Another thread for lengthy debates, off-topic exchanges, long posts on regular hobby-horses etc.
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Another thread for lengthy debates, off-topic exchanges, long posts on regular hobby-horses etc.
John Quiggin 
@quokka
Goodness – we might actually use less energy – does this mean the large global corporations might lose some of their power? Does it mean those fly in fly out execs might not be able to fly so often?. Would it mean we may have to concentrate on smaller local business to trade with each other? Would it mean one half or more of the worlds poor would be less enslaved to the few wealthy nations as cheaply exploited labour?
Wow global inequality might actually decline. Maybe the decline in oil might not be so bad after all…how depressing to continue as we are with oil, coal and then adding nuclear to the mix.
@Alice
“We” in Australia *might* use less energy. I wouldn’t bet on it though. I think it rather more likely that energy consumption will rise in Australia.
Something like 1.5 billion in the world don’t have electricity and more than that don’t have clean water. It is utterly unrealistic to think that global energy consumption is going to decline. More likely it could double or more within 50 years. If that demand is not met with clean energy, it will be met by burning more stuff – and regardless of peak X there is more than enough stuff left to burn to cause catastrophic climate change. This is the real crunch of the climate problem.
As to whether “corporations might lose some of their power” – perhaps but I fail to see any particular evidence that such is happening. More generally we can rephrase that as – Is capitalism likely to be supplanted by something else or at least likely to undergo the kind of radical changes that would lead to the world you are envisioning? Again my answer would have to be that there appears to be very little evidence of such happening or of the huge social/political movements necessary to drive such change. Capitalism survived the great crises of the 20th century and in particular the aftermath of the first world war. It is a total misreading of the current situation to suggest that a political crisis of anything like that currently exists that could drive the radical changes you desire.
I offer this assessment without judgment as to whether this is a good or a bad thing – it just is. In this context we are left we the near certainty higher worldwide energy consumption and of rising emissions. Just what are we going to do about them?
Why do the antis not recognise the rather critical issue of increasing power requirements needed for Haber-Bosch? Are they happy to see over half the world’s population starve?
This is not a matter of left, right, up, down or sideways. It’s a question of how much there’ll be to eat, and who’s going to get it.
Ammonia is very important, Finrod, for many aspects of our industrialised life. However the notion that Nuclear power for the generation of electricity for ammonia production is only a problem in your head because you have decided that nothing else works on the one hand, and you have an inflated view of the cost of renewable energy.
http://www.hydroworld.com/index/display/article-display/0927773395/articles/hydro-review/volume-28/issue-7/articles/renewable-fuels__manufacturing.html
This article talks of another process under development, and at a quick glance I saw patents for a number of other possible processes. Your obvious question is well why aren’t these other processes being used? Well as usual cheap fossil fuel has been the blocker for the on development of new technology.
So many of your arguments are based on the false promise that new technology cannot solve our energy and production processes when it is proven daily that there are far better ways of doing most things once the impetus to find those ways has been achieved.
Your trapped in the thinking that the way things are right now is the best that it can be, when it is really only that you are comfortable with what you have and understand. The wild cards in all of our lives now are climate change, oil depletion, recession, population displacement, and conflict. Preparing to face these huge challenges will require a greater level of self sustainability, self support that the past decades of energy and environmental stability have allowed us to live without. To build our energy future, knowing what huge dangers lie ahead, on the structure of the past would be foolhardy. Right now we are building a new permanent robust energy system that will survive the upheaval that climate change will bring. And the production process for ammonia will change to be consistent with that new flexible energy system.
@BilB
The process the article discusses was in fact the dominant process in use prior to WWII. There’s no doubt that fertilisers produced using cheap electricity powering that method will be the dominant source in the future, once natgas is priced out of range. The question is what that source of electricity will be. They’re proposing hydro. Now no doubt that would work, seeing as hydro is very cheap, but it isn’t sufficiently plentiful to do that and also fulfill the vital peaking role it will be called on to perform. Hydro is a limited and valuable resource. There’s just not going to be enough of it to run Haber-Bosch for the whole planet. Nuclear will be needed for that.
I note that in your comment you refer to ‘renewable’ power without specifying that the renewable power referred to in the article is hydroelectric.
