This month’s open thread on climate topics. Try to be constructive!
Reader Interactions
263 Responses to "Unforced Variations: Sep 2024"
Bruce Steelesays
The US uses about fifty percent of its soy crop for biodiesel, and produces 1.7 billion gallons of bio.
The US fleet consumes about 35 billion gallons of diesel.
So if we used our entire soy crop for biodiesel we would still need over thirty billion gallons of diesel to keep everything running.
Electrics don’t offer a via alternative anytime soon.
Nothing else to say except explore low tech alternatives. But nobody gives a shit.
Climate change will without doubt cause trouble in the longer term horizon. The downturn in world oil production will both moderate the climate problems and the population issues simultaneously.
Not much else to say.
Susan Andersonsays
Our problems are bigger (much much) and sooner (years/decades) than “longer term horizon”.
If only the vast majority of modern society ‘gave a shit’ one place things could be done immediately would be to cut out waste (most people too busy to notice how bad it’s getting, while toxics of all kinds (social as well as physical) multiply). That would be a good low-tech start. Our social interactions have been taken over by costly illusion.
Secular Animistsays
Bruce Steele wrote: “Electrics don’t offer a via alternative anytime soon.”
Nonsense. Electric vehicles are a viable alternative now. They will completely replace fossil fueled passenger vehicles within years, not decades. They already have a total lifetime cost of ownership lower than comparable fossil fueled cars and soon the up-front sticker price will be lower as well. Charging to full charge will take minutes, and a full charge will be good for 300 miles or more. Chargers will be MORE ubiquitous than gas stations are now.
Geoff Miellsays
Secular Animist: – “Nonsense. Electric vehicles are a viable alternative now. They will completely replace fossil fueled passenger vehicles within years, not decades.”
Nonsense. You appear to ignore the inconvenient data of legacy ICEVs and how much time would be required to replace/displace them all with EVs. The evidence/data indicates on the current trajectory it would require decades, NOT years.
How many cars are there in the world?
In 2024, the number of cars in the world has grown to 1.475 billion – that’s one car for every 5.5 humans, or 182 per 1000 humans.
What are the number of cars sold in the world by type?
Year _ _ _ _ Non electric _ _ EV + plug-in hybrid _ _ total
2020: _ _ _ _ 67.97 million _ _ _ 2.98 million _ _ _ _ 70.95 million
2021: _ _ _ _ 67.56 million _ _ _ 6.60 million _ _ _ _ 74.16 million
2022: _ _ _ _ 62.66 million _ _ _10.20 million _ _ _ _72.86 million
2023: _ _ _ _ 62.87 million _ _ _ 13.80 million _ _ _ _76.67 million
But do we/humanity have decades to reduce our dependency on petroleum oil?
US petroleum geologist Art Berman was in conversation with Johan Landgren in the YouTube video titled Arthur Berman: The Perfect Energy Storm – Peak Cheap Oil and Natural Gas is here, published 16 Feb 2024, duration 0:55:07. On when the US shale oil & gas decline is likely, Art Berman said:
“I’m quite confident that before this decade is over we’re going to see some serious supply concerns by markets for both oil and natural gas, and it would not surprise me if that happened in a year or two, ah, as opposed to, you know, the five or six years that we have remaining in this decade.” https://youtu.be/rv85LTMO8TQ?t=2233
It seems we won’t need to wait long to see whether Art Berman’s expectations are correct, or not.
Compliciussays
to Geoff Miell
I know that, But providing science based accurate credible data and evidence here is waste of time. See Killian – 17 years of time wasting. They are allergic to data and science logic and even maths. Emotionally driven self-deluded hopism entrenched with fraudulent claims like SA’s above and the RE myths by Sylvia is all they have left now.
Compliciussays
to Secular Animist – Nonsense. Electric vehicles are a viable alternative now. They will completely replace fossil fueled passenger vehicles within years, not decades.
sorry that is fanciful, and wrong. stick to your wheel house instead.
Bruce was addressing diesel — you know things like trucks n goods transportation, diesel electric trains …. so SA response is instead to restrict the dialogue back to only passenger cars
but on that score he is still dead wrong.
then there is the other elephant in the room — passenger vehicle FF use and GHG is negligible next to the massive FF consumption of FF and GHG emissions from Industry manufacturing and electricity generation and cement and aviation and ….. it is a long list.
Passenger EVs is another distraction myth, a propaganda lie and wealth creation tool for the elites to ease the painful thoughts of the proletarians panicking if they knew society and civilization was going off the rails “within years, not decades.”
Piotrsays
Complicitius, 29 Sep “ “but on that score he is still dead wrong – passenger vehicle FF use and GHG is negligible
Strong claims (“dead wrong”) require strong proofs. In the US, transportation in accounts for 27% of GHG emissions, with light-duty vehicles for 57% of that.
So 15.5 %. For a comparison – electricity generation 25% and coming down,
industry 23%, agriculture – 10%; residential and commercial sectors combined – 13%. “Negligible”, eh?
To quote somebody patronizingly lecturing others here “Stick to your wheel house instead“. Whatever that might be.
Piotrsays
JCM:” It is undeniable that humanity is directly depleting Earth System stability through its profound disruption of land systems. Those who actively deny, distort, minimize or misrepresent this reality are doing more harm than they may realize.”
Nobody is discussing your “ depletion Earth System stability” for the simple reason that it so nebulous that it could mean ANYTHING .
