I'm not guessing. I'm looking at current and likely future trends in PV technologies (particularly the trend towards roll-to-roll production of perovskites) and current and likely future trends in automotive and battery technologies.
Autonomous vehicles will promote mobility-as-a-service (MaaS), and use of electric vehicles by fleet owners, who will then integrate the batteries in their vehicles (including vehicles whose charge level has dropped below 70-80%) with the grid, for the benefit of the fleet owners and the grid. (The fleet owners will benefit from charging their vehicles when there is a surplus of PV electricity, and discharging to the grid when electricity is needed by the grid, and therefore prices are higher.)
I called this accurately ***more than a decade ago*** on my blog. It's a simple fact, easily verified:
"I think artificial intelligence is going to have a huge impact on transportation (and everything) in the next few decades.
"My guesstimate for time-frames are:
1) Early 2020s: First fully automated computer-driven cars.
2) Early 2030s: Virtually all new cars are computer-driven.
3) Early 2040s: All vehicles on the road are computer-driven."
I then predicted 11 likely outcome from all vehicles on the road being computer-driven by the early 2040s. You can read them all, but here are a few:
"2) People will obtain cars like we now get airline tickets, except the cars will often be ordered hours or even minutes in advance, rather than months or weeks in advance. One will state one's destination and time of departure into a smart phone or personal assistant, and options will come up, with different prices and different arrival times. Non-stop short arrival times will be more expensive, and multi-stop trips with long arrival times will be less expensive. Also, fancier and less-fuel-efficient cars will be more expensive, and plainer, more-fuel-efficienct cars will be less expensive. The car will take you from the door at one location, to the door at the other location. No parking in parking lots."
"4) Many cars will become incredibly small. Even Smart Cars and Cooper Minis have room for two passengers. In the 2040s, single-seat cars will be extremely common. They will likely be powered by batteries, rather than gasoline. This is because there will be no need for "range anxiety". That is, no car will come to you unless it knows it has enough battery life to get you to your destination and then to a charging station."
"6) Transportation will be much more electrified. Virtually all short-range trips will be by battery-power. Total U.S. gasoline usage would cut by more than half."
"8) Traffic congestion would be completely eliminated. Instead of traffic lights or stop signs, cars at intersections would simply pass within feet of one another at right angles, at full speed, because the computer controls between the cars would communicate which car crossed first. Speeds on freeways, even within cities, would be 70+ mph, at all times. Cars and buses would travel at these speeds within feet of one another."
I also came very close to accurately predicting global CO2 emissions throughout the 21st century...***way back in January 2005*** when I predicted that global CO2 emissions would peak in 2030, would decline by about 5 percent from the 2030 peak by 2050, and more than 20 percent from the peak by 2070. My peak was a little low (only 8.8 gigatons as carbon, or GtC, in 2030). And my predicted rate of decline from that peak was probably too shallow, especially after 2050.
So overall, my predicted total global CO2 emissions from industry (i.e. not counting land use emissions) during the 21st century was 712 GtC, which I think will end up VERY close to the actual value, because my prediction is between the RCP 4.5 prediction of 828 GtC, and the RCP 2.6 prediction of 437 GtC...and closer to the RCP 4.5 value. Again, this is a matter of record:
"Been living off the electrical engineering skillset for the last 20 years."
And did any of that "living off the electrical engineering skillset" involve doing anything that would lead you to any particular expertise in matters related to the U.S. electrical grid, and technologies involved therein, now and in the future?
For example, work for GE-Hitachi or Westinghouse? An electric utility? An RTO? FERC? EEI?
"Indeed we should be going nuclear, in fact we must go nuclear. There is no other choice."
Who are "we"?
Here are some comments I made on the Marginal Revolution blog, responding to people criticizing me regarding my statements about nuclear power, photovoltaics, and batteries, who obviously knew nothing about nuclear power or the U.S. power grid:
"Here's something for you fanboys of U.S. electricity from nuclear power.
"Relative to the total amount of electrical power generated in 2024 (including 'behind the meter' power generated at residences and businesses) that was generated by nuclear in 2024, I predict that the percentage from nuclear will be:
1) LESS in 2030,
2) LESS in 2035,
3) LESS in 2040,
4) LESS in 2045, and
5) LESS in 2050.
"That is, the percentage of total electricity generated by all sources (including "behind the grid" sources) that comes from nuclear will *higher* in 2024 than in 2030, 2035, 2040, 2045, and 2050.
So how about it? Care to make some predictions? Don't be shy!"
And later, when there was zero response (surprise!) from amateurs who'd been criticizing my comments regarding nuclear, photovoltaics, and batteries:
"Not one person has provided predictions yet.
The crickets so far lead me to the conclusion that y'all think *my* predictions are correct, you simply don't want to admit it."
So, since no one responded to my challenge at Marginal Revolution, I'll throw it open to you, Jeff Walther, and anyone else here.
I say the total amount of electricity generated from nuclear power in the United States, will be a SMALLER percentage of total electricity generated--including **behind the meter** generation--in 2030, 2035, 2040, 2045, and 2050, than in 2024. What do *y'all* think for each of those years?
I already stated in another comment. We all must make a choice. The only choices we have as a civilization is:
a) Massive DeGrowth, DeIndustrialization, Depopulation (certainly to less than 2B people)
b) Switch to a Nuclear energy powered World
As for your 2nd point, @ COP28, 117 nations incl the US, committed to tripling their nuclear power by 2050. Personally I doubt they will. It's all about corruption and the top of the corrupting pyramid are the Malthusian Psychopath Globalitarian Misanthropists. They've had a consistent hatred of nuclear power, love renewables because they love depopulation, they are after all Club-Of-Rome Malthusians. So if they continue to hold the whip in Western Nations, I'm not optimistic about Nuclear Power. But then if we revolt......
This doesn't really address my question. Do you think the percentage of total electricity in the U.S. (including that generated by "behind the meter " sources) that is generated by nuclear power will be more or less than the value in 2024 in:
2030?
2035?
2040?
2045?
2050?
I say nuclear will be a *smaller* percentage then in 2024 for all of those years. Do you agree or disagree? If you disagree, for what years do you think the percentage generated by nuclear will be higher than in 2024?
Almost certainly less in 2030, likely less in 2035. Hopes of rebirth in 2040-2050, that's a soothsayer level right now. If our politicians really wanted more, we would be rapidly increasing starting around 2030. It's all about corruption and centralization of power, not in the US but in Switzerland, at least for us in the West.
Is that before or after US/Nato War with Russia, possibly a nuclear war?
Is that before or after a CyberAttack plan to shutdown the Internet?
Is that before or after an escalating War with China, starting with their invasion of Taiwan?
Is that before or after some country breaks with the Energy Cabal and starts building SMRs in factories by the thousands, selling them Worldwide, like these:
Is that before or after the next deadly plandemic of a bioengineered bioweapon?
Is that before or after an A.I. explosion in capabilities?
Is that before or after Revolution, Succession & Civil War?
Is that before or after the collapse of the Petrodollar?
Is that before or after a debt crisis --> financial collapse?
Is that before or after social collapse due to a myriad of factors, from drug addiction, obesity, internet addiction, deadly pseudo-vaccines, to the effects of mass migration destroying social cohesiveness?
Is that before or after people realize we have had a silent coup by the corporate Oligarchs?
Is that before or after we have a Totalitarian Police State imposed upon us?
Is that before or after that all the Fear Porn about Climate Change proves to be false?
Is that before or after the Green New Deal/Build Back Better/Net Zero by 2050 becomes completely busted as a total failure?
Sorry, son, we have entered The Churn. The only thing predictable is the unpredictability. For all we know in 20yrs someone turns on their giant self-teaching A.I. and 2 weeks later asks it "how to we solve the clean energy crisis?" And 2hrs later it outputs a detailed plan to build small 100MW Nuclear Fusion power plants, including a complete design for a factory that produces 10 thousand per day.
You decide the probability of each of your postulated events, and what that will mean for U.S. nuclear power. Then give me your best estimate of the most likely capacity in GW and production in GWh in 2030, 2035, 2040, 2045, and 2050.
Again, the values in 2022 were 95 GW and 772 TWh. If it helps you any, the Vogtle 3 and 4 reactors add about 2.2 GW. So the values for 2024 are probably approximately 97 GW (same as in 2017) and about 800 TWh (to one significant digit).
I noticed the data they use is based on net generation from EIA forms, which doesn’t include curtailed power. The curtailment EIA data is on a separate form than ones they mention in methods. Economic or local curtailments of renewables are up and could be another explanation for their finding of flat capacity factors.
