Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
I see that Joe Biden is about to propose a new CO2 goal. This goal would be to get down to half of the 2005 CO2 emissions by 2030. So I thought I’d see what that would entail.
In 2005, the US emitted almost exactly 6,000 megatonnes (MT, a million metric tonnes) of CO2. Unlike in most countries, US CO2 emissions have been dropping since 2005, and we’re currently at about 4,900 MT per year. To meet the fantasy goal, we’d need to reduce our CO2 emissions by 1,900 MT of CO2 per year. (Note that this doesn’t mean reduce them by 1,900 MT every year. We need to reduce them by a total of 1900 MT/year.)
Now, the amount of CO2 emitted per petawatt hour (PWh, or 10^15 watthours) of US fossil energy consumption has been dropping slowly since about 2009. Currently, we emit about 213 MT of CO2 per PWh of fossil fuel used for energy. The average over the next nine years, if the trend continues, will be about 208 MT of CO2 per PWh.
This means we need to replace about 1,900 MT CO2 / 208 MT CO2 per PWh ≈ 9 PWh of fossil energy by 2030.
The only emissions-free source currently available to replace that with is nuclear power. We can add wind/solar to the mix if we want, but as Texas and Germany have recently shown, we still have to have a full backup for those times when the wind dies and the sun sets. Nuclear isn’t ideal for that, but the modern modular units promise greater flexibility in that regard.
Now we need to calculate the nuclear generation capacity we need. To do that, we divide the 9 PWh/year of power we need to supply by the number of hours per year, 8,760. This gives us about 1,030 GW (gigawatts, 10^9 watts) of new nuclear generation capacity needed.
But there’s a hitch. That’s average generation capacity … but we need enough generation capacity for the peak times, not just the average times. I can’t do better than to quote a commenter from a previous post:
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.
As a result, rather than 1,030 GW of new nuclear generating capacity, we need twice that, or 2,060 GW of new capacity.
Next, from today until January 1st, 2030, when Biden’s plan calls for our emissions to be down to 3,000 MT of CO2 per year, there are about 454 weeks.
And that means we need to find sites, do the feasibility studies, get the licenses and the permits, excavate, manufacture, install, test, and commission two 2.25 gigawatt nuclear power plants EVERY WEEK UNTIL 2030, STARTING THIS WEEK.
To give you an idea of how absolutely ridiculous the idea is of adding two nuclear power plants per week to the grid, the typical time from feasibility study to connection to the grid for nuclear plants is on the order of ten or eleven years. Here’s an overview of the timeline.
Figure 1. Typical nuclear plant timeline, from initial study to final startup. SOURCE.
Finally, switching from direct use of fossil fuels to using electricity will be hugely expensive. Nuclear plants typically cost on the order of seven billion dollars per gigawatt … and since we need 2,060 gigawatts of new nuclear generating capacity, that’s about $14 trillion dollars with a T …
How big is a trillion dollars? If your family had started a business when Jesus was born, and it made a million dollars a day from then until now … you still wouldn’t have made a trillion dollars. A million bucks a day for 2,000 years … less than a trillion.
But wait, as they say on TV, there’s more to this wonderful deal. Switching from direct burning of fossil fuels to using electricity would mean we’d have to upgrade our entire electrical transmission network, including substations, switches, transmission lines, transformers, and wiring both to and within each house. Then every house like mine would need new electrical stoves, water heaters, and space heaters … can I say how much I dislike cooking on an electrical stove? And who will pay for my new stove?
Conclusion? This is just another liberal ecoloonical brilliant idea. This plan is just like your kid putting on a cape, insisting he can soar through the air like Superman, and jumping off the roof …
… it’s never gonna fly, and someone’s gonna get hurt bad …
Let me close by pointing out an underlying reality regarding all of this. Despite my asking over and over in a host of forums, to date, nobody has been able to tell me just what this supposed “CLIMATE EMERGENCY” actually is and where I might find evidence that it exists.
Deaths from climate-related phenomena are at an all-time low. If you think deaths from climate catastrophes are an emergency, please point in the graph below to the start of the “emergency”.
Storminess has not gone up, and there’s been no increase in hurricane strength or frequency … no “emergency” there.
Even the IPCC says there’s only one chance in five (“low confidence”) that global droughts are increasing. Nor have the “wet areas been getting wetter and the dry areas getting drier”. No flood or drought emergency.
