Howdy Rachel, another excellent video, including the cat. I remember thinking about how we are releasing heat energy stored over millions of years in an instant while sitting in a Houston traffic jam in a small convertible surrounded by much larger pickup trucks during the summer. I had no A/C in my car. Running out of fossil fuels has a long history. Back in my early career we (geophysicist) were told it would be useless searching for hydrocarbons in depositional environments of over 600 feet as no reservoir quality sands extended that far. Now we are extracting oil from shale, no need for reservoir sands. I think we will definitely make our earth uninhabitable before using up all the fossil fuels. Looking forward to your video on carbon sequestration. It’s one of my current pursuits in learning more about. BTW, I finally got to very lightly pet a cat who has adopted me. It’s taken over a year of feeding her.

@GEOGIRL

2 ай бұрын

Oh yea, feral cats can be shy at first! My brother and I lived together for a time when we both went to UTEP and we had feral cats come by for two years before letting us pet them haha ;)

Well done Rachel, thanks for tackling this subject so carefully.

@donaldbrizzolara7720

2 ай бұрын

Indeed….I agree.

The trouble with biofuels is that they need to be energy positive (more energy out of the biofuel than it took us to make the fuel) and they need to be renewable (turning old forests into woodchips to burn takes a long time to replace the forests so the energy out of the forest per year is low). Corn ethanol is the cliche example of a biofuel that takes more energy to make than it returns, IIRC it's about 70% efficient at greenwashing fossil fuel into biofuel.

@5353Jumper

2 ай бұрын

Any fuel has an inherent efficiency disadvantage to electrification. Simply it is a lot easier to get electricity to the demand point than fuel. No storage facilities, no trucks or trains, no pipelines. Nearly 30% of global gas/diesel is burned just shipping fuel around the planet. The electric grid plus endpoint generation possibility is just so much more.efficient. compounded with the typical electric motor being so much more efficient than an ICE. Hard to beat with any fuel solution.

@CatharticCurios

2 ай бұрын

Shout-out to Drax for being a "renewable" energy provider for the UK by logging old growth & hurting forests across North America.

Another component is the continual rise of electricity consumption as the population increases around the world. Eight billion people clamoring for more electricity is a good deal more daunting than three billion people clamoring for more electricity. Regards to your cat from my two. They have much in common.

@wavemaker54

2 ай бұрын

You left out lightning bolts.

@SalivatingSteve

Ай бұрын

I feel like we’re partially addressing this in a similar way to water conservation, by developing more efficient appliances.

Biofuel is mixed bag since we used artificial fertilizers and fuel for agricultural machines to produce it. And we use edible corn kernels to produce alcohol while all cellulose from plant remains waste so it puts into question "greenness" of whole procedure

I use emergency off-grid solar for storm power outages in Louisiana. There`s rarely enough sun to charge when needed if you need power for an air conditioner. Keeping a freezer going is easier. I usually grid charge and keep a backup gas generator. Hurricanes can knock out the power for weeks here so I got everything possible to be able to stay cool and save my food because a lot of what I have in my freezer doesn`t come from stores and can`t be replaced.

My cat used to chew plastic, too. She chewed a hole in the bottom of my tent.

@The_Worst_Guy_Ever

2 ай бұрын

Lol mine too, I guess it's just a cat thing

It's always such a treat to see your videos every weekend. I really look forward to them. Thank you so much for all your hard work. ❤

I heard a scientist from many years ago say that the solar cells were not developed to the point where they could rival gas and coal power. The entire roof would need to be covered with cells like shingles made of photovoltaic cells, which would be more expensive than coals and gas, and the fuel effeeciency was also less. I also heard a physicist say all mass is photons trapped in a container that experiences acceleration or decceleration. I have never heard an environmentalist or scientist talk about the impact of overpopulation on climate change.

Gee.. You know how to Cheer me up on a Sunday. lol. But there is Hope. ( cat)

Surprising breakdown, I would have credited more solar energy used in photosynthesis...new knowledge

Thanks! Speaking as a retired electric power system engineer of over 20 years let me praise this excellent summary over view of the energy/carbon emission problem our civilization is creating. Special kudos for not dissing nuclear power which is unpopular but is clearly required for progressing towards zero emissions in the future. One point: some sources on YT are claiming geological hydrogen. i.e. pockets of pure or nearly pure hydrogen trapped underground. Is this real?

