The Climate, Environment and Energy Thread

[LP]

And your evidence for saying the 10-15 year assumption has omitted the factors you put forward is …?

It's in the very video I linked to, and also in the reports that Sabine links to on her own websites.

For example, the anti-nuclear brigade assert nuclear energy is carbon expensive over the lifetime of the plant, but they cap the lifetime of the plant at 30 years, even the old technologies in use now are 50, 60 or 70 years old, most of the carbon in the nuclear plant emissions in is construction, go from 30 to 40 years is a 25% reduction, go from 30 to 60 years and it's 50%.

The same groups issue reports that stretch the MTBF lifetime of SolarPV to 10 - 15 years, which is bogus because although panels might still be working in 15 years they won't be at 100% efficiency any more, they will typically be at 80% or less which in terms of a carbon budget is the same as a 20% failure rate. It's odd for you to question that given you also boost the use of old batteries, batteries that are barely a decade old being repurposed in the desert as grid storage, because they have degraded efficiency.

At the moment SolarPV makes up about 2% to 3% of global supply, wind is about 5% but it's difficult to put a figure on a highly variable form of generation, they have good and bad months subject to the weather. The idea we can use these technologies alone to get to the 80% zero carbon renewable figure needed to meet targets in the timeframe required is a completely absurd joke, like betting on one horse to win every race on the planet!