This is good news for renewable energy

[Old Crank]

Ocean turbines in Scotland have been running for more than 6 years without any unscheduled maintenance or failures. Tides don't care about sun or wind. Also won't interfere with the view from Trump's golf courses.

The MeyGen tidal energy project off the coast of Scotland has four turbines producing 1.5 megawatts each, enough electricity collectively to power up to 7,000 homes annually. On Thursday, the Swedish company SKF announced that its bearings and seals on one of the turbines had passed the 6 1/2-year mark without needing unplanned or disruptive maintenance. It has been working closely with the industry for a decade on design and testing.

https://apnews.com/article/tidal-energy-turbine-marine-meygen-scotland-ffff3a7082205b33b612a1417e1ec6d6

[BoRaGard]

1. G.O.P. will hate on this

[Emile]

2. GOP response, vibrations from turbines killing dolphins.

[newdeal2]

9. And are making the whales gay!

[airplaneman]

16. And the Dolphins transsexual

[electric_blue68]

21. 😱😱

[electric_blue68]

20. 😱

[hlthe2b]

12. I get the riff on the windmills, but it isn't silly to expect that some marine impact studies would be done...

Unlike among many US politicians that just want to use silly conspiracy theory based on nothing for their own purposes, I don't doubt that the Scots have both anticipated the need for such studies and likely can comment on the issues with data--even if preliminary. But, it isn't silly to want to see this. They are giant TURBINES in the OCEAN, after all. Not shoreline windmills...

If someone has seen them comment on this, please do post. I, for one want to see it.

[NNadir]

3. However, so called "renewable energy" isn't good news for the planet.

It's an expensive failure at addressing the destruction of the planetary atmosphere, dependent on fossil fuels because of its intrinsic unreliability.

Its land and mass intensity makes it environmentally appalling.

If one is crowing about a system lasting six years without a need for maintenance, particularly at a time where this junk is blowing apart all over the world, one is engaged in selective attention.

I discussed the lifetime of wind crap some years ago, using real data: A Commentary on Failure, Delusion and Faith: Danish Data on Big Wind Turbines and Their Lifetimes.

Wind and solar were never sold to the public to address the use of fossil fuels. Advocates of this form of energy rely on fossil fuels. (One of Denmark's major exports is oil and gas from the North Sea.) It was sold to attack the only sustainable form of carbon free infinitely scalable high energy to mass ratio, nuclear energy.

It's 2025. We hit 430 ppm of carbon dioxide in the planetary atmosphere, having risen as of this writing, having risen by close to 60 ppm in this century, all the time carrying on about the useless so called "renewable energy" fantasy, a reactionary call to return to our dependence on the weather for energy, this precisely at the time we have destabilized the weather because our reliance on fossil fuels is growing, not falling.

It was time to wake up years ago. That we are still asleep at the wheel is a very dire reality for which history will not forgive us, nor should it forgive us.

[MadameButterfly]

4. It was time to wake up years ago

But there are multiple ways to address it and nuclear is not the only one. I really don't understand why you are so angry about efforts to promote renewable energy sources other the nuclear.

[NNadir]

6. I disagree emphatically. Nuclear energy is the only acceptable form of energy.

The destruction associated with so called "renewable energy" is appalling.

This was clear over a century ago, as I noted over in the Environment and Energy forum last night with reference to the total destruction of the Hetch Hetchy valley, the "little Yosemite" in 1923.

The Diablo Canyon nuclear reactors in California routinely produce, on a 12 acre footprint, more energy per year than all the wind turbines in California spread over more than a thousand square miles of trashed desert landscape. All of those wind turbines will be inoperable landfill before today's newborns graduate from college.

The belief on our end on the political spectrum that so called "renewable energy" is either sustainable or clean is, regrettably our equivalent of their creationism. That is to say, it is dogma unconnected with reality.

[hlthe2b]

13. The opposite is likewise true: the oil/gas industry (esp TX) is increasingly reliant on wind/solar for oil field pumps.

I've seen them... Wyoming too.