@GEOGIRL

2 ай бұрын

That is a great question about hydrogen! I have no clue to be honest, I will have to look into that :D

@jimthain8777

2 ай бұрын

I've heard the same claim, I find it very convenient. I hope Rachel can find time to look into it, because it could make a difference, but it has to be proven as a real resource first.

Yes. Ultimately energy comes directly from the sun, or from the sun as carbon stored in the earth. Though moving away from fossil fuels is a good idea, it won't work unless the population is reduced to half a billion or so, and those half billion finally get out into space where we can mine and extract energy there, for our use on Earth. As it is the growing population will just create more demand, and eventually a pollution death spiral.

@jimthain8777

2 ай бұрын

Population is already at about its peak. In some countries it is already declining (looking at you Japan). That's a trend that will be coming to more, and more countries over the next 1/2 century.

The problem with fossil fuels, is not so much that we will run out, but as with all mineral resources, we naturally exploited the most easily-accessible and richest resources first, so the resource base is continually degrading. Technological progress helps us to exploit lower grade and harder-to-reach resources, but in general more energy is also required. The problem with fossil fuels, is that is takes energy to make energy, so as we develop increasingly lower grades of resources, it take more energy to make energy. This concept is known as the Energy Return on Investment, EROI. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_return_on_investment It is generally accepted that when the EROI of a fossil fuel source falls below 3, it can not be exploited profitably, no matter what the price or technology used.

Great video! I especially enjoyed the parts about photosynthesis and ATP. It seems like we can learn from the millions of years of natural selection that has allowed living organisms to thrive on our one and only planet. We need to mimic these processes to enable cost effective sustainability.

I love how clear your videos are. Super good. Also they have pictures 😂 thank u

Great overview of our current energy technology options. As a Geologic Engineer that works in geothermal energy, I was hoping you would discuss more about geothermal energy!

Thanks DR GEO GIRL VERY GOOD SUBJECT

cat head at 17:12

G'day GG, Not a comment on your episode, but thought you may like to know that I finally got my dream job as head of Earth Science at a good (and close) school in Sydney. Your videos will be an invaluable resource to me and the students, so, thank you so very much for being up there on the interweb, with all the work that entails. ps. The offer still stands if you're ever down this end of the planet. Cheers, Michael Barrett

Excellent lecture as always !

Awesome! I'm pretty interested to hear about sequestration.👏

Percentages are the star of this show. I already know most of this in general, but I wouldn't know where to begin coming up with percentages.

In 2000 EU gave memberstates the choice to decide if peat is renewable energy source. Swedish parliament decided peat is renewable, Finnish parliamentary committee was split on the issue after the Greens fear mongering campaign and they flipped a coin, peat was now fossil fuel in Finland and the Greens jubilated. Energy companies started to import Russian woodchips. In Germany they have this thing Energiewende / Grüne Wende (energy / green turnaround) and they closed nuclear powerplants. Then they increased coal burning and import of Russian natural gas, the Greens and Putin jubilated.

@overtoke

2 ай бұрын

peat is in its own category. germany's coal consumption has decreased each year. get your facts straight " germanys-energy-consumption-and-power-mix-charts "

@eerokutale277

2 ай бұрын

@@overtoke From Wikipedia: "Energy in Germany is obtained for the vast majority from fossil sources, accounting for 77.6% of total energy consumption in 2023, followed by renewables at 19.6%, and 0.7% nuclear power........... Key to Germany's energy policies and politics is the "Energiewende", meaning "energy turnaround" or "energy transformation". The policy includes nuclear phaseout (completed in 2023) and progressive replacement of fossil fuels by renewables. The nuclear electricity production lost in Germany's phase-out was primarily replaced with coal electricity production and electricity importing. One study found that the nuclear phase-out caused $12 billion in social costs per year, primarily due to increases in mortality due to exposure to pollution from fossil fuels........... Prior to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Germany was highly dependent on Russian energy, accounting for half of its natural gas, a third of heating oil, and half of its coal imports from Russia.[8][9] Due to this reliance, Germany blocked, delayed or watered down EU proposals to cut Russian energy imports amid the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine...... Domestic hard coal mining has been completely phased out in 2018, as it could not compete with cheaper sources elsewhere and had survived only through subsidies. As of 2022, only lignite is still mined in Germany. After ending domestic production in 2018, Germany imported all 31.8 million tonnes of the hard coal it consumed in 2020. The biggest suppliers were Russia (45.4%), the United States (18.3%) and Australia (12.3%)..... In 2019 the import of coal rose 1.4% compared with 2018."

