Guest “energy transition… pft!” by David Middleton
The United States Energy Information Administration is a national treasure! This morning, I was poking around in the latest Monthly Energy Review and I downloaded Table 1.1 Primary energy overview. It tabulates monthly and annual US primary energy production and consumption since 1949. I plotted up the primary energy consumption.
“Renewable energy” includes hydroelectric, wind and solar power. A quick look at this graph should tell anyone with at least two functioning synapses in their brain (the typical brain has trillions of synapses) that this is the dumbest thing ever said:
Democrat Joe Biden’s remark that he would “transition” away from oil in the U.S. in favor of renewable energy drew quick attention Thursday night from President Donald Trump, who saw it as a boon to his election chances in key states.
“I would transition away from the oil industry, yes,” Biden said in the presidential debate’s closing minutes under peppering from Trump. “The oil industry pollutes, significantly. … It has to be replaced by renewable energy over time.”
AP
Despite an “investment” of about $380 billion from 2004-2015, “renewable” energy consumption only increased by 3.6 quadrillion BTU. That’s $105.56 per million BTU (mmBTU). The wellhead price for natural gas is currently around $3.30/mmBTU and the US residential price has averaged $10.55/mmBTU since 2014.
If it was actually possible to replace fossil fuels with “renewables,” at $105.56/mmBTU, it would cost just under $8.5 trillion to replace 80.4 quadrillion BTU of fossil fuels. Depending on when he was misstating his own agenda, Mr. Biden says this must be done by 2025, 2035 or 2050… periods of 5, 15 and 30 years… $1.7 trillion/yr, $566 billion/yr and $283 billion/yr respectively.
If that isn’t funny enough, here are the same data as percentages of total primary energy consumption.
In 1949, 9% of our primary energy consumption came from real renewable energy (hydroelectric power). In 2019, the share has only grown to 11% as the result of massive “investments” in “renewables” (mostly wind & solar). Over the same time period, the fossil fuel share has only dropped from 91% to 80%, with most of this due to to the growth of nuclear power generation from 1970-1990.
Larry the Cable Guy says…
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Great post, I love it. I wish more people would hear about this.
It should be policy that any generator connected to the UK Grid should guarantee a certain capacity factor — over 95% would be nice. To reach that goal they would have to build back-up pants for when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow. Then they should be paid the going rate with no subsidies. When the operators did the sums they would find it cheaper to not bother with the renewable part of the package.
JF
Here’s common sense to jolt the magical thinking out of their heads:
Just to fuel the 330-million population USA, think about how much land would have to be dedicated to the panels and windmills. 1/4? 1/3? Now realize they have only a 20-year lifespan. How much ‘renewed’ energy, rare earth materials, transportation, mining, and manufacturing will have to be pumped into making, transporting, mounting, running, fixing, de-mounting, transporting to junkyard, dismembering, recycling?
Now add 1.3 billion Indians to 1.5 billion Chinese, and paint yourself a picture of how this will be accomplished in Asia.
Race to 1 million cases
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/texas/
What do you expect when the US is testing MORE than a Million people a day. It would be near impossible to get much less than 50,000 a day! Getting 7%, (the positive rate average for several months) of 1 Million is 70,000! Now look at the Johns Hopkins data. MANY states have far less than the magic 5% the CDC dreams about. The average is still SEVEN percent! And USA is still one of the best countries other than those countries that have a better immunity to COVID19, eg most of Africa, and those countries that feed you SPAM.
FROM:
WORLD AND US TOTAL ENERGY CONSUMPTION
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/world-total-energy-consumption
Fossil fuels was 91% in 1949, 80% in 2019, SEVENTY YEARS LATER
Renewables was 9% in 1949, 11% in 2019, SEVENTY YEARS LATER
The graph shows fossils started to decrease in 1970, as nuclear increased.
After 2000, nuclear remained nearly unchanged, but RE (mostly heavily-subsidized wind and solar) increased, which further decreased fossils.
Despite an “investment” of about $380 billion from 2004 – 2015, renewables energy consumption increased by only 3.6 quads.
That is equivalent to 380 x 10^9/(3.6 x 10^15) = $105.56 per million Btu
https://acore.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Increasing-Investment-and-Capital-Flows-in-Ohio.pdf
https://ourworldindata.org/renewable-energy
If it were possible to instantaneously replace fossil fuels with renewables, at $105.56/million Btu, it would cost just under $8.5 TRILLION to replace 80.4 quads of fossil fuels.
Replacing US Fossil Fuels
Biden wants to replace US fossils with renewables by 2035, or 2050, “at the latest”, i.e., spending to instantaneously increase from:
– About $55 billion in 2020 to $8500/15 = $567 BILLION on January 20, 2021, and continue at that level for 15 years, if 2035
– About $55 billion in 2020 to $8500/30 = $283 BILLION on January 20, 2021, and continue at that level for 30 years, if 2050
https://www.utilitydive.com/news/us-hit-record-555b-renewables-investments-in-2019/570608/
Replacing World Fossil Fuels
The US primary energy consumption in 2019 was 100.4 quads, which was only 17% of world total primary energy, i.e., worldwide spending to replace fossil fuels would be at least 5 times greater, i.e., spending to instantaneously increase from:
– About $280 billion in 2020 to 5 x 567 = $2,835 BILLION on January 20 2021, and continue at that level for 15 years, if 2035
– About $280 billion in 2020 to 5 x 283 = $1,415 BILLION on January 20, 2021, and continue at that level for 30 years, if 2050
The latter is close to my above estimate of $1.5 TRILLION/y.
All this does not include the cost of financing, and the cost of replacing short-life items prior to 2050.
NOTE: Renewable energy investment was more than $2.5 TRILLION for 2010-2019, an average of $250 billion/y
The level of world RE spending was about $282.2 billion in 2019
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/06/global-clean-energy-investment-research/
NOTE: It should be clear by now, replacing fossil fuels with renewables would involve enormous investments.
“Despite an “investment” of about $380 billion from 2004-2015, “renewable” energy consumption only increased by 3.6 quadrillion BTU. ”
$380 Billion could have built at least 38 one Gigawatt Nuclear power plants. This would increase CO2 FREE electrical power source by more than four times the amount spent on wind and solar. Meanwhile, back at the Climate Change Church, they have succeeded in shutting down five (plus) nuclear power plants in the last ten years and are working on shutting down five more.