That is because hydro power is a scarce resource. I think that thermal CSP will be the main contender for this process possibly based in the southern Mediteranian States where solar capacity is optimal and labour is cheaper. There are very compelling reasons to build these facilities in this region. By providing strong economic opportunities to these states will bring far greater stability to the whole region. The contrary to the view is that these people are dangerous, when the reality is that they just need access to the same income stability that we all seek. This is the best way to achieve security and stem the flood of border overflow that occurs at present.
The new CSP facility in Egypt came in at a per baseload gigawatt price of 1.75 billion euro. That is very competitive with most other energy sources if the running costs are minimised. Such a process matched with thermal CSP is a very suitable match as low solar periods are predictable and can be paired with maintenance needs for the process.
When markets are incomplete (which they are) then introducing one market without making the market system complete may make everybody worse off. This statement is the verbal description of results in theoretical models of non-dictatorial resource allocation (agent models). Example: The introduction of a market for a new ‘product’, CDOs and the GFC.
I propose that if there is ‘ price’ for ghg emissions then there is also to be a price for nuclear pollution using the precautionary principle as the unifying justification. To get a price estimate for the latter, I’d say a practical way to ‘move forward’ is to use the tax rate on cigarettes as a first approximation for an administrated price for nuclear power (electricity) generation.
Brilliant. I’ve just been given the “sent to the sand pit treatment” at John Quiggin’s web site.
https://johnquiggin.com/index.php/archives/2010/10/18/low-carbon-electricity-future-the-big-picture/comment-page-1/#comment-269509
Mosts posts that preceded mine mentioned renewables, electric cars, efficiency, etc. Even The professors lead article was about costs of nuclear and renewables, but I talked about these and I was banned from any more comments. The professor’s bias is clear. I expect this will be deleted.
@Peter Lang
That’s not so. Apart from El Gordo, who raised nuclear power, nobody on that thread prior to you mentioned another technology. PrQ did mention electric cars but only as a measure of the CO2 intensity modelling rather than as an abatement technology.
After you, Quokka and Eclipse mentioned nuclear power and Ronal Brak mentioned wind in response to you. I then responded to his specific claim.
There’s no suggestion that your post there could not appear here, if you thought it germane.
An excellent article by Ziggy Switkowski is on the Climate Spectator site:
http://www.climatespectator.com.au/commentary/shamed-japans-energy-vision
The article is well worth reading. Here is one point I extracted:
“– The basic role of the electricity business in Japan is to provide a stable supply of high quality and inexpensive electricity while achieving energy security, economic growth, and protecting the environment (note the order).
He concludes:
“If Australia’s interests are to be taken seriously internationally, and this matters since global warming is driven by other large economies, then we really must get our energy act together. Pillorying coal, rejecting nuclear power, limiting uranium development and debating the quantum of a carbon tax are a poor starting point.”
Fran, look again, including at the lead article. The whole post is about low carbon electricity, carbon pricing, energuy efficiency, substitution for fossil fules, and nuclear v renewables. It eve says that in the first line of the article.
Don’t be blind to what is going on. Many contributors on thisd site complain about these types of actions on other web sites, but accept it and support it if it is on a blog that is owned by another anti-nuke (which John clearly is as his various editorial comments and actions demonstrate).
@Peter Lang
The whole post is about low carbon electricity, carbon pricing, energy efficiency, substitution for fossil fuels, and nuclear v renewables. It even says that in the first line of the article.
You are mixing up what needs to be unpacked. John was trying to look generically at the costs of substitution and only referred to the sandpit renewables v nuclear debate in passing. He mentioned energy efficiency as an artefact of carbon pricing but did not specify its influence on the system as a whole. It’s about “low carbon electricity” only in that sense.
While it is fair to say that John is sceptical of the role nuclear power can play in a clean energy system and has endorsed the “baseload fallacy” claims made by Diesendorf, his formal position is not anti-nuclear power, AIUI. In the past, he has said that he thinks it unlikely in the near term (which is almost certainly correct if we are talking the next 5-10 years) and hasn’t wanted the site to be taken up with heated exchanges about something he regards as a longer term issue. One can disagree with that assessment — I certainly do — but that doesn’t make him an in principle opponent of nuclear power.
