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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Very nice work Willis.
OTOH, I’m sure the ecoloons will achieve their goal… by torturing the reported data into submission.
They will fail, but NEVER admit their failure.
Willis, the problem you have with your promotion of nuclear as a solution is economic. You could build 200 nuclear power plants for the amount of money Japan is going to spend to clean up the mess at Fukishima. Heavens knows how much has been spent to clean up Chernobyl.
Roger
The problem you have is that there really is no other solution
At least not among the options we have today.
Assuming CO2 is a problem, and assuming that you aren’t in favor of rolling back modern society, what is your solution?
CO2 is NOT a problem! No “solution” required. Plenty of oil — 500 years worth from what’s been discovered so far. Maybe you really really want nuclear energy for some reason, but using absurd CO2 Alarmism falsehoods to promote your “vision” is deceitful.
I guess you haven’t read many of my comments Mike.
I do not think co2 is a problem.
Notice i said “assuming”.
Trying to have a nice discussion with roger and get him to commit to what is his solution
Again, what is YOUR solution to make up the deficit?
Roger Taguchi April 21, 2021 6:49 pm
Roger, I’m not “promoting” nuclear. I chose nuclear because today there is no other zero-emission option for baseline power. If you have one, now would be the time to reveal it …
In addition, building that quantity of solar or wind is just as problematic. You’d have to build 6000 two-megawatt (MW, 106 watts) wind turbines each and every week until 2030, or you could build 200 square miles (500 square kilometres) of solar panels each and every week until 2030.
Both of them are equally impossible, a fact that it seems you are either too stubborn or too innumerate to admit. And you’d still need baseline power for when the sun is down and the wind isn’t blowing.
Well, let’s see. As I pointed out above, a 2 GW nuclear plant costs about $7 billion. 200 times that is $1.4 trillion with a T. And Fukushima?
So you are wrong, but since it’s only by an order of magnitude, for you that’s not bad.
w.
Roger
Your problem with nuclear is religious-superstitious-animist. You don’t understand anything about radiobiology. If you did you would realise that quantum mechanics destroys the LNT. So your challenge for the rest of your life is to see how much damage your ignorance can achieve. It will be way more damage than anything ever achieved by nuclear technology.
“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.”
Rather US emission, one can focus reducing Global emission.
US has lower emission CO2, as do other countries, because the import stuff from China, and energy used to make stuff, is China CO2 emissions. Plus have CO2 emission of transporting the stuff {and running cargo ships empty back to China}.
“The world’s largest exporter by value, China exported US$2.591 trillion worth of goods around the globe in 2020. ,,,,Applying a continental lens, almost half (47.6%) of China exports by value were delivered to fellow Asian countries while 20.8% were sold to North American importers. China shipped another 20.7% worth of goods to Europe.”
So, US not importing a lot compared to all countries. And it’s all countries contributing to China having the highest amount of CO2 emission in world. Or roughly if US stopping importing from China it’s only about 20% of whatever increase it’s causing towards China’s Co2 emission due from China exporting.
But whatever that amount is, one say roughly around 100% is energy produced by burning Coal. Or China is {and has been] madly building coal power plants, mostly to increase it’s exports. And if China lowered power use, it would come out power from using coal.
US in terms CO2 emission uses higher mix of natural gas and halved it’s coal use. And with every nuclear plant put online, it gets better
So instead lower US energy production, if US increases energy production [and large part is due to nuclear energy and exports to world more than China, it’s reducing global CO2 emission.
Or rather have country which produces most CO2 burning vast amount coal exporting a lot of stuff, the country which make least CO2 per MWH should be export the most- which will lower global CO2 emissions.
What climate deniers don’t understand is the low cost effectiveness of the climate activists plan. They will model the renewable energy after the Nazi approach to synthetic oil.
1) Instead of adding capacity they will use rolling blackouts during solar and wind outages.
2) They will use refineries with the ability to make on demand fuel for a minimum of four times the cost of refining fossil fuels. But this should be reserved for the 1%. We can create rationing lines for 99% of the population.
3) Create a lot of jobs maintaining and building renewable energy.
3) Create even more jobs by using horses as the Nazi’s had to do because of their lack of fuel.
4) Maybe we can provide heated underwear so that people don’t have to heat their houses.
