How Renewable Energy Is Blowing Climate Change Efforts Off Course

[senona]

Even tho solar energy and wind energy may be cleaner, they just are not reliable.
And some countries are running into issues, resorting back to fossil fuel.

Is the global effort to combat climate change, painstakingly agreed to in Paris seven months ago, already going off the rails?

Germany, Europe’s champion for renewable energy, seems to be having second thoughts about its ambitious push to ramp up its use of renewable fuels for power generation.

Hoping to slow the burst of new renewable energy on its grid, the country eliminated an open-ended subsidy for solar and wind power and put a ceiling on additional renewable capacity.

Germany may also drop a timetable to end coal-fired generation, which still accounts for over 40 percent of its electricity, according to a report leaked from the country’s environment ministry. Instead, the government will pay billions to keep coal generators in reserve, to provide emergency power at times when the wind doesn’t blow or the sun doesn’t shine.

Renewables have hit a snag beyond Germany, too. Renewable sources are producing temporary power gluts from Australia to California, driving out other energy sources that are still necessary to maintain a stable supply of power.

In Southern Australia, where wind supplies more than a quarter of the region’s power, the spiking prices of electricity when the wind wasn’t blowing full-bore pushed the state government to ask the power company Engie to switch back on a gas-fired plant that had been shut down.

But in what may be the most worrisome development in the combat against climate change, renewables are helping to push nuclear power, the main source of zero-carbon electricity in the United States, into bankruptcy.

Source

"....Instead, the government will pay billions to keep coal generators in reserve, to provide emergency power at times when the wind doesn’t blow or the sun doesn’t shine."   <<-- oh that is  just rich. Actually, very costly indeed.


I like this part here....yes, why is the U.S, so obsessed with renewable energy?
Bottom line, they don't care what consumers pay as long as the companies make billions.

The United States, and indeed the world, would do well to reconsider the promise and the limitations of its infatuation with renewable energy.


“The issue is, how do we decarbonize the electricity sector, while keeping the lights on, keeping costs low and avoiding unintended consequences that could make emissions increase?” said Jan Mazurek, who runs the clean power campaign at the environmental advocacy group ClimateWorks.


Addressing those challenges will require a more subtle approach than just attaching more renewables to the grid.

Thought this tid bit to be interesting as well

An analysis by Bloomberg New Energy Finance, narrowly distributed two weeks ago, estimated that nuclear reactors that produce 56 percent of the country’s nuclear power would be unprofitable over the next three years.

If those were to go under and be replaced with gas-fired generators, an additional 200 million tons of carbon dioxide would be spewed into the atmosphere every year.

Kinda would be defeating the purpose, eh?

Oh what a conundrum they have got on their hands.

They cry "global warming is due to mankind, we need cleaner energy".
Yet at the end of it all, when all is said and done, it may be worse than what it is now where carbon emissions are concerned.


And no, I'm not talking about the cows.  




Also, there are issues with the natural gas leaking, making the situation worse for our climate.

Some recent research has shown that leaks in various spots along natural gas pipelines release enough methane gas—another gas that causes warming—to complicate the equation.

The Aliso Canyon gas leak outside of Los Angeles, which released more than 100,000 tons of methane in the four months before it was sealed in February, drew attention to the risk of massive blowouts, but environmental policy experts say the real risk may lie in smaller leaks that can go undetected.

When methane gets out it is more than 25 times stronger than carbon dioxide at holding heat in the atmosphere over a 100-year period, according to the EPA.

Linky


Ah it is a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation.
Except "the doing" is costing millions more and may not actually accomplish anything.


Especially being as one will never be able to stop the natural evolution of a planet.
What is now called Climate Change.
The natural cycles that this planet goes thru, over millions and millions of years.

It is only arrogance -- the god-like attitude -- that scientists think they can actually stop Earth from changing.
LMAO on that one!!