Michael Shellenberger has an article up on Quillette
Excerpts.
In 2002, shortly after I turned 30, I decided I wanted to dedicate myself to addressing climate change. I was worried that global warming would end up destroying many of the natural environments that people had worked so hard to protect.
I thought the solutions were pretty straightforward: solar panels on every roof, electric cars in every driveway, etc. The main obstacles, I believed, were political. And so I helped organize a coalition of America’s largest labor unions and environmental groups. Our proposal was for a $300 billion dollar investment in renewables. We would not only prevent climate change but also create millions of new jobs in a fast-growing high-tech sector.
Here he delivers the main point, emphasis mine.
In fact, wind turbines are the most serious new threat to important bird species to emerge in decades. The rapidly spinning turbines act like an apex predator which big birds never evolved to deal with.
Solar farms have similarly large ecological impacts. Building a solar farm is a lot like building any other kind of farm. You have to clear the whole area of wildlife.
In order to build one of the biggest solar farms in California the developers hired biologists to pull threatened desert tortoises from their burrows, put them on the back of pickup trucks, transport them, and cage them in pens where many ended up dying.
As we were learning of these impacts, it gradually dawned on me that there was no amount of technological innovation that could solve the fundamental problem with renewables.
You can make solar panels cheaper and wind turbines bigger, but you can’t make the sun shine more regularly or the wind blow more reliably. I came to understand the environmental implications of the physics of energy. In order to produce significant amounts of electricity from weak energy flows, you just have spread them over enormous areas. In other words, the trouble with renewables isn’t fundamentally technical—it’s natural.
And he ends with this.
I think it’s natural that those of us who became active on climate change gravitated toward renewables. They seemed like a way to harmonize human society with the natural world. Collectively, we have been suffering from an appeal-to-nature fallacy no different from the one that leads us to buy products at the supermarket labeled “all natural.” But it’s high time that those of us who appointed ourselves Earth’s guardians should take a second look at the science, and start questioning the impacts of our actions.
Now that we know that renewables can’t save the planet, are we really going to stand by and let them destroy it?
Understanding human advancement and energy density are essential.
Step 1: Caveman to 1700 AD – fire for heat and cooking from wood and grass.
Step 2: 1700 AD to 1900 AD – coal to start an industrial and scientific revolution from the technology is spawned.
Step 3: 1900- 1950 AD – oil to build out a society capable of anything including nuclear
Step 4: 1950- 2011 – nuclear power to take humanity well into the 21st Century.
Step 5: post 2011. regression after Fukushima Daiichi meltdowns and Left sends nuclear back 40 years on fear mongering. This is really a hidden agenda to further renewables. A power source with less energy density than step 1.
At steps 1-4, the energy density of the underlying fuel was increasing exponentially with each step and human development and technology followed along.
At this point nuclear, and whatever higher energy density power source (fusion?, vacuum energy?) comes next is the only option to Save not just humanity, but the planet from a starving hungry 8 Billion people ruined by socialists and their climate scam. Otherwise, with solar and wind renewables we are committed to regression to the Stone Age.
This is nonsense. There is not enough fissile material to last more than a couple of hundred years.
Look at David MacKay’s free ebook “sustainability without the hot air”. He crunches the numbers and
if you want a fuel source that will last at least 1000 years there are two possible options — solar and
duterium – duterium fusion. And the sting in the tale is that duterium – duterium fusion is almost certainly impossible from an engineering point of view. Whether you like it or not in 1000 years time humanity will be reliant on solar power.
Neither is there is enough fossil fuel to last more than a few more hundred years at current burn rates.
Peak fuel reserve is not the issue Percy.
The issue is energy density of the dominant fuel source for any period.
Human technological evolution and advancement of living conditions has mirrored continuing evolution to logarithmically ever-higher energy density fuels.
dung, grass, and twigs < wood and timber < charcoal from wood and timber < coal < oil < nuclear
Each step was a 10 fold increase (far more in fission's case) in energy density.
Solar and Wind power take us back to an energy density time when people were heating and cooking with dung and dried grass.
And as far as your "not enough fissile material" … that is hogwash. You really do NOT want to get into a discussion of the well-understood physics of fast-neutron breeder reactors creating Pu-239 from relatively abundant U-238, or to the even more likely reality of Thorium-fueled LFTR's.