5) We can demonize half the population so that we can excuse denying them even rationed power.
My Grandparents lived through rationing of WW2. I still have all their ration coupon books (tokens to buy everything from sugar, fluor, to bread) and even a price control volume from 1943 on price controls on everything.
That is what the Green Climate Scammers want to impose on us forever. Rationing, where the rich elites can buy extra allotments with cash. They plan on a boot on the face of the middle class… forever.
Hell, I lived through rationing of WW2! Although, I was too young to remember much. However, the family ‘legend’ was that when I was about 2, they moved from Chicago to Nebraska so my dad could hunt pheasants and rabbits after work every day. I dined on pheasant very often, but was too young to appreciate it. I do remember sometimes biting into some bird shot while eating. Today, that sort of life-style change would be more difficult.
Sell your Drax shares by the looks as they may have stranded generation assets-
A new market in ‘carbon offsets’ is blossoming, drawing huge companies who pay timber owners not to cut down trees (msn.com)
You want dough you just tell Uncle Joe and Co you’re going to cut down all the trees on your land.
If only our politicians would listen to Willis , but of course they wouldn’t understand .
Or the ‘ climate scientists ‘ who would only answer with balderdash .
The UK ALREADY reduced its CO2 output by 51% on 1990 levels, largely by shutting down coal power stations and replacing much of their output with renewables, not entirely by gas.
The USA could absolutely do the same and the citizens, as in the UK, would never notice it happened.
I have a question Willis, I agree with all your report. Assuming not every one in the Biden administration is nuts, your calculations based on Biden’s proposal must be also known to said administration, what is thier end game? If as you demonstrated it just can’t work over the given time period ,and as we already know convenienal power supply is being reduced ,( not just the usa) then to put it nicely we shall see a deficit in power available ?.
B., I suspect that few if any of them have actually done the math, or read the work I’ve done.
For that matter, how many other analyses of this type have you read? I seem to be pretty much a lone voice crying in the wilderness at this point.
Plus, it’s like the song says:
Still a man hears what hears what he wants to hear
And disregards the rest
My best to you,
w.
Willis:
Excellent analysis! The greens are like the “Fool” Tarot Card in their simplistic notions, about to step off a cliff being oblivious to the danger their path choice puts them in.
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/440860251030202920/
Also I’m glad to see someone injecting a dose of reality into the idiotic notions so many have about power generating and distribution requirements. That is to say you cannot use the AVERAGE power consumed as a guide to sizing the power plants and distribution system.
You have to use the PEAK plus a safety margin.
Houses in N America have a 100 Amp service @240V, which is 24 kW. But the greens and so many supposedly learned folks use the average household power consumption to gauge what generating capacity is needed to “replace” fossil fueled plants.
That is utter nonsense. Your electric water heater consumes 4.5 kW when both elements are on. Your central air conditioner consumes about 3.5 kW when it’s on. Your electric clothes dryer consumes 4 kW, your oven has 2 – 1.5 kw elements. Your stovetop has a 1.5 kW large burner, and 3 – 0.75 kW burners. An electric furnace has 12-15 kW heating elements.
And on and on. But the idiot greens use 2-4 kW average consumption to produce their silly numbers with. No, your house needs the 24kW feed and the power generating and distribution system needs to be able to meet the peak. You need to be able to run more than one of these appliances at a time!
I doubt the 1.8 factor you quoted is realistic. I suspect it’s been moved downwards over time – hence when you have a high peak demand such as occurred in Texas recently, they got caught with their pants down.
Nonetheless your pointing out we’d need to bring 2, 2.25 GW nuke power plants online every week to meet the absurd goals is enlightening. But the Woke Supremacists don’t do math, and don’t care about reality. They have their own wishful thinking as “their truth” which leads them to the “abyss of infinite lunacy” as Gad Saad so eloquently describes it.
Government should have no control of the electrical generation fleet —- whatever government controls it destroys — education, marriage, gender, medicine, morality, Constituion, law, law enforcement…ad infinitum.
When in the world are all the scientists who KNOW these facts going to have the courage to step up to the plate and declare that this crusade has nothing to do about a climate emergency and everything to do about the globalists attempt to have power over the people with their ‘One World Government’ plan ‘The Great Reset’? I pray that they will band together in one powerful lobby to fight back against these Totalitarian thugs.
