Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
After reading some information at Friends of Science, I got to thinking about how impossible it will be for us to do what so many people are demanding that we do. This is to go to zero CO2 emissions by 2050 by getting off of fossil fuels.
So let’s take a look at the size of the problem. People generally have little idea just how much energy we get from fossil fuels. Figure 1 shows the global annual total and fossil energy consumption from 1880 to 2019, and extensions of both trends to the year 2050. I note that my rough estimate of 2050 total annual energy consumption (241 petawatt-hrs/year) is quite close to the World Energy Council’s business-as-usual 2050 estimate of 244 PWhr/yr.
Figure 1. Primary energy consumption, 1880-2019 and extrapolation to 2050. A “petawatt-hour” is 1015 watt-hours
So if we are going to zero emissions by 2050, we will need to replace about 193 petawatt-hours (1015 watt-hours) of fossil fuel energy per year. Since there are 8,766 hours in a year, we need to build and install about 193 PWhrs/year divided by 8766 hrs/year ≈ 22 terawatts (TW, or 1012 watts) of energy generating capacity. (In passing, for all of these unit conversions let me recommend the marvelous website called “Unit Juggler“.)
Starting from today, January 25, 2021, there are 10,568 days until January 1, 2050. So we need to install, test, commission, and add to the grid about 22 TW / 10568 days ≈ adding 2.1 gigawatts (GW, or 109 watts) of generating capacity each and every day from now until 2050.
We can do that in a couple of ways. We could go all nuclear. In that case, we’d need to build, commission, and bring on-line a brand-new 2.1 GW nuclear power plant every single day from now until 2050. Easy, right? …
Don’t like nukes? Well, we could use wind power. Now, the wind doesn’t blow all the time. Typical wind “capacity factor”, the percentage of actual energy generated compared to the nameplate capacity, is about 26%.
So we’d have to build, install, commission and bring online just over 4,000 medium-sized (2-megawatt, MW = 106 watts) wind turbines every single day from now until 2050. No problemo, right? …
Wind farm densities are on the order of 20 MW installed capacity per square kilometer. That’s ten 2-megawatt turbines per square km. So we’ll need to identify 400 square km. (150 square miles) of land for new wind farms every day until 2050.
Don’t like wind? Well, we could use solar. Per the NREL, actual delivery from grid-scale solar panel installations on a 24/7/365 basis is on the order of 31.3 watts per square metre depending on location. So we’d have to cover ≈ 27 square miles (69 square kilometres) with solar panels, wire them up, test them, and connect them to the grid every single day from now until 2050. Child’s play, right? …
Of course, if we go with wind or solar, they are highly intermittent sources. So we’d still need somewhere between 50% – 90% of the total generating capacity in nuclear, for the all-too-frequent times when the sun isn’t shining and the wind isn’t blowing.
Finally, an update. A well-informed commenter below says:
I think you missed something, Willis
That 22 TW is average power. But generating plants, transmission facilities, transformers, circuit interrupters, and all that stuff, must be sized for the PEAK demand.
Most distribution systems in the US have a peak to average (PtA) ratio of around 1.6 to 1.7. Except for the New England ISO which is running around 1.8. Some systems in Australia have an annual PtA ratio of around 2.3. I expect Arizona would run that high taken in isolation, which, of course, it never is.
Take 1.8 as an estimated overall PtA ratio, you need to meet a peak demand of 22 * 1.7 terawatts or 37.4 TW.
But no power system can survive with generation equal to demand. So add 15% for reserves for when parts of the system are down because of maintenance, failures, or the like. The result is, you need peak generation of 43 TW. So roughly double all of your numbers as to what needs to be built.
And guess what? He’s right. We can’t just provide for average demand. We have to provide enough power for the hottest days in the summer, and for the coldest days in the winter. So we need to double the numbers I gave above.
However, there’s another factor to consider. This is the fact that there is not as much heat loss in electric generation and electric cars. Using fossil fuels for generation and transportation is less efficient. So we won’t need to replace the full total of fossil fuels.
At present, about 60% of the fossil energy is lost as heat. However, not all of this inefficiency will disappear if we switch to an all-electric world … and some will increase. For example, overall transmission and congestion losses for the electrical grid are on the order of 15%. So if we are powering homes and industry and transportation via electricity, those losses will be greater, not less.
In addition, while electric car running efficiencies are greater than internal combustion engines, the batteries are very energy-intensive to make. And internal combustion engines use waste heat for heating the car interior, while battery cars use electricity. So the efficiency gains there will not be as great as they might seem.
Next, in some sectors there will be no reduction in losses. If the heating of a building is switched from gas to electric, there is no gain in efficiency, because the same amount of heat is still being lost through the walls and the roof.
Overall, due to increases in efficiency, we’re likely to have to replace only about half of the current fossil fuel use with electricity. So that offsets the doubling mentioned above to allow for peak consumption.
To summarize: to get the world to zero emissions by 2050, our options are to build, commission, and bring on-line either:
• One 2.1 gigawatt (GW, 109 watts) nuclear power plant each and every day until 2050, OR
• 4000 two-megawatt (MW, 106 watts) wind turbines each and every day until 2050 plus a 2.1 GW nuclear power plant each and every day until 2050, assuming there’s not one turbine failure for any reason, OR
• 100 square miles (250 square kilometres) of solar panels each and every day until 2050 plus a 2.1 GW nuclear power plant each and every day until 2050, assuming not one of the panels fails or is destroyed by hail or wind.
I sincerely hope that everyone can see that any of those alternatives are not just impossible. They are pie-in-the-sky, flying unicorns, bull-goose looney impossible. Not possible physically. Not possible financially. Not possible politically.
Finally, the US consumes about one-sixth of the total global fossil energy. So for the US to get to zero fossil fuel by 2050, just divide all the above figures by six … and they are still flying unicorns, bull-goose looney impossible.
Math. Don’t leave home without it.
My very best wishes to everyone, stay safe in these parlous times,
w.
PS—As always, to avoid misunderstandings I request that when you comment, you quote the exact words that you are discussing so we can all be clear about who and what you are referring to.
Hard Copies: Someone said they couldn’t get this to print from WUWT. So I selected the whole document from the title to the end and copied it. I pasted it into Microsoft Word. Then I cleaned up the formatting and saved it to my Dropbox, where you can access it here.
I also saved it as a PDF file for those who don’t have Word. It’s here. However, because it’s a PDF, the links to other documents are not active.
Update re $$$: Top consulting firm McKinsey has calculated that the net-zero emissions targets set by global governments and championed by the United Nations would cost the public a staggering $275 trillion by 2050, or around $25 billion per day until 2050. Full article here.
Update re Efficiency: Several people have commented that we don’t need to replace all of the energy provided by fossil fuels, since a lot of it is lost as heat and won’t be if we go electric. My calculations indicate that the savings will be nowhere near what they claim, because for many things like home and office heating the losses are not dependent on the methods used to provide the heat. And electric systems have their own losses, such as transmission losses, which will increase if we go all-electric. Finally, solar and wind require 24/7 spinning backup to replace their generation at a moment’s notice … and at present that’s only practical with fossil fuels, and it requires the spinning backup to run at very low efficiency.
But heck, read the head post—relative efficiency of fossil vs. electric is why I divided all my numbers by 2, and it’s still flying unicorns, bull-goose looney impossible.
Technical Note: These figures are conservative because they do not include the energy required to mine, refine, and transport the necessary materials, plus provide the energy needed to actually build the reactors, wind turbines, or solar panels. This is relatively small per GW of generation for nuclear reactors but is much larger for wind and solar.
They also don’t include the fact that wind turbines have about a 20-year lifespan, so after 20 years we’ll have to double the turbine construction per day. And with solar the lifespan is about 25 years, so for the last five years, we’ll have to double the solar construction per day. And then we will have to decommission and dispose of millions of wind turbines and hundreds of thousands of square miles of solar panels …
The figures also don’t include the fact that if we go to an all-electric economy we will have to completely revamp, extend, and upgrade our existing electrical grid, including all associated equipment like transformers, power lines, circuit interrupters, and switching stations. This will require a huge investment of time, money, and energy. And this extends into the homes, as every home like mine that’s heated by gas and uses gas for water heating and cooking will need to greatly increase the electrical service to the house and install an electric furnace, stove, and water heater.
Finally, since nuclear power plants take about a decade from site selection to hookup, we don’t have until 2050 to start building them. We only have until 2040, about 2/3 of the time. So we’ll need to build ~ 50% more nuclear power plants per day to get there by 2050
So in terms of energy, these are still conservative figures.