As far as I can tell, PrQ isn’t censoring anyone. He’s set aside the sandpit for us to slug this issue out, in the hope that other arguably related topics don’t get hijacked by either side. That seems fair to me. It would be possible to allude to argument on nuclear in other topics by linking to the relavant claim here and preserve the integrity PrQ seeks, surely.
Fran,
John’s editorial policy is selectively shutting down one side of the debate about how to cut emissions.
He has never shut down the posts being made by the renewable advocates, no matter how silly, how rude, how lacing in any substantial facts or reasoning. It doesn’t matter what these people say.
How is such an editorial policy of value, other than in trying to promote an ideology?
Ronald Brack,
In the thread I am banned from, you said:
“Peter Lang, right now wind power produces about 20% of South Australia’s electricity. Energy storage is not used or required. Kilowatt-hours of electricity produced by wind replace kilowatt-hours produced by gas on an almost one to one basis. Wind power only has a minor effect on the efficiency of the state’s fossil fuel generators because the increase in variability at current levels of penetration is not large compared to normal variation in demand. I believe the subsidy for wind power is currently about 4 cents a kilowatt-hour.”
When you say “wind power produces about 20% of South Australia’s electricity” you are referring to 20% on the basis of energy. But consumers need power, not energy. Wind cannot provide reliable power. From about 16 to 21 May, for example, the wind farms produce no power for much of that time.
Without energy storage, we have to rely on back-up generators. On in the case od South Australia it is exported through the internconnectors to Victoria and NSW who’s demand is large enogy to be able to accommodate the fulctuating supply from SA, most of the time. This is the same situation as Denmark; Denmark exports electricity to Norway and Germany at low cost and buys it back at high cost. Demmarks people and businesses pay hyge subsidies to support this irrational scheme. SA’s resoidents and businesses is doing the same.
You say: “Kilowatt-hours of electricity produced by wind replace kilowatt-hours produced by gas on an almost one to one basis.”
That is correct. But it wind power does not displace 1 kWh worth of emissions, because the back up generators oare on standby, in start up and shut down processes, spinning reserve, part loaded and running at lower efficiencies that they would be if not for the wind power. Also, more capital investment is required in gas plant than if there was no wind in the system.
You say “Wind power only has a minor effect on the efficiency of the state’s fossil fuel generators because the increase in variability at current levels of penetration is not large compared to normal variation in demand.”
Do you have figures to support that statement or is it simply your belief? I’d be very intersted in the actual figures you have to support this statement.
You say: “I believe the subsidy for wind power is currently about 4 cents a kilowatt-hour.”
That is just one of many subsidies. I posted the costs of wind energy on an earlier thread on the Sandpit. It is about 3 times the cost of nuclear when all is included.
Consumers demand power, not energy. Wind cannot provide reliable power. So wind power is next to useless. Furthermore, it aviods little if any CO2 emissions.
@Finrod
I just wanted to echo this concern of Finrod’s. When I first became aware of peak oil, the most chilling aspect was agriculture’s dependence on fossil fuels.
Check the following article, “Eating fossil fuels”. It gave me nightmares.
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/100303_eating_oil.html
When both the German and American military are predicting global peak oil to really start to bite in the next 5 years, we simply MUST start deploying MASSIVE quantities of reliable, baseload power. We need it for electric vehicles, fast rail upgrades, and even making hydrogen for certain heavy vehicle functions. We need it to turn off the coal and prevent climate change. We need it for energy security, food security: even the security of that precious and fragile thing we call civilisation. It’s time to stop playing around with renewable toys and bring in the big, reliable, baseload power tools: Gen2 and 3 nukes. When Gen4 nukes finally arrive the power will be so cheap it will blow unreliable renewables out of the water.
The discussions on John Quiggin’s web site, and other web sites has provoked the following thoughts:
There is a relatively small group of Australian’s who believe Australia will need to implement nuclear power if we want to make major cuts to emissions.
There is a much larger group of people who believe that a carbon tax or ETS will cause deep cut in our emissions.
There is also a large group, pretty much the same as the first group, who believe renewable energy can replace fossil fuels and provide the deep emissions cuts.