You forgot about doing without. Many of us are going to do without. Involuntarily.
“Accurate results can often be obtained from crude calculations by bracketing a problem with conservative and non-conservative approaches, then making a considered interpolation between the two results. (Confidence rating – 9)” Quoting from an engineering “rules of thumb” paper by M.L. Hand. IDK where I got it, but the PDF file I have is dated 2002. Articles like this on the ROM of what it would take to decarbonize, in only a few pages, show the lunacy of policy makers, by applying the above approach.
Hiya Willis!
You know my heart is with you in your ongoing efforts to bring sanity to the climate conversation–long may you continue.
However, as I’m sure you already know, our efforts to reduce emissions do not rely solely on the reform and rehabilitation (dehabilitation? Is that a word?) of our power generation capabilities. Vehicle emissions, more efficient buildings, etc., all have a part to play.
Not only that, although you highlight the bureaucratic barriers to nuclear (sigh…), it is not the only alternative to coal fired power, as renewables continue to grow towards a real world optimum of 30% of generation and natural gas positions itself to handle that part that we grab from coal.
Electric vehicles can potentially lower transportation emissions, as might an overhaul of our rail infrastructure–especially if planned intelligently to be mutually supportive. Solar can recharge EV batteries while nuke can power our trains… that sort of thing.
Many challenges ahead and no guarantees of success for President Biden’s ambitious goals. But the picture is hardly as bleak as you paint it.
Willis,
when I read an article full of trillions, and billions, and hundreds of millions, I divide by the number of citizens or households, to get a feeling of whether the number is even feasible. Lots of times it isn’t, or points to some basic arithmetic error on the part of the writer. Excellent work on this one, you must have been saving up ammunition for a while.
Thanks Willis for the concise demolition of the CO2 fantasy.
Still no-one has answered where those two nuclear power plants per week are going to come from.
Lets remind ourselves of the real causes of the Texas fiasco from the recent post by “planning engineer”
Assigning Blame for the Blackouts in Texas – Watts Up With That?
Which reveals the spectacular celebratory ignorance of our pet trolls on every single issue.
From what was said on the news, Biden “committed” the USA to reducing CO2 emissions to half of 2005 levels by 2030, but what exactly does that mean? Other countries have made “commitments” to reducing CO2 emissions in past “agreements”, and have failed to meet them.
Are there any real consequences to failing to meet an emissions commitment? China has seen the largest increase in CO2 emissions over the last 20 years, both in absolute terms and on a per capita basis, and has never been punished for it. Are countries that do meet their commitments going to invade or drop bombs on countries that don’t?
Probably not (who would dare start a war against China?), so that what Biden said is empty rhetoric, and whatever is done will have a negligible effect on the climate or weather.
This was overall an excellent article by Willis Eschenbach (as usual). However, most of the reduction in emissions since 2005 (1,100 MT/yr out of 6,000, or -18%) has been due to replacement of coal-fired power plants by natural-gas fired power plants, which emit less than half of the CO2 per MW of energy as coal-fired plants. It may be cheaper to further reduce CO2 emissions by replacing more coal-fired plants by natural-gas-fired plants (particularly combined cycle, which are more efficient) than by building hundreds of nuclear power plants (of which very few have been built since 2005).
The reduction of emissions already achieved between 2005 and 2020 was made possible by fracking, mainly in the Utica and Marcellus shale deposits in Pennsylvania and Ohio, which has made natural gas abundant and cheap, and competitive with coal. So Biden’s wanting to ban fracking would be a huge step in the wrong direction, if he wants to reduce CO2 emissions.
But who ever thought that Biden knew anything about science?
Just shut down all powerplants and get rid of ICE cars, that will make them happy, right?
There wont be any need to worry about replacing fossil fuel generation at current or projected levels because theyll have knocked off enough of the population so as to make their WEF plans easily achievable with proportionally less energy generation than is necessary today
No-ones factored that in.
Question for Willis
If CO2 emissions went to zero, atmospheric content should go back to pre-industrial levels, and after a period (10 to 20 years) also to the surface temperatures from then. There is no need to do this and a step backwards, half way to the little ice ages.
By the same logic rather than trying to cut them in half, if we simply keep the target emissions at the present level, after a period of time global temperatures should stabilize a little above the present values. This goal makes more sense than trying to reduce the emission levels to zero. And we keep the agricultural benefits of present CO2 levels.
