4 ms·

The problem is, currently there is not enough economic activity spent on storage (or any CO2-neutral thing really). You probably know the numbers. To switch off

by pas 6y ago

The problem is, currently there is not enough economic activity spent on storage (or any CO2-neutral thing really). You probably know the numbers. To switch off CO2 emissions we would need to build CO2-free power plants about 10 per day for 10 years. Total US electricity generated by nuclear power plants was about 807 TWh (~92GW), but just in 2010 the world used 41 354 TWh generated by coal. That's a factor of 50. The US has about 95 commercial plants. So to replace just coal we'd need about 4750 new power stations. Basically at this point everything that's not fossil based is great. Build all of them. More wind, solar, storage, nuclear, geo, etc.

philipkglass 6y ago
The problem is huge, but not quite as grim as this. I think that you may be confusing primary (thermal) energy in coal with electricity supplied by coal. In 2018, coal was used to generate about 10,000 TWh of electricity: https://www.iea.org/reports/world-energy-outlook-2019/electricity https://www.iea.org/reports/world-energy-outlook-2019/electr... Renewable generators only need to displace the electrical output of combustion based power plants, not the greater thermal energy contained in source fuels. A highly electrified, renewables-dominated world would consume less primary energy at the same level of energy service consumption. There's a lot less energy going toward production of useless waste heat when renewable electricity displaces fossil combustion electricity. The average American coal plant turns only 37.4% of coal's thermal energy into electrical energy: https://processbarron.com/u-s-coal-power-plant-efficiency-stack/ https://processbarron.com/u-s-coal-power-plant-efficiency-st... In 2019 the United States lost 2/3 of all primary energy as waste heat: https://flowcharts.llnl.gov/content/assets/images/charts/Energy/Energy_2019_United-States.png https://flowcharts.llnl.gov/content/assets/images/charts/Ene...
- pas 6y ago
  Thanks for the correction, alas the edit period has closed for that comment. (I used the number from this wiki page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_consumption#Fossil_fuels https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_consumption#Fossi... )

by pas 6y ago

philipkglass 6y ago

The problem is huge, but not quite as grim as this. I think that you may be confusing primary (thermal) energy in coal with electricity supplied by coal. In 2018, coal was used to generate about 10,000 TWh of electricity: https://www.iea.org/reports/world-energy-outlook-2019/electricity https://www.iea.org/reports/world-energy-outlook-2019/electr... Renewable generators only need to displace the electrical output of combustion based power plants, not the greater thermal energy contained in source fuels. A highly electrified, renewables-dominated world would consume less primary energy at the same level of energy service consumption. There's a lot less energy going toward production of useless waste heat when renewable electricity displaces fossil combustion electricity. The average American coal plant turns only 37.4% of coal's thermal energy into electrical energy: https://processbarron.com/u-s-coal-power-plant-efficiency-stack/ https://processbarron.com/u-s-coal-power-plant-efficiency-st... In 2019 the United States lost 2/3 of all primary energy as waste heat: https://flowcharts.llnl.gov/content/assets/images/charts/Energy/Energy_2019_United-States.png https://flowcharts.llnl.gov/content/assets/images/charts/Ene...

pas 6y ago
Thanks for the correction, alas the edit period has closed for that comment. (I used the number from this wiki page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_consumption#Fossil_fuels https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_consumption#Fossi... )