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People are so focused on $$ when it comes to (green or other) energy. The real problem is not $$ but Joules. Building any type of a power plant costs energy its

People are so focused on $$ when it comes to (green or other) energy. The real problem is not $$ but Joules. Building any type of a power plant costs energy itself, and unfortunately unlike capital, which is just a concept that you can argue with and win, there is absolutely no arguing with physics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_return_on_investment#EROEI_and_payback_periods_of_some_types_of_power_plants https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_return_on_investment#ER... The energy amortisation time of green power generators (the time it takes to pay back the Joules) is orders of magnitude higher than any dirty energy. This problem is well visible once you count all of the world's energy usage and just plot it. The rollout is anything but fast: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_consumption https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_consumption

godzillabrennus 6y ago
Nuclear is the answer.
- MattGaiser 6y ago
  You could start planning now and you would be lucky to get shovels in the ground by 2035.
  - hairytrog 6y ago
    too true for most nuclear projects out there.
  - nickik 6y ago
    France turned its whole grid nuclear in 15 years with 60s technology. The utter absurdity that has happened with nuclear energy is crazy. Its like the whole climate change disaster could have been avoided in the first place. Nuclear is like anything else, if you build one bespoke reactor, its expensive. If you build 20 that are the same its gone end up cheap. The problem is every country has its own government trying to build its own reactors and only have like one project going. Its like the rocket industry just 10x worse. And the way regulation was managed after Three Mile Island was insane, and has utterly stopped nuclear innovation essentially impossible (specially new reactors) and makes nuclear building beyond expensive. Its really a sad situation, humanity should be in the nuclear age right now. That we are still grappling with replacing coal power is beyond mind-blowing.
MattGaiser 6y ago
What is the significance of this?
- H8crilA 6y ago
  Well you can do the maths. Let's assume it takes 1 year to pay back the energy usage, on average, for the green projects (look up that Wikipedia link). Let's also assume that we can dedicate 5% of the world's energy budget towards new power plants and that the world stops growing. So: 5% energy recession and zero global energy demand growth. How long would that take to roll out? 1/5% = 20 years, all of those years will be of serious austerity. Multiple countries (especially those with "good", that is growing demographics) would blow up. Up to you to decide if it's feasible to execute, and those are very optimistic numbers. What if the energy usage grows at 2% and we can dedicate only 3%? Well, that would give us 1/(3% - 2%) = 100 years to finish the project. These are not happy things to look at. Personally I'm just trying to avoid the impending climate doom. Whatever happens - this problem is here to stay with us for many decades.
  - est31 6y ago
    That's some weird kind of fear mongering. You assume instant replacement of fossil fuel plants. If you don't do this, but keep them running, and add renewables on top, it looks different. Using your numbers to demonstrate it of 1 year EROEI. Let's say we make a starting investment for one year where we take 5% of the world's energy output to invest into new renewable power. After that year is over, we have capacity to generate 5% of the world's energy output per year, but we don't replace any of the existing fossil plants, but put it to work for new energy plants. So the second year we spend that energy on another 5% of renewable energy. Now we have capacity of 10% of the world's energy budget at start of year 1. If we continue doing this, we have 20% after the third year, 40% after the fourth, and 80% after the fifth. By the end of the sixth year, we can generate 160% of the energy demand of the world at start of year 1. We can now turn off the fossil fuel plants and enjoy a 60% increase in energy output, most likely more than the world has grown in that time. Now you wonder, won't it cost tons of money to use all of this energy to build new plants? Sure it will, but that's already priced into things. That's what we have banks for. Your fears are unfounded.