The nuclear supporters are totally unfunded. The renewable energy supporters are massively funded by the tax payer and have been for over two decades.
The business groups who want a carbon tax see financial advantage for their business (such as the gas industry and the renewable energy industry and researchers).
I am far from convinced that we are moving to develop good energy policy. I agree with Ziggy Switkowski’s post today on Climate Spectator.
We can all agree on one thing, Fusion is out.
Peter Lang, so why are there power companies that own both gas and wind capacity?
Ronald Brak,
Easy answer: Money!!
The government pays massive subsidies to renewables.
Renewables need fossil fuel back up.
The gas industry isn’t dumb. It promotes renewables because that means more gas generators.
Follow the money.
If the public wants renewables (because of 20 years of spin, advocacy distortions and propoganda), industry responds to what the people want; they see the opportunity and take advantage of it. That, after all, is what we want them to do. We set up incentives so they will repond. If we get the policy wrong (as we have done many times before and contine to do), they don’t mind, they respond to what we want, as they should.
On the issue of how much gas and therefore CO2 emissions wind may or may not save, I believe that Peter Lang has previously regretted the unavailability of gas consumption data by the generators. Apparently it is commercially confidential. This is clearly a matter of public interest, and anyone interested in CO2 emissions should demand that it and anything of a similar nature be made public by force of legislation.
@Peter Lang
I was going to say this doesn’t apply to south-east Australia because I imagine its “spinning” reserve is taken care of by Snowy hydro. There is an argument that wind generators don’t increase the amount of spinning reserve required up to a point because they are independent of other generators that also require spinning reserve. However, that only works up to a point because the entire wind generation system in south-east Australia acts like one generating unit. So once the wind system becomes larger than the largest generating unit, it starts costing more (hydro or otherwise) than it does already because of the increase in spinning reserve capacity required.
And even in a place like Tasmania with all its hydro, wind can only supply 25%-40% of energy unless its peak output is wasted or fed into pumped hydro, both of which increase its cost per unit of energy.
So even at low-generating capacity economics (which are not all that great anyway), wind won’t be able to supply very much of the energy. Getting more energy out of it will increase the unit cost even more than it is already.
It’s interesting considering what would be needed in a system that had only wind and pumped hydro. In such a system the hydro capacity would need to equal the peak demand. As well as that, the capacity of the wind generators would probably need to be 2.5 times the average demand (1/load factor). Also, the capacity of the pumps in the pumped hydro would need to be 2.5 times average demand – minimum demand. These are enormous generating/pumping capacities so using wind in this way would also be enormously expensive.
Fran,
Correct me if I am wrong. Is the title of the thread feom which I am bannished for mentioning the N word:
“Low-carbon electricity future: the big picture”
@BilB,
Do you have a decent reference on the Egyptian CSP plant. All I could find is that it is solar AND gas. The devil is in the details.
Chris O’Neil,
I agree with most of what you say in your last post.
Snowy Hydro’s capacity is 3800MW from memory. However, its capacity factor is about 14%. So we have to use the stored energy very sparingly. The pumped hydro capacity is small (1500MW generating, about 300MW pumping and only about 7 hours storage in the lower reservoir). So Snowy Hydro’s capacity to firm for wind’s fluctuating power is nil. We don’t have nearly enough hydro capacity to balance the grid without gas, let alone trying to balance the additional fluctuations caused by wind power.
So yes, we do have to keep gas turbines on spinning reserve in preparation for sudden loss of power from the wind farms. We also have to start up gas turbines in anticipation of events that usulally dont occur. We have to keep plants running longer than would be necessary if we did not have wind power in the system. Importantly, the gas turbines are most efficient when run at full power. When they are having to run part loaded or power up and power down, as is necessqry to follw the changing output, their efficiency is reduced considerably. The Kent Hawkins’ Calculator I gave you a link to explains all this and shows you that effects. You can input your own figures for the performance of the wind power and the calculator will give you the emissions avoided.
As I said before, it turns out that little if any emissions are avoided. The actual results depend mainly on the wind power inputs you enter.
