How will we count CO2 and other emissions from the manufacture and installation of all the wind and solar replacements for the shut down fossil fuel plants?
The number of plants may be too crude to work. Plants range in size from huge coal fired baseload to tiny peakers. Also a lot of plants will just run less as wind and solar pile on. A better measure might be MWh by fuel type which EIA reports monthly.
Note too that the Admin is promoting what is called the Clean Electricity Standard which would require emissions to cut 80% by 2030. This slope is a bit steeper I think.
Of course it is all impossible because there is no feasible way to store the huge amounts of juice needed to cure the intermittency of wind and solar.
Learning rates on storage are something to behold. Lots of cheap compressed air and pumped hydro which may get displaced by cheaper Li-ion in coming decades. For seasonal storage it pretty much has to be hydrogen though.
Levelized cost of storage, right? Sounds low but it is likely based on daily discharge for load leveling, for say 10 years. That gives a cost of $547,500/MWh which is about the lowest reported to EIA, the range being $500 to $3000/kWh. At that low cost (probably a Tesla loss leader) Virginia would only need $1 to 3 trillion worth.
Great article. As you update in future years, it will be interesting to see how the number of FF power plants needed to be shut down monthly grows from 11 to 12, etc. Unless we embrace a substantial increase in redesigned (i.e. lower cost) Nuclear plants(unlikely), this goal will fade away because most Americans will not except higher fuel costs and/or grid instability. Voter registration will be at a record high.
Interesting thought experiment — that will instantly take this from the abstract to the chillingly personal— plot actual names and States of FF power plants hypothetically going offline, along the downward curve.
Will Generate a LOT of NIMBY challenges and thus engagement in the realities of the pace
At the hotel there the electricity was on and off all day and night
The hotel told us checking in to be sure and watch tv, read and shower while the power was on because it would be dark and stultifying hot when the power failed and the AC went off
Thats the future the democrats are sending us towards
This may be OT but you might enjoy my strategic analysis of the Biden climate agenda:
https://www.cfact.org/2021/04/24/the-biden-climate-summit-speeding-up-to-hit-the-wall-harder/
I am not seeing how Roger.
https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/?country=USA&fuel=Energy%20supply&indicator=TPESbySource
How will we count CO2 and other emissions from the manufacture and installation of all the wind and solar replacements for the shut down fossil fuel plants?
The number of plants may be too crude to work. Plants range in size from huge coal fired baseload to tiny peakers. Also a lot of plants will just run less as wind and solar pile on. A better measure might be MWh by fuel type which EIA reports monthly.
Note too that the Admin is promoting what is called the Clean Electricity Standard which would require emissions to cut 80% by 2030. This slope is a bit steeper I think.
Of course it is all impossible because there is no feasible way to store the huge amounts of juice needed to cure the intermittency of wind and solar.
Learning rates on storage are something to behold. Lots of cheap compressed air and pumped hydro which may get displaced by cheaper Li-ion in coming decades. For seasonal storage it pretty much has to be hydrogen though.
We are talking millions of MWh of storage for just a medium sized state like Virginia. It cannot be done.
https://www.cfact.org/2021/02/05/virginia-will-pay-trillions-for-renewable-power/
You know that LCOS is only ~$150/MWh, right?
What is LCOS? I know that grid scale battery facilities have averaged $1,500,000/MWh. That is the capital cost reported by EIA.
Levelized cost of storage, right? Sounds low but it is likely based on daily discharge for load leveling, for say 10 years. That gives a cost of $547,500/MWh which is about the lowest reported to EIA, the range being $500 to $3000/kWh. At that low cost (probably a Tesla loss leader) Virginia would only need $1 to 3 trillion worth.
Check out https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S254243511830583X. Has a decent analysis of storage costs by application. Different applications have different needs.
Great article. As you update in future years, it will be interesting to see how the number of FF power plants needed to be shut down monthly grows from 11 to 12, etc. Unless we embrace a substantial increase in redesigned (i.e. lower cost) Nuclear plants(unlikely), this goal will fade away because most Americans will not except higher fuel costs and/or grid instability. Voter registration will be at a record high.
Interesting thought experiment — that will instantly take this from the abstract to the chillingly personal— plot actual names and States of FF power plants hypothetically going offline, along the downward curve.
Will Generate a LOT of NIMBY challenges and thus engagement in the realities of the pace
We vacationed at Tikal in Guatemala in 1992
At the hotel there the electricity was on and off all day and night
The hotel told us checking in to be sure and watch tv, read and shower while the power was on because it would be dark and stultifying hot when the power failed and the AC went off
Thats the future the democrats are sending us towards
Whoopee! I will get to freeze in the dark.
Or you can think like someone not living in the 19th century.
Back in the 19th Century I would have said that chopping wood warms you twice.