Before watching There's going to be a literal "power shift" when the let's call them "previously not first world" countries run with the new solutions leaving many of the "previously first world" countries (often Petrodollar based) with outdated technology and declining income. Could get "messy" (ref Russia) but the change IS inevitable.
In the interim however, it does mean that the world's coal use is going up That will go down too eventually too. Only around 40% of our steel is made from recycled steel which is a fair amount, but we'll need a hell of a lot more steel because that's what we need for renewables Currently, steel is made from coking coal. The alternative is hydrogen but that's not yet scalable, and realistically that hydrogen will likely be made from gas rather than renewables. Making hydrogen from renewable electrics is just making electricity with extra steps. But hey, at least polluting hydrogen is still better than coking coal so there's a. silver lining
@@jamesgrover2005 That's the main reason why India and China are leading here. There's a reason why smog no longer exists in the UK. Once you start seeing the pollution, then politicians act a hell of a lot faster Also, I think what isn't mentioned here, is that you end up building a sort of centralised yet decentralised grid. I didn't quite realise that until I got my own solar panels and I realised that because it has to communicate to the grid, you're always sending a bit of power to the grid Ultimately, that means that the amount of renewables being used goes up drastically if more and more people are exporting energy back into the grid
We have a wind turbine from 1987 which is still operating (I think) at Breamlea in Victoria, and the Toora Windfarm in South Gippsland has some turbines that have been operating since about the early-'90s.
One aspect missing from the narrative in this episode is the fact that the resources needed to mine, refine and manufacture every wind turbine remain heavily dependent on fossil fuels. The steel needed for the mineral mining machinery, the energy used in mineral refining and final production of the resources needed for renewable energy generation and storage all depend on fossil fuels. We have a long way to go before all renewable energy production and storage is fully decoupled from fossil fuels. I look forward to the transition however, we must remain aware of the fact that every solar panel, every wind turbine and every EV requires a significant amount of fossil fuels to get from raw material to finished product.
I remember Rosie being very negative about wind technology, I hope she will be more open to the possibilities of further invention and not throw a wet blanket over innovation before it can even be tried.
I've seen her look critically at various hopeful/hopeless schemes promoted on YT and that's what we follow her for. She brings informed scepticism to the party -as well as continued optimism. Go Rosie!
I never experienced more lemmings than in the green movement. Does anyone think on their own? Oil has peaked? Really? Have you looked at what everything around you is made of? The prosperity of the world is based on cheap plentiful energy. None of these alternative sources, at least at this stage of the technology, are sustainable without huge government subsidies. That is unsustainable economic model!
I was very pleased that you did this episode! I enjoyed listening to a guest with real brains with experience in the industry. Engineers are the ones who build our world.
@@MrJoegotbored I've been watching her from the beginning. But thanks for the thought. I like to hear from people with brains and experience. I was encouraging fully charged to do it more often as they sometimes have people that do not have either. Sam Evans is one they should stay away from, to name one!
Engineers built our world. Scientists designed it. Politicians like to rearrange the deck chairs - as all they really do is shift taxes from one place to another - and then claim credit for absolutely everything.
Actually the armies of for profit capitalism bound engineers, many of them venture capitalists themselves out for a nice healthy subsidy for their greenwashing, are the ones who are likely going to kill us all in the end, as they like most people, accept the physics of climate change for sure but not that capitalism is both driving it and that climate change and ecological collapse are the twin symptoms of perpetual growth capitalism that will never be solved and ecologically only be worsened, by attempting to dig up ever increasing amounts of resources to augment a perpetually growing global socioeconomic system with cleaner technologies, that blew past the climatological red line by 1998 and ecological red line by 1990. The laws of thermodynamics are very clear on why in a closed system, such as earth, it is a monumentally stupid and catastrophic idea to create machines to clean up the mess you make with the machine you use to create them unless you've managed to break the laws of physics by creating 100% efficiency... not gonna happen.
I met Dr. Barnes through the video you posted on the main channel. She is a phenomenal professional and a great communicator. She really manages to convey the complexity and yet the feasibility of the energy transition in a very clear way. So glad you’ll be collaborating with her. Great interview btw
What about the Victorian Government cancelling the registrations of EVs and not even telling the owners so they get a 1000 dollar fine? Corrupt politicians in with the fossil fuel industry or what? And I thought the way EV drivers are treated in the UK was bad enough without the incentives the EU countries get!!!!
Amber Electric already let customers buy and sell at wholesale prices. In SA prices are often negative on sunny days. I charge two EVs for around 3c per kWh on average. You do need automated systems to shutdown big loads during price spikes.
Rob Haitch, my sister bought a home built in 1986 that did have a panel that shuts off her electric dryer and water heater during times of high power demand. This was in Phoenix Arizona. They do have them! Just shutting off those two loads can save a lot of power, then run them at night. I have my water heater set to run 9 pm to 7 am. I have plenty of hot water for the rest of the day. I have a special time of day rate plan, where on weekdays between 5 pm and 9 pm is $0.32 per KW, while weekends and after 9 pm is only $0.08 per KW, and 7 am to 5 pm on weekdays is $0.13 per KW. So I make a few changes, and now 92% of my power use is off peak, while only 8% is between 5 and 9 on weekdays.
So she basically has said she has five or six years experience in the real world and she wants everybody to listen to her because she's so smart. I wouldn't hire somebody with that limited amount of experience let alone listen to them.
Home robotic vacuum cleaners can teach the selfparking EV to connect to the grid. All vehicles are parked 23hrs a day. All vehicles can program minimum charge available at a particular time. Trading electricity with the grid for money and profit. Grid stability can be part of the feature.
Virtual power plant will reduce the solar storage capacity needed and the EV battery used as storage will allow grid independence for a couple of days. :)
The EV battery is limited to when the EV is at the home for two reasons. (Assuming the EV is used for its primary purpose and the home has Solar) . 1) The EV will often if not always be away from the home during the peak solar generation period, which means the solar will at least in part be "offered" to the grid utility. When the practice becomes widespread it's highly likely the "home solar" will simply be used to charge a *utility battery* (!) and there's a reasonable chance of oversupply from homes meaning that utility will not want the energy (if their battery network is full) . 2) Unless you can guarantee power cuts will only occur at certain times, essentially when the owner is at home, the vehicle provides zero cover. Imagine you're about to leave for work and there's a power cut? What are your choices? Stay home and explain to your boss you won't be in for the third time that month? Leave and use public transport (in which case, why do you own the car?) Leave in the car and hope the power returns? You mention "grid independence for a couple of days".... *Only if the car is there* (see above) . Solar with a home battery solves the problem and pays for the system. You remove the home from the grid, and sell excess when you want to.
The “Early 1990 offshore windfarm in Denmark” Rosie mentions, is Vindeby: Eleven 450kW Bonus turbines. The farm came online october 12 1991 and was decomissioned 25 years later.
@@chairmakerPete Remember this was the first off its kind, it was worn out. Another offshore park Middelgrunden has now been running 28 years. We are running a pilot project to retrofit with a new nacelle and wings. Reusing the tower, transformers and cables. Thus extending its usable life another 20 years.
@Jens Winther OK - so 45/50 years is now a reasonable number for lifespan, given a 25 year major revamp. Do these things require much servicing before the 25 years, or once installed, do they just crank out power "for free"?
@@chairmakerPete They need servicing. Thats why offshore is more expensive to run and install. You can’t just drive a van with a service tech to the turbine and fix the job. Offeshore needs boats and helicopters. But offshore turbines genereate more power due to the greater wind resources.
@@jenswinther8601 presumably it's a simple calculation that increased servicing costs are more than covered by the additional power output that can be sold. I have concerns about energy density of wind power, but this has been useful information. Thank you.
Rosie for energy minister. Delighted she is joining your channel I've so enjoyed her own channel although being 70 years old I can't always keep up with her especially the maths .
Denmark has the most renewable energy and also the highest household cost of electricity. In fact most locations that have a high amount of renewable energy have the highest prices for electricity. Most of this is because you need to keep some source of backup when the sun doesn't shin and the wind doesn't blow.
I think people will have to start thinking what industries become viable once renewable generation is greater than current/projected demand. I think particularly Australia is on their way there, clearly not immdediately but in the next 10 years. Their potential is huge.
They need to get Ford and others to start building batteries and electric cars in Australia! Australia needs the tax incentives that we have in America, so that Ford will invest in a battery plant in Australia. Otherwise Ford will say "We can import batteries to Australia once we have enough made in America to produce all the cars we need in America. And that will take until about 2035. I would love to stop importing oil to America, and especially to places like a small village on the coast of Alaska, that must barge in millions of gallons of oil to provide heating and electricity to that small village each winter. They have started to install a couple of small wind turbines, about 1 MW each, or less, to provide electrical power to the village. They sometimes will fly in a jet, to drain the excess fuel into the storage tanks to get them through until the spring thaw, when a million gallon barge of fuel can fill the tanks again. For Japan, Singapore, and many other areas, they need to stop importing oil so they can stop exporting so much money they exchange for that oil. I think it would be wonderful to replace some of Japan oil fired power plants with geothermal. They might not need to drill down 1,000 feet to reach some 1,000F heat in the rocks! Install a 8" diameter steel pipe, with a 1" diameter injection water line going down the center, to supply water, that can turn to steam, and then run the power plant on the surface. The total cost of ownership is much less with a EV than a gas car. I like to compare it to the coal fired locomotives to the diesel electric locomotives they started using in the 30's in America. By 1948, they started to shift to diesel locomotives, and by 1950, every rail line went to diesel. It still took them 10 years to fully convert, and by 1960, it was rare to see a coal locomotive, and by 1965, there where only a handful still running a steam locomotives, mostly for excursion lines, and not for profit main lines. Australia will really miss the boat if they do not have incentives to the auto companies to build the battery in Australia and to build the electric cars there, even for export to other countries.