The oil and gas industry is increasingly exploring and adopting renewable energy sources like wind and solar to power various operations, including pumps in oil fields, according to Reuters and Energies Media.

[NNadir]

14. Bullshit. They don't stop pumping when the wind isn't blowing and the sun isn't shining.

However, it is true that the industries are intimately connected inasmuch as the advertising and trillion dollars squandered on solar and wind has done zero to arrest the use of fossil fuels.

So called "renewable energy" has always been lipstick on the fossil fuel pig.

Wind and solar are trivial forms of energy that can't match, after close to half a century of tiresome bullshit, in their total output (in units of energy, the Exajoule) the annual growth in the use of dangerous fossil fuels.

[hlthe2b]

15. I never said they did. Bullshit right back to you! Tell it to Reuters and others reporting on it.

And if you imply one more time that I or anyone else are lying when valid links are presented then you can expect repercussions.

Shame on you NNadir. You can have an opinion without ignoring facts presented by others in such an abusive manner.

[Think. Again.]

28. Abuse is what pro-fossil fuel posters do, it's their schtick...

...I suspect they are attempting to intimidate reasonable thinkers away from publicly challenging their pro-fossil fuel claims that any clean energy source other than nuclear are physical impossibilities, despite the obvious fact that clean energy technologies of ALL kinds are our only hope to stop CO2 emissions.

[electric_blue68]

23. Oh, look, it's Mr Atoms. I do reserve the right to change my mind about nuclear power, but not so far.

[NNadir]

25. There are people who care to see, and people who love being blind. I am, of course, know which I have chosen to be.

One can't really "look" at anything if one is blind.

For instance, I have often posted this graphic from the Mauna Loa CO₂ observatory:



The orange dementia victim in the White House, of course, wants to shut down the lab that keeps the above graphic up. Maybe that will make all the classes described below happy:

There are people who can't see this out of deliberate or actual blindness, and of course, people who can see it and just don't give a rat's ass, and third, people who can see it and think everything is just fine as it is.

I'm familiar with all three classes. To my mind, all three classes are useless people and I find their ethics appalling, not to mention their intellects, which is not to say that they give a shit what I or what the rest of the world thinks or what history thinks.

I have no use for people who are proud of not thinking, be they Magats or their energy equivalents, antinukes.

I note that one can choose decency or reject it. Over the years here and elsewhere, I've seen those who are quite open about rejecting it.

Have a nice day tomorrow.

[purple_haze]

5. nuclear is the way forward

[Think. Again.]

29. It is definitely ONE OF the clean energy technologies we will need to transition to.

...but it certainly can't be the only technology we rely on.

[multigraincracker]

7. Current human population is 8.2 billion.

We live on a planet that can only support about 3 billion without damage to our environment.
I don’t think we have figured that out yet. I don’t see many talking about that real problem.

[airplaneman]

17. Bingo we have a winner. The Elephant in the room

[Think. Again.]

30. Yep, humanity is overcrowding the planet like an invasive species.

This needs to addressed worldwide, species-wide. Let's start addressing here and hope we can convince others to be more responsible too because that's all we can do.

[multigraincracker]

40. If we don't, nature has a way of doing it for us.

Ain’t going to be pretty.

[Think. Again.]

43. I agree...

...and I firmly believe we've already decided to go that route.

[thought crime]

33. Ironically, Nixon was the last president to make a major statement about the population problem.

He also addressed the need for family planning. 50 years ago. We know without doubt that Lincoln would be a Democrat if he were alive now, as would Theodore Roosevelt and Eisenhower. But Nixon? Yeah, probably Nixon, too.

https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/special-message-the-congress-problems-population-growth

[Mtnmama]

8. Didn't President Jimmy Carter

Have solar panels installed on White House, only to have incoming president Reagan have them torn out? To think of the progress we could have had without republicans always blocking it!

[NBachers]

11. They were solar water heating panels.

https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2023/02/the-forgotten-story-of-jimmy-carters-white-house-solar-panels/

[Duppers]

18. Yup. 😤

[electric_blue68]

22. I was marching for renewables back in the mid 1980's. Effing Ray-gun.

During Carter's Presidency I got an Energy Dept booklet on renewable energies.