hairytrog 6y ago
Well noted. Here's a paper: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0360544213000492 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03605... The energy returned on invested, EROI, has been evaluated for typical power plants representing wind energy, photovoltaics, solar thermal, hydro, natural gas, biogas, coal and nuclear power. The strict exergy concept with no " primary energy weighting" , updated material databases, and updated technical procedures make it possible to directly compare the overall efficiency of those power plants on a uniform mathematical and physical basis. Pump storage systems, needed for solar and wind energy, have been included in the EROI so that the efficiency can be compared with an " unbuffered" scenario. The results show that nuclear, hydro, coal, and natural gas power systems (in this order) are one order of magnitude more effective than photovoltaics and wind power. =
- killjoywashere 6y ago
  Even if we assume that's correct, those sources have massive impacts under other categories. In contrast, anaerobic bacteria are terribly inefficient with their energy use, yet vastly outperform all animals in terms of biomass. So it's unclear to me that the EROI metric actually matters all that much. If I can produce solar panels with a solar-powered factory at a profit, I don't care about the price of coal or its EROI. I'm printing free money. Of the 4 options you mention, I'm entirely a fan of hydro and nuclear. Especially nuclear. But FUD makes nuclear hard politically, so while I wouldn't campaign against it, I wouldn't waste my rep campaigning hard for it.
  - hairytrog 6y ago
    You can make while society falls around you. You want to make the most efficient use of time, energy, land, and materials. Why? So you can do more with it, give more people more time to think about things unrelated to survival, so you can support more people, whatever. Efficiency is key to civilization and progress. Solar takes 10X the land and 15x the material with no plan to deal with it after it has reached the end of life. Wind is worse.
    - 6y ago
csours 6y ago
Interesting chart, but it does not seem to consider the cost of the installation, just the fuel, or it seems to assume a very long amortization period for nuclear/fossil fuel generation plants. With wind and solar, all you have is the plant. There's no EROEI on the fuel because there is no energy investment in the fuel for wind and solar.
- H8crilA 6y ago
  For a very long time solar panels would cost more energy to manufacture than they would output through their lifetime. This is no longer the case, but the amortization period is still large. Fuel is not the problem. The power plants are the problem.
  - csours 6y ago
    They show the payoff period Germany and in Southern Europe. I wonder what the payoff period is in Texas.
    - H8crilA 6y ago
      It's probably better, but don't forget that this is inherently a global problem. Scotland is running 100% renewable - so what, who cares? Not only it's not enough (the country is small), they also import a lot of goods with manufacturing energy footprints that released co2 elsewhere. Even if the US switches to 100% renewable the problem is far from solved. Look at the population pyramid of Nigeria, for example. Those people will want homes (cement, steel) and cars and flights.
      - csours 6y ago
        I think I understand where you're coming from, but I would say 'don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good'. Grand jumps in capability rarely (if ever) happen in the real world. Gradual change can feel like a capitulation, but it's often the safest and best overall. If you try to force huge change and fail or things go wrong or the system is deficient in some way, there can be a big backlash. The CO2 released in production and deployment of solar cells is regrettable, but as soon as that solar cell comes online it starts displacing fossil fuel.

