Last updated on 2019-09-17
Wind power is cheaper, more reliable, and less harmful than coal-generated power. Danish MP Ida Auken shows how to package those facts in a wonderful video that templates how all of us running against Trumpism should communicate:
Mr President – Greenland is not for sale. But Denmark has a much better deal for you! Watch this. #dkgreen #dkpol pic.twitter.com/mlRwAVzVFg
— Ida Auken (@IdaAuken) August 20, 2019
Simple, factual, science-based, and sharp—that’s the kind of response we need to ridicule the ignorance and hypocrisy of the current occupant of the White House and his blinkered followers.
Ag is gonna lose out again with the ethanol. Electric cars and SUV’s will be churning out from Volkswagon starting in 2020. They have completely reworked a factory conversion from gas/diesel to electric only.
https://electrek.co/2019/08/21/electric-car-chart-end-combustion-engine/?fbclid=IwAR2_-r_keqopRt2zYfyTfPt5qIvXn7kmCvbVvVe1DvklFDs5CalqNNpjoWM
Soon, the only combustion vehicles will be on display at the Pioneer Auto Museum in Murdo, South Dakota. Tell Dave howdy. BTW, there is a Tesla charging port in Murdo, how about that?
I wouldn’t say wind is more reliable. You can burn coal whenever you want. The wind turbines don’t start turning when you flick the light switch on. When the wind is howling, you have plenty of energy to go around, and you have the problem of what to do with the excess.
Today we do not have an issue with reliability because we burn natural gas to make up the difference.
If you want to say wind is cleaner, that’s OK. If you want to say that we are making the most of what nature provides, that is OK. If you want to say wind has a lower cost at the point of production that is OK. If you can deliver a lot of that energy to recharge electric vehicles during the day, that is OK.
If you want to ignore the costs of matching supply and demand, or the costs of recycling or waste management, that is not OK.
Ironically, we recycle lead batteries and we downcycle coal fly ash, but hardly do anything with lithium batteries and wind turbine materials.
I’d already seen MP Auken’s video for Dense Dunce, but I enjoyed it tremendously this time too. It’s fun to see other nations politely expose his idiocy. I can always use some comic relief in these stressful times.
No nation should have an insane buffoon at the top. Good luck UK. Maybe Boris is sane, but he is a buffoon..
Fun video. Too bad the orange one has a shorter attention span than this video. Maybe if he could patent wind or at least find a way to put his brand on wind.
The Strib has an edited conversation with the following:
“John Dunlop, engineer and energy consultant, is a 45-year pioneer of the renewable-energy movement in Minnesota. He also was the chairman of the recent national conference of the American Solar Energy Society (ASES) in Bloomington that drew 300 energy experts and others focused on “ramping up the use of renewable energy to attack the climate crisis.” Gregg Mast, a business veteran and CEO of Clean Energy Economy Minnesota, also addressed the conference.”
Conclusions were not surprising. It’s urgent, ramp up renewables immediately and get support from government on all levels. Transmission of electricity needs to rapidly expand.
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Renewable energy advocates say sun is shining on Minnesota
CEO Gregg Mast of Clean Energy Economy Minnesota and John Dunlop, a renewable-energy engineer and advocate, believe that Minnesota, partly thanks to d CEO Gregg Mast of Clean Energy Economy Minnesota and John Dunlop, a renewable-energy engineer and advocate, believe that Minnesota, partly thanks to declining solar costs and energy-storage technology, will boost solar-generated electricity from about 2 to 10% over the next decade.
— Neal St. Anthony • neal.st.anthony@startribune.com
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By NEAL ST. ANTHONY , STAR TRIBUNE
August 24, 2019 – 10:23 AM
John Dunlop, engineer and energy consultant, is a 45-year pioneer of the renewable-energy movement in Minnesota. He also was the chairman of the recent national conference of the American Solar Energy Society (ASES) in Bloomington that drew 300 energy experts and others focused on “ramping up the use of renewable energy to attack the climate crisis.” Gregg Mast, a business veteran and CEO of Clean Energy Economy Minnesota, also addressed the conference. This conversation is edited from prepared remarks and an interview.
Q: John, what was the upshot of the conference?
A: Urgent action is needed using renewable energy to eliminate carbon emissions from electrical generation and transportation and new buildings … within just two decades. We need to ramp up production of renewable electricity immediately. That will require support from elected officials at the national, state and local level to provide guidance to transform our electric supply system.
Q: Any other challenges?
A: The biggest impediment to massive investments by businesses to increase the generation of renewable electricity was recently covered in the Star Tribune by [energy] reporter Mike Hughlett. We need to rapidly expand our ability to get electricity from where it will be generated to where we use it. We need transmission … to expand the generation of very low-cost electric power from wind and solar installations.
Q: Minnesota and Upper Midwest utilities will study how to bolster transmission networks to meet aggressive renewable-energy goals. They are focused on a safe, reliable, cost-effective electric grid as the system adds more carbon-free energy. What else, John?
