By Planning Engineer Russ Schussler
“Renewable good, non-renewable bad” is far too simplistic and unfortunately influential
Previous posts have argued that renewable does not necessarily mean green, sustainable or environmentally sound. Non-renewable generation may meet green goals, be highly sustainable and environmentally sound. The dichotomy adds more confusion than value. Additionally, the grid impacts of resources lumped together as renewable are so diverse that it makes no sense to speak of them as a group in that context. This posting will, through a couple examples, challenge and highlight the dangerous idea that all “renewables” are basically “good” and all “nonrenewable” are basically bad.
Do We Want More Renewables and Less Nonrenewable?
Technology and our ability to tap various resources change over time. With key technological developments, very poor options can become very good options. With extensive adoptions, good options can become very bad. Attempting to implement any option before its time is usually counterproductive. Options that are beneficial on a small scale may have serious negative consequences when scaled up. Renewable-good, non-renewable-bad is far too simplistic.
Biomass projects may unduly benefit from being classified as a renewable generation resource. Various biomass projects are frequently criticized across the political spectrum for a variety of environmental ills. Nevertheless, biomass projects meet regulatory requirements for renewable energy and are selected over alternatives that may be better by most all other relevant criteria.
Nuclear power is another example of another resource that does not work well with the renewable/nonrenewable dichotomy. Nuclear minimizes many of the problems associated with fossil fuel generation. Certainly, objections can be raised against nuclear power, but sustainability is not a major concern at this time. Current efforts to increase nuclear power face additional challenges because nuclear resources are not considered renewable. Nuclear power should be competing with various “renewable” sources based on their specific merits for specific applications and criticized based on whatever concerns can be raised. But they should not be handicapped because of the rubric of renewables.
Our energy future likely will be impacted by many new alternatives that work even less well with the renewable/non-renewable framework. Simplistic thinking can help to sideline emerging beneficial technology and advance more suspect technology. We should have many goals for are future energy sources, but properly fitting into the renewable category should not take precedence.
Could a Non-Renewable Non- Sustainable Fossil Fuel Based Resource be a Great Option?
While not wanting to promote any technology before it’s time, I will argue that we may want to keep the door open for beneficial generation options that could emerge in the future that might not be renewable. For example, huge amounts of tires end up in landfills where their decomposition can result in leeching, leading to various consequential environmental problems. Eventually we may be able to transform waste tires into energy, with net benefits across a range of environmental measures. Consider that with improved technology, large amounts of waste tires could be seen as potential fossil fuel-based resources instead of toxic dumps.
Currently, considerable efforts center around recycling waste tires and their components. There are various technologies. Circulating fluidized bed technology makes use of a hot bed of ash at 850 to 900 C. This flameless combustion can produce tremendous energy while allowing pollutants to be captured in the ash bed. Pyrolysis, heat in the absence of oxygen, may prove to be a superior technology for extracting energy from tires while minimizing their waste impact. Imagine transforming and eventually eliminating toxic waste dumps while capturing valuable synchronous, dependable electrical energy. If such plants were successful, might we clear out all dumps and exceed capabilities of future waste tires? Yes, we could. But wouldn’t it be a great thing to drive such waste to extinction in a process that was known to be unsustainable?
Such approaches are outside of the renewable/nonrenewable dichotomy. But in many cases, that may be where we want to go. Renewable thinking argues our resources must last forever. That is a true statement for many things we depend on. But transitory resources have provided great benefits in the past. As noted above, who cares if we don’t have enough waste tire dumps to last forever. This is a fossil fuel-based resource that cries out to be depleted in the interest of environmental concerns.
Don’t get Suckered into Huge Waste Because the Energy Part is Renewable
Renewable energy has a scary power to push the adoption of many marginal technologies. To illustrate this, I will summarize the solar roadways story. Many were overly enthusiastic about the potential for solar roadways when this concept exploded in 2014. Solar Roadways is a specific company, but other named companies have promoted and have run various projects seeking to produce electricity using panels on roadways. The basic approaches involve high-tech interlocking solar panels with many other additional functionalities. There were big pushes to capitalize on “abundant”, “free”, “green” power through solar roadways. The potential benefits touted also included reduced highway maintenance, jobs, warning of obstructions through weight sensors, the ability to charge vehicles using the roads, roads which would melt the snow and enhanced road signaling through embedded LED technology.