They also don’t include the cost. The nuclear plants alone will cost on the order of US$170 trillion at current prices. And wind or solar plus nuclear will be on the order of US300 trillion, plus decommissioning and disposal costs for wind turbines and solar panels.
Finally, the cost of converting all the individual homes, businesses, and buildings around the world that use gas for heating, cooking, and water heating will be enormous. Who will pay for that?
And this doesn’t touch the cost of the land for siting the windmills and the solar panels, which will be stupendous. Here’s some information from California regarding how hard it is to find suitable land for solar power.
Land
… Another issue is the fact that such solar ‘farms’ require huge tracts of land. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has been tasked with finding 24 tracts of public land of three square miles each with good solar exposure, favorable slopes, road and transmission line availability. Additionally, the land set aside for utility-scale solar farms must not disturb native wildlife or endangered species such as the desert tortoise, the desert bighorn sheep, and others. The wildlife issue has proved to be a contentious one. Projects in California have been halted due to the threat caused to endangered species resulting in a backlog of 158 commercial projects with which the BLM is currently contending.
Note that the BLM is having trouble finding a mere 75 square miles of land for solar power generation that doesn’t have too much impact on the environment, and we’re talking about building 200 square miles of new solar power per day …
So it is even more impossible … speaking of which, is it possible to be more impossible?
Because if it is possible … this is it.
Here is alberta it is -15c and snowing, our Wind assets are running at 9%, solar at 6%
http://ets.aeso.ca/ets_web/ip/Market/Reports/CSDReportServlet
Can’t beat facts
100% renewables means death
Off topic- sorry- but this is interesting in a wrong way:
“Climate-Fueled Disasters Killed 475,000 People over 20 Years”
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/climate-fueled-disasters-killed-475-000-people-over-20-years/
“Nearly a half-million people, mostly from the world’s poorest countries, died over the past two decades from conditions associated with climate disasters, according to new findings from the nonprofit Germanwatch.”
What the hell is a climate disaster? They may be weather disasters but who can prove they are due to climate change? Not possible.
In another dumb ass Scientific American article, “On Climate, Biden Must Do More Than Undo Trump’s Damage” at https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/on-climate-biden-must-do-more-than-undo-trumps-damage/ I see: “to stay on course to meet the two degrees C goal, 90 percent of U.S. passenger cars and light-duty trucks would need to be electric by 2050”.
Given the fact that much of the world will not live up to the Paris agreement- even if 90% of U.S. vehicles are electric in 2050- we certainly won’t arrive at that perfect world only 2 degrees C- even assuming carbon emissions are actually the cause of that supposed problem, which of course is probably not the case.
Scientific American is going downhill fast. It offers no suggestion that perhaps the climate “problem” is exaggerated.
While I’m at it, check out: “Biden prioritizes climate change as national security concern, pauses oil drilling on public lands” at https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/biden-prioritizes-climate-change-as-national-security-concern-pauses-oil-drilling-on-public-lands/ar-BB1d98n8
In that article, I see, “”Science is telling us that we don’t have a moment to lose,” said Gina McCarthy, Biden’s national climate adviser”. So this new climate religeon has a God called Science which talks to them!
What this discussion fails to account for is that the ultimate green goal is to drastically reduce the amount of energy the world uses. It’s not to merely substitute ‘renewables’ for fossil fuels to meet the same projected energy use. Deindustrialization is high on their list. We are seen as consuming too much, and our desire for stuff we don’t really need is ravaging the planet. It’s not just CO2 and the GHG effect, In a perfect green world, that projected energy-use curve will go way down, not up. We’ll all be riding bicycles and plowing our fields with mules again like our great grandfathers did. It will also mean a huge depopulation of the earth in a new Cultural Revolution that will make Mao’s look like child’s play.
Your premise is correct, but your extrapolation is faulty. Am I using the right words here?
They will surely try to clamp down on energy usage, but that does not mean we will plough with mules. You will not be allowed to plow without a mining licence (you are extracting resources from the soil) and your crops will be a dangerous point of possible infection for licenced crops, think bird flu, pig flu etc, “necessitating” the culling of all wild strains (non-GMO or hybrid). That is IF you can find seed or breeding stock in the first place.
Already generating your own power is subject to taxation and fees, so going “off the grid” is a pipe dream, especially when considering they already remove children to “places of safety” from homes without municipal (poisoned) water and Mains power connections. Not being tied to the municipal sewage system is, apparently, tantamount to child endangerment, so living in the country will become illegal for families.
So, depopulation? Sure. Plowing with mules a la stone age? In Afghanistan, maybe, not in Zion’s Undeclared Soviets of America, you won’t.
Don’t you wish you Yankees were nicer to them sand-devils now?
There does exist, however, the vague possiblity the “ET disclosure” will allow us access to superior technology, negating the need for all this doom and gloom and Greenism.
Didn’t R.A. Heinlein prophesy something similar to this in the 1960s? Something about the “Crazy Years” and mass hysteria leading to a fundamentalist society?
Nice post, WE.
The way I see it, Dems ‘led’ by Biden, Pelosi, and Schumer are now actively destroying their own Democrat party for all to see via their extremes. Second shampeachment, US all electric vehicles, halt deportation of final order illegal alien criminals, Fauci double mask after vaccination, DC statehood (a constitutional impossibility thanks to A1§8.17 …piling absurdity on absurdity for all to see. The 2022 general reaction will be greater than the Teaparty ‘revolution’ of 2010, and Biden (if still around) will get NOTHING done from then to 2024.
Fingers crossed… 🙂
David, a fun side note which you can verify with Charles. More than just my fingers crossed.
I was greatly bothered by all the slow ‘steal’ lawsuits, given clear and constitutional legislative deadlines. One night, tossing and turning, vaguely remembered A3§2.2. Called Charles the next morning after checking. Said to him, so I already emailed the solution to DeSantis in Florida. Charles said, why not also Abbot and Paxton in Texas? So I did. And Paxton acted (Tx v. Pa), but SCOTUS declined to take it up, Alito and Thomas dissenting.
What Charles did not til now know is that my gold SCOTUS cufflinks were given to me, as a thank you for pro bono ABA Appelate division service at a banquet in the SCOTUS Great Hall, by Justice Thomas himself some years ago.
I used to be a pretty good lawyer.
I couldn’t believe how many judges wimped out on actually looking at the facts and took refuge in various excuses.
Most interesting, Rud, thanks,
w.
What happened to the ban on politics?
Thanks, Mark. Yeah, my bad. Shouldn’t have done it, but Rud is a friend. Won’t happen again.
w.
“DC statehood (a constitutional impossibility thanks to A1§8.17”
Democrat U.S. Senator Carper proposed making DC a State earlier today.
The Founding Fathers didn’t make DC a State, but the current batch of crazy Democrats want to change all that up. Let’s stick with the Founding Father’s plan.
The FF’s didn’t want the seat of government to have any impact on the politics of the country. The Dems want the exact opposite! They want government workers to vote in the best interest of the government workers! Which party wants bigger government and more regulation by government bureaucrats? Answer that and you’ll understand why the Dems want DC to be a state!
(ask yourself why the Democrats were so dead set against Trump moving the Bureau of Land Management to Colorado)
This has been going on since Hamilton/Jefferson. The founders’ concept of state autonomy is anathema to control freaks. Marx conceded that Communism could not successfully be implemented until it was universal. Probably because if there was anywhere else to go people would opt to go there. Marx even said “If anything is certain, it is that I myself am not a Marxist.” Tenth Amendment “The powers not delegated to the United States…” Like education, health care, climate control…
Today some Democrat was quoted as saying that the DC riots are proof that DC needs to be a state.
If that’s true, then Seattle should have been made a state last year.
No doubt all those windmill factories and solar panel factories will be powered exclusively by windmills and solar panels. 🤣
Of course not!
We’ll continue to buy those items from China.
Actual delivery from solar panels on a 24/7/365 basis is on the order of 2.75 watts per square metre depending on location.
Really, Is it that low? After a short search I find the claim of about 160 watts per meter² and then of course that needs to be divided by all the time it’s in the dark or not full sun ie., angle, clouds & what else? Just seems kind of low.
A run down of the arithmetic would be great (-:
Contrary to my usual habit, I didn’t note down the source I’d used … grrr. So I might be wrong. Hang on … nope, can’t find the reference. So let me start from the beginning.
According to a National Renewable Energy Labs (NREL) report, it takes about 3.4 acres of grid-scale solar to produce 1 GWh/year of energy. That’s an average output of 114 kilowatts generated on a 24/7 basis.
An acre is 4,049 square metres. Since 3.4 acres give us 114 kW, that gives us 8.3 watts per square metre.
I’ve changed the head post to reflect that. It makes no difference, still impossible.
