The Climate Change Discussion Thread

[le calmar]

Originally Posted by TownGuy

I'm assuming this map is more correct.

It is almost identical to the snow cover map on https://www.windy.com/ (which I discovered recently, and there’s tons of layers you that can be activated if you play with the settings). But yeah it looks accurate. Latitude and elevation both have an impact on the snow cover. Right now in most of the country it follows the limits of the Canadian shield/Appalachia/Rockies.

[Truenorth00]

I guess we can now reduce all discussions about climate change on this forum to trolling about snow cover?

[SaskScraper]

Originally posted by le calmer

https://www.windy.com/ (which I discovered recently, and there’s tons of layers you that can be activated if you play with the settings). But yeah it looks accurate. Latitude and elevation both have an impact on the snow cover. Right now in most of the country it follows the limits of the Canadian shield/Appalachia/Rockies.

That's a good map too, shows ice cover in North Atlantic like icebergs!
The one thing it doesn't show is snow depth which I find particularly interesting, especially in places that seem to get a lot snow.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

I guess we can now reduce all discussions about climate change on this forum to trolling about snow cover?

I am concerned about what will happen when climate change causes the torrid zone of southern Saskatchewan to warm up further. I assume packs of surviving climate refugees will head to the Northwest Territories. Imagine the humanitarian crisis when Maple Creek hits 50 degrees and dozens of people need to leave their dried out pineapple plantations.

The silver lining will be population growth in the far north, something that some people here often seem concerned about for some reason, even though to my knowledge 0 of those people have packed their bags and headed for Yellowknife or Iqaluit.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by SaskScraper

I don't know anything about what Acajack or lio45 posts, my block list is getting bigger & bigger though.

Wait, so you're not aware that Maple Creek is the new Okotoks? And that it's all your doing?

You're missing out!

[rousseau]

Originally Posted by SaskScraper

Well put especially in regards to the hypocrisy of society wanting bigger houses, bigger cars, more people, but instead of putting some responsibility on manufactures of SUVs society puts 100% of the blame on our national energy sector, zero on Saudi Arabia's but 100% on Canada's.

I'm 99% certain that you're just simpleminded and not a brilliant troll. But part of me is secretly hoping that at some point you'll come clean and confess that this has all been a years-long performative art piece for your MA in Fine Arts.

In any case, the Venn diagram representing those who don't care about the environment and those who do probably corresponds almost exactly to the Venn diagram showing those who want bigger cars and more people and those who don't.

Originally Posted by SaskScraper

It doesn't help we have a narcissist buffoon at the helm.

Uh, we're in Canada. Trump is the president of the US.

Originally Posted by SaskScraper

...I don't make things up...

You actually do, though. Like your persona. You're too far-fetched. I've been to Saskatchewan. Nobody there is that parochial and haughty.

"Toronto, you say? I believe I've heard of it, yes."

You never should have left the pineapple patch in Maple Creek. Why give up the simple pleasures of tropical fruit amid the wholesome wheat fields? Where snow is a foreign concept and you barely have to put winter tires on your car?

Isn't the charade getting tiring? Why not just be yourself?

[WarrenC12]

World's Largest Solar plant:

https://www.greentechmedia.com/artic...orlds-cheapest

~2 year construction.
2 GW capacity
1.35c US per kWh

As a comparison, Site C in BC:
~6 year construction after numerous hurdles
5.1 GW capcity
Around 10c Cdn per kWh

[jawagord]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

World's Largest Solar plant:

https://www.greentechmedia.com/artic...orlds-cheapest

~2 year construction.
2 GW capacity
1.35c US per kWh

As a comparison, Site C in BC:
~6 year construction after numerous hurdles
5.1 GW capcity
Around 10c Cdn per kWh

Yep BC has all the attributes for similar solar projects except for:

There are numerous factors behind the ever-lower prices for solar in the Middle East, including great solar resources, large and flat sites, cheap-to-zero land costs, massive scale, and the cheap finance that comes with a 30-year PPA with a petrostate as the offtaker.