@@Kangenpower7 Australia doesn't have the population numbers (bearing in mind there are multiple EV manufacturers i.e competition & The Chinese are aready supplying Oz) so it's not worth Ford's while to build plants in Oz. There's a reason just about every car manufacturer pulled out of Oz in the last 10-15 years.
The amount of material required to build a sufficiently strong engineering structure increaces non-proportionately with the size not only because the volume increaces at a greater rate than the linear dimension but because a larger structure even of an identical geometry to a smaller one requires more strength to resist forces that deform it. Because of this there are ultimate practical limits upon size. Consider the case of the space elevator cable which even if scaled up in all dimensions would be incapable of resisting the tensile forces resulting from it's weight. The only way to make such structures bigger is to use stronger materials. Windmills a mile high? But made from Graphene rather than Carbon Fiber!
I live dead close to farm land that's "protected green land" I'd absolutely love to see a wind farm "on my doorstep" effectively. I'm sure even the NIMBYs would get involved once they realise that having a wind farm close to you, basically halves your energy costs
This was utterly fantastic! Very surprised to hear that Rosie considers herself to be a pessimist which you'd never surmise from her videos, always rather positive while being realistic. Wonderful job Robert and Rosie!
Rosie Barnes' last comment. The rest of Australia will experience energy bill increase next year, except Canberra. Why? Because their supply is fully renewable. OMG. This didn't happen overnight. While Scotty was in Parliament with his dirty lump of coal the local utilities were going fully renewable. I hate to say it but we the citizens of Australia have been right royally screwed over by a liberal government. A government which was charged with looking after our best interests but instead looked after the interests of the HC industry and their own pockets. A pox on anybody in Scotty's and earlier liberal governments. I have changed from being a liberal voter to being labor voter, having been betrayed by those politicians who I put my faith in and voted for. May you rot in your own hell for the sin of your dishonesty.
Rosie's, channel is amazingly informative and inspiring.... But her real world job is far more important..... Since one real wind turbine is more important than a million posts, about it... In my humble opinion... She is a true hero.... But in both cases keep up the good work, Rosie........ Plus the first comment with anything relevant to say lol...
Rosie is the one in the real world, she's an actual engineer climbing towers with spanners, designing blades & whatever, Robert is an actor who is interested.
Mentioning climate change as her sole motivation in the first 5 minutes just takes me right out. There are 10 really good reasons to get into renewables before climate change even needs to be mentioned.
Robert, just a question. We are told again and again that the electricity is cheaper from a new wind turbine than from an existing fossil fuel plant and yet it looks to me that electricity is getting more and more expensive all over the world and especially where there is a great penetration of wind energy. Is someone profiteering.
Politicians trying to sell themselves as environmentally conscious and companies that build renewables are profiteering. They sell renewables by stating the peek output, which it only produces for a small fraction of the time, and don’t mention the high costs to the rest of the system caused by the reliability.
Yes they are profiteering a lot, but not exactly for the reason kokofan says. It's also to do with the way energy is charged. It is currently based on the wholesale price of the highest resource cost of electricity generation for covering the network in peak times, that being currently gas, so all these "cheap" renewable energy suppliers reap the benefit of HUGELY inflated prices. This is something that needs to change as a matter of urgency as I have no interest whatsoever in renewable energy if cost to the customer is still based on the costliest "fuel" price used to generate electricity elsewhere & not the actual source of the energy used across the board. In my opinion, if a supplier says they only use 100% renewable energy then they should be mandated to charge you ONLY for the cost of that renewable energy - not what the cost of gas is, as last I heard was gas wasn't renewable.
@@yips_way selling at the going rate isn’t profiteering, and natural gas isn’t the highest cost producer everywhere. In the US natural gas is the lowest cost fuel, and if Europe hadn’t bet everything on renewables, they wouldn’t be having such a hard time right now with natural gas.
The US terrorist attack on the Nordstream2 II pipeline & sanctions & other BullSh1t they're blaming on the Russians is the reason energy prices have risen so sharply. It's "all the Russians fault". Of course it is...Not... It's purely profiteering using Russia as a scapegoat. Why would Russia blow up their undersea pipeline to restrict access to gas, when all they had to do was close the valves off on the mainland? Saving massive costs to restart supply. Calling the Americans psychopathic C##nts would be complementing them.
@@kokofan50 The Nordstream2 II incident didn't happen in your version of reality?... If they HAD bet everything on RE they wouldn't be having a hard time now. If Germany had upgraded their North/South infrastructure they wouldnt have to sell excess RE abroad then buy back France's nuclear electricity at inflated cost to balance supply & demand, because Germany can't distribute it's RE due to aforementioned cr4p, outdated infrastructure. If the UK had subsidised RE instead of wasting £billions on Hinckley C with the usual nuclear industry mafia 10 year build & £billions budget overspend... Too many people posting here with only mainstream media information, half of which is standard Fossil/Nuclear industry FUD to delay the inevitable RE onslaught & allowing those mafia cartels to keep screwing consumers/taxpayers.
The only "inevitability" is fossil fuel production is declining. Thus we will need something. The question is WHAT - that WHAT cannot be Solar nor Wind. These are demonstratable farces. The fail point is battery storage. The largest storage battery in the world was just built in the UK Cost 400 million for 400 Megawatts- it could only sustain the current electrical demand in the UK 11 seconds. You'd need 1500 such giant batteries to maintain power at night; not to mention dark winter days. Unfortunately you need to triple that to move fossil to electric - so you need 4500 such storage sites; at a cost of 400 Million each - is roughly 25 Trillion dollars. Does that Strike you as real even at 10 Trillion? The entire UK economy is only 3.1 trillion - don't forget this is just the storage; not the wind mills and the solar farms. TOTAL CRAP.
At min 40 Rosie dreams about a system, where the energy customers actually make money if they act according to the availability of power (like: use the washing machine when there is plenty of wind). Sounds nice. And true thing, you can steer consumption this way. Easily done too: the price for energy wont be constant anymore but will change from hour to hour. You ll need a complicated meter in every household and we people have to really be careful when to switch the computer on. Will you have an app on your phone that has an alarm set if the price is too high? Cool, huh? You wont "safe" money this way - you can prevent to pay a lot! Everything will be more complicated. But hey, its for the environment. And while the poor will try to carefully adjust their energy consumption ("Sorry, baby, its too expensive to turn on the AC now..." Will the rich politicians that sold us this "way to safe money" carelessly consume energy because they have enough money.
In Australia we have the smart energy metering and these have the ability to communicate with devices in the home if the homeowner opt into the agreement. We could send commands to adjust the Air conditioners temperature setting because here we have issues with Heat and not cold, this could make enough difference to ease the grid load.
BIOMASS - please please do a show/podcast on the green wash that is biomass burning. Please dispel the myth that this is green and that somehow burning this carbon is better than letting it rot in the ground. Or that assuming in 25 years that the tress you have cut down will be replaced by new happy trees (fires, drought, floods, erosion all ignored). Also highlight how we are cutting down forests to supply this ridiculous demand. Also point out how much more energy this takes and how much more polluting it is than the coal that it is being replaced by. This has all the hallmarks of a great Robert rant that I would enjoy so much.
If everyone set their air conditioner to start at random times like 3:07.13pm rather than 3:pm like 90% of people do it would significantly reduce the 3pm daily peak.
Don't you set your Aircon to kick in based on temperature rather than time? Cos that would absolutely smash sudden peaks flat. (I'm in the UK. Air con is something you only really see in offices still, although why on earth we're pushing a2w heat pumps not a2a is frankly beyond me but the point is I'm not familiar with how air con works like someone in a hot country would be
@@jezlawrence720I don't know about Aircon but my thermostat is time based with a target temperature, i.e. 3pm 20c 10pm 14c so presumably the same is true for Aircon
@@sie4431 I see what you mean. Last couple of years I've switched my heating to lower peak temps and setbacks a few degrees lower rather that simple on/off. Dropped my gas bill by about 10-15% over the course of the winter. I understand heat pumps (which is what Aircon is) do even better when used to maintain rather than heat up or cool down. So I assumed in hot countries the Aircon basically was on the whole time, keeping the temp a livable rather than allowing it to get hot and then have to be cooled. Assumptions may be totally wrong though which is why I asked
@@jezlawrence720 I do, but with the advent of apps to do everything, people just set the easiest time 3 or 4 pm as that is the hottest time of the day and most people get home from a few hours later.
@@fredkroh6576 ah ok I understand yes, if you're literally not there you are at least going to use higher setbacks, or off completely, then you have to allow cooling time. I'm with you. Maybe if folk started them a bit earlier but less aggressively, and just knocked it up after they get home? It's not like folk are all arriving home at the same minute. Mind you it's fundamentally the same challenge as what you're proposing: getting a ton of people to change their behaviour
They have been forced out by subsidised 'green' energy. Non of the renewables can exist without government help. How an engineer can make claims for wind energy is beyond me. The physic's of all this and costs to make 'green' devices just doesn't add up. Then you talk about batteries and people not using energy to reduce load. Left wing engineer and a guy that thinks that the grid can handle everyone plugging in their cars overnight with 'green' energy. There's something green you two have been on and it's not energy.
Stephen Brickwood, Wind turbines have a great solution close at hand! The solutions are easy to find. I want to tell Russia to "Kiss Off, we have plenty of electricity, so keep your gas".
@@Kangenpower7 How about you keep repeating "Hey government, you & your European energy company mates can keep your businesses away from the UK. We don't need you buying any coal oil or gas, foreign or otherwise,, because we have renewables". But you keep repeating this BrainDead Russian hatred... I bet you read The Sun & The Star!...
I used to live in Germany near Hannover and driving along some of the autobahns you could see a history of wind turbine development. Early examples had towers more akin to the ones holding the cables for the national grid rather than solid structures and were much shorter. At my house near Celle I could see over 20 turbines and that wasn't unusual. Driving along the 7 down towards Munich the amount of solar panels covering farm buildings was also staggering.