Interesting question in the paper. They do end by saying it could be poor siting influencing things. Makes sense given windiest land sites in an area are often selected first development. Power and money rises and falls to the cube of wind speed.
Roger, I do not know if you are aware but the lead author of the Norwegian study is very pro-nuclear. That report will be seen as biased by quite a few people, and it may also be. I am not really in a position to say as I tend to be biased in the same direction myself. I just thought you should know.
The head of NTNU, the technical university of Norway where he is professor, tried to reprimand him in public for some statements he made about a report on the viability of nclear energy in Norway. That backfired badly for the head of NTNU, and she is no longer in that position.
To explain a little, there is an organisation called Renewables Norway (Fornybar Norge) that has been very vocal in promotion of wind power and in particular offshore wind. They have also been (and remain) very negative towards nuclear piower. This organisation paid for a report from the leading energy analytics consultants in Norway, Rystad Energy. The report said in no uncertain terms that Norway should not pursue nuclear before 2035. Unsurprising, since the head of Rystad is an avid and vocal opponent to nuclear as well. And since postponing to 2035 would mean that we have to do offshore wind.
That might have been well and fine, had it not been for Nøland et.al. They also made a report and published it at the same time as the Rystad-report. The Nøland et.al was however peer-reviewed, and it came to the exact opposite conclusion as the Rystad report. Maybe not surprising since Nøland is pro nuclear. The report is nonetheless thorough and overall a better one than the Rystad, but as I said I may myself be biased in this matter.
Nøland is not one to hold back, so he said in an interview with NRK, our state media corporation, that the Rystad report was bought and paid for.
That apparently did not sit well with rektor at NTNU, and she wrote an opinion piece where she reprimanded him. That again dod not sit well with professors at NTNU and she caught flak for it, but as you know it might have just been another academic kerfluffle and would have passed into public ignorance within days. Had it not been for someone leaking correspondence between rektor and the organisation that owns Renewables Norway. It turns out rektor sent them the draft of her opinion piece for them to comment and edit before it was published under her own name and title.
She had to resign. And Rystad became the not-so-shiny star of Norwegian energy analytics. And Nøland is standing taller.
Do you have knowledge of anywhere that has some sort of summary of the results of the two reports? Something like:
Rystad --> Nuclear cost is "X" per kWh. Offshore wind cost is "Y" per kWh (hopefully, value would be the cost delivered to the shore...i.e., including the connecting costs to get offshore wind electricity to the shore).
Nøland --> Nuclear cost is "A" per kWh. Offshore wind cost is "B" per kWh (again, hopefully the cost when delivered to the shore).
?
If you don't, I understand. But if you do, I'd be very interested in the specific numbers that each study came up with for nuclear versus offshore wind.
Just to keep myself moving forward on this, here are a few excerpts from the Rystad report link you provided:
"While the cost of electricity production at newer nuclear power plants has been estimated to be around 85 euros per megawatt (EUR/MWh), the actual cost after the exceedances has ended up being around 150 EUR/MWh, according to the analysis."
...
"Norway has no experience with nuclear power, with the exception of the research reactors in Halden and at Kjeller, which were shut down in 2018 and 2019. The costs of developing SMR power plants in Norway will therefore probably be somewhat higher.
"Rystad Energy estimates that electricity production at SMR power plants in Norway will cost 100 EUR/MWh if the power plant is built within budget, and around 180 EUR/MWh if the construction is characterized by cost overruns.
"With today's krone exchange rate, this corresponds to a cost of between 117 and 211 øre per kilowatt hour. By comparison, land-based wind power has a cost price of 41 øre/kWh, while offshore wind power has a price of around 69 øre/kWh, according to NVE .
"The cost of producing electricity at an SMR reactor will probably be significantly higher than the expected electricity price in Norway. This means that such power plants will become dependent on several billion kroner in subsidies each year, according to the report by Rystad Energy.
NVE writes in its latest long-term power market analysis that it expects the power price in Norway to be around 80 øre/kWh in 2030, and that it will then drop to just under 50 øre/kWh in 2040. "
Their estimates for SMRs in Norway..."...100 EUR/MWh if the power plant is built within budget, and around 180 EUR/MWh if the construction is characterized by cost overruns."
...seem pretty reasonable to me. Maybe a little high.
Their numbers for wind, on the other hand are:
Onshore wind = 41 øre/kWh = 35 EUR/MWh.
Offshore wind = 69 øre/kWh = 59 EUR/MWh.
Both seem pretty low to me. But even raising them both by 50 percent would still make them far less than nuclear at 100 EUR/MWh without overruns, or 180 EUR/MWh with overruns. Of course, the storage costs aren't included for the wind.
Yes, that is the gist of it. They tend to describe nuclear by the ressonable but high estimates and offshore wind by questionable and very low estimates.
"Wind turbines are the most visible symbols of the quest for renewable electricity generation. And yet, although they exploit the wind, which is as free & as green as energy can be, the machines themselves are pure embodiments of fossil fuels"
Yeah, I originally was a big fan of Vaclav Smil. But not so much anymore. (I think it was his "Growth" book's essentially nonsense about the sustainability of economic growth that flipped me. ;-))
The environmental analysis profession has an established way to look at whether things are "pure embodiments of fossil fuels." It's called life cycle analysis (LCA).
If wind turbines were indeed the "pure embodiment of fossil fuels", then the life cycle carbon dioxide emissions for a wind turbine would be very high. The IPCC doesn't think the life cycle CO2 emissions of wind are high at all:
Problem with that is we now know that they have severely underestimated the emissions of Chinese made materials and components. The basically had no data on that, and were using data from a European source that has been proven fraudulent.
And unlike legitimate energy sources, wind & solar cannot stand on their own feet, they require backup & storage which amplifies their actual full lifecycle emissions by several times. A wind/solar unit of energy is not the same as a fossil, hydro, nuclear unit of energy.
"Problem with that is we now know that they have severely underestimated the emissions of Chinese made materials and components. The basically had no data on that, and were using data from a European source that has been proven fraudulent."
No, this has nothing to do with the median estimates of life cycle emissions for wind power versus other sources presented in Wikipedia, e.g.:
Wind Power = 12 gCO2eq/kWh
Nuclear = 12 gCO2eq/kWh
PV util. solar = 48 gCO2eq/kWh
Nat gas comb cycle = 490 gCO2eq/kWh
...and the *fact* that Vaclav Smil was "pants on fire" false to claim that wind turbines are the "pure embodiments of fossil fuel use".
The life cycle emissions of CO2 from wind show unequivocably that Vaclav Smil was wrong. He either didn't know he was wrong, which shows he's pretty pathetic when it comes to assessing fossil fuel use for electrical energy sources, or he knew what he was writing was wrong, and wrote it anyway, which would mean he's very dishonest.
There's no reliance on "Chinese estimates," when determining the life cycle emissions of CO2 from wind power. Life cycle come from the amounts of steel, cement, and other materials used in the turbines, and the CO2 emissions from the processes used to produce those materials. We know all those values to a very great degree of accuracy, because we know the processes used to produce cement and steel, and the resulting CO2 emissions from those processes. It's not a matter of some Chinese secret process.
Roger really should acknowledge that Vaclav Smil was totally misrepresenting wind turbines when he falsely characterized them "pure embodiments of fossil fuel use."
Roger...wouldn't you agree that it's important to present the truth when making policy decisions, rather than relying on falsehoods (like the falsehood that wind turbines involve substantial fossil fuel use)?
Solar Panels Are Three Times More Carbon-Intensive Than IPCC Claims
Ecoinvent, the world’s largest database on the environmental impact of renewables, has no data from China, even though it makes most of the world's solar panels:
"...Based on such data, the IPCC claims solar PV is 48 gCO2/kWh. But, as we’ll see below, a new investigation started by Italian researcher Enrico Mariutti suggests that the number is closer to between 170 and 250 gCO2/kWh, depending on the energy mix used to power PV production...."
I recall a critique of an analysis showing Wind was 16 gms CO2/kwh. They found that the analysis underestimated cement emissions by 10x. In any case those are based on individual wind turbine theoretical modeling. This is not system wide real world data.