@overtoke

2 ай бұрын

@@eerokutale277 yes... thank you proving my point. i already pointed you to the real time info by the way. all time low coal usage...

KITTY ❤

What you covered you covered well. Except you left out the most important solar energy that we have available to us! You described solar energy as it is used by solar panels. BUT there is another way for us to use solar. That is passive solar. It is IMHO, as important, if not more important. For years I heated my water using passive solar and my house in Kentucky for most of the year except for those coldest parts of the winter. Their are solar ovens, greenhouses, attached solar rooms. The list goes on. There is SO MUCH more we could be doing with passive solar if people were more aware of it.

13:26 I feel like one would have to differentiate more clearly between the different renewable sources. It would be interesting to see what’s the actual impact on our ecosystems per unit energy produced. With e.g. wind farms while it might impact some birds, in terms of land use all you need is a bit of area around the foot and access roads. While there could be some wilderness around solar, the grass is often kept mowed around it for maintenance reasons and installations obviously can’t be within forests. Biomass otoh captures very little energy per unit area compared to the other two and intensive farming is an absolute killer for species diversity. So a bit of a better researched breakdown there would be cool :)

An idea for a video: temperature changes in various parts of oceans. (The Atlantic off the Florida coast is now 100F or more.) I imagine a future time when fossil fuels become scarce and are reserved for police, long distance freight (trains and trucks), and governments. People will have to use electric or other vehicles which don't use fossil fuels (directly). Thanks for another lesson in geoscience.

@geraldfrost4710

2 ай бұрын

The 101°F reading was an anomaly. Shallow water temperature in Florida is often 95°F; the oft pointed at temperature was at the outflow of a blackwater swamp, on a day when there was little mixing due to lack of wind. 90°F is the normal summer ocean temperature in South Florida. Hope this helps.

yes

Geothermal and nuclear energy isn’t dependent on the sun but rather on what happened before the sun existed…

@Zigmeister67

2 ай бұрын

The Sun formed before the planet. Geothermal and Nuclear decay didn't exist on planet Earth before the Sun. Unless you meant the processes existed in general.

After a severe storm at 3am last June I wired up my solar charger. Within 20 minutes of peak charging time starting at 10am clouds rolled in and clouds blocked charging about 70% of the time. My battery was being stored at about 60% charged but still managed to power my small 400w window AC from 3am until 6pm when I could no longer stay awake and shut it off and slept with a fan on.

Excellent lecture. This subject is quite important. Thank you for tackling it. Importantly, I do think there is a new development in hydrogen, that is to say, the gold hydrogen variety, that does not get sufficient attention. This type relies on water percolation, or passing through iron rich geological formations, to produce underground hydrogen, i.e. some large pockets natural gas. I wonder what you think of gold hydrogen. Further, biogas is a renewable arm that is often overlooked. These energy streams can be generated anywhere, with inputs coming from city waste disposal, farms, restaurants, or kitchens. Beyond that, there are a couple of theories that can allay your worries. One is the regenerative grid theory, that uses grid surpluses to produce hydrogen and battery fill. The other is the massless energy concept, that relies on massless means; think wind, heat, radiation, or waves, et cetera, over the combustion of mass. Combining the two theories could lead to a set of conditions where all of the energy humanity needs can be synthesized, for the most part.

not only the Sun, we all made of stars :) (Moby playing on background)

Kitty gets ASMR channel lol.

Coffee treat for the Doctor!

