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KOSHAOLIN t1_j8063gl wrote

Reply to comment by T_H_W in UK: Fast charging EVs more expensive than filling petrol by nastratin

Just keep in mind solar is only good for a couple of hours, so if charging at night you still use natural gas, coal, etc. The problem with renewables are that they only last 20 years and I am not sure if anyone is looking at life cycle analysis and co2

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T_H_W t1_j80bgwx wrote

> The problem with renewables are that they only last 20 years

I'm sorry, what? Do you think replacing solar panels / wind turbines is worse that mining / fracking / drilling? Ignoring the CO2 going into moving massive amounts of earth / setting up offshore oil rigs for a second, a solar farm has never leaked and poisoned the gulf of mexico. An unpainted wind turbine might kill some birds, but it's never leaked into multiple township's drinking water. Your assertion that if we look the true life cycle of renewables it might have more greenhouse gas emissions than mining and burning greenhouse gasses is confusing at best.

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>Just keep in mind solar is only good for a couple of hours

Even if solar was the only thing being used you're still drastically reducing the on-demand need for fossil fuels. Also changing the grid's infra to support more energy storage is already happening. That being said there is also wind, tidal, and geothermal sources to aid the grid.

Side note, a couple is 2, sometimes a bit more. Where I live there are 9ish hours during the winter and 14 hours a day during the summer. Places like Arizona get sun well over 50% of the time.

To say "I'm not sure anyone is looking" means you didn't take 30 seconds to google. Climate science isn't new, the solutions are tested, we know what we need to do. Oil companies pump millions into lobbying groups to reduce environmental regulations and steer public funding away from renewable sources. We don't need people second guessing renewables because "the sun goes down" and "well maybe setting all this stuff up might be a lot of work." That line of thinking was old in the 2000s and renewable tech has improved 20 years since then.

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KOSHAOLIN t1_j80pxhu wrote

Wind turbines are still kind of new to us, and we just started to bury them in the ground. I doubt anyone is using any kind of pe sheeting to ensure the turbines will not disintegrate and poison ground waters. We can dream about the future but we live in the present, so let's stick to it. You have mentioned lobbyist for oil industry, but the real money is in renewables these days and their lobby seems to have bigger reach with the decision makers in western countries. Western is going electric, but china is building mainly coal plants. I will ask again did anyone performed LCA on solar, wind turbine vs natural gas, coal, nuclear? How much concrete and steel do we use per turbine, can the foundation be reused? What about the treat byproducts that are used to limit co2 with cement production? Fly ash is very beneficial to concrete durability. There are many angles to this topic, and we don't even see a glimpse of facts.

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T_H_W t1_j80u5fq wrote

>I will ask again did anyone performed LCA on solar, wind turbine vs natural gas, coal, nuclear?

https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy13osti/56487.pdf

I will state again, you didn't take 30 seconds to google.

This is just solar, but I'm sure you can type LCA wind, tidal, geothermal, nuclear, ect.

Quick note, the summation of the report (which is itself a summation of HUNDREDS of LCAs) is that coal produces 25 times the CO2 emissions per kWh.

Quick maths for ya, if a solar plant ends up producing 100g of CO2, coal will produce 2500g of CO2 to produce the same amount of energy.

Welcome to the present, we've been facing this problem for decades and have spend billions of dollars on R&D. The questions involved in LCA are essential and we've been attempting to address them at every turn.

I'm confused why you decided to posit the same question again of "did they look at LCA," when I already answered in the affirmative, especially considering verification of my affirmation would take you less time then you spend writing a response.

Stop asking "if people are asking the hard questions" and start trying to see if people have found the answers yet. If during your research you find an unasked question of merit, that is a fantastic time to bring it to others attention. We live in the information age and there are 7 billion of us, if you're asking questions but haven't checked to see if there are answers you either don't want to know the answers, want someone else to hit the search bar, or just want to disagree without actually taking a stand

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