I live in Scotland. We've gone from ~15% renewable electricity to >90%, replacing fossil fuels.
When you're claiming that something can't possibly be done, when it has already actually been done, it's hardly a surprise that no-one takes your argument seriously.
Go look up a list of countries that have, say, >70% renewables and explain to me why they are managing something you claim is impossible.
>I live in Scotland. We've gone from ~15% renewable electricity to >90%, replacing fossil fuels.
No you didn't. That number is a ratio between consumption (i.e. how much energy Scotland consumes from ALL sources) and renewable production, but it doesn't actually mean you consume 90% of renewable energy. In other words, if you overproduce in the afternoon but can't use that energy it counts to 90% even though that energy wasn't consumed. It's not nothing because it means you can export it but the real consumption of renewable energy is around 45% wind (solar is inconsequential), with Hydro and Nuclear at around 35%, and the rest composed of fossil fuels and trivial amount of biomass [1].
And let's not understate the geography of Scotland, one of the windiest countries in the world (or at least Europe), that makes wind extra viable. Great! I'm not against wind power. I'm against unrealistic expectations of what wind and (shudder) solar can actually do on a global energy generation scale.
(Also, Scotland is a tiny region with a population akin to a city - it isn't a good model for anything on the global scale)
>Go look up a list of countries that have, say, >70% renewables and explain to me why they are managing something you claim is impossible.
Great idea. Go through the list [3] and you'll see that the >70% renewable in pretty much every case is a result of hydro power (or nuclear if you're talking about low carbon emissions).
Hydro is great if you have the geography for it, but even Hydro is not good enough for many environmentalists. I know in the recent election (in Maine) the green party was against building transmission lines to import hydro power from Quebec [2] ... because why import hydro when you can power your state on good intentions. Crazy environmentalists are a huge hindrance to lowering emissions.
I am curious why you dislike solar more than wind. Solar to me seems much more predictable. At smaller percentages it works well to handle peak AC loads. Larger percentages seem foolish to me.
Yes, we did. Your nitpicking over the "right" way to count electricity generation and consumption doesn't matter: the graph you linked still shows around 12 percent fossil fuel generation for 2019, it's less now, and it's been replaced with renewables. Quibble over the figures if you like, but the trend is clear.
> And let's not understate the geography of Scotland
Yes, all countries have different strengths and weaknesses for renewable. And?
> Also, Scotland is a tiny region with a population akin to a city
Roughly the same population as the average US state. Anyway, what do you care about the "global scale"? The US is not a renewable energy role model to anyone.
> >70% renewable in pretty much every case is a result of hydro power or...
Hydro is renewable, so I don't get your complaint here
> in the recent election (in Maine)...because why import hydro when you can power your state on good intentions.
According to wikipedia, Maine gets 75% electricity from renewables, which is among the highest of any US state, so they seem an odd example to pick.
What's more, with a population of just 1.34 million, Maine is clearly a complete irrelevance on a global scale, right?
>Your nitpicking over the "right" way to count electricity generation and consumption doesn't matter
It matters. And it isn't a 'nitpick'.
You honestly don't think it is worth clarifying what the 90% refers to because I can guarantee you that a lot of people who read your comment automatically assumed that Scotland consumed 90% of its energy requirements from renewable sources - which it did not.. not even close. It's also important for policy. You can setup a 1TW solar array, and it wouldn't be able to power one house at night. And that's the point here because we're trying to move from fossil fuels and the question is: can wind and solar do it? And the answer is no. Nuclear can do it. Hydro and geothermal can do it (but those are geography dependent).
>The US is not a renewable energy role model to anyone.
No. But Ontario is. We're one of the world leaders for carbon emissions from electricity generation and we are because of nuclear and hydro. France is ahead of Scotland too, and that's solely because of nuclear.
>According to wikipedia, Maine gets 75% electricity from renewables, which is among the highest of any US state, so they seem an odd example to pick.
Again, not from solar and wind. It's hydro. Whenever these high numbers are mentioned it's always effin hydro. The policy here was extending hydro transmission and crazy people trying to block it (meaning that capacity would be replaced by natural gas, not wind, not solar because they can't).
>What's more, with a population of just 1.34 million, Maine is clearly a complete irrelevance on a global scale, right?
It is irrelevant. We can't scale hydro to that level globally.
It is a nitpick. The fact is that even counting your way, it's around 10% from fossil fuels. That's been achieved without expanding nuclear capability. It is renewable that has replaced fossil fuels here. Yes, Scotland also exports renewable energy. That's a good thing.
> can wind and solar do it? And the answer is no. Nuclear can do it.