What we have criticized, were your very SPECIFIC, and thus unlike your “depletion of Earth System stability” – TESTABLE claims: that human changes to evaporation are “ mindboggling” and “profound forcing to climates”, and your decrying of “ artificial fixation and overemphasis [of models of AGW] on a trace [sic!] gas“.
And to this end we have used your own source, Lague et al., to show the human changes in irrigation have completely NEGLIGIBLE effect on AGW – even such massive intervention in evaporation as reforestation of ALL agricultural lands – would have lowered AGW by a mere “ fraction of a fraction of 1K”
If this makes us in your eyes “ active deniers, distorters, minimizers or misrepresenters” – s0 be it – the accusations are only as credible as the accuser.
Silvia Leahu-Aluassays
Summary by Mark Jacobson
WindWaterSolar electricity generators cheaper than fossil electricity in global average:
The reason we are not switching faster to clean renewable energy is not economic, it is political, it is the fossil industry, it is utter ignorance, intentional or genuine, about the climate emergency and its available solutions.
Let’s vote for different politicians, ensure zero demand for fossil industry, let’s be best informed and inform others, especially our elected officials, about reality, as described by science not commercial interests, and how to organize humanity for living well within the biosphere.
Tomáš Kaliszsays
In Re to Silvia Leahu-Aluas, 28 Sep 2024 at 5:32 AM,
I do not think that the “reason we are not switching faster to clean renewable energy is not economic”, for a simple reason: If it already were economically advantageous, even the unified power of fossil fuel industry worldwide would not be able to slow the transition.
The reality is that power generation costs do not say the entire story about electricity. As you wrote previously, professor Mark Jacobson shows that we could replace fossil fuels in power generation with a significant overcapacity of renewable sources, combined with a commensurate multiplication of the capacity of electrical grid, etc. All this makes the renewable energy still economically uncompetitive with fossil fuels, despite its lower power generation costs.
Nevertheless, the present situation already creates a strong economical incentive for seeking better technical solution for large scale electricity storage that could cure these deficiencies. This is a very important difference against the situation a few years ago, when no such incentive existed yet.
The opponents of renewable energy can, of course, still object that power generation does represent only a fraction of entire energy consumption. I believe, however, that if the electricity storage once makes renewable energy more profitable than fossil fuel in power generation, electricity from renewable energy sources will quickly become so cheap that it will outcompete also direct fossil fuel use as energy source.
Greetings
Tomáš
Compliciussays
to Silvia Leahu-Aluas
Jacobson reminds me of L Ron Hubbard’s version of “science”. Sad.
The issue is economic to the core. Wind and solar are 1) not profitable enough to pass the CAPEX stage 2) or the Bank Loan investment financing stage or 3) economically unreliable to provide a guaranteed ROI – return on investment over the reasonably expected life of the infrastructure/equipment.
If any of you have ever once looked at the “development” planning for RE projects maintained by every govt body related to new RE projects would already know how many proposals end failing and never being built. Despite massive Govt grants and largess to help them get over the CAPEX Hump.
They fail much more than the % of Nuclear plant proposals fail. .
The economic risks are too high. That is why Democratic Biden and others all over the world must provide massive Capital Subsidies to get them built.
THis is why the IRA essentially provides new Investors the opportunity for the RE Plant to built FOR FREE with the massive TAX CREDITS and other Subsidies provided for.
Once that corporate welfare stops, new builds stop. Or never begin iow.
Gas plants are both economically viable and reliable short and long term financially as well as supply reliability on top! .
Once the RE share of electricity grid gets too high 30-50% the whole system starts breaking down – and end users Electricity charges skyrocket – as they have done everywhere. Extreme catastrophic weather scenarios only make everything far even worse the grater the RE share of the market.
But even those high charges are insufficient to provide a long term economic return to builders and investors of RE plant.
Jacobson ignores everything about economics and creates a mythical fiction in his many studies. Ignore him – the business people and financiers know the truth of this fraud.
Better to stop “listening” to people and orgs who do not know what they are talking about – Jacobson is one of them and he is a Fake Guru for multiple other Orgs to spread disinformation based on his flawed “research studies”
Deny it ignore it whatever. Y’all screwed anyway soon enough when the whole things starts falling apart no longer able to be denied. The end of Oil and deteriorating Gas supplies will only exacerbate that even more than the climate crises will.
Geoff Miellsays
Complicius: – “If any of you have ever once looked at the “development” planning for RE projects maintained by every govt body related to new RE projects would already know how many proposals end failing and never being built. Despite massive Govt grants and largess to help them get over the CAPEX Hump.
They fail much more than the % of Nuclear plant proposals fail. .”
Many engineering project proposals in general never get beyond their Final Investment Decision (FID). The construction of nuclear power plants is no guarantee that they will become operational.
Per the World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2024 (WNISR2024), on pages 63-64:
Experience shows that having an order for a reactor, or even having a nuclear plant at an advanced stage of construction, is no guarantee of ultimate grid connection and power production. The two V.C. Summer units in the U.S., abandoned in July 2017 after four years of construction and following multi-billion-dollar investment, are only the latest in a long list of failed significantly advanced nuclear power plant projects.
French Alternative Energies & Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) statistics through 2002 indicate 253 “cancelled orders” in 31 countries, many of them at an advanced construction stage (see also Figure 15). The United States alone accounted for 138 of these order cancellations.⁴¹
Of the 807 reactor constructions launched since 1951, at least 93 units in 19 countries had been abandoned or suspended, as of 1 July 2024. This means that 11.5 percent—or one in nine—of nuclear constructions have been abandoned.
