Essay by Eric Worrall
According to the IEA, “the world must add or replace 80 million km of grids by 2040, equal to all grids globally today, to meet national climate targets and support energy security”.
Lack of ambition and attention risks making electricity grids the weak link in clean energy transitions
First-of-its-kind global study finds the world must add or replace 80 million km of grids by 2040, equal to all grids globally today, to meet national climate targets and support energy security
Efforts to tackle climate change and ensure reliable supplies of electricity could be put at risk unless policy makers and companies quickly take action to improve and expand the world’s electricity grids, according to a special report released today by the IEA.
Grids have formed the backbone of electricity systems for more than a century, delivering power to homes, factories, offices and hospitals – and their importance is only set to rise as electricity’s role in energy systems increases. But the new report, Electricity Grids and Secure Energy Transitions, which offers a first-of-its-kind stocktake of grids worldwide, finds signs they are not keeping pace with the rapid growth of key clean energy technologies such as solar, wind, electric cars and heat pumps. Without greater policy attention and investment, shortfalls in the reach and quality of grid infrastructure could put the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 °C out of reach and undermine energy security, the report warns.
Achieving all national climate and energy goals will require adding or replacing 80 million kilometres of power lines by 2040 – an amount equal to the entire existing global grid – according to a detailed country-by-country analysis carried out for the report. Major changes to how grids operate and are regulated are also essential, while annual investment in grids, which has remained broadly stagnant, needs to double to more than USD 600 billion a year by 2030.
Issues are already emerging. The report identifies a large and growing queue of renewables projects waiting for the green light to be connected to the grid, pinpointing 1 500 gigawatts worth of these projects that are in advanced stages of development. This is five times the amount of solar PV and wind capacity that was added worldwide last year.
“The recent clean energy progress we have seen in many countries is unprecedented and cause for optimism, but it could be put in jeopardy if governments and businesses do not come together to ensure the world’s electricity grids are ready for the new global energy economy that is rapidly emerging,” said IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol. “This report shows what’s at stake and needs to be done. We must invest in grids today or face gridlock tomorrow.”
The role of electricity is set to continue growing strongly, increasing the demands on grids. The adoption of new technologies such as electric cars and heat pumps means electricity is expanding into realms previously dominated by fossil fuels. Meanwhile, countries are adding renewable energy projects at a fast rate – requiring more power lines to connect them to electricity systems and high-functioning distribution grids to ensure reliable supplies for end customers. This includes the digitalisation of distribution grids and enabling more flexibility through demand response and energy storage.
A new scenario developed for the report, the Grid Delay Case, examines what would happen if grid investment is not scaled up quickly enough and regulatory reforms for grids are slow. It finds that cumulative carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions between 2030 and 2050 would be almost 60 billion tonnes higher due to a slower rollout of renewables that results in higher fossil fuel consumption. This is equivalent to the total CO2 emissions from the global power sector over the past four years. It would put the global temperature rise well above the Paris Agreement target of 1.5 °C, with a 40% chance of exceeding 2 °C.
The report identifies several strategic actions that can make a difference. These include expanding and strengthening grid interconnections within countries, between countries and across regions to make electricity systems more resilient and allow them to better integrate rising shares of solar and wind power. The report recommends that governments back large-scale transmission projects to ensure grids are prepared for further strong growth in renewable power. And it urges grid developers and operators to embrace digitalisation to enable the grids of the future to be more resilient and flexible.
The need for decisive action is urgent because of the long lead times for modernising and extending grids. New grid infrastructure often takes 5 to 15 years to plan, permit and complete – compared with 1 to 5 years for new renewables projects and less than 2 years for new charging infrastructure for electric vehicles.
Improving and expanding grid infrastructure in countries worldwide will require stronger international collaboration. Emerging and developing economies, excluding China, have seen a decline in grid investments in recent years, despite robust electricity demand growth and ongoing efforts to meet energy access goals.
“Ensuring the developing world has the resources it needs to build and modernise electricity grids is an essential task for the international community,” Dr Birol said. “By mobilising financing, providing access to technology and sharing best practices on policies, leading economies can help improve people’s lives, strengthen sustainable development and reduce the risks of climate change.”
Source: https://www.iea.org/news/lack-of-ambition-and-attention-risks-making-electricity-grids-the-weak-link-in-clean-energy-transitions
The referenced IEA Report is available here.
