of global warming.
Guest post: How global warming is making power plants produce less electricity
15 February 2021 8:00
Dr Ethan Coffel, assistant professor and climate scientist at Syracuse University
Dr Justin Mankin, assistant professor and climate scientist at Dartmouth College
The coal, gas and nuclear power plants that generate mostof the world’s electricity have to be kept cool in order to function properly. However, this will be increasingly challenging as the world gets warmer.
Waste heat from these facilities is typically released into the atmosphere or nearby water sources. During heatwaves or droughts, excessive heat or a lack of water makes it much harder for plants to be kept cool.
When this happens, the plants must be curbed, meaning electricity output is cut. This often comes just as electricity demand peaks due to people’s increasing reliance on air conditioning to keep cool.
In a new paper, published in Environmental Research Letters, we find that in a warming world, hundreds of additional power plants would need to be constructed in the coming decades simply to make up for this lost power.
However, this is not the only option. If nations instead focus on technologies such as solar and wind, which produce fewer emissions and are less impacted by hot weather, the electricity sector will be both less of a contributor to – and victim of – climate change.
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Read more: https://www.carbonbrief.org/guest-post-how-global-warming-is-making-power-plants-produce-less-electricity
The study predicts an 0.8-1.2% falloff per degree of global warming, so not exactly a pressing emergency.
What about global warming induced severe winter weather? Climate scientists have rushed to assure us the Northern Hemisphere’s deep freeze is not incompatible with global warming. But as Texas recently noticed, solar panels and wind turbines don’t work that well when they are covered with ice.
Perhaps in the warmer future climate scientists expect, when snowfalls and freezing rain are a thing of the past, it might be worth considering solar and wind. But so long as severe winter weather is a possibility, surely it makes more sense to hang on to reliable power generation systems, maybe beef up the cooling systems a little so they can handle more heat in Summer.
If the climate does warm by a degree or two, then all the plant managers would have to do is increase the size of the cooling towers by a couple of inches to compensate.
I think you’d find that every modern thermal plant has sensors monitoring return water temperature and flow rate and automatic controls to keep both in a specified range as weather conditions change. The technology isn’t that complicated.
most cooling towers already have fan assist..
if not, just add some fans.
Its not rocket science.. just basic engineering that these clowns are OBLIVIOUS to.
Just adjust the fan revolutions,
Seriously……….
….. how can these clowns be SO IGNORANT and still get published !!!
Amazing that making stuff up and claiming it is real now counts as science.
Didn’t some other guys just get done telling us global warming makes it colder?
These guys were deplorable Rahmstorf and Levermann, yes.
Lets just ignore that pesky lil engineering fact that solar cells start to lose efficiency when temps get about about 24 degrees celcius.
Ya know, it just boggles the mind how minuscule, undetectable by you and me, temperature changes, are suddenly supposed to soar and cause all of these horrible things. With no evidence and the fact that the world in the past was just fine with the supposed X degree temps.
“Show me the money!”…errr… evidence.
Jack asses – the demand for electricity today and yesterday in Texas has exceeded any in Texas during any of the hottest days ever – look it up
I’ve worked at several nuclear power plants around the country over the past 39 years.The only one shut down for cooling water problems was due to jellyfish clogging the screens.
It’s astounding that claims like this can be made in a country where you need to wear heavy clothing 9 months out of 12. These people are totally deluded.
These 2 guys should stick to science. They clearly have absolutely no engineering credentials – none, zippo, zero. Unqualified comment like theirs is why more and more people are seeing through the CAGW scam.
Why would you want these two morons anywhere nears science?
I hope these guys are living in an area that has power cuts, or maybe they should have their own personal power cuts. Not impossible with the current systems. Maybe they will learn that all that white global warming is actually cold, as in really cold. Have been watching the news this morning from US, from a warm rather than hot queensland and fearing for the loss of life due to the cold, let alone and chance of taking refuge and having covid passed onto family. Something I have noticed our bees are tossing out the drones very early, and laying down their winter blankets on the outside frames in the hives. Early winter on the way I fear, we have not taken all our honey, erring on the side of caution.
I sincerely admire how Eric kept his patience here.
What is concerning here is the obvious red herring: coal would be negatively and meaningfully affected by climate change, and solar/wind power not. This is not what good scientists will do. This is what policy advocates do.
I believe the assistant professors actually know a lot more on the topic than it looks like they do. They have just decided to emphasize possible engineering ‘challenges’ related to coal power.
Typically when it’s very hot in Texas it means a high pressure system is in place and means little to no wind. Wind doesn’t work when it’s very hot or very cold. Or when it’s very windy for that matter!