Close to three-quarters (66 units) of all cancelled projects were in four countries alone—the U.S. (42), Russia (12), Germany and Ukraine (six each). Some units were 100-percent completed—including Kalkar in Germany and Zwentendorf in Austria—before it was decided not to operate them.
Complicius: – “Gas plants are both economically viable and reliable short and long term financially as well as supply reliability on top!”
Evidence/data I see indicates global fossil methane gas supplies are only going to get increasingly scarcer and more expensive (to extract energetically & monetarily), likely beginning from within this decade.
On when the US shale oil & gas decline is likely, US petroleum geologist Art Berman said:
“I’m quite confident that before this decade is over we’re going to see some serious supply concerns by markets for both oil and natural gas, and it would not surprise me if that happened in a year or two, ah, as opposed to, you know, the five or six years that we have remaining in this decade.” https://youtu.be/rv85LTMO8TQ?t=2233
It seems we won’t need to wait long to see whether Art Berman’s expectations are correct, or not.
Nigeljsays
Complicius, I accept that wind and solar power are clearly not as energy dense as a lump of coal. Building them was therefore always going to require incentives. This has always been understood and acknowledged so Im not sure what you are adding The bottom line is we were never going to be able to mitigate climate change for free. Jacobson has never claimed otherwise.
Different countries take different approaches, subsidies, tax breaks, carbon taxes etcetera. In New Zealand it has only required quite a moderate cap and trade scheme. Its also complicated by the fact that renewables now provide cheap generation so the need for large subsidies has fallen to some extent. The storage requirements are still expensive but even that is falling. Solar power is following an exponential growth curve.
We have to also consider that 1) Fossil fules get massive subsidies globally and in America and 2) Renewables have health benefits as well as mitigating climate change, so the big picture is important.
I’m afraid that I wont be “screwed soon enough anyway”. Im well off financially and have a mortgage free home, and this is a good insulator against bad economic and environmental collapses. I do however feel sorry for low income people and poor countries which is why I advocate that we should mitigate the climate problem.
Renewables are not perfect, but Im not seeing a better alternative, and it needs to be one the public will voluntarily adopt. Some people promote big reductions in energy use but this does not meet the criteria or being acceptable to the public. I would have thought that is obvious. I drive a small car by choice, but Ive found that making large energy reductions is just a headache.
Some people dont like renewables because they have some negative environmental impacts and corporations profit out of them. Well its not ideal, but it is what it is. “Dont let the perfect be the enemy of the good” (Volatire)
Maybe human society is in for a big crash. It cant be ruled out. But its hard to be sure because there are so many varibales. Lets hope not anyway.
As the folk in the Florida panhandle will attest having been on the receiving end of Helene on top of Debby back in early August, the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season appears to have woken up at last and shown some of the activity predicted in the pre-season forecasts. It did manage three active storms simultaneously, abet only just, with Joyce having formed as Helene was about to become ‘post-tropical’.
The measure of activity for the 2024 season, ACE, has now topped 70 which is roughly a middling performance for the time of year. But this middling performance does rest on the pre-Sept activity with September (which is the acknowledged peak of the season) so-far managing just ACE=18. With so few days of Sept left, this ACE(Sept) will remain among the back markers. (A middling September would see ACE(Sept)=+50.)
A busy end to the season (as per 2005, 2016 & 2020) could still see the season’s total doubling the ACE-so-far but to achieve anything like the busy season as forecast (ACE=+200 and 20+ named-storms, a dozen hurricanes and half of those major) would require something entirely exceptional. (Current storm counts sit at 10, 6 & 2.)
patrick o twentysevensays
EROEI: (just skimmed through these things so far, a few snippets and points)
Ferroni and Hopkirk adopt ‘extended’ boundaries for their analysis of PV without acknowledging that such choice of boundaries makes their results incompatible with those for all other technologies that have been analysed using more conventional boundaries, including nuclear energy with which the authors engage in multiple inconsistent comparisons. In addition, they use out-dated information, make invalid assumptions on PV specifications and other key parameters, and conduct calculation errors, including double counting.
(2020) Standard, Point of Use, and Extended Energy Return on Energy Invested (EROI) from Comprehensive Material Requirements of Present Global Wind, Solar, and Hydro Power Technologies
Carlos de Castro, Iñigo Capellán-Pérez https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/12/3036
(Darth Nedious provided a link for this work, which presents a rather dismal picture.)
I get how storage could bring down the system EROEI (but see sources about how much). Regarding other aspects of a full system, given how people make stuff that is used to make factory equipment that is used to make factory equipment that is used to make stuff that is used to make energy, … with a multiplying effect at most steps (many units made by a unit), I would guess that a limited analysis (just the last of those steps) would result in a small truncation error. Note: people supplying the labor have to eat anyway; if they need more calories/etc. because of the job, … but one could get carried away and end up including the whole economy, and any EROEI above 1 would just indicate growth.
I’m not sure why the numbers in this paper are so low; see sec. 5.2, just below fig. 6, for a low value for fossil fuels (in electric generation? sorry, read that pretty quickly – actually, see fig. 6 and caption)
(2020) Implications of Trends in Energy Return on Energy Invested (EROI) for Transitioning to Renewable Electricity
M. Diesendorf, T. Wiedmann https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0921800919320543
Abstract:
Recent papers argue that the energy return on energy invested (EROI) for renewable electricity technologies and systems may be so low that the transition from fossil fuelled to renewable electricity may displace investment in other important economic sectors. For the case of large-scale electricity supply, we draw upon insights from Net Energy Analysis and renewable energy engineering to examine critically some assumptions, data and arguments in these papers, focussing on regions in which wind and solar can provide the majority of electricity. We show that the above claim is based on outdated data on EROIs, on failing to consider the energy efficiency advantages of transitioning away from fuel combustion and on overestimates of storage requirements. EROIs of wind and solar photovoltaics, which can provide the vast majority of electricity and indeed of all energy in the future, are generally high (≥ 10) and increasing. The impact of storage on EROI depends on the quantities and types of storage adopted and their operational strategies. In the regions considered in this paper, the quantity of storage required to maintain generation reliability is relatively small.