In passing, let me note that this is why I love writing for the web … my errors rarely last more than a couple of hours.
w.
Note not not Willis.
Thanks, Richard.
w.
Solar at good clip gives 1kW/m2. Divide by 4 to compensate for night at high latitude. That bit I have to guess, I am just off teh tropic here, never seen snow in my life, soooo…. Divide by, say, three for clouds (cloudy weather does not preclude usefulness, just as a clear sky with high humidity can severly impact power). 1000/12 gives me 80W or so, not 8. Unless you are one of the stupidses I see every day, mounting their panels where it is convenient or pretty, instead of aiming them at the sun properly.
Still, that means 3m2 just to run a small fridge. Provided you have batteries that run on unicorn farts that last forever, because the current state of battery technology, price/capacity/lifecycle, borders on a crime against humanity…
…and as I scroll down I see the need to calculate this per hectare, for those who think it a good idea to build entire landscapes full of these things, which I think stupid from top to bottom. You either decentralise it, or it become just another environmental nightmare.
Put on your best Dracula-butler voice and say “Decentraliiiiiise…”
Thanks, Paranoid. I’ve given values from the NREL for power from grid-scale installations. They average on the order of 8 W/m2, as noted in the head post.
You are correct that noon-time with the sun right overhead delivers about a kW/m2. One part you’ve missed is that solar panels are only about 15% efficient. So that brings your 80 W/m2 down to 12 W/m2.
Now, you say you think it is “stupid” to “build entire landscapes full of these things”. However, we’re not talking about just getting a few watts. We need to install enough every day to give us 2.1 GW of energy. And eventually, you’re going to need to put in two and a half million square kilometers worth …
So if you “decentralize”, you end up with a nightmare with regards to the wiring, maintenance, and routine cleaning of a huge number of panels. And that’s not to mention that if you decentralize, you have to deal with thousands and thousands of landowners to put a few panels on each house roof or backyard.
That’s why people build landscapes of them. It’s not because they’re stupid. It’s because they’re not doing it for fun. It’s a profit deal, and putting them all together minimizes all of the costs—installation, wiring, mounting, inverters, time to do the installation, and all the rest.
w.
Ah, I won’t argue with your stats, I get my numbers off of my own roof, which carries no serious argumentative weight. To be fair, I’ll half my own numbers, I have not actually measured the square meterage.
As for decentralisation, I have to clarify: I mean total self-ownership. Every guy for himself, no power companies involved. This will not be feasible in scenarios like factories or high-rise living, I realise that. I could use this as platform to denounce the stupidity of high-rise living, but I realise how stupid that would be.
Instead I can list a few benefits of individual ownership:
1) No single point of failure.
2) IF, I say IF we grant subsidies, it goes to the end user, not shareholders and CEO bonuses. I hate subsidies, they are always the result/origin of corrupt business practices, as far as my admittedly limited thinking goes.
3) People who become responsible for their own generation, will automatically become more responsible for their own usage, which would cut waste real quick, a much better approach than legislating good behaviour. The Greens should kiss my ass just for that!
4) Because the general public will be responsible for their own resource management, they will demand better design and manufacture of appliances and abodes, a major factor in the current wasteful design paradigm of “let’s add some more useless blinkenscheize to ‘differentiate our product'”. We shall not go into the dreadful state of battery technology now.
5) As a side effect, this will require people to be more tech savvy, meaning more engineering and trade schools, fewer underwater hairstylists and pet dentitionists.
A last thought: That terribly low efficiency of solar farms? How much of that is due to the mechanicals on the farm serving nothing but the farm? Automated cleaners are nice to have, but from my own experience, a little dust does not impact efficiency as much as one would think, I wash my panels no more than once a month, if that, and I live in the wind shadow of mine dumps, veritable shitheaps of ever-blowing motherloving dust. Don’t ask me about the friggin’ Uranium!!! Still…
In the end, we will still burn fuel, unless you can sell me a pocket-sized nuclear reactor, which I won’t trust, anyway, especialy if it was made in Fong Kong.
Now, about those ET disclosures and zero-point energy…
Thanks for the reply. I wrote that without any mental, back of the envelope, or quick & dirty estimate.
After a short search for Trenberth’s energy budget chart I find 161 watts/m² reaches the surface. And another search of solar panel efficiency finds a lot of different values I’m gonna use 15% (not to far from 13%) which yields 24.15 watts/m² call it 25 watts and as was pointed out not all of the land area is used on a solar farm here’s an aerial view a solar farm:
Looks like 60% is used, but there’s other roads and buildings associated with it so something less than that and I’m coming up with less than 15 watts. All my rounding off seems to have been up rather than down, so sticking my wetted finger in the air I give it between 10 and 15 watts/m² on a 24/7/365 basis which is a lot less than I thought when I posted that. 13% efficiency would have been 12.6 watts/m² Without accounting for any other reasons and there no doubt is some maintenance downtime it’s close to your revised 8.3 watts/m²
Another point is that efficiency goes down as the solar panel ages. It goes down real fast if the panels aren’t kept clean as well.
I just wanted to jump in with a quick comment. Solar panels lose their efficiency over time. Good ones are about 1% per year. Wind turbines have mechanical issues as well. It’s not a plug and play solution. I have lived off of both and had a diesel generator for back up.
I won’t live to 2050. So I don’t really care about being right or wrong. Humanity will be snuffed off the face of the earth long before anything like climate change will come to fruition, which it will not, because it is a scam. There are no known parameters of the amount of CO2 the atmosphere can hold and what levels result in what results, nor is there a control or a test. The “real-time” data is an extrapolation of averages based on suppositions based on theory. If I own 2 cars and drive 1, the data is that I am producing twice the CO2 emissions of a single car owner.
I also believe that blaming “Climate change” for destructive weather phenomenon or as they said about Hurricane Harvey, “Hurricane Hrvey wouldn’t have had so much associated rainfall with it had it not been for climate change.” What?
When can they predict the weather accurately? Where is the scientific proof that allows any credence at all to a statement that establishes a fact by saying what “could have been?” (For instance: “If he hadn’t farted in his bath, the tsunami wouldn’t have been so tall.”)
I don’t know how people became so ignorant and the media got so bold as to get people to believe all this rubbish.
But I see at least 4 more years of it.
At least the don’t call it “Global Warming” anymore. It fell out of vogue I suppose by apoplexy.
Not 100% of the land in solar farm can be used for solar panels.
True … however they are packed together as tightly as they can given the need for access for cleaning etc. Not sure what your point is here.
w.
Unless they are located at the equator, the panels have to be tilted to the south (from a north hemisphere perspective). Because of this, there has to be a gap between the panels, otherwise the northern panel will be partially shaded by the southern one. The further north, the bigger the gap has to be.
Hard to put voltage regulators, current combiners, etc in the shade of the solar panels. They would cook. So you need a place for those among the array. Nor can you haul replacement parts into a tightly packed solar installation, you need to leave access roads, storage, etc – just like an apple orchard can’t have the trees packed all together, you wouldn’t be able to get the harvesting equipment in among the trees. You’ll need all kinds of workspace for assembling panels, repairing panels, repairing the mountings for the panels, rebuilding motors if you have an articulated installation to follow the sun. Depending on the size and weight of the panels themselves as well as the infrastructure you might even need to leave room between panels to get a forklift into place around the panels. I could probably come up with more but wifey just called me for supper!
Mark’s point is that your estimate for solar panel area is a lower-bound on the amount of land necessary to produce the required power, and not able to be used for other purposes, such as growing food or even recreation.
Zackly what I wuz gonna say.
“We can do that in a couple of ways. We could go all nuclear. In that case, we’d need to build, commission, and bring on-line a brand-new 2.1 GW nuclear power plant every single day from now until 2050. Easy, right?”
I hate to see such ignorance from both global warmists and us folk. Think Small Modular molten salt reactors, sized 399 too 500 MW, which are built in factories and installed on land which need very little preparation and very little, oor no water for cooling. These cost about half as much as a conventional light water reactor and produce power at a levelized cost of 4 cents per kWhr, It would be easy, worldwide with dozens of factories, to produce 1000 MW of capacity per day. These SMRs are in development as we speak and look to commercialize before the end of the decade.
The operative phrase in your post is “These SMRs are in development”. When they are in production then start cheerleading for them. And if they aren’t available till the end of the decade, 2030, that only gives us 5 years to meet Biden’s 2035 goal.
As Willis calculated it would take at least twice 1000MW per day. 1000MW is 1GW. Willis calculated 2GW would be needed per day. And if you cut the interval down to 5 years from 30 years you would need about 12GW per day! More than 10 times what you estimate.
