Health benefits of wind and solar offset all subsidies

[tay]

Estimated economic benefits of renewables in the US is $87 billion

Poor air quality is a tricky beast in public health, since it’s not obvious when someone dies as a result of air pollution. The World Health Organization estimates that air pollution leads to around 7 million premature deaths globally each year—people dying earlier than they otherwise would have from heightened incidence of cancer, heart disease, and respiratory disease.

In the US, air pollution is responsible for an estimated 200,000 premature deaths a year. Road transport (53,000 deaths) and electricity generation (52,000 deaths) are the two sectors contributing the lion's share of the problem. For perspective, the CDC reports that heart disease and cancer, the two biggest killers in the US, each claim around 600,000 lives each in a typical year. The third biggest killer, respiratory disease, is at 155,000.

Air pollution is contributing heavily to those totals, so renewable energy would undoubtedly reduce its contribution. And, since premature deaths cost money on a societal level, renewables would be providing some economic benefits as well

There are a lot of moving parts involved in trying to figure out the economic benefits of renewables. Impact studies have been done before, but they’ve been limited to certain regions or short time periods. This study ambitiously tries to estimate the benefits from emissions that were avoided because of the increase in wind and solar energy from 2007 through 2015, and to do so for the whole of the US. Millstein and colleagues looked at carbon emissions, as well as sulphur dioxides, nitrogen oxides, and particulate matter, all of which contribute to poor air quality.

more

https://arstechnica.com/science/201...rgy-have-saved-thousands-of-lives-since-2007/

 

[Jinentonix]

It would be interesting to know how many of those 200,000 US deaths occur in port cities.

 

[Bar Sinister]

Estimated economic benefits of renewables in the US is $87 billion

Poor air quality is a tricky beast in public health, since it’s not obvious when someone dies as a result of air pollution. The World Health Organization estimates that air pollution leads to around 7 million premature deaths globally each year—people dying earlier than they otherwise would have from heightened incidence of cancer, heart disease, and respiratory disease.

In the US, air pollution is responsible for an estimated 200,000 premature deaths a year. Road transport (53,000 deaths) and electricity generation (52,000 deaths) are the two sectors contributing the lion's share of the problem. For perspective, the CDC reports that heart disease and cancer, the two biggest killers in the US, each claim around 600,000 lives each in a typical year. The third biggest killer, respiratory disease, is at 155,000.

Air pollution is contributing heavily to those totals, so renewable energy would undoubtedly reduce its contribution. And, since premature deaths cost money on a societal level, renewables would be providing some economic benefits as well

There are a lot of moving parts involved in trying to figure out the economic benefits of renewables. Impact studies have been done before, but they’ve been limited to certain regions or short time periods. This study ambitiously tries to estimate the benefits from emissions that were avoided because of the increase in wind and solar energy from 2007 through 2015, and to do so for the whole of the US. Millstein and colleagues looked at carbon emissions, as well as sulphur dioxides, nitrogen oxides, and particulate matter, all of which contribute to poor air quality.

more

https://arstechnica.com/science/201...rgy-have-saved-thousands-of-lives-since-2007/

Hey, I was saving that information for the next dumbass who oppose clean energy. But well done. As I have pointed out green energy is all about living in a cleaner environment.

 

[Walter]

OP is fake news.

 

[Jinentonix]

Hey, I was saving that information for the next dumbass who oppose clean energy. But well done. As I have pointed out green energy is all about living in a cleaner environment.

Ontario wasn't made cleaner because of wind and solar, emissions and particulate have gone up since they closed down the last coal-fired plant.

Allow me to 'splain how this works. Wind and solar are inevitably married to natgas. Now of course we all know natgas has been used to provide flexibility for quite a while now but with wind and solar it's quite a bit different.
In Ontario, it's not just used for flexibility, it also used to help provide base-load generation and take some of the stress of the hydroelectric and nuclear supply. Attached to wind and solar, it now also has to make up for the vagaries of wind and sun. This is where it becomes analogous to driving a car.
When you drive an ICE powered vehicle, you get better gas mileage and thus generate less particulate and GHG emissions on the highway than in the city. That's because on the highway you are generally going at a constant speed with the occasional need to accelerate and decelerate. Whereas in the city you're in constant start-stop, speed up-slow down driving. Mating natgas to wind and solar is like driving your car in the city as opposed to the highway.

Then we have to look at base-load generation. This comes from nuclear, hydroelectric, natgas, coal and oil. If you don't have the geography for hydroelectric and you pee your pants every time you hear the word "nuclear", you're pretty much limited to fossil fuels. And no, importing your entire base load needs from elsewhere is a really bad idea.

So you decide to go with natgas. It'll have to provide base load generation, give flexibility and still have enough capacity to meet the vagaries of wind and sun.
Now again, explain to me how increasing methane emissions is supposed to help if we're trying to reduce GHGs and particulate.
Do you protest the idea of super-container ships bringing goods from the other side of the world that we used to make over here getting 3 meters to the gallon of bunker fuel? Britain estimates that at least 20,000 people living in British port cities die every year from ship stack pollution.

