
Scotland to use 100% renewables on time to host 2020 climate summit - solarengineer
https://reneweconomy.com.au/scotland-to-reach-100-renewables-in-time-to-host-2020-climate-summit-60854
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mcjiggerlog
This is somewhat misleading - it appears to be offsetting energy exported when
there's particularly good conditions for renewables against times when there's
not. In reality they are still both burning some fossil fuels and importing
energy from countries that are burning fossil fuels. What really should matter
is the carbon intensity of both electricity production and consumption.

In terms of hard numbers for Scotland, their carbon intensity is 59 gCO2/KWh
([https://www.carbonintensity.org.uk/](https://www.carbonintensity.org.uk/)),
which is actually pretty great. You can compare against other countries here -
[https://www.electricitymap.org](https://www.electricitymap.org). Here's the
current breakdown of their electricity production:

Wind: 36.5%

Nuclear: 31.1%

Hydro: 16.7%

Gas: 13.5%

Biomass: 1.4%

So right now they are 52.2% renewable energy. Presuming they are running
renewables to capacity, this low carbon intensity figure is actually being
kept low due to the fact they are sourcing a third of their load from nuclear.
Should the Scottish government phase out nuclear as they are currently
planning ([https://www.gov.scot/policies/nuclear-
energy/](https://www.gov.scot/policies/nuclear-energy/)), then we can expect
this carbon intensity to rise as gas is used to pick up the base load when
conditions for renewables aren't favourable.

~~~
gtk40
I can't figure out which numbers you added to get 52.2% renewable. I would say
wind, hydro, and biomass are renewable, with the possible addition of nuclear.
Even just wind and hydro add up to (slightly) more.

~~~
mcjiggerlog
It was a typo, it was 53.2% for wind + hydro. Biomass I refuse to count as it
is absolutely awful for the environment. Nuclear is not technically renewable
either.

Regardless, I agree that getting fixated on the "renewable" label is not
particularly productive. What matters is "zero-carbon".

~~~
ZeroGravitas
Biomass can cover a range of technologies, some of which are greener than
others e.g. if you capture methane from landfills or anaerobic digestion of
organic waste then the absolute best thing to do would be to turn it into
chemical feedstocks, but burning it for energy is definitely better than just
letting it rot and escape into the atmosphere while also burning using fossil
methane gas

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spodek
Excellent resource on this topic: _Sustainability Without the Hot Air_ by
David MacKay, a Caltech-trained Oxford physics professor. Free download:
[http://www.withouthotair.com/Contents.html](http://www.withouthotair.com/Contents.html).

In the article on Scotland, however, not one word on the most safe,
economical, immediately available, and effective technique: reducing
consumption. Trying to reach sustainability without lowering consumption feels
like trying to make a company profitable without considering lowering costs. I
haven't visited Scotland, but most Americans could reduce their energy
consumption 75% or more purely improving their lives before any challenging
decisions.

\---

A short description by MacKay of his book:

"Sustainable Energy - without the hot air" presents the numbers that are
needed to answer these questions:

\- How huge are Britain's renewable resources, compared with our current
energy consumption?

\- How big do renewable energy facilities have to be, to make a significant
contribution?

\- How big would our energy consumption be if we adopted strong efficiency
measures?

\- Which efficiency measures offer big savings, and which offer only 5 or 10%?

\- Do new much-hyped technologies such as hydrogen or electric cars reduce
energy consumption, or do they actually make our energy problem worse?

Wherever possible, I answer these questions from first principles.

~~~
atoav
While I wholeheartedly agree with the sentiment of reducing energy consumption
where it can be done I don't see why we shouldn't do both?

And ofc there is always the danger of things like electric vehicles etc.
becoming an case of indulgence: people paying to atone their sins. Consumption
and shiny new things alone won't solve the climate emergency.

For the UK the first thing that comes to my mind when thinking about
inefficency is heating. I grew up in the alps and we usually have quite well
insulated houses (incentivized by government). Using solar and heat exchangers
is increasingly common etc.

When I had been to England first, I was shocked at the building standards with
these thin walls that barely keep the heat inside. On top they seem to heat a
lot with electricity — something which you only would do in an emergency in
the alps.

If you can quickly save energy by modernizing heating and insulation go for it
and expand renewables as well.

~~~
lol768
>On top they seem to heat a lot with electricity — something which you only
would do in an emergency in the alps.

How else would you propose heating a property in England in the winter?

~~~
iso947
Gas, which in my experience is far more prevalent in the UK than electric
heating.

~~~
lol768
Not in new properties. I've not had gas heating in a property in the last four
years or so. Natural gas is non-renewable, too.

~~~
iso947
Bought my new property in 2016, it’s GCH. Only comes on in deep winter, and
that’s with a thermostat at 21C 24/7

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viburnum
This is great news but I wish people would start talking about total energy
and not just electric generation. They’re still using a ton of gas and oil for
heating and transportation. It would be good to be honest about this.

~~~
hinkley
I was kinda shocked to learn that long-haul natural gas pipelines are more
efficient than long-haul power lines. They also tend not to fail during ice
storms.

The Greater Seattle Area has had whole areas without power for days or weeks
within recent memory. It's not just an issue for old or rural areas.

Putting all of your eggs into the electricity basket can get people killed. We
should work on addressing these problems (or accepting energy diversity)
sooner rather than later.

~~~
qqqwerty
I am not quite sure I understand your point. Renewable electricity has the
potential to be the most resilient form of energy we have ever had. You can
already generate enough electricity for a typical home by putting solar panels
on the roof. The main issue is storage but that is mostly an issue of cost not
technology. For about 10-15k you can get enough storage to get you through a
multi-day outage. And for double that you could probably go off-grid entirely.

~~~
jakehop
The projected battery production in 2080 will only cover about 0,01% of
Europe’s electricity demand. Batteries are not scalable and hydroelectric dams
have their own geographic requirements which can’t be met in flat countries
like The Netherlands or Denmark.