Global weather disaster losses as a percentage of assets at risk (global GDP) are decreasing, not increasing.
Tide gauges show no increase in the rate of sea-level rise, and the claimed acceleration in satellite-measured sea level is merely an artifact of changing satellites.
Yields of all major food crops continue to rise, and humans are better fed, clothed, and housed against the vagaries of weather than at any time in the past.
Land temperatures have already risen more than the dreaded 2°C, with no cataclysmic consequences … so no historical “climate emergency” despite temperature increases.
There has been no global increase in the number of wildfires … here’s the NASA satellite data.
Finally, an “emergency” is defined as “a serious, unexpected, and often dangerous situation requiring immediate action.” Alarmists have been warning us over and over about this for 50 years, none of their doomcasts have come true, and no significant action has been taken … so by definition, it can’t be an emergency.
So before we spend trillions of dollars on an unachievable plan to totally redo the entire US energy supply, how about we wait until someone can actually let us in on the big secret—just where is this mysterious “CLIMATE EMERGENCY!!!”, and when did it start?
A final note: temperature changes with altitude, at a rate of about 1°C per 100 metres (5.5°F per 1000 feet). Even if we could magically cut our emissions to zero tomorrow, and IF (big if) the “CO2 roolz temperature” theory is correct, cutting US emissions to zero would cool the earth in 2050 by about as much cooler as you’d get if you climbed up three flights of stairs … see my post “Going To Zero” for the details.
So what is being proposed by our “President” is a meaningless gesture which is impossible to accomplish, and even if it could be accomplished would do nothing to solve an imaginary “emergency” …
… how the mighty have fallen. We used to fight and win real wars against actual enemies. Now we can’t even win fake wars against imaginary enemies.
Here on our lovely hillside in the forest, I spent the day putting new handles on a shovel, a pitchfork, and a hoe. I was successful in two out of the three. Frustrated, I took my chainsaw and continued the endless task of reducing the fuel load in the forest around our house. There, I was quite successful in cutting and hauling brush and tree trunks, and I also returned with the requisite number fingers and toes … life is good.
My very best wishes to all,
w.
USUAL REQUEST: When you comment please quote the exact words you are discussing. I can defend my own words. I can’t defend your interpretation of my words.
DATA SOURCES: US energy consumption is from the US Energy Information Agency, under “Energy Overview : Primary Energy Consumption By Source.
CO2 emissions are also from the US Energy Information Agency, under “Summary : U.S. Carbon dioxide emissions from energy consumption.
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Mr E
I would suggest an entirely separate post just on the “where’s waldo” /climate crisis meme and flesh it out as much as possible.
that would be an entirely useful thing, not tagged to any other discussion post.
Add graphs on other non-crisis items like ocean acidification, green area increasing, etc.
Well YOU might think there is no climate emergency, but *I* sure do. Last night I had to once again bring in my plants to protect them from another yet another late freeze! This is the first time since I have moved to Texas (some 20+ years) that I have had to protect my plants so many times from freezes in April.
Beware the Global Cooling! Or at least the Texas Cooling.
I’m just glad I don’t have any potted plants! Lol!
Additionally, we need to be sure that the supply of fuel rises proportionately to the increase of two large reactors weekly. Even if there is currently a sufficient supply of surplus nuclear warheads, they will probably have to be blended with natural uranium for the optimum concentration of U-235 for reactor use, and fabricated into a form suitable for use in a reactor. Not the biggest problem, but still one that should be taken into consideration before, and not after, the plants are built.
If there isn’t a sufficient supply of surplus warheads, then permitting processes and infrastructure development plans need to be put in place to have uranium mining expand commensurate with the expected demand. Eventually, mining would have to expand anyway to replace the warhead fuel.
Any miscalculations regarding the fuel supply lines will cause spikes in the price of fuel, possibly negatively impacting the economics, and result in delaying commissioning, or re-starting after shutdowns to re-fuel.
And then there is still the politically difficult problem of dealing later on with the waste products produced.
Personally, I’m not al all confident that the current administration understands the technology well enough to anticipate these issues and make adequate plans to deal with them.
US nuclear weapons are all Pu-239 based designs. There is actually an on-going program to mix Plutonium from retired nuclear weapons with uranium depleted of U-235 to make a Mixed Oxide fuel for commercial reactors.
https://www.nrc.gov/materials/fuel-cycle-fac/mox/faq.html
The US Navy nuclear reactor program reportedly uses a more high enriched uranium for improved power density in its small reactors powering carriers and subs.
