Energy infrastructure

The trouble with this waste thing is that an energy plant needs a near continuous source of input, and agricultural waste is seasonal, being sunlight driven. The amount of enviro BS is monumental. The UK builds a massive bio fuel plant and then the whole waste argument turns out to be a lie as there isn't enough waste, so they feed it the worst thing you could possibly imagine if you actually are concerned with the real environment: old growth virgin forests. You couldn't make it up. They publicly state it only runs on waste, but it takes a BBC team who have to engage in virtual espionage levels of spying and surveilance to discover the truth. As with so much eco-BS, it also runs on burn't money, absolutely vast sums of money extracted from taxpayers:

The government has handed energy companies £22bn in billpayer-backed
subsidies to burn wood for electricity despite being unable to prove the
industry meets sustainability standards, the government’s spending
watchdog has said.

Biomass as an energy source is a crock of sh​it. Look at those masters of eco-BS, the Norwegians, with the BEVs and their eco self-delusion. A lot of their district heating is made to look green because it's fuel source is forrest biomass and bio-oil.

Just look at that, isn't it just so pristine, peachy keen, and squeeky clean? Got to love those apex eco bullshi​tters, the Norwegians

What they are actually doing in order to look good and salve their eco-conscience, of which they have near zero IMO, is burning money, which comes from exploiting fossil fuels, which they do like like an apex predator tearing into it's first kill in two weeks

Biofuels have been promoted in the political sphere because their
production is dependent on subsidies that narrow the gap between
production costs and market prices.

The production of advanced, or “second-generation”, biofuels is even
more dependent on effective subsidy systems, as the technologies have
not yet become commercialised. These fuels are produced from raw
ingredients that do not compete with food production, such as leftovers
and waste from the food industry, agriculture or forestry.

In order to develop advanced biofuels, the subsidy systems must be
stable and in place long enough to enable acceptable levels of
large-scale and profitable production, as well as the production of
profitable side streams, such as chemicals or other by-products that can
be sold at a premium.

let's have some more eco-BS, can never have enough when the taxpayer is paying so much for it in subsidies and you are the clever-clogs being paid to produce copy to sell the eco-vision to the idiots paying for it all. Stuff like this:

Do we have enough biomass to manufacture biofuels?
Many people forget that bioenergy is the leading form of renewable energy. In fact, it is responsible for as much energy as all the other forms of renewable energy put together. This is proof of the importance of bioenergy, which will play a key role in the future energy mix.

Have you got your head around that? Are you in the least bit sceptical? Heaven fobid you are a sceptical cynic like me, who detects a whiff of open sewer when reading that. What's the truth? Bingo!

In 2014, renewable energy accounted for 14% of the world’s global total primary energy supply, according to the International Energy Agency.
Solid biofuels represented the largest share of this, amounting to
44.5% in the EU. These are any renewable, biological material used as
fuel such as wood, sawdust, leaves, and even dried animal dung, but the
majority of biofuels are derived from wood.

Do I really need to spell out that chopping down trees and burning them to reduce atmospheric levels of CO2 might not be ideal, given how many decades it takes to grow trees? If that vast quantity of wood is naturally dried in Norway and other places and not kiln dried using gas, I have a bridge to sell you. I have cut limbs from my own trees and then cut it all up and dried it in an enclosed wood shed that has wind powered underfloor forced ventilation. How long does this process take to reduce the moisture content to that recommended by experts for fueling a stove? Two years. Anyone believe that is what happens, given the quantities?

As of 2022, data shows that 46.4 million tons of wood pellets, 1.9 billion m3 of wood fuel, and 54.9 mil-lion tons of wood charcoal were produced worldwide.

Wherever you look into bio-energy you find BS if you can get past the fact free eco-waffle (I need an 'enough to heat/power x homes' to GWh calculator)

Multiple scams involving fake biofuels have erupted in northern Europe in recent years. A new investigation shows several cases were linked by a Bosnian company that sold thousands of tons of fraudulent fuel across the European Union.
Key Findings
• Fraudsters have exploited a key EU climate policy by passing off cheap traditional biofuels as expensive types made from waste.
• In one alleged scam, Bosnian company Sistem Ecologica is accused of selling U.S. soy biodiesel mislabelled as next-generation fuel made of used cooking oil.
• Bosnian investigators say Sistem Ecologica supplied 17 companies in nine EU member states over several years.
• These included biofuels dealers who have been accused of running their own used cooking oil fraud scams in the Netherlands and the U.K.
The lights were low in the historic Hulstkamp building in Rotterdam as guests sat down for dinner at a 2017 gathering of officials in the fats and oil industry. At one table sat three men who had built reputations — and fortunes — as traders in a new type of biofuel made from used cooking oil that was taking Europe by storm.
Cornelis Bunschoten reportedly became one of the 500 richest people in the Netherlands after making a fortune as chief executive of major biofuels producer Biodiesel Kampen B.V. Near him sat Wilfred Hadders, a director of another Dutch biofuels company, Sunoil Biodiesel B.V., who at one point amassed 18 luxury cars, including a rare Porsche 911.