Many people were naïve and seduced by the potential benefits. Money came from many sources to the Solar Roadways Incorporated Company. The Department of Transportation provided funding for various feasibility projects. A crowdfunding drive at Indiegogo, bolstered by Georgie Takei and this video, raised $2.2 Million for Solar Roadways. Like many videos, this one looks a bit dated after nearly a decade, but it was powerful then and captured the hearts and minds of many.
Responsible people would occasionally ask me my take on solar roadways. I would probe and respond carefully. “Do you have extra money you need to spend on something? Are you wanting to do something for positive PR? Do you want to be altruistic and support preliminary research?” These weren’t their prime drivers and when they let me know that, I’d tell them that I didn’t believe getting an early start on a technology with so much development ahead could possibly help their consumers or their bottom line.
What should rational individuals have been thinking about the potential for solar roadways back then?
“This is going to take a long while at best. Nothing has been demonstrated on even a small scale. It costs an awful lot to just cover roads with asphalt. How much will it cost to cover them with glass devices that are more complicated and have greater functionality than iPhones? Do you think we can leave them exposed to the elements with trucks and cars and who knows what driving over them? What could possibly go wrong? What about road traction? This can’t easily be hooked up and made to work with controls and connected to the grid or other power supply stations. How long might individual panels last? Maintenance of such a system on the roadway seems challenging to say the least. Aren’t solar panels angled for good reasons? Shouldn’t we see a whole bunch of successful implementations of solar roofs before you might reasonably expect solar roads to be doable? Aren’t there all sorts of potential problems not yet thought of that are likely to emerge? I’m going to have to hear a lot more before I become enchanted by this one.”
But such questions did not get much visibility. People were largely enchanted or distracted by the prospect of free renewable energy.
How have these programs performed? A $3.9 million prototype in Idaho found 83% of the panels broke the first week. Had it worked, it may have been able to power a drinking fountain and lighting for a restroom. France spent over $5 million to install 2,800 photovoltaic panels covering .62 miles of road. Despite the special silicone resin intended to protect the road from 19-wheeler traffic, the panels couldn’t hold. Initially the project generated half of the expected energy, but within a few years it was closer to 10% of original projections. The impacts of thunderstorms, leaf mold and tractors were not adequately anticipated. The resin coating that helped protect the panels, generated so much noise that the speed limit had to be lowered to 79 km/h (43 mph). China opened a .62-mile solar road in 2017. However, it closed within a week due to damage from traffic and panel theft.
Today there is one functioning solar roadway today in the US, located in Peachtree City, Georgia. Data for this small 50 square meter project is hard to come by, but the anticipated annual electric output of the project could be purchased for less than $200 using the average Georgia residential rate. Maybe this small application is the right size scale for such a project a decade after the initial great promise and hope and who knows how long before the technology may prove fruitful.
These are terrible results. Maybe worse than might have been expected by even some of the most extreme of skeptics. As questionable as the big concept was, there was a plethora of smaller sub problems that needed a lot of development. Despite some of the honest appraisals available, it was hard to dampen the enthusiasm for these projects. Accompanied by much acclaim, solar roadway projects got funding and proceeded with fairly large-scale testing, despite the supporting materials being only in the most primitive stages of development.
Conclusions
The terms renewable and nonrenewable command a lot of undeserved power and influence with the public and policy makers. Rather than educating and informing, they often serve to confuse and misdirect energy policy. More sophisticated understandings around what is clean, green, sustainable, environmentally sound and workable are needed. The renewable/nonrenewable dichotomy is hurting our ability to move forward with potentially valuable workable technologies and giving too big a boost to poorly thought-out boondoggles.
Correction/Clarification: In Part II of this series, and perhaps going further back, I refer to “run of the river” hydro as being rare and mostly insignificant. This series was picked up in another forum and a commenter there noted that the US has many large hydro facilities classified as run of river. I should have referred to run of river facilities without pondage. The Corps of Engineers refers to hydro dams with extensive storage facilities (seasonal and multi-year) as stored hydro. Those with more limited storage ability (days, weeks and possibly months) are credited with “pondage” capabilities as opposed to storage. Basically, pondage allows operators to hold back flows until they are needed and useful. It is a limited form of storage. Large facilities with considerable pondage (as opposed to long term storage) are classified as run of the river (or in some documents as “basically run of the river”) by Federal authorities. While pondage is not long-term storage, it provides capacity value and allows Planners to count on these facilities to meet peak demand. Pondage allows operators to dispatch these facilities to follow load and support the system when needed. Hydro facilities with pondage are not correctly called intermittent and would be similar to a wind or solar facility with extensive battery backup. My use of the term “run of river” came from modelling experience where it referred to resources that showed up intermittently and were uncontrollable. I should have been more precise here because of the differing definitions. Hydro without pondage or storage is usually small and not significant.