And this doesn’t even count the installation time to put them on site, turned on, and producing!
Thanks, Col. First, accusations of “ignorance” are not a good look on you. Please dial it back.
Next, let’s look at SMRs, say 400 MW units. We’d need to build, install, test, commission, and connect five of these to the grid each and every day starting tomorrow to meet the demand.
But of course, we can’t start tomorrow. They won’t even be commercialized until the end of the decade. So instead of having 30 years, we’d have 20 years. That means we’d have to build, install, test, commission, and connect eight of these to the grid each and every day …
But of course, “commercialized” doesn’t mean “dozens of factories” in operation, that’s just when the first ones would hit the market. By the time the “dozens of factories” are designed and get planning permissions and get funding and actually get constructed, and then can finally start building these units, likely another decade would have passed … and at that point we’d need to build, install, test, commission, and connect fifteen of these to the grid each and every day for a decade.
Next, it will likely take a factory something like a month to construct each of these reactors. So let’s be totally generous and call it one reactor per factory every two weeks. At that rate, to produce the fifteen per day needed would require 210 factories … yeah, like those will just spring into existence.
Finally, just the installation, testing, commissioning, and connecting to the grid of even five of these each and every day for thirty years is an impossibility. And fifteen each day?
Sorry, despite your facile accusation of “ignorance”, that’s still bright green impossible …
w.
For comparison Hinkley Point, the UKs newest , nearly built , nuclear power station was planned in 2008 and will be in operation in 2023. It will produce 3260 megawatts.
Based on your figures and our usage the UK needs a 2.1Gwatt nuclear power station built every 45 days until 2050 to meet the target of zero carbon.
There are some very optimistic, mathematically challenged people out there and in government.
Ho hum time for the adverts again.
ColMosby,
Once again: [Let’s start calling this John’s 10 to the 4th rule.]
Get 10 producing and on the grid;
get another 100 in the hook-up stage;
another 1,000 financed and permitted;
and 10,000 approved by the polities wherein located.
Someone might listen to you when you get 10^4.
They are in development as we speak, and have been for the last 20 years, and will be for at least the next 20 years.
Let us know when they finally get out of development and somebody has decided to spend their own money to build one of these fantasy power plants.
Keep in mind the work force for this construction has to come from somewhere. We have about 12000 from the KXL layoff and there are all of us nonessential workers that are now unemployed but if the corona scare ever is allowed to dwindle some of us will want our old jobs. It shouldn’t take much training to teach unemployed waitresses to set turbin blades 900 feet above ground or operate electric draglines in the mines we will need to put together these generators. Come to think of it maybe “more impossible” is the correct term for this green adventure.
RIP USA Will the last yank out please turn off the lights? Wait What lights they went off years ago
Either just before or shortly after that happens, we’ll be doing the same in Blighty. Of course as we leave we’ll be able to wave across at wee Jimmie Krankie stomping around her new kingdom!
“…teach unemployed waitresses to set turbine blades…” We already know what happens when you redeploy waitresses into jobs that actually demand practical skills and intellectual labour. Can anyone say AOC?
Your math isn’t the problem Willis, your logic stinks. In each of your calculations, you assume that the particular technology (nuke, solar, wind) replaces all fossil fuel. That assumption is flatly incorrect. The reality is that it will be a mixture of the technologies you mentioned. You also must calculate efficiency gains that can be implemented.
.
Logic, don’t leave home without it.
Uh, that *is* what Biden just said on TV today. Where were you? 2035 – the Dems date for eliminating all fossil fuel power generation. Along with 500,000 charging stations and no new ICE cars.
EXACTLY what efficiency gains do you expect?
Of course 500,000 new charging stations will barely handle NYC. With 60M rural population, each needing a charging station, I wonder where Biden is going to tell them to charge their EV’s?
People in flyover land won’t need charging stations, they can all just ride horses.
There are 2 million cars registered in NYC. Don’t you think one charging station for four cars is too much?
Many, many of those autos are parked on the street in NYC. I can just see people stringing out heavy extension cords to the nearest lamppost only to find out someone stole them all overnight for the copper!
How many times do you suppose that will happen before the people in NYC have a hissy fit?
1) Use aluminum wire instead of copper
(for block warmers)
2) Do it like they do in Canada:
OMG! You ever tried to wind up a heavy aluminum cable?
Have you *ever* seen the on-street parking in NYC or even St. Louis. It isn’t drive-in parking, it’s parallel ON-STREET parking. Many (probably most) on-street places inn NYC or St. Louis don’t have parking meters. Are you going to tear up all the streets and sidewalks to put in charging stations? Do you have even the smallest clue as to what that would cost?
Aluminum is no where near as good a conductor as is copper, so you are going to lose a lot more of your energy in the cable.
Aluminum is also expensive.
How do the thieves tell that the cable is aluminum and not copper?
Aluminum production also requires a bunch of energy.
A block heater for a Tesla sized ICE vehicle consumes about 3 kWh over four hours. A Tesla 3 battery requires 40 kWh to reach half capacity (ignoring all charging losses). So you have to push out somewhere between 12 and 25 times the power over your “charging network.”
Much more expensive installation.
What percentage of those cars have off street parking? You don’t know, do you?
Of course she doesn’t.
Doesn’t matter where they are parked
Of course it matters! If there is no electrical cable running down the sidewalk or street then one would have to be laid down and fed from somewhere. When you are tearing up the length of a block in a residential area depending on on-street parking WHERE ARE THE RESIDENTS GOING TO PARK? Now imagine doing that in a large city, block after block of pissed off residents screaming at the mayor and the press about the inconvenience!
And I can’t even imagine how many other services would get accidentally knocked out of service over and over again, telephone, cable TV, internet, etc. It would be a nationwide nightmare – and the Democrats to blame.
If the GOP want to win back urban and suburban voters this would be a prime policy screw-up to use in doing so! I almost hope the Dems try to push something like this through!
With that one statement you have proven yourself to be someone who doesn’t have a clue as to what you are talking about.
You left yours in the GARBAGE bin decades ago….. poor tyke !
Doesn’t matter what you PRETEND will replace fossil fuels.
I can’t happen WITHOUT USING FOSSIL FUELS.
ROFLMAO
You can’t get efficiency gains from using the MOST INEFFICIENT forms of energy supply !
Your total lack of any rational logical thought process is quite bizarre.
Seems that “logic” is something you never had, and never will have.
Better insulation in a building results is consuming less energy to heat/cool said building.
Can’t make insulation without FOSSIL FUELS, idiot !
I’m so glad that YOU are offering TO PAY for insulation in every home.
And I notice the dumb attempt to change the subject from energy supply to something else
FEEBLE !!!
The savings in heating/cooling bills pays for the insulation in less than 5 years.
Vermiculite and cellulose can be made without fossil fuels.
Really? Vermiculite can be made without fossil fuels? Do you actually know what vermiculite is and how it is made? Vermiculite insulation is not naturally occurring. It has to be processed.
Do you know what cellulose insulation is? It is shredded paper or denim treated with some kind of chemical. First, what powers the shredders? Fossil fuels, maybe? And how are the chemicals made? Bet it takes fossil fuels!
Depends entirely on the house and the climate.
Typical progressive, actually does believe that one size fits all. And if it doesn’t government will make it fit.
Thanks, Bethan. We’ve been insulating buildings better and better worldwide for the last 50 years. So that slow improvement is already pretty much baked into the current rate of increase of energy use.
Also, retrofitting insulation into existing buildings is costly in terms of time, money, and energy.
You’re talking about a difference that makes very little difference.
w.
I remember one poster awhile back who was convinced that the amount of energy saved by installing LED lights would be more than enough to power a complete conversion to electric cars.
it seems small but the new led lights are amazing,
good light
low energy usage
and if you live in hot climate like i do south Florida change every single light in the house and the LED generate almost no heat, this lowers the a/c bill because the A/C does not have to remove the heat from the bulbs.
i also have r50 and some r70 in attic, 2900 sq feet high ceilings etc. A/C on 78 with a newer unit
new seals on windows and doors house built 1998.
my elec. bill is 90-110 per month so insulation. and good construction fix-it skills make major difference.
and i am a right wing non environmentalist, conservatives actually do things, left wing nut jobs just talk.
i will share my discussion/lecture from my left wing neighbor. i in my hybrid Camry an getting a lecture from him in his extended Chevy suburban while he is having a picnic and filling five garbage containers with trash and recyclables, we have separate containers but he can not be bothered to separate. and he then complains his 14 year old a/c unit quit again which cost $400/month to run so he just got 3 window units for now to supplement.
also note he has 150-200k income so absolutely no reason for this stupidity.