I didn't hear any noise from the licking of the plastic bag, but just in case there's a tiny bit and it worries you, maybe in future just say, "If you hear a noise it's just the cat again" (without further explanation, except to say, "See the link below", linking to this video - with a timestamp if you want to make it all fancy). Maybe the best option is to just team up with your cat as co-presenter, keep the plastic bag in view somehow, and just make the sound a feature? You might start getting the cat video people paying you a visit, and leaving more enlightened. Everyone wins. And so far if there's a noise at least some of us are too deaf to hear it.

I always find it interesting that people raise the environmental costs of renewable energy while downplaying the same costs for fossil fuels energy. We talk about environmental impacts of installing these systems, but never the exact same, (possibly worse environmental costs) of building buildings, and roads and all that infrastructure. Your/our sources simply gloss over those equally problematic things. There's good reasons for that of course, our countries, (Canada, and the USA) are top ten fossil fuel producers, so our economies are intimately linked with these resources. So in the energy transition, we are going to have to have a rethink about how we make money off these resources. I have long felt that burning a valuable resource, like it was garbage, is a HUGE waste of potential. Battery technology has come a long way in recent decades, and is if anything, improving even faster now that we are actually working on it in a serious way. Other than these small issues, I was very impressed with this video, it was a lot to cover, and you did a great job.

There are some other Energy solutions, such as wave bobbing (kinetic) and gravity batteries (sand instead of water) also we can make energy from magnetics.

excellent presentation -- never loose your enthusiasm -- even during CATastrophes -- LOL😁😁

@valiantredneck

2 ай бұрын

And what we have here Gentlemen… Is a perfect example, of a simp… Looks like we lost another one Fellas…

Earth is basically a giant magnetic iron transformer.

Humanity will switch to renewable sources. As renewable sources get cheaper and fossil fuels get more expensive due to depleted supplies there will come a time when it just doesn't make sense to use fossil fuels. This seems to already be happening as power companies would rather have sources that cost less to operate and don't require fuel just makes good business sense. While I personally don't like climate change and extinction events, especially if my species may be on the list, I'm pretty sure that in a few hundred million years the climate will be vastly different and there will be very few current species still around. Gators, ants and horseshoe crabs will probably still be here though so there's that to be happy about.

nuclear power is a must for base load in any low carbon power grid.

Rachel 🛴, Thank you for compiling all these energy sources!

4:19 Says most life on Earth gets its energy from the Sun. But I had heard that there is more mass of life living inside the crust of the Earth (below the top few meters on the surface), than there is mass of life above and on the surface of the Earth (including the oceans) and in the top-soil. Deep Earth life uses chemical energy, and lives very very slowly.

The only real solution to these types of problems would involve everyone using less or there being fewer users. "We're using too much, we need a machine that will use more!"

All energy is big bang energy.

Bio-fuels are not very renewable because plants use minerals and other chemicals from the soil. Then the plants are harvested, the minerals in the plants are transported away from the fields to a bio-fuel facility, and those minerals are usually not returned to the field. The carbon and oxygen in the plants is renewable because these come from the air. But the minerals are not being returned to the soil.

Well, tidal energy generation isn't solar, it's lunar

@GEOGIRL

2 ай бұрын

Yep! But there is a small part of tidal energy driven by the sun, that is why spring tide is larger than neap tide because the sun and moon are aligned and both pulling on Earth :)

@josemariatrueba4568

4 күн бұрын

None of them are solar. Tidal energy comes from the fact that all celestial bidies spin around a center of gravity counter acting with centrifugal forces the forces derived from attraction between masses. In fact, it's not the moon and the sun that cause tides, but the spining of the earth and moon around their common center of gravity plus the spinning of earth and sun around their common center of gravity. Technically speaking the moon doesn't make turns around the earth but both earth and moon are effectively orbiting around their common center of gravity. Similarly planets do not make turns around the sun but sun and all planets are orbiting the common center of gravity of the solar system which at times is outside the surface of the sun. I wonder why every cekestial body is making turns non stop. What caused all bodues starting making turns? ​@GEOGIRL

LOL sorry Doc, but you know we're only here for the cat, right? my tortie has a plastic thing too. its endearingly annoying

@GEOGIRL

2 ай бұрын

Lol Hope would love to know that you are here for her, she loves attention! :D

Nuclear energy comes from the death of other stars; does that count as solar energy?