The report discusses some of the issues related to grid expansions:
Page 9: (dealing with objections) … Financial barriers can be addressed by improving the way grid
companies are remunerated, driving targeted grid funding and increasing cost
transparency. For other jurisdictions, such as Europe, the United States, Chile and
Japan, the strongest barriers relate to public acceptance of new projects and the
need for regulatory reform. Here, policy makers can speed up progress on grids
by enhancing planning, ensuring regulatory risk assessments allow for
anticipatory investments and streamlining administrative processes. …Page 29 (interconnectedness reducing power storage requirements) … While renewables integration and optimisation are a major factor, interconnecting
power systems can also serve an important storage purpose and enable electricity
trading. From an economic perspective, interconnections lead to cost savings,
revenue generation and market optimisation through power trading and
integration. IEA has published several reports on this topic, such as Large-scale
Electricity Interconnection, Integrating Power Systems across Borders and Power
Systems in Transition. …Page 51 (Praising strong central governments in China and India for overriding local planning concerns) … Significantly shorter lead times for transmission lines are observed in China and
India compared to advanced economies. In China, this is primarily due to
centralised decision-making and the government’s prioritisation strategy aiming to
connect the eastern load centres with renewable energy-rich northern and western
provinces through UHV lines. Similarly in India, the government has been
prioritising the rapid development of inter- and intra-state transmission capacity
though national programmes (e.g. Green Energy Corridor), supported by
significant investment. Dedicated policy tools have helped fast-track the buildout
of thousands of kilometres of lines in record time, driven initially by pressing
concerns about electricity security and more recently by ambitious targets to
evacuate green power from renewable energy zones. …Page 72 (the need for massive subsidies) … One approach is to explicitly dedicate a grid development budget that can be allocated to different projects. The US Congressional Budget Office estimates that total support from the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA) and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021 will surpass USD 430 billion from 2022 through to 2031, of which the IRA provides USD 760 million in grants to siting authorities to facilitate the siting and permitting of transmission projects. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory estimates that the US IRA could enable 24 TW-miles of transmission capacity by 2030, which is a 16% increase in total installed capacity relative to the current level. …
Page 82 (
Source: Electricity Grids and Secure Energy Transitionsenergy rationingdemand response coming) … The APS indicates that by 2050 nearly half of the world’s grid flexibility needs would be met by demand response and battery storage. With the growing use of electricity for air conditioners, heat pumps, EVs, electrolysers and other potentially flexible sources of demand, there is potential for significant load shifting. Demand-side flexibility is equally important in advanced economies as well as in EMDEs. …
$430 billion could buy a lot of border security, school repairs, road repairs, better policing and healthcare. All of it is being spent to provide a commodity – electric power – which is already available from other sources.
Australia gets a few mentions. I’m guessing Australia is supposed to be a showpiece for the green energy revolution, if it can’t be made to work in sunny Australia, it can’t be made to work anywhere.
The report blames lack of capacity for renewable energy curtailment, where renewable operators are forced to go partially or completely offline. They ignore that all of these renewable operators could purchase allegedly affordable energy storage systems, to make their systems dispatchable.
Of course, affordable energy storage would have to be a real thing to make this solution a possibility.
The report also mentions the need for a significant increase in mining – producing materials like Alumina and Copper for electrical cable, and structural steel.
I doubt interconnectedness would help nearly as much as the IEA makes out. Adverse weather conditions are frequently very geographically widespread, so for interconnectedness to replace energy dispatchability, the interconnected grid would need to have the capacity to draw power from extraordinary distances. The most extreme case of distant power would be winter. All renewable sources drop in winter, wind speeds tend to be lower, and in the North there is a lot less solar energy available. So a truly interconnected grid would have to be able to transfer a sizeable fraction of the world’s energy demand across the equator.
Even if sufficient overcapacity was built to carry northern hemisphere nations through winter, large scale adverse weather conditions could still mess everything up. Consider the Texas ice storm of 2021. It wasn’t just Texas which was affected, freezing cold temperatures were experienced across a large swathe of the United States.
Where would the Southern USA have drawn the additional renewable energy from – Northern states? And the power load would have seriously exceeded normal energy use, people would not be keen to turn their home heating down in the middle of freezing temperatures.