Again Joel — read David MacKay’s book. He discusses breeder reactors in chapter 24. They can supply 33kWh per day per person which while not insignificant is still substantially less than what people in the developed world currently use. Thorium could add about another 20 khW per person per day which still isn’t enough. David MacKay does suggest that if we could efficiently extract Uranium from seawater then there is enough energy but again like D-D fusion no one has any idea how to do it. So we are back to solar energy which is the only energy source that is both plentiful enough, readily available and can be exploited right now.
Well unfortunately with solar, I like to have electricity at night. Solar just doesn’t cut it.And go try and mine the metals and build batteries with solar energy. It is a losing proposition. Nuclear is the only way forward.
And humanity doesn’t need nuclear to last 1,000 years anymore than fossil fuels will last a 1,000 years.
Bottom line is Solar is joke. A bad joke on humanity for grid scale electricity for a technological society.
You’ve been suckered by anti-nuclear zealots Percy. I feel sorry for you. Really.
Joel,
Again read David MacKay’s book — all of the numbers are there. If there is an error in the numbers please point them out. As he said you need to come up with an energy plan that gives about 110 kWh per person per day for everyone in the world. Otherwise your plan just won’t cut it.
And why don’t we need energy for the next 1000 years? Exactly what do you think will happen before then? Magic or extinction?
Percy,
I suppose you want humanity to abandon the Midwest United States, or anywhere cloudy where in the winter, the sun is known to not shine for weeks on end. Even batteries won’t help if there is no power input.
And when you crunch the numbers, a technological society that can manufacture solar panels and batteries from raw material to finished product, it cannot run on solar alone… by a long ways. Period. Dot.
China can’t do it. They use prodigious amounts of coal and petroleum fuels to make solar panels and batteries that then then ship to stupid people in the West who think “Gee, solar can save the planet.” And they even get useful idiots to write books about the scam.
Give it up Percy. Solar is far worse than even wind. Solar is bad joke on humanity for grid-level electricity.
Solar works for limited applications where grid supplies are not viable or available.
Solar charger works for the backpacker trying to charge his cell phone to call Mom and Dad. Solar works for the small low voltage LED lighting needs of my garden pathway in my backyard. Solar works for the remote rain gauge or stream flow sensor to transmit its data via short data bursts over radio links.
But anywhere a grid connection can be made, using solar will dramaicitacally increase cost and reduce reliability.
So when a family is freezing in their home at night (either electircity is unavailable or un-affordable, same thing), try and rationalize why CO2 reduction matters to them. Because it doesn’t. Neither does the distant threat of 1/1000 nuclear reactor melt down.
Joel,
Again stating solar energy has major problems does not magically mean that there
is any alternative. If you want to claim that there is another viable source of energy
that will last for 1000 years and can supply 110 kWh per person per day for the entire globe I would love to hear and see the actual numbers. Everyone I have every heard talk about the long term energy supply for the earth states there are only two alternatives – solar and duterium- duterium fusion. There is nothing else.
Nuclear is an option for the next few 100 years but it is not renewable and it will run
out. So the question is what happens then?
Percy, The average red granite is uranium ore at about $100/lb for yellowcake. There is an unlimited supply. Your sources are club of Rome types who have no clue about the nature of reserves and resources of minerals and metals.
The 1972 C of B report had us running out of a bunch of metals and food limitations would kill a billion people by the 1990s. Guess what?
It is the height of ignorance to add up the mining industry’s reserves and divide by annual consumption to calculate the number of years worth we have left. Would it surprise you to know that copper reserves today are about 10 times what they were in 1972. Moreover, all the copper we have mined since the bronze age is still on the earth’s surface. We’ve recycled valuable metals for millennia. Some of the gold in your wedding ring may have been mined in the Middle Ages and transported accross the Sahara from the Gold Coast. Moreover, miniaturization has resulted in much reduced amounts per unit. Think a large airconditioned room for 1960s computer that didnt have the computing power of your 10 dollar calculator.