System wide, you have to account for huge inefficiencies of wind/solar operation such as curtailment, overbuild, negative pricing, substitution of more efficient nuclear/hydro for zero benefit, large transmission losses (inherent in low CF% sources), storage losses & vast storage energy inputs, induced cycling inefficiencies in the shadowing fossil generation, induced economic inefficiencies of replacing high efficiency CCGT, supercritical coal, nuclear & hydro with low efficiency OCGT or diesel. There is also some fraud involved, like Germany disconnecting their giant coal generators from the grid when they are idling waiting for the sun to set or the wind to fail, so they don't count the emissions of burning all that coal keeping the boilers up to pressure.
These massive inefficiencies of wind & solar are confirmed by a survey of 68 nations over the past 52 years done by Environmental Progress and duplicated by the New York Times, which shows conventional hydro was quite successful at decarbonization, nuclear energy was also very successful and both wind and solar show no correlation between grid penetration and decarbonization. Also the Bentek study of wind in Colorado & Texas showed no reduction in fossil consumption. The wind had a system wide 0% efficiency. An expensive total waste of capital and material resources.
I don't think Smil's point here has anything to do with lifecycle costs or emissions. Simply that you can't build wind turbines using wind (or solar) but they necessarily require fossil fuel inputs. That is true.
"...but they necessarily require fossil fuel inputs. That is true."
So why didn't he say, "That nuclear power plant over there, that's the pure embodiment of fossil fuels"?
Or, "That wooden desk over there, that's the pure embodiment of fossil fuels"?
What he does is make it seem, to a layperson who doesn't know the difference, like wind turbines use a substantial amount of fossil fuels to get built. But of course, anything that humans build anywhere could have *some* fossil fuel tied to it. After all, virtually all cars, trucks, boats carrying cargo, etc. are currently fueled by fossil fuels. No product that is manufactured is free from any transport.
So his article, far from providing useful information about wind turbines, actually creates the false impression that there is some means of generating electricity that is *not* "the pure embodiment of fossil fuels."
No the fossil fuel inputs for building wind/solar/nuclear/hydro or fossil for that matter are not the issue. The issue is the EROI which is just too low to be physically capable of replacing fossil or powering our civilization with Wind and/or Solar.
And the system wide cost of using wind & solar is untenable. The TRUE system wide cost is shown in this study. There is a linear price relationship between wind/solar grid penetration and price of electricity by Ken Gregory, P.Eng, graph Euro/kwh by country 2019: Conclusion: European Wind Plus Solar Cost 6 Times Other Electrical Sources
I can't speak for Smil, but given the number of claims that "all we need to do" is replace fossil fuels with wind and solar, I think his point is a fair one. The notion that you can't make a wind turbine from wind turbines is not generally appreciated, in my experiences.
That said, Smil has also not been shy about making the broader points that you make here:
What is the case for wind power attached to the grid? Investors like Warren Buffet know the only reason to build windmills in bulk is to get tax credits. Take away the tax credits and the mandates and the only windmills will be in isolated locations where it makes sense.
Intermittent input causes major problems for grid stability.
The onset of windless nights spells disaster when the supply of conventional power runs down past a critical point. That point is looming up for many grids in the western world.
In the meantime the cost of power increases due to the need for a hybrid power system to provide backup for the “cheap” unreliable input from so-called “renewables. “The hardware is not renewable although the finance has to be renewed every 15-20 years (more often for batteries) while conventional power plants run for 60+ years if well maintained.
Trillions of dollars are in play and all we get is more expensive and less reliable power, with massive environmental impacts.
I have moved solidly into the camp that does not think CO2 emissions are a problem. Given it's diminished capacity to trap heat above 400ppm and the fact that historically we have had much higher concentrations, and the fact that it helps to green the planet I can no longer see the usefulness of a war on CO2.
The unscientific or anti-scientific demonization of CO2 is the driver of climate alarmism and hence the quest for net zero, essentially a ponzi scheme that has just about hit the wall.
In a recently released 5-part series of videos about wind power, there is a brief scene of an eagle flying near a wind turbine. The eagle is struck by one of the blades, and as it falls, it is struck again by the next blade. Its clearly broken body drops slowly. The impact of the video is unforgettable .
“Show me an entire U.S. state or a medium-sized country powered by wind without the issues raised above about necessary back-up, and I’ll be happy reconsider these concerns.”, go look at CA, because from Mark Jacobson’s (@mzjacobson) non-stop tweets you’d think the place has found the perpetual cost-free inexhaustible clean energy source found in nature 😂. Here’s an example of his typical posts: https://x.com/mzjacobson/status/1787254168803254303?s=61 🤦🏽♂️
Thanks for the reference- Dr. Jacobson confirmed that the belly of duck curve is growing quickly. The consequences of overbuilding solar was highlighted in the following curtailment report-
Jacobsen is a civil engineer. They are useful when you need soil samples taken for a tower line. Otherwise it should be illegal for him to even think about electricity. Jacobsen is also a Phd and a college teacher, so he would have no idea how to take a soil sample.
Meanwhile the on peak residential rate in San Diego is 66 cents per kWh.
"Further, Herzog’s claim that our assumption about increasing the peak discharge rate of hydropower is unreasonable is directly contradicted by the United States Bureau of Reclamation, which states, “The uprating of existing hydroelectric generator and turbine units at powerplants is one of the most immediate, cost-effective, and environmentally acceptable means of developing additional electric power,” and its costs of “$69 per kilowatt…compares to an average cost for providing new peaking capacity through oil-fired generators of more than $400 per kilowatt.” (US Department of the Interior, 2005)"
Oy, vey! Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy will solve the problem, and it will hardly cost anything...
Former SD ratepayer here (57 cents when I left last year) and civil engineer... I wouldn't trust Jacobson with even compacting potting soil in the garden. He's a stain on the profession.
Always love to see extremists posting, nice of him to cut off the graph at 3:30 pm when the duck curve kicks in, the renewables fall of a cliff just as demand increases.
This is called lying with statistics and shows that it doesn’t matter how much wind and solar you install you still need 100% reliable generation backing it.
Roger, the only place I see wind having real utility would be to use the intermittent electricity generated to split water in electrolyzers, to yield hydrogen and oxygen. The hydrogen and oxygen could be used in chemical synthesis, or fed to fuel cells to make dispatchable electric power. Otherwise, wind looks to me to be a waste of resources.
That doesn't work either. Industrial equipment to perform those tasks is expensive. You make up the cost by having a high utilization. Leaving the equipment idle or underpowered 80% of the time would drive up the costs beyond anything useful.
Dear Mr. Walther, you are entirely correct that electroyzers are expensive. Even worse, overpotentials on the cathode mean that some 30% of the input power is lost just pushing the voltage hard enough to make them work at all. Let's not forget the compression costs or liquifaction costs to get the hydrogen and oxygen in states fit for transport. The competition would be hydrogen from natural gas via the water-gas shift reaction, and oxygen from air separation units. Hydrogen from the electrolyzers would have the advantage that it would be free of CO and CO2, so it would be not poison the platinum group catalysts in fuel cells. Would that be enough to make a viable commercial product if the nation finally admits that non-dispatchable intermittent wind power electricity is actually worthless in the absence of government subsidies? Depends on the market's embrace of fuel cells.
Everything we need to know is out there, like an Xfiles episode
Just need to encourage people to read and think, before governments shut all this information sharing down after all it’s extremely unhelpful to the narrative
The corrupt states, provinces & individual nations on a common grid (as in Europe) that go big on wind and/or solar will take a beating on electrical trade. Those that move to a reliable baseload grid based on CCGT, supercritical coal, hydro & nuclear will profit immensely.
As the wind/solar states expand their intermittents, they will have no choice but to export that power to their neighbors. But who will want it? When wind/solar is high when grid demand is low, that is true for all wind/solar states usually, so they will all be trying to export at the same time. The baseload states can just laugh at them and tell them "well maybe we will take some of your surplus power if you pay us to take it (negative pricing), take it or leave it, suckas". When the wind/solar craps out the wind/solar states will have no choice but to import power from the baseload states which can rake in giant profits demanding high prices for their exported power. That's a huge benefit that comes with having a reliable, efficient baseload electricity supply.
"As the wind/solar states expand their intermittents, they will have no choice but to export that power to their neighbors. But who will want it? When wind/solar is high when grid demand is low, that is true for all wind/solar states usually, so they will all be trying to export at the same time."
There's one emerging technology that significantly reduces this problem: batteries...both automobile batteries and grid-scale (1 megawatt or greater) batteries.
It's almost certain that by 2050, if not sooner, the vast majority of light-duty vehicles around the world will be battery electric vehicles (BEVs). Perhaps even more importantly, they will be *autonomous* BEVs operated by fleet owners...think what Waymo is currently doing in Phoenix, SF, and elsewhere.