Last paragraph of Introduction:
The plan of the paper is as follows: Section 2 outlines method, including the conceptual framework and definitions. Section 3 exposes the incorrect assumptions and different perspectives that led to the belief that the present EROIs of wind and PV technologies are low and then reviews recent research that finds EROIs of wind and solar PV are actually high and increasing. The section discusses both the EROIs of individual RE technologies and dynamic EROI changes in a rapidly transitioning electricity system. Section 4 discusses EROIs and energy stored on energy invested (ESOIs) of storage technologies, paying attention to the quantity of storage required in power systems with high solar and wind potential and limited once-through hydro potential, taking Australia as a case study. 3 EROIs of Renewable and Fossil Fuelled Electricity Generation, 4 EROIs of Systems with Storage Technologies combine results and specific discussions of those results. Section 5 concludes the paper and offers some general comments on the role of EROI in the transition to 100% RE.
(2024) Systemwide energy return on investment in a sustainable transition towards net zero power systems
Hasret Sahin, A. A. Solomon, Arman Aghahosseini, Christian Breyer https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-44232-9
(Fig. 2 (p.6): EROEI values stay above 16, some scenarios stay above 18; 2015 value is just above 19, some scenarios go up before coming back down)
“Non renewable energy payback time is defined as the period required for a renewable energy system to generate the same amount of energy (in terms of non renewable primary energy equivalent) that was used to produce the system itself:”
Energy payback times ~ 1 year (1.2 to 0.8 depending on type of PV); = 1 for mono-Si, implies EROEI = 27. (I’m assuming this includes the energy for replacing the inverter at 15 years****)
But MJ fossil fuels used per kWh output is 0.35 – 0.52 (0.44 for mono-Si) = in kWh: 0.09722 – 0.1444 (0.1222 for mono-Si), which gives EROEI of 10.29 – 6.923 (8.182 for mono-Si) Perhaps this is primary energy
(quick mental math: g CO2 eq/kWh (25.2 – 43.6, 35.8 for mono-Si) agrees with … wait… I’ll have to come back to that)
and the ~1 year payback time was for using electricity to do the same jobs assuming the fossil fuels were generating mechanical work or electricity.
**** – different components have different longevities. BTW, am I wrong in expecting the structural BOS to last significantly longer than 30 years? What about wiring in general? Transmission links and additional Transmission in general? And the 30 years for panel replacement is not set in stone: Changing economics (including energetics, ethics and other concerns) of the materials, manufacturing and recycling, and climate… etc., could make it better to leave them for 40 years or … or 20 years if some really efficient cheap durable panels start being made; etc.
(2013) The energetic implications of curtailing versus storing solar- and wind-generated electricity
Charles J. Barnhart, Michael Dale, Adam R. Brandt, Sally M. Benson https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlepdf/2013/ee/c3ee41973h
(error in equ. 3? (p.2806 (3/7)) I don’t think round-trip AC to AC efficiency η should appear in the numerator as it does (for ε_s = 1/ESOIe) – or is this required for equ.6 to work? (haven’t gone through it yet)). Wind has really high EROI.
Correct: electric vehicles are viable now and will replace ICE within years, I assume no more than 15 – 20 for cars, based on bans of new sales of ICE cars in major markets.
Not all existing individual automobiles will be replaced by BEVs, as ownership will change towards sharing and mass transportation will increase. But those that will, will be electric. In addition, ICEs can be and are being retrofitted to electric.
Vehicles means just that, every vehicle: automobile, airplane, train, ship, truck, bus. Not all vehicles can be electric, but all can be and will be clean. Large airplanes using green hydrogen, for instance. See Airbus ZEROe program. Or ships using a combination of hydrogen solar, wind, wave. See Energy Observer program.
This is how “economics” works for the fossil fuel industry:
“New InfluenceMap research finds that the oil and gas industry has used a playbook of narratives and arguments to systematically oppose, weaken, and delay the energy transition since at least 1967. Analysis of historical data on engagement with climate advocacy from three of the most powerful oil and gas industry associations in the United States and Europe – the American Petroleum Institute (API), FuelsEurope, and Fuels Industry UK – finds that these groups have for decades been using the same playbook in their advocacy against renewable energy and electric vehicles.
This narrative playbook, which is found to contradict science-aligned policy, appears to have been highly impactful. Over the years of its deployment, EV and renewable growth has been stifled, while the Carbon Majors database shows that the cumulative emissions associated with the sale of the associations’ members fossil fuel products have grown significantly. Between 1950 and 2022, the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from all the companies that hold a membership with at least one of the industry groups to be 350 billion tonnes, of which 320 billion tonnes were from CO2 emissions. This equates to approximately 18% of the world’s total cumulative CO2 emissions from fossil fuels and industry in 2022.”
The US uses about fifty percent of its soy crop for biodiesel, and produces 1.7 billion gallons of bio.
The US fleet consumes about 35 billion gallons of diesel.
