Study shows dams not worth the cost

A brisk building boom of hydropower mega-dams is underway from China to Brazil. Whether benefits of new dams will outweigh costs remains unresolved despite contentious debates. We investigate this question with the “outside view” or “reference class forecasting” based on literature on decision-making under uncertainty in psychology. We find overwhelming evidence that budgets are systematically biased below actual costs of large hydropower dams — excluding inflation, substantial debt servicing, environmental, and social costs. Using the largest and most reliable reference data of its kind and multilevel statistical techniques applied to large dams for the first time, we were successful in fitting parsimonious models to predict cost and schedule overruns. The outside view suggests that in most countries large hydropower dams will be too costly in absolute terms and take too long to build to deliver a positive risk-adjusted return unless suitable risk management measures outlined in this paper can be affordably provided. Policymakers, particularly in developing countries, are advised to prefer agile energy alternatives that can be built over shorter time horizons to energy megaprojects.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2406852 

Solar panels an ecological nightmare

Total e-waste—including computers, televisions, and mobile phones—is around 45 million metric tons annually. 

...By comparison, PV-waste in 2050 will be twice that figure.

...At the same time, demand for everything from sand to rare and precious metals continues to rise. While supplying only about 1 percent of global electricity, photovoltaics already relies on 40 percent of the global tellurium supply, 15 percent of the silver supply, a large portion of semiconductor quality quartz supply, and smaller but important segments of the indium, zinc, tin, and gallium supplies. Closing the loop on these metals and embracing circular economy concepts will be critical to the industry’s future.

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/the-downside-of-solar-energy/? 

Wind turbines are neither clean nor green, and they provide zero global energy

Here’s a quiz; no conferring. To the nearest whole number, what percentage of the world’s energy consumption was supplied by wind power in 2014, the last year for which there are reliable figures? Was it 20 per cent, 10 per cent or 5 per cent? None of the above: it was 0 per cent. That is to say, to the nearest whole number, there is still no wind power on Earth.

https://www.spectator.co.uk/2017/05/wind-turbines-are-neither-clean-nor-green-and-they-provide-zero-global-energy/

Electric cars will help destroy the oceans

The future of electric cars may depend on mining critically important metals on the ocean floor.
That's the view of the engineer leading a major European investigation into new sources of key elements.
Demand is soaring for the metal cobalt - an essential ingredient in batteries and abundant in rocks on the seabed.
Laurens de Jonge, who's running the EU project, says the transition to electric cars means "we need those resources".

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-49759626

High cost of recycling wind turbines

While the turbines' steel and concrete can be disposed of without greater problems, the UBA found that the rotor blades will pose particular problems as the materials they are made of are difficult to separate properly. By 2024, about 70,000 tonnes of old blades could pile up annually in Germany alone. Moreover, the reserves set aside by operators could fall short of covering the financial needs by hundreds of millions of euros by 2038, which is why the UBA recommends reviewing the reserves' calculation base and have them reviewed by independent experts on a regular basis.

https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/mass-dismantling-old-wind-turbines-could-overburden-germanys-recycling-capacities? 

EROEI -- looking at the true energy cost of using #renewables

If there is any plan to cease using fossil fuels, all of these backup electricity providers, including nuclear, will disappear. (Nuclear also depends on fossil fuels.) Renewables will need to stand on their own. This is when the intermittency problem will become overwhelming. Fossil fuels can be stored relatively inexpensively; electricity storage costs are huge. They include both the cost of the storage system and the loss of energy that takes place when storage is used.

https://ourfiniteworld.com/2019/10/24/how-renewable-energy-models-can-produce-misleading-indications/ 

Exploited lithium miners fighting back

Indigenous communities of the Council of Atacama Peoples block world's no.2 producer of lithium SQM in #Chile. Ending extractivism in IPs' territories means fighting for free public transport & active travel for all rather than electric cars for the few. https://t.co/LBZQJzz2xJ

— Tom Younger (@tomayounger) October 27, 2019