The currently-proclaimed goal of the climate movement is to achieve “Net Zero” economy-wide carbon emissions by 2050, if not sooner. The governments of essentially all the Western countries with the most advanced economies have committed, in one form or another, to achieve this goal. (OK, in the EU there are a few laggards among the former Soviet satellites, but then it is questionable how advanced their economies are.). Many of these countries with Net Zero commitments have even earlier goals, often in the 2030s, for achievement of Net Zero emissions from electricity generation. And the electricity generation sector is clearly the easiest part of an economy to get to Net Zero. Surely, if all of the countries with the best technology and the most sophisticated governments say that this Net Zero thing can be done in short order in the electricity sector, then it can be done and it will be done.
In fact, it will not be done. Not just will Net Zero in electricity generation not be achieved worldwide by 2050 or any time close to that, but it also won’t be achieved in any individual country, no matter how committed to the Net Zero goal that country may currently seem to be. If you have any doubt about that, I suggest looking to some of the following indicators:
There is a total absence in the entire world of any functioning Net Zero demonstration project.
It is truly astounding how many seemingly sophisticated governments have made the Net Zero electricity commitment without there existing anywhere in the world a demonstration project showing how this can be done and at what cost. Historically, major innovations in provision of energy have begun with demonstration projects or prototypes to establish the feasibility and cost of the endeavor, before any attempt at widespread commercialization to a full state or country. Thus in the 1880s, when Thomas Edison wanted to start building central station power plants to supply electricity for his new devices like incandescent lightbulbs, he began by building a prototype facility in London under the Holborn Viaduct, and followed that with a larger demonstration plant on Pearl Street in Lower Manhattan that supplied electricity to only a few square blocks. Only after those had been demonstrated as successful did a larger build-out begin. Similarly, the provision of nuclear power began with small government-funded prototypes in the late 1940s and early 1950s, followed by larger demonstration projects in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Only in the late 1960s, twenty years into the effort and after feasibility and cost had been demonstrated, were the first large-scale commercial nuclear reactors built.
Today there is no such thing anywhere in the world and on any scale, whether large or small, as a functioning wind/solar electricity system that functions free of full fossil fuel backup, or even close to that. The few places that have made attempts at fully wind/solar/storage systems have fallen woefully short, and at this point are not even trying to bridge the remaining gap to get to Net Zero.
Commenters on some of my recent posts have referred to the projects on some small islands like El Hierro (one of Spain’s Canary Islands, population about 10,000) or King Island (off Tasmania in Australia, population about 1500). But those projects only serve to illustrate how far short efforts toward Net Zero have fallen, and how enormous would be the costs to go the remaining distance. I have previously covered the El Hierro project multiple times, for example here and here.
The bottom line for El Hierro is that it has wind turbines with supposed “capacity” of more than double average demand (but which operate at annual capacity factors of under 40%), and also a pumped-storage facility with hydro generators for more than double average demand, and also back-up diesel generators for more than double average demand – three separate and redundant systems, all of which must be paid for. And for all that, they struggle to get half of their electricity from the wind/storage system, averaged over the year. And they must retain the full diesel backup, fully maintained and ready to go, for the regular times, even in the windiest months, when the wind fails to blow.
The operator of the wind/storage system on El Hierro, Gorona del Viento, has a website where data from the island are published (although the most recent data are from September 2021). In 2021, the island got 28% of its electricity from the wind/storage system in January (and the rest from the diesel backup), 36% in February, 48% in March, 21% in April, 77% in May, 72% in June, 81% in July, 59% in August, and 34% in September. The cover page of the Gorona del Viento report brags that the island had 1293 hours in 2020 when it got all of its electricity from the wind/storage system. How embarrassing is that? — there being 8784 hours in a leap year like 2020.
If Net Zero emissions electricity generation could be achieved for a major economy like the U.S. or Germany or the UK or Japan by 2050, or for that matter by 2035, there would be a functioning demonstration project operating today that achieves that goal. In fact, there is nothing that comes close, and nothing on the horizon.