If we stabilize or even stop carbon emissions, do we know that the earth is capable of radiating away all the new heat that will result from the remaining chemical reactions, biofuel, hydrogen, nuclear, fusion etc. that will continue to supply humanity's increasing power needs? Or will the problem then become one of increasing global radiative cooling in addition to sequestration? I learn so much from your videos, thanks!

green vegetations like with chlorophyll helps reflect these sun's IR rays

In regards to nuclear-power getting a bad rep well a lot of it comes from organisations such as Greenpeace who are very dishonest in how they characterise it (They're basically Luddites) also it doesn't help that the general public are very poorly educated on nuclear-power, nuclear-radiation and other related issues.

Some animals and plants get their energy from hot water vents at bottom of ocean

@GEOGIRL

2 ай бұрын

Yep! Those are the ones I discussed in the 'chemical energy' section. These do not include 'plants' per se, but absolutely some animals and many microbes and protists :)

🌹🌹

In regards to renewable power, Rachel, New Zealand is one of a handful of countries that uses geothermal power (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_power_in_New_Zealand#).

Those might be good alternatives, but there's a serious problem with bio mass energy: it may be renewable, but it regrows much slower than we actually deplete the source while still emitting greenhouse gasses, meaning the net yield of that method is negative And the only problem with solar power is the exact same reason as why it works: those solar cells are dark and dark stuff heats up pretty easily, giving off a lotta heat still Best would be to reduce the demand for energy overall Decreasing the global population for starters would work and I'm sure there are ethical ways to achieve that, not involving genocide Besides, even in the wealthiest and democratic countries we still have to combat corruption to get it done bc they're no less greedy than world leaders in poor countries It's doable on paper, but actually executing the plan will be a problem, so I do think that despite the best efforts we will be too late to turn the tides

"Windmills have an impact on birds" 😂 Yep. The detractors call them bird-choppers. Given a thousand years of avian Darwin Award winners, and there won't ba so much feather litter. The survivers will respwct the no-fly zones.

Hi G chick!

Two reactions. 1. The problem with energy is threefold namely how to get it, how to store it and how to transport it. 2. What about CCS? If we get gas, or oil from the earth, get the energy out of it and then store it back in the earth as CO2, would that not be green, after all no CO2 released in the atmosphere?

@TheDanEdwards

2 ай бұрын

"What about CCS? " - have not we all concluded that CCS is just a delaying tactic (funded in part by the oil companies/petro-states)? CCS is more a fantasy than a reality.

Solar panels do not produce chemical energy. They use semiconductors to directly produce electricity from the photovoltaic effect. It has little to no relationship to photosynthesis beyond the fact that they both use sunlight.

@lamprete

10 күн бұрын

I was going to comment on this very detail. However, the very first step in energy capturing, the excitation of electrons to an energetically higher level within the atom or molecule, is comparable. You might call this chemical. All the rest of the process is different in photosynthesis and photovoltaic production of electricity.

could you not take the initial concept one step further and be able to group all energy into that we use into gravitational originally

I've often wondered your place in the nuclear debate. IMHO it gets a bad rap. I'm getting 70's modern from your backdrop....whats kitty's name again?

@GEOGIRL

2 ай бұрын

Her name is Hope ;)

The feline co-host was a hit this episode! lol

❤️🐱🐈😎

So no ideal solutions here, until we eventually learn to get energy from something other like thermonuclear fusion 🤔

Hydrogen isn't an energy source (unless utilized in a fusion reactor) it is an energy storage medium (just like lithium ion). It has an energy storage density that is 142× higher than lithium ion batteries though. So it is *way* better.

@josemariatrueba4568

4 күн бұрын

Hydrogen is a tipe of combustible that does produce energy when is being burnt. Same as methane, propane, or gasoline.

@homomorphic

4 күн бұрын

@@josemariatrueba4568 it isn't an energy source. The energy released in combustion was imbued into the diatomic hydrogen when it was created (it takes a lot of energy to separate hydrogen from another atom). It is no more an energy source than a battery is.

