It's also about the quiet solar successes in the Global South that no one talks about like Namibia and Chile, both of which now get more than a quarter of electricity from very cheap solar
The energy transition is pretty much irreversible. The only question is whether it takes 30 years or 60. And it's a good thing. We'll keep on using fossil fuels for high-value purposes. Cheers! (ans also looking forward to 20 January, it should be interesting in many ways)
Hmm, but accepting your figures, 30 to 50% of that primary energy is lost as waste heat, whereas the 5% from wind and solar is all useful energy. So as a share of useful energy wind and solar (ignoring other renewables) are as much as 12.5%. In the UK we now get >50% of electricity from zero carbon sources. Fossil fuel is on its way out, cheap indigenous renewables beats expensive and insecure imported gas and oil.
Uh, that’s not accurate. These figures are based on TWH, which is energy used not wasted. Fossil fuel still supply about 80% of the worlds primary energy that it CONSUMES.
Hi Kenneth, TWh is just a measure of energy - not whether it’s wasted or useful. If you want to drive 30 miles in an internal combustion engine vehicle you might use one gallon of fuel which contains 34 kWh of primary chemical energy (ignoring the energy used in drilling, pumping transporting, refining and transporting again). However most of that energy is wasted - an EV will only use around 7.5 kWh of electricity to drive the same distance. So that’s the useful energy that goes into turning the wheels. In the ICE example most of the energy is lost as heat (not useful)
Similarly if you use gas or coal to make that electricity then you have to use more than twice as much of that “primary” energy from the gas or coal per kWh of electricity used.
The very definition of primary energy is the energy available before losses.
What are the long term effects of including large scale batteries in all this? What happens to expired batteries? I have dozens of dead consumer scale lithium batteries. Is there a recycling process?
Definitely a fair question. My understanding (but I'm not a specialist of that specific topic) is that batteries are largely recyclable, especially when built in modular stacks as used for battery storage (car batteries are a different issue as manufacturing processes designed to save weight and cost can be detrimental to easy recycling). Lithium is definitely recyclable a a material.
Thanks Julien. I actually wanted to reference your work, which has been very useful for me to think about the topic, but it somehow dropped out. I'll do it next time 😬
Jérôme, wouldn't the demand for green steel, chemistry and cement, undergirded by the huge push to produce the necessary hydrogen economy, take care of demand for the foreseeable future? Though your writing in this piece is timely and very prescient... and needed. Onward!
The real demand for hydrogen is not so large and will be regulatory-driven to a large extent (forcing industrial users to go for green solutions, ie hydrogen for some of them). Hydrogen manufacturing is not great as an interruptible activity as its cost is linked to the capacity factors of the electrolysers, so I don't think it's such a solution for the grid (it will be a solution for industry, just not for grid)
Fantastic writeup. Thanks for sharing it with us. Curious to know what 2030 looks like to you, in terms of solar vs wind vs other clean energy sources.
Thanks Simone. The fact that solar would sweep the floor has been predicted for a long time. So it is actually impressive that wind has largely kept up, so far, in terms of installed capacity (and mores in terms of actual generation). I expect solar to keep on growing, but wind will remain a material part of the solution. We are seeing that the right combination of solar+wind+storage (and hydro when available) is very efficient - and you need each component - generally, the story here is that diversity helps make the system more flexible so we'll need all of these.
It's also about the quiet solar successes in the Global South that no one talks about like Namibia and Chile, both of which now get more than a quarter of electricity from very cheap solar
https://prismbysugandha.substack.com/p/namibias-solar-success?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=1uujiv
March 24?
Have things improved for the wind sector? I think not, Denmark just got zero bids on a new lease.
Europe is on a road of self destruction, Germany, England, …
The US still has a chance to change course
Everything will change after January 20
The green new deal is dead, as it should be.
The energy transition is pretty much irreversible. The only question is whether it takes 30 years or 60. And it's a good thing. We'll keep on using fossil fuels for high-value purposes. Cheers! (ans also looking forward to 20 January, it should be interesting in many ways)
There is no energy transition
Fossil fuels still supply 80% of the world’s primary energy
Wind and Solar only about 5%
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/energy-transition-just-addition-leen-weijers/
Hmm, but accepting your figures, 30 to 50% of that primary energy is lost as waste heat, whereas the 5% from wind and solar is all useful energy. So as a share of useful energy wind and solar (ignoring other renewables) are as much as 12.5%. In the UK we now get >50% of electricity from zero carbon sources. Fossil fuel is on its way out, cheap indigenous renewables beats expensive and insecure imported gas and oil.
Uh, that’s not accurate. These figures are based on TWH, which is energy used not wasted. Fossil fuel still supply about 80% of the worlds primary energy that it CONSUMES.
Hi Kenneth, TWh is just a measure of energy - not whether it’s wasted or useful. If you want to drive 30 miles in an internal combustion engine vehicle you might use one gallon of fuel which contains 34 kWh of primary chemical energy (ignoring the energy used in drilling, pumping transporting, refining and transporting again). However most of that energy is wasted - an EV will only use around 7.5 kWh of electricity to drive the same distance. So that’s the useful energy that goes into turning the wheels. In the ICE example most of the energy is lost as heat (not useful)
Similarly if you use gas or coal to make that electricity then you have to use more than twice as much of that “primary” energy from the gas or coal per kWh of electricity used.
The very definition of primary energy is the energy available before losses.
What are the long term effects of including large scale batteries in all this? What happens to expired batteries? I have dozens of dead consumer scale lithium batteries. Is there a recycling process?
Hello Dave, 95% of the battery is recyclable. Look at this site : https://www.lithiontechnologies.com/en/
Definitely a fair question. My understanding (but I'm not a specialist of that specific topic) is that batteries are largely recyclable, especially when built in modular stacks as used for battery storage (car batteries are a different issue as manufacturing processes designed to save weight and cost can be detrimental to easy recycling). Lithium is definitely recyclable a a material.
Check https://www.redwoodmaterials.com
Thanks for the great post
Thanks Julien. I actually wanted to reference your work, which has been very useful for me to think about the topic, but it somehow dropped out. I'll do it next time 😬
Thanks. Great that my work is used ;-)
Jérôme, wouldn't the demand for green steel, chemistry and cement, undergirded by the huge push to produce the necessary hydrogen economy, take care of demand for the foreseeable future? Though your writing in this piece is timely and very prescient... and needed. Onward!
The real demand for hydrogen is not so large and will be regulatory-driven to a large extent (forcing industrial users to go for green solutions, ie hydrogen for some of them). Hydrogen manufacturing is not great as an interruptible activity as its cost is linked to the capacity factors of the electrolysers, so I don't think it's such a solution for the grid (it will be a solution for industry, just not for grid)
Nice to see you're still writing Jerome! Albeit on a different platform nowadays :)
Best to you.
HI, good to hear from you. Hope all is well!
Fantastic writeup. Thanks for sharing it with us. Curious to know what 2030 looks like to you, in terms of solar vs wind vs other clean energy sources.
Thanks Simone. The fact that solar would sweep the floor has been predicted for a long time. So it is actually impressive that wind has largely kept up, so far, in terms of installed capacity (and mores in terms of actual generation). I expect solar to keep on growing, but wind will remain a material part of the solution. We are seeing that the right combination of solar+wind+storage (and hydro when available) is very efficient - and you need each component - generally, the story here is that diversity helps make the system more flexible so we'll need all of these.
No mentions of NASA, HAARP or China?
2/10, pretty weak argument