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by jawagord

Yep BC has all the attributes for similar solar projects except for:

There are numerous factors behind the ever-lower prices for solar in the Middle East, including great solar resources, large and flat sites, cheap-to-zero land costs, massive scale, and the cheap finance that comes with a 30-year PPA with a petrostate as the offtaker.

You're reading into my post with your own weird biases.

Solar PPV electricity is incredibly cheap and getting cheaper all the time. This is the climate change thread.

[milomilo]

Despite the ridiculous cost, hydro is a good compliment to solar and we should keep building it until we run out of viable sites or until a better storage option is available.

You're way off on the output of Site C though, it's only ~1GW. 5100GWh is its annual output. At least according to wikipedia.

[Doug]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

You're reading into my post with your own weird biases.

Solar PPV electricity is incredibly cheap and getting cheaper all the time. This is the climate change thread.

But is it? The cost of intermittent sources needs to consider partial back up by dispatchable sources. The true cost of solar would include a percentage of the capital costs of building and maintaining gas fired backup, the operating costs when the gas backstop is called on and part of the operating costs to keep gas fired plants as spinning reserves.

[Doug]

Originally Posted by milomilo

Despite the ridiculous cost, hydro is a good compliment to solar and we should keep building it until we run out of viable sites or until a better storage option is available.

You're way off on the output of Site C though, it's only ~1GW. 5100GWh is its annual output. At least according to wikipedia.

Sounds about right. Site C is a run of river facility, so basically it amplifies the output of the Bennett Dam. BC Hydro (https://www.bchydro.com/energy-in-bc...ies/peace.html) states that Bennett and Peace Canyon’s combined nameplate capacity is ~3,400 MW and they average ~17,500 GWh per year. 17,500 GWh / (3.4 GW * 365 days * 24 h/day) = 0.5876 capacity factor. Site C capacity factor as per your numbers would be 5,100 GWh / (1 GW * 365 days * 24 h/day) = 0.5822.

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by milomilo

Despite the ridiculous cost, hydro is a good compliment to solar and we should keep building it until we run out of viable sites or until a better storage option is available.

You're way off on the output of Site C though, it's only ~1GW. 5100GWh is its annual output. At least according to wikipedia.

I thought I was comparing apples to apples with the solar plant.

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by Doug

But is it? The cost of intermittent sources needs to consider partial back up by dispatchable sources. The true cost of solar would include a percentage of the capital costs of building and maintaining gas fired backup, the operating costs when the gas backstop is called on and part of the operating costs to keep gas fired plants as spinning reserves.

It's a contract to supply power, you can do the research on whatever else they are spending.

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by milomilo

Despite the ridiculous cost, hydro is a good compliment to solar and we should keep building it until we run out of viable sites or until a better storage option is available.

You're way off on the output of Site C though, it's only ~1GW. 5100GWh is its annual output. At least according to wikipedia.

I'm not saying we shouldn't build hydro. That's our strength in this part of the country and other places (Quebec). I'm just illustrating how cheap solar can be.

[jawagord]

Originally Posted by milomilo

Despite the ridiculous cost, hydro is a good compliment to solar and we should keep building it until we run out of viable sites or until a better storage option is available.

You're way off on the output of Site C though, it's only ~1GW. 5100GWh is its annual output. At least according to wikipedia.

Hydro is far superior to Solar. It produces dispatchable power available 24 hrs per day and a hydro dam will operate for more than 100 years. For Solar “the average peak sun hours per day is between 4-6 hours, and the expected life is 25-30 years.

The voodoo economics of both projects might never be publicly available but we can do an “apples to apples” comparison of the power generated, the 2 GW nameplate Abu Dhabi plant will produce about 3200 GWh per year while site C ‘s 1100 MW dam will produce 5100 GWh per year.
https://www.mesia.com/wp-content/upl...r-Students.pdf

https://www.bchydro.com/energy-in-bc...ts/site_c.html

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by jawagord

Hydro is far superior to Solar. It produces dispatchable power available 24 hrs per day and a hydro dam will operate for more than 100 years. For Solar “the average peak sun hours per day is between 4-6 hours, and the expected life is 25-30 years.

