Dan wrote:
We have the same madness just in the starting blocks here, plans to set up around 100 power lures around Zürich.
Surely by now you have seen what is up for Bern Airport? They will kick out the Gliders there and close both grass runways in favour of a massive solar array. It looks to me as if Bern tries to show to the Greens that they are “doing something” to justify their existence as an “evil” airport but I am more than questioning the usefullness of solar power arrays in an area which has a lot of fog and cloud in the yearly mean.
Obviously the place to put solar arrays if any is the mountains, which are in the sun for most of the year, in particular in Winter. But there is resistance to that as it would certainly damage the nature up there. Well, tough choice, can’t have both.
I am quite positive that there is a place for solar technology and wind power as well, but it has to be done in a way that it makes sense. Put wind turbines where there is wind and put solar arrays where there is sun. Cut red tape for those energies and get people on board.
And apart from that, as some of you rightly say, use nuclear power. Not only in the old reactors we have now but get the new ones in, which are safer and more efficient by quite a margin. But I guess it will need the demise of the 68 generation before that can be done. Many of the younger activists by now have realized that nuclear power is indeed a lot climate friendlier than most other stuff around.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
you have seen what is up for Bern Airport
Yes, I’ve seen it. Not done yet, but another crazy idea on which “they” will waste taxpayer’s money.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
there is a place for solar technology and wind power
Not sure about that. Not until I see with my own eyes a net ROI (not an EBIT) on the CO2 savings, covering the whole life cycle of those installations, from birth to eventual recycling.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
And apart from that, as some of you rightly say, use nuclear power. Not only in the old reactors we have now but get the new ones in, which are safer and more efficient by quite a margin. But I guess it will need the demise of the 68 generation before that can be done. Many of the younger activists by now have realized that nuclear power is indeed a lot climate friendlier than most other stuff around.Absolutely, I’m saying that already since I was young. Back in the Netherlands, we shared this opinion at school, we also got pretty much education on nuclear power. But these opinions were extremely unpopular in Germany, I think pretty much due lack of knowledge about nuclear power and horror stories of Tschernobyl and Fukushima. Dutch people have shaked their heads, when Germany announced in 2011 to shut down all nuclair power plants.
How do solar panels compare with the chloroplasts they’re replacing/shading at converting light to energy? The chloroplasts also remove CO2 and add O2.
Dan wrote:
Not sure about that. Not until I see with my own eyes a net ROI (not an EBIT) on the CO2 savings, covering the whole life cycle of those installations, from birth to eventual recycling.
Well, let me put it to you this way… if I can use the pretty useless surface of my roof to lower my power bill from silly to halfways insignificant, that makes some sort of sense to me 
In the end, we need to live with the fact that electric power becomes a bit of a commodity in our region, not least thanks to the German government who sadly commands some of our own energy ressources due to binding contracts. Looking at some friends who managed to get solar installations past their local NIMBY, Heimatschutz and other gormless lout’s objections are just fine with the fact that they actually get paid for what they don’t use themselves and can, with a quite substantial switch in their cellar, cut themselves off the grid and onto their batteries if the need should arise.
And for those who can’t… I have to say I was impressed by the fact that you can mostly sit out the brown out’s they were advertising earlier this winter with a simple Jackery 2000 or similar and the solar panel which comes with it. It will run your fridge, oil heat burner and charge your phones (if you don’t have some solar charged power banks for that) for a considerable amount of time and recharge itself quite nicely over a couple of hours. It costs less than a diesel generator too (and the fine you’ll pay if you run it on heating oil) and doesn’t wake up my neighbour, which the generator would.
Wind, I agree, is not much for Swiss weather, waste of money as you can’t really make power by breaking wind after the consumption of Brussels sprouts combined with onions and garlic or some overspiced fondue… (BTW, did they consider the amount of hot air that city would produce as capital of the EU when they named the sprout so to the point?) On the other hand, why not in places where there is an abundance of wind on a practically daily basis?
Sun, despite the sometimes weird perception, does exist from time to time, so we might as well use it. But there is no reason to place the solar panels onto perfectly nice lawn when there are literally millions of square feet of roofs which can do the job.
Frans wrote:
Absolutely, I’m saying that already since I was young.
So was I. Did not improve my popularity during my school days as I recall, but I somehow managed to keep my teeth after all the more hands on arguments.
Frans wrote:
I grew up within the huge Dutch wind farms, which are terrible for the eye. If you flew once to EHLE, you know what I mean. Also in Germany, some places like EDLP/EDLR are a disgrace. Hopefully, wind and solar farms are not our final fate, in order to get CO2 savings under control.
the thing is, solar can be done largely without occupying too much landscape, using roofs of buildings, particular flat industrial ones, but also most normal houses. I think we will see this develop really fast now. Wind farms won’t be possible to avoid either, but at least they should think as far and put them where there IS wind on a regular basis. Net consistency is the big problem with wind, much more than sun.
I think what needs to be done is diversify so if one source of power goes bad we are not caught with our pants down yet again.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
if I can use the pretty useless surface of my roof to lower my power bill from silly to halfways insignificant, that makes some sort of sense to me
Same here… and done, almost 10 years ago, as one of the first in my city 
Just saying that the total ecological balance of solar (and wind farms) is probably not positive today. So why bother… is source diversity and dependability worth producing even more CO2? It could be, but should not be sold as the absolute green weapon that will save the Planet.
Dan wrote:
. So why bother… is source diversity and dependability worth producing even more CO2? It could be, but should not be sold as the absolute green weapon that will save the Planet.
To this I absolutely agree.
I have always been of the opinion that all those things such as Solar roofs e.t.c. have to be “sold” to people the way everything else is sold: The primary question for people will be “What’s in it for me?” Religious frevor like Climate Change did not sell Teslas and does not sell solar roofs either.
The only thing I do wish for the political pressure Climate Change generates would be used for is to cut red tape for such installations, particularly on private and corporate buildings, not so much on public ground where other people are deprived of space they are currently using. As long as it is still possible for any nimby and other nincompoop to block isolations and solar roofs just because he doesn’t like the neighbour or wants compensation payment, a lot of people can’t do what they would do otherwise.
Dan wrote:
Not sure about that. Not until I see with my own eyes a net ROI (not an EBIT) on the CO2 savings, covering the whole life cycle of those installations, from birth to eventual recycling.
The EROEI (energy returned on energy invested) for a wind turbine is on the order of 18:1 (meaning it will put out 18 times as much energy as it took to construct, commission, service during its lifetime, and decomission when worn out). So even if all the building and servicing used fossil fuels, its CO2e (CO2 equivalent) is very low.
By contrast, the EROEI on ethanol from corn (as added to fuel in the US to make it more “green”) may be below 1:1.
alioth wrote:
for a wind turbine is on the order of 18:1
All the time wind turbines cannot alone produce energy to the grid, but is dependent on other producers, this is absolutely nonsense.
LeSving wrote:
All the time wind turbines cannot alone produce energy to the grid, but is dependent on other producers, this is absolutely nonsense.
In what sense does that change the fact that a wind turbine will produce 18x the energy that went into its production?