So if we used our entire soy crop for biodiesel we would still need over thirty billion gallons of diesel to keep everything running.
Electrics don’t offer a via alternative anytime soon.
Nothing else to say except explore low tech alternatives. But nobody gives a shit.
Climate change will without doubt cause trouble in the longer term horizon. The downturn in world oil production will both moderate the climate problems and the population issues simultaneously.
Not much else to say.
Our problems are bigger (much much) and sooner (years/decades) than “longer term horizon”.
If only the vast majority of modern society ‘gave a shit’ one place things could be done immediately would be to cut out waste (most people too busy to notice how bad it’s getting, while toxics of all kinds (social as well as physical) multiply). That would be a good low-tech start. Our social interactions have been taken over by costly illusion.
Bruce Steele wrote: “Electrics don’t offer a via alternative anytime soon.”
Nonsense. Electric vehicles are a viable alternative now. They will completely replace fossil fueled passenger vehicles within years, not decades. They already have a total lifetime cost of ownership lower than comparable fossil fueled cars and soon the up-front sticker price will be lower as well. Charging to full charge will take minutes, and a full charge will be good for 300 miles or more. Chargers will be MORE ubiquitous than gas stations are now.
Secular Animist: – “Nonsense. Electric vehicles are a viable alternative now. They will completely replace fossil fueled passenger vehicles within years, not decades.”
Nonsense. You appear to ignore the inconvenient data of legacy ICEVs and how much time would be required to replace/displace them all with EVs. The evidence/data indicates on the current trajectory it would require decades, NOT years.
How many cars are there in the world?
https://www.whichcar.com.au/news/how-many-cars-are-there-in-the-world
How many electric cars are on the road?
Per Our World in Data, electric cars in 2023:
* World: _ _ _ 40.00 million
* China: _ _ _ 21.80 million
* EU (27): _ _ _ 8.10 million
* USA: _ _ _ _ _4.80 million
Share of cars currently in use that are electric in 2023:
* Norway: _ _ 29%
* Sweden: _ _11%
* China: _ _ _ _8%
* World: _ _ _ _3%
* USA: _ _ _ _ _2%
* Australia: _ _ 1%
What are the number of cars sold in the world by type?
Year _ _ _ _ Non electric _ _ EV + plug-in hybrid _ _ total
2020: _ _ _ _ 67.97 million _ _ _ 2.98 million _ _ _ _ 70.95 million
2021: _ _ _ _ 67.56 million _ _ _ 6.60 million _ _ _ _ 74.16 million
2022: _ _ _ _ 62.66 million _ _ _10.20 million _ _ _ _72.86 million
2023: _ _ _ _ 62.87 million _ _ _ 13.80 million _ _ _ _76.67 million
https://ourworldindata.org/electric-car-sales
But do we/humanity have decades to reduce our dependency on petroleum oil?
US petroleum geologist Art Berman was in conversation with Johan Landgren in the YouTube video titled Arthur Berman: The Perfect Energy Storm – Peak Cheap Oil and Natural Gas is here, published 16 Feb 2024, duration 0:55:07. On when the US shale oil & gas decline is likely, Art Berman said:
“I’m quite confident that before this decade is over we’re going to see some serious supply concerns by markets for both oil and natural gas, and it would not surprise me if that happened in a year or two, ah, as opposed to, you know, the five or six years that we have remaining in this decade.”
https://youtu.be/rv85LTMO8TQ?t=2233
It seems we won’t need to wait long to see whether Art Berman’s expectations are correct, or not.
to Geoff Miell
I know that, But providing science based accurate credible data and evidence here is waste of time. See Killian – 17 years of time wasting. They are allergic to data and science logic and even maths. Emotionally driven self-deluded hopism entrenched with fraudulent claims like SA’s above and the RE myths by Sylvia is all they have left now.
to Secular Animist – Nonsense. Electric vehicles are a viable alternative now. They will completely replace fossil fueled passenger vehicles within years, not decades.
sorry that is fanciful, and wrong. stick to your wheel house instead.
Bruce was addressing diesel — you know things like trucks n goods transportation, diesel electric trains …. so SA response is instead to restrict the dialogue back to only passenger cars
but on that score he is still dead wrong.
then there is the other elephant in the room — passenger vehicle FF use and GHG is negligible next to the massive FF consumption of FF and GHG emissions from Industry manufacturing and electricity generation and cement and aviation and ….. it is a long list.
Passenger EVs is another distraction myth, a propaganda lie and wealth creation tool for the elites to ease the painful thoughts of the proletarians panicking if they knew society and civilization was going off the rails “within years, not decades.”
Complicitius, 29 Sep “ “but on that score he is still dead wrong – passenger vehicle FF use and GHG is negligible
Strong claims (“dead wrong”) require strong proofs. In the US, transportation in accounts for 27% of GHG emissions, with light-duty vehicles for 57% of that.
So 15.5 %. For a comparison – electricity generation 25% and coming down,
industry 23%, agriculture – 10%; residential and commercial sectors combined – 13%. “Negligible”, eh?
To quote somebody patronizingly lecturing others here “Stick to your wheel house instead“. Whatever that might be.
JCM:” It is undeniable that humanity is directly depleting Earth System stability through its profound disruption of land systems. Those who actively deny, distort, minimize or misrepresent this reality are doing more harm than they may realize.”
Nobody is discussing your “ depletion Earth System stability” for the simple reason that it so nebulous that it could mean ANYTHING .
