I don't think grid instability from renewables is going to be the problem that a lot of people think it will. There are dozens of storage mechanisms from small to large scale that are either available now or will come to market within the next 12-24 months that are cheap, clean (or relatively so) and long lasting.

The cost of some of these is fast approaching the point whereby there could be run as a commercial energy arbitrage between peak / off-peak wholesale power prices. At that point you essentially have no peak/off-peak and arguments about grid stability and renewable being useless when the sun doesn't shine or wind doesn't blow turn into questions about how much fat/margin the community has in its grid storage.

Posting this comment on so many different article threads is very much like spam. And, just because it is a thread about environment, climate or energy does not make you comment relevent.

"or that matter confirm Lomorg's statement that Europe is spending $250 billion a year which by the end of the century will have inhibited temperature rise (presumably using IPCC modelling) of .05 degrees C! Hardly worth it."

I can confirm that Lomborg called for Europe to SPEND $250 billion a year on a range of measures:

"Levy a worldwide carbon tax of $7 per metric ton, raising $250 billion annually, of which $100 billion would be targeted for green energy R&D; $50 billion for adaptation measures; $99 billion to inculcate environmentally sensitive development practices for poor nations; and $1 billion for research on geo-engineering schemes like manmade volcanoes."

Thankyou for your comment but what has that got to do with the question?

I'm trying to find out if you asserting Lomborg said what you say he did is correct or not - do you have a reference for the quote?

Difficult to confirm if we don't have the source.

The source of the quote is completely irrelevant v the content. Can you confirm or deny? It was published on the Bolt Report which is easily available via Google. But the source is essentially irrelevant it is the question and the answer (if available ) which is the issue.

The source is entirely relevant since I order to answer your question I need to be able to read the original statement by Lomborg in its context, not as filtered by any other source.

Lomborg: "what if we could make solar panels and win turbines so they are cheaper than fossil fuels, then we have solved global warming and would not need to be doing this thing (a carbon tax)" then he used the line you indicated about Europe spending $250 billion on a carbon price for minimal effect.

Lomborg's position was very clear that we should invest in renewables such as solar and wind. He stated this explicitly - and indicated that this is preferable to a carbon tax in addressing climate change.

Do you agree with Lomborg that investing 250 billion each year in Solar and Wind is a good idea?

you have a source for this dubious information?

Gerard "topper" Dean. Everyone knows at least one.

http://search.dilbert.com/search?p=Q&lbc=dilbert&uid=347628504&ts=custom&w=topper&af=&method=and&view=list&filter=type%3acomic&isort=score

California's "big appetite" is already smaller than that of the rest of the USA in most sectors; its per-capita energy consumption is more comparable to a European country.

California has one of the most efficient electric sectors on the planet thanks to a decades-long policy, starting in 1974, of rewarding utilities for improving their customers' results (the deregulated period 1996-2001 notwithstanding).

Efficiency measures in transportation are much harder to push from a political POV because of California's historic "car addiction" (created in the 1940s with the privatisation and destruction of public transit systems and reinforced by the subsequent construction of freeways at public expense), but even so, the State of California actually leads the way in automotive emissions controls as well.

Germany is not planning to increase its consumption of coal. Coal consumption in that country has been decreasing for 20 years and will continue to fall as the renewable sector grows.

As you are well aware Mr Dean, intermittent generation requires dispatchable backup if it is to contribute much to running an industrial economy with any significant round-the-clock demand. Increasing dispatchable fossil-fuelled capacity (and replacing older plant which cannot easily ramp to accommodate demand swings) allows increasing penetration of intermittent renewables even as actual consumption of fossil fuels declines.

In the long run, Germany does not plan to get all its renewable power from intermittent domestic wind and solar. It already imports electric power (in all categories of renewable, fossil and nuclear) from its neighbours. Various German utilities and technology companies are sponsoring the development of electric power storage technologies. Biogas is a huge industry there. The European energy system as a whole increasingly depends on dispatchable hydroelectric power in Norway, the Alps and the Balkans, and those interconnections support Germany even where it is not directly connected to them. In the mid-term future, the DESERTEC system may provide reliable, dispatchable solar power imports from countries on both sides of the Mediterranean to northern Europe.

Alex, this is FUD.

The numbers you quote (tonnes per MW capacity etc) may well be correct, but they do not add up to a convincing argument that investment elsewhere is going to have a better return, in energy or in money.

*Many* energy technologies are in development, *many* are getting cheaper (basically, almost all non-fossil energy sources are getting cheaper while fossil fuels get more costly) but right now, wind is the cheapest.

It's a bit laughable to call out the decommissioning costs of end-of-life wind equipment as though it matters in a way of any more social or environmental concern than abandoned farm machinery, road surfacing material or plastic coffee cup lids (only this last of which bothers me in the slightest). Wind does not leave mineshafts, slagheaps, or radioactive waste. Wind sites are trivially easily remediated.

You are probably right that thorium could be developed into a power source even cheaper than conventional wind turbines. One day.

Current installed peak capacity of working thorium power reactors : zero watts.

Current installed peak capacity of working wind turbines : ~240GW and growing.