None of this grid capacity panic would be an issue if climate obsessed governments embraced zero carbon nuclear power. Nuclear power is dispatchable, unlike renewables, and requires no more grid capacity than equivalent fossil fuel plant and equipment.
I strongly suspect grid capacity will be the stumbling block which kills the green energy revolution, at least in democracies and republics where politicians answer to voters. Even India will eventually face some backlash, though for now it seems likely most Indians support grid projects, especially to regions which have a long history of unreliable or non-existent grid electricity.
Only dictatorships like China can hope to consistency steamroller opposition to unsightly, unpopular grid extensions, on anything like the timeframe green targets would require. I’ve seen first hand the kind of anger building unsightly grids through rural property can create in landowners. That anger is not going away anytime soon.
Neither Germany nor the UK has been able to place additional north/south grid already needed by the renewables in place. NIMBY in both cases.
Suppose the IEA is right. Ain’t gonna happen at all, let alone in their ambitious timeframe.
Just another fantasy.
Beauly-Denny was built despite a lot of opposition, relatively speaking. The total population of the regions it passed through was probably less than 250k people.
Building new long-distance grids are very expensive along with the large subsidies for jacking up support for ruinables that are normally not cost effective which is why they don’t expand much when additional power is needed.
I wonder what the NIMBYs will think when they find out “the world must add or replace 80 million km of grids by 2040….”. And of course there’s nothing wrong with being a NIMBY- protecting our personal space. I fought a solar “farm” being built behind my house. Pushed it back a bit and forced them to cough up some $$$$ to landscape the back of the homes in this ‘hood to help hide the dam thing.
Apart from natural end of life replacements on grid, most grid expenditure has been on new generation connections, whether renewables, or diesel/gas peaking plants
Having PM’d several 20MW diesel & gas peaking plant installations, via transformers into 11kV & 33kV grid connections, I have seen first hand how the grid has removed large coal generators and replaced them with dozens of other smaller fossil fuel plants – insanity at its best!
That same grid has existed, largely in current form, for decades, from the 40s to late 70s, when the UK had a lot of heavy industry to power
It did the job it was designed to do with coal, gas & nuclear generation in large – fast forward to today, more and more unreliable, weather dependent renewables are being connected, through static converters (STATCOMs etc) drastically reducing grid inertia, increasing losses whilst hiking generation & transmission costs and green subsidies & levies
Only someone with zero Energy, power generation and distribution competence would push the nations power infrastructure down this rabbit hole
We will all pay the price for this sheer virtue signalling stupidity, based on a con
Now add battery cars and heat pumps to the distribution levels and that’s a whole new idiocy
Plus electric stoves and electric water heaters.
But not just long distance transmission, all the local infrastructure too including in buildings and houses. UK’s local network is mostly underground so that’s going to mean a lot of streets dug up, and disruption.
Rud: With your ties to Wisconsin I’m sure you’re aware of the Cardinal-Hickory Creek transmission line project. 102 miles of 345KV transmission line at a cost of now over $580 million. And they have been fought every step of the way by environmentalists and have yet to get approval to cross a wildlife refuge at the Mississippi from the US Fish & Wildlife Service. But they’ve already built almost all of the rest. They must know something. The companies involved have claimed the line is necessary to connect wind farms in Iowa to Wisconsin markets, but it will, in fact also carry fossil fuel power. Anyway at $5 Million+ per mile building 1000s of miles of new transmission lines from far flung rural wind and solar farms to densely populated areas is going to be outrageously expensive and could alone result in massive increases in electricity costs.
“Lack of ambition and attention risks making electricity grids the weak link in clean energy transitions”
Pun intended, no doubt, but they are wrong. Reality is the weak link.
Yes. It seems ‘lack of ambition’ is another term for not believing in magical thinking.
They also think the HVAC grid system runs ‘like cars following each on a road’ but uses electrons instead. Doesnt happen as the electrons barely move under AC
Nuclear is the only option a drop in for coal and gas no new transmission lines Problem solved
No – the problem is not just the lack of dispatchable power, but the fact the idiots in charge are actively forcing people to abandon perfectly effective and efficient natural gas heating and gasoline powered cars for electric versions – thereby increasing electricity demand by more than double at least.
So we need a more extended grid to hook up the sparce wind/solar supply and need a heftier grid near the consumers who will be using a lot more electricity.