What we have criticized, were your very SPECIFIC, and thus unlike your “depletion of Earth System stability” – TESTABLE claims: that human changes to evaporation are “ mindboggling” and “profound forcing to climates”, and your decrying of “ artificial fixation and overemphasis [of models of AGW] on a trace [sic!] gas“.
And to this end we have used your own source, Lague et al., to show the human changes in irrigation have completely NEGLIGIBLE effect on AGW – even such massive intervention in evaporation as reforestation of ALL agricultural lands – would have lowered AGW by a mere “ fraction of a fraction of 1K”
If this makes us in your eyes “ active deniers, distorters, minimizers or misrepresenters” – s0 be it – the accusations are only as credible as the accuser.
Summary by Mark Jacobson
WindWaterSolar electricity generators cheaper than fossil electricity in global average:
Fossil: $100/MWh
Utility PV: $44 (56% lower)
Onshore wind: $33 (67% lower)
Offshore wind: $75 (25% lower)
Geothermal: $71 (29% lower)
Hydro: $57 (43% lower)
Source: https://www.irena.org/Energy-Transition/Technology/Power-generation-costs
The reason we are not switching faster to clean renewable energy is not economic, it is political, it is the fossil industry, it is utter ignorance, intentional or genuine, about the climate emergency and its available solutions.
Let’s vote for different politicians, ensure zero demand for fossil industry, let’s be best informed and inform others, especially our elected officials, about reality, as described by science not commercial interests, and how to organize humanity for living well within the biosphere.
In Re to Silvia Leahu-Aluas, 28 Sep 2024 at 5:32 AM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/09/unforced-variations-sep-2024/comment-page-2/#comment-824939
Dear Silvia,
I do not think that the “reason we are not switching faster to clean renewable energy is not economic”, for a simple reason: If it already were economically advantageous, even the unified power of fossil fuel industry worldwide would not be able to slow the transition.
The reality is that power generation costs do not say the entire story about electricity. As you wrote previously, professor Mark Jacobson shows that we could replace fossil fuels in power generation with a significant overcapacity of renewable sources, combined with a commensurate multiplication of the capacity of electrical grid, etc. All this makes the renewable energy still economically uncompetitive with fossil fuels, despite its lower power generation costs.
Nevertheless, the present situation already creates a strong economical incentive for seeking better technical solution for large scale electricity storage that could cure these deficiencies. This is a very important difference against the situation a few years ago, when no such incentive existed yet.
The opponents of renewable energy can, of course, still object that power generation does represent only a fraction of entire energy consumption. I believe, however, that if the electricity storage once makes renewable energy more profitable than fossil fuel in power generation, electricity from renewable energy sources will quickly become so cheap that it will outcompete also direct fossil fuel use as energy source.
Greetings
Tomáš
to Silvia Leahu-Aluas
Jacobson reminds me of L Ron Hubbard’s version of “science”. Sad.
The issue is economic to the core. Wind and solar are 1) not profitable enough to pass the CAPEX stage 2) or the Bank Loan investment financing stage or 3) economically unreliable to provide a guaranteed ROI – return on investment over the reasonably expected life of the infrastructure/equipment.
If any of you have ever once looked at the “development” planning for RE projects maintained by every govt body related to new RE projects would already know how many proposals end failing and never being built. Despite massive Govt grants and largess to help them get over the CAPEX Hump.
They fail much more than the % of Nuclear plant proposals fail. .
The economic risks are too high. That is why Democratic Biden and others all over the world must provide massive Capital Subsidies to get them built.
THis is why the IRA essentially provides new Investors the opportunity for the RE Plant to built FOR FREE with the massive TAX CREDITS and other Subsidies provided for.
Once that corporate welfare stops, new builds stop. Or never begin iow.
Gas plants are both economically viable and reliable short and long term financially as well as supply reliability on top! .
Once the RE share of electricity grid gets too high 30-50% the whole system starts breaking down – and end users Electricity charges skyrocket – as they have done everywhere. Extreme catastrophic weather scenarios only make everything far even worse the grater the RE share of the market.
But even those high charges are insufficient to provide a long term economic return to builders and investors of RE plant.
Jacobson ignores everything about economics and creates a mythical fiction in his many studies. Ignore him – the business people and financiers know the truth of this fraud.
Better to stop “listening” to people and orgs who do not know what they are talking about – Jacobson is one of them and he is a Fake Guru for multiple other Orgs to spread disinformation based on his flawed “research studies”
Deny it ignore it whatever. Y’all screwed anyway soon enough when the whole things starts falling apart no longer able to be denied. The end of Oil and deteriorating Gas supplies will only exacerbate that even more than the climate crises will.
Complicius: – “If any of you have ever once looked at the “development” planning for RE projects maintained by every govt body related to new RE projects would already know how many proposals end failing and never being built. Despite massive Govt grants and largess to help them get over the CAPEX Hump.
They fail much more than the % of Nuclear plant proposals fail. .”
Many engineering project proposals in general never get beyond their Final Investment Decision (FID). The construction of nuclear power plants is no guarantee that they will become operational.
Per the World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2024 (WNISR2024), on pages 63-64:
https://www.worldnuclearreport.org/World-Nuclear-Industry-Status-Report-2024-1046
Complicius: – “Gas plants are both economically viable and reliable short and long term financially as well as supply reliability on top!”
Evidence/data I see indicates global fossil methane gas supplies are only going to get increasingly scarcer and more expensive (to extract energetically & monetarily), likely beginning from within this decade.
