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Note that fossil fuel industry real total land use is never mentionned anywhere. Mark Z Jacobson says current fossil fuel infrastructure takes more land than n

by guerby 4y ago

Note that fossil fuel industry real total land use is never mentionned anywhere. Mark Z Jacobson says current fossil fuel infrastructure takes more land than needed for solar in a 100% renewable USA: https://issues.org/renewables-minerals-energy-transition-jacobson-forum/ https://issues.org/renewables-minerals-energy-transition-jac... "In “The Hard Math of Minerals” (Issues, January 27, 2022), Mark P. Mills writes that “building solar and wind systems requires roughly a tenfold increase in the total tonnage of common materials … to deliver the same quantity of energy compared to building a natural gas or other hydrocarbon-fueled power plant.” This idea is misleading, since the source cited states that it “excluded” the materials related to the fuels used in power plants. Such fuels must be mined forever. With solar and wind, fuel mining is zero, forever. One recent study that accounted for fuel mining plus infrastructure concluded that one gigawatt of wind capacity replacing coal-generated electricity on the Texas grid reduces total mining by 25 million tonnes over 20 years. In fact, in North America alone, an average of fifty thousand new oil and gas wells are drilled yearly. These are ignored by Mills. The land required for these new wells is 2,500 square kilometers per year. Once a well is depleted, it is abandoned. The United States has 1.3 million active oil and gas wells and 3.2 million abandoned ones. Worldwide, Reuters estimates that about 29 million wells are abandoned. Research I’ve conducted with colleagues estimates that fossil fuel infrastructure currently takes up about 1.3 % of US land. This is due to wells, coal mines, oil refineries, pipelines, power plants, fueling stations, and storage facilities. In comparison, transitioning the United States for all energy purposes to 100% wind, water, and solar power may take less than 1% of US land. So not only does a transition to renewables reduce material requirements, but it also reduces land use." Also see the interview here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzU05f8lNd0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzU05f8lNd0 The Climate Crisis with Mark Z. Jacobson | The PLUS Podcast