Vast numbers of BEVs operated by fleet owners is a great opportunity for both the fleet owners and the grid operators to get together to time battery *removal* of energy from the grid to when surplus power is available, and to time battery *input* of energy to the grid to when additional power is needed. (IMPORTANT NOTE: The *net* must be that the batteries are removing electricity from the grid...it's just a question of when they're doing it, and when they might have a little extra to spare if the grid needs it.
Beyond batteries used for electric vehicles, some companies are developing grid-scale batteries, using chemistries other than with lithium.
For example, Form Energy in Weirton, WV, is developing iron-air batteries. They recently signed a contract with Georgia Power to provide a battery that can provide a whopping 15 megawatts (enough to provide all the electrical power for a something the size of a college campus) for up to 100 hours (that's more than four days, folks!):
Another company, Natron Energy in Holland, MI, is developing sodium-ion (rather than lithium-ion) batteries for the grid. Natron claims that their sodium-ion batteries have several useful properties compared to lithium-ion batteries:
"Not sure where you get your info but you definitely got the religion.
Keep the faith it’s all you’ve got."
No, I've got no religion. In my mechanical engineering degree, my coursework emphasized energy production and use, including courses in nuclear engineering, solar energy engineering, and conventional power production (using coal and natural gas).
I've worked for Babcock & Wilcox advanced coal-fired power plants, and on nuclear power plants. I worked for Blount Engineers on waste-to-energy plants. Then I did contract research at RTI, International for 25+ years on energy and air pollution issues...including providing inputs on all forms of energy production and use, to the EPA's Office of Research and Development, in their development of their MARKet ALlocation (MARKAL) model of U.S. energy production and use.
I've analyzed virtually every major industry...iron and steel, aluminum, copper, petroleum refining and organic chemicals production, cement, you name it...for both energy use and emissions, and energy use and emissions reduction measures.
I'm absolutely scrupulous in making sure that I analyze what *is*, and predict what *will be*...rather than trying to find what is pleasant, or predicting what I would like to be.
I can say with great confidence that Roger's assertion that wind will never be more than a niche source of electricity in the U.S. or the world (almost certainly less than 30 percent of U.S. and global electricity) is correct, for the reasons he listed.
But I can also say with great confidence that, by 2050, the vast majority of land vehicle miles traveled in the U.S. and the world will be by electric vehicles. In fact, I've been saying that for more than a decade (since January 2013):
Where did you get your degree? Believing that batteries could ever make a difference in putting wind/solar on the grid indicates that you're not putting it to very good use, or it was flawed to begin with.
I got my bachelors in Mechanical Engineering and my masters in Environmental Engineering (Air Pollution Option) from the school now known as Virginia Tech (formerly Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University).
Where did you get your degree? And in what? And what do you do for a living?
There is no way batteries will make a significant dent in wind/solar intermittency.
For one the EROI of wind & solar is already abysmal. Adding the low EROES for batteries to the that pushes the EROI of wind/solar/batteries into the 3:1 range. You need a minimum 14:1 EROI to sustain a modern industrial civilization.
Then there are the vast material inputs of battery production. Many studies have been done showing that there is just no possible way we will be able to produce the amount of materials required for a hundred years or more. For example see:
The simple truth is there is one application that our very limited battery supply should be focused, and that is on diesel replacement. Diesel is what runs our economy, puts food on our table, mines the materials we use. Wind/solar are low value applications. BEV light vehicles replace plentiful gasoline which will put further strain on our diesel supply. 2 or 3 gals of gasoline are produced for every gal of diesel refined from crude oil.
Essentially electrifying Heavy Trucking & Rail, Ferries, Heavy Equipment, Mining Equipment, Buses, Agricultural Machinery, short distance Shipping, LRTs is a NO-BRAINER. You are replacing our VERY precarious diesel fuel supply with the much more plentiful and much lower cost gas, coal & nuclear supply. Not too mention ~$66k/yr operating cost savings for replacing a diesel semi with a Tesla semi. That's where precious battery resources belong, not for scam wind/solar utility energy storage, not for light duty vehicles. BEV light vehicles are a waste of precious battery resources and should not be encouraged let alone mandated.
Remember this, our economy runs on heavy distillates like Diesel fuel, Jet fuel, lubricating oils. Run short on those and people die and your economy goes down. Gasoline shortage, people will have to reduce leisure driving.
Our economy runs on a multitude of things. We have no shortage of human brainpower, we do have a shortage of brainpower amongst the ruling class & politicians sad to say.
Hardly trivial, but instead critical. Just as advanced integrated circuits are critical & rare earths are critical, each of which have serious supply constraints & risks. Shortage of diesel has been stated as a major cause of Germany & Japan losses in WW2. Fact is our economy will grind to a halt without heavy distillates i.e. diesel, heating oil, jet fuel, rocket fuel (RP-1), lubricating oils. You can make substitutes but that takes a long time to ramp up and if you aren't prepared people can starve and freeze to death. In this case, the BEV substitute has overwhelming economic advantage even without the impending supply crunch.
Believing batteries can solve the inherent failures in wind and solar power indicates either a failure to analyze the requirements or innumeracy.
The scale of storage required is breathtaking. It is impossible to build even 1% of the capacity of batteries or other storage that would be required and the cost would be catastrophic to civilization.
For an article with more analysis and less vitriol, try this old but excellent source:
According to Google the UK's biggest wind farm (Whitlee) is 15.2 miles from my house.
In one of the strangest incidents of WWII, Nazi deputy Fuhrer and eco fanatic Rudolf Hesse crashed his plane very close to where the wind farm is now. He was trying to contact a minor member of the (somewhat Nazi friendly) royal family the Duke of Hamilton. This was in My 1941, just a month before the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union.
This is the BBC version of the story (with photos).
"Nonsense, you're guessing."
I'm not guessing. I'm looking at current and likely future trends in PV technologies (particularly the trend towards roll-to-roll production of perovskites) and current and likely future trends in automotive and battery technologies.
Autonomous vehicles will promote mobility-as-a-service (MaaS), and use of electric vehicles by fleet owners, who will then integrate the batteries in their vehicles (including vehicles whose charge level has dropped below 70-80%) with the grid, for the benefit of the fleet owners and the grid. (The fleet owners will benefit from charging their vehicles when there is a surplus of PV electricity, and discharging to the grid when electricity is needed by the grid, and therefore prices are higher.)
I called this accurately ***more than a decade ago*** on my blog. It's a simple fact, easily verified:
https://markbahner.typepad.com/random_thoughts/2013/01/the-future-of-transportation.html
From that blog post:
"January 18, 2013
The Future of Transportation
"I think artificial intelligence is going to have a huge impact on transportation (and everything) in the next few decades.
"My guesstimate for time-frames are:
1) Early 2020s: First fully automated computer-driven cars.
2) Early 2030s: Virtually all new cars are computer-driven.
3) Early 2040s: All vehicles on the road are computer-driven."
I then predicted 11 likely outcome from all vehicles on the road being computer-driven by the early 2040s. You can read them all, but here are a few:
"2) People will obtain cars like we now get airline tickets, except the cars will often be ordered hours or even minutes in advance, rather than months or weeks in advance. One will state one's destination and time of departure into a smart phone or personal assistant, and options will come up, with different prices and different arrival times. Non-stop short arrival times will be more expensive, and multi-stop trips with long arrival times will be less expensive. Also, fancier and less-fuel-efficient cars will be more expensive, and plainer, more-fuel-efficienct cars will be less expensive. The car will take you from the door at one location, to the door at the other location. No parking in parking lots."
"4) Many cars will become incredibly small. Even Smart Cars and Cooper Minis have room for two passengers. In the 2040s, single-seat cars will be extremely common. They will likely be powered by batteries, rather than gasoline. This is because there will be no need for "range anxiety". That is, no car will come to you unless it knows it has enough battery life to get you to your destination and then to a charging station."
"6) Transportation will be much more electrified. Virtually all short-range trips will be by battery-power. Total U.S. gasoline usage would cut by more than half."
"8) Traffic congestion would be completely eliminated. Instead of traffic lights or stop signs, cars at intersections would simply pass within feet of one another at right angles, at full speed, because the computer controls between the cars would communicate which car crossed first. Speeds on freeways, even within cities, would be 70+ mph, at all times. Cars and buses would travel at these speeds within feet of one another."