@josemariatrueba4568

4 күн бұрын

@homomorphic Sorry but I'm afraid you're wrong. Hydrogen is something you can burn to make heat or feed an engine, whether you like it or not.

@homomorphic

4 күн бұрын

@@josemariatrueba4568 No, you are wrong. Whether something is an energy source or not has absolutely nothing to do with whether it burns or not. The only energy source is fusion. Technically fission is a derivative because it is fusion that produces the fissionable elements. Also, just to show how completely insane your argument is, lithium ion batteries burn just fine; very aggressively, in fact.

@josemariatrueba4568

3 күн бұрын

@homomorphic your are very funny. It seems like your home heats up magically, and your car runs without any kind of energy.

Nuclear isnt solar!? Though supernova thingis...!?

Any energy on Earth from other stars ? Obviously there’s light on Earth other stars .

No. MOST of the energy is solar but not all of it. What isn't? Geothermal. Nuclear. Heat from radioactive decay and accretion of the planet in the former case and energy from atomic structure in the latter case.

😽

Proposal. Build solar panels in deserts. Use the energy obtained to make hydrocarbons (methane, gasoline, diesel, kerosene, etc,.) from atmospheric CO2 and H2O. Use existing infrastructure to distribute those hydrocarbons to where they are used. Originally, such a system would be too costly to compete with existing fossil fuel technologies, so just subsidize the shit out of it. Use the money currently being wasted on subsidizing fossil fuel companies to do that. As the hydrocarbon producing solar farms expand, economies of scale kick in. Also, fossil fuels become more expensive as reserves are depleted. Fossil fuel companies keel over and die as a result. Good riddance. Users of hydrocarbon (cars, planes, home heating, manufacturing, etc,) barely notice the change. We seamlessly and painlessly switch from fossil fuels to 100% renewable. Everybody is happy. Except for the CEOs of the fossil fuel companies of course. But who cares about _them?_

@lamprete

10 күн бұрын

We obviously need the production of carbon neutral fuels for certain applications like airplanes, where battery weight would be too high, and maybe to bridge low power in cold, dark and windless periods. But where ever it is feasible, we should use the generated electricity directly or store it in batteries (or if possible as pumped-storage hydroelectricity), because this is substantially more efficient than hydrogen production, which in turn is more efficient than electrofuels. By far the worst efficiency rate has bio mass fuel. Overall efficiency of battery storage is about twice as high as electrofuel efficiency.

smart as a diamond and cute as an emerald . . . just saying.

When u say earth u should specifically mean biosphere

We, the animals? I'm not an animal. I'm more than an animal. I'm human. My brain is the difference, as is yours. Otherwise, good talk. I'm thankful I was able to listen to it. Peace and Ahev

@jeffrysmith8200

2 ай бұрын

Humans may be more intelligent than most animals,but we are animals none-the-less unless you consider yourself a mineral or vegetable.

@Vadjong

2 ай бұрын

You have all characteristics of homo, primate, mammal, tetrapod, chordate, animalia... Pretty much a very weird, bigskulled monkeyfish. Just like your mum 'n dad. Facts of life 😎

david west youtube channel

Legacy load of carbon.....sigh

“Us” being Homo sapiens

Wind and solar intermittency is so severe it is not worth the cost. A nuclear reactor will last 4 times longer than renewables and is a fraction of the cost when you add in all the tens of thousands of kms of connecting transmission lines, backup power such as gas coal, hydro and batteries that renewables need. You essentially need 2 power grids when operating on renewables when one is expensive enough. Nuclear uses existing transmission lines and requires no backup power at all as it is 24/7 power that lasts at least 70 to 80 years compared to 20 years max for renewables. Sorry Geo Girl nuclear is the clear winner by a huge margin. I will not even mention how CO2 intensive and toxic renewables are other than it is off the scale bad for the environment.

kzread.info/dash/bejne/Z4OLrbt7osbehto.html Patrick Moore, co-founder of Greenpeace.

Coal - solar but several tens of millions of years ago, natural gas and oil - same, hydro - solar recent, wind and PV - solar today, tidal - not solar, fission - not our solar, geothermal - not solar, fusion - not yet and not solar.