Look, I'm not arguing against eliminating coal and oil for power generation. I think it's a complete waste of oil considering all the other stuff we make with it. It's also a complete waste of good anthracite if we want to keep making steel. Yes, you can use other types of coal for power generation like the Germans are STILL doing with lignite, but without expensive scrubbing technology, you might as well burn peat. And even then...

So to sum up, wind and solar are worthless without some kind of base load generation. If you don't want to use fossil fuels then you either need the right geography or go nuclear.
If you have neither the right geography and don't want to go nuclear, you're ONLY other alternative is fossil fuels. Now a lot of people have somehow convinced themselves that because natgas is cleaner burning it also means fewer GHG emissions. Let's assume that between a gas plant and an oil plant generating the same amount of power, the gas plant generates fewer total emissions. You better hope it equates to 25 times fewer emissions because methane is 25X more potent of a GHG than CO2.

This is kind of what was being talked about in the thread about the left-wing taking a wrecking ball to stuff before thinking it through.

Just to give you an idea that it's not just the fossil fuel power plants causing the problem, it's also the industrialization of the developing and third world countries that's causing it.
Back before the mid '70s and stricter environmental regulations and enforcement, the INCO facility in Sudbury was an ecological nightmare. Besides all of the ground contamination, it generated 5% of North America's total air pollution making it North America's single largest source of air pollution.
That's what's happening in all the countries that we have shifted the bulk of our manufacturing to. The majority of them have little to no environmental regulations and those that do don't really enforce them, especially if the pay-offs are big enough.
So by shifting our manufacturing to the developing and third world, we've actually made the pollution and emissions problems worse. And yet for some reason, the politicians who keep pushing globalization feel the need to punish those of us who already got screwed by good paying jobs leaving in droves, with regressive carbon taxes that do nothing except provide cash for UN pet projects.

 

[taxslave]

Of course none of the fossil fuel required to make solar panels and windmills would be taken into account. Or the miles of wire required to hook them all together.

 

[Jinentonix]

Of course none of the fossil fuel required to make solar panels and windmills would be taken into account. Or the miles of wire required to hook them all together.

I've tried, they won't listen. The 250 tonnes of a 2MW wind turbines consists of 200 tonnes of steel. Can't make steel without coal. Just to keep pace with annual increasing demand they would have to build something like 350,000 2MW wind turbines every single year. That doesn't include replacing the existing fossil fuel power generation. Every single one of those nacelles contains up to 900L of oil and it ain't vegetable oil. Those nacelles also have a tendency to leak.
Plus you need to transport the massive components to the build site and that ain't gonna get done with electric trucks.

And despite all the yuks and laughs from the progtards about the failed clean-coal power attempt in the US, if the US wants to stay in the green energy game it's still going to need a healthy coal industry.

 

[Tecumsehsbones]

Wind and solar are, currently, just about at break-even. Not long ago they were a net loss in resources consumed v. energy produced.

Of course, the railroads and commercial aviation were in the same boat, and both needed massive subsidies to get rolling.

 

[captain morgan]

Wind and solar are, currently, just about at break-even. Not long ago they were a net loss in resources consumed v. energy produced.

Of course, the railroads and commercial aviation were in the same boat, and both needed massive subsidies to get rolling.

The cap costs associated with wind and solar don't include the infrastructure.

Rail and aerospace both needed the infrastructure... Makes a huge difference when comparing these

 

[Bar Sinister]

Ontario wasn't made cleaner because of wind and solar, emissions and particulate have gone up since they closed down the last coal-fired plant.

Allow me to 'splain how this works. Wind and solar are inevitably married to natgas. Now of course we all know natgas has been used to provide flexibility for quite a while now but with wind and solar it's quite a bit different.
In Ontario, it's not just used for flexibility, it also used to help provide base-load generation and take some of the stress of the hydroelectric and nuclear supply. Attached to wind and solar, it now also has to make up for the vagaries of wind and sun. This is where it becomes analogous to driving a car.
When you drive an ICE powered vehicle, you get better gas mileage and thus generate less particulate and GHG emissions on the highway than in the city. That's because on the highway you are generally going at a constant speed with the occasional need to accelerate and decelerate. Whereas in the city you're in constant start-stop, speed up-slow down driving. Mating natgas to wind and solar is like driving your car in the city as opposed to the highway.

Then we have to look at base-load generation. This comes from nuclear, hydroelectric, natgas, coal and oil. If you don't have the geography for hydroelectric and you pee your pants every time you hear the word "nuclear", you're pretty much limited to fossil fuels. And no, importing your entire base load needs from elsewhere is a really bad idea.

So you decide to go with natgas. It'll have to provide base load generation, give flexibility and still have enough capacity to meet the vagaries of wind and sun.
Now again, explain to me how increasing methane emissions is supposed to help if we're trying to reduce GHGs and particulate.
Do you protest the idea of super-container ships bringing goods from the other side of the world that we used to make over here getting 3 meters to the gallon of bunker fuel? Britain estimates that at least 20,000 people living in British port cities die every year from ship stack pollution.

