This is false: <<But perhaps the most important fact – seldom admitted but very real – is that in total power system terms, few if any CO2 savings result. Energy is needed to make, transport and install windmills and solar systems and connect them to the existing grid, adding CO2 to the overall total. Intermittent running of fossil fuel back-up plants adds more CO2, and total savings over efficient, full-time, modern coal or gas plants are few if any – despite the much greater cost. These facts are almost never mentioned when ‘clean energy’ claims are made. >>
In the 1980s, when oil prices were way up after the huge increases in 1974 and 1979 to $40 a barrel, the oil industry was doing all sorts to find alternatives such as methanol, ethanol, tallow esters, methane, propane to make cars move.
One of the annoying things then was the idea of "energy balances" which were used to justify things that didn't make sense or dollar and cents. My argument was to just add up the money and if it made money it was good and if it didn't it wasn't. Adding up every little bit of energy in a manufacturing and distribution chain is hopelessly impossible. Adding up money is done to the cent and is the measuring stick used to establish value. If there are externalities such as the air being used as a dumping ground for lead, sulphur oxides, nitrous oxides, soot, etc then a value can be put on those pollutants.
In the same way that energy balances did not make . There are some things such as the tax evasion part of it which will be removed when governments lose enough revenue, so investors had better plan for that. But forget about "energy balances".
If somebody is making 'energy balance' arguments, it leads me to think their other points are too weak.
Mqurice |