Every wind turbine or solar panel that gets built depends on a government subsidy
The U.S. Congress has just passed its big climate subsidy act (is it still called the Inflation Reduction Act?), containing some $370 billion of subsidies of various sorts for “green” energy projects, predominantly wind and solar generation facilities, but also things like electric cars and electric heat systems for homes. Undoubted, this will get a lot of wind turbines and solar panels built, and electric cars bought and heat pumps installed.
But here’s the rub. Nobody builds any wind turbine or solar panel, or any other element of this new “green” energy utopia, based on the usual capitalist motivations of making a profit by fulfilling organic consumer demand. Crony capitalists will undoubtedly emerge to build something to collect the subsidies, but they have no particular incentive to put together all elements of a system that works. Who does have that incentive? Nobody, except maybe government central planners — a category that has never had a success in the history of the world.
For a few examples of bottlenecks to come, here is a piece in something called The Conversation from August 19, title “Big new incentives for clean energy aren’t enough – the Inflation Reduction Act was just the first step, now the hard work begins,” by Daniel Cohan of Rice University. Cohan points to one missing element after another of the supposedly coming new green energy system, each one of which will require its own new massive government subsidies:
Wind and solar farms won’t be built without enough power lines to connect their electricity to customers. Captured carbon and clean hydrogen won’t get far without pipelines. Too few contractors are trained to install heat pumps. And EV buyers will think twice if there aren’t enough charging stations.
Etc., etc., etc. When gasoline-powered cars became a thing in the early 1900s, thousands of entrepreneurs sprung into action, without government subsidies of any kind, to set up gas stations all across the country to keep the cars running. Now, people are waiting around for the government handouts that may or may not come, or may be insufficient, to set up the charging stations. Supposedly the Congress is going to come through with hundreds of billions more in subsidies just when needed for all of these things (and twenty more such that nobody has thought of yet), along with an all-knowing bureaucracy to coordinate it all. No government has that level of competency, or ever will.
We’re watching Europe hit the green energy wall in real time
The major European countries, like Germany and the UK, are just now coming up on the position that El Hierro has been in since its system opened in 2014. That is, Germany and the UK have plenty of “nameplate” capacity of wind and solar generators to supply all the electricity they need when the wind is blowing and the sun shining, and even excess at times of full wind and sun. But they have no non-fossil-fuel plan for the regularly-occurring times of low wind and sun. This problem cannot be solved by building more wind and solar facilities.
Here’s a report on the latest from the UK from City AM, August 17:
Based on current forecasts, clean energy specialist Squeaky has calculated that UK industry could be hit with £49.2bn bill for wholesale gas and electricity costs combined in 2023. Overall, this is a 260 per cent increase from the industry’s energy bill in 2021.
Price increases to consumers for electricity and gas have been even higher in percentage terms. And here’s the latest from Germany, from something called the Local, August 17:
Coal is experiencing a comeback on several fronts in Europe’s top economy. A looming shortage of Russian gas in the wake of the Ukraine war has reignited enthusiasm for this method of heating private homes despite its sooty residue and heavy carbon footprint.
Nobody in Europe thought to make a plan for the non-fossil fuel backup to get to Net Zero electricity generation.
So if you have a chance to make a bet, you’ll be extremely safe betting against Net Zero generation of electricity any time during your life.
To read the full article, click here.
The misconception is that it is thought that those in government want to help the citizens. Control is the main objective and green energy is the way to do it. For it is much easier to turn off electricity to limit people – especially with smart technology – than it is to do that to dumb technological gas cars or dumb gas or coal based home energy sources.
That’s not the goal. That’s the method employed to obtain the goal. The goal is to reduce global average surface temperature anomalies (GASTA) to the perfect level it was before man’s interference with nature.
What is perfect level of GASTA? I don’t know and no one has said which makes “perfect” subjective. But what I do know is I can hardly wait until the annual Frost Fairs return to the Thames and perhaps on the Delaware River.
Don’t forget the Potomac…..
The engineering and economic impossibility is only the second reason Net Zero will never be achieved.
The first reason is that if we had Net Zero our Dear Leaders would lose their current excuse for saying that the weather is our fault and the only solution is more Communism.
Hmm, I’m pretty sure they would dream up something else!