Certainly, where there is a large hydro capacity (as in Norway, Canada, Brazil, Tasmania for example), then wind can make sense. When the wind blows, the energy stored in the hydro reservoirs is saved. Hydro and wind work well together. But they need to be economic. The average cost of wind farms installed in Australia recently increased from $2300/kW to $2900/kW (25% increase) in the last year. If they have an average capacity factor of 30%, then the cost of avarage power is around $9,7000/kW. You have to add the cost of transmission, grid enhancements and back up capacity to these figures.
Compare that with about $3,700/kW for nuclear (the contracted cost of the first units being built in UAE) and you can start to see why wind power is very expensive.
@Peter Lang
Peter Lang,
Get over the ban. Nuclear really has been done to death. No one but a few are ready for it or want it and a pushing for it. The rich few – all the more reason to put it on the back burner. Some of us may not want our lives to continue as they have been. Some of us may not want our childrens lives to continue as they are going (so much inequity and so much inequality). A kid, my kid and my kid’s kid has to have a chance to survive, not just be the slave to some large corporations marketing plan.
I almost cant wait for peak oil to arrive. I see a monumental cleansing of greed and corruption and self interest on a global scale far better than anything government regulation has failed to deliver.
Since we are discussing wind, and this comment by Jani-Petri Martikainen has just been posted on a BNC thread, I thought I’d post it here too (for interest of those who are interested):
http://bravenewclimate.com/2010/09/01/wind-power-emissions-counter/#comment-105047
John Newlands: To me your comment makes a lot of sense. The society as whole ends up (in teh end) paying the levelized cost of energy, but ‘merit order effect’ applies to the marginal cost. The fact that wind power (for example) can sometimes lower the spot price is only possible since someone else has been made to pay for the capital costs associated with windpower. The windpower advocates often (for obvious reasons) want to focus on marginal costs as if that is the relevant cost. To me this seems similar to an argument that buying a home always makes sense since a rent for a comparable appartment is so much higher that the running costs of your own home. Such argument must naturally factor in also the cost of the capital to buy the home in the first place and this is typically the dominant effect. (For some reason windpower advocates rarely mention the low marginal costs of nuclear power. I wonder why? After all both wind and nuclear have high upfront capital costs and low running expenses.)
Finally, I wonder if anyone has thought about the income redistribution effects of feed in tariffs? Like I mentioned before, it seems that in such schemes everyone is made to pay for the high capital costs, but the gains from the occasional low spot prices go to those who can (and want to) use a lot of electricity during those times. (Probably this is a pretty small effect, but is still a pretty weird incentive.)
I wasn’t aware the Flummery is involved with geothermal.
http://asiancorrespondent.com/gavin-atkins-shadowlands/geothermal-a-relatively-straightforward-way-to-lose-your-money
@el gordo,
What a stupid article. Anybody buying shares in Geodynamics and not realizing that it is high risk is a total idiot. It is the nature of this type of startup venture. If they get their pilot going, there is a carbon price or some other news, price could rise sharply. That is the nature of such publicly listed companies. Anybody who gets burned has only themselves to blame as long as the directors have acted legally.
Unfortunately Peter Lang, you do not belong here. You accuse people of misconstruing a calculation, wihtout providing evidence.
You also launch into vitriol to cover your lack of evidence.
Finrod,
Just to make the technology point
http://www.gizmag.com/fukai-hydrogen-extraction-process/16674/?utm_source=Gizmag+Subscribers&utm_campaign=a2b8c7acb5-UA-2235360-4&utm_medium=email
The beat goes on….
Sam, here is the link you asked for:
http://www.solarbuzz.com/
I’m not rich.
@BilB
Hmm…
FUKAI’s process involves adding aluminum or magnesium to boiling “functional water,” a proprietary substance that can be produced simply by running regular tap water through a natural mineral-containing “functional water generation unit.” The bonds that join hydrogen and oxygen molecules in regular water, which ordinarily require some energy to break, are weakened in functional water.
So we’ve got a catalyst of some kind which needs the water to be boiling to work properly. Have they taken the power needed to boil the water into account?
The liquid yields 2 liters (122 cubic inches) of hydrogen gas per gram of aluminum, or 3.3 liters (201 cubic inches) per gram of magnesium. FUKAI claims that the cost of producing enough hydrogen to generate 1kWh of electricity is about 18 cents US. That cost could be lowered through the use of recycled aluminum.