The conversion efficiency of solar energy to biofuels is 5% You want to believe in all the sustainable energy bio-BS, be my guest, I don't.

The energy figures from France are very interesting. Looks like their hydro and nuclear have been proping up Europe again during a dunkelflaute. The widespread and ever increasing dependence on renewables in Europe is going to bite hard, one day.

This is why I am so against the huge push for interconnectors. When there are conditions like these, you can not rely on your neighbours being kind enough to share:

France were exporting 16.6 GWh of juice from midnight to 06:45. Then it tailed off. Europe really ought to turn the street lights off at 01:00. In Perth WA, when I was a kid, that's actually what happened every night, the 'city of lights', as John Glenn named it from space, had to specially turn them on just for his benefit. You could go stand out in the street at night and see the great swathe of the miky way and night sky, wheras these days, you have to travel 80+ km out of cities to get away from light pollution to see the same thing.

Just look at this:

Imagine how much CO2 emissions could be reduced in Europe by just turning the lights off!

Also of interst is that it dispels the notion you can't readily adjust the output of nuclear reactors, when clearly they do - reducing it by a third between midnight and 11:30, roughly. Looks like they only throttle it as solar kicks in

And just look at that little red gas line. They are currently producing 18g of CO2 per KWh while we, the renewbles dependent capital of Europe are producing 268g per Kwh.

We are never going to make those CO2 targets, not a chance in hell.

The idea of being reliant on interconnectors for energy security is so stupid. French nuclear can only prop up so much of their neghbours wind foolishness.

There is wind in the north sea, but that's it, very little around Ireland. We are more than a year past the last OSW auction - have any of the winning bidders made planning submissions yet? Multiple OSW projects have been cancelled recently, so it's clearly dependent on cheap finance to be profitable. OSW is very expensive, about four times the cost of that which can't be mentioned.

Floating OSW is essentialy a failed experiment. Given the disastrous maintainance and cost issues of the main three that have been built, It's incredible there seems no cop-on here and you regularly see people mention it as if it's a feasible opprtunity for Ireland.

Yes, our messed up planning system is so obviously to blame for OSW projects in the US and UK getting cancelled, it needs fixing.

I mentioned the delay, not in reference to the POS which is the planning quagmire, but to suggest the bidders might be reconsidering making submissions at all due to the economic viability changing. If they start suggesting the agreed price needs to double - it already being double the last Uk price - I wouldn't be in the least surprised.

Even if that was true the current offshore deals will yield about as much for the state as Corrib Gas did

Assuming that the earth continues to rotate and the sun continues to shine, the wind will always be blowing strongly somewhere. But it is true that the latitudes with stonger winds vary throughout the year.

This is why the EU is supprting wind in countries in North Africa. Wind patterns and electric demand in both regions are well balanced. They need energy in summer for cooling, but have little wind while we have surplus, we need it in winter for heating while they have surplus.

But Europe itself covers almost 35 degrees of latitude... it's rare that there's no wind on or off shore across that span.

These Dunkelflaute analysts would appear to be more optimistic about interconnectors' ability to mitigate the impact of Dunkelflautes across multiple countries.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/355173603_A_Brief_Climatology_of_Dunkelflaute_Events_over_and_Surrounding_the_North_and_Baltic_Sea_Areas

Lastly, it was found that the correlation coefficients of Dunkelflaute events for neigh-boring countries were moderate (approximately 0.3–0.4). Simple analysis revealed that an interconnected power system where wind and PV generation are pooled can decrease the occurrence of Dunkelflaute events considerably.

na

Some billionaires in Australia had this great plan to supply Singapore, Indonesia, and Malaysia with energy from absolutely massive solar farms in northern Australia - sun cable. That project, similar to our powering Europe from North Africa, has collapsed.

Still going ahead.

https://www.eco-business.com/news/sun-cable-appoints-new-leadership-to-drive-worlds-largest-solar-export-project/

FFS. There is no solar at night, which together with no wind amounts to literally dunkelflaute conditions for more than half of every single day.

And that July-Sept. period WAS anomalously cloudy in Germany so the assertion there is still plenty of solar and that this is a reliable feature that counters light winds is bunkum. If you count only daylight hours in Germany, only 40% of them have direct sunlight. Solar drops 80% in output under cloud, rendering it irrelevant.

Solar is indescribably useless in Europe and in particular in Ireland with a paltry capacity factor of 11%, and you only get cheap via slave labour. It only exists due to heavy subsidisation beacuse it is not economical.

There is not "plenty of solar", it's irrelevant to any grid's ability to counter a massive drop in energy from wind. Germany gets only about 11% of it's energy from solar during a year, and the bulk of that would be in summer.

Utility scale solar costs €1.52 billion per GW to build here. That is hugely expensive for such a paltry output. Who in their right mind pays €13.8 billion per GW of actual capacity factor adjusted capacity? (1.52/.11)

The bit where they plan to make their own cable is interesting. Hang on, code yellow alert just triggered on my BS detector, I wonder what caused it, better check…

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/jun/21/environment-minister-rules-huge-renewable-energy-hub-in-wa-clearly-unacceptable

Another huge multi square km Solar project proposed for WA was also rejected on enviro grounds some years ago.