I also came very close to accurately predicting global CO2 emissions throughout the 21st century...***way back in January 2005*** when I predicted that global CO2 emissions would peak in 2030, would decline by about 5 percent from the 2030 peak by 2050, and more than 20 percent from the peak by 2070. My peak was a little low (only 8.8 gigatons as carbon, or GtC, in 2030). And my predicted rate of decline from that peak was probably too shallow, especially after 2050.
So overall, my predicted total global CO2 emissions from industry (i.e. not counting land use emissions) during the 21st century was 712 GtC, which I think will end up VERY close to the actual value, because my prediction is between the RCP 4.5 prediction of 828 GtC, and the RCP 2.6 prediction of 437 GtC...and closer to the RCP 4.5 value. Again, this is a matter of record:
https://markbahner.typepad.com/random_thoughts/2017/07/mark-bahner-vs-wigley-and-raper-science-2001-vs-ipcc-rcps.html
"Been living off the electrical engineering skillset for the last 20 years."
And did any of that "living off the electrical engineering skillset" involve doing anything that would lead you to any particular expertise in matters related to the U.S. electrical grid, and technologies involved therein, now and in the future?
For example, work for GE-Hitachi or Westinghouse? An electric utility? An RTO? FERC? EEI?
"Indeed we should be going nuclear, in fact we must go nuclear. There is no other choice."
Who are "we"?
Here are some comments I made on the Marginal Revolution blog, responding to people criticizing me regarding my statements about nuclear power, photovoltaics, and batteries, who obviously knew nothing about nuclear power or the U.S. power grid:
"Here's something for you fanboys of U.S. electricity from nuclear power.
"Relative to the total amount of electrical power generated in 2024 (including 'behind the meter' power generated at residences and businesses) that was generated by nuclear in 2024, I predict that the percentage from nuclear will be:
1) LESS in 2030,
2) LESS in 2035,
3) LESS in 2040,
4) LESS in 2045, and
5) LESS in 2050.
"That is, the percentage of total electricity generated by all sources (including "behind the grid" sources) that comes from nuclear will *higher* in 2024 than in 2030, 2035, 2040, 2045, and 2050.
So how about it? Care to make some predictions? Don't be shy!"
And later, when there was zero response (surprise!) from amateurs who'd been criticizing my comments regarding nuclear, photovoltaics, and batteries:
"Not one person has provided predictions yet.
The crickets so far lead me to the conclusion that y'all think *my* predictions are correct, you simply don't want to admit it."
So, since no one responded to my challenge at Marginal Revolution, I'll throw it open to you, Jeff Walther, and anyone else here.
I say the total amount of electricity generated from nuclear power in the United States, will be a SMALLER percentage of total electricity generated--including **behind the meter** generation--in 2030, 2035, 2040, 2045, and 2050, than in 2024. What do *y'all* think for each of those years?
I already stated in another comment. We all must make a choice. The only choices we have as a civilization is:
a) Massive DeGrowth, DeIndustrialization, Depopulation (certainly to less than 2B people)
b) Switch to a Nuclear energy powered World
As for your 2nd point, @ COP28, 117 nations incl the US, committed to tripling their nuclear power by 2050. Personally I doubt they will. It's all about corruption and the top of the corrupting pyramid are the Malthusian Psychopath Globalitarian Misanthropists. They've had a consistent hatred of nuclear power, love renewables because they love depopulation, they are after all Club-Of-Rome Malthusians. So if they continue to hold the whip in Western Nations, I'm not optimistic about Nuclear Power. But then if we revolt......
This doesn't really address my question. Do you think the percentage of total electricity in the U.S. (including that generated by "behind the meter " sources) that is generated by nuclear power will be more or less than the value in 2024 in:
2030?
2035?
2040?
2045?
2050?
I say nuclear will be a *smaller* percentage then in 2024 for all of those years. Do you agree or disagree? If you disagree, for what years do you think the percentage generated by nuclear will be higher than in 2024?
Almost certainly less in 2030, likely less in 2035. Hopes of rebirth in 2040-2050, that's a soothsayer level right now. If our politicians really wanted more, we would be rapidly increasing starting around 2030. It's all about corruption and centralization of power, not in the US but in Switzerland, at least for us in the West.
In 2017, U.S. nuclear capacity was about 97 gigawatts (GW), and nuclear generated 805 terawatt-hours (TWh).
And in 2022 nuclear capacity was about 95 GW, and generated 772 TWh.
What do you think U.S. nuclear capacity (in GW) and generation (in TWh) will be in 2030, 2035, 2040, 2045, and 2050?
Is that before or after US/Nato War with Russia, possibly a nuclear war?
Is that before or after a CyberAttack plan to shutdown the Internet?
Is that before or after an escalating War with China, starting with their invasion of Taiwan?
Is that before or after some country breaks with the Energy Cabal and starts building SMRs in factories by the thousands, selling them Worldwide, like these:
thorconpower.com/design/
youtube.com/watch?v=HMv5c32XXoE Copenhagen Atomics
Is that before or after the next deadly plandemic of a bioengineered bioweapon?
Is that before or after an A.I. explosion in capabilities?
Is that before or after Revolution, Succession & Civil War?
Is that before or after the collapse of the Petrodollar?
Is that before or after a debt crisis --> financial collapse?
Is that before or after social collapse due to a myriad of factors, from drug addiction, obesity, internet addiction, deadly pseudo-vaccines, to the effects of mass migration destroying social cohesiveness?
Is that before or after people realize we have had a silent coup by the corporate Oligarchs?
Is that before or after we have a Totalitarian Police State imposed upon us?
Is that before or after that all the Fear Porn about Climate Change proves to be false?
Is that before or after the Green New Deal/Build Back Better/Net Zero by 2050 becomes completely busted as a total failure?
Sorry, son, we have entered The Churn. The only thing predictable is the unpredictability. For all we know in 20yrs someone turns on their giant self-teaching A.I. and 2 weeks later asks it "how to we solve the clean energy crisis?" And 2hrs later it outputs a detailed plan to build small 100MW Nuclear Fusion power plants, including a complete design for a factory that produces 10 thousand per day.
You decide the probability of each of your postulated events, and what that will mean for U.S. nuclear power. Then give me your best estimate of the most likely capacity in GW and production in GWh in 2030, 2035, 2040, 2045, and 2050.
Again, the values in 2022 were 95 GW and 772 TWh. If it helps you any, the Vogtle 3 and 4 reactors add about 2.2 GW. So the values for 2024 are probably approximately 97 GW (same as in 2017) and about 800 TWh (to one significant digit).
Really enjoyed your article. I plan to share with friends and family.
I hope the USA doesn’t waste too much money with subsidies on wind.
We need some real leadership on building nuclear power plants.
I noticed the data they use is based on net generation from EIA forms, which doesn’t include curtailed power. The curtailment EIA data is on a separate form than ones they mention in methods. Economic or local curtailments of renewables are up and could be another explanation for their finding of flat capacity factors.
Interesting question in the paper. They do end by saying it could be poor siting influencing things. Makes sense given windiest land sites in an area are often selected first development. Power and money rises and falls to the cube of wind speed.
The walking analogy is great but activists have far pushed cycling - both powered by humans and in the hybrid e-bike format as "climate saving."
https://principledbicycling.substack.com/p/biking-to-save-the-oceans-from-boiling?utm_source=publication-search
Roger, I do not know if you are aware but the lead author of the Norwegian study is very pro-nuclear. That report will be seen as biased by quite a few people, and it may also be. I am not really in a position to say as I tend to be biased in the same direction myself. I just thought you should know.
The head of NTNU, the technical university of Norway where he is professor, tried to reprimand him in public for some statements he made about a report on the viability of nclear energy in Norway. That backfired badly for the head of NTNU, and she is no longer in that position.
I did not know! Interesting, do you have a link? In Norwegian is OK, I’ll Google translate. Thanks!
To explain a little, there is an organisation called Renewables Norway (Fornybar Norge) that has been very vocal in promotion of wind power and in particular offshore wind. They have also been (and remain) very negative towards nuclear piower. This organisation paid for a report from the leading energy analytics consultants in Norway, Rystad Energy. The report said in no uncertain terms that Norway should not pursue nuclear before 2035. Unsurprising, since the head of Rystad is an avid and vocal opponent to nuclear as well. And since postponing to 2035 would mean that we have to do offshore wind.
That might have been well and fine, had it not been for Nøland et.al. They also made a report and published it at the same time as the Rystad-report. The Nøland et.al was however peer-reviewed, and it came to the exact opposite conclusion as the Rystad report. Maybe not surprising since Nøland is pro nuclear. The report is nonetheless thorough and overall a better one than the Rystad, but as I said I may myself be biased in this matter.