This strongly suggests that the magnesium or aluminium is binding the oxygen from the H2O. Before Al can do that, it has to be manufactured using a rather lerge amount of electricity. I guess it’s the same story for magnesium. In short, this strongly suggests that the energy cost of stripping the hydrogen is simply being shifted elsewhere, to the Al or Mg production process. The suggestion that recycled Al could be used to lower the cost reinforces this suspicion.
The technology is said to not involve the expansive facilities, petroleum-based fuels, or CO2 output of steam reformation. It is also reportedly more energy-efficient than electrolysis, and doesn’t require the growing of crops necessary for experimental biomass-based systems.
“If we make the most of this technology, in the future it will be possible to run automobiles using water only – no need to use gasoline or electricity,” stated Toshiharu Fukai, the developer of the system. “We are also pushing forward with technology that will allow us to generate hydrogen with zero cost. If we succeed in this development, even ordinary households will be able to produce hydrogen.”
Zero cost? Nothing is ever produced at zero cost. The cost will at best be shifted elsewhere, out of sight. But someone must pay for it one way or another.
The technology will be publicly demonstrated at a press conference next Monday (Oct. 25, 2010) in New York City.
I do hope you’ll follow this press conference and let us all know the outcome.
BilB, you really should apply a bit of critical thinking to this article. Aren’t your BS detectors making at least a minor beeping noise at this?
Peter Lang,
Wind systems do not provide sudden increases in power, they build up gradually. Increases in wind power are predictable. Wind generators have the ability to regulate their output and can adapt to fit in with grids needs.
Further down, cheaper power is taken up by businesses such as the steel recycling smelters who vary their energy useage according to the buying price for the energy which they monitor with a huge price dial on the factory wall. That benefits everyone.
The Snowey Is designed as a 6.5 gig system.
Peter Lang @25
All of that is total twoddle. You are basically saying there that our energy engineers do not know what they are doing and cannot run a complex system.
“Compare that with about $3,700/kW for nuclear (the contracted cost of the first units being built in UAE)”
That price is highly unlikely in Australia, and does not include the very expensive support structure and regulatory process which the public has to pay for.
Finrod @34,
I don’t know whether the chemistry is real And the claims are provocative, but asuming that the chemistry is real I can see how the process can claim “zero” cost. Your not much of a lateral thinker.
@BilB
Provocative. Indeed.
What do you think is meant by ‘zero cost’, and how do you think they’ll achieve it? Perhaps you can walk me through this lateral thought process in order that I ‘get it’.
@Peter Lang
Be that as it may, the main thing I’m interested in at this point is that it appears that wind will never be able to supply more than a small fraction of the electrical energy supply without huge increases in cost per unit. The question people have to ask themselves is: where is most of our non-carbon-emitting electricity going to come from because it won’t come from wind without an enormous increase in cost. The same problem applies to any type of variable source.
So now Australia is accepting nuclear waste from overseas.
Where will the funding come from to store this for the next thousands of years.
How do you turn-off this flood of waste.
Chris O’Neil,
I agree. Sorry if I distracted from your main message.
For those readers who may be at risk of being deceived about the variability of wind power, have a look a the total output of the Australian wind farms for August 2010.
Points to note:
– total capacity = 1900MW
– spread over an area 1200km east-west by 800km north-south
– seven major cycles
– Power output up to 85% and down to 0% of installed capacity
– Rate of change of power = up to 20% of capacity per hour
Also recall, in May all these wind farms generated near zero output for nearly a week. They generated 0MW on 65 5-minute periods (from my memory).
Something has to supply the power when the wind isn’t blowing!
Something has to be able to provide exactly the power that the grid demands, whenever it is demanded!
Something has to be sitting, waiting, idling, ready to take up the load when the wind drops its bundle!
Wind is the real Aussie bludger. When the going gets tough (peak demand), the bludger takes the day off work!
To get the chart metnioned above Google “windfarmperformance”, then go to the bottom right quadrant of the page and select August 2010
It is wrth looking at to understand just how variable is wind power, and to dispell the myth that “the wind is always blowing somewhere”.
The bonds that join hydrogen and oxygen molecules in regular water, which ordinarily require some energy to break, are weakened in functional water.