Now consider, the population has more than doubled since since 1970 and there are actually fewer individuals in poverty than the 1970 population had. Consider agriculture has more than quadrupled output from less acreage! Hey, the earth is now experiencing “The Great Global Greening” so the best is yet to come with us at 85% of peak population.
@Percy. That is what the Malthusians have been saying about every resource we have for the last 150 years. We have more proven reserves for every resource than ever before. How do I know? Because the inflation-adjusted prices of everything has gone down steadily. If we were running out the prices would be rising. We will NOT be relying on Solar power unless we wish to cover every inch of the land surface in solar power panels. You might as well be saying we will be powering the world on Unicorn farts and be as close to reality.
Richard,
Do you really believe there is an infinite supply of fossil fuels? If not the supply must be finite and will run out. And what happens then?
Nuclear will only run out if we insist on using uranium PWR/BWR reactors. These achieve a fuel burn efficiency of less than 1%. Either switching to a more fuel-efficient reactor design or using a more abundant fuel such as thorium would easily solve this. Ideally, do both.
The nuclear waste problem is a direct result of the inefficiency of these reactors. Really much the same as with an IC engine; if it’s inefficient like a 1960’s gas guzzler, then it probably also spews pollution. Make it efficient, and to a large extent you automatically control the pollution problem.
@Percy. That is a long time in the future. Why should we cover the earth in ‘renewable’ energy collectors, which cannot support anything but light industry (it is impossible to mine or ship or produce steel, for instance, w/o fossil fuels) and doom the poor of the world to remain poor? Your proposals are truly environmental colonialism as one African leader called it. You are on the top of the economic pyramid and are hell-bent on making sure that the rest of the world doesn’t get where we are. If you truly cared about the poor of the world you would be 100% behind both nuclear power and fossil fuels (cleaned up as much as possible of course). But you aren’t, you don’t give a d**n about the rest of the world.
“This is nonsense. There is not enough fissile material to last more than a couple of hundred years.”
Eric Sorenson says there is enough thorium to last forever. It would take a very long time to burn through the 175 million lbs of spent fuel rods sitting in cooling pools (US) that really shouldn’t be there.
There are 1000s of years of Uranium in the world and a great deal of it is in the Oceans.
The only factor is the cost to extract it.
“There is not enough fissile material to last more than a couple of hundred years.” ?
WOW….You have officially shown yourself to be a complete idiot.. D’OH !
“Why Renewables Can’t Save the Planet” – Michael Shellenberger has an article up on Quillette
—
er … Because the planet doesn’t need ‘saving’ at all?
Worldwide, the figures just don’t add up anyway. We’ve been spending over $200 billion a year on wind and solar for the last decade, and all we have to show for it is 1% of world energy transitioned. At that rate it will take a thousand years and cost $200 trillion to go ‘100% renewable’ – and that’s not even including the cost of battery storage or whatever to cover brownouts.
For less money, we could replace the entire world’s energy supplies with thorium reactors. Advantage is, that would work.
https://iwrconsultancy.co.uk/science/renewables_projections
Not even keeping up with new generation requirements.
“Our efforts paid off in 2007 when then-presidential candidate Barack Obama embraced our vision”
Damn. If your only he went to a doctor to cure his visions…
Solar power satellites will have a large role to play in supplying humanity’s future energy needs.
The poper place for all those solar cells is in space. There’s plenty of room. Too bad the wind doesn’t blow up there. Then we could put all the windmills up in space, too, and save the birds.
The Chinese look like they are going to be the first to explore this type of power production. The U.S. space program needs to get itself in gear. Humanity will be moving into space soon, and this will be one of the primary power sources for space industry.
https://www.inverse.com/article/53394-solar-energy-how-china-s-space-bound-station-will-beam-power-down-to-earth
“Researchers in China are planning a solar farm in space, an ambitious project that could deliver energy at six times the intensity of installations on Earth. The project, which made the front page of China’s Science and Technology Daily last week, would orbit in space and beam down energy to a receiver.”
end excerpt
Things are going to be looking a lot different in 100 years. For the better, if we can all manage to get along for that long. The sky is the limit, if we don’t limit ourselves.
Tom, do you really want China or any other country to have Extremely High Power Microwave Transmitters in space?