These trillions of unnecessary dollars in capital expense are required because of “cheap” renewables that can’t be dispatched to meet load that have destroyed electricity reliability and cost effective energy with these massive costs penalties hidden by climate alarmist renewable energy incompetent idiots.
Insanely incompetent idiots. If I was fully on the green bandwagon and fully indoctrinated in the cult, I wouldn’t be so stupid as to begin agitating against just a perfect energy source like natural gas, that would be the crutch to make wind/solarappear viable, and also creating a huge shift in energy use towards electricity grid that it will never be ready for.
Essentially the useful idiots will actually make wind/solar/storage look bad and incompetent. They got too drunk on the power and too empty of brain and they’ll come crashing down.
But look at all the money they will reap in the meantime. These folks could care less about the ultimate outcome as long as their pocketbooks are collecting money.
This IEA report makes me so mad I struggled to finish reading it. All IEA facilities should be forced to use only wind and solar energy, no fossil fuel or nuclear backup and no fossil fuel transportation period. If they can’t get where they are going with an EV they have to walk and the EV can only be charged with wind or solar. Praising China and India for their work expanding their grids makes me want to puke. No mention of the humongous coal power expansion. Liars and cheats. The new grid work is probably needed to handle the added coal generation. What a bunch of punks.
They would probably still phone in post COVID. Cuts rent cost?
We should be mad with it all, if only the masses could see what we see
There are a lot of people who make a nice living out of the IEA. They keep pumping out these types of report based upon some imaginary world somewhere. All part of Executive Director Fatih Birol’s plans to become the first Turkish boss of the UN 🙂
Is the IEA another global agency that needs to be eradicated? What is its purpose?
What is “international energy”?
Isn’t it an NGO?
Steve, the original purpose of the IEA was to ensure price stability and coordination of world oil supply in the event of another world oil embargo, as happened in 1974 and 1979. That’s what IEA was created to do.
However, the world supply of NON-OPEC oil supply has soared in the last 40 years. World oil reserves are now enormous compared to what they were thought to be in 1980. So, the IEA has had no reason to exist for the past four decades. It has no useful mission, nothing to do. So it’s become a mere think-tank and talking shop largely owned by various energy interests. Most recently, it spouts endless nonsense about renewables.
You would be wise if you disregard everything that Fatih Birol ever uttered. IEA is as useless as the United Nations after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
‘IEA is as useless as the United Nations after the collapse of the Soviet Union.’
IIRC the UN was also useless before the collapse of the USSR.
Sounds like the US Department of Education.
Everything got worse after it was created.
Everything except working conditions and salaries of workers.
Are the kids learning? Not important, teachers are happy, that’s what matters.
Not quite global: it is an offshoot of the OECD, originally established to deal with the oil supply crisis after the Yom Kippur War with the Arab oil embargo with plans for sharing oil supply among members. After the Kuwait invasion in 1990 it had demonstrated its irrelevance in that role, and it began to seize upon the climate agenda following Kyoto to provide a raison d’être.
It’s a globalist thing
This reminds me of a product for sale on Amazon …
Includes one bonus imported pendulum!
At least this is affordable — $21.99 for two.
pendulums are interesting devices
Loved seeing the Pendulum at the Smithsonian on a field trip during Middle School.
I remember that one from visiting the Smithsonian when I lived in DC. There’s an earlier Focault pendulum at the Science Museum in London which I first encountered as a child, offered as proof of the rotation of the earth.
They have a fascinating pendulum at the Griffith Observatory near LA.
https://griffithobservatory.org/exhibits/w-m-keck-foundation-central-rotunda/foucault-pendulum/
Is this claiming 1500 gigawatts or 500 gigawatts? There is somewhat of a difference.
It isn’t claiming anything… it’s “pinpointing”
huh?
1500 – the Europeans use the comma for the decimal and just leave a blank to separate the thousands.
We’re all broke. The U.S. is $33.5 Trillion in debt, plus another $130 Trillion in unfunded obligations.
Who the bleep is going to pay for all of their plans to proceed, much less actually work.
‘Who the bleep is going to pay…’
No one.
I presume that much or most of the unfunded obligations is to pay for pensions for bureaucrats?
The plans won’t work – anyone with engineering & economic competence can clearly see that
Since that has largely disappeared from the western “democracies” with the effectively uni-party system condition now in place, there is likely to be effective tyrannical top-down dictates on pushing “green” projects regardless of any and all local opposition.