EdwardDiego 4y ago
It's pretty intuitive that coal extraction in particular has an extensive land footprint if you've ever seen strip mining, mountaintop mining (especially when the waste rock is dumped into nearby valleys), or open pit mining.
jasonwatkinspdx 4y ago
Unfortunately Jacobson's numbers are not nearly as solid as he claims. I learned this digging through years ago. He depends very heavily on implied cost savings of reduced fossil fuel that are based on thin if not nonexistent modeling, just assumptions, for his breakeven calculation. It doesn't take much digging to find similar week foundations across his work in general. I was disappointed when I learned this and confirmed it with a couple people who follow this stuff a lot more closely, one of them professionally as an environmental economist.
- ZeroGravitas 4y ago
  Jacobson gets nitpicked a lot, but his general models seem to have been vindicated as time has gone on. What exactly do you think he's getting wrong? And is it at a scale that matters even if you are correct?
  - guerby 4y ago
    I for one also would like to see a real critique and not some vague comments again and again on "not being serious" without the slighest data. Each time I looked it turned out legit. Last check I did on two 100% RE studies with feedback from one author: https://twitter.com/lguerby/status/1562911969757106176 https://twitter.com/lguerby/status/1562911969757106176 comparing https://reneweconomy.com.au/a-near-100-per-cent-renewables-grid-is-well-within-reach-and-with-little-storage/ https://reneweconomy.com.au/a-near-100-per-cent-renewables-g... (2022) and http://web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/I/145Country/21-WWS-Australia.pdf http://web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/I/145Co... (table 4 for 2050) : wind 41GW vs 100, solar 58 vs 360. would be interesting to have both authors insights Indeed in your work total produced is 267 TWh/y uncurtailed, in @mzjacobson study table 9 is 3243 over 3 year so 1080 TWh/y. About a factor of four more. In nameplate factor of 6.2 for solar and 2.4 for wind so somewhat coherent Also a must read IMHO recent survey paper on the 100% RE field: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9837910 https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9837910 On the History and Future of 100% Renewable Energy Systems Research
- audunw 4y ago
  You should be aware that there a lot of critism out there that is completely wrong, like ones based on misreading/misinterpreting statements from his studies. You should make sure to read response to criticism if you can find it. I haven't heard this specific criticism before though, so can't comment on that specifically. But you should also consider that his studies are ridiculously conservative, so there's a lot of room for error that technological improvements can compensate for. With the first versions of his studies I thought it odd that he didn't include much offshore wind. It was becoming clear that offshore wind was becoming very viable. But he used the current costs when writing the study, not projected future costs. Now I think his studies include off shore wind because the cost has come down far enough that it makes sense to include them in calculations. I think it's reasonable to assume that the costs of renewables will continue to come down, that solar efficiency will go up, and that we will have at least one or two breakthrough battery chemistry, and possibly a breakthrough in geothermal too, by 2040-2050.
jeffbee 4y ago
All you need to do is open your eyes anywhere in Texas to see how much land gas and oil takes. Every hole in the ground has 1-10 acres of sacrificial land that's just scraped flat. Entire nation-sized ecosystems have been completely wrecked for oil and gas production. https://www.google.com/maps/@28.9853961,-97.7870272,32772m/data=!3m1!1e3 https://www.google.com/maps/@28.9853961,-97.7870272,32772m/d...
- guerby 4y ago
  Many thanks for the maps link: it helped me fully realize how spot on is Mark Z Jacobson. I never bothered to look to oil & gas map and street view until now ...
baud147258 4y ago
> With solar and wind, fuel mining is zero, forever. well, you have to first build the solar panels/wind turbines. And then some fuel to power up the gas /oil plants that'll pick up the slack when there's no wind and sun; or you build over the required needs and add batteries (or other power storage methods).
hedora 4y ago
The 1.3% number is clearly nonsense. It links to this paper: https://web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/I/LandFossil.pdf https://web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/I/Land... The biggest line item in the estimate is oil wells. They assume an active oil well consumes 12 acres (0.05 sq km) of land. There’s no way that is close to accurate. The well and pump head use a few hundred square feet, max. They usually have an area around the well head that’s mowed for access, and also an access road. Typically, there is also a pipe to carry the oil away. Even if there is on-site storage, the tanks are at most 100’s of square feet. An acre is over 43,000 square feet. My estimates would have to be off by a factor of 1000 for a well head to occupy 12 acres. The idea that we would use ~ 1% of the earth’s surface for wind, solar and hydro is similarly nonsensical. Wind farms can be dual use (e.g., cows can live on them). Solar panels can more than power a one story building on average while using less than the entire square footage of the building. The earth’s surface is no where near 1% buildings. Cities account for less than 1% of the surface.
- kbenson 4y ago
  Instead of using estimated based on what you think the equipment should take up, perhaps you should take a look at the google maps link your sibling posted, and zoom into some oil wells (the cleared land lots) and use the measurement tool (right click) to get the area of some of them (which it shows if you create an enclosed area). I just measures three, with the following square footage: 443k sq ft, 338k sq ft, 164k sq ft. Each lot looks to have multiple wells, but there's a lot of just cleared empty land for each lot, so I suspect you're being very optimistic on your assessment of how much land is used for each well. The study cited may be overestimating also, but they cite their sources (even if they aren't explaining exactly where they get well land use amount from), so perhaps there's an explanation buried deeper in there.

by guerby 4y ago

EdwardDiego 4y ago

It's pretty intuitive that coal extraction in particular has an extensive land footprint if you've ever seen strip mining, mountaintop mining (especially when the waste rock is dumped into nearby valleys), or open pit mining.

jasonwatkinspdx 4y ago

Unfortunately Jacobson's numbers are not nearly as solid as he claims. I learned this digging through years ago. He depends very heavily on implied cost savings of reduced fossil fuel that are based on thin if not nonexistent modeling, just assumptions, for his breakeven calculation. It doesn't take much digging to find similar week foundations across his work in general. I was disappointed when I learned this and confirmed it with a couple people who follow this stuff a lot more closely, one of them professionally as an environmental economist.

