Good post bonies....The German findings are in keeping with South Australian results, and my personal investigations. Renewables sound great in theory, but the analysis of the reality reveals nothing in the renewable fascade is to nameplate capacity, and far above predicted (by certain NGO and political groups) cost. The claim of renewability and the accompanying language is misleading, to say the least. Turbines have a life of about 25 years. Then they have to be replaced, and many in Germany, UK etc are approaching this time line. Exactly what happens then is not precisely known, a new experience to the renewable disciples is dawning, and what could be an informative experience, counter to predicted renewability theory and the costs will be higher than predicted of course. Renewability will be possible, but it will come at a cost, and it will not be small.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364032117313503
The development has some similarities to the gold mining saga, where the gold industry used to quote cash costs per ounce mined as a guide to investors and the foolhardy. Not mentioning corporate costs, admin, exploration costs, discovery or acquisition costs etc. It took years to drag the gold industry into the concept of an All In Sustaining Cost (AISC). But they got there. The energy industry will get there. A LITTLE misleading, take a little time?. Renewable costs are a lot like this. AISC please...
And then theres reliability and base load...
The supposedly informed and rational climate debate does makes me wonder. I can recall the weather forecasters in the US being continually subjected to law suits when they failed to predict the weather in the next 24 hours (extreme hail event etc)...the global warming scientists, making adjustments and being transfigured to global climate change (what happened to climate unchange?).
.....The weather predicting group, finding that the the earth wobbles on its axis on its journey around the hottest element in our solar system (sun), and that this has been the cause of major climate change for millions of years (read the development of 3,500 meters thickness of ice as near as Manhattan, and 4,000 + meters on N Europe). The episodic nature of the Earth's glacial and interglacial periods within the present Ice Age (the last couple of million years) have been caused primarily by cyclical changes in the Earth's circumnavigation of the Sun. Variations in the Earth's eccentricity, axial tilt, and precession comprise the three dominant cycles, collectively known as the Milankovitch Cycles ... new to some, but the concept is well developed in science...but of course most do not do science subjects, journalists, and pollies? well not really (they apparently have other skills? but they try hard)
http://www.indiana.edu/~geol105/images/gaia_chapter_4/milankovitch.htm
When people bother to educate themselves instead of behaving like lemmings .... we will make progress. When the true costs get revealed, like in South Australia, and these then pass onto tax payers, people will take note.
In the meantime our ignorance "guides us"...
(20min delay)