The Earth gets Solar Energy given off by the Nuclear powered Sun.

Thermodynamics terminology for "free energy" from the Solar Radiation tends to be extremely limited in usefulness in the discussion of this topic, a kind of religious exclusion of facts because the content is a scientific half-truth and a very embarrassing silent accusation to people who aught to know what they are talking about. One is reminded of "Nero fiddling while Rome burns", type distracting non sense. Alfven's Galactic Circuit, a See the Pattern video, goes further toward picturing the Actuality of relative-timing resonance information In-form-ation substantiation holography, ..we await the latest reiteration of Nuclear Power Generation Designs that explain a Feynman type explanation of implosion/explosion energy recycling in holography-quantization Circuitry.

You overplay the negatives of wind and solar. In particular, you don't discuss synergies. No electricity generation technology exists in isolation with the current grid, why would renewables? On a diurnal basis, in most places, solar and wind complement each other, with wind picking up near sunset and continuing overnight. Also, battery storage plus renewables is comparable in cost today to the cheapest nuclear power in $/MWh delivered. It continues to get cheaper. The concept of baseload is old-fashioned. The energy payback period for wind is measured in weeks. The capital cost payback period can be measured in months in good sites to a few years in more marginal sites. At 100+ m hub height, wind is not as variable as surface dwellers think, especially offshore. Ask a kite enthusiast or hot air balloonist. I have never heard any skeptic mention radar. For ATC radar, they're tall, but not that tall. They show up on weather radar, but the meteorologists already know about them. Silicon solar does not involve a lot of pollutants and we already recycle 90+% of the materials involved (steel, aluminum, glass). Not much is currently being recycled because it is still in use. Ironically, it is the expensive silver that is most challenging to recycle. Solar PV recently passed onshore wind for the cheapest form of electricity generation, unsubsidized LCOE. Solar often exists on rooftops near the place of use. Utility-scale solar, as well as wind, can also coexist with agriculture, often synergistically. Browsers like sheep and goats can keep grasses trimmed. Many crops benefit from shade on hot days during the growing season, reducing water demand as well. Solar is used on greenhouse roofs to offset their power use too. You glossed right over one of the advantages of already installed hydro: it is a storage medium in many locations. You can use excess solar or wind to pump water uphill and you get 80-85% of that energy back (competes with batteries for #1). Solar can also be co-located with water, keeping the panels cool (efficient) and shading the water for better water quality Geothermal is similarly a storage medium. Energy can be stored seasonally, deposited during long summer days and tapped during long winter nights. This is already done. Nuclear is expensive (>$10/W versus

Rachel sorry I don't mean to keep harassing you but are we going to still do that interview

Chickens are smarter than Cats.

No, all energy does not come from the Sun.

No the earth wont run out of fossile fuel. This talk has gone on for decades. But it might become more and more expensive.

@GEOGIRL

2 ай бұрын

Well, not the Earth. But we will run out of 'accesible' fossil fuel. That said, you are right, we will probably find more difficult to obtain deposits and try to use those at a much higher cost, but that is essentially the same as 'running out' because by then that will be way too expensive compared to other energy options :)

@TheDanEdwards

2 ай бұрын

"But it might become more and more expensive."

Well, it has been reported repeatedly, and I mean repeatedly, over my 70 years that we are about to run out of fossil fuels. I don't know whether the fable of chicken little or the fable of the boy who cried wolf is more appropriate. Not to mention that if coal is included in the inventory of fossil fuels, we have hundreds of years before our supply of fossil fuels is fully depleted. And fracking, which disturbs the rocks underneath AND ultimately provides more greenhouse gases, has also expanded the supply of fossil fuels. I'm not advocating long term use of fossil fuels, it just that your otherwise meticulous presentation is incomplete. Humans tend to believe that history starts when we are born, but this is especially noticeable in young adults who, not unreasonably, lack experience and a long baseline to base judgements on.

Get… Lost..

So long winded...

As funny, adorable, and educational as cats' plastic wrap fixations might be, you needn't apologize for your pet's activity, just as you might not apologize for background traffic noises. It's not as distracting as you might think!