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The claim that the last 5% can only be provided by either higher embodied fossil fuel costs in the batteries OR by burning fossil fuels wouldn’t be true, BTW, i

The claim that the last 5% can only be provided by either higher embodied fossil fuel costs in the batteries OR by burning fossil fuels wouldn’t be true, BTW, if you used fuels which are non-fossil to provide that last 5% of energy. It’s problematic to have a sort of alchemical understanding of energy that it HAS to at some point come from fossil fuels OR you have to significantly reduce capability somehow (in this case, website reliability). In fact, the US didn’t use hardly any fossil fuels (virtually all wood or water) until well after the Industrial Revolution (late 1700s to 1820). Even for ironmaking, the US primarily used charcoal (not coal) until around the 1840s, after the first Industrial Revolution, and coal didn’t exceed wood for fuel in the US until the mid 1880s. American industry (and much of Britain’s) was powered by water power, channeled to different buildings, etc. American trains and steamboats ran on biomass. Most US iron used to build these things was made using biomass. (Britain was different because they simply didn’t have as much land and had cut down their trees already.) Sustainably harvested biomass (or electrically synthesized fuels like hydrogen) is a valid source for that last 5%. Ultimately, there’s a large energy cost to non-reliability, BTW. Any kind of real automation (which mass production—and thus abundance and solar panel production—relies on) relies on its components being highly reliable. Non-automated handcrafted everything means large embodied labor, which means energy usage from human metabolism.

dash2 5y ago
Charcoal may not be fossil, but it still releases CO2 into the atmosphere, right?
- amalcon 5y ago
  Sort of. Charcoal is made from wood; the released carbon was generally extracted from the atmosphere by the tree. To parent's point, in pre-industrial and early-industrial times, most of this would have come from pre-existing trees cut for the purpose. This will prematurely release that carbon. If it had come from farmed trees, like it might today, then it could be net zero with respect to CO2 over the whole cycle. The "could" is important there, as the process of turning wood into charcoal doesn't need to be carbon neutral (though it probably could be).
  - Robotbeat 5y ago
    It’s worth pointing out that I live in an area where pre-industrial times had all the trees cut down, and it’s full of dense trees now, so all the CO2 released by that charcoal has been recaptured. Even non-sustainably-harvested biomass can regenerate about 6 orders of magnitude faster than fossil fuels do… Fast growing trees could regenerate in 10-20 years. Crops can regenerate in a few months to a year. (Ignoring regeneration time can screw up return on energy calculations, BTW…) I think relying primarily on biomass for energy is a bad idea, but for that last few percent, it’s not bad.

dash2 5y ago

Charcoal may not be fossil, but it still releases CO2 into the atmosphere, right?

amalcon 5y ago
Sort of. Charcoal is made from wood; the released carbon was generally extracted from the atmosphere by the tree. To parent's point, in pre-industrial and early-industrial times, most of this would have come from pre-existing trees cut for the purpose. This will prematurely release that carbon. If it had come from farmed trees, like it might today, then it could be net zero with respect to CO2 over the whole cycle. The "could" is important there, as the process of turning wood into charcoal doesn't need to be carbon neutral (though it probably could be).
- Robotbeat 5y ago
  It’s worth pointing out that I live in an area where pre-industrial times had all the trees cut down, and it’s full of dense trees now, so all the CO2 released by that charcoal has been recaptured. Even non-sustainably-harvested biomass can regenerate about 6 orders of magnitude faster than fossil fuels do… Fast growing trees could regenerate in 10-20 years. Crops can regenerate in a few months to a year. (Ignoring regeneration time can screw up return on energy calculations, BTW…) I think relying primarily on biomass for energy is a bad idea, but for that last few percent, it’s not bad.