Joel,
I was vaguely aware of the recycling program, but I am unfamiliar with the details. However, my point fundamentally is that if the Biden administration were to decide to go that direction, they need to do their homework and determine if there is sufficient warhead material to meet anticipated needs, and determine if the current program can be ramped up to meet increasing demands.
Joel,
In reading the material at the link you provided, I see that “MOX fuel is not currently being produced in the U.S.” [as of Aug. 2020] It appears that we currently have little or no experience with it, and reactors would need a special license to use it. Then, “If approved by NRC, the reactor licensee would test the MOX fuel by first operating with a few ‘lead test assemblies’ in the reactor for at least two operating cycles.” And then, “After approval by the NRC, the reactor licensee would insert a maximum of 40 percent of the reactor core with MOX fuel.”
Without some regulatory changes, and perhaps more experiments, it doesn’t look like re-cycled warheads could be used to meet the initial demand for a ‘fleet’ of new reactors.
That means, the emphasis would have to be on opening new uranium mines. It is my understanding that opening any sort of new mine requires a permitting time of about a decade, even when on a fast track. I would expect a lot of opposition to opening even one major uranium mine, let alone several.
MSRs use old spent fuel rods as their fuel, a win win situation.
Dementia Joe and his WH staff can’t do basic math, that much is abundantly clear. And not just with energy, but with basic money budgets or spending and revenues.
Creepy Joe continues to push multi-Trillion dollar spending packages for infrastructure (that isn’t infrastructure but a start on the Green Raw Deal) and on “family” initiatives and no feasible way to pay for them. Even raising taxes can’t cover the big gaping budget holes that spending the Biden WH proposed spending would create.
It’s all big paybacks to those special interests who helped the Democrats take over Washington DC last fall to send us down the Road to Serfdom and Socialism.
Dementia Joe isn’t even in charge of the WH, much less the Socialist agenda the Democrats are railroading the US down. The US Government now is controlled by a Democrat-DC Politburo. This US-DC federal politburo is a full-on Communist style central committee, a system of senior political controllers at the very top, not unlike the USSR Central Committee of old (or the Chinese CP of present) at the Federal-level.
Dementia Joe is just the figure head who certainly won’t make it to the end of his current 4 year term. Dementia Joe Biden is probably most like the old Yuri Andropov that the USSR commies stuck in as figure head leader who only served 15 months and then he died as USSR General Secretary in Feb 1984.
When rotten systems exist like these, the Politburo likes to stay in the shadows in case soemthing goes wrong so they send out talking head to read some tprepared, committee-approved speech. Then hustle him away before he can take questions and blow the whole gig with senile, inane ramblings and muttering.
The DC Politburo Central Committee is probably chaired by nominally by Kamala, who takes her cues from Obama. Susan Rice attends and is probably there to fill-in for Kamala when she out of town and doing foreign visits since Dementia Joe can’t be allowed to get past the WH basement, and most especially not allowed on an overseas visit to foreign leaders where his dementia can’t be concealed in front of foreign leaders wanting to talk to him. When foreign leaders come to DC now, as they always have, they will have to use Kamala to do all the real talking behind the scenes. To wit: last week’s visit by Japan’s leader Prime Minister Suga.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/biden-japan
Note the pictures of Suga are with Kamala Harris, while Dementia Joe simply goes out and reads a speech from the teleprompter and then took no questions from reporters. Biden and Suga did briefly appear together in the Rose Garden, but the bulk of the talks were between Harris and Suga (see picture).
Other members of the Central Committee likely include John Kerry, representing the billionaire class interests on the Green Scam, Nancy Pelosi and Chucky Schumer representing all the various Democratic factions and interest groups.
So Dementia Joe’s unrealistic calls for CO2 emissions curbs are just the beginning of the energy crackdown the Central Committee plans on imposing on the States. It is certainly not acheivable as Willis shows, but then climate and emissions were always just the Trojan Horse hiding the Socialism poison pill. Right now, the Supreme Court dominated by 5 Conservative associate justices is their biggest obstacle to total control over the States and individual rights. But they obviously have a plan for that too.