It’s incredibly easy to find out if enviro’s who say CO2 induced warming is a threat, are honest or if they are lying.
One single simple question: do you support nuclear power? Nuclear power is the only way to reduce CO2 emissions without a Khmer Rouge style return to a Stone Age lifestyle and decimated population.
If they support nuclear then it means they are honest about their CO2 beliefs.
But if they oppose nuclear, it means either that they are just incapable of coherent scientific thought, or that they don’t give a damn about CO2 or climate or disasters. They just want to use the climate agenda as a way to destroy the capitalistic economy and their political enemies, not caring how much else they also destroy.
Poor Willis Eschenbach, just as math disabled as ever. He writes, “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.” Taking the risk of using his maybe valid maybe not valid starting numbers one calculates that to get from 4,900 MT in 2021 to 3000 MT in 2030 the annual reduction must be 5.31% per year, so in the first, present year, that reduction would be 260 MT, and the reduction in MTs would be less every year until 2030. God knows where he got the 1,900 MT a year reduction he states would be needed. Needless to say, I stopped reading his razzle-dazzle nonsense at this point.
Just a WAG but 4900 Mt / y -3000 Mt / y = 1900 Mt / y. Willis did not say 1900 Mt/y every year for 9 years.
Sorry for the lack of clarity, Dave. What I meant was that we are currently emitting 4,900 MT/year, and we need to get down to 3,000 MT/year. So we need to reduce our emissions by 4,900 MT/yr minus 3,000 MT/yr = 1,900 MT/yr. Consistent units. My high school chemistry teacher insisted that we include the units in our calculations, and cancel them or carry them through as the situation demands. In this case, MT/yr minus MT/yr yields MT/yr.
I did NOT mean we have to reduce our emissions by 1,900 MT every year, although I can see how it might be read that way if you’re not paying attention to the units.
However, since it seems that everyone but you read it the way I intended it, you might want to dial back on the nasty aggro and the specious claims of “razzle-dazzle nonsense”, and consider that your obvious bias against me is involved in your misunderstanding of what I wrote.
And even though you’re the only one so far who couldn’t follow the story, I’ve added a note to the head post to avoid any other people from falling into your misunderstanding …
w.
The climate crisis only actually exists inside climate models. The obvious answer to this crisis is to stop writing and running climate models.
Nice analysis, Willis. I would just note that a number of very big players are now working on blue and green hydrogen schemes. I won’t enumerate the advantages and disadvantages, but there is a lot of hope out there that large scale, standalone H2 production plants powered by renewables could substitute for some of your nuclear plants. Alternatively, if a nuclear plant is designed for peak-shaving with a swing factor of 1.8, say, then the spare power available can be used to produce and compress hydrogen (or produce ammonia for ease of transhipment and recovery. The compressed hydrogen can be used as a (high energy density) transport fuel or as feedstock to an electricity generating plant. When examined in any detail, these schemes all have major feasibility and cost challenges, especially within the timeframe suggested. However, they should perhaps be noted for completeness, even if only to be dismissed.
Thanks, kribaez. I discussed the manifold problems with hydrogen in a post called Drilling For Hydrogen. In it I cover the issues you list above. Let me know what you think.
w.
Innovative research is always to be welcomed but for power and transport, hydrogen is a road to nowhere. An expensive and dangerous one.
Concentrating power is always dangerous. The reason we use the current fossil fuel technologies for concentrating power is not by chance. It is because these are the safest and most economical technologies for the job. Today’s green energy silliness is not going to end well.
I have just taken a quick look at the NASA website Evidence | Facts – Climate Change: Vital Signs of the Planet (nasa.gov).
Either all the stuff I follow on WUWT is wrong or NASA is wrong. Just the 1st graph (CO2 levels from ice core data) on the NASA site seems like a hokey stick Al Gore could have produced. NASA is shouting that there is a Climate Emergency.
Can somebody please clear up my confusion? Who should a layman believe?
Start here: Evaluating-The-Integrity-Of-Official-Climate-Records-4.pdf (realclimatescience.com)
Also, NASA data goes back 800,000 years in the first chart they show. It’s better to look at geologic history. Geological_Timescale.jpg (960×720) (biocab.org)