The voodoo economics of both projects might never be publicly available but we can do an “apples to apples” comparison of the power generated, the 2 GW nameplate Abu Dhabi plant will produce about 3200 GWh per year while site C ‘s 1100 MW dam will produce 5100 GWh per year.
https://www.mesia.com/wp-content/upl...r-Students.pdf

https://www.bchydro.com/energy-in-bc...ts/site_c.html

Wow you are thick. I'm not trying to directly compare the output of these plants, just the price and construction timeline. With the price per kWh of solar, you can start to add storage to get to hydro levels of reliability, at least short term.

Either way, fossil fuels have been left in the dust. Economics at work, as predicted by myself and others in this very thread.

[MolsonExport]

If the cost vs. output is used as a pretext to stonewall the development of a solar energy infrastructure in Canada, can we not apply the same 'logic' to the cost of extracting barrels of oil from the oilsands vs. from Saudi Arabia? Quite certain that the costs are far lower in the latter case.

[Hackslack]

Interesting research paper explaining the EROEI (Energy Returned on Energy Invested) for solar titled:

Energy Return on Energy Invested (ERoEI) for photovoltaic solar systems in regions of moderate insolation (this paper focused on locations such as Swiss and Germany)

https://reader.elsevier.com/reader/s...2E78DCB5FC2377

A portion of the conclusion of the paper includes:

"The calculated value for ERoEI is dimensionless, constituting the energy return (2203 kW he/m2) divided by the energy invested(2664 kW he/m2)–a ratio of 0.82. It is estimated that these numbers could have an error of +/- 15%, so that, despite a string of optimistic choices resulting in low values of energy investments, the ERoEI is significantly below 1. In other words, an electrical supply system based on today’s PV technologies cannot be termed an energy source, but rather a non-sustainable energy sink or anon-sustainable NET ENERGY LOSS"... "The main conclusions to be drawn are:

- The result of rigorously calculating the “extended ERoEI” for regions of moderate insolation levels as experienced in Switzerland and Germany proves to be very revealing. It indicates that, at least at today's state of development, the PV technology cannot offer an energy source but a NET ENERGY LOSS, since its ERoEI is not only very far from the minimum value of 5 for sustainability suggested by Murphy and Hall (2011), but is less than 1/

- Our advanced societies can only continue to develop if a surplus of energy is available, but it has become clear that photovoltaic energy at least will not help in any way to replace the fossil fuel. On the contrary we find ourselves suffering increased dependence on fossil energy. Even if we were to select, or be forced to live in a simpler, less rapidly expanding economic environment, photovoltaic technology would not be a wise choice for helping to deliver affordable, environmentally favourable and reliable electricity regions of low, or even moderate insolation, since it involves an extremely high expenditure of material, human and capital resources.

- Research and development should however, be continued in order in future to have more efficient conversion from sunlight to electricity and a cheaper, more reliable PV-technology offering increased efficiency and a longer, failure-free lifetime. The market will then develop naturally."

This paper states that the photovoltaic technology is material, labour and capital intensive. It accounts for the energy invested for:

1) energy invested in the PV-based system
2) integration of the intermittent PV-electricity into the existing grid
3) estimation of the energy invested for labour and generation of capital
4) energy invested for the labour
5) energy invested for the capital

There are rebuttal papers to this one, in which the authors to this paper again provide following arguments stating their position with their original argument remains unchanged.

I'll be reading up on those rebuttals to this paper... very interesting nonetheless

[Hackslack]

Originally Posted by jawagord

Hydro is far superior to Solar. It produces dispatchable power available 24 hrs per day and a hydro dam will operate for more than 100 years. For Solar “the average peak sun hours per day is between 4-6 hours, and the expected life is 25-30 years.

The voodoo economics of both projects might never be publicly available but we can do an “apples to apples” comparison of the power generated, the 2 GW nameplate Abu Dhabi plant will produce about 3200 GWh per year while site C ‘s 1100 MW dam will produce 5100 GWh per year.
https://www.mesia.com/wp-content/upl...r-Students.pdf

https://www.bchydro.com/energy-in-bc...ts/site_c.html

I think the "expected life" might be a little misleading, as the warranty of the PV system is 25-30 years, which doesn't account for damage to the PV's from externalities such as atmospheric damage, corrosion, mishandling etc.