Just in the process of reading an excellent series of volumes on the life of Joseph Stalin by David Kotkin. The “politburo” you speak of in D.C. is eerily similar to the one Kotkin describes, with one crucial difference: even though Stalin was on holiday for months at a time in each of the crucial years 1929 – 1941, Stalin looked at and approved everything and knew everything he wanted his minions in the Politburo to do. And it was done, often by telephone (interestingly enough) without formal meeting. Nothing ever seemed to get past Stalin.
Contrast with Dementia Joe. Everything seems to get past Joe; he needs a lot of handlers to do what he cannot seem to do or remember. Which is why Xi Jin-Ping has got his number.
Putin has got Dementia Joe’s number as well. The Donbass region of eastern Ukraine is not a good place to be in the coming weeks.
Destroying the economy and crashing energy demand would do the trick too. I think that’s the favored route of the eco-fascists.
Hey Willis, Our Treasury Secretary has the answer to your desire for proof of the climate emergency.
Remarks to the Institute of International Finance today:
“I first started working on climate change in the 1990s, advising President Clinton as Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers in the runup to the 1997 Kyoto Conference of Parties. We understood that the potential cost of climate change was significant.
Of course, we know what the trajectory has been ever since. Over the past 30 years, the incidence of natural disasters has dramatically increased and the actual and future potential cost to the economy has skyrocketed. We are now in a situation where climate change is an existential risk to our future economy and way of life. If left unaddressed, climate change will leave us grappling with fundamental questions like: What are the consequences for our coastal cities and communities? What will happen to our farmers and cost of food after droughts and flooding decimate farmland? How will families, cities, and businesses secure long-term financing for mortgages and investments? ”
Hmmmm. Doesn’t exactly give you confidence on what going on at the Treasury!
Hi Willis,
I don’t think Biden (or anyone else) actually believes it possible to reduce CO2 emissions by a huge amount via substitution of non-emitting energy sources. (Actually, I don’t think Biden is aware enough to rationally believe or disbelieve much of anything, but I digress.)
The real objective looks to me like setting up a CO2 emissions ‘failure’ to justify making fossil fuels so expensive many people will not be able to afford them. If people can’t afford fossil fuels, CO2 emissions will go down….. along with declines in personal wealth and quality of life. As always, the green goal is to “fundamentally change the way people lead their lives”, but with that fundamental change forced only on those who are neither rich nor politically powerful. John Kerry is not going to stop traveling in his private jet.
Off subject, sorry:”Moscow Hopes Climate Change Plan Will Boost Russia’s Position in Talks with U.S.”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/moscow-hopes-climate-change-plan-will-boost-russia-s-position-in-talks-with-u-s/ar-BB1fU5Ic?ocid=Peregrine
“The Green Moscow initiative has already equipped Europe’s largest urban transport system with the largest electric bus fleet of any city in the world. The deployment of some 700 electric buses—with plans to expand to 2,500 by 2023—is part of a concerted effort to slash motor vehicle emissions in Moscow by 90%.”
But- where is the electricity coming from? Surely not from wind and solar. Why don’t the “journalists” ask this question? You have to be extremely stupid to not ask the question.
And a similar story in Philadelphia: “Cities Confront Climate Challenge: How to Move from Gas to Electricity?”
https://e360.yale.edu/features/cities-confront-climate-challenge-how-to-move-from-gas-to-electricity
“Philadelphia’s own pipe network has expanded over the past 185 years to encompass 6,000 miles of gas mains and service lines. But today, Philadelphia Gas Works (PGW) — the largest municipal gas utility in the country — is the incumbent business staring down existential threats, facing challenges from new technologies, upstart rivals, and a quickening 21st-century energy transition that aims to convert many buildings from gas to electricity.
In recognition of these forces and the city’s own climate action plan, Philadelphia has commissioned a “diversification study” to find a new low-carbon business model for the nation’s oldest gas utility, which delivers natural gas to 510,000 customers.
Earlier this year, Philadelphia announced a target of achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. “There’s just no way that can happen without PGW changing,” said Tom Shuster, clean energy program director of the Sierra Club’s Pennsylvania chapter, which advocates for wider building electrification. Gas sold by the utility is the single biggest source of the city’s climate-warming pollution, accounting for 22 percent of its greenhouse gas emissions.”
Oh, yuh, convert them all to electricity- sure, no problemo. 510,000 customers will all convert to wind and solar and “clean gas”- sure…..
By the way, I feel guilty dropping stories into other stories. Perhaps there should be an open thread set up for this purpose. I see they do this on the “realclimate” web site.