Making insulation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cy__ovlT0TQ
Cannot be done without FOSSIL FUELS
100% mining, gas, and fossil fuels.
What is the EROEI from insulation? (calculating the return as “saved” energy)
YAWN
CANNOT be made without fossil fuels
What part of that don’t you comprehend !!!
As I pointed out before, most houses built since the 70’s, already have adequate insulation. The benefit from adding more is pretty small.
BS only houses built last 10 years have GOOD insulation. even now builders cheat and insulate good but use super cheap windows and doors because 90% of buyers have no idea the difference from good doors and windows to super cheap just have to look pretty. i was fixing a 3 million dollar home last year was there just to fix a window and some kitchen pot lights. 14 ten hour days later i was done, unbelievable the many things they cheated on. it depends on the builder some good, some bad. (note the windows are so cheap 1/3 do not open and close, its florida so people never use the windows so they do not know, first window i open fell right out of the frame and smashed on the roof below.
i have dropped utilities 6-8 houses from 400-600 dollars a month to 100-150 per month. i used to have a couple rentals and buy and sell a house now and then.
and for 2 weeks work and $5,000 i can drop the utilities $4,000 a year. (note that is if decent windows) if the house has total crap windows then things get more expensive, doors are cheap and easy and give big bang for the buck, if you have crappy ill fitting doors you will be surprized how much cold air comes in on a 15 degree day up north.
Airtight buildings are also a nightmare for those who live and work in them. And they must be air tight or the heating and cooling units have to draw in outside air and exchange inside air. So what does the extra insulation buy you?
My parents ran into this a long time ago. They had vinyl siding put on with extra insulation, had the walls filled with foam, and about 3ft of cellulose added in the attic. After about a week they had to start leaving the front and back doors open in the dead of winter because the house got so stuffy!
They never added it up but I question still today if it actually saved them anything. They *did* finally buy a high efficiency furnace/air conditioner and I know that save them a lot of money. The insulation? I have my doubts.
Quite bizarre isn’t it.
These morons seek to have air tight houses to make them more efficient and hence decrease atmospheric CO2…
…. not realising that this will cause a build up of EVIL CO2 levels inside the house.
SO DUMB !!
https://www.amazon.com/Heat-Recovery-Ventilator/s?k=Heat+Recovery+Ventilator
WOW, look at all that STEEL and PLASTIC !!!
Now where does that come from, ?
Do you know ?
Powered by electric fans. There goes most of your energy savings.
Air exchangers don’t actually provide *any* energy savings. They are a cost over and above. You still have to heat and cool the air inside the house. An air exchanger won’t change that.
Air exchangers also only recover a portion of the heat in the outgoing air.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_recovery_ventilation
Now were is all the metal, ducts, mechanics, electronics etc for these going to come from, moron
So glad that YOU are offering to PAY for all of these. !
Typical progressive, never bothers to actually think through the things it is proposing.
It’s a 156watt unit that will probably need to be run 24/7/365. A cost over and above your heating and cooling bill – remember this doesn’t provide any actual HVAC input to the home, it’s only an air exchanger.
$800 plus probably $1000 for installations. $1800 for someone on a fixed income.
At $0.13 per KWh this thing will cost about $20 per month to run.
You *really* don’t know much about living poor on a fixed income, do you?
a, almost impossible to make an old house :air tight”
b. there are formulas, setups and construction codes for all of these concerns, which you are not aware and did not do.
the house
the insulation
the windows
the doors
the furnace/a/c or heat pump
the air circulation (yes if house is perfect need some re circulation)
the type and size and length of duct work
the humidity, my first guess is you kept old furnace used a bunch of insulation and humidity was way outts wack.
a professional can calculate all these factors in 2-4 hours for $200-400 dollars, if you ever do it again it will be the best money you spend, because you can really fu@k a house up when you improvise major HVAC changes.
even worse if have a high humidity problem, i have seen people destroy a house, turn into a mold night mare in one year, many times the mold starts out of sight behind the walls and by the time it is obvious and visable the house is ruined.
really minor stuff can cause issue, i used plastic then insulation in part of an attic, it was installed correct. but didnt matter that corner was wind area and condensation formed, i noticed it a week later removed plastic and used tyvec instead. now i just spend the extra money for tyvec always b/c never know when need the extra margin of error. i have seen walls that took years to build up condensation say from one cold water pipe. tyvec will breath a little and let those small condensation issues resolve.
True, and totally irrelevant to whether or not energy comes from fossil fuel or not.
Thanks, Bethan. It doesn’t matter if you do it with wind alone (plus the necessary nuclear backup) or nuclear alone or solar (plus the nuclear backup), or with any mixture of these.
Here’s a mixture—half wind, half solar plus necessary backup. That would require:
1,500 2 MW wind turbines installed, tested and connected to the grid every day for 30 years, PLUS
50 square miles of solar installed, tested and connected to the grid every day for 30 years PLUS
one 1.5 GW nuclear power plant installed, tested and connected to the grid every day for 30 years.
Still bright green impossible … you don’t gain anything by mixing the sources when each of the sources is technically totally infeasible.
Logic, indeed …
w.
PS—I fixed the formatting on your comment. Like you, I often forget that formatting in the new layout won’t take HTML tags, you have to use the buttons at the bottom of the comment.
How about you add in geothermal, tidal, and biomass?
Geothermal only works when its near the surface.. eg Iceland, New Zealand
Biomass? gotta grow it, the CHOP IT DOWN and transport it, lots of CO2
….. and its messy and polluting to burn.
Some third world countries use LOTS of biomass in the form of dung, for cooking heat.
Tidal is a non-starter in every experiment so far, plus it damages natural ocean life and habitats.
NONE of these can provide the huge amount of RELIABLE energy required by a modern society. They are only ever just tiny niche supplies.
That modern society is what the socialist/marxists WANT TO DESTROY
But remember.. YOU are also part of the modern society.
(or could be if you wanted to)
As New Mexico is starting to find out ..
GREEN virtue-seeking…. DESTROYS.
Geothermal heating and cooling installations can be installed almost anywhere: https://www.epa.gov/rhc/geothermal-heating-and-cooling-technologies#:~:text=Geothermal%20Heating%20and%20Cooling%20Technologies%201%20Ground%20Source,…%203%20Deep%20and%20Enhanced%20Geothermal%20Systems.
TINY NICHE !
Ground source heating deplete the ground’s energy, becoming inefficient after time
Again.. so glad that YOU are offering to PAY for all these
STOP TELLING OTHER PEOPLE WHAT THEY HAVE TO DO !!
Geothermal heat pumps aren’t really geo-thermal. The name is little more than a marketing gimmick. The reality is that it costs a lot of money and requires each house to have a large yard to accommodate the coils. They are also useless for apartments and multi-story buildings.
Gee whiz, it’s almost as if you were doing a school project in how to prove to the world that you have never actually thought about any of the ideas you are proposing.
the big downer about heat pumps is when they leak,
if get lucky and install in a moderate climate area and never get a leak could do ok.
but extreme weather kills the usefulness
and a leak is one of the worst things you will ever deal with.
although new technology may make finding a leak easy, but without high tech sensor technology finding and fixing a leak is night mare.
geothermal is pretty much tapped out everywhere except Iceland.
Tidal is a myth.
Biomass, not enough to make a difference, unless you want to start cutting down virgin forests.
You are clueless MarkW, see my post/link above to fred250
You poor empty sack of ignorant mindless rhetoric.
Live in your own FANTASY LA-LA-LAND world, fool.
So the guy who’s every claim has been refuted over and over again, wants to claim that others are clueless.
Fred has shredded every one of your claims.
Yesterday was the time to start on those three … So far, not a resounding success.
It doesn’t really matter if you use a mixture of technologies – do the maths and see that there is no possible solution. As to ‘efficiency gains’ – wind power is essentially technology thousands of years old and was abandoned for being a dead end technology – there are no more efficiency gains to be squeezed out. Most of these technologies are similar – they’re at the limits of their usefulness and just can’t be any more efficient than they are right now.
You neglect to envision new technologies, like https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/hydropower/tidal-power.php
ROFLMAO
Tidal power has been trialed and FAILED MASSIVELY
The amount possible is totally insignificant.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tidal_power_stations
TINY, NICHE.. just like geothermal
Exactly as I said
Thanks for the confirmation bozo. !
Now go and scrape up some cow dung so your mummy can cook your evening meal.
The places with large tides require harmonic oscillations to get the high tides.
Add tidal power the mix and the harmonic oscillations disappear.
Every where else, a couple of feet of change in sea level twice a day isn’t enough to power anything meaningful. Not to mention all the problems with salt water corrosion and the cost of protecting your investment from winter storms.