Here in Wokeachusetts, the state legislature is almost 100% Democrat- no wonder its climate policies are so bad. I’ve emailed the state’s Republican party asking its climate policies. Got no reply. Emailed the Libertarian party with same question. A guy wrote back “we support limited government”. That’s the best he could do.
Got no reply.
Seems to be the party’s SOP.
The word “ambition” is now a favoured pop-science concept among the self-elected elites.
“Ambition” is an excellent choice by those pushing to denigrate proper science.
It cannot be measured.
It cannot be forecast.
It is dimensionless, has no units
It cannot be traced to a reference standard.
There is no constraint like right or wrong.
It could hardly be more distant from hard science.
Yet this IEA report has again popularised it, as if it has significance.
The IEA has gone rogue dictatorial, has lost touch with reality, has to be shuttered asap.
Geoff S
”lack of ambition’
= a term used by p1ssed-off wives/lovers/mistresses also school-teachers/masters.
A (less than) subtle way of telling someone that they are Stupid, Thick and Lazy
Not really the best way to ‘make friends & influence’ or bring the best out in people.
The IEA is composed of selfish, greedy and projecting people in a state of self-inflicted panic & hysteria.
Just like most western governments, their scientists/universities and media
But they case their paychecks and live an affluent life.
Cash, I should say.
C’mon, Eric! Everyone knows the grid expansion required to meet the needs of Nut Zero and other green fantasies will be constructed out of rainbows and unicorn farts! It’s right there in the sacred texts!
Seriously though, do you think there is ANY intention among our money grubbing, megalomaniacal elites to maintain the grid for use by the plebs!? No more than they aim to maintain individual freedom of movement with cheap vehicles or travel! Ibiza will be SO much nicer without the smelly Walmarters!
How anybody thinks that we can electrify absolutely everything without a massive rebuild of the electric grid is beyond me.
This one rates a Duh.
It may be obvious to you, but I know of a lot of alamists who will either deny the need, or proclaim that the needed enhancements are minimal.
Maybe this is it – here’s some people who ‘lacked ambition‘
Pray tell, what sort of ‘ambition’ pushes sensible folks to climb 200 metres up a ladder so as to shoot water into an electrical fire? A fire that can change direction in the blink of an eye and engulf the ‘shooter’ and ‘dislodge’ their ladder – even anyone was dumb enough to go up there?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-us-canada-67147288
It’s all under control with the Oz NEM grid as solar slashes prices for needy struggletown-
Record rooftop solar slashes wholesale energy prices (msn.com)
When you’re creating Green Utopia and changing the global weather there’s always the selfish knockers of course-
Rooftop solar switch-off: Why and where it’s being used – and where it’s headed | RenewEconomy
By the time all the land corridors areas for transmission lines and wind farms are cleared, there won’t be much food growing areas left 🙁
Except that countries and taxpayers don’t consider reaching national climate targets as a top priority or anywhere near it. Energy security is far more important, and the existing supplies from fossil fuels, hydro, and nuclear plus some small supplements from wind and solar are currently adequate. No one needs any major shifts to renewables that have consistently proved their unreliability.
Tell that to the state of Wokeachusetts. You’ll probably get arrested.
The IEA don’t really believe it either. In their World Energy Outlook 2022 they acknowledged that
“From 80% today – a level constant for decades- fossil fuels fall to 75% by 2030 and just over 60% by 2050”
Makes sense since you are not in the same place with the power source. Then add in locations and how much of the environment you want to disrupt.
I would say based upon the IEA, we have millions of acres (land and sea) that will have to change to accommodate the elimination of a very large % of the current production of energy needed globally. TES
Here is a question.
How many acres will it take to replace the fossil fuels shown in the graph for actual TES?
Data updated to 9-2021.
World total energy supply by source, 1971-2019 – Charts – Data & Statistics – IEA
“the world must add or replace”
_really_
“the world” is going to start tackling action items.
“the world”
Theoretically, far more than the world’s requirement for electricity could always be provided from solar farms erected in deserts, if they were all interconnected with underground and undersea UHVDC cables.
I remember many years ago coming across a study which calculated that covering the entire surface of the Sahara Desert with solar panels could produce about 20x the world’s current energy requirements, converting all energy into KWhs. Of course, that’s not practical because the sun also doesn’t shine in the Sahara at night.