Nøland is not one to hold back, so he said in an interview with NRK, our state media corporation, that the Rystad report was bought and paid for.
That apparently did not sit well with rektor at NTNU, and she wrote an opinion piece where she reprimanded him. That again dod not sit well with professors at NTNU and she caught flak for it, but as you know it might have just been another academic kerfluffle and would have passed into public ignorance within days. Had it not been for someone leaking correspondence between rektor and the organisation that owns Renewables Norway. It turns out rektor sent them the draft of her opinion piece for them to comment and edit before it was published under her own name and title.
She had to resign. And Rystad became the not-so-shiny star of Norwegian energy analytics. And Nøland is standing taller.
This is a comment he and his colleafues made on this: https://www.universitetsavisa.no/akademisk-ytringsfrihet-jonas-kristiansen-noland-kjernekraft/la-refsen-bak-seg-sa-kom-sms-utvekslingen-ut-jeg-fikk-ikke-sove/394114
Hi,
Do you have knowledge of anywhere that has some sort of summary of the results of the two reports? Something like:
Rystad --> Nuclear cost is "X" per kWh. Offshore wind cost is "Y" per kWh (hopefully, value would be the cost delivered to the shore...i.e., including the connecting costs to get offshore wind electricity to the shore).
Nøland --> Nuclear cost is "A" per kWh. Offshore wind cost is "B" per kWh (again, hopefully the cost when delivered to the shore).
?
If you don't, I understand. But if you do, I'd be very interested in the specific numbers that each study came up with for nuclear versus offshore wind.
The publsihed paper
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/374631320_Nuclear_Energy_Capacity_Expansion_Planning_for_a_Nordic_Low-Carbon_Power_Grid
Link to the Rystad report:
https://www.fornybarnorge.no/nyheter/2023/ny-rapport-kjernekraft-blir-dyrt-og-kommer-neppe-for-2050/
Just to keep myself moving forward on this, here are a few excerpts from the Rystad report link you provided:
"While the cost of electricity production at newer nuclear power plants has been estimated to be around 85 euros per megawatt (EUR/MWh), the actual cost after the exceedances has ended up being around 150 EUR/MWh, according to the analysis."
...
"Norway has no experience with nuclear power, with the exception of the research reactors in Halden and at Kjeller, which were shut down in 2018 and 2019. The costs of developing SMR power plants in Norway will therefore probably be somewhat higher.
"Rystad Energy estimates that electricity production at SMR power plants in Norway will cost 100 EUR/MWh if the power plant is built within budget, and around 180 EUR/MWh if the construction is characterized by cost overruns.
"With today's krone exchange rate, this corresponds to a cost of between 117 and 211 øre per kilowatt hour. By comparison, land-based wind power has a cost price of 41 øre/kWh, while offshore wind power has a price of around 69 øre/kWh, according to NVE .
"The cost of producing electricity at an SMR reactor will probably be significantly higher than the expected electricity price in Norway. This means that such power plants will become dependent on several billion kroner in subsidies each year, according to the report by Rystad Energy.
NVE writes in its latest long-term power market analysis that it expects the power price in Norway to be around 80 øre/kWh in 2030, and that it will then drop to just under 50 øre/kWh in 2040. "
Their estimates for SMRs in Norway..."...100 EUR/MWh if the power plant is built within budget, and around 180 EUR/MWh if the construction is characterized by cost overruns."
...seem pretty reasonable to me. Maybe a little high.
Their numbers for wind, on the other hand are:
Onshore wind = 41 øre/kWh = 35 EUR/MWh.
Offshore wind = 69 øre/kWh = 59 EUR/MWh.
Both seem pretty low to me. But even raising them both by 50 percent would still make them far less than nuclear at 100 EUR/MWh without overruns, or 180 EUR/MWh with overruns. Of course, the storage costs aren't included for the wind.
Yes, that is the gist of it. They tend to describe nuclear by the ressonable but high estimates and offshore wind by questionable and very low estimates.
Thanks! I'll look for a similar summary for the Nøland study. (If you know of a link for that study, I wouldn't object getting it. ;-))
If/when I have summaries of the results from both studies, I'll try to put a summary table/paragraph up.
It will be interesting to see how the Nøland compare quantitatively with the Rystad report...
Hi, I'll try to get it but got distracted by some orher stuff. Sorry about that
Wow!
I had no idea
Too much of this going on in academia I am sorry to say
"Wind turbines are the most visible symbols of the quest for renewable electricity generation. And yet, although they exploit the wind, which is as free & as green as energy can be, the machines themselves are pure embodiments of fossil fuels"
Vaclav Smil
https://vaclavsmil.com/wp-content/uploads/15.WINDTURBINE.pdf
Yeah, I originally was a big fan of Vaclav Smil. But not so much anymore. (I think it was his "Growth" book's essentially nonsense about the sustainability of economic growth that flipped me. ;-))
The environmental analysis profession has an established way to look at whether things are "pure embodiments of fossil fuels." It's called life cycle analysis (LCA).
If wind turbines were indeed the "pure embodiment of fossil fuels", then the life cycle carbon dioxide emissions for a wind turbine would be very high. The IPCC doesn't think the life cycle CO2 emissions of wind are high at all:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life-cycle_greenhouse_gas_emissions_of_energy_sources
And since this has nothing to do with projecting into the future, the IPCC can't fudge this. ;-)
Best wishes,
Mark
Problem with that is we now know that they have severely underestimated the emissions of Chinese made materials and components. The basically had no data on that, and were using data from a European source that has been proven fraudulent.
And unlike legitimate energy sources, wind & solar cannot stand on their own feet, they require backup & storage which amplifies their actual full lifecycle emissions by several times. A wind/solar unit of energy is not the same as a fossil, hydro, nuclear unit of energy.
"Problem with that is we now know that they have severely underestimated the emissions of Chinese made materials and components. The basically had no data on that, and were using data from a European source that has been proven fraudulent."
No, this has nothing to do with the median estimates of life cycle emissions for wind power versus other sources presented in Wikipedia, e.g.:
Wind Power = 12 gCO2eq/kWh
Nuclear = 12 gCO2eq/kWh
PV util. solar = 48 gCO2eq/kWh
Nat gas comb cycle = 490 gCO2eq/kWh
...and the *fact* that Vaclav Smil was "pants on fire" false to claim that wind turbines are the "pure embodiments of fossil fuel use".
The life cycle emissions of CO2 from wind show unequivocably that Vaclav Smil was wrong. He either didn't know he was wrong, which shows he's pretty pathetic when it comes to assessing fossil fuel use for electrical energy sources, or he knew what he was writing was wrong, and wrote it anyway, which would mean he's very dishonest.
There's no reliance on "Chinese estimates," when determining the life cycle emissions of CO2 from wind power. Life cycle come from the amounts of steel, cement, and other materials used in the turbines, and the CO2 emissions from the processes used to produce those materials. We know all those values to a very great degree of accuracy, because we know the processes used to produce cement and steel, and the resulting CO2 emissions from those processes. It's not a matter of some Chinese secret process.
Roger really should acknowledge that Vaclav Smil was totally misrepresenting wind turbines when he falsely characterized them "pure embodiments of fossil fuel use."
Roger...wouldn't you agree that it's important to present the truth when making policy decisions, rather than relying on falsehoods (like the falsehood that wind turbines involve substantial fossil fuel use)?
Solar Panels Are Three Times More Carbon-Intensive Than IPCC Claims
Ecoinvent, the world’s largest database on the environmental impact of renewables, has no data from China, even though it makes most of the world's solar panels:
https://public.substack.com/p/solar-panels-more-carbon-intensive
"...Based on such data, the IPCC claims solar PV is 48 gCO2/kWh. But, as we’ll see below, a new investigation started by Italian researcher Enrico Mariutti suggests that the number is closer to between 170 and 250 gCO2/kWh, depending on the energy mix used to power PV production...."
I recall a critique of an analysis showing Wind was 16 gms CO2/kwh. They found that the analysis underestimated cement emissions by 10x. In any case those are based on individual wind turbine theoretical modeling. This is not system wide real world data.
System wide, you have to account for huge inefficiencies of wind/solar operation such as curtailment, overbuild, negative pricing, substitution of more efficient nuclear/hydro for zero benefit, large transmission losses (inherent in low CF% sources), storage losses & vast storage energy inputs, induced cycling inefficiencies in the shadowing fossil generation, induced economic inefficiencies of replacing high efficiency CCGT, supercritical coal, nuclear & hydro with low efficiency OCGT or diesel. There is also some fraud involved, like Germany disconnecting their giant coal generators from the grid when they are idling waiting for the sun to set or the wind to fail, so they don't count the emissions of burning all that coal keeping the boilers up to pressure.