Story Tip: Ted Cruz probes left-wing group training Federal Judges for Global Warming Cases.
Story tip – Great Salt Lake’s brine shrimp population booms, majorly impacting future of Utah, wildlife, and the world (msn.com)
Sounds like it didn’t dry up.
“”Renewable good, non-renewable bad” is far too simplistic and unfortunately influential””
And it all goes through the ‘woke’ filter – black or white. There can be no in between.
Photovoltaics and Wind have won the race. The last three years this has become increasingly clear. Even the IEA can’t pretend otherwise anymore.
Won what race? The transgender 100m?
Looks like I lost the race to ask this pertinent question.
It musta been the race to destroy economies
Why, are you scared of transgender?
I asked what race….
Try giving an answer
The Hooman Race is what loses
At least we now know your gender. ! Confused….. like everything else.
Don’t conflate loathing with fear.
Why are you Cisphobic?
Odd assumption.
“The Left” declares that anyone who disagrees with them only do so because they are “afraid” yet they try very hard to get people to fear “Climate Change” so they go along with it’s “solutions”.
Transgenderism is like dog **** on the sidewalk.
Don’t fear it, but don’t want it on the bottom of my shoe.
He’s probably referring to the fact that the IEA expects unreliables to provide more than one third of total electricity generation by 2025 and overtake coal as the main source.
And he absolutely hasn’t factored in the growth of data centres, AI and cryptocurrency which the IEA say will double their electricity usage by 2026 by which time data centres alone will be using as much electricity as Japan.
A recent long read in the Grauniad (15th Feb) said if all the data centres currently proposed in Ireland were built they could be using up to 70% of the country’s electricity by 2030.
Data centres etc, of course require continuous power not unreliable generation.
And electricity only represents about 30% of total final energy consumption.
IEA ‘Electricity 2024 Analysis and forecast to 2026’
So this is where you land when you think things through.
Not a comforting conclusion at all.
Which is no doubt why “renewables” proponents never want to think things through.
Well, if the UK were to succeed in its plan to convert its cars all to EVs and its home heating to heat pumps, they alone would also consume just about all of its current generating capacity.
Its like these guys cannot manage simple arithmetic. Lets double the demand and cut the supply by two thirds. Sounds good, it will save the planet, Britain will lead the world, lets go!
What “race” have they won?
The race to the bottom
The “race” to reduce your standard of living..
They won the renewables race for sure. Hydro and other technologies going nowhere. Speeding up to hit the wall harder.
Let’s all sign up to BE A WUWT SPONSOR
and then down-vote Lusername in celebration!
Click on the hamburger button next to the home button.
16 cents a day to keep this site on the internet!
Keep it on the internet powered by wind and solar. At least in this safe space you can pretend otherwise 😀
But glad I bring you the motivation to keep the site alive.
Keep it on the internet powered by wind and solar.
You mean every other day…
Naw only from 10am till 2pm when Solar produces
As long as black children can be forced to work in mines for rare earth metals in Africa, solar power works fine with battery backup.
Locally
Good to know that this source of propaganda will go away then.
The internet is NOT powered by wind and solar.
It still works on windless nights and windless cloudy days.
The internet, like everything else, RELIES TOTALLY on the availability of fossil fuel powered electricity (+ some hydro and nuclear).
Shirley you jest. The internet requires stable continuous energy, and lots of it.
So does bitcoin mining
So useful on a calm night!
Meanwhile, in the Australian NEM, Coal and Gas are currently producing 84% of electricity
NSW 83% black COAL
Queensland 93% black COAL
Victoria 84% brown COAL
Even tiny South Australia, with all its installed wind.. is running 54% gas and 17% diesel.
COAL IS KING.. because it is always there, always available.
Pretending wind and solar are doing anything.. I’ll leave the pretence to the brain-washed muppets.
And also cheap. Gas costs a lot more and unreliables are ruinously unaffordable.
yeah, right
If the race is to supply countries with electricity, wind and solar have probably reached peak and will decline from about here on in. Both as a percentage of total power generation, and even soon in absolute terms.
Its becoming clear that the product supplied by either one is not cost effective in use and not fit for purpose in the application. This has been a massive experiment, and the results are coming in. Take the UK for instance, where we have the most detailed real-time data on the great experiment.