We do all know of course that a lot of the fiction of net-zero is informed by …………………..modelling..sigh– Models, models everywhere..
There are a lot of magazines devoted to showing off the good attributes of models….
‘you’ll be extremely safe betting against Net Zero generation of electricity any time during your life.’
Very true – but you will not, of course, live to take your winnings!
For ‘government subsidy’ read ‘taxpayer subsidy’ throughout.
It’s a pity that the penny has not dropped with the public as to why this is happening. Its not Russia.
I thought Net Zero was the totality of society? Why has everyone been going on about electricity generation alone? When one had bought one’s very expensive virtue signalling gas, coal and nuclear powered electric car, do please get out of the way of the torrent of thundering twelve wheel artics that daily deliver our civilisation. Do you, oh virtuous one, think they can be battery driven? Do the sums and realise your ineffectiveness. Oh, and aviation? And shipping? And agriculture? And construction? It must be AWFUL to be On The Left and unable to do simple sums.
Anyone else notice the absence of Nick Stoles and Griff to a discussion using actual numbers?
I’ve been cooking my tea – using an induction hob, very responsive and energy efficient.
do remember I’m in a non US time zone and the powers that be moderate all my comments in advance, making prompt response difficult
So much paranoia. No wonder you always favor more government.
I like induction cooktops. I also like efficiency. Some electric heating can manage 96% or greater efficiency. That’s pretty good. However, the emissions per cup boiled is actually better for a gas stove (since you avoid the inefficiencies of conversion).
Heat pumps are far more efficient than direct heating though.
Though they need to be. If your heat pump isn’t offering well more than a 3:1 gain (power used vs heat delivered) then just burning the gas is as or more effective at heating the home.
They probably got a room. Inevitable really.
It’s like pretending that getting out of bed in the morning is progress towards a world wide tour. But with a massive (costly) orchestra and staff to wake you up and help facilitate the removal from the bed along with with reports of the tour intentions.
Once again I remind you any energy cost problems in the UK and Germany are entirely down to the price of gas and the effects on price of Russian actions.
Net Zero is going to be delivered by a large number of contributing actions… it isn’t something you can just package.
Is there no lie so venal, that griff won’t repeat it over and over again. Totally ignoring all the times it’s been refuted.
Energy prices were rising long before gas prices started rising.
I think you made a few typos there
Net Zero is never going to be delivered …… it is something that cannot be achieved
That’s what you meant wasn’t it?
Yet you avoided making a comprehensive reply to the article claiming that Net-Zero isn’t possible thus your lie is all you offered here since energy prices soared long before gas prices went way up.
The author confuses Net-0 with Zero Emission. If I had a system with 60% wind/solar, 10% nuclear, and 30% gas (ERCOT in ~5 years) I could achieve Net-0 by using Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) or Direct Air Capture (DAC).
These systems would add 10~20% to the cost of the Natural Gas portion of electricity and so raise the overall bill. However, it is not an unreasonable bill in the way that zero-emission would be.
Not that I’m advocating for such a system. My only point is that this system would be reliable, large scale, have little added cost, and achieve Net-0.
“These systems would add 10~20% to the cost of the Natural Gas portion of electricity and so raise the overall bill.”
Another confirmation that Net-0 adds cost to a grid. What was ignored, again,was the already baked in added costs to the grid due to adding system with 60% wind/solar.
I think we have had this discussion previously. But whatever.
Let’s imagine you have a grid that is not growing (i.e. SPP). You already have enough natural gas, coal, and nuclear to meet demand every hour of the year. Now you put in a solar farm.
How much more does your natural gas plant cost? How many extra dollars do you have to pay to keep it up? The reality is that it doesn’t cost any more. That cost was already baked into the system. You don’t get to double charge for NGCC just because there is now a solar farm.
“Hi, this is the electric company. You already paid for that natural gas plant over there. Actually, it is already completely paid off (we installed it 30 years ago). However, we just installed a solar plant. Now we are going to raise your price by the cost of a solar farm, and to pay for that already paid for natural gas plant.”