Randomjasmic, I am happy that Germany is making plenty of renewable power and can tell Russia to Kiss Off! In America we are also replacing our 25 year old wind farms that have 750 KW wind turbines installed in the 90's with 2.5 MW to 3 MW wind turbines popular now! Now there is a concrete tower being installed in Europe that has 4 meter tall concrete rings, stacked up to about 60 meters tall, then a steel section put on top of that. Makes the cost much lower, and they are constructed fairly quickly!
20million vehicles in Australia and all parked 23hrs a day with 100kwh batteries means that you can have upto 2,000gWh of DISPATCHABLE electricity daily. Avg daily drives are 7kwh only from 100kwh capacity.
@@AnonYmous-rw6un do you mean home units and flats ? Global calculations help you understand the dimensions of a problem and the Global solutions. Now the details. Rooftop solar PV over 5 hours is 1kWh, in Australia. A house Rooftop is 100m2 to 200m2 My home would need only 16m2 of Rooftop solar PV. And I could supply 6 houses with 100m2 covered in Rooftop solar PV. So a 200m2 Rooftop solar power system could supply 12 home daily needs as 'feed in ' power. Australia has 20million buildings, 10million are homes and units. If you keep paying your power bills the owners of the grid and buildings could make a good income, 7 days a week. 200m2, at $0.30 kwh = $60 ×7 = $420 wk
@@johnharcombe9412 Tesla (Elon musk) says "the electronics in the cars will have the *capability* in a few years" He (like me) doesn't think it's that useful. . If a car isn't at the home, it can't receive the energy from the solar. Only a static battery (individual or communal) can do that reliably.
Thanks for a very interesting and educational conversation, Rosie and Robert. Your high standards are appreciated. We need to see more like this one. 🙂
Does anyone remember the electric power grid upgrade and the rise in power bills ?? The grid is incredibly expensive and new grid almost prohibitively expensive. Bigger power plants need bigger new grid. Rooftop PV needs no new grid. Transmission costs are avoided.
Unfortunately rooftop PV means just as big a grid, since the grid is built for peak demand, which occurs outside of solar generating times. Unless there is some sort of local storage.
@@CharlesGregory yep. As every one agrees EV, with big batteries and selfparking and plugging into the grid will give the grid massive storage and stability. Fossil fuels can go away.
We will be using more kWhs of electricity and thereby having more units to divide the cost over. Also big numbers big - but remember that numbers mentioned often are over e.g. 10 years and then the per year per capita cost is not that bad.
@@jensageholm8774 the alternative is dirt cheap and a proper use of resources. Electricity is the most expensive energy when compared with fossil fuels. It is obvious when you do the maths. Opinions can feel warm but so do fairy stories. Big money wants big central power. Big money will pay for the bs.
@@stephenbrickwood1602 Just so we are on the same page - is the alternative you are talking about rooftop PV? - what if you have no roof for the PV? In my neck of the woods (Denmark) it will be a very sad existence in winter if we have to rely on rooftop PV - on the other hand we are building a lot of offshore wind in the North Sea that need some grid to power my home. Our grid investments towards 2040 are projected to be less than $10.000 per household but that is without taking into considerations the other "new" electricity consumers (like Power2X) that will also have to pay something for their grid connections. A strong grid is one building block to a thriving society - but we are also heavily regulating the grid operators and it is for a large part owned by the state and the consumers.
Live in canberra myself and seeing this renewable cheapening is great. Everyone else is dealing with prices going up and here we are with slowly lowering prices.
100% alternative energy is real and a necessity. Global fossil fuels supply 84% of global energy but are near permanent supply decline. How much energy can be supplied but alternative sources once fossil fuels are depleted is another question to be answered?
There's a guy called "Mark Mills" out there in youtube and other media, seems to be a rock-star among the "Renewables + Electrics etc. is impossible" tribe. He certainly garners many followers, minions, acolytes. Can some valiant debater who actually knows what he's talking about wade in there are confront this BS? I have no time.
There's a lot of M0re. 0ns on here arguing the same. I wouldn't worry about it too much. Comparatively low Installation costs & efficiency of RE technology is already making RE a market winner compared to existing Fossil energy supplier. Nuclear SMR is unproven & as it's new, is too financially risky for investors who get a faster ROI from RE. RE isn't going away anytime soon.
Rosie is a very smart lady. I agree with her policies. I am a next energy exporter. A 5kw grid connected system and 10kw Off grid system and 20kw battery that runs my house and electric vehicle.
Thank you Rosie I didn't realise your channel was started so recently. I always enjoy watching your videos. It always adds so much more value when somebody actually knows what they're talking about and understand the mechanics behind it.
Fascinating to listen too. Info on drawbacks might have made it more rounded. Blade erosion, replacement intervals and recycling. Efforts to minimise harm to birds, bats, insect migration routes Robert and subsidies
No matter how big the windmill, no wind= no energy. Don't fly. Don't drive. Stay at home. Turn off your appliances (Central heating; Air con) Simple. Home deliveries. It is a wonderful life.
There is nothing inevitable about producing prohibitively costly electricity! Electricity should be getting relatively cheaper with improved efficiencies even with the cost of tight emission requirements, but anyplace renewable energy has been implemented the cost of electricity has gone up significantly not including traditional hydropower. Where renewable energy is rampant electricity costs can triple making them prohibitive for growth and still cause the public power grids to go bankrupt, unreliable and unable to upgrade its power lines making them dangerous. The Hawaii fire that destroyed neighborhoods and killed many people appears to be from badly maintained power lines from a public power grid proud of just having eliminated its coal power plant demonstrating no public responsibility in providing reliable, affordable and safe public power grid electricity.
I haven't watched this video. I haven't watched any of them in months. Cancelled my Patreon over a year ago. Today I finally unsubscribed. This channel used to be engaging, compelling. It has totally lost its edge. maybe the production is too refined, maybe the message became too refined. It just no longer speaks to me. Good luck in your future endeavors. I bear no ill will, just a sense of disappointment that you lost the spark of relevance.
IMO, Too much on 'the positives' without addressing the negatives that come with the positives. Ex. at around 37 minutes, Robert speaks about decreasing usage of power at times when less energy is produced. OK, quite sensible, but that would also greatly increase the usage in a smaller time frame - which is also the time frame that industry is using the most power. Can the Grids handle that? Additionally, I heard no mention of dangers to wildlife. Birds are smashed by wind turbines and fried by solar. Considering the increased units of these sources, there would also be an increase in wildlife deaths/injuries. What about waste? Parts for Green energy don't last forever and are surely not made of biodegradable materials. Just a sample.
It is not technically or fiscally possible to build the energy storage capacity on a level to support a national power grid. That is why nobody has it. Therefore, the notion of 100% renewables power generation is a fantasy. Even the EU have had to accept this, they have now classified gas and nuclear as "Green fuels" so they can bypass the finance bans on funding "emitting" tech, and can build new gas and nuclear power stations. Why, when they are committed to renewables? Baseload power provision supply 24/7. You can build as much wind and solar as you like but if there is no wind, or too much, and no sun, you still have no electricity.
In Norway they have destroyed the nature with windmills. In Denmark it makes sense, Denmark is flat as a pancake and you don’t have a view anyway. In Norway, what used to be breathtaking landscape views and beautiful nature is now totally being destroyed from a visual perspective with these gigantic monsters. And it’s not even Norwegian companies owning the majority of them. 60% is owned from abroad. Not only that, they put down cables in the ocean and to be able to sell our power to EU for cheap, while greatly increasing the prices of electricity in our country. One of the colder countries in the world that used to have very low electricity prices. People where struggling to pay bills, businesses where shut down, farmers lost all their profits an people where layed off because of it. So we sold our breathtaking views for green washing politics.
There is no question that wind and Solar are cheaper on a dollar per watt generated at peak levels. The problem becomes in providing continuous power, especially when these fail. This requires backup. When that is taken into account, the numbers shift dramatically. If this woman is an engineer, she is likely to be in violation of her ethical commitments by making all of these comments that she is not qualified for. Her expertise, as she stated, was to evaluate length of windmill blades versus costs, etc, etc. Robert Angus, P.Eng.
Rosie, you remind me of a much younger, much smarter, female version of myself! I did my mech eng thesis on ‘windpower for residential use’ in 1981. I’ve been very intersted in energy (and clean air) since about 1970. I sense some serious frustration on your part regarding the fact that people don’t seem to give a shit about ‘ cleaning things up’, either because they’re ignorant, stupid or selfish! I would love to see you incorporate some Robert Lewelyn (sp?)- style rants into your videos. I think it would be cathartic for all of us! 😂 🇨🇦🙏
Extremely important interview, but virtually unwatchable because the irrelevant bits. Write out the dialogue, identify the important points and toss 95%.
This topic interests me immensely, but I'm needing clarification on the term renewable, as it is used for wind and solar. Three people I asked recently gave either an incomplete or confusing answer. Thank you in advance for any replies.
Can't wait for it to happen unfortunately here it Texas we are having to deal with lobbyist and the entrenched republicans. There are proposed laws that will incentivize with money the construction of natural gas peaker plants. Also another is proposed to officially classify natural gas as green energy. Finally laws to penalize intermittent power supplies like wind and solar. Pretty frustrating
Solve climate change? Rosie you need to speak to the Chinese and the Indians and ask them that question. China is on a massive spree of coal fired power generation.
Community batteries can be a huge part of a fast transition to renewable technology. Forget home batteries. Maybe forget high density lithium and use Flow batteries.
😂😂😂😂😂 Well spotted! Just how long do people expect their home battery installation to last during a power cut ? Unless you switch off/refrain from using the power hungry stuff then not that long. Perhaps Googling up the topic of doing a power audit might bring people back to earth, with a bump. Community or area batteries might be a better bet.