Wind varies between 0.5GW and 21GW, unpredictably and independently of demand. This is from an installed faceplate of 28GW, and demand that hits a peak of 40GW+.
Though not at the same time as wind hits 21GW!
Its not feasible to supply the country with power from wind and solar. The only way to use them is as a supplement to reliable generation technologies, and even then they are not cost effective and you’d be better off just using reliables.
As Jon Butterworth said:
There is no way to make this work. Think about the implications of 26 days of a nationwide blackout. Time to restart, failure of key services. In the heat pump era, total failure of home heating. Think about the implications of 260 days of rolling blackouts. You cannot run an industrial society on that.
And if you try, the result at the next election? Never mind blackouts, it will be a generational wipeout.
Story tip
‘Mind-blowing’ deep sea expedition uncovers more than 100 new species and a gigantic underwater mountain
Researchers recently discovered an “incredible number” of potential new marine species, as well as a handful of hefty new seamounts while exploring the deep sea off the coast of Chile.
Everywhwere I read from mass-extinction….
Both is possible, or do you think we knew every species?
Before talking about extinction you have to know the inventory – do you know it ? 😀
“Invent”… is the correct work.. ..
It is all just a fantasy .
S.t. to reflect about:
We have a number X of species, not even based on extrapolation, and believe in a loss of Y by extinction, based not even on estimates but on pure guesswork. I search for the science based answer and can’t find any.
May be that the number X isn’t as high as presumed ?
Gilbert’s potoroo hadn’t been seen for a century and was presumed/declared extinct until rediscovered in the 1990’s.
A goodly-sized marsupial confined to a small area of SW Australia, it should be a lot easier to observe than most “extinct” species. But they didn’t. For over a century.
The confidence I place in claims of extinction for smaller, more widely dispersed species, is about the same confidence I place in the predictions of climate scientists.
Sensational find: Extinct Alpine bat spotted again
The Alpine bat, once thought to be extinct, has been found in Baden-Württemberg. The mammal weighs barely nine grams and has a wingspan of around 20 centimeters. The Alpine bat occurs at altitudes of up to 3,300 meters. Despite its name, it can also be observed at sea level in the Mediterranean and can even be found in large cities in Italy. It remains uncertain whether the Alpine bat will become a permanent home in the foothills of the Swabian Alb.
For the first time in 100 years: South American bat rediscovered after a century
The Strange Big-eared Brown Bat, Histiotus alienus, was first described by science in 1916, by the British zoologist Oldfield Thomas. The description of the species was based on a single specimen captured in Joinville, Paraná, in southern Brazil.
Good news though it wasn’t CC that brought about it’s purported demise 100 years ago. Man didn’t affect climate then
Name one species, (except a tiny rodent washed off an island) that has gone extinct in the last 10 years because of “climate”
Wasn’t it later admitted that the extinct rodent wasn’t a different species at all, just descended from common rats that colonized the sand cay off PNG?
Yep, it could not have been there long enough to become a different species.
Cyclones regularly clear those little atolls.. probably how it got there in the first place.
By many reports, that rodent colony was just a toehold group in a precarious position of a wide spread organism.
Extinctions???
What’s gone extinct in the last 50 years since it has been modeled that man is affecting the climate???
“What’s gone extinct in the last 50 years since it has been modeled that man is affecting the climate???”
Critical Thinking !!
Science.
If you don’t know the species you can’t prove it exists. If you can’t prove it exists you can’t claim it went extinct
Otherwise you could claim millions of extinctions of species that actually never existed
“Current efforts to increase nuclear power face additional challenges because nuclear resources are not considered renewable.”
In a fast breeder reactor, nuclear is probably the only source that could be described as better than renewable: It generates more useable fuel than it actually consumes.
That aside, it has always irked me that geothermal is often classed in with renewables. Certainly, geothermal energy is regenerated by radioactive decay deep within the earth. But so are fossil fuels on similar timescales.
The reality is that drilling for either resource yields an energy supply that is not regenerated on normal human timescales.
Having just spent a few days recently in Rotorua, New Zealand, I can state that geothermal works, on a limited basis. But you have to accept the sulpherous odors.
At least some geothermal sites do regenerate, so I read, and the time scale can be around 20 years. Inconvenient for humans but not a noticeable time span for the planet.