Your problem is that you are misunderstanding allocated costs with total costs. You actual position is not (or at least should not be) that the cost is increased by the cost of maintaining back-up production. That cost is already baked in (and on most of our grids fully depreciated and paid for). Rather your position is (or should be) that when calculating the cost of solar we should allocate a portion of the fixed cost of NGCC, NTCT, Nuclear, and Coal to solar insomuch as that fixed cost remains when intermittent sources are added to the grid. You don’t think that NGCC should bear the full burden of its own fixed cost.
That said – yes, Net-0 adds cost to a grid. I don’t think I’ve read anyone who says otherwise.
In California, the utilities recover on a PUC approved cost+ or infrastructure+ basis. So if their costs increase, their profits increase. If they build new power structures, they can recover their costs plus a percentage. Manage operations wisely, be prudent and frugal, your profits will drop. Hence the lack of opposition to insanity.
Shutdown and sell off our paid for and efficient power plant and build wildly expensive GREEN plants instead. Sure! We can raise more revenue on the increased investment in physical plant. Now we need to build more peaking plants to cover for the lousy reliability of the GREEN power? Sure! Pay outrageous peak power charges to the other grid operators burning coal in AZ,NV,CO,UT,NM? Sure, we add our % markup to that too!
You are wrong to treat backup as free depreciated assets. That means they are near end of life and will have to be replaced soon if backup is to be naintained. It makes much more sense to look at an annualised capital charge that covers depreciation and a cost of capital. Of course, the latter depends on interest rates, which are now in the process of normalisation, which makes asset intensive solutions less desirable.
In any event, the costs of accommodating intermittency go way beyond a portion of time with asset underutilisation. They include much less efficient operation and increased maintenance costs due to ramping up and down, and substantial increases in grid costs to provide transmission for the renewables output and grid stabilisation services.
Once renewables penetration increases beyond a certain point (essentially when its maximum output exceeds lowest demand less essential inertia providing generation) you start down the road of curtailment of excess renewables generation. That means it is either subsidised to curtail, or it must charge a higher price for its useful output.
As capacity grows further, curtailment grows initially quadratically as more hours produce curtailment surpluses, and as the size of the surpluses grows. The marginal useful generation from adding renewables capacity falls sharply, since mostly it adds to already surplus generation while contributing next to nothing during Dunkelflaute. The result is that the effective cost of additional renewables capacity becomes a multiple of a LCOE calculated figure, because most of the output must be thrown away.
Storage is not the answer for anything beyond short term oscillations in output on a small scale that allows the storage to be turned over rapidly. It is crazy expensive once you start looking at seasonal stores, and in any case depends on getting its input on the cheap.
Incudentally I have yet to see anyone with a CCS system that carries only a 20% cost premium, unless it is failing to capture a lot of emissions. The only ones that have been viable are where the CO2 is used for EPR reservoir flooding to produce more hydrocarbons.
Only 10 to 20%? You are delusional.
Well, if electricity prices have already tripled because of heavy penetration by weather-dependent generators, then 10-20% on top of that higher price for. CCS + DAC might be believable.
I don’t think we say yet how much cost CCS and DAC would add to the grid since no pilot projects for the latter have yet been built, and even which of several technologies might win out. Sucking CO2 directly out of the atmosphere is thermodynamically difficult. CCS is considered unacceptable by the Greens because it presupposes that fossil fuels will continue to be burnt.
34,936 power plants in the world (excluding those with primary solar, wind, nuclear, hydro, tidal and biomass). / 9,990 days until 2050 = we need to replace approximately 3.45 power plants PER DAY for the next 28 years.
Does that need any more comment on why this is impossible?
What’s the plan if a particular region doesn’t complete their conversion in time. Will they have any choice but to shutdown the plant by force and plunge all the customers into darkness? The fate of the Earth depends on it after all, right?
Source: https://datasets.wri.org/dataset/globalpowerplantdatabase
Sri Lanka was kind of a test, but it failed spectacularly at net zero. And it was a temperate climate where if net zero was ever going to succeed it would be there. Not like the Canadian Prairies where the winter temps routinely hit -40C and the summer temps routinely hit +40C. The only player with net zero on their bingo card is the City of Regina (in Saskatchewan) which is going full out on net zero – in the next 10/20 years watch our property taxes hit all time highs