Hi Jerome, I realize this is dredging up old work but I’m keen to be pointed in the direction that assuages concerns over mineral and metal intensity of renewables and potential bottlenecks or unwanted unforeseen externalities (DRC cobalt and uygher polysilicon come to mind). To be clear I’m an (optimistic) worrier and genuinely curious
Thanks a lot for a great article again. One thing I don't really understand about the nuclear crowd is, if we assume it's actually a good solution, how do they see it working in practice?
* Looking at France, there are 56 of them with a population of 67 million, so about 1.2 million people per plant
* So a rough approximation for 8 billion people on the planet now would be over 6000 new plants
* of course, a plant is not a plant, depends on the capacity, and this influences price
* but is a ballpark number of 100 trillion $ right now an unreasonable estimate?
Who can afford to do that and wait 15 years to see the results? Could we physically accomplish that even? At best we can do it slowly over decades, so why invest first in the slowest and most expensive possible solution? Even if we can't do without it, you can always build it last.
This is interesting, and gets to some of the central psychological points.
Myself I'm a worrier. Vigorously in favor of all low carbon technologies, but recognizing we haven't been through the lifecycle of most technologies, we don't fully understand the impacts of wind, solar, etc, as much as we do with "traditional" tech, and should tread carefully because the grid is the literal lifeblood of civilization and five minutes without circulation kills you forever. I'd derive a certain pride from being told I think like a utility engineer. I am, after all, an engineer of very large systems where most cost is fixed.
I'm however willing to consider that I play useful idiot for the utilities whose arguments do ring true to my predilections and experiences. What's a good place to read about why their system arguments may not be valid?
Thank you! Of course, you write brilliantly and are most persuasive!
I don't "hate" renewable generators but to be fair to many of those that do, they are really not truly sustainable because of their weather dependence, short life times and difficulty to recycle economically.
PV panels in particular use rare and poisonous minerals, last a maximum of 30 years and to my knowledge are impossible to recycle.
By now, I hope you have dug more deeply into the recent publications authored by Simon Michaux of Finland's Geological Survey whose Managing Director and Chief scientists support the scary case broadcasted during their Webinar on 18th November.
Simon's case, as you know very well, is that the "net zero by 2050" case designed by the International Energy Agency and the UNFCC, adopted almost without any disagreement, is impossible to implement globally because its requirement for minerals and metals is, in many cases, thousands of times beyond the ability of our very finite World to deliver these, let alone "ESG-compliantly".
Fossil fuels delivered 82.2% of Primary Energy Demand in 2021 and frighteningly, oil production post Covid in 2021 was no greater than it was in 2012.
We need your wit and brains to develop a truly sustainable global energy solution in the face of a rising global population that quite understandably, needs and wants all the energy intensive goodies that we enjoy in the post-industrialized West, where mining and refining of the metals and other minerals deemed essential for our future competitiveness have been sub-contracted to the World's least developed nations and China.
I look forward to your review of Simon's horrific analysis!
Excellent as always! It is funny that renewables are seen as woke rent seeking and attracts libertarian ire in favor of nuclear, when in reality nuclear has never existed anywhere without massive state effort, and is totally incompatible with free markets.
Hi Jerome, I realize this is dredging up old work but I’m keen to be pointed in the direction that assuages concerns over mineral and metal intensity of renewables and potential bottlenecks or unwanted unforeseen externalities (DRC cobalt and uygher polysilicon come to mind). To be clear I’m an (optimistic) worrier and genuinely curious
Thanks a lot for a great article again. One thing I don't really understand about the nuclear crowd is, if we assume it's actually a good solution, how do they see it working in practice?
* Looking at France, there are 56 of them with a population of 67 million, so about 1.2 million people per plant
* So a rough approximation for 8 billion people on the planet now would be over 6000 new plants
* of course, a plant is not a plant, depends on the capacity, and this influences price
* but is a ballpark number of 100 trillion $ right now an unreasonable estimate?
Who can afford to do that and wait 15 years to see the results? Could we physically accomplish that even? At best we can do it slowly over decades, so why invest first in the slowest and most expensive possible solution? Even if we can't do without it, you can always build it last.
This is interesting, and gets to some of the central psychological points.
Myself I'm a worrier. Vigorously in favor of all low carbon technologies, but recognizing we haven't been through the lifecycle of most technologies, we don't fully understand the impacts of wind, solar, etc, as much as we do with "traditional" tech, and should tread carefully because the grid is the literal lifeblood of civilization and five minutes without circulation kills you forever. I'd derive a certain pride from being told I think like a utility engineer. I am, after all, an engineer of very large systems where most cost is fixed.
I'm however willing to consider that I play useful idiot for the utilities whose arguments do ring true to my predilections and experiences. What's a good place to read about why their system arguments may not be valid?
Jérôme,
Thank you! Of course, you write brilliantly and are most persuasive!
I don't "hate" renewable generators but to be fair to many of those that do, they are really not truly sustainable because of their weather dependence, short life times and difficulty to recycle economically.
PV panels in particular use rare and poisonous minerals, last a maximum of 30 years and to my knowledge are impossible to recycle.
By now, I hope you have dug more deeply into the recent publications authored by Simon Michaux of Finland's Geological Survey whose Managing Director and Chief scientists support the scary case broadcasted during their Webinar on 18th November.
https://www.gtk.fi/en/research/time-to-wake-up/
Simon's case, as you know very well, is that the "net zero by 2050" case designed by the International Energy Agency and the UNFCC, adopted almost without any disagreement, is impossible to implement globally because its requirement for minerals and metals is, in many cases, thousands of times beyond the ability of our very finite World to deliver these, let alone "ESG-compliantly".
Fossil fuels delivered 82.2% of Primary Energy Demand in 2021 and frighteningly, oil production post Covid in 2021 was no greater than it was in 2012.
We need your wit and brains to develop a truly sustainable global energy solution in the face of a rising global population that quite understandably, needs and wants all the energy intensive goodies that we enjoy in the post-industrialized West, where mining and refining of the metals and other minerals deemed essential for our future competitiveness have been sub-contracted to the World's least developed nations and China.
I look forward to your review of Simon's horrific analysis!
Excellent as always! It is funny that renewables are seen as woke rent seeking and attracts libertarian ire in favor of nuclear, when in reality nuclear has never existed anywhere without massive state effort, and is totally incompatible with free markets.
So true! Thanks for this excellent article.
Excellent as usual, Jerome! Will be using!