HappyDave

Comment Threads

• Julian Bond commented on Upcoming events
  This suggest we should be looking for systems that can soak up spare capacity. Part of that problem is that a lot of industrial processes like making Ammonia can't be ramped up and down quickly. Even there, perhaps bits of the process can be turned into dispatchable demand like water -> hydrogen as feedstock. But more importantly, overbuild and dumping spare capacity turns it into a financial problem. Too much electricity that's so cheap as to be too cheap to measure and that you might as well give away doesn't provide any return on investment. So how do you fund...
• Robert van der Heide commented on Upcoming events
  Pacific Lumber/Hurwitz So it’s not that sustainable forestry isn’t a good idea, it’s just that it’s incompatible with the current US political and economic system....
• Nojay commented on Upcoming events
  OK, worked example from the UK: Renewables, meaning wind and solar. Today we have about 24GW "dataplate" of wind turbines installed onshore and offshore. During periods of low wind that fleet can produce as little as 200MW and it can spend days producing less than a GW (examples provided if you want them but you can get the raw data from the Gridwatch site which records reported production from most British grid generators). http://gridwatch.templar.co.uk/ Peak demand for electricity in the UK is about 50GW weekdays in winter after the sun has set so the solar contribution is zero (during winter...
• Elderly Cynic commented on Upcoming events
  Largely, yes. But his example is contrived, anyway. Sustainable forestry does NOT necessarily mean old growth forests. Coppicing worked for many centuries, is still done, and has a delay of between 20 and 80 years, depending on the details - while much of the USA is probably unsuitable for it, I believe that Californian redwoods are actually managed that way, and there are other places that could do it. Similar remarks apply about most of the European conifer forests, and in most of the tropics - which does NOT mean that most forestry is sustainable, but that it could be....
• Robert van der Heide commented on Upcoming events
  “Coppicing ... has a delay of between 20 and 80 years,” Still way too long for the modern next-quarter-bonus-focused executive....