Previous posts have argued that renewable does not necessarily mean green, sustainable or environmentally sound.
nobody ever argued it meant Green
Renewable energy is energy derived from natural sources that are replenished at a higher rate than they are consumed.
start with a good definition before you try to control peoples speach
Yes, wind turbines need to be replaced at a higher rate than they produce.
The materials needed to harvest wind and solar are mined from natural sources … and will never be replenished.
Is that what you were saying?
You have failed Eng-Lit… basic comprehension and understanding… again !!
Since the mass of the sun and the earth is not increasing and E=MC^2, no energy derived from natural sources per your definition are renewable. QED.
Seems to me coal, gas, oil, and uranium are natural as well.
“Nobody ever argued it meant green”. Come on now. A simple Google search will show tons of people making that argument. A chat bot will tell you the terms are often used interchangeably. I know the various definitions including your suggestion,and I know how they confuses people and how people use them to confuse.
Also see part 1 it is stated that.
The UN defines Renewable energy as “energy derived from natural sources that are replenished at a higher rate than they are consumed.”
I know you’ve said a lot in the past that was intelligent. What’s your real concern here?
Meyer Burger prepares to shut down plant in Germany
Swiss solar panel maker Meyer Burger will seek shareholder approval for a rights issue of as much as CHF 250 million ($284 million) to finance the completion of its US manufacturing facilities in Colorado and Arizona.
Remember that what the alarmists disgracefully cover up with subtle words “traditional biomass” by which we mean dung and wood and sugar cane etc from the “environment” actually produces THREE TIMES the global energy than all the panels and windmills . Some way to go, eh?
There is only one objection to nuclear generated power.
Radiation will kill you.
Never mind that proper engineering will mitigate cellular damage from radiation and that lots of different biological mechanisms will kill everyone eventually anyway. It is the singular state of unrelenting fear that “radiation will kill you” that prevents the adoption in western cultures of nuclear generated power.
While ionizing radiation can kill, we know it mostly does no biological damage in fission power plants. There are other practical objections however. One of those, high construction cost, seems to be not only a consequence of the false fear of ionizing radiation, but of all the political barriers that have prevented the learning of sufficient construction skills to achieve efficiency.
I note that the UK wind output has dropped to 1%. A cold dark night! 1907 GMT 24th Feb 2024
With regard to solar roadways – “these results are terrible”. On a KWh per dollar spent basis, and schedule, the results appear to be much better than nuclear fusion.
You could say the same of the first prototype cars vs horses. Or an early research version of just about anything, for that matter.
Not that I want to be negative about a serious post, but…
Debating the semantics of what is renewable and what is not ignores the fact that the climate cult/cabal/cartel use the “Humpty Dumpty” approach to defining the term: “When I use a word, it means what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less”. And they control the dialogue through compliant media and fellow-traveller politicians.
(From the very prescient Alice in Wonderland)
The recent suggestion from Planning Engineer that the terms should be synchronous and asynchronous rather than non renewable and renewable make for a much clearer dialogue.
Very nice. I’ve considered renewable a meaningless word for a long time.
When wind and solar in particular start showing that they can provide consistent, reliable inexpensive power in a wide range of jurisdictions and to large segments of the population, the term ‘renewable energy” could be revived. To date, that’s far from the case, so it’s more appropriate to call it non-existent or sporadic, at best.
8.45 AM in the UK. A lovely clear, moderately cold, calm, misty morning. Total demand is 29GW.
Wind: 2.2GW (faceplate 28GW)
Solar: 1.1 GW (installed capacity about 10GW+)
Gas: 11.3 GW (installed capacity 28GW)
The rest is nuclear (just under 4GW), a bit of biomass, and interconnects.
In 2030 according to Labour, and the aim is applauded by Conservatives, Plaid, SNP, Liberals and Greens) power generation is to be zero carbon.
Peak weekday demand is usually a bit over 40GW. Wind and solar will still be supplying under 5GW between them. At the moment gas can rise to 28GW when necessary.
Where do these clowns expect to get the balance when they have turned off the gas?
https://energynumbers.info/gbgrid
https://gridwatch.co.uk/
any chance we can first retire the term “fossil fuel”?
Yeah, the correct term is Biofuel since it all came from plants.
Renewables such as wind turbines and solar panels only generate occasional electricity.
NEITHER can make tires or insulation or any of the more than 6,000 products that are keeping the 8 billion on this planet alive and well !
““Renewable good, non-renewable bad” is far too simplistic and unfortunately influential”
Slow clap.
It took a while before the WUWT crowd distanced itself from the “renewable” terminology.