@@t1n4444 home battery 14kwh. EV battery upto 100kwh and is free with every EV. Hahaha 😊 Most vehicles are parked 23hrs a day and ezi pezi to top up daily without a rapid charger. Allan Fells predicated 5 times more electricity demand with no fossil fuels. I suspect that it will be 5 fold bigger peak demands throughout the day. And 20million buildings rooftop solar PV supply in Australia.
@@t1n4444 it is possible and can be done in small areas first. Small country towns can independently do it and still keep the grid connections as a big battery backup. The grid gets the connection fees. Farming communities can be very self reliant. Power suppliers can create virtual power grids.
@@t1n4444 Why WOULD you use power hungry stuff during a power cut? That's a "first world problem" if ever I heard one. You want cold (frozen) food. A means to cook that food. (Only used for short periods) A means to heat / cool the home if required. Information (use your "devices" not the widescreen)
When everything will be electrically powered by the renewables, it would only need a natural disaster or a terrorist attack, for example, to stop every activity, from transport to hospitals, to supplies of food and water or heat, for as long and as wide as the "cut" would result, and without alternative sources of energy like fossil fuels and coal, it could mean thousands or even millions of deaths. An unique source of energy is suicidal (and economically stupid)
Going 100% ‘renewable’ for electricity generation is fine (if you believe in that) but electricity is still only a fraction of total energy usage - in the UK around 25% I believe so we shouldn’t confuse this with meeting 100% of energy needs. We are miles from that.
Petrol/diesel use will all be replaced by electricity soon. Most gas usage in homes and industry will also become electric as well. At that point you are closing in on that 100% quickly
@@alanhat5252 you can transmit electricity but at huge and uneconomic costs. Infact if 20million buildings can pull electricity off the roof the insane bigger grid costs disappear. The existing national grid will be UNLOADED by 50% and perfect for load balancing. It would be like having a spare national grid capacity for free. The money, profits will be in the grid, the grid owners. National governments do not want to be dragged into big grid construction projects. It is politically dangerous, governments can loose elections.
Wow, Rosie teaches so well! She needs just a few words to clarify a big picture concept. Others would fumble around. 41:15: Yes, coal fired power plants break and are off-line in a few seconds. Otherwise, they take hours to power down in orderly manner. 43:05: Absolutely, any time there is a blackout or grid failure the politicians will blame renewables. That is as predictable as gravity.
Robert, did you realise, that the UK has taken a huge energy decision (without to my knowledge making an announcement), to go large on Hydrogen? Or at least Gas/Hydrogen mix. Near where I live streets are being dug up to lay new yellow plastic gas/hydrogen pipes, but what is surprising to me plastic insert pipes are being fed to the individual property meters! If required property driveways are being dug up to facilitate this. On enquiry with the workers, their company has a contract to complete the task for the whole of the North West! I suspect this is a UK wide project.
Really? Why? That really makes little sense, going electric will always be so unimaginable much cheaper in every way then hydrogen, why would anyone want to use it? Especially in their home.
Utilities here in the US are obligated to eventually support demand response due to FERC 2222, but not all these energy markets exist yet. This works when billing systems exist to support aggregators who can organize VPP's (virtual power plants), energy trading, and time of use pricing, with a fair price for scheduling load or for exporting power from batteries or EV's when the grid needs it. You could make money every day by storing power made during most days and nights and exporting it between 5-7pm. Simply volunteering helps but a fair price is more effective.
Unlike Rosie I have actually worked in electrical engineering mainly in generation systems for decades with the last decade being mainly in wind power in Europe working on the design and latterly certification of some of the largest offshore wind farms on the planet and I can tell her now that Wind energy will never replace nuclear and hydrocarbon energy sources. I like most engineers who got involved in wind power thought it would save the planet albeit by destroying huge swathes of hillsides and seabeds that if oil and gas were to do it there would be a huge outcry but the fact is that without huge government subsidies that push up the costs of electricity massively these things are financially impossible to build and if the full damage they do to the environment was added up they would be impossible to build from a renewables standpoint also. Sadly we only ever hear from those benefitting from the pushing of wind power who are simply not willing to be honest about its true costs and its enormous weaknesses in terms of reliability of supply (the wind generation in the UK increasingly drops to near zero for weeks on end), short lifetimes well short of the 25 years promised (especially at sea) so meaning the whole generation system has to be renewed at least every 20 years on average, utilisation even at sea is less than a third of rating on average meaning far more electrical equipment has to be installed to capture the same energy as a thermal plant that in less than 1% of the footprint produces 24/7 and as a result massive increases in energy costs in every country that has fitted them occurs with those countries having a higher share of electricity generated by wind having higher costs than the next country down the list without exception. Wind power makes very rich corporations and their investors far richer at everyone elses expense and destroys the planet to boot. Nuclear energy in any number of its forms is far less damaging to the environment and actually permits a country to have a first world economy that doesn't have to shut down for weeks on end as would have already been happening across Europe for years now had it not been for nuclear power stations providing base load and massive numbers of cheap gas powered stations picking up the baton that wind all too frequently drops. Unfortunately pushing "experts" like Rosie to the fore to push the nonsense that wind power is a good idea after nearly two decades of it being obvious in the real world that it can never work only pushes the West ever further behind the real first world countries of the far east. I recently took early retirement simply because I was not willing to keep on participating in this lie being foisted upon the people of the world that wind power is in any way actually renewable. Electricity prices are being designed to rise not fall and anyone supporting that is supporting fuel poverty for the poor and "the poor" are increasingly coming to a street near you if this continues as more and more people are dragged into planned debt.
Thanks for your frank post. I agree with you, I work in utilities engineering. I find it interesting how little most understand about the fundamentals of the electricity grid. It’s annoying that they present shows with ‘experts’ and then back up their claims with anecdotes. There is a huge amount of investor cash flowing into wind power. Is someone who works in the industry going to spill the beans and tell the truth, even if they are aware of it (they probably aren’t) The only people who can speak their minds are either retired (like you), or in a tiny minority (like me) who actually say what they think. Everyone else toes the line for fear of being called a Climate Denier. The science is never settled, and no amount of wishful thinking will make this work. It’s a boondoggle, shortly to meet its end when people wake up to the reality of an expensive, unreliable electricity grid. And yes, demand side response is an unreliable grid. Just because they incentivise behaviour to fit in around the blowing of the wind, doesn’t mean they aren’t inconveniencing your life. And no, I will not install a smart meter. My life is busy enough as it is to have to deal with another factor. I will cook my supper when it suits ME, not when it suits the electrical grid. Like a lot of things nowadays taken over by the blob, the cart is before the horse. People serve politicians instead of politicians serving the people, people serve the grid instead of the grid serving the people. FUBAR
Relying on others peoples data, my apologies, the sources were from Great Britain. Recent green energy projects always promise lower electricity costs, but in every case the end result in much higher cost, sometimes double.
We’ve past peak oil. I’m in India and half the Tuk Tuks are electric. And the same with motorcycles in Vietnam
That's good to hear, I visited India in the 90's and the City air was not good
Before watching
There's going to be a literal "power shift" when the let's call them "previously not first world" countries run with the new solutions leaving many of the "previously first world" countries (often Petrodollar based) with outdated technology and declining income.
Could get "messy" (ref Russia) but the change IS inevitable.
In the interim however, it does mean that the world's coal use is going up
That will go down too eventually too. Only around 40% of our steel is made from recycled steel which is a fair amount, but we'll need a hell of a lot more steel because that's what we need for renewables
Currently, steel is made from coking coal. The alternative is hydrogen but that's not yet scalable, and realistically that hydrogen will likely be made from gas rather than renewables.
Making hydrogen from renewable electrics is just making electricity with extra steps. But hey, at least polluting hydrogen is still better than coking coal so there's a. silver lining
@@jamesgrover2005 That's the main reason why India and China are leading here.
There's a reason why smog no longer exists in the UK. Once you start seeing the pollution, then politicians act a hell of a lot faster
Also, I think what isn't mentioned here, is that you end up building a sort of centralised yet decentralised grid.
I didn't quite realise that until I got my own solar panels and I realised that because it has to communicate to the grid, you're always sending a bit of power to the grid
Ultimately, that means that the amount of renewables being used goes up drastically if more and more people are exporting energy back into the grid
@@jamesgrover2005 the air still isn’t good, but I think that’s due to dust as well.
We have a wind turbine from 1987 which is still operating (I think) at Breamlea in Victoria, and the Toora Windfarm in South Gippsland has some turbines that have been operating since about the early-'90s.
One aspect missing from the narrative in this episode is the fact that the resources needed to mine, refine and manufacture every wind turbine remain heavily dependent on fossil fuels.
The steel needed for the mineral mining machinery, the energy used in mineral refining and final production of the resources needed for renewable energy generation and storage all depend on fossil fuels.
We have a long way to go before all renewable energy production and storage is fully decoupled from fossil fuels. I look forward to the transition however, we must remain aware of the fact that every solar panel, every wind turbine and every EV requires a significant amount of fossil fuels to get from raw material to finished product.
Doesn’t matter about the space we have here in Aus, you will have to ask the indigenous folk now if you can put your windmills etc there.
I remember Rosie being very negative about wind technology, I hope she will be more open to the possibilities of further invention and not throw a wet blanket over innovation before it can even be tried.
"negative"?
She's only been in the industry for 13 years 🤔
I've seen her look critically at various hopeful/hopeless schemes promoted on YT and that's what we follow her for. She brings informed scepticism to the party -as well as continued optimism. Go Rosie!
I never experienced more lemmings than in the green movement. Does anyone think on their own? Oil has peaked? Really? Have you looked at what everything around you is made of? The prosperity of the world is based on cheap plentiful energy. None of these alternative sources, at least at this stage of the technology, are sustainable without huge government subsidies. That is unsustainable economic model!
I was very pleased that you did this episode! I enjoyed listening to a guest with real brains with experience in the industry. Engineers are the ones who build our world.