The transmission and distribution lines can’t support the electrification, even if the supply was to magically appear somehow. If it can’t happen, it won’t. Reality will intrude when the actual engineering effort begins.
No worries, just legislate a different reality and all’s good!
Was it Indiana that passed a law years ago that Pi would be 3.2?
Regardless of my memory, your point is spot on. The fools think they can legislate anything and it will be so.
The only way Biden could accomplish this goal would be to have a USA economic collapse that rivals the Great Depression. He best be careful what he wishes for.
That’s the goal.
Wait… or worse. The Green Nude Eel will have everyone longing for the relatively good old days of the Great Depression.
The Green Nude Eel is a feature, not a bug.
Here he is
Excellent Willis, that is literally IT in a freaking nutshell!
This made me chuckle too:
“cutting US emissions to zero would cool the earth in 2050 by about as much cooler as you’d get if you climbed up three flights of stairs”
Dear Willis,
I’m late to this discussion, but I second Climate believer’s comment. This essay is one of the best summaries of the faults in the Alarmist narrative ever at WUWT. It merits a permanent placement, perhaps at Everything Climate.
It’s the same with all these wild promises for net carbon zero, or whatever. The person doing the promising will be dead, or retired or voted out by the deadline, and if they are still capable of commenting they can lay the blame on absolutely everyone else. In the meantime they are idolized as a climate saint. Who wouldn’t make wild, impossible-to-keep promises?
People who possess basic ethics do not make promises that cannot be kept.
I know I’m wandering way off topic here, but I’ve never cooked on anything other than an electric stove, camping trips excepted. Are there real benefits to, say, a gas stove vs. an electric stove? My cooking and baking efforts could use a boost. 🙂
For stovetop cooking, I like that I can turn down the heat immediately when (as occurs too often) things start to burn … with baking, though, little difference.
w.
Hi Willis,
In your second paragraph you need to change:
In 2005, the US emitted almost exactly 6,000 megatonnes (MT, a million metric tonnes) of CO2. Unlike in most countries, US CO2 emissions have been dropping since 2005, and we’re currently at about 4,900 MT per year. To meet the fantasy goal, we’d need to reduce our CO2 emissions by an additional 1,900 MT of CO2 per year.
To
In 2005, the US emitted almost exactly 6,000 megatonnes (MT, a million metric tonnes) of CO2. Unlike in most countries, US CO2 emissions have been dropping since 2005, and we’re currently at about 4,900 MT per year. To meet the fantasy goal, we’d need to reduce our CO2 emissions by 1,900 MT of CO2.
Ian Edmonds
Done.
w.
Burning natural gas releases water vapor, some places more than others (I think Texas doesn’t dehydrate their gas as much as we do in canada and that probably contributed to the freeze up) so moisture helps create better crust on bread, love my gas oven.
Yes, instant on and instant off are best feature, only drawback is natural gas not as hot as propane or electric burner so my stove top expresso can takes longer and sputters to finish, like Joe Biden in bed I imagine.
Also, I have 50+ house plants, all do better since installing gas stove
Plant food generation, side benefit
C’mon, man! You just ruined my stove top espresso maker for me; possibly forever!
Nothing is perfect. In order to be truthful i present all facts as i sees them.
They will have to pry my gas range from my cold dead hands.
Thankfully, all my properties are located in Alberta and Saskatchewan, the two least stupid parts of canada, it will be a long time before natural gas gets banned here.
I’ve been thinking of a kitchen remodel for years and years. If I ever get around to it, I might replace my electric stove with a gas model. I already have natural gas service for my furnace and water heater. However, I note from a recent blog post by Judith Curry, reposted here at WUWT, wherein she says (my bold):
She doesn’t provide details of the indoor air quality issues. Gas stoves and cooktops have been in use for many years. I wonder what she means.
PaulH, I’ve had gas range/oven for years, no noticeable effects
except my plants are healthier
Electric oven, gas cooktop seems to be a good combination.
Same here. Gas range, electric convection oven for even baking.
Best combination evah!
The gas cooktop is best for reasons already mentioned. Our electric oven can be set with a choice of using one or both of the top elements and one or both of the bottom elements and any of those combinations with or without the convection fan. Remarkable heating control!
Meats? Screw the oven or stovetop. Go outside and cook over wood or charcoal. 😁
Apart from the speed of response as Willis says, the cost difference is quite significant.