Thanks, Bethan. Tidal power plants suffer from some major disadvantages.
• They are intermittent, since the tides are not always flowing.
• Their output changes constantly, making them difficult to integrate into a power grid.
• They are very limited as to where they can be installed, as you need a large mostly enclosed tidal basin so you can site them in the entrance where the flow is significant.
• They need fairly high tides to operate, and those only occur in high latitudes.
As a result, they’ll never be a significant player in world energy. At present, after years of development, the total global tidal power has a peak production of about 500 MW. This means an average production on the order of half of that, call it 300 MW to be generous.
Recall from above that we’ll need 22 terawatts of generating capacity by 2050. Current tidal generation is 0.001% of our 2050 need, and is unlikely to be much more than that.
Finally, could I ask people to stop dumping on and insulting Bethany? She’s raising what she thinks are important issues in good faith, and dissing her is not an appropriate response to honest inquiry such as hers.
w.
No Willis, she is DELUSIONAL.
She needs to be woken up to that FACT. !
Thanks, Fred, but there’s no need to insult people in order to wake them up. In fact, that’s usually counterproductive.
And my take is that Bethan is not delusional, she just doesn’t have either the math chops or alternatively the desire to take a hard look at what she’s proposing.
As a result, she’s drawn by the “latest greatest” … like say heat pumps and tidal power. Yes, they’re real, but they are orders of magnitude too small to make a difference.
Take heat pumps. They do save some energy, in mild climates. In cold climates they don’t. And half the world’s population lives in cities, where there’s little access to the ground for the heat pumps.
The main part she doesn’t seem to understand is that even if her collection of ideas could cut the 2050 energy need by a factor of 4 (which they can’t), it’s still not doable. That’s still building, installing, testing, commissioning, and connecting to the grid a 500MW small nuke each and every single day for 30 years … bright green impossible.
Plus the mining and refining and concrete production to build them, plus the huge extension in the existing electrical grid …
And I haven’t even touched the need for things like electric jumbo jets and electric ocean freighters and the like, or the fact that there aren’t enough rare earth elements to build all the necessary windmills and/or solar panels, or …
My best to you,
w.
bethan is a regular around here, she has earned the derision she is getting.
Again not new technologies – all are variations on the medieval water wheel or wind powered wheels. The peak of efficiency was passed some 5 or 6 hundred years ago – this is turning the clock back hundreds of years to revisit technologies that were dropped because they were no longer efficient or fit for purpose, being replaced by modern designs. If you really want to find a new form of energy production, don’t wallow in the past, look towards the new emergent technologies – just remember that they take time to develop and can’t be rolled out when you stamp your foot and scream “but I want it now!” like some spoiled child.
You can save a lot of fossil fuels by using more efficient technology. For example replacing an oil burning furnace with a heat pump which uses less energy for an equivalent number of BTU’s.
Again.. so glad YOU are offering to PAY for people to do this.
Which is already happening and will only drop total energy needs by a couple of percent, at most.
Heat pumps don’t work well in cold climes. My parents had one before buying the higher efficiency furnace/air conditioner.
Not every environment is the same as the one you live in. Stop and think for once.
Have your parents dig a trench below the forst line, and use the heat pump to extract the thermal energy from there. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_heat_pump
Yeah, that’s going to work real well in Kansas clay. If you just go below the frost line you are still only going to get air that is just above freezing, something a heat pump is *not* efficient at using.
This might work where my parents lived where house lots ranged from 1.5acres to 3 acres. But my first house where you could actually stick your hand out the bathroom window and touch the house next door? Not so much. Your trench wouldn’t be long enough to provide a continuous flow of air. If you dug it in Kansas clay you’d probably being pulling a vacuum inside the trench in two minutes! And if you vented the trench to the outside air then what’s the use of the trench in the first place?
Fantasy tiny NICHE
When are you PAYING for all these?
Where will all the materials come from.?
You do know your whole pitiful existence RELIES TOTALLY ON FOSSIL FUELS, don’t you !!
bethan really does like making proposals that cost other people lots of money. It’s almost like she has never had to handle a budget on her own.
1) Hugely expensive to install
2) High maintenance
3) Requires a large yard. The further poleward, the bigger the yard needed.
4) Not practical for apartments and multi-story buildings.
5) Not practical in areas where bedrock comes close to the surface.
6) Difficult in areas where ground water comes close to the surface. Extra corrosion and have to prevent the water from freezing.
7) You have to go well below the frost line, since the ground loops are pulling heat out of the ground, they will lower the frost line by several feet.
most Americans are so out of shape, if they had to dig a 3 foot by 6 foot trench they would fall over exhaustion first, i watched my dad 60 40 lbs over weight, was ok shape back when. try and help the contractors at his house, they just let him try, dad puked in about 15 min, spent the next 4 hours on the couch. he said i do not under stand, i watched you do that shit 10 hours a day 6 days a week.
and i said yes, i was in shape, ate a perfect diet, was about 12% body fat and it takes years to reach that kind of conditioning. even if in shape every summer the first month is brutal, every night i eat and go to bed at 9pm, after the first month i can start to do other stuff go out for a few beers etc.
the guys that go out and drink heavy pay a terrible price.one summer we sent 35 guys home (fired)
and 7 to the hospital, then one guy tried to hang with me all week end, that was scary, both his arms locked up like tetanus, turned out dehydration and severe low potassium caused his arms to lock, we had to put him in and out of the car, i thought he was gonna die when he started shaking and no sweat,. when you stop sweating you are in trouble.
Have you ever had a heat pump?
I once did; they’re awful. The heat is clammy, at best— and you have to have a back-up heat source when temperatures get too low for the heat pump to produce heat.
natural gas furnace
new doors
insulation
and led lights
is a good start
too many worry about huge fancy earth shattering changes.
but the practical conservative approach gets alot of results for less cash.
its always about what you do
not what you talk about doing.
buying 50 led bulbs off amazon and changing them in 2 hours is something people can and do.
digging up 10,000 cubic yards of dirt and heat pump is something 99% of people never do, i did 8 years construction thru college, and some of this stuff is back breaking PIA work.
and you always run into problems on big projects on old houses.
only time it is “easy” is when when all new housing, new development and lots of open access for heavy equipment.
let me mention a house in Pittsburgh PA, ran into an obstacle and 4 guys hand digging under a back yard concrete patio for 3 days.the houses were in a court yard, there was no path wider than 4 feet.
so no heavy equipment, hell we could barely use wheel barrows had to carry 100 buckets of concrete for one section.
ever bucket concrete 45 yards with a 45 min. time limit on the cement truck??
You can save a lot of fossil fuels by using more efficient technology. Fore example using a Toyota Pirus instead of a Ford F350 for a run to the package store.
So you have to use two cars.. A delivery car
…. and one you can actually USE when needed.
STOP TELLING OTHER PEOPLE WHAT THEY HAVE TO DO.
Don’t have to tell them anything……the price of a gallon of whatever will influence the decision the make in what vehicle they drive.
YAWN!
No people will drive the car they need to drive
Political idiocy of artifically increasing fuel prices HURTS EVERYONE, particularly those on lower incomes.
But you DON’T CARE about the little people do you
Its all about “feeling virtuous”
And of course, it makes ABSOLUTELY NO DIFFERENCE to atmospheric CO2 or the climate.
Really is fascinating how you spend so much time figuring out how to use government to control the decisions other people make.
You *really* don’t know anything about living poor, do you?
Speaking of not being able to do even simple logic, while acting pretentious, here comes bethan.
Are you actually stupid enough to believe that by dividing the work between multiple technologies, that the total amount of work will be less?
Beyond that, what are these efficiency gains you rant about? When ALL the factors are calculated, electrics are less efficient than ICE cars.
See my comment above re: insulation
The topic is about SUPPLY, moron
Stop trying to run away from your ignorantly idiotic comments
Give him a break, incredibly ignorant is the only schtick he’s got.
See other people’s response regarding your comments about insulation.
Homes built since the 70’s already have sufficient insulation. Adding extra on top of that is barely noticeable.
More is better no?