However, there are many deserts around the world, in both the northern and southern hemispheres. Covering just a small portion of each desert with solar panels could easily provide all the electricity requirements in the future.
The problem is the huge expense of an interconnecting grid. My own preference would be underground UHVDC cables. Whilst they are initially far more expensive than overhead AC lines, there is far less electricity loss over long distances, and a much smaller easement width is required, which makes the permit process for land use much simpler and quicker. Also. there is no annoying visual impact, and far less risk of damage and fires due to collapsing overhead lines during storms, and so on.
No. Thats all magical thinking including the undergrounding of all the lines.
No it’s not. It’s a reality. Solar farms in deserts already exist, producing thousands of megawatts in total. Didn’t you know that?
Here’s a list of the major ones that are already producing.
Bhadla solar park, India;
Desert Sunlight solar farm, US;
Hainanzhou solar park, China
Ouarzazate solar park, Morocco.
How well do solar panels hold up in major sand storms?
How well do solar panels hold up at night?
Have you costed say 10TW of globe encircling interconnectors?
Remember all the talk about the undersea cable from Australia to Singapore? Distance 4370kms/2715miles. Too expensive and difficult to do so dropped.
And there you go again, beclowning yourself because you don’t bother to think through what you are typing.
Really, because solar stations in the desert exist, therefore it is possible to convert the entire Sahara into a solar power station.
Not familiar with the others, but the Desert Sunlight solar farm has been an economic disaster that never produced anything close to the amount of power that it’s advocates predicted.
roflmao.
Solar panels in the Sahara.. would last about as long a click of your fingers !
Sand storm meets obstacle……. obstacle buried or destroyed.. !
The Ouarzazate solar park in Morocco is at the edge of the Sahara Desert. It’s been producing electricity since 2016.
lol.
Does this look like the Sahara Desert to you. !!
Water consumption for the Ouarzazate Noor complex is estimated at 2.5 to 3 million m3 per year…. and it isn’t in the desert.
Try again.
Looks like another bird burner.
Where did you get that image from? I’ve searched the internet for images of the Ouarzazate Solar Power Station and find no image with the amount of greenery that your image shows.
Check out the following sites.
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/05/morocco-is-building-a-solar-farm-as-big-as-paris-in-the-sahara-desert/
“Morocco is building a giant thermosolar farm in the Sahara Desert“
https://knowledge-hub.circle-lab.com/article/8093?n=Giant-Thermosolar-Farm-In-the-Sahara-Desert
“Giant Thermosolar Farm In the Sahara Desert“
https://www.gettyimages.com.au/photos/ouarzazate-solar-power-station
“40 Ouarzazate Solar Power Station Stock Photos and High-res Pictures”
And here’s a satellite image from the following site.
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/151119/sunny-days-in-moroccos-ouarzazate-basin
Perhaps the greenery shown in your photo is a reult of the water used to clean the solar panels. If so, that’s a good thing, isn’t it?
Edge of the Sahara is not in the Sahara. Are you really this desperate to push an unworkable solution?
There’s already a worldwide underground grid for supplying power, they’re called pipelines,… duh.
Solar efficiency – low 20s%
Solar capacity factor – 24%
Operation at night – 0%
Operation in storms inc sand – 0%
Safety / reliability in war zone – 0%
Landfill waste generated – 98%
Failure rates – 80%
Solar harvesting during grand solar minimums – 35%
Likelihood owner/operator holds consumers to ransom – 100%
I’ve tried really hard to see a benefit to solar farms in deserts to power the world, tbh, I’m struggling
First off, much of the Sahara isn’t suitable for building anything on.
Secondly, how many people do you plan to employee to remove the sand and dust on a continuous basis. Be careful not scratch the glass while cleaning, that really cuts down on efficiency.
Thirdly, anyone who thinks they can cover 100% of anything with solar panels, simply isn’t playing with a full deck. Even if the entire Sahara was perfectly flat (it isn’t) you would still need to leave room between the panels in order to minimize how much they shade each other and to provide access for cleaning and maintenance.
Fourth, the Sahara isn’t flat. Areas to the north as well as immediate east and west of mountains are poor places to site solar panels. The mountains will shade the panels near them for a sizable chunk of the day.
20X the world’s energy needs? That would only come close to true if one were to assume that the maximum, noon time sun, fell on the Sahara 24 hours a day and that you would have 100% efficiency with your panels.