These massive inefficiencies of wind & solar are confirmed by a survey of 68 nations over the past 52 years done by Environmental Progress and duplicated by the New York Times, which shows conventional hydro was quite successful at decarbonization, nuclear energy was also very successful and both wind and solar show no correlation between grid penetration and decarbonization. Also the Bentek study of wind in Colorado & Texas showed no reduction in fossil consumption. The wind had a system wide 0% efficiency. An expensive total waste of capital and material resources.
I don't think Smil's point here has anything to do with lifecycle costs or emissions. Simply that you can't build wind turbines using wind (or solar) but they necessarily require fossil fuel inputs. That is true.
"...but they necessarily require fossil fuel inputs. That is true."
So why didn't he say, "That nuclear power plant over there, that's the pure embodiment of fossil fuels"?
Or, "That wooden desk over there, that's the pure embodiment of fossil fuels"?
What he does is make it seem, to a layperson who doesn't know the difference, like wind turbines use a substantial amount of fossil fuels to get built. But of course, anything that humans build anywhere could have *some* fossil fuel tied to it. After all, virtually all cars, trucks, boats carrying cargo, etc. are currently fueled by fossil fuels. No product that is manufactured is free from any transport.
So his article, far from providing useful information about wind turbines, actually creates the false impression that there is some means of generating electricity that is *not* "the pure embodiment of fossil fuels."
No the fossil fuel inputs for building wind/solar/nuclear/hydro or fossil for that matter are not the issue. The issue is the EROI which is just too low to be physically capable of replacing fossil or powering our civilization with Wind and/or Solar.
And the system wide cost of using wind & solar is untenable. The TRUE system wide cost is shown in this study. There is a linear price relationship between wind/solar grid penetration and price of electricity by Ken Gregory, P.Eng, graph Euro/kwh by country 2019: Conclusion: European Wind Plus Solar Cost 6 Times Other Electrical Sources
friendsofscience.org/index.php?id=2550
I can't speak for Smil, but given the number of claims that "all we need to do" is replace fossil fuels with wind and solar, I think his point is a fair one. The notion that you can't make a wind turbine from wind turbines is not generally appreciated, in my experiences.
That said, Smil has also not been shy about making the broader points that you make here:
https://privatebank.jpmorgan.com/content/dam/jpm-wm-aem/global/pb/en/insights/eye-on-the-market/Vaclav.pdf
What is the case for wind power attached to the grid? Investors like Warren Buffet know the only reason to build windmills in bulk is to get tax credits. Take away the tax credits and the mandates and the only windmills will be in isolated locations where it makes sense.
https://newcatallaxy.blog/2021/09/25/the-real-cost-of-unreliable-energy/
Intermittent input causes major problems for grid stability.
The onset of windless nights spells disaster when the supply of conventional power runs down past a critical point. That point is looming up for many grids in the western world.
In the meantime the cost of power increases due to the need for a hybrid power system to provide backup for the “cheap” unreliable input from so-called “renewables. “The hardware is not renewable although the finance has to be renewed every 15-20 years (more often for batteries) while conventional power plants run for 60+ years if well maintained.
Trillions of dollars are in play and all we get is more expensive and less reliable power, with massive environmental impacts.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDOI-uLvTnY
I have moved solidly into the camp that does not think CO2 emissions are a problem. Given it's diminished capacity to trap heat above 400ppm and the fact that historically we have had much higher concentrations, and the fact that it helps to green the planet I can no longer see the usefulness of a war on CO2.
The unscientific or anti-scientific demonization of CO2 is the driver of climate alarmism and hence the quest for net zero, essentially a ponzi scheme that has just about hit the wall.
Trillions of dollars of expenditure have hardly moved the needle to green worldwide energy use. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDOI-uLvTnY
In a recently released 5-part series of videos about wind power, there is a brief scene of an eagle flying near a wind turbine. The eagle is struck by one of the blades, and as it falls, it is struck again by the next blade. Its clearly broken body drops slowly. The impact of the video is unforgettable .
No wind turbines, not anywhere, not ever.
“Show me an entire U.S. state or a medium-sized country powered by wind without the issues raised above about necessary back-up, and I’ll be happy reconsider these concerns.”, go look at CA, because from Mark Jacobson’s (@mzjacobson) non-stop tweets you’d think the place has found the perpetual cost-free inexhaustible clean energy source found in nature 😂. Here’s an example of his typical posts: https://x.com/mzjacobson/status/1787254168803254303?s=61 🤦🏽♂️
Direwolff,
Thanks for the reference- Dr. Jacobson confirmed that the belly of duck curve is growing quickly. The consequences of overbuilding solar was highlighted in the following curtailment report-
https://www.caiso.com/Documents/Wind_SolarReal-TimeDispatchCurtailmentReportMay05_2024.pdf
Jacobsen is a civil engineer. They are useful when you need soil samples taken for a tower line. Otherwise it should be illegal for him to even think about electricity. Jacobsen is also a Phd and a college teacher, so he would have no idea how to take a soil sample.
Meanwhile the on peak residential rate in San Diego is 66 cents per kWh.
Mark Jacobson is a civil engineer...but he apparently doesn't know a dam thing about dams:
https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/100-percent-renewables-plan-has-significant-shortcomings-say-experts#
https://web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/I/CombiningRenew/18-09-19-MZJChildrensTrustRebut.pdf
"Further, Herzog’s claim that our assumption about increasing the peak discharge rate of hydropower is unreasonable is directly contradicted by the United States Bureau of Reclamation, which states, “The uprating of existing hydroelectric generator and turbine units at powerplants is one of the most immediate, cost-effective, and environmentally acceptable means of developing additional electric power,” and its costs of “$69 per kilowatt…compares to an average cost for providing new peaking capacity through oil-fired generators of more than $400 per kilowatt.” (US Department of the Interior, 2005)"
Oy, vey! Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy will solve the problem, and it will hardly cost anything...
Former SD ratepayer here (57 cents when I left last year) and civil engineer... I wouldn't trust Jacobson with even compacting potting soil in the garden. He's a stain on the profession.
Always love to see extremists posting, nice of him to cut off the graph at 3:30 pm when the duck curve kicks in, the renewables fall of a cliff just as demand increases.
This is called lying with statistics and shows that it doesn’t matter how much wind and solar you install you still need 100% reliable generation backing it.
So that you don’t, you know, die.
If that’s important.
Jacobson is the Micheal Mann of renewables.
Michael Mann & Jacobson are buddies. Scratch each others backs.
What a visual, them two.
Between them, the greatest source of misinformation on earth
Yeah, but I bet they make out with the undergraduate babes....
Pure opinion, but Jacobson just has that look.
Roger, the only place I see wind having real utility would be to use the intermittent electricity generated to split water in electrolyzers, to yield hydrogen and oxygen. The hydrogen and oxygen could be used in chemical synthesis, or fed to fuel cells to make dispatchable electric power. Otherwise, wind looks to me to be a waste of resources.
That doesn't work either. Industrial equipment to perform those tasks is expensive. You make up the cost by having a high utilization. Leaving the equipment idle or underpowered 80% of the time would drive up the costs beyond anything useful.
Dear Mr. Walther, you are entirely correct that electroyzers are expensive. Even worse, overpotentials on the cathode mean that some 30% of the input power is lost just pushing the voltage hard enough to make them work at all. Let's not forget the compression costs or liquifaction costs to get the hydrogen and oxygen in states fit for transport. The competition would be hydrogen from natural gas via the water-gas shift reaction, and oxygen from air separation units. Hydrogen from the electrolyzers would have the advantage that it would be free of CO and CO2, so it would be not poison the platinum group catalysts in fuel cells. Would that be enough to make a viable commercial product if the nation finally admits that non-dispatchable intermittent wind power electricity is actually worthless in the absence of government subsidies? Depends on the market's embrace of fuel cells.
Robert Bryce did two great posts on this last year, energy density
Highly recommend.
https://robertbryce.substack.com/p/the-power-of-power-density
https://robertbryce.substack.com/p/the-iron-law-of-power-density-part
Doomberg also hit on it
https://newsletter.doomberg.com/p/cooking-the-books
Everything we need to know is out there, like an Xfiles episode
Just need to encourage people to read and think, before governments shut all this information sharing down after all it’s extremely unhelpful to the narrative
The corrupt states, provinces & individual nations on a common grid (as in Europe) that go big on wind and/or solar will take a beating on electrical trade. Those that move to a reliable baseload grid based on CCGT, supercritical coal, hydro & nuclear will profit immensely.