To roast some potatoes in my electric oven, I calculated that it costs as much as about one month of stove top gas cooking. Even though I use the most expensive gas possible, LPG bottles, I spend about US$3 per month, and cook every day.
Caveat: don’t use aluminium pans, though. They burn.
ROFLMAO! Thanks for this Willis, informative and a good laugh. But you are forgetting one important variable in the equation, Huangdi Biden is putting people like Griff and Taguchi in charge at all levels of his cabinet. A complete economic meltdown that makes the Great Depression look like boom times would probably achieve his goals.
Opps. Hadn’t read down this far, Robert, so I commented much the same in a reply upthread.
Yes. The goal is to make us long for the good ol’ days of the Great Depression. All these “stupid” government actions are not mistakes.
America, and particularly the American middle class is the last thing standing in the way of a One World Government.
America must be destroyed so the GEBs (Globalist Evil Bastards) can get on with things.
Perhaps Biden will commit to every person in the US being a billionaire by 2035 so we can afford pay the interest on the National Debt while keeping the lights on
How is that any different than a commitment to cut CO2?
Everybody being a billionaire is the true meaning of the word “equity”.
The US will not replace fossil fuel with nuclear. In peacetime there is not the political will and in a war with China or Russia there will not be enough time.
Instead there will be renewables backed by fossil fuel on standby, effectively doubling the price of electricity (or more). Carbon import taxes will be imposed on goods imported from other countries that fail to cut CO2.
You can’t have a climate emergency without 30 years of weather emergencies. After 30 years of ignoring any weather changing legislation, it’s premature for the same politicians to declare a climate emergency. Unless you also admit it was your fault because you were in charge of producing legislation then. Yes, I’m talking to you Joe Biden and John Kerry.
I love your idea of “weather changing legislation” … could we pass a law that it has to rain a bit more in Northern California? It’s kinda dry lately, and foolish me, I didn’t realize that we could pass a law to have more rain.
w.
Excellent analysis and presentation Willis, thank you. Fellow posters, I’ve told you before, no matter what you say, do, and data/evidence provided, Griff and Mr. Taguchi are here to waste your time and effort.
Great comments Willis but talking sense and making practical comments are not going to make it into any public arenas and certainly won’t reach the politicians. Your analysis of nuclear is very illuminating but you do realise it’s a best case scenario. In Australia nuclear is banned. Our only way of reducing emissions that is allowed are wind,solar,hydro and any new technologies you can think of. You are so right! The only way out of this mess is to totally debunk the climate emergency messaging all these policies are based on. Unfortunately no government around the world has been prepared to take the alarmists on ( except Trump) fearing the political fall out. Reversing the constant indoctrination of a generation is going to be difficult if not impossible. Ironically I actually hope that a sharp increase in random blackouts and price hikes in countries that have gone heavily into renewables will be a catalyst for the change in attitudes of voters.
The media , corporations, the public service and academia have all conspired to create this illusion of an emergency and some drastic things have to happen to affect change. When Boris is now left of the greens, Biden’s in the Oval Office and even the Brazil leadership is having second thoughts I feel quite despairing about the future. But you never know. The only thing I know for certain about the future is it’s uncertainty. I think Climate sceptics are overdue for some good news.
Here’s a chart of electricity generation in Australia (excludes WA and NT) over the last 7 days. https://opennem.org.au/energy/nem/?range=7d&interval=30m
You can see the variability of wind and solar. On average, solar provided 11% and wind 9%, coal 64%, gas 6% and hydro 10%.
But if you look at peak demand at 6.30pm on Wed Apr 21, solar zero, wind 7%, coal 60%, hydro 16%, and gas 17%.
Now try and create a scenario where by 2030 50% of generation comes from wind and solar, yet there is sufficient coal and gas generation to keep the lights on when the sun isn’t shining and the wind isn’t blowing. Then persuade me that generation costs will be lower.
The impracticality of replacing fossil fuel cars with electric cars should be blindingly obvious.
Over its lifetime, existing batteries can store and release about the same amount of energy as it takes to make a new battery. As such, ideas such as using electric cars as grid storage are naive.
In addition, the energy used by a car dwarfs the energy used by a house, requiring a massive increase in electrical generation . It takes very little to heat and light an insulated house. Put the house on wheels and try and push it up a hill.