Rosie's channel is awesome. If you're not subscribed over there, you'll love it! She has so many cool videos and interviews in the industry.
@@MrJoegotbored I've been watching her from the beginning. But thanks for the thought. I like to hear from people with brains and experience. I was encouraging fully charged to do it more often as they sometimes have people that do not have either. Sam Evans is one they should stay away from, to name one!
Engineers built our world. Scientists designed it.
Politicians like to rearrange the deck chairs - as all they really do is shift taxes from one place to another - and then claim credit for absolutely everything.
Actually the armies of for profit capitalism bound engineers, many of them venture capitalists themselves out for a nice healthy subsidy for their greenwashing, are the ones who are likely going to kill us all in the end, as they like most people, accept the physics of climate change for sure but not that capitalism is both driving it and that climate change and ecological collapse are the twin symptoms of perpetual growth capitalism that will never be solved and ecologically only be worsened, by attempting to dig up ever increasing amounts of resources to augment a perpetually growing global socioeconomic system with cleaner technologies, that blew past the climatological red line by 1998 and ecological red line by 1990.
The laws of thermodynamics are very clear on why in a closed system, such as earth, it is a monumentally stupid and catastrophic idea to create machines to clean up the mess you make with the machine you use to create them unless you've managed to break the laws of physics by creating 100% efficiency... not gonna happen.
Until the accountants force the engineers to screw things up just to save a few shekels.....
The next time you're on an electric commerical flight you'll know you are correct!
Will never happen, physics is a bitch I know.
Rosie is amazing. So glad she's joining the show.
I met Dr. Barnes through the video you posted on the main channel. She is a phenomenal professional and a great communicator. She really manages to convey the complexity and yet the feasibility of the energy transition in a very clear way. So glad you’ll be collaborating with her. Great interview btw
What about the Victorian Government cancelling the registrations of EVs and not even telling the owners so they get a 1000 dollar fine? Corrupt politicians in with the fossil fuel industry or what? And I thought the way EV drivers are treated in the UK was bad enough without the incentives the EU countries get!!!!
Horse and cart thinking is dangerous
There was a lot of horse meat in butcher shops when cars became popular.
And a lot of people who will see their freshly new bought 65 grand SUV depreciate 96% when they go to trade it in after 3 years.
@@baronvonlimbourgh1716 yep.
Amber Electric already let customers buy and sell at wholesale prices. In SA prices are often negative on sunny days. I charge two EVs for around 3c per kWh on average. You do need automated systems to shutdown big loads during price spikes.
Rob Haitch, my sister bought a home built in 1986 that did have a panel that shuts off her electric dryer and water heater during times of high power demand. This was in Phoenix Arizona. They do have them! Just shutting off those two loads can save a lot of power, then run them at night. I have my water heater set to run 9 pm to 7 am. I have plenty of hot water for the rest of the day. I have a special time of day rate plan, where on weekdays between 5 pm and 9 pm is $0.32 per KW, while weekends and after 9 pm is only $0.08 per KW, and 7 am to 5 pm on weekdays is $0.13 per KW. So I make a few changes, and now 92% of my power use is off peak, while only 8% is between 5 and 9 on weekdays.
@@Kangenpower7I can't help but think that I'd just sell my dryer if I lived in Arizona.
So she basically has said she has five or six years experience in the real world and she wants everybody to listen to her because she's so smart. I wouldn't hire somebody with that limited amount of experience let alone listen to them.
Home robotic vacuum cleaners can teach the selfparking EV to connect to the grid.
All vehicles are parked 23hrs a day.
All vehicles can program minimum charge available at a particular time.
Trading electricity with the grid for money and profit.
Grid stability can be part of the feature.
Virtual power plant will reduce the solar storage capacity needed and the EV battery used as storage will allow grid independence for a couple of days. :)
The EV battery is limited to when the EV is at the home for two reasons.
(Assuming the EV is used for its primary purpose and the home has Solar)
.
1) The EV will often if not always be away from the home during the peak solar generation period, which means the solar will at least in part be "offered" to the grid utility.
When the practice becomes widespread it's highly likely the "home solar" will simply be used to charge a *utility battery* (!) and there's a reasonable chance of oversupply from homes meaning that utility will not want the energy (if their battery network is full)
.
2) Unless you can guarantee power cuts will only occur at certain times, essentially when the owner is at home, the vehicle provides zero cover.
Imagine you're about to leave for work and there's a power cut?
What are your choices?
Stay home and explain to your boss you won't be in for the third time that month?
Leave and use public transport (in which case, why do you own the car?)
Leave in the car and hope the power returns?
You mention
"grid independence for a couple of days"....
*Only if the car is there* (see above)
.
Solar with a home battery solves the problem and pays for the system.
You remove the home from the grid, and sell excess when you want to.
The “Early 1990 offshore windfarm in Denmark” Rosie mentions, is Vindeby: Eleven 450kW Bonus turbines. The farm came online october 12 1991 and was decomissioned 25 years later.
These things only last 25 years?
@@chairmakerPete Remember this was the first off its kind, it was worn out. Another offshore park Middelgrunden has now been running 28 years. We are running a pilot project to retrofit with a new nacelle and wings. Reusing the tower, transformers and cables. Thus extending its usable life another 20 years.
@Jens Winther OK - so 45/50 years is now a reasonable number for lifespan, given a 25 year major revamp.
Do these things require much servicing before the 25 years, or once installed, do they just crank out power "for free"?
@@chairmakerPete They need servicing. Thats why offshore is more expensive to run and install. You can’t just drive a van with a service tech to the turbine and fix the job. Offeshore needs boats and helicopters. But offshore turbines genereate more power due to the greater wind resources.
@@jenswinther8601 presumably it's a simple calculation that increased servicing costs are more than covered by the additional power output that can be sold.
I have concerns about energy density of wind power, but this has been useful information. Thank you.
Wow - very positive attidude of Rosie Barnes - hope for the future is within this
That was a great interview! Can you interview an energy storage engineer?
Yes. So they can explain how it is technically and fiscally impossible to build energy storage on a national grid capacity level.
Exactly!@@georgebeare8883
Rosie for energy minister. Delighted she is joining your channel I've so enjoyed her own channel although being 70 years old I can't always keep up with her especially the maths .
Hope I get the chance to meet Rosie at Fully Charged Live in Sydney.
Denmark has the most renewable energy and also the highest household cost of electricity. In fact most locations that have a high amount of renewable energy have the highest prices for electricity. Most of this is because you need to keep some source of backup when the sun doesn't shin and the wind doesn't blow.
I think people will have to start thinking what industries become viable once renewable generation is greater than current/projected demand. I think particularly Australia is on their way there, clearly not immdediately but in the next 10 years. Their potential is huge.
They need to get Ford and others to start building batteries and electric cars in Australia! Australia needs the tax incentives that we have in America, so that Ford will invest in a battery plant in Australia. Otherwise Ford will say "We can import batteries to Australia once we have enough made in America to produce all the cars we need in America. And that will take until about 2035.
I would love to stop importing oil to America, and especially to places like a small village on the coast of Alaska, that must barge in millions of gallons of oil to provide heating and electricity to that small village each winter. They have started to install a couple of small wind turbines, about 1 MW each, or less, to provide electrical power to the village. They sometimes will fly in a jet, to drain the excess fuel into the storage tanks to get them through until the spring thaw, when a million gallon barge of fuel can fill the tanks again.
For Japan, Singapore, and many other areas, they need to stop importing oil so they can stop exporting so much money they exchange for that oil. I think it would be wonderful to replace some of Japan oil fired power plants with geothermal. They might not need to drill down 1,000 feet to reach some 1,000F heat in the rocks! Install a 8" diameter steel pipe, with a 1" diameter injection water line going down the center, to supply water, that can turn to steam, and then run the power plant on the surface.
The total cost of ownership is much less with a EV than a gas car. I like to compare it to the coal fired locomotives to the diesel electric locomotives they started using in the 30's in America. By 1948, they started to shift to diesel locomotives, and by 1950, every rail line went to diesel. It still took them 10 years to fully convert, and by 1960, it was rare to see a coal locomotive, and by 1965, there where only a handful still running a steam locomotives, mostly for excursion lines, and not for profit main lines.
Australia will really miss the boat if they do not have incentives to the auto companies to build the battery in Australia and to build the electric cars there, even for export to other countries.
@@Kangenpower7 Australia doesn't have the population numbers (bearing in mind there are multiple EV manufacturers i.e competition & The Chinese are aready supplying Oz) so it's not worth Ford's while to build plants in Oz. There's a reason just about every car manufacturer pulled out of Oz in the last 10-15 years.
Coal export profits are the same as petroleum import costs.
Rosie is amazing, she makes the most interesting observations, I feel like a learned a lot. Thanks Rosie!
Great video btw, isn't hope better than doom and gloom 🙂
The amount of material required to build a sufficiently strong engineering structure increaces non-proportionately with the size not only because the volume increaces at a greater rate than the linear dimension but because a larger structure even of an identical geometry to a smaller one requires more strength to resist forces that deform it.
Because of this there are ultimate practical limits upon size.
Consider the case of the space elevator cable which even if scaled up in all dimensions would be incapable of resisting the tensile forces resulting from it's weight.
The only way to make such structures bigger is to use stronger materials.
Windmills a mile high?
But made from Graphene rather than Carbon Fiber!
"the planet doesn't care"... It was here before us and will be here.... After us?
It's our challenge to lengthen the time we're here.
Yes! The whole world is finally taking notice. I happily support you guys in this video.
I live dead close to farm land that's "protected green land"
I'd absolutely love to see a wind farm "on my doorstep" effectively. I'm sure even the NIMBYs would get involved once they realise that having a wind farm close to you, basically halves your energy costs
@@waqasahmed939
The great renewable con
th-cam.com/video/BIXncWdwS-s/w-d-xo.html
@@nottoday8483 one day you'll realise that energy cost & reliability also have little or nothing to do with CO2...