On when the US shale oil & gas decline is likely, US petroleum geologist Art Berman said:
“I’m quite confident that before this decade is over we’re going to see some serious supply concerns by markets for both oil and natural gas, and it would not surprise me if that happened in a year or two, ah, as opposed to, you know, the five or six years that we have remaining in this decade.”
https://youtu.be/rv85LTMO8TQ?t=2233
It seems we won’t need to wait long to see whether Art Berman’s expectations are correct, or not.
Complicius, I accept that wind and solar power are clearly not as energy dense as a lump of coal. Building them was therefore always going to require incentives. This has always been understood and acknowledged so Im not sure what you are adding The bottom line is we were never going to be able to mitigate climate change for free. Jacobson has never claimed otherwise.
Different countries take different approaches, subsidies, tax breaks, carbon taxes etcetera. In New Zealand it has only required quite a moderate cap and trade scheme. Its also complicated by the fact that renewables now provide cheap generation so the need for large subsidies has fallen to some extent. The storage requirements are still expensive but even that is falling. Solar power is following an exponential growth curve.
We have to also consider that 1) Fossil fules get massive subsidies globally and in America and 2) Renewables have health benefits as well as mitigating climate change, so the big picture is important.
I’m afraid that I wont be “screwed soon enough anyway”. Im well off financially and have a mortgage free home, and this is a good insulator against bad economic and environmental collapses. I do however feel sorry for low income people and poor countries which is why I advocate that we should mitigate the climate problem.
Renewables are not perfect, but Im not seeing a better alternative, and it needs to be one the public will voluntarily adopt. Some people promote big reductions in energy use but this does not meet the criteria or being acceptable to the public. I would have thought that is obvious. I drive a small car by choice, but Ive found that making large energy reductions is just a headache.
Some people dont like renewables because they have some negative environmental impacts and corporations profit out of them. Well its not ideal, but it is what it is. “Dont let the perfect be the enemy of the good” (Volatire)
Maybe human society is in for a big crash. It cant be ruled out. But its hard to be sure because there are so many varibales. Lets hope not anyway.
Thanks. I stole that, a keeper.
As the folk in the Florida panhandle will attest having been on the receiving end of Helene on top of Debby back in early August, the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season appears to have woken up at last and shown some of the activity predicted in the pre-season forecasts. It did manage three active storms simultaneously, abet only just, with Joyce having formed as Helene was about to become ‘post-tropical’.
The measure of activity for the 2024 season, ACE, has now topped 70 which is roughly a middling performance for the time of year. But this middling performance does rest on the pre-Sept activity with September (which is the acknowledged peak of the season) so-far managing just ACE=18. With so few days of Sept left, this ACE(Sept) will remain among the back markers. (A middling September would see ACE(Sept)=+50.)
A busy end to the season (as per 2005, 2016 & 2020) could still see the season’s total doubling the ACE-so-far but to achieve anything like the busy season as forecast (ACE=+200 and 20+ named-storms, a dozen hurricanes and half of those major) would require something entirely exceptional. (Current storm counts sit at 10, 6 & 2.)
EROEI: (just skimmed through these things so far, a few snippets and points)
(2016) https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421516301379
(2017, re the above) Energy Return on Energy Invested (ERoEI) for photovoltaic solar systems in regions of moderate insolation: A comprehensive response
Marco Raugei et al https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421516307066
From abstract:
(2020) Standard, Point of Use, and Extended Energy Return on Energy Invested (EROI) from Comprehensive Material Requirements of Present Global Wind, Solar, and Hydro Power Technologies
Carlos de Castro, Iñigo Capellán-Pérez
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/12/3036
(Darth Nedious provided a link for this work, which presents a rather dismal picture.)
I get how storage could bring down the system EROEI (but see sources about how much). Regarding other aspects of a full system, given how people make stuff that is used to make factory equipment that is used to make factory equipment that is used to make stuff that is used to make energy, … with a multiplying effect at most steps (many units made by a unit), I would guess that a limited analysis (just the last of those steps) would result in a small truncation error. Note: people supplying the labor have to eat anyway; if they need more calories/etc. because of the job, … but one could get carried away and end up including the whole economy, and any EROEI above 1 would just indicate growth.
I’m not sure why the numbers in this paper are so low; see sec. 5.2, just below fig. 6, for a low value for fossil fuels (in electric generation? sorry, read that pretty quickly – actually, see fig. 6 and caption)
(2020) Implications of Trends in Energy Return on Energy Invested (EROI) for Transitioning to Renewable Electricity
M. Diesendorf, T. Wiedmann
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0921800919320543
Abstract:
Recent papers argue that the energy return on energy invested (EROI) for renewable electricity technologies and systems may be so low that the transition from fossil fuelled to renewable electricity may displace investment in other important economic sectors. For the case of large-scale electricity supply, we draw upon insights from Net Energy Analysis and renewable energy engineering to examine critically some assumptions, data and arguments in these papers, focussing on regions in which wind and solar can provide the majority of electricity. We show that the above claim is based on outdated data on EROIs, on failing to consider the energy efficiency advantages of transitioning away from fuel combustion and on overestimates of storage requirements. EROIs of wind and solar photovoltaics, which can provide the vast majority of electricity and indeed of all energy in the future, are generally high (≥ 10) and increasing. The impact of storage on EROI depends on the quantities and types of storage adopted and their operational strategies. In the regions considered in this paper, the quantity of storage required to maintain generation reliability is relatively small.