~~~
ben_w
That’s a strange projection.

Given that you only need to store energy for about a day[0] and that the
batteries last at least three years when you use them like this, world battery
production is already 1% of the storage requirements for worldwide 100%
renewable.

One forecast I’ve seen estimates that battery production will go up by a
factor of four by by 2028.

[0] longer periods with no wind and no sun are dealt with more cost-
efficiently with long distance power lines than with storage.

------
Camas
>Scotland [...] has a goal to source the equivalent of 100% of its electricity
demand from renewable energy sources by the end of this year.

What does 'equivalent' mean in this sentence?

~~~
est31
Scotland does not have an independent grid. There is an EU wide market to
trade electric energy between countries. Some days they export elecric energy,
other days they import it. Even if 100% of their local production is
renewable, the energy they import is probably (partly) not. So I guess the
'equivalent' means that summed up over the entire year, they export at least
the same amount of energy that they import.

You can check this site for the present state (it doesn't show scotland
though): [https://www.electricitymap.org/](https://www.electricitymap.org/)

~~~
toomuchtodo
Might change with Brexit (re independent grid).

~~~
Rexxar
They have nothing to win to do this.

~~~
toomuchtodo
I’m not arguing the rationality, only the possible outcome.

Texas has its own grid (ERCOT) because Texas. Humans are quirky.

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nikodunk
Speaking of selling/buying energy equivalents, I’ve recently become addicted
to great real-time data feeds like [https://caiso.com](https://caiso.com) for
California’s grid and Chrome/Firefox plugins to watch the data like
[https://twitter.com/EnergyLollipop/status/122120582076489728...](https://twitter.com/EnergyLollipop/status/1221205820764897281?s=20)

~~~
toomuchtodo
Check out
[https://www.electricitymap.org/?page=map&solar=false&remote=...](https://www.electricitymap.org/?page=map&solar=false&remote=true&wind=false)

It scrapes any public grid/ISO operator’s site for live and historical
electrical generation mix data.

~~~
nikodunk
Wow!! Hadn’t heard about it. Tmorow is also great for personal carbon tracking
- trying them out as we speak.

~~~
toomuchtodo
They are great folks, hope you enjoy their products!

ElectricityMap is open source; please consider politely poking grid operators
not yet providing data for grayed out areas so that the map fills out!

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Ididntdothis
When I was there I thought to myself that their wind could probably power the
whole world. I have never been to a place with that much wind.

~~~
hinkley
Did you see that Discovery Channel show where they documented the building of
a giant oil platform for oil extraction in the North Sea? All of the things
(and forces) they had to deal with... wow.

The North Sea has a -lot- of energy in it, and climate change will probably
accentuate that.

~~~
dasanman
Yeah this is also why the west coast of Denmark is full of wind mills

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littlestymaar
> has a goal to source the _equivalent_ of 100% of its electricity demand from
> renewable energy sources by the end of this year.

> production _outstripping_ demand on 20 out of 30 days and over the whole
> month providing _109 per cent_ of electricity demand.

Emphasis mine. This is a great summary of what really happens if you attempt
to go full renewable on wind power: you don't control the supply so you need a
foreign market to buy your excess production on windy days and to provide
power the other days. And no, battery isn't really an option because you can
have (and usually have, in anticyclonic conditions) weeks with low wind, and
you won't get enough batteries to supply your country for one or more weeks.
(I did a calculation for France bases on real power data 2 years ago, and it
needed about 4 Tesla Model S battery per inhabitant).

~~~
filmor
Wind turbines are trivial to downregulate. The foreign market just allows you
to shift the strike price for downregulation, making the generation in total
more cost-efficient.

~~~
littlestymaar
Technically you can, but not financially: the advertised energy cost of wind
power relies on the fact that turbines produce as much as they can, and in
most European countries there has been contracts between windfarms owners and
governments to guarantee a buying price, decorelated from the spot market
price.

~~~
thawaway1837
It may be marketed that way in press releases, etc (although I don’t even
think that’s true).

But I bet you anything that the people investing in these projects, and the
companies pricing their power and betting their future in them, are not doing
it on the basis of selling every unit of energy generated.

~~~
littlestymaar
> But I bet you anything that the people investing in these projects, and the
> companies pricing their power and betting their future in them, are not
> doing it on the basis of selling every unit of energy generated.

Wind power has been subsidized a lot in Europe during the past decade, so for
at least 80% of the projects, not only the investors cared about selling every
unit being generated, but they even relied on them being sold at 3 times the
market price!

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blazespin
Really great of Scotland. Clearly the adults in the room. Unfortunately, the
room is filled with 99.9% children and likely the only way to go at this point
is to start seriously looking at carbon capture and storage. Sad, but time to
face facts. The children are children and no amount of complaining has or will
change that fact.

Well, either that or find ways to enjoy a much warmer earth.

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mistrial9
huge achievement -- no equivocation -- congrats

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anonsivalley652
Scotland is also coal power-free.

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mmhsieh
the country that invented haggis is a natural leader in sustainable
development

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goatinaboat
But aren’t 10s of 1000 of people flying in from all over the world for this
“summit”?

Let’s talk about renewables for powering videoconferencing, otherwise this is
just a band aid.

~~~
thawaway1837
I’m pretty sure a few percentage decrease in Scotland’s fossil fuel usage will
make up for all those flights in a few weeks, never mind all the other
countries that may be driven to do the same based on the outcome of the
summit.