Can wind and solar and hydro and geothermal do it? The answer is Yes. There's no need for more horrifically expensive nuclear.
> We can't scale hydro to that level globally.
No-one's asking you to. If you're all renewable already, good for you. If you're not, get your own house in order before criticizing others. But stop claiming that what's already being done can't be done.
>It is a nitpick. The fact is that even counting your way, it's around 10% from fossil fuels.
Come on now. The 90% value was dishonest and required clarification when presented (which you didn't do) and a cynical perspective could argue you meant it to be misleading.
The original argument I made is that solar and wind can't do it. You argued it can by pointing that Scotland is using 90% renewables. But we established that there is some nuance to this because Scotland wasn't consuming 90% renewable energy, and also it's a red-herring because even though I argued against wind/solar specifically, you talked about renewables which include things like hydro. I never claimed hydro cannot replace fossil fuels. I know it can.
>There's no need for more horrifically expensive nuclear.
I 100% agree!! If your geography allows for hydro and geothermal (even if paired with Wind and Solar) - sure! Go nuts! No nuclear is needed! Iceland will never need Nuclear power, for example. My province of Ontario could probably replace Nuclear with Hydro from Quebec as well.
So hydro and geothermal do work very well. They can also complement wind/solar by providing base-load and satisfy 'peaker' requirements (i.e. scaled down when lots of wind and solar, and scaled up when not).
But notice, the critical bit that makes wind/solar work is AVAILABILITY of hydro and geothermal because hydro/geothermal provides very stable and predictable output and can ramp up or down based on availability of wind/solar. And if your region is blessed with an abundance of either, you may not even need to bother with wind or solar at all.
The problem for wind and solar is that hydro is not a scalable solution because it is geography dependent and relatively few places could scale out hydro infrastructure. So if you don't already have access to hydro or geothermal (which is the case for most places on earth) what the heck are you supposed to do?????? Well ... I'll tell what you do, you invest in natural gas and coal, like Germany is doing and every other region that does not have access to hydro and has a large wind/solar investment.
>If you're not, get your own house in order before criticizing others.
Ontario has some of the lowest emissions in the world. Lower than Scotland. So ... when it comes to energy generation, my house is in order. [1]
No, the 90% value is more honest since exports reduce CO2 emissions just as much as domestic usage, but you prefer to cherry-pick the lowest number you can. I accepted your figures because even with them the point remains that Scotland has replaced its fossil fuel elec with renewable. A point you keep trying to evade.
> what the heck are you supposed to do??????
Where exactly are you talking about now? I keep hearing that there are all these countries or states that have no ability to deploy renewables due to their geography, but I've never seen one actually specified. Where is it?
> you invest in natural gas and coal, like Germany is doing
Germany is investing in renewables and has increased its share from them each year.
>the 90% value is more honest since exports reduce CO2 emissions just as much as domestic usage
Let's torture this a little more. The reason why it's an important distinction because today we do not have a model of sizable country (and let's include Scotland in that group as well) that powers their economy by wind and solar. Scotland is not an example of that. There is no example of such a nation.
>I keep hearing that there are all these countries or states that have no ability to deploy renewables due to their geography
Come on, don't be obtuse. Almost every country that doesn't have hydro today will not have hydro tomorrow. Almost every country that has deployed hydro, will not have more hydro tomorrow. Why? Because, at least in the developed world, we've dammed every river that could be dammed over the last century. So no, you can't just rely on hydro as a solution to wind/solar base load problem - I wish it were so, but it isn't. So pick any country that doesn't have any sizable hydro deployment, and that country is an example you're seeking.
>Germany is investing in renewables and has increased its share from them each year.
They are also spending billions to build natural gas pipelines to Russia. What does that say about their confidence in wind/solar?
Fossil fuels need to be replaced in all their applications, not just electricity.
Even taking the example of Scotland (which is a doing rather well in this regard) electricity is a relatively small portion of energy consumption. Heat and transport are the dominant areas, and both are still mostly fossil-based.
> Heat and transport are the dominant areas, and both are still mostly fossil-based.
Nuclear is not used for any of those either. And to use nuclear for heat and transport the easiest way is to just turn it into electricity and use EVs and heat pumps. So we're back to how to clean up electricity.
Cleaning up the grid isn't just useful for the immediate emissions benefit, it's also because if you concentrate the clean technology there you can decouple the problem and clean up everything else by electrifying. There are things like fertilizers and steel where we have more than just the energy input to clean up and even those have solutions based on electrification.
Sure, but as a side benefit. Maybe someone has actually proposed doing SMRs distributed over the country and heating all houses directly, but as far as I know it's never been done. It's usually preferred to have nuclear plants isolated from residential areas.
