The day with no sunlight and no wind is an obvious problem - why does no one ask the question of the people running the show - presumably some serious engineers are involved - they will have envelopes with the calculations scribbled on the back.
Oct 2·edited Oct 2Liked by The Contrarian Capitalist
Sadly, they are so blinded by anti-CO2 dogma they DON'T know what they're doing. There are frequent days with no wind - so student politics power has to take a back seat while the grown ups fire up real power stations. Every afternoon/evening solar is useless, right through the night to 10/11am AND IN WINTER THE SUN IS TOO LOW TO PRODUCE ANY MEANINGFUL SOLAR ENERGY. Wind and solar might run a few LEDs but will NEVER power industry, run trains, offices, schools or hospitals. The entire CO2 scare is designed to f*ck the west which is why China has been pushing this idiocy for years through dim Leftists like Al Gore.
Agree completely on Nuclear vs. Solar and Wind. What about Geothermal? Seems like a viable alternative for baseload. The price would come down if more R&D was done and scale was applied.
Geothermal is in the same general category as hydroelectric, for the foreseeable future. That is, it's location-dependent: if you've got the area for it (geothermal hot spots) then it's great; otherwise it's not really viable. Technically yes, one can drill deep enough to pull geothermal power just about anywhere, but unless you've got a thermal source relatively close to the surface that's going to be cost-prohibitive.
And in climate where is gets miserably cold and/or miserably warm, geothermal can only give so much. Never en ought for heat required or air con required. Fewer and fewer are coninueing its substitution when building.
For what it's worth, I'm pretty sure that the original commenter meant *grid-scale* geothermal, for electricity production. Not residential-scale geothermal for heating/cooling. Grid-scale digs down *much* further, going for much greater temperature differences compared to residential-scale.
1998 is calling and it wants it's microphones back! Gentlemen - it's 2024 and good quality microphones cost about $40. Perhaps time to make your capitalist voices listenable? A contrarian take, I know.
Amazing show, thanks for the treat! Please invite “Green Chicken” again. On a positive note I hope this or next UK government will reconsider energy policy and employ real engineers with real numbers instead of “yes” people.
I just saw this comment - I wrote a comment above. I'd love for you to ask him to break these concepts down for the average person operating a single household. That would help people to understand, in practice, what this looks like, and pull these abstract concepts of "green energy" out of the utopian clouds. It needs to be made real and palpable for average people that are not experts in energy.
Thanks Richard. There are a few other guests coming up on the show soon and I’ll do my best to ask better questions that help to give simpler answers and hopefully paint a clearer picture!
I love Doomberg! Such a brilliant thinker. What I'd love Doomberg or someone more competent than me to do, is what he hinted at: An essay on what it would be like, in detail, for just ONE urban household to operate off the grid on "renewables" alone, and run the numbers. I've tried to do this as a layperson in the pacific northwest, taking into account that the month where I need the most energy (January, for heating) is the month where the capacity factor is lowest (5-10%) under the cloudy sky with low sun angle, and the solar system required seems to be the size of my entire yard, cost $400,000, and that's for a very small house that is 800 square feet, in a relatively mild climate, based on my real past energy usage on my natural gas and electricity bills. Scaling that up to the average American household, many of which are in more extreme climates, would be more than $1M. The reason is because you need to build a system 10x or more larger to work in January versus June. I'd love someone to write an essay, too, that unveils the scam of "net metering", because while accounting tricks can give the illusion of shifting energy from one season to another, you cannot shift the sun or wind like this in physical reality. The game of net metering only works because of the grid being mostly fossil fuels.
The day with no sunlight and no wind is an obvious problem - why does no one ask the question of the people running the show - presumably some serious engineers are involved - they will have envelopes with the calculations scribbled on the back.
I would hope so and it’s a great question that you ask! I’d love to think that people know what they’re doing
Sadly, they are so blinded by anti-CO2 dogma they DON'T know what they're doing. There are frequent days with no wind - so student politics power has to take a back seat while the grown ups fire up real power stations. Every afternoon/evening solar is useless, right through the night to 10/11am AND IN WINTER THE SUN IS TOO LOW TO PRODUCE ANY MEANINGFUL SOLAR ENERGY. Wind and solar might run a few LEDs but will NEVER power industry, run trains, offices, schools or hospitals. The entire CO2 scare is designed to f*ck the west which is why China has been pushing this idiocy for years through dim Leftists like Al Gore.
That malthusian comment by Doomberg in the last 2 minutes is hilariously rude! Loved it.
I did have a chuckle when he said it!
Agree completely on Nuclear vs. Solar and Wind. What about Geothermal? Seems like a viable alternative for baseload. The price would come down if more R&D was done and scale was applied.
Geothermal is in the same general category as hydroelectric, for the foreseeable future. That is, it's location-dependent: if you've got the area for it (geothermal hot spots) then it's great; otherwise it's not really viable. Technically yes, one can drill deep enough to pull geothermal power just about anywhere, but unless you've got a thermal source relatively close to the surface that's going to be cost-prohibitive.
And in climate where is gets miserably cold and/or miserably warm, geothermal can only give so much. Never en ought for heat required or air con required. Fewer and fewer are coninueing its substitution when building.
For what it's worth, I'm pretty sure that the original commenter meant *grid-scale* geothermal, for electricity production. Not residential-scale geothermal for heating/cooling. Grid-scale digs down *much* further, going for much greater temperature differences compared to residential-scale.
Geothermal is potentially a very viable alternative and hopefully that’ll be covered next time!
1998 is calling and it wants it's microphones back! Gentlemen - it's 2024 and good quality microphones cost about $40. Perhaps time to make your capitalist voices listenable? A contrarian take, I know.
Thanks for the feedback! I will work on that for future recordings!
Are you frightened to say it - if so shame on you! It's because he's part of the Marxist takeover plot which has now captured the western world.
This was a great article, it was super informative and opened my eyes.
Amazing show, thanks for the treat! Please invite “Green Chicken” again. On a positive note I hope this or next UK government will reconsider energy policy and employ real engineers with real numbers instead of “yes” people.
Absolutely. I’ll reach out to Doomberg again in about 6 months time and we’ll hopefully have another chat
I just saw this comment - I wrote a comment above. I'd love for you to ask him to break these concepts down for the average person operating a single household. That would help people to understand, in practice, what this looks like, and pull these abstract concepts of "green energy" out of the utopian clouds. It needs to be made real and palpable for average people that are not experts in energy.
Thanks Richard. There are a few other guests coming up on the show soon and I’ll do my best to ask better questions that help to give simpler answers and hopefully paint a clearer picture!
I love Doomberg! Such a brilliant thinker. What I'd love Doomberg or someone more competent than me to do, is what he hinted at: An essay on what it would be like, in detail, for just ONE urban household to operate off the grid on "renewables" alone, and run the numbers. I've tried to do this as a layperson in the pacific northwest, taking into account that the month where I need the most energy (January, for heating) is the month where the capacity factor is lowest (5-10%) under the cloudy sky with low sun angle, and the solar system required seems to be the size of my entire yard, cost $400,000, and that's for a very small house that is 800 square feet, in a relatively mild climate, based on my real past energy usage on my natural gas and electricity bills. Scaling that up to the average American household, many of which are in more extreme climates, would be more than $1M. The reason is because you need to build a system 10x or more larger to work in January versus June. I'd love someone to write an essay, too, that unveils the scam of "net metering", because while accounting tricks can give the illusion of shifting energy from one season to another, you cannot shift the sun or wind like this in physical reality. The game of net metering only works because of the grid being mostly fossil fuels.
Thanks for the great discussion.