- I think the accurate fact about fossil hydrocarbons subsidising 'renewables' is that the entire Archived Message
Posted by Rhisiart Gwilym
on May 10, 2020, 8:49 am, in reply to "No surprises: Monbiot didn't like Michael Moore's latest"
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panoply of 'renewable' energy systems, in their modern forms, can't be built and maintained without energy inputs from elsewhere. They can't provide the energy to make and repair themselves without that subsidy. Gail Tverberg is also soberly accurate when she points out that the intermittency of wind and solar leccy-generators absolutely requires back-up generating systems fuelled by fossil hydrocarbons or nuclear constantly on standby, to maintain 24/7/365 grid power, there being literally zero electricity storage systems that can accommodate current demands, and no visible prospect of any appearing. This makes the whole system more costly to run, certainly in financial costs, and possibly in net energy made available to the grids, than a purely fossil-powered system. EROEI is still a tricky calculation. An intricate sequence of awkward energy-flow logic which neither Michael M nor George M are expressing very well here. Your point, Ian, expressed in this paragraph, puts it exactly right: "For me the film's point about population was about this inexorable cancerous growth of the whole civilised society, and how it has to be put into reverse to allow space for the rest of life to survive and come into some kind of balance." Spot on! It's not a matter of whether the rich whites or the poor browns are most to blame. It's the cancer of ALL the works of humankind, as our numbers creep up, which is crowding out so much of the Gaian wild that its planetary conditioning services are being compromised through the Sixth Extinction, happening now. On that understanding, it's essential to reverse the growth, to achieve a steady state balance at a lower-than-present human population level. And that we are going to have to go through, whether we consent or no; whether we do anything effective to make it happen humanely, or leave it to Gaia's much more ferocious cures. But we have no option on whether it will happen. It will. I'd still rate as odds-on favourite the 'Limits To Growth' estimate that the middle years of this century will see the downturn of numbers begin, spontaneously, no matter what. |