No, the law of diminishing returns stops you from making any gains. You spend more energy on building insulation than you spend on heating/cooling
OVERKILL IS GOLDEN TO AN Extent i had a 12 room 1890s house in Pa the walls were thicker than 4 inch, the front of the house took all the wind, i put r30 in the walls, friends and a couple of the contractors that were doing sub-work had fun giving me shit about who the hell would put r30 in old walls, i also foam every elec. outlet(everyone) i do 2 per wall every room because i always run at least 40% more elec than needed,
i even run 2 /20 amp circuits for each and every bathroom so the wife can run 6-10 items if she wants..
well come winter it was minus 10 degrees out side
and that front wall was 62 degrees.
also note they were real plaster walls
my neighbor had the exact same house, they built like ten of them on that street exactly same design and square footage bedrooms little different, old days they tended to stick with a few different proven designs,
anyhow put your hand on her front wall and it was numb in five min.
insulation and spray foam and new rubber seals in all the right places can make a big difference.
another tip i will give for people in very cold areas. put one of those unvented natural gas ceramic heaters in the basement. use a smaller one that you can leave on 24/7 when temp out side stays below 30 for extended periods, put in a clear area protected by fire board.
and just let it run, extremely efficient and heat rises and keeps the basement from making the first floor cold.
NO, because someone has to pay for it.
Are YOU offering !
Tell you what, Go and wrap yourself in twenty blakets
….. then tell us if “more is better” fool !!
And so speaks the person who is utterly clueless when it comes to economics.
No, more is not always better. If the cost of the insulation is so high that you can never recover it in fuel savings, then you have wasted your money.
Thank you Willis
You are most welcome, Anthony, and my thanks to you in turn for creating and maintaining this most wonderful of forums where such ideas as these can receive full public attention and free public comment.
w.
“Math. Don’t leave home without it.”
You are talking about people who hide in momma’s basement, and skulk around “safe places”. That explains why they don’t need maths.
Good analysis. I posted something here a year or two ago along the same lines – equating the UK private vehicle fleet daily fuel needs with wind turbine requirements – whenever one does this type of maths, the conclusions become obvious –
put another way – the green policies will fall apart when they smack into the wall of physics……
” physics ”
You are kidding, right?
Biden, Kerry, and all the highly paid support folks last came close to physics when rolling down daddy’s driveway in a little red wagon. First timers usually tip over so as to not hit a wall.
Who care about facts when you are on the right side of history and have hope and normalcy at the UN, US and EU?
As compared to NASA doing it’s job {which we paying them 20 billion dollar per year to do.
NASA job has been and remains, to explore the Moon to determine if there in mineable lunar water. Which means roughly can produce water which can sell it, 500 per kg or 1/2 million per ton. Or if private company {without govt giving it money, other than government could buy water at $500 kg, but it’s NOT NASA’s job to buy lunar water, just saying if needs it it buy it, like it buys anything it needs, then it could paid the market price which would $500 per kg {or less} or could likewise buy lunar rocket fuel for $1500 to $2000 per kg which about 1/10th of current cost. So NASA explores lunar polar region {a fairly small region} and measures how water could mineable. Then NASA explores Mars. And private investment decides if what NASA discovers, is or less not “mineable” because mineable is a business decision- or gold everywhere but one only mines the gold, if it’s mineable.
Exploring Mars is about, can people live on Mars. NASA and space cadet have saying one could have settlements or Mars [only habitable planet other than Earth, it’s claimed} and NASA explores Mars to determine if such a thing is actually possible. NASA has sent robot craft to Mars { a lot them} simply because Mars could habitable- otherwise they send as many to the Moon or Mercury or Venus, and etc. Or NASA has already spend the most amount of tax dollars on Mars missions- due to Mars is thought to most habitable planet, other than Earth. But regardless of what Elon Musk says, we currently lack enough information. It’s possible. And what NASA needs explore is whether Mars has mineable water, and instead of $500 per kg, for living purposes, Mars water needs to be around $1 per kg. Now like Moon, NASA doesn’t mine water, to somehow cause Mars water to be the cheap price of $1 per kg, instead determines where Mars water is, which might mine and could be sold at $1 per kg, or $1000 per cubic meter {ton} or 1 billion dollar for million tons.
Any mars town will need millions of tons. Things like is Mars water polluted, and/or is most Mars water polluted, and other things about Mars water. And if NASA finds alien life, does that mean that Mars is not a habitable planet?
Oh, what does this have to do with energy on Earth?
Everything.
Butler James: My lordship. Rusians are on Mars!
His Lordship: Calm down, James – and all of them?
We have had people living in ISS for two decades and hundreds of people
living in Antarctica for several decades. And roughly speaking, they go unnoticed.
Could one have hundreds of free people living on Mars and have them, roughly speaking, go unnoticed?
I think we could have a few NASA base on Mars for decades, and they go as unnoticed, as ISS and bases in Antarctica, but I mean people who for whatever reason were not embedded in some bureaucracy.
Though I think American News, would cover it differently, if the people were embedded a Russian or Chinese bureaucracy.
It seems the news would constantly have stories that X country was doing things and US country was not doing something, a central part of the constant harangue would be pointing to X country with people living on Mars, and US lack doing anything useful.
But that is more about the nature of our non-news, news.
And my “point” is what if they were free people living on Mars, and what would the effect be of that?
Well, I have wild idea, that would cause World Peace.
And reason roughly is that just hundred people on Mars, would force the comparison between Earthlings vs Martians. Or it’s slight and constant push away from a Earth nation vs another Earth nation. And Earthlings vs Martians would not tend to be about conflict or potential war.
So, to be clear, what talking about is not NASA bases on Mars, and it will not do this, even if lots of Martian base crew are from other nations. Mainly because NASA bases will be mostly ignored.
It’s realized that NASA Mars bases will be mostly ignored, and this is commonly expressed in terms of worries about long term funding of the Mars exploration program. And such “worries” cause idiot ideas of doing Mars flags and footprint “type exploration”- which basically means having little exploration done but having the “success” of Apollo program.
In case anyone not aware, Apollo program was not about exploration of the Moon, it was a cold war PR stunt, a race to land Americans on the Moon, and beating Soviets which were also mostly concerned about global PR of space {or since on topic PR, I would say our heavens}.
Which if understand this, one might understand why US threw away the best rocket ever made, the Saturn V. Of course now, the Starship could be stiff competition for best rocket ever to made, though the SLS is not even close.
In bureaucratic jargon, the problem with Saturn V is it did not have mission after the Apollo program was done.
Of course the Apollo program did result in significant scientific discoveries, but that wasn’t primary purpose doing it. It’s more correct to say, one could not avoid running across significant scientific discoveries- if you also want to put a man on the Moon.
Now, the question occurs to me, how people know of any “significant scientific discoveries” related to Apollo.
And how many?
I thought people could cheat, and google it. So I googled it:
–Let’s look at some of the key science gleaned from Apollo 11 and its successors.
Another says:
“The Apollo 11 mission showed that the Moon formed hot, that it was magmatically active for at least 800 million years, and that the surface-blanket of dusty rubble contains a treasure trove of evidence of how the Moon formed”
That Moon is a lot like Earth, includes that Earth was also getting impacted like the Moon was.
Or a space rock could have hit earth and have killed the dinosaurs.
And one can find lists of impact craters on Earth surface and one guess
that large explosion in our atmosphere are not likely caused by nuclear weapon explosions.
At least some of the green elite are counting on the impossibility of producing 241 PWh/y from wind, solar, and a few other types of “acceptable” technology. They will put us normal folks on energy budgets. All “unnecessary” travel will be banned, so we won’t be needing energy for things like visiting out-of-town family members, taking trips to the mountains for skiing, hiking, and sightseeing, or travelling to warm places in the winter. (Travel and tourism will be only for the uber-wealthy.) Professional sports involves far too much energy consumption to be tolerated, as do heated garages, swimming pools, and shopping centres. Nobody needs to heat their entire home, right? Telephone and internet services require a lot of energy, so they could be rationed. If we’re allowed private vehicles at all, there will be one electric vehicle per family. The answer to any remaining energy shortfalls will be supply interruptions. As long as you don’t mind not having access to energy when it’s -30 C outside, life will be loads of fun under the Green New Deal.
It sort of shows the scale of what is ahead.
There is already a realisation that wind and solar have limited merit. If they had economic merit then they would not need never ending subsidies. The maths clearly show they have somewhat limited potential in current form.
The maths also show there is value in conservation. I was not surprised to see that the top three vehicle models sold in USA in 2020 were all pickups. All weighing over 3000kg and one topping out at around 4400kg. They were not hybrids either. Nor were they electric powered. Australia’s top seller is also a pickup but a tad lighter than the US behemoths.
The big shift in 2020 is something I did for the last 10 years of my working life; worked from home. The need to commute for work is rapidly diminishing. ZOOM also eliminates some need to travel for work. This is a big step in productivity and quality of life. In Australia, we are already seeing the impact on housing with pressure on larger houses further out from city centres. Coastal housing is under serious pressure. People want more space and a home office; typically on less land as that involved extra costs.
Post Covid, there should be pressure coming back onto fossil fuel demand. That will push prices. Inevitable high prices force conservation. If government lock up the resources then prices will go up real quick.
