The only places in the world that have significantly reduced the dependence of their grids on carbon based energy are either places like Ontario, Norway and the PNW that have large reserves of hydro power - in Ontario's case it also has the worlds largest nuclear power station or you go mostly nuclear like France did in the 1970's. You have other countries like Sweden, Finland and Switzerland that also have a fair sized nuclear industry. Denmark I believe uses a lot of wind power but its a small flat country in an exposed coastal area. There are only 5 million people living in Denmark and the countries main industry is agriculture. Most of the country side in Denmark smells like pig shit.
One thing somewhere like the UK or Japan might be able to exploit is tidal power. Unlike the wind you get a tide twice a day. I'm surprised so much money has been put into wind and not into tidal. Oddly enough in the UK we have a river estuary that has one of the largest tidal ranges of anywhere in the world and no one has ever made an effort to look into that either. Just wind turbines and solar panels. Our nuclear industry is absolutely moribund. We had the worlds first commercial generating station and we produced two of our own reactor designs - MAGNOX and AGR which ran safely for decades and now our government have been in bed with the Chinese for their nuclear technology to build us a new station which may never be finished at the rate its going.
Seeing all this going on lead me to conclude its nothing to do with climate. It seems to be just a scam to increase the scarcity of energy and make certain corrupt people a return on their investments.
In the late 2000's our government banned the old fashioned incandescent light bulbs because they didn't meet energy efficiency standards and pushed compact florescents instead. Problem was when the Chinese got in on it they flooded our market with low quality CFL's most of which failed after a few years. The whole exercise was probably carbon negative because more resources had to be put into making these CFL's than the energy they saved. We had a few CFL's in our house back in the 90's. My dad being an electrician got a deal on them from a wholesaler. They cost about 20 pounds each but they lasted for 15+ years because they were well made and probably actually saved money. Then LED's went mainstream and made the whole thing a waste of time.
Hydro aren't good for the environment. They completely fuck up natural water systems. That river, fjord, spawning salmon in Norway, faster causing glacier melt. Terrible for the environment. They aren't clean. They emit. Huge run off to the waterways.
Burning coal at a plant in a forest causes what? Best thing for it. Obviously not if you fell that forest replacing it with more coal burners.
Denmark has the most expensive energy on the planet per watt. So green. Maybe not today after Ukraine. But it is a fallacy that renewable's lessen the price. Denmark also imports trash to incinerate to convert into energy, and gas. The great big renewable con. Literally deforestation of the Amazon rainforest, buses in Germany and the UK running off biofuel using sugar cane and soy coming from Brazil. They exhausted their fat friers. Now they just emit far worse than diesel.
The only places in the world that have significantly reduced the dependence of their grids on carbon based energy are either places like Ontario, Norway and the PNW that have large reserves of hydro power - in Ontario's case it also has the worlds largest nuclear power station or you go mostly nuclear like France did in the 1970's. You have other countries like Sweden, Finland and Switzerland that also have a fair sized nuclear industry. Denmark I believe uses a lot of wind power but its a small flat country in an exposed coastal area. There are only 5 million people living in Denmark and the countries main industry is agriculture. Most of the country side in Denmark smells like pig shit.
One thing somewhere like the UK or Japan might be able to exploit is tidal power. Unlike the wind you get a tide twice a day. I'm surprised so much money has been put into wind and not into tidal. Oddly enough in the UK we have a river estuary that has one of the largest tidal ranges of anywhere in the world and no one has ever made an effort to look into that either. Just wind turbines and solar panels. Our nuclear industry is absolutely moribund. We had the worlds first commercial generating station and we produced two of our own reactor designs - MAGNOX and AGR which ran safely for decades and now our government have been in bed with the Chinese for their nuclear technology to build us a new station which may never be finished at the rate its going.
Seeing all this going on lead me to conclude its nothing to do with climate. It seems to be just a scam to increase the scarcity of energy and make certain corrupt people a return on their investments.
In the late 2000's our government banned the old fashioned incandescent light bulbs because they didn't meet energy efficiency standards and pushed compact florescents instead. Problem was when the Chinese got in on it they flooded our market with low quality CFL's most of which failed after a few years. The whole exercise was probably carbon negative because more resources had to be put into making these CFL's than the energy they saved. We had a few CFL's in our house back in the 90's. My dad being an electrician got a deal on them from a wholesaler. They cost about 20 pounds each but they lasted for 15+ years because they were well made and probably actually saved money. Then LED's went mainstream and made the whole thing a waste of time.
Hydro aren't good for the environment. They completely fuck up natural water systems. That river, fjord, spawning salmon in Norway, faster causing glacier melt. Terrible for the environment. They aren't clean. They emit. Huge run off to the waterways.
Burning coal at a plant in a forest causes what? Best thing for it. Obviously not if you fell that forest replacing it with more coal burners.
Denmark has the most expensive energy on the planet per watt. So green. Maybe not today after Ukraine. But it is a fallacy that renewable's lessen the price. Denmark also imports trash to incinerate to convert into energy, and gas. The great big renewable con. Literally deforestation of the Amazon rainforest, buses in Germany and the UK running off biofuel using sugar cane and soy coming from Brazil. They exhausted their fat friers. Now they just emit far worse than diesel.