As a fellow engineer I am very impressed by her knowledge
so, what kind of train do you drive?
@@johnnyjet3.1412 what kind of donkey, mule or 455 do YOU ride?...
This was utterly fantastic! Very surprised to hear that Rosie considers herself to be a pessimist which you'd never surmise from her videos, always rather positive while being realistic. Wonderful job Robert and Rosie!
Yay Rosie! Now to watch this episode.
Rosie Barnes' last comment. The rest of Australia will experience energy bill increase next year, except Canberra. Why? Because their supply is fully renewable. OMG. This didn't happen overnight.
While Scotty was in Parliament with his dirty lump of coal the local utilities were going fully renewable. I hate to say it but we the citizens of Australia have been right royally screwed over by a liberal government. A government which was charged with looking after our best interests but instead looked after the interests of the HC industry and their own pockets.
A pox on anybody in Scotty's and earlier liberal governments.
I have changed from being a liberal voter to being labor voter, having been betrayed by those politicians who I put my faith in and voted for. May you rot in your own hell for the sin of your dishonesty.
At least you have the opportunity, seemingly the political will and certainly the resources to catch up?
Rosie's, channel is amazingly informative and inspiring.... But her real world job is far more important..... Since one real wind turbine is more important than a million posts, about it... In my humble opinion... She is a true hero....
But in both cases keep up the good work, Rosie........
Plus the first comment with anything relevant to say lol...
Rosie is the one in the real world, she's an actual engineer climbing towers with spanners, designing blades & whatever, Robert is an actor who is interested.
@@alanhat5252 I'm sorry that I confused you my triggered friend... Have a nice day...
Mentioning climate change as her sole motivation in the first 5 minutes just takes me right out. There are 10 really good reasons to get into renewables before climate change even needs to be mentioned.
Exactly, we'll die of throat/lung cancer long before sea levels ever rise high enough to flood/drown us
You with Rosie and others you have on the show is a coalition of the sane. Very refreshing amongst all of the nonsense we hear.
Robert, just a question. We are told again and again that the electricity is cheaper from a new wind turbine than from an existing fossil fuel plant and yet it looks to me that electricity is getting more and more expensive all over the world and especially where there is a great penetration of wind energy. Is someone profiteering.
Politicians trying to sell themselves as environmentally conscious and companies that build renewables are profiteering. They sell renewables by stating the peek output, which it only produces for a small fraction of the time, and don’t mention the high costs to the rest of the system caused by the reliability.
Yes they are profiteering a lot, but not exactly for the reason kokofan says. It's also to do with the way energy is charged. It is currently based on the wholesale price of the highest resource cost of electricity generation for covering the network in peak times, that being currently gas, so all these "cheap" renewable energy suppliers reap the benefit of HUGELY inflated prices.
This is something that needs to change as a matter of urgency as I have no interest whatsoever in renewable energy if cost to the customer is still based on the costliest "fuel" price used to generate electricity elsewhere & not the actual source of the energy used across the board. In my opinion, if a supplier says they only use 100% renewable energy then they should be mandated to charge you ONLY for the cost of that renewable energy - not what the cost of gas is, as last I heard was gas wasn't renewable.
@@yips_way selling at the going rate isn’t profiteering, and natural gas isn’t the highest cost producer everywhere. In the US natural gas is the lowest cost fuel, and if Europe hadn’t bet everything on renewables, they wouldn’t be having such a hard time right now with natural gas.
The US terrorist attack on the Nordstream2 II pipeline & sanctions & other BullSh1t they're blaming on the Russians is the reason energy prices have risen so sharply. It's "all the Russians fault". Of course it is...Not... It's purely profiteering using Russia as a scapegoat. Why would Russia blow up their undersea pipeline to restrict access to gas, when all they had to do was close the valves off on the mainland? Saving massive costs to restart supply. Calling the Americans psychopathic C##nts would be complementing them.
@@kokofan50 The Nordstream2 II incident didn't happen in your version of reality?... If they HAD bet everything on RE they wouldn't be having a hard time now. If Germany had upgraded their North/South infrastructure they wouldnt have to sell excess RE abroad then buy back France's nuclear electricity at inflated cost to balance supply & demand, because Germany can't distribute it's RE due to aforementioned cr4p, outdated infrastructure. If the UK had subsidised RE instead of wasting £billions on Hinckley C with the usual nuclear industry mafia 10 year build & £billions budget overspend...
Too many people posting here with only mainstream media information, half of which is standard Fossil/Nuclear industry FUD to delay the inevitable RE onslaught & allowing those mafia cartels to keep screwing consumers/taxpayers.
The only "inevitability" is fossil fuel production is declining. Thus we will need something. The question is WHAT - that WHAT cannot be Solar nor Wind. These are demonstratable farces. The fail point is battery storage. The largest storage battery in the world was just built in the UK Cost 400 million for 400 Megawatts- it could only sustain the current electrical demand in the UK 11 seconds. You'd need 1500 such giant batteries to maintain power at night; not to mention dark winter days. Unfortunately you need to triple that to move fossil to electric - so you need 4500 such storage sites; at a cost of 400 Million each - is roughly 25 Trillion dollars. Does that Strike you as real even at 10 Trillion? The entire UK economy is only 3.1 trillion - don't forget this is just the storage; not the wind mills and the solar farms. TOTAL CRAP.
At min 40 Rosie dreams about a system, where the energy customers actually make money if they act according to the availability of power (like: use the washing machine when there is plenty of wind). Sounds nice. And true thing, you can steer consumption this way. Easily done too: the price for energy wont be constant anymore but will change from hour to hour. You ll need a complicated meter in every household and we people have to really be careful when to switch the computer on. Will you have an app on your phone that has an alarm set if the price is too high? Cool, huh? You wont "safe" money this way - you can prevent to pay a lot! Everything will be more complicated. But hey, its for the environment. And while the poor will try to carefully adjust their energy consumption ("Sorry, baby, its too expensive to turn on the AC now..." Will the rich politicians that sold us this "way to safe money" carelessly consume energy because they have enough money.
In Australia we have the smart energy metering and these have the ability to communicate with devices in the home if the homeowner opt into the agreement.
We could send commands to adjust the Air conditioners temperature setting because here we have issues with Heat and not cold, this could make enough difference to ease the grid load.
wowbaabaa
BIOMASS - please please do a show/podcast on the green wash that is biomass burning. Please dispel the myth that this is green and that somehow burning this carbon is better than letting it rot in the ground. Or that assuming in 25 years that the tress you have cut down will be replaced by new happy trees (fires, drought, floods, erosion all ignored). Also highlight how we are cutting down forests to supply this ridiculous demand. Also point out how much more energy this takes and how much more polluting it is than the coal that it is being replaced by. This has all the hallmarks of a great Robert rant that I would enjoy so much.
The future is Rosie ;-)
If everyone set their air conditioner to start at random times like 3:07.13pm rather than 3:pm like 90% of people do it would significantly reduce the 3pm daily peak.
Don't you set your Aircon to kick in based on temperature rather than time? Cos that would absolutely smash sudden peaks flat.
(I'm in the UK. Air con is something you only really see in offices still, although why on earth we're pushing a2w heat pumps not a2a is frankly beyond me but the point is I'm not familiar with how air con works like someone in a hot country would be
@@jezlawrence720I don't know about Aircon but my thermostat is time based with a target temperature, i.e. 3pm 20c 10pm 14c so presumably the same is true for Aircon
@@sie4431 I see what you mean. Last couple of years I've switched my heating to lower peak temps and setbacks a few degrees lower rather that simple on/off. Dropped my gas bill by about 10-15% over the course of the winter. I understand heat pumps (which is what Aircon is) do even better when used to maintain rather than heat up or cool down.
So I assumed in hot countries the Aircon basically was on the whole time, keeping the temp a livable rather than allowing it to get hot and then have to be cooled. Assumptions may be totally wrong though which is why I asked
@@jezlawrence720 I do, but with the advent of apps to do everything, people just set the easiest time 3 or 4 pm as that is the hottest time of the day and most people get home from a few hours later.
@@fredkroh6576 ah ok I understand yes, if you're literally not there you are at least going to use higher setbacks, or off completely, then you have to allow cooling time. I'm with you.
Maybe if folk started them a bit earlier but less aggressively, and just knocked it up after they get home? It's not like folk are all arriving home at the same minute.
Mind you it's fundamentally the same challenge as what you're proposing: getting a ton of people to change their behaviour
They have been forced out by subsidised 'green' energy. Non of the renewables can exist without government help. How an engineer can make claims for wind energy is beyond me. The physic's of all this and costs to make 'green' devices just doesn't add up. Then you talk about batteries and people not using energy to reduce load. Left wing engineer and a guy that thinks that the grid can handle everyone plugging in their cars overnight with 'green' energy. There's something green you two have been on and it's not energy.
In Denmark we consumers pay the Nordpool day ahead price for electricity.
The consumer electricity price varies with demand and supply.
I thought Engineers were optimistic because they do not stop looking for solutions.
It gets hard when solutions are hard to find.
Stephen Brickwood, Wind turbines have a great solution close at hand! The solutions are easy to find. I want to tell Russia to "Kiss Off, we have plenty of electricity, so keep your gas".
@@Kangenpower7 How about you keep repeating "Hey government, you & your European energy company mates can keep your businesses away from the UK.
We don't need you buying any coal oil or gas, foreign or otherwise,, because we have renewables". But you keep repeating this BrainDead Russian hatred... I bet you read The Sun & The Star!...
I used to live in Germany near Hannover and driving along some of the autobahns you could see a history of wind turbine development. Early examples had towers more akin to the ones holding the cables for the national grid rather than solid structures and were much shorter.
At my house near Celle I could see over 20 turbines and that wasn't unusual. Driving along the 7 down towards Munich the amount of solar panels covering farm buildings was also staggering.