There was a film made about it many years ago when terrorists took control of a microwave Platform and started Microwaving the Cities at full power.
i shall repeat the comment to the excellent article which i dropped on quillette here:
—
Good article.
Two points, first a minor correction:
“At the end of the process, the high-level radioactive waste that nuclear plants produce is the very same Coke can of (used) uranium fuel.”
Not entirely correct. Each type of fission reactor produces a different profile of radioactive isotopes as waste, the bulk of them NOT from the base fuel, but from shielding, tamping rods, and other surrounding materials.
However, it doesn’t take a PhD in nuclear engineering to calculate the waste amounts, what they are, the volume, and the half life involved.
The shorter the half-life, the more dangerous generally.
However, the answer is easy: You dig a deep hole in a subduction zone, bury them there, and let the generations around in about 30-200 million years worry about it.
At which point there is no issue.
Second point is more important, and is addressed in Michael Shellenberger’s article..
I was trying to run an MECE business analysis on who benefits from the current global climate hysteria.
The usual list of suspects are all in there, but only in sufficient quantity to keep the juggernaut going, not initiate it or accelerate it.
Who has both means, motive, and opportunity?
Well, we know that energy (and that means fossil fuel mostly, but also large proven fission, and HUGE experimental tokamak type fusion reactors) interests are massively contributing to not just solid research (of which i HIGHLY approve – falls under civil defence in my book) but also to the hysteria.
OK, but they can easily manage a four decade amortised swap from fossil to uranium/plutonium fuel sources. The entry barriers are too high for any entities other than governments or MNC sized corporates to play.
So they have means, opportunity, and there is evidence that they haven’t been shy about using that opportunity.
The motive is however missing.
Unless you are interested in an engineering fashion in advances in fusion power.
Not too many years ago, it seemed that we we not too far from cheap, small fusion reactors taking up the kind of square meterage a double garage can provide.
Now that is a game changer, disruptive in the extreme.
The net result to every human on the planet is incalculable and hugely positive.
The short term net result to any party invested in the status quo is also huge, but here, its about massive capital losses.
So every single country with a energy supply based economy.
Russia, Venezuela, OPEC, the USA, etc
Every corporate with a first order (in the business of supplying or using current fuel) or second order (mining, manufacturing, transport) interests.
That’s about half of the top 50 (using just this admittedly bad list – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_companies_by_revenue)
But when it is time to railroad, people railroad.
IF (and this is a big IF admittedly) cheap fusion power is a likelihood within the next 5-10 years, AND it’s within the reach of a company which can come up with <10m USD CAPEX… then these interests have a gigantic short term problem, UNLESS they can come up with a way for someone to pick up the hit to their balance sheets, capital losses, and effectively underwrite them over the 1-4 decades they need to transition.
Now that would provide a motive par excellence.
And leave only one party standing with means, motive, and opportunity.
Even if and when the degree of manipulation is clear, people with new-found prosperity will be forgiving in the extreme, as "it all worked out OK!"
And not notice it would all have worked out OK for everyone anyway. Except the guys doing the manipulation, who would have lost their shirts.
A heck of a lot of people would rationally actually agree to bail out these companies oddly, although a lot would not.
Given just ONE assumption (that fusion is closer and cheaper than the general population thinks) this scenario makes more sense than anything else.
And, it doesn't worry me that much. I could even justify it ethically in some ways.
Thoughts would be appreciated.
Rgs. Nic
“Why on earth take such a valuable resource and bury it under ground? Reprocess it or consume it in some form of gen 4 reactor. I prefer the latter.
“However, the answer is easy: You dig a deep hole in a subduction zone, bury them there, and let the generations around in about 30-200 million years worry about it.
At which point there is no issue.”
I forgot to paste. This is what my comment concerned…
I got that, don’t worry:)
And I completely concur with using various types of 3rd/4th gen fission, and how actually useful most actually dangerous waste is.
Two reasons why i point out this solution:
1) It’s simple, currently doable engineering wise, cheap, and works for ANYTHING you don’t want around for a while.
2) No matter what you do, there is always going to be some waste. If you don’t want people setting hair on fire, best to have at least one definitive answer to the most ludicrous demands…
Salt domes are the place to store them. Salt domes are self healing and stable.
+10