>So how is transport a good example of something that would somehow be better solved by nuclear than solar/wind?
Cars will charge from the grid. Nuclear can output not only a lot of energy but output it at a const rate. Wind and solar cannot do that. There are times when wind isn't blowing and sun isn't shining. There are entire seasons when wind and solar output is lower. There are multiple years where wind output is lower. That variability also means you need to over build capacity. But even with that, you're still in trouble because there is no battery technology now, or coming out anytime soon, that can store enough energy (minimum of a few weeks worth) to bridge that intrinsic variability of daily, as well as inter and intra annual variability.
Hell, let's not forget that the current plan is for people to charge their cars at night. That's when my car is plugged in; during the day I'm either parked at a public garage, or, you know, driving it around. Sure, there's probably still wind, somewhere, at night, but you're still charging your cars when your renewable energy sources are at their minimum.
>Hell, let's not forget that the current plan is for people to charge their cars at night.
The obvious solution for that is for people to plug in at home or at their job - chargers cost less than $500 (that includes installation costs), so it's not entirely impossible for workplaces to install one charger per employee and charge a margin on top of electricity prices to recoup prices. This will be desirable for EV owners once daytime electricity is cheaper than nighttime electricity, and therefore profitable for any ___location-owners to install.
If you have a car with ~600KM of range, then considering people drive an average of 60KM/day, you can imagine that most of the time most people basically don't need 90% of their battery and can wait until the next day. And considering people only use their car for an average of (IIRC) 2 hours a day, most of the time peoples' EVs will be idle for the charging somewhere.
For special roadtrips that might change, and perhaps midnight EV charging will spike on boxing day or such, but for the other ~360 days of the year people will largely be charging with solar.
Also, as serious as the issue is, let's remember we're talking about a projected ~5% increase on the electricity demand once the entire population goes electric. Over a decade that's less than 1% increase per year. That's not that hard, especially if we're planning to replace over half of the grid with renewables anyway.
And as mentioned before, statistically most people don't need to charge every day. If the cost of charging goes up because it's overcast, people will put it off in case tomorrow is sunny and cheap.
We're talking about averages here. If solar is 10% cheaper then it doesn't matter if the price doubles once a fortnight.
My point was that the progress towards renewable/low-carbon energy is nowhere near finished yet. Something like an order of magnitude more renewable generation than what we currently have, still needs to be built if we want to truly replace fossil fuels.
It's a counterpoint to the claim that the transformation has already been achieved.
I think the claim was that the technology to enable the transformation has largely been achieved, not that it's been installed. But you're right, there's a great deal more the experience curves we're going to be able to go down, so the costs of renewables and storage should fall even more.
My first hunch would be to answer "importing", but it's not always possible to check.
In the case of Scotland, is [1] giving a realistic view of Scotland (it mixes Scotland / England, so I can't really tell ?)
At the time of reading, the mix (again, for GB) of consummed electricity is about 40% wind+solar, 30% gas, 10% whatever, 10% domestic nuclear, and 10% "electricity imported from France", wich is usually 70% nuclear.
I'm writing this middle of the day, in March, so I assume the wind+solar part is working at a nice capacity (it would be much more unfair to compare it in the middle of the night.)
So on a very first approximation that I'm really ready to dismiss based on more data, it seems that Scotland produces a lot of electricity from renewables (a good thing !), and consumes electricy made from a bunch of sources, some of which are not renewables.
Is that fair ?
Follow-up questions: are there countries that managed to ditch fossil fuels for their electricity production and to not rely on imports / neighboors without renewables ?
The only examples I have in mind are those relying on hydro (Norway, Costa Rica, maybe ?) who were blessed with mountains.
My vague understanding based on "stuff I've heard or read at various points" is that you can stuff up to like 80-85% wind+solar on a grid before you start having real problems with the fluctuations in production.
If my vague recollections are recollecting something that was correct and not BS when I heard it, Scotland might be fine with it's ~17% nuclear, replacing the remaining 30% gas with more wind+solar.
Looking at [1]. I would say hydro-power and nuclear is a big reason. Some also have significant wind, but it is balanced by either gas, hydro or good interconnection with neighbours (who themselves are not always as "green".
They didn't solve storage. They produce a lot of wind power at certain times that they can't use and that's where the 90% comes from. The actual consumption of renewables is on the order of 40%-50%. Not nothing, but not 90% ... not even close.
When you're claiming that something can't possibly be done, when it has already actually been done, it's hardly a surprise that no-one takes your argument seriously.
Go look up a list of countries that have, say, >70% renewables and explain to me why they are managing something you claim is impossible.