Randomjasmic, I am happy that Germany is making plenty of renewable power and can tell Russia to Kiss Off!
In America we are also replacing our 25 year old wind farms that have 750 KW wind turbines installed in the 90's with 2.5 MW to 3 MW wind turbines popular now! Now there is a concrete tower being installed in Europe that has 4 meter tall concrete rings, stacked up to about 60 meters tall, then a steel section put on top of that. Makes the cost much lower, and they are constructed fairly quickly!
So why are you buying power from France? You dismantled your coal and nuclear power plants and now you can't generate enough yourselves.
Nothing but a bloody eyesore. Destroying arable land and forests is certainly the way to go,
Congratulations on finding yet another great presenter 👍
20million vehicles in Australia and all parked 23hrs a day with 100kwh batteries means that you can have upto 2,000gWh of DISPATCHABLE electricity daily.
Avg daily drives are 7kwh only from 100kwh capacity.
Units!
@@AnonYmous-rw6un do you mean home units and flats ?
Global calculations help you understand the dimensions of a problem and the Global solutions.
Now the details.
Rooftop solar PV over 5 hours is 1kWh, in Australia.
A house Rooftop is 100m2 to 200m2
My home would need only 16m2 of Rooftop solar PV.
And I could supply 6 houses with 100m2 covered in Rooftop solar PV.
So a 200m2 Rooftop solar power system could supply 12 home daily needs as 'feed in ' power.
Australia has 20million buildings, 10million are homes and units.
If you keep paying your power bills the owners of the grid and buildings could make a good income, 7 days a week.
200m2, at $0.30 kwh = $60 ×7 = $420 wk
Tesla plans V2H V2G within 2 years
@@johnharcombe9412
Tesla (Elon musk) says "the electronics in the cars will have the *capability* in a few years"
He (like me) doesn't think it's that useful.
.
If a car isn't at the home, it can't receive the energy from the solar.
Only a static battery (individual or communal) can do that reliably.
@@johnharcombe9412Hyundai, Kia, MG, polestar already today.
Thanks for a very interesting and educational conversation, Rosie and Robert. Your high standards are appreciated. We need to see more like this one. 🙂
Does anyone remember the electric power grid upgrade and the rise in power bills ??
The grid is incredibly expensive and new grid almost prohibitively expensive.
Bigger power plants need bigger new grid.
Rooftop PV needs no new grid.
Transmission costs are avoided.
Unfortunately rooftop PV means just as big a grid, since the grid is built for peak demand, which occurs outside of solar generating times. Unless there is some sort of local storage.
@@CharlesGregory yep.
As every one agrees EV, with big batteries and selfparking and plugging into the grid will give the grid massive storage and stability.
Fossil fuels can go away.
We will be using more kWhs of electricity and thereby having more units to divide the cost over. Also big numbers big - but remember that numbers mentioned often are over e.g. 10 years and then the per year per capita cost is not that bad.
@@jensageholm8774 the alternative is dirt cheap and a proper use of resources.
Electricity is the most expensive energy when compared with fossil fuels.
It is obvious when you do the maths.
Opinions can feel warm but so do fairy stories.
Big money wants big central power.
Big money will pay for the bs.
@@stephenbrickwood1602 Just so we are on the same page - is the alternative you are talking about rooftop PV? - what if you have no roof for the PV?
In my neck of the woods (Denmark) it will be a very sad existence in winter if we have to rely on rooftop PV - on the other hand we are building a lot of offshore wind in the North Sea that need some grid to power my home. Our grid investments towards 2040 are projected to be less than $10.000 per household but that is without taking into considerations the other "new" electricity consumers (like Power2X) that will also have to pay something for their grid connections.
A strong grid is one building block to a thriving society - but we are also heavily regulating the grid operators and it is for a large part owned by the state and the consumers.
Live in canberra myself and seeing this renewable cheapening is great. Everyone else is dealing with prices going up and here we are with slowly lowering prices.
100% alternative energy is real and a necessity. Global fossil fuels supply 84% of global energy but are near permanent supply decline. How much energy can be supplied but alternative sources once fossil fuels are depleted is another question to be answered?
The great renewable con
th-cam.com/video/BIXncWdwS-s/w-d-xo.html
There's a guy called "Mark Mills" out there in youtube and other media, seems to be a rock-star among the "Renewables + Electrics etc. is impossible" tribe. He certainly garners many followers, minions, acolytes. Can some valiant debater who actually knows what he's talking about wade in there are confront this BS? I have no time.
There's a lot of M0re. 0ns on here arguing the same. I wouldn't worry about it too much. Comparatively low Installation costs & efficiency of RE technology is already making RE a market winner compared to existing Fossil energy supplier.
Nuclear SMR is unproven & as it's new, is too financially risky for investors who get a faster ROI from RE. RE isn't going away anytime soon.
Rosie is a very smart lady. I agree with her policies. I am a next energy exporter. A 5kw grid connected system and 10kw Off grid system and 20kw battery that runs my house and electric vehicle.
She talks like an air head - about wind farms. That figures
Thank you Rosie I didn't realise your channel was started so recently. I always enjoy watching your videos. It always adds so much more value when somebody actually knows what they're talking about and understand the mechanics behind it.
And the real economics, not the BullSh1t & LIES put out by the fossil & nuclear BINdustries.
Fascinating to listen too. Info on drawbacks might have made it more rounded. Blade erosion, replacement intervals and recycling. Efforts to minimise harm to birds, bats, insect migration routes Robert and subsidies
And what happens when the wind doesn’t blow 😂
wish Robert would move to Australia - we need him
Yay Rosie. Good job (again)
No matter how big the windmill, no wind= no energy.
Don't fly. Don't drive. Stay at home. Turn off your appliances (Central heating; Air con) Simple. Home deliveries. It is a wonderful life.
There is nothing inevitable about producing prohibitively costly electricity! Electricity should be getting relatively cheaper with improved efficiencies even with the cost of tight emission requirements, but anyplace renewable energy has been implemented the cost of electricity has gone up significantly not including traditional hydropower. Where renewable energy is rampant electricity costs can triple making them prohibitive for growth and still cause the public power grids to go bankrupt, unreliable and unable to upgrade its power lines making them dangerous.
The Hawaii fire that destroyed neighborhoods and killed many people appears to be from badly maintained power lines from a public power grid proud of just having eliminated its coal power plant demonstrating no public responsibility in providing reliable, affordable and safe public power grid electricity.
I haven't watched this video. I haven't watched any of them in months. Cancelled my Patreon over a year ago. Today I finally unsubscribed.
This channel used to be engaging, compelling. It has totally lost its edge. maybe the production is too refined, maybe the message became too refined. It just no longer speaks to me.
Good luck in your future endeavors. I bear no ill will, just a sense of disappointment that you lost the spark of relevance.
A very level headed discussion about renewables, well done guys….
IMO, Too much on 'the positives' without addressing the negatives that come with the positives. Ex. at around 37 minutes, Robert speaks about decreasing usage of power at times when less energy is produced. OK, quite sensible, but that would also greatly increase the usage in a smaller time frame - which is also the time frame that industry is using the most power. Can the Grids handle that? Additionally, I heard no mention of dangers to wildlife. Birds are smashed by wind turbines and fried by solar. Considering the increased units of these sources, there would also be an increase in wildlife deaths/injuries. What about waste? Parts for Green energy don't last forever and are surely not made of biodegradable materials. Just a sample.
It is not technically or fiscally possible to build the energy storage capacity on a level to support a national power grid. That is why nobody has it. Therefore, the notion of 100% renewables power generation is a fantasy. Even the EU have had to accept this, they have now classified gas and nuclear as "Green fuels" so they can bypass the finance bans on funding "emitting" tech, and can build new gas and nuclear power stations. Why, when they are committed to renewables? Baseload power provision supply 24/7. You can build as much wind and solar as you like but if there is no wind, or too much, and no sun, you still have no electricity.
In Norway they have destroyed the nature with windmills.
In Denmark it makes sense, Denmark is flat as a pancake and you don’t have a view anyway.
In Norway, what used to be breathtaking landscape views and beautiful nature is now totally being destroyed from a visual perspective with these gigantic monsters.
And it’s not even Norwegian companies owning the majority of them. 60% is owned from abroad.
Not only that, they put down cables in the ocean and to be able to sell our power to EU for cheap, while greatly increasing the prices of electricity in our country. One of the colder countries in the world that used to have very low electricity prices.
People where struggling to pay bills, businesses where shut down, farmers lost all their profits an people where layed off because of it.
So we sold our breathtaking views for green washing politics.
There is no question that wind and Solar are cheaper on a dollar per watt generated at peak levels. The problem becomes in providing continuous power, especially when these fail. This requires backup. When that is taken into account, the numbers shift dramatically.
If this woman is an engineer, she is likely to be in violation of her ethical commitments by making all of these comments that she is not qualified for. Her expertise, as she stated, was to evaluate length of windmill blades versus costs, etc, etc.
Robert Angus, P.Eng.
Rosie, you remind me of a much younger, much smarter, female version of myself! I did my mech eng thesis on ‘windpower for residential use’ in 1981. I’ve been very intersted in energy (and clean air) since about 1970. I sense some serious frustration on your part regarding the fact that people don’t seem to give a shit about ‘ cleaning things up’, either because they’re ignorant, stupid or selfish! I would love to see you incorporate some Robert Lewelyn (sp?)- style rants into your videos. I think it would be cathartic for all of us! 😂 🇨🇦🙏
I'm surprised you don't come across people suffering with all 3 personal afflictions at the same time....
I do, every single day!!...
Extremely important interview, but virtually unwatchable because the irrelevant bits. Write out the dialogue, identify the important points and toss 95%.
Nudge management with customers.
Nudge economics.
The transition to renewable energy will not work as planned, Dr Simon Michaux.
This topic interests me immensely, but I'm needing clarification on the term renewable, as it is used for wind and solar. Three people I asked recently gave either an incomplete or confusing answer. Thank you in advance for any replies.