You know, “weakening the bonds” is virtually identical to “adding energy”. That energy you’re adding has to come from somewhere. It’s not as if H2O molecules are in some metastable state. Energetically speaking, they’re at rock bottom. That’s why the Space Shuttle Main Engines use a hydrogen/oxygen reaction. It’s the most energetic chemical reaction known. Where is that energy coming from?
This whole ‘functional water’ thing reeks of quackery.
Maybe it is similar to detergents effect on surface tension. There is a challenge for you, track these people down and expose them if you feel that stronly about it. Send some emails or use he telephone.
@Peter Lang
I think you should take the hint that you are pushing the proverbial uphill if you reference material that comes from a climate science denial website (there’s been no warming for ten years etc). I agree we are in a lot of trouble if we have to rely on variable sources of electricity but credibility of arguments shrinks close to zero if they are transmitted through such websites.
@BilB
These sorts of scams are a-dime-a-dozen on the net. They may find some fool or fools credulous enough to put up investment money. That sort of thing has happened before. I’m not particularly worked up over the appearance of yet another example. For instance:
http://depletedcranium.com/note-to-missouri-politicans-perpetual-motion-bad-investment/#comments
What concerns me more is that you BilB, a person who is involved in the promotion of alternative energy projects in this country, should have apparently accepted it so uncritically. It’s not me who needs to follow this up or hassle these people. It’s you who needs to keep an eye on this and learn from the experience.
You can’t call it a scam without proof, Finrod, otherwise you become the scammer. Go get proof, or is that too hard for you?
@BilB
May I remind you that you were the one who put this forward as an example of game-changing technological development? The onus of proof is on you.
Chris O’Neil,
OK, I accept that point. The point is that it does explain the problem really well if people are actually prepared to put the effort into reading it. Also, the calculator has been calibrated against the only three studies that I know of that have actually measured fuel consumption and compared it with the electricity actually geneated with an without wind generation. So, I still thin k it is well worth reading this, even if youy have to cover up the remainder of the material.
Chris, if you prefer, you could read my very simple analysis. Google “Cost and Quantity of Greenhouse Emissions Avoided by Wind Generation”.
When reading it, please remember that this is intentionally a simple analysis I wrote for the intelligent, interested, non specialist.
You’re the only one so far, Finrod, calling this a scam.
http://coalgeology.com/hydrogen-energy-from-water-new-technology-from-fukai-environmental-research-institute/7468/
http://www.environmental-expert.com/resultEachPressRelease.aspx?cid=40124&codi=202054
Here is their website I think, “http://www.ies.or.jp/index_e.html”, it seems that these people are to give a public demonstration in New York soon. That is not very scammer like, but we will see. I’m sure New Yorkers have seen every kind of scam going, lets’s see what they say about it afterwards.
Chris O’Neil,
What you say about the credibility of the message is affected by the envelope.
Many on this site don’t trust anything that is posted on the BNC site. On other sites, the inhabitants would not trust a message if it is posted on ‘greenie’ sites or Left sites like this.
As John Morgan pointed out in an earlier discussion with Ernestine Gross, we should evaluate the quality of the analysis rather than make presumptions that it is wrong simply by where it is published. Should we trust the wind industry and solar industry publications that are published by the greenie and Lefty web sites and ignore the work that is exposing the misleading claims of these groups?
The claims on such sites are certainly misleading. For example, “Green Power” and the Commonwealth and state environment and energy departments promote the belief that wind power avoids 1.3t CO2-e/MWh in Victoria and about 1t CO2-e/MWh in NSW and ACT. This is deception. It is deceiving investors, consumers, and the public. Yet it is allowed to continue. The Howard government directed the ACCC to investigate misleading claims about carbon offsets. The investigation had just started before the Labor government came to power. Labor closed down the investigation, whitewashed it, refused to publish the submissions, and said in effect “if Green Power” endorses it, you can trust it.
Should we trust this sort of misleading information and yet not even evaluate the work that questions it?. Should we just accept the sort of nonsense being propogated on this and many other web sites by people with their nose stuck in the public funding trough for renewable energy. So telling me that information has no credibility if it is published on a web site that projects the opposite ideology to this web site, carries no crediblity with me.