A: I attended the celebration of Minnesota’s first wind energy “repowering” project near Lake Benton [this month]. NextEra Energy has removed 173 600-killowatt turbines on 50-meter towers that were installed in 1998 and will replace them with just 44 2.5 MW turbines on 90-meter towers. They will generate more electricity from the same generating capacity. We heard from NextEra, Xcel and county officials that further wind development in Lincoln and Lyon counties is inhibited because of transmission constraints. The challenge to quickly convert our entire electric system to no-carbon electricity is large. The business and job-creation opportunities are equally large.
Q: Did this come up at your conference?
A: At the ASES conference this month, James McCalley, an electrical engineering professor from Iowa State University [said] the U.S. needs a new, high-voltage direct current (DC) transmission network across the entire country in order to ship low-cost renewable electricity from resource-rich areas across the “seams” between the three electrically independent areas of the country: eastern, western and Texas. [Those seams] limit long-distance transport of power. A two-wire, 800 kV DC line carries 10 times the current that is transmitted by the typical three-wire 350 kV alternative current (AC) lines. DC lines have less “line loss” and do not generate pulsing electromagnetic fields. Further, DC lines are strung on narrow single poles with a small ground footprint, in contrast to the lattice towers on broad bases for AC lines.
“Energy efficiency and clean energy has been an economic growth engine for our state. These jobs [should] increase over 7% next year. Increasingly, consumers want more clean energy as well as options over how energy is generated. Minnesota has been a hotbed for solar development. Growth opportunities include expanding access to community solar gardens, pairing solar with energy storage, and addressing demand for commercial and industrial solar.
“The [Gov] Walz-Flanagan administration’s ‘One Minnesota Path to Clean Energy’ is a long-term vision and policy proposal that provides a critical investment signal for our companies. Its passage this coming legislative session would provide Minnesota with a significant competitive advantage to attract more clean energy jobs and expand economic opportunities that will help our state thrive and prosper.”
The last refers to the the Democratic Governor and Lt. Gov’s clear energy policy that supports renewable sources.
Reliability: Denmark outages 15 minutes out of the year; US outages 2 hours out of the year.
Denmark’s energy generation and distribution grid is apparently more reliable than ours, even though it relies far more heavily on wind.
I found the following on the electricity mix (this is not the energy mix) in Denmark. They have a pie chart in the article if you scroll down.
https://cleantechnica.com/2019/05/20/in-the-danish-elections-everybody-is-fighting-about-who-is-greener-but-does-it-matter/
Wind – 40%
Coal – 17%
Biofuel – 14%
Hydro – 12% (imported from Norway)
Natural Gas – 6%
Waste – 4%
Nuclear – 3% (imported)
Solar – 2%
Oil – 1%
So 42% of their electricity is from wind and solar, not 100%. But they do have a well-diversified mix at the moment. And they are making headway into reducing their coal use…in 1984, 96% of their electricity came from coal.
The constraint on future wind development will be where they can put new wind turbines. Germany has seen their growth in new wind turbine installation fall off in the last couple of years. Not good, because the widespread adoption of electric vehicles has not happened yet.
The population of Denmark is 5.75 million. The population of the United States is 327 million. I don’t think they have the same issues in terms of the size, complexity or age of the grid.
They probably also do not have the same needs for air conditioning in the summer and heating in the winter either.
Their hottest month is in July with an average of 64 degrees (average high temperature of 72), and their coldest month is in February with an average temperature around 32 degrees.
It looks like they export energy to other nations at almost no cost when there is too much wind, so they are not storing it.
Andrew Yang’s climate plan relies heavily on nuclear energy. The other highlight is that it features a carbon tax and investments in a variety of approaches.
https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/458807-yang-climate-plan-heavily-relies-on-entrepreneurship-nuclear-to
“Why does it have such a bad reputation? Two reasons,” Yang’s proposal says of nuclear energy.
“First, the public’s perception of its safety has been skewed by TV shows like Chernobyl and The Simpsons. Second, nuclear waste is dangerous and long-lasting, and disposing of it is expensive. Both points are less of an issue with modern reactors.”
Seth Moulton is out of the race now, but what he says is true…
“Democrats who refuse to listen to the science on nuclear power are no better than the Republicans who refuse to listen to the science on climate change,” the Salem native told Boston.com in a recent interview. “It’s a great example of where fear-mongering has taken over for science.”
Amen.
His plan would have promoted fusion over fission.
https://www.boston.com/news/politics/2019/08/20/seth-moulton-nuclear-fusion-energy
Kevin Drum, a blogger on Mother Jones, gave the Bernie Sanders energy plan a D-.
https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2019/08/bernie-sanders-gets-a-d-for-his-climate-plan/
“It’s a box-checking exercise designed to appeal to every possible lefty constituency rather than something that has even the remotest chance of building the public support needed to get it passed through Congress.”
And it looks like the Yang plan is focusing on the thorium-fueled molten salt reactors.