Can't wait for it to happen unfortunately here it Texas we are having to deal with lobbyist and the entrenched republicans. There are proposed laws that will incentivize with money the construction of natural gas peaker plants. Also another is proposed to officially classify natural gas as green energy. Finally laws to penalize intermittent power supplies like wind and solar. Pretty frustrating
For more exciting technology development see oil and gas. Engineers have moved out of oil and gas because there are fewer jobs in oil and gas.
Solve climate change? Rosie you need to speak to the Chinese and the Indians and ask them that question. China is on a massive spree of coal fired power generation.
How about a comment about the amount of diesel needed to mine the minerals required for EVs, wind farms, battery farms and solar farms.
EVs, wind farms, solar farms and battery farms will get more and more expensive as mined materials get more expensive.
Great podcast.
Using renewables instead of sustainable energy gives me the creeps.
Renewables means nothing it's a fashion word.
I don't clearly understand about wind turbine syndrome, does Rosie believe in this syndrome?
Thanks for clarifying that the whole environment thingy is not about saving the planet (but to keep our habitat)!
Not just human habitat.
If wind and solar are so much cheaper why does wind and solar have to be subsidised all over the world.?
If renewable energy is so much cheaper why do we need to reduce demand? We don’t need to do that with oil and gas.
Great episode 👍
Community batteries can be a huge part of a fast transition to renewable technology.
Forget home batteries.
Maybe forget high density lithium and use
Flow batteries.
😂😂😂😂😂
Well spotted!
Just how long do people expect their home battery installation to last during a power cut ?
Unless you switch off/refrain from using the power hungry stuff then not that long.
Perhaps Googling up the topic of doing a power audit might bring people back to earth, with a bump.
Community or area batteries might be a better bet.
@@t1n4444 home battery 14kwh.
EV battery upto 100kwh and is free with every EV. Hahaha 😊
Most vehicles are parked 23hrs a day and ezi pezi to top up daily without a rapid charger.
Allan Fells predicated 5 times more electricity demand with no fossil fuels.
I suspect that it will be 5 fold bigger peak demands throughout the day.
And 20million buildings rooftop solar PV supply in Australia.
@@stephenbrickwood1602
Hmm, and you believe this will happen?
@@t1n4444 it is possible and can be done in small areas first.
Small country towns can independently do it and still keep the grid connections as a big battery backup.
The grid gets the connection fees.
Farming communities can be very self reliant.
Power suppliers can create virtual power grids.
@@t1n4444
Why WOULD you use power hungry stuff during a power cut?
That's a "first world problem" if ever I heard one.
You want cold (frozen) food.
A means to cook that food. (Only used for short periods)
A means to heat / cool the home if required.
Information (use your "devices" not the widescreen)
Have fun in Sydney everyone.
Theme Song - David Rovics - 'The Biggest Windmill'
Meanwhile countries in Europe are going back to nuclear and coal.
When everything will be electrically powered by the renewables, it would only need a natural disaster or a terrorist attack, for example, to stop every activity, from transport to hospitals, to supplies of food and water or heat, for as long and as wide as the "cut" would result, and without alternative sources of energy like fossil fuels and coal, it could mean thousands or even millions of deaths. An unique source of energy is suicidal (and economically stupid)
........thats fuckin true NOW WITH GAS! WTF DO YOU THINK HAPPENS IN TEXAS
I have been enjoyed, so thank you for delivering.
Rosie Barnes is a rockstar.
Going 100% ‘renewable’ for electricity generation is fine (if you believe in that) but electricity is still only a fraction of total energy usage - in the UK around 25% I believe so we shouldn’t confuse this with meeting 100% of energy needs. We are miles from that.
Petrol/diesel use will all be replaced by electricity soon. Most gas usage in homes and industry will also become electric as well.
At that point you are closing in on that 100% quickly
@@baronvonlimbourgh1716
The great renewable con
th-cam.com/video/BIXncWdwS-s/w-d-xo.html
Thank God you are discussing transmission costs.
- Parliament, departments and CSIRO refuse to - at many senate question sessions.
She's an engineer, she totally understands there's no point having a generator if you can't get its electricity somewhere useful.
@@alanhat5252 you can transmit electricity but at huge and uneconomic costs.
Infact if 20million buildings can pull electricity off the roof the insane bigger grid costs disappear.
The existing national grid will be UNLOADED by 50% and perfect for load balancing.
It would be like having a spare national grid capacity for free.
The money, profits will be in the grid, the grid owners.
National governments do not want to be dragged into big grid construction projects.
It is politically dangerous, governments can loose elections.
How good is Rosie
Better than most of the id10t1s posting FUD on here, who are trying to sound intellectual & informed...
Rosie looks like she's not enjoying this chat.
Wow, Rosie teaches so well! She needs just a few words to clarify a big picture concept. Others would fumble around.
41:15: Yes, coal fired power plants break and are off-line in a few seconds. Otherwise, they take hours to power down in orderly manner.
43:05: Absolutely, any time there is a blackout or grid failure the politicians will blame renewables. That is as predictable as gravity.
Robert, did you realise, that the UK has taken a huge energy decision (without to my knowledge making an announcement), to go large on Hydrogen?
Or at least Gas/Hydrogen mix.
Near where I live streets are being dug up to lay new yellow plastic gas/hydrogen pipes, but what is surprising to me plastic insert pipes are being fed to the individual property meters!
If required property driveways are being dug up to facilitate this.
On enquiry with the workers, their company has a contract to complete the task for the whole of the North West!
I suspect this is a UK wide project.
Really? Why?
That really makes little sense, going electric will always be so unimaginable much cheaper in every way then hydrogen, why would anyone want to use it? Especially in their home.
@Baron von Limbourgh I think they are planning 20/30% hydrogen mix.
I am planning heat pump and battery and disconnecting my gas!
@@grahambrown42 good choice!
@@baronvonlimbourgh1716 so the energy companies employing: neverending sales of consumables, can keep ripping us off.
Utilities here in the US are obligated to eventually support demand response due to FERC 2222, but not all these energy markets exist yet. This works when billing systems exist to support aggregators who can organize VPP's (virtual power plants), energy trading, and time of use pricing, with a fair price for scheduling load or for exporting power from batteries or EV's when the grid needs it. You could make money every day by storing power made during most days and nights and exporting it between 5-7pm. Simply volunteering helps but a fair price is more effective.
Unlike Rosie I have actually worked in electrical engineering mainly in generation systems for decades with the last decade being mainly in wind power in Europe working on the design and latterly certification of some of the largest offshore wind farms on the planet and I can tell her now that Wind energy will never replace nuclear and hydrocarbon energy sources.
I like most engineers who got involved in wind power thought it would save the planet albeit by destroying huge swathes of hillsides and seabeds that if oil and gas were to do it there would be a huge outcry but the fact is that without huge government subsidies that push up the costs of electricity massively these things are financially impossible to build and if the full damage they do to the environment was added up they would be impossible to build from a renewables standpoint also.
Sadly we only ever hear from those benefitting from the pushing of wind power who are simply not willing to be honest about its true costs and its enormous weaknesses in terms of reliability of supply (the wind generation in the UK increasingly drops to near zero for weeks on end), short lifetimes well short of the 25 years promised (especially at sea) so meaning the whole generation system has to be renewed at least every 20 years on average, utilisation even at sea is less than a third of rating on average meaning far more electrical equipment has to be installed to capture the same energy as a thermal plant that in less than 1% of the footprint produces 24/7 and as a result massive increases in energy costs in every country that has fitted them occurs with those countries having a higher share of electricity generated by wind having higher costs than the next country down the list without exception.
Wind power makes very rich corporations and their investors far richer at everyone elses expense and destroys the planet to boot. Nuclear energy in any number of its forms is far less damaging to the environment and actually permits a country to have a first world economy that doesn't have to shut down for weeks on end as would have already been happening across Europe for years now had it not been for nuclear power stations providing base load and massive numbers of cheap gas powered stations picking up the baton that wind all too frequently drops.
Unfortunately pushing "experts" like Rosie to the fore to push the nonsense that wind power is a good idea after nearly two decades of it being obvious in the real world that it can never work only pushes the West ever further behind the real first world countries of the far east.
I recently took early retirement simply because I was not willing to keep on participating in this lie being foisted upon the people of the world that wind power is in any way actually renewable. Electricity prices are being designed to rise not fall and anyone supporting that is supporting fuel poverty for the poor and "the poor" are increasingly coming to a street near you if this continues as more and more people are dragged into planned debt.
Thanks for your frank post. I agree with you, I work in utilities engineering. I find it interesting how little most understand about the fundamentals of the electricity grid. It’s annoying that they present shows with ‘experts’ and then back up their claims with anecdotes.
There is a huge amount of investor cash flowing into wind power. Is someone who works in the industry going to spill the beans and tell the truth, even if they are aware of it (they probably aren’t)
The only people who can speak their minds are either retired (like you), or in a tiny minority (like me) who actually say what they think. Everyone else toes the line for fear of being called a Climate Denier.
The science is never settled, and no amount of wishful thinking will make this work. It’s a boondoggle, shortly to meet its end when people wake up to the reality of an expensive, unreliable electricity grid.
And yes, demand side response is an unreliable grid. Just because they incentivise behaviour to fit in around the blowing of the wind, doesn’t mean they aren’t inconveniencing your life.
And no, I will not install a smart meter. My life is busy enough as it is to have to deal with another factor. I will cook my supper when it suits ME, not when it suits the electrical grid.
Like a lot of things nowadays taken over by the blob, the cart is before the horse.
People serve politicians instead of politicians serving the people, people serve the grid instead of the grid serving the people.
FUBAR
Relying on others peoples data, my apologies, the sources were from Great Britain. Recent green energy projects always promise lower electricity costs, but in every case the end result in much higher cost, sometimes double.