godzillabrennus 6y ago

Nuclear is the answer.

MattGaiser 6y ago
You could start planning now and you would be lucky to get shovels in the ground by 2035.
- hairytrog 6y ago
  too true for most nuclear projects out there.
- nickik 6y ago
  France turned its whole grid nuclear in 15 years with 60s technology. The utter absurdity that has happened with nuclear energy is crazy. Its like the whole climate change disaster could have been avoided in the first place. Nuclear is like anything else, if you build one bespoke reactor, its expensive. If you build 20 that are the same its gone end up cheap. The problem is every country has its own government trying to build its own reactors and only have like one project going. Its like the rocket industry just 10x worse. And the way regulation was managed after Three Mile Island was insane, and has utterly stopped nuclear innovation essentially impossible (specially new reactors) and makes nuclear building beyond expensive. Its really a sad situation, humanity should be in the nuclear age right now. That we are still grappling with replacing coal power is beyond mind-blowing.

MattGaiser 6y ago

What is the significance of this?

H8crilA 6y ago
Well you can do the maths. Let's assume it takes 1 year to pay back the energy usage, on average, for the green projects (look up that Wikipedia link). Let's also assume that we can dedicate 5% of the world's energy budget towards new power plants and that the world stops growing. So: 5% energy recession and zero global energy demand growth. How long would that take to roll out? 1/5% = 20 years, all of those years will be of serious austerity. Multiple countries (especially those with "good", that is growing demographics) would blow up. Up to you to decide if it's feasible to execute, and those are very optimistic numbers. What if the energy usage grows at 2% and we can dedicate only 3%? Well, that would give us 1/(3% - 2%) = 100 years to finish the project. These are not happy things to look at. Personally I'm just trying to avoid the impending climate doom. Whatever happens - this problem is here to stay with us for many decades.
- est31 6y ago
  That's some weird kind of fear mongering. You assume instant replacement of fossil fuel plants. If you don't do this, but keep them running, and add renewables on top, it looks different. Using your numbers to demonstrate it of 1 year EROEI. Let's say we make a starting investment for one year where we take 5% of the world's energy output to invest into new renewable power. After that year is over, we have capacity to generate 5% of the world's energy output per year, but we don't replace any of the existing fossil plants, but put it to work for new energy plants. So the second year we spend that energy on another 5% of renewable energy. Now we have capacity of 10% of the world's energy budget at start of year 1. If we continue doing this, we have 20% after the third year, 40% after the fourth, and 80% after the fifth. By the end of the sixth year, we can generate 160% of the energy demand of the world at start of year 1. We can now turn off the fossil fuel plants and enjoy a 60% increase in energy output, most likely more than the world has grown in that time. Now you wonder, won't it cost tons of money to use all of this energy to build new plants? Sure it will, but that's already priced into things. That's what we have banks for. Your fears are unfounded.

hairytrog 6y ago

Well noted. Here's a paper: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0360544213000492 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03605... The energy returned on invested, EROI, has been evaluated for typical power plants representing wind energy, photovoltaics, solar thermal, hydro, natural gas, biogas, coal and nuclear power. The strict exergy concept with no " primary energy weighting" , updated material databases, and updated technical procedures make it possible to directly compare the overall efficiency of those power plants on a uniform mathematical and physical basis. Pump storage systems, needed for solar and wind energy, have been included in the EROI so that the efficiency can be compared with an " unbuffered" scenario. The results show that nuclear, hydro, coal, and natural gas power systems (in this order) are one order of magnitude more effective than photovoltaics and wind power. =

killjoywashere 6y ago
Even if we assume that's correct, those sources have massive impacts under other categories. In contrast, anaerobic bacteria are terribly inefficient with their energy use, yet vastly outperform all animals in terms of biomass. So it's unclear to me that the EROI metric actually matters all that much. If I can produce solar panels with a solar-powered factory at a profit, I don't care about the price of coal or its EROI. I'm printing free money. Of the 4 options you mention, I'm entirely a fan of hydro and nuclear. Especially nuclear. But FUD makes nuclear hard politically, so while I wouldn't campaign against it, I wouldn't waste my rep campaigning hard for it.
- hairytrog 6y ago
  You can make while society falls around you. You want to make the most efficient use of time, energy, land, and materials. Why? So you can do more with it, give more people more time to think about things unrelated to survival, so you can support more people, whatever. Efficiency is key to civilization and progress. Solar takes 10X the land and 15x the material with no plan to deal with it after it has reached the end of life. Wind is worse.
  - 6y ago

csours 6y ago

Interesting chart, but it does not seem to consider the cost of the installation, just the fuel, or it seems to assume a very long amortization period for nuclear/fossil fuel generation plants. With wind and solar, all you have is the plant. There's no EROEI on the fuel because there is no energy investment in the fuel for wind and solar.

H8crilA 6y ago
For a very long time solar panels would cost more energy to manufacture than they would output through their lifetime. This is no longer the case, but the amortization period is still large. Fuel is not the problem. The power plants are the problem.
- csours 6y ago
  They show the payoff period Germany and in Southern Europe. I wonder what the payoff period is in Texas.
  - H8crilA 6y ago
    It's probably better, but don't forget that this is inherently a global problem. Scotland is running 100% renewable - so what, who cares? Not only it's not enough (the country is small), they also import a lot of goods with manufacturing energy footprints that released co2 elsewhere. Even if the US switches to 100% renewable the problem is far from solved. Look at the population pyramid of Nigeria, for example. Those people will want homes (cement, steel) and cars and flights.
    - csours 6y ago
      I think I understand where you're coming from, but I would say 'don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good'. Grand jumps in capability rarely (if ever) happen in the real world. Gradual change can feel like a capitulation, but it's often the safest and best overall. If you try to force huge change and fail or things go wrong or the system is deficient in some way, there can be a big backlash. The CO2 released in production and deployment of solar cells is regrettable, but as soon as that solar cell comes online it starts displacing fossil fuel.