[dumbcat]

10. What is the cost .......

.... per Megawatt-hour for the electricity from this installation? How does it compare to wind, solar, or fossil fuels?

[Old Crank]

27. Don't know. Since this was a pilot project.

Done to check for feasibility and technology of keeping something running longterm in the ocean. The first unit is always more expensive. Succeeding units and arrays will get cheaper. Just look at the cost of solar panel per out put in the last 20 years.

[dumbcat]

35. I understand ...

Still, it is a factor in any evaluation.

Ha, I'm fully aware of the reduction of costs in solar panels. On the roof of my shed I have two 60 watt Solarex panels that have been up since 1994. I still have the original receipt out in the shed. They were $365 each, or about $6 per watt! Quite a change from the less than $1 per watt today.

[Think. Again.]

31. The cost is CO2-free, is there any other consideration right now?

[dumbcat]

34. If you actually want things built ....

... and deployed, yes, there are other considerations. Cost being a primary factor.

[Think. Again.]

36. I disagree...

Besides, when you consider the monetary savings of avoiding ongoing, worsening weather-induced disasters, the decision to transition away from fossil fuels is obviously much cheaper.

[hunter]

24. Yeah, let's save the world by trashing it.

I oppose all development of previously undeveloped places.

When will we stop destroying wild places with our garbage?

[Old Crank]

26. How is this trashing it?

[hunter]

37. Once upon a time that bit of ocean was a wild place.

Now it's got trash in it.

None of the electricity this thing produces will make the world a better place. Instead it will be used for frivolous things like "good news!" internet discussions about it and similarly useless trash.

If we really want to quit fossil fuels we have to quit fossil fuels. Period. Projects like this littering the ocean, solar projects ruining previously undeveloped deserts, and wind turbines tearing up the landscape with access roads etc,, are not going to magically displace fossil fuels.

Like it or not, the only energy resource capable of displacing fossil fuels entirely is nuclear power. If we build nuclear power plants we don't need this kind of crap littering formerly undeveloped areas of our planet.

[Old Crank]

38. So nukes leave no environmental footprint.?

Mining, production of usable materials, waste, water for cooling.

And that doesn't even talk about the construction or political costs.

I think nukes have a place in the system and I keep hoping that we will actually get fission off the ground. Not holding hope for in my lifetime though.

[hunter]

42. Fission works. It's long "off the ground." The technology is well established...

... and relatively safe compared to the fossil fuels which kill people every day and will probably kill billions of people when earth's climate shifts into a state that does not support our current civilization.

Humans have been building fission power plants for more than 70 years. They work.

Do you mean fusion?

For various physical reasons having to do with the very nature of the universe we live in fusion may never be a practical energy resource here on earth, except as it is delivered by the sun.

Unfortunately solar energy cannot support the industrial civilization that we've grown accustomed to, or even the minimal necessities of 8 billion human beings.

My dad's best friend was building components for multi-million dollar fusion reactors when I was a kid. That was more than fifty years ago.

He later turned his talents towards ion engines for spacecraft, which did turn out to have some practical uses.

When I was young and foolish I was an anti-nuclear activist, and quite a radical one too.

Some of that I've written about here on DU.

I'm not any more.

The fossil fuel industry distracts us with false hopes.

The most dangerous energy resource is "natural" gas because people seem to think it is "clean" or at least not so bad as coal. And it supports their renewable energy follies.

Unfortunately there is enough natural gas in the ground to utterly destroy whatever is left of the natural environment as humans have known it and the earth's capacity to support 8 billion of us.

[Think. Again.]

32. The only other option is to drastically reduce power consumption across the board...

...and I fully agree we should be doing just that.

[Old Crank]

39. That would be good.

But the less developed parts of the world want what we have. Now they can get benefits from the efficiency that we have gained, led for lighting. But the US and Europe need to cut back. However we are now feeding the AI beast and blickchains which have huge energy needs.

[Torchlight]

41. Great news... except to the Windmill Cancer Cluster Kooks.