Have you ever bothered to think how much energy is lost during long distance transportation.
Finally have you ever even paused to think about where you are going to house the people who currently live in the Sahara?
You really need to stop being s gullible and think through these things before advocating them.
I forgot to mention clouds, even in the Sahara, they have clouds. Depending on the time of year, they even get rain.
“Thirdly, anyone who thinks they can cover 100% of anything with solar panels, simply isn’t playing with a full deck. Even if the entire Sahara was perfectly flat (it isn’t) you would still need to leave room between the panels in order to minimize how much they shade each other and to provide access for cleaning and maintenance.”
Why don’t you try reading my original post on this issue, before commenting? I’ll repeat what I wrote, to help you clarify your confusion.
“I remember many years ago coming across a study which calculated that covering the entire surface of the Sahara Desert with solar panels could produce about 20x the world’s current energy requirements, converting all energy into KWhs. Of course, that’s not practical.…”
“However, there are many deserts around the world, in both the northern and southern hemispheres. Covering just a small portion of each desert with solar panels could easily provide all the electricity requirements in the future.”
80 million km at say £1.25m/km is a £100 trillion bill for the world. If you want to bury lines, multiply cost by 10. HVDC subsea is £500m-£1bn per link in Europe for 0.5-2GW.
Who is going to pay? THere may be an awful lot of coffee in Brazil, but is there enoguh copper in Chile?
Have they bothered to do the sums to figure out just how much CO2 would be released into the atmosphere in the manufacture of all the concrete, steel, aluminium, copper, insulators etc etc that would be needed for 8 million km of high-tension transmission.
… plus all the fossil fuel needed to transport and install that much transmission infrastructure?
I very much doubt a single molecule of CO2 would ever be “saved”.
They don’t do the sums anymore, don’t you know maths is racist?!
There is no shortage of stumbling blocks. Lack of storage is a serious impediment. And will not be fixed in the foreseeable future. In Australia, even if Snowy 2 gets done, it will still be an expensive storage scheme.
Florence was still stuck last month. Not sure if it has moved in the last few weeks:
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/florence-the-2400-tonne-machine-that-came-to-symbolise-snowy-2-0-s-woes-20230901-p5e17w.html
The only aspect of Snowy 2 that is making rapid progress is the ascent of the project estimate.. There will be a lot of governments skewered on their “renewable” aspirations. The whole s/show is fantasy facing reality. I remain hopeful that I will see the fantasy fall apart.
With a Mr. Solar on the roof there is no need for grids. Grids are so yesterday
You would need a battery for those cloudy days and at night.
Maybe this brand ?
Have a nice winter.
I’ve yet to see a roof mounted solar system that was capable of providing 100% of the power needed for a standard house, even when the sun was directly over head. Since the sun is only directly overhead for a few minutes each day, the amount of power provided while the sun is up, is on average only a few percent of the peak. Then there’s the night, when the amount of power generated goes to zero, but the energy demand does not. During the winter, the demand actually goes up at night.
You’d have to bulldoze most of your neighbors houses in order to gt the many acres you are going to need. Maybe you should keep one of the houses closest to you in order to store all the batteries you are going to need to get your house through the night, much less a week or two of clouds during mid winter.
I just ordered the Mr Solar Mobile. The company promises it will run my EV even at night. Harvesting the “back radiation* of climate change. Two problems, one solution.
That back radiation is fantastic stuff.
And multiply that back radiation by the thermal unicorn rainbow factor, it’s win/win!
From the article: “First-of-its-kind global study finds the world must add or replace 80 million km of grids by 2040, equal to all grids globally today, to meet national climate targets and support energy security”
Like that’s going to happen! These CO2-phobes have gone insane!
Meanwhile, there is still no evidence that CO2 needs to be controlled or reduced.
So why are these idiots doing this? I guess because they are idiots.
Anyone advocating CO2 reductions, is guilty of planning genocide
No mention of the copper ore mining to produce all the copper that would be required for all this; ability of the industry to meet demand on a timely basis, and the actual physical possibility of scaling up extraction to be able to do so.
These dangerous clowns have no understanding of anything beyond the end of their noses.
Yet they get paid, handsomely, with bonuses for additional out of the box rainbow thinking
Lack of ambition
Sounds a lot like: The beatings will continue until morale improves.