As the wind/solar states expand their intermittents, they will have no choice but to export that power to their neighbors. But who will want it? When wind/solar is high when grid demand is low, that is true for all wind/solar states usually, so they will all be trying to export at the same time. The baseload states can just laugh at them and tell them "well maybe we will take some of your surplus power if you pay us to take it (negative pricing), take it or leave it, suckas". When the wind/solar craps out the wind/solar states will have no choice but to import power from the baseload states which can rake in giant profits demanding high prices for their exported power. That's a huge benefit that comes with having a reliable, efficient baseload electricity supply.
"As the wind/solar states expand their intermittents, they will have no choice but to export that power to their neighbors. But who will want it? When wind/solar is high when grid demand is low, that is true for all wind/solar states usually, so they will all be trying to export at the same time."
There's one emerging technology that significantly reduces this problem: batteries...both automobile batteries and grid-scale (1 megawatt or greater) batteries.
It's almost certain that by 2050, if not sooner, the vast majority of light-duty vehicles around the world will be battery electric vehicles (BEVs). Perhaps even more importantly, they will be *autonomous* BEVs operated by fleet owners...think what Waymo is currently doing in Phoenix, SF, and elsewhere.
Vast numbers of BEVs operated by fleet owners is a great opportunity for both the fleet owners and the grid operators to get together to time battery *removal* of energy from the grid to when surplus power is available, and to time battery *input* of energy to the grid to when additional power is needed. (IMPORTANT NOTE: The *net* must be that the batteries are removing electricity from the grid...it's just a question of when they're doing it, and when they might have a little extra to spare if the grid needs it.
Beyond batteries used for electric vehicles, some companies are developing grid-scale batteries, using chemistries other than with lithium.
For example, Form Energy in Weirton, WV, is developing iron-air batteries. They recently signed a contract with Georgia Power to provide a battery that can provide a whopping 15 megawatts (enough to provide all the electrical power for a something the size of a college campus) for up to 100 hours (that's more than four days, folks!):
https://energypost.eu/iron-air-batteries-long-duration-grid-storage-targets-1-10th-the-cost-of-lithium-ion/
Another company, Natron Energy in Holland, MI, is developing sodium-ion (rather than lithium-ion) batteries for the grid. Natron claims that their sodium-ion batteries have several useful properties compared to lithium-ion batteries:
https://natron.energy/our-technology
Not sure where you get your info but you definitely got the religion.
Keep the faith it’s all you’ve got.
"Not sure where you get your info but you definitely got the religion.
Keep the faith it’s all you’ve got."
No, I've got no religion. In my mechanical engineering degree, my coursework emphasized energy production and use, including courses in nuclear engineering, solar energy engineering, and conventional power production (using coal and natural gas).
I've worked for Babcock & Wilcox advanced coal-fired power plants, and on nuclear power plants. I worked for Blount Engineers on waste-to-energy plants. Then I did contract research at RTI, International for 25+ years on energy and air pollution issues...including providing inputs on all forms of energy production and use, to the EPA's Office of Research and Development, in their development of their MARKet ALlocation (MARKAL) model of U.S. energy production and use.
I've analyzed virtually every major industry...iron and steel, aluminum, copper, petroleum refining and organic chemicals production, cement, you name it...for both energy use and emissions, and energy use and emissions reduction measures.
I'm absolutely scrupulous in making sure that I analyze what *is*, and predict what *will be*...rather than trying to find what is pleasant, or predicting what I would like to be.
I can say with great confidence that Roger's assertion that wind will never be more than a niche source of electricity in the U.S. or the world (almost certainly less than 30 percent of U.S. and global electricity) is correct, for the reasons he listed.
But I can also say with great confidence that, by 2050, the vast majority of land vehicle miles traveled in the U.S. and the world will be by electric vehicles. In fact, I've been saying that for more than a decade (since January 2013):
https://markbahner.typepad.com/random_thoughts/2013/01/the-future-of-transportation.html
Where did you get your degree? Believing that batteries could ever make a difference in putting wind/solar on the grid indicates that you're not putting it to very good use, or it was flawed to begin with.
I got my bachelors in Mechanical Engineering and my masters in Environmental Engineering (Air Pollution Option) from the school now known as Virginia Tech (formerly Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University).
Where did you get your degree? And in what? And what do you do for a living?
B.S. in Aerospace Eng. and another in Electrical Eng. from UT Austin, with a brief excursion to earn a J.D. and get my attorney license as well.
Been living off the electrical engineering skillset for the last 20 years.
There is no way batteries will make a significant dent in wind/solar intermittency.
For one the EROI of wind & solar is already abysmal. Adding the low EROES for batteries to the that pushes the EROI of wind/solar/batteries into the 3:1 range. You need a minimum 14:1 EROI to sustain a modern industrial civilization.
Then there are the vast material inputs of battery production. Many studies have been done showing that there is just no possible way we will be able to produce the amount of materials required for a hundred years or more. For example see:
https://manhattan.institute/article/the-energy-transition-delusion
The simple truth is there is one application that our very limited battery supply should be focused, and that is on diesel replacement. Diesel is what runs our economy, puts food on our table, mines the materials we use. Wind/solar are low value applications. BEV light vehicles replace plentiful gasoline which will put further strain on our diesel supply. 2 or 3 gals of gasoline are produced for every gal of diesel refined from crude oil.
Essentially electrifying Heavy Trucking & Rail, Ferries, Heavy Equipment, Mining Equipment, Buses, Agricultural Machinery, short distance Shipping, LRTs is a NO-BRAINER. You are replacing our VERY precarious diesel fuel supply with the much more plentiful and much lower cost gas, coal & nuclear supply. Not too mention ~$66k/yr operating cost savings for replacing a diesel semi with a Tesla semi. That's where precious battery resources belong, not for scam wind/solar utility energy storage, not for light duty vehicles. BEV light vehicles are a waste of precious battery resources and should not be encouraged let alone mandated.
Remember this, our economy runs on heavy distillates like Diesel fuel, Jet fuel, lubricating oils. Run short on those and people die and your economy goes down. Gasoline shortage, people will have to reduce leisure driving.
Mark Mills is a living legend.
"For one the EROI of wind & solar is already abysmal."
The source for this is...?
"Adding the low EROES for batteries to the that pushes the EROI of wind/solar/batteries into the 3:1 range."
The source for this is...?
"Remember this, our economy runs on heavy distillates like Diesel fuel, Jet fuel, lubricating oils."
I remember that our economy runs on human brainpower. Diesel fuel, jet fuel, and lubricating oils are a trivial portion of our GDP.
https://bfrandall.substack.com/p/uncle-rubes-pv-solar-is-an-energy
https://festkoerper-kernphysik.de/Weissbach_EROI_preprint.pdf
Our economy runs on a multitude of things. We have no shortage of human brainpower, we do have a shortage of brainpower amongst the ruling class & politicians sad to say.
Hardly trivial, but instead critical. Just as advanced integrated circuits are critical & rare earths are critical, each of which have serious supply constraints & risks. Shortage of diesel has been stated as a major cause of Germany & Japan losses in WW2. Fact is our economy will grind to a halt without heavy distillates i.e. diesel, heating oil, jet fuel, rocket fuel (RP-1), lubricating oils. You can make substitutes but that takes a long time to ramp up and if you aren't prepared people can starve and freeze to death. In this case, the BEV substitute has overwhelming economic advantage even without the impending supply crunch.
Believing batteries can solve the inherent failures in wind and solar power indicates either a failure to analyze the requirements or innumeracy.
The scale of storage required is breathtaking. It is impossible to build even 1% of the capacity of batteries or other storage that would be required and the cost would be catastrophic to civilization.
For an article with more analysis and less vitriol, try this old but excellent source:
https://bravenewclimate.com/2014/08/22/catch-22-of-energy-storage/
Fun facts.
According to Google the UK's biggest wind farm (Whitlee) is 15.2 miles from my house.
In one of the strangest incidents of WWII, Nazi deputy Fuhrer and eco fanatic Rudolf Hesse crashed his plane very close to where the wind farm is now. He was trying to contact a minor member of the (somewhat Nazi friendly) royal family the Duke of Hamilton. This was in My 1941, just a month before the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union.
This is the BBC version of the story (with photos).
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-56908183