Last paragraph of Introduction:
(2024) Systemwide energy return on investment in a sustainable transition towards net zero power systems
Hasret Sahin, A. A. Solomon, Arman Aghahosseini, Christian Breyer
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-44232-9
(Fig. 2 (p.6): EROEI values stay above 16, some scenarios stay above 18; 2015 value is just above 19, some scenarios go up before coming back down)
https://iea-pvps.org/key-topics/life-cycle-inventories-and-life-cycle-assessments-of-photovoltaic-systems/ (has pdf link) too … many … numbers … oh, God, help …
https://iea-pvps.org/fact-sheets/fact-sheet-environmental-life-cycle-assessment-of-electricity-from-pv-systems/ , (has pdf link:) https://iea-pvps.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Task-12-Fact-Sheet-v2-1.pdf 1 kWh AC produced by a rooftop PV system in Europe; 976 kWh/kWp annual (div by 8766 h/yr (I used 365.25 d), implies CF ≈ 11.1 % (insolation on PV 1331 kWh/m² annual ≈ 151.8 W/m² =→ CF of 15.2 % but performance can vary with lighting and temperature (and soiling, snow, decay of quality over time…)
30 years at 0.7% linear***(??it’s not exponential decay?? I had been working under the assumption… ) annual decay ≈ 27 years equivalent production as new:
“Non renewable energy payback time is defined as the period required for a renewable energy system to generate the same amount of energy (in terms of non renewable primary energy equivalent) that was used to produce the system itself:”
Energy payback times ~ 1 year (1.2 to 0.8 depending on type of PV); = 1 for mono-Si, implies EROEI = 27. (I’m assuming this includes the energy for replacing the inverter at 15 years****)
But MJ fossil fuels used per kWh output is 0.35 – 0.52 (0.44 for mono-Si) = in kWh: 0.09722 – 0.1444 (0.1222 for mono-Si), which gives EROEI of 10.29 – 6.923 (8.182 for mono-Si) Perhaps this is primary energy
(quick mental math: g CO2 eq/kWh (25.2 – 43.6, 35.8 for mono-Si) agrees with … wait… I’ll have to come back to that)
and the ~1 year payback time was for using electricity to do the same jobs assuming the fossil fuels were generating mechanical work or electricity.
But some uses (eg. chemical work) of combustible fuels use more of the primary energy than what could be converted into electricity or mechanical work given typical technologies, eg. removing the O from Fe, Si (https://www.metal-silicon.com/news/blog/metallurgical-metal-silicon.html#:~:text=The%20production%20of%20metallurgical%20grade%20silicon%20involves%20the,and%20screened%20to%20obtain%20the%20desired%20particle%20size. )
**** – different components have different longevities. BTW, am I wrong in expecting the structural BOS to last significantly longer than 30 years? What about wiring in general? Transmission links and additional Transmission in general? And the 30 years for panel replacement is not set in stone: Changing economics (including energetics, ethics and other concerns) of the materials, manufacturing and recycling, and climate… etc., could make it better to leave them for 40 years or … or 20 years if some really efficient cheap durable panels start being made; etc.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_return_on_investment#ESOEI (cites following link)
(2013) The energetic implications of curtailing versus storing solar- and wind-generated electricity
Charles J. Barnhart, Michael Dale, Adam R. Brandt, Sally M. Benson
https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlepdf/2013/ee/c3ee41973h
(error in equ. 3? (p.2806 (3/7)) I don’t think round-trip AC to AC efficiency η should appear in the numerator as it does (for ε_s = 1/ESOIe) – or is this required for equ.6 to work? (haven’t gone through it yet)). Wind has really high EROI.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystalline_silicon#Energy_payback_time
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polycrystalline_silicon#Siemens_process
https://www.ceecthefuture.org/resources/mining-energy-consumption-2021
(has pdf link)
Correct: electric vehicles are viable now and will replace ICE within years, I assume no more than 15 – 20 for cars, based on bans of new sales of ICE cars in major markets.
Not all existing individual automobiles will be replaced by BEVs, as ownership will change towards sharing and mass transportation will increase. But those that will, will be electric. In addition, ICEs can be and are being retrofitted to electric.
Vehicles means just that, every vehicle: automobile, airplane, train, ship, truck, bus. Not all vehicles can be electric, but all can be and will be clean. Large airplanes using green hydrogen, for instance. See Airbus ZEROe program. Or ships using a combination of hydrogen solar, wind, wave. See Energy Observer program.
This is how “economics” works for the fossil fuel industry:
“New InfluenceMap research finds that the oil and gas industry has used a playbook of narratives and arguments to systematically oppose, weaken, and delay the energy transition since at least 1967. Analysis of historical data on engagement with climate advocacy from three of the most powerful oil and gas industry associations in the United States and Europe – the American Petroleum Institute (API), FuelsEurope, and Fuels Industry UK – finds that these groups have for decades been using the same playbook in their advocacy against renewable energy and electric vehicles.
This narrative playbook, which is found to contradict science-aligned policy, appears to have been highly impactful. Over the years of its deployment, EV and renewable growth has been stifled, while the Carbon Majors database shows that the cumulative emissions associated with the sale of the associations’ members fossil fuel products have grown significantly. Between 1950 and 2022, the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from all the companies that hold a membership with at least one of the industry groups to be 350 billion tonnes, of which 320 billion tonnes were from CO2 emissions. This equates to approximately 18% of the world’s total cumulative CO2 emissions from fossil fuels and industry in 2022.”
https://influencemap.org/briefing/Undermining-Progress-Investigating-the-Fossil-Fuel-Sector-s-Continual-Dominance-26562