Regenerative braking is another fantasy. If it works economically then why not install turbines in the roadway ahead of every stop sign or any downhill roadway? As the cars brake the turbines will capture the energy and power the city, charging other electric cars.
Small Modular Reactors promise a solution but unfortunately they are and obvious target for criminal and terrorist elements, that would be hard to defend. State sponsored bad actors are hard to defend against in open societies. The alternative is a loss of personal freedoms.
Well, I believe that wind turbines and solar panels only produce about as much energy in their lifetime as it costs to manufacture them. Obviously renewables and batteries are a perfect match!
I wonder if we looked at it from a slightly different angle weather we actually could come up with a ‘Climate policy Emergency’ with number that would actually jolt the people into reality.
Assuming (for the sake of argument) there is a hypothetical “eco” energy grid capable of meeting the Co2 targets, how much smaller than the current load would it be. and by extension how many people could it reasonably support?
The final number I’d like to see would represent how many people they have to ‘sacrifice’ to make their Co2 Eco power generation system feasible!
I can’t even imagine how to ballpark it, if the US has to reduce load y 1/3 would that equate to a 1/3 population reduction? sounds far too simple so probably way off…
Yes, you are way off, some of the reasonable ones only demand 80% vanish, but some want 100.
Does anyone doubt what they would do with Thanos’ infinity stone glove?
I remember articles from that time arguing that Thanos was the real hero, because he was right.
The ones i read said he was a climate denier wimp because he only went 50%.
No commitment.
Sociopaths want it all.
But, but, but,…if the nuclearization of our electrical generation infrastructure was made a National Defense Initiative we could put the plants on Federal Military Reservations and pre-empt the Greenies environmental lawfare. Kinda like TVA, the Feds can do whatever they want….. Then sell the power into the commercial grid at market prices. It’s been done before.
Has anyone ever asked a climate Nazi what would shut them up? What would convince them there is no climate emergency? (Separate from problems caused by deforestation, real pollution, etc.) (In fact, CO2-phobia has made things worse, especially for the poor orangutans in Indonesia, losing most of their home land to biodiesel palm oil plantations – Orange Lives Matter!
Yes, I have asked.
Received an answer? Not so much…
Many times, right here. Never got an answer.
Take care with the gardening.
Sydney News: Artarmon man dies after falling from ladder and landing on hedge trimmer
Janna Swanson Iowa Standard from https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2021/04/18/swanson-counting-the-cost-of-the-green-new-deal/
As the US considers an infrastructure bill, we need to ask ourselves how much is the New Green Deal really going to cost. Let us start with looking at the cost of industrial wind. We are told turbines are cheap. I am seriously reconsidering the information that the media has “reported” in recent years. In Iowa we have cashed in $20 Billion federal dollars to build about 5000 wind turbines. Warren Buffett’s MidAmerican Energy CEOs have admitted publicly that 100% of the cost of building wind turbines, about $4,000,000 per turbine, is paid for by the federal government and it is the only reason they build wind turbines.
The US has 68,792 turbines or 700 installations when averaged to 100 turbines per installation. If everyone else is receiving what Iowa admits it receives that means US citizens have paid $275,168,000,000 to build wind turbines. This does not include industrial solar, batteries or the thousands of excess power lines ($1-3 million/mile) required to move the power to more densely populated areas. It is not surprising that Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway is now pushing for a new Production Tax Credit to build power lines. There is also a push to give the federal government eminent domain to build these power lines like the Rock Island “Clean” Line, the Grain Belt Express or the Plains and Eastern “Clean” Line. These would be thousands of miles and billions of dollars on top of taking the property of hundreds of thousands of Americans. While sometimes necessary eminent domain should be used sparingly, not in wide swaths. Wind energy is being branded as necessary when it is actually only designer energy for people who already have access to electricity.
Wind energy’s only purpose is to harvest OPM (tax subsidies, tax credits, low interest loans from the Govt) and then funnel that money to the investors. The investors include Green Hedge Funds and State Union Employee Retirement Funds looking for outsize returns on investment to shore up underfunded-to-obligations portfolio positions.
The Green Energy scam of wind energy and solar PV is a massive wealth transfer. that is all.
“This goal would be to get down to half of the 2005 CO2 emissions by 2030. So I thought I’d see what that would entail.”
That was Part A, what would have to be done to meet the goal. And keep existing energy usage. It can’t be done.
Part B, what would happen if they went ahead anyway and the energy supply was cut down to match that goal?