Mining’s old guard needs strong medicine
A new report details subpar investor returns in the mining industry over the last decade, particularly big cap diversified companies which have not adapted to new realities.
A hurricane-strength storm that swept through Sweden this week generated record wind power that topped at 5.7 million kWh during single hour, which is 0.5 million more than the previous record, says energy company Bixia (news release in Swedish).
Over the past three days wind power accounted for 26 percent of total electricity consumption, almost as much as six nuclear power plants, says Anders Enqvist, Director of Risk Management at Bixia.
Sweden currently has three nuclear plants with ten nuclear reactors in commercial operation, making it the only country in the world that has more than one reactor per million inhabitants, says the Swedish Institute.
In 2015 Sweden added 200 more wind turbines. More wind blows in Sweden during the winter.
13 Comments
Mike Failla
How nice to hear that it blows in sweden.
Anopheles
So tell us, what about the other 70% of the year when the wind turbines produce zero electricity?
Yes, that’s the typical capacity factor for wind. Onshore is lower, around 75% zero production per year and offshore is better, at only 65% to 70% zero production per year.
LAMB
Always thought the SWEDES were “full-of-wind” !!!
klgmac
Expensive electricity generated by alternative sources is already costing people their jobs and forcing people into energy poverty. It is truly a crime against humanity.
WhatTheFlux
Gee whiz… Three days of outstanding production…
Wind and sunshine are free. But turning them into a steady flow of rock-solid reliable power, day in and day out, rain or shine, for decades, is incredibly expensive.
Go nuclear or go extinct.
chuck428
So as long as we have hurricane force winds all the time we’ll have this whole climate change thing solved. These renewable energy articles are getting ridiculous. “Las Vegas runs entirely on renewable energy!” (not even sorta close to true), “Solar now the cheapest energy source in 2016″ (maybe in the Atacama desert the driest most cloudless place on Earth, but all parts of the Earth are exactly the same right?). Now this, ” Really high winds in sweden equal 6 nuclear power plants!”. Yeah and my car has over a thousand horsepower when it’s getting rammed from behind by a semi truck, but ya know I kind of need consistent controllable power the other 99.999% of the time that’s not happening.
TimS
In the future, wind/solar will be remembered just as an expensive scam to lure taxpayers to waste their money.
Intermittent renewable is viable only when it includes coal and/or natural gas/fracking as backup.
“Scam of the Century” = “Intermittent Renewables”
Sean Mcgee
Looks like the commenter’s here have the wind up em!! LOL bwhen the wind stops blowing they can tap into Norways Hydro electric energy.. Or follow the wind around Europe because of a great integrated Grid system that the USA doesnt have LOL how 20th Century like yer energy production!! ANd Storage? Germany Denmark and Nrway, of course can store huge rainfall in their hydro systems for use as energy and water disrubution during droughts.. Hows that California ? Time to manage the Rockies a bit better EH? OOPs you dont have a decent Energy grid system LOL I nearly forgot.. Better stick to that 20th Century Tech imo HaHaHa Oh my sides are splitting .. Fracking heck!! time to put the Kettle on with some 2 Cheap 2 meter Hydro 🙂 Happy New Year (this is the 21 st century btw LOL)
Be
Nuclear is a dead end. Nuclear’s short of fuel ten years IAEA(Pub1104_scr.pdf ) for 2% world’s energy for 50 years. Costs 4 times available solar and wind BEFORE GOV BREAKS Lazard(energy version 9), In the 12 years it takes to install, solar and wind available for 16 times less and already producing more energy than the world needs. Nuclear power plant per year: 27 tons spent fuel rod waste. deadly for a million years, 30 billion dollars dry casks for 100,000 years, 2M tons of toxic mining wastes.
Solar pv rooftops on building, parking lots and roads. Plus offshore wind, electric vehicles, efficiency, hydro and waste to fuels for backup, long range and chemicals is all the energy and hydrocarbons we will ever need, safer, cleaner, cheaper and forever.
Solar will provide about 60% total energy without storage We already use most of our energy during the day. Wind 20% . Fuels from waste remaining 20%, plus chemicals and long haul. Some hydro.
Sweden, is not the USA, but wind is as cheap, and solar panels are so cheap that even the lousy sunlight still is enough to make it worthwhile. Panels are a quarter or a third of the total installed cost of solar pv. Even if you doubled the number of panels, the cost would only go up 25%.
TimS
Antinuclear(pro-fossil fuels) fearmongering tactics:
First scare them, and then sell them the solution: intermittent/unreliable bird-choppers/landscape-destroyers backed up by coal and/or natural gas/fracking (without inform the taxpayers that cost-effective batteries/energy storage does not exist or is prohibitively expensive), tell them all that is cheap(almost for free) if heavily subsided with taxpayers’ hard-earned money, also obviously do not inform the public that it causes more fatalities and ecological impacts per unit of energy produced than carbon-free nuclear power.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/69a890443aff5eb8a5056315cab4023addf90c6050e76df7cff99ca851d0a1f1.jpg?w=800&h=244
“Coal and gas are far more harmful than nuclear power”
“Although natural gas burning emits less fatal pollutants and GHGs than coal burning, it is far deadlier than nuclear power, causing about 40 times more deaths per unit electric energy produced”
http://climate.nasa.gov/news/903/coal-and-gas-are-far-more-harmful-than-nuclear-power/
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a1c47d62e86d5eff00dcea3a40d4573282192a36011216a57d501fe8211383b7.jpg
“How fear of nuclear power is hurting the environment” – Michael Shellenberger (Environmentalist)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZXUR4z2P9w
“How Fear of Nuclear Ends”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mI6IzPCmIW8
Be
Notice TIMS has new spam for us all. Nuclear is expensive, and short of fuel. It’s deadly, and the dirtiest energy on earth.
TimS
Notice how Brian is ever claiming that wind/solar is cheap, almost for free, and it is replacing fossil fuels everywhere, but even so the so-called environmentalists have lobbied to shut down reliable (perfectly safe) carbon-free nuclear power plants to be replaced mostly by coal and/or natural gas/fracking,
which rise a big question:
How it is possible to take “Global Warming” seriously? If the so-called environmentalists are replacing reliable sources of carbon-free energy by intermittent renewables (bird-choppers/landscape-destroyers) backed up by fossil fuels?
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C1wV-pXXAAAj7q4.jpg
Be
60% of GOP voters want more solar and wind and they are 5 times more likely to install solar in CA, and twice in the rest of the country. We go to war for fossils and will for uranium soon. How reliable is that?