All excellent points!
There are lots of situations where windmills and solar don’t work.
No sensible person would make them the backbone of our electrical systems because they are obviously subject to fail at the worst times possible.
The alarmists are going to have to drop the promoting of windmills and solar. They now have an objective reason for doing so: Windmills and solar have caused a disaster in Texas.
And it is really the policy that has put Texas in this shape. Texas politicians have supported making their electrical grid 23 percent dependent on technologies that cannot be depended on at all times.
Like one Texan said on tv this morning, the Texas politicians who are clamoring for an investigation into how this disaster happened, are the very same ones who put this policy in place in the first place.
Windmills and industrial solar cannot be depended on. That’s the bottom line, and Texas politicians should take measures to up fossil fuel and nuclear generation to make up for this 23 percent deficit.
Don’t just add more windmills, that will just make things worse. I know that’s a really dumb suggestion, but you wait, some ignorant alarmist will suggest it.
French nuclear plant regularly shuts down due to warm water and low river levels… so too some German coal plant. There is more extreme (for the region) heat in Europe and more low river levels as a result.
From 2019:
Nuclear plants facing closure as heatwave grips Europe – Independent.ie
Obviously needs a cooling system review. My guess is the plant is badly sited.
These systems have margins on both sides, based on experiences If these margins are meaningless because of changes, the margins have to be changed and the systems to be adapted. But adapt to lower water levels is more difficult as to water temperature.
I started that discussion yesterday here
Sorry for wrong link; correction
I started that discussion yesterday here
There is a grain of truth….heat engines get less efficient as the ambient temperature increases.
but…humans have deployed power generation units from the Arctic North Slope to the deserts of Arabia…..pretty big temperature range there….
If the ranges don’t change, no problem 😀
Plant operators will do what humans have always done and adapt to the changes. Life will continue.
In most countries, power demand peaks in winter when it’s needed for heat.
Therefore warmer winters will REDUCE the generating capacity needed.
What a load of crap! These people will write anything! I don’t care what degrees they have or what their titles are, they aren’t scientists. They’re nothing more than dishonest hacks, and aren’t even very good at that!
I suggest the learned ‘assistent professors’ read up on elementary thermodynamics. If they have any idea what that is, which appears questionable.
Again with the evidence that degrees mean Bull Schist, More Schist and Piled higher and Deeper…
Solar panel efficiency is temperature dependent – the hotter the panel, the lower it’s conversion efficiency of photons into electron flow.
https://firstgreenconsulting.wordpress.com/2013/05/04/effect-of-temperature-on-module-performance/
Notice in the above link the second chart on the page, at 0 degC the panel efficiency is 16% and at 50 deg C it is about 13.3%.
So yes, in a warmer climate cooling for the power plants reduces overall efficiency a teensy bit, but solar panels suffer losses in efficiency too with increasing temps!
And duh, a wind turbine’s efficiency has as one of the factors for the maths, the AIR DENSITY! Air density is considerably lower for higher temperature than low, so wind turbines also suffer a loss of efficiency for higher average air temperature!
http://www.ijsrp.org/research_paper_feb2012/ijsrp-feb-2012-06.pdf
“Power = 0.5 x Swept Area x Air Density x Velocity^3″
How do idiots like this get degrees in the first place and how on earth do they get professorships??? There used to be a joke about so and so getting their degree in a Cracker Jack box – I don’t think it’s funny anymore….it appears to be widespread.
“Solar panel efficiency is temperature dependent – the hotter the panel, the lower it’s conversion efficiency of photons into electron flow.”
Yes, and solar panels don’t work at all when they are covered by snow.
Balderdash. No accounting for stupid.
If these 2 tossers just happened to be right, IF, then there’s a simple engineering solution. The trouble with climate tossers is that they have no idea how the real world works; just like too many politicians.
If what they claim had any merit don’t you think it would have shown up in any of many areas with a hot climate where fossil fuels are used to generate electricity?
What a moronic claim. Every source of energy has an optimum temperature for working, including solar panels: with the important difference, that solar devices efficiency is more impacted by high (surface) temperatures, than thermoelectrical power plants one. Also, where heat waves may see a reduction in wind speed (as typical of many sultry heat waves, in temperate and sub-tropical climates), the wind mills are impacted as well and out of any predictability. This claim is just political, not technical nor scientifical.
This is an effective propaganda article. The people at whom it is aimed are not numbers people. Just wait. Someday you’ll be talking to someone about how thermal power is more reliable and they’ll say “yes but when the temperature goes up those power plants use more power just to keep cool’. The fact that the extra amount of energy needed is minuscule does not enter into it.