Look, I'm not arguing against eliminating coal and oil for power generation. I think it's a complete waste of oil considering all the other stuff we make with it. It's also a complete waste of good anthracite if we want to keep making steel. Yes, you can use other types of coal for power generation like the Germans are STILL doing with lignite, but without expensive scrubbing technology, you might as well burn peat. And even then...

So to sum up, wind and solar are worthless without some kind of base load generation. If you don't want to use fossil fuels then you either need the right geography or go nuclear.
If you have neither the right geography and don't want to go nuclear, you're ONLY other alternative is fossil fuels. Now a lot of people have somehow convinced themselves that because natgas is cleaner burning it also means fewer GHG emissions. Let's assume that between a gas plant and an oil plant generating the same amount of power, the gas plant generates fewer total emissions. You better hope it equates to 25 times fewer emissions because methane is 25X more potent of a GHG than CO2.

This is kind of what was being talked about in the thread about the left-wing taking a wrecking ball to stuff before thinking it through.

Just to give you an idea that it's not just the fossil fuel power plants causing the problem, it's also the industrialization of the developing and third world countries that's causing it.
Back before the mid '70s and stricter environmental regulations and enforcement, the INCO facility in Sudbury was an ecological nightmare. Besides all of the ground contamination, it generated 5% of North America's total air pollution making it North America's single largest source of air pollution.
That's what's happening in all the countries that we have shifted the bulk of our manufacturing to. The majority of them have little to no environmental regulations and those that do don't really enforce them, especially if the pay-offs are big enough.
So by shifting our manufacturing to the developing and third world, we've actually made the pollution and emissions problems worse. And yet for some reason, the politicians who keep pushing globalization feel the need to punish those of us who already got screwed by good paying jobs leaving in droves, with regressive carbon taxes that do nothing except provide cash for UN pet projects.

I have found several major flaws with your post. The first is that is burning natural gas does not create more methane it eliminates it. Since you are a supporter of fossil fuels I would think that you would be familiar with the chemical process of combustion.

Number two, criticizing solar and wind for requiring energy to create their components is a little two-faced considering the amount of energy expended in the extraction of fossil fuels.

Three - the base load you require can be created by wind or solar in two ways. The first is simply to overbuild the number of wind generators needed. The wind is always blowing somewhere and that establishes a permanent base load. However, there is a more effective way than overbuilding and that is to store energy in massive batteries. This has already been tried on a small scale with both wind and solar and it has been found to work quite well. In fact it works so well, that coal-fired power plants use it as well. Given the fact that current batteries are vastly more efficient than batteries of only two decades ago and that research is well under way in the development of even better batteries, that is probably the way to go.

And the fact that the developing world is creating more pollution is simply not relevant. That is going to happen regardless of the energy source used, so we may as well pioneer cleaner energy sources that developing nations can use as well.

Finally, the movement of industry to developing nations was a well known phenomenon long before global warming became an issue. Malaysia, for example was the leading producer of computer chips as far back as the 1980s. Corporate profits have always been the main reason for shifting production to other nations and they continues to be.

 

[Cliffy]

'The Mother of All Risks': Insurance Giants Call on G20 to Stop Bankrolling Fossil Fuels

Multinational firms managing $1.2tn in assets declare subsidies for coal, oil, and gas 'simply unsustainable'

Warning that climate change amounts to the "mother of all risks," three of the world's biggest insurance companies this week are demanding that G20 countries stop bankrolling the fossil fuels industry.
Multi-national insurance giants Aviva, Aegon, and Amlin, which together manage $1.2tn in assets, released a statement Tuesday calling on the leaders of the world's biggest economies to commit to ending coal, oil, and gas subsidies within four years.
"Climate change in particular represents the mother of all risks—to business and to society as a whole. And that risk is magnified by the way in which fossil fuel subsidies distort the energy market," said Aviva CEO Mark Wilson. "These subsidies are simply unsustainable."
According to a recent report by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), fossil fuel companies receive an estimated $5.3tn a year in global subsidies—a figure that included, as the IMF put it, the "real costs" associated with damage to the environment and human health that are foisted on populations but not paid by polluters.
Tuesday's declaration is being issued as leaders prepare to convene for the 11th G20 summit, which is being held in Hangzhou, China on September 4-5 under the theme: "Toward an Innovative, Invigorated, Interconnected, and Inclusive World Economy."
"We're calling on governments to kick away these carbon crutches, reveal the true impact to society of fossil fuels and take into account the price we will pay in the future for relying on them," Wilson added.
Indeed, insurance companies are increasingly shouldering many of the costs associated with a warming planet, whether it be from extreme weather damage or reimbursing farmers for lost crops.


www.commondreams.org/news/2016/08/2...&utm_medium=facebook&utm_source=socialnetwork