Energy efficiency in homes has only just started. Homes in tropics and sub-tropic regions could quite reasonably be self sufficient from an energy perspective and operate off grid. The technology is already economic for that.
Will there be fusion power by 2050 and will it be economic?
Since there are 8,766 hours in a year, we need to build and install about 193 PWhrs/year divided by 8766 hrs/year ≈ 22 terawatts (TW, or 1012 watts) of energy generating capacity.
That’s the average amount of energy needed. The actual number is worse, because we need to build enough power generation to handle peak power.
Absolutely true, Mark, but I like to keep my analyses conservative so people can’t point to one issue and discount the whole analysis based on that one thing. For example, folks would likely say “well, time of use pricing will level out the peaks, so you’re wrong, wrong, wrong …”
w.
Goals like that are always 10 or 15+ years out, it will never happen, nor will Xiden live that long.
As you build more wind and solar farms, you inevitably start with land that is well suited to wind or sun. Then as that is used up, start utilizing land that is less well suited.
This means that the total number of windmills and acres of solar panels will inevitably be greater than even the estimates that Willis has produced.
Willis also didn’t get into line losses that will be suffered because many of the good places for wind and sun are not close to where people live.
Don’t forget the new copper that has to be strung between the boondocks and the huge number of vehicle charging stations…there isn’t enough worldwide.
At which point it will pay the thieves to filch the copper and sell it for reclamation. Then what do the people needing to recharge going to do?
Er…. I’m afraid that Mr Eschenbach has made a fundamental error with his computation.
He has assumed that the amount of energy which we currently use is the amount which will need to be generated. I have some bad news for him.
Currently, environmentalists claim that energy savings will square the circle. We know that they will not. But, in anticipation of this, the environmentalists are building ‘smart’ metering systems which can also act as smart rationing systems. Installation of these is already well under way in the West.
What is going to happen is that we will be given some kind of green energy system. It will provide far less energy than we currently use. And that is what we will have to make do with.
Say goodbye to continuous cheap power, lighting, water, etc. For ever…
dodgy geezer: “Say goodbye to continuous cheap power, lighting, water, etc. For ever…”
The long and the short of it is that in order to reach the targeted green energy goals, per capita energy consumption by Americans must be half of what it is today, and possibly only one-third of what it is today.
I have been pointing out for some time now that currently existing environmental and national security legislation could be creatively integrated with the goal of enforcing a nationally-mandated energy rationing program. One which is completely legal under existing law and which would be highly resistant to any lawsuits brought against it.
The Biden Administration already has all the legal authority it needs to go just as far and as fast as it might want to go in quickly reducing America’s GHG emissions. But will Biden use that authority?
Prior to 2020, the risk of political blowback was the primary obstacle keeping any climate activist president from using the full power of the Executive Branch to quickly reduce America’s GHG emissions.
But with what has been seen in the 2020 election and its immediate aftermath, any risk of political blowback from moving fast and furious on climate change issues has now been completely eliminated.
It will be a true communism: Everybody will get as much as they need. (Everybody’s need will be determined by the elites). Similarities to slavery are striking.
Under communism, everything is owned by the state.
Including the people.
Actually under Communism the “collective” is supposed to own everything, there will be no “state”.
In practice there has never been a nation that actually ever transitioned to true communism. Not the Soviet Union, not China, not Cuba, not Venezuela, not anywhere. Once the state has grown large enough to nationalize the economy, thus requiring a huge Bureaucratic Hegemony, no further evolution ever occurs. It would require the Bureaucratic Hegemony to release power to the collective and that will *never* happen.
The Dems are gradually building a huge Bureaucratic Hegemony here in the US. Trump tried to cut this back and the “deep state” finally found a way to get rid of him.
The Bureaucratic Hegemony here is definitely moving us toward Socialism. The BH is a true psuedo-biologic entity. As such its primary drive is for survival – and that means growing larger and larger.
I’m truly afraid that the BH is so entrenched today that *no* elected polity will ever be able to control the polity known as the Bureaucratic Hegemony.
I keep saying this, because it’s so obvious: require the Greenies and ecohippies and their money-grabbing pals to reduce their very own CO2 emissions by using rebreather equipment 24 hours per day, 365.25 days per year. No exceptions.
If they do that, their own CO2 load into the atmosphere will be substantially reduced. Perhaps I should include a requirement that they also wear equipment to capture their very own personal methane exhalations, because methane is also a greenhouse gas but does have its industrial uses.
I don’t actually think the energy/climate debate is about energy. It’s about scaring people batshit crazy so they’ll comply with what experts tell them. This involves destroying constructive public involvement and participation in society. Because “experts” don’t like being questioned, or held to account. So it boils down to destroying society.
I think that the better route would be small nuclear reactors servicing limited regions rather than giant ones servicing huge swathes of land. I think SA has such a reactor and were trying to flog it to other African countries to supply their electricity needs. If anyone can see whether this is a feasable idea I would be interested. Either way nuclear is the only viable option to oil/gas/coal for electricity generation. We will still need hydrocarbons for a huge variety of products though ranging from transport, fertilizers, agriculture, clothing, manufaturing etc. Zero carbon is an asinine idea and is predicated on the unproven hypothesis (NOT theory which in real science has a vey different level of meaning) that CO2 is the main forcer of global temperature rise
Small reactors still have the same licensing problems, the same maintenance costs, the same regulation cost, etc. Small reactors really don’t buy you anything except an increase in inefficiency.
Tim Gorman: “Small reactors still have the same licensing problems, the same maintenance costs, the same regulation cost, etc. Small reactors really don’t buy you anything except an increase in inefficiency.”
What you say here may have been true thirty years ago. But it isn’t true today, not in America anyway. The deterioration of America’s industrial base in general has had a profound effect on the economics of all large-scale technology projects, not just nuclear projects.
Building smaller size reactor units in larger numbers allows the same production team to stay active more or less continuously, rather than having to stand down when a reactor unit is finished and then having to wait years in some cases to ramp up for the next reactor project.
In any case, public opinion will never allow a nuclear reactor project to be done with any less rigor and any less attention to detail than what the NRC now requires. Projects which succeed accept this basic reality and do everything in their power to do the job right the first time.
Beta,
Because of the long licensing fights those production teams will still wind up standing down most of the time. You won’t save anything there. You’ll still wind up waiting years for the next small reactor project to be approved. You simply won’t get those larger numbers of small reactors. Being “smaller” won’t change anything.
Tim Gorman: “Beta, Because of the long licensing fights those production teams will still wind up standing down most of the time. You won’t save anything there. You’ll still wind up waiting years for the next small reactor project to be approved. You simply won’t get those larger numbers of small reactors. Being “smaller” won’t change anything.”
That is not the case. Once the initial safety reviews are completed for a specific reactor design, and once the combined construction & operating license for the first plant site is approved, the foundation is then in place to build subsequent plants on a cookie cutter basis.
The approach that past experience proves will work is to do what NuScale, Fluor, and UAMPS are doing with their Idaho project and that is to get all of the technical, the engineering, the project planning, and the regulatory pieces put into place well ahead of the very first concrete pour at the very first plant site.
NuScale and Fluor are now working hard to reduce their 12-unit SMR capital cost from roughly $5,000 per kw to $3,500 per kw. Compare that figure with Vogtle 3 & 4’s current cost projection of roughly $14,000 per kw for two AP1000’s.
Don’t be so naive.
Every installation will be different, even if it’s only in the environmental impact statement that goes along with it. Each of these will have to be individually reviewed. And each will be litigated endlessly by the not-in-my-backyard people objecting to the licensing of each site.
We had a nuke plant built about 50 miles from us a number of years ago. Standard design, no nuke regulatory problems, It took longer to get it licensed than it did to build it and get it operational. I don’t care how big the plant will be, each and every one of them will go through the same hassles this plant went through!
I read a science fiction story one time where they ran a big wire from the Earth to a geosynchronous satellite and used the resultant electrical charge to run things.
That might be more impossible.
I wonder how much a 23,000 mile long cable would weigh?
Actually the satellite would have to be a lot higher than geo-synchronous orbit, since it’s orbital velocity would have to be faster than needed to maintain it’s orbit so that it can support the weight of the cable.
Biden Administration Sued for Halting Oil and Gas Leasing on Federal Lands
“The Biden administration was sued Wednesday over its executive order to halt oil and gas leasing on federal lands and waters.
The lawsuit (pdf) was filed in the U.S. District Court in Wyoming by the Western Energy Alliance, a group representing fossil fuel producers on federal lands. They say President Joe Biden exceeded his authority with the recent order.”
Litigation will be the legacy of the Biden “administration”.