ZeroGravitas 4y ago
Jacobson gets nitpicked a lot, but his general models seem to have been vindicated as time has gone on. What exactly do you think he's getting wrong? And is it at a scale that matters even if you are correct?
- guerby 4y ago
  I for one also would like to see a real critique and not some vague comments again and again on "not being serious" without the slighest data. Each time I looked it turned out legit. Last check I did on two 100% RE studies with feedback from one author: https://twitter.com/lguerby/status/1562911969757106176 https://twitter.com/lguerby/status/1562911969757106176 comparing https://reneweconomy.com.au/a-near-100-per-cent-renewables-grid-is-well-within-reach-and-with-little-storage/ https://reneweconomy.com.au/a-near-100-per-cent-renewables-g... (2022) and http://web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/I/145Country/21-WWS-Australia.pdf http://web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/I/145Co... (table 4 for 2050) : wind 41GW vs 100, solar 58 vs 360. would be interesting to have both authors insights Indeed in your work total produced is 267 TWh/y uncurtailed, in @mzjacobson study table 9 is 3243 over 3 year so 1080 TWh/y. About a factor of four more. In nameplate factor of 6.2 for solar and 2.4 for wind so somewhat coherent Also a must read IMHO recent survey paper on the 100% RE field: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9837910 https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9837910 On the History and Future of 100% Renewable Energy Systems Research
audunw 4y ago
You should be aware that there a lot of critism out there that is completely wrong, like ones based on misreading/misinterpreting statements from his studies. You should make sure to read response to criticism if you can find it. I haven't heard this specific criticism before though, so can't comment on that specifically. But you should also consider that his studies are ridiculously conservative, so there's a lot of room for error that technological improvements can compensate for. With the first versions of his studies I thought it odd that he didn't include much offshore wind. It was becoming clear that offshore wind was becoming very viable. But he used the current costs when writing the study, not projected future costs. Now I think his studies include off shore wind because the cost has come down far enough that it makes sense to include them in calculations. I think it's reasonable to assume that the costs of renewables will continue to come down, that solar efficiency will go up, and that we will have at least one or two breakthrough battery chemistry, and possibly a breakthrough in geothermal too, by 2040-2050.

jeffbee 4y ago

All you need to do is open your eyes anywhere in Texas to see how much land gas and oil takes. Every hole in the ground has 1-10 acres of sacrificial land that's just scraped flat. Entire nation-sized ecosystems have been completely wrecked for oil and gas production. https://www.google.com/maps/@28.9853961,-97.7870272,32772m/data=!3m1!1e3 https://www.google.com/maps/@28.9853961,-97.7870272,32772m/d...

guerby 4y ago
Many thanks for the maps link: it helped me fully realize how spot on is Mark Z Jacobson. I never bothered to look to oil & gas map and street view until now ...

baud147258 4y ago

> With solar and wind, fuel mining is zero, forever. well, you have to first build the solar panels/wind turbines. And then some fuel to power up the gas /oil plants that'll pick up the slack when there's no wind and sun; or you build over the required needs and add batteries (or other power storage methods).

hedora 4y ago

The 1.3% number is clearly nonsense. It links to this paper: https://web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/I/LandFossil.pdf https://web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/I/Land... The biggest line item in the estimate is oil wells. They assume an active oil well consumes 12 acres (0.05 sq km) of land. There’s no way that is close to accurate. The well and pump head use a few hundred square feet, max. They usually have an area around the well head that’s mowed for access, and also an access road. Typically, there is also a pipe to carry the oil away. Even if there is on-site storage, the tanks are at most 100’s of square feet. An acre is over 43,000 square feet. My estimates would have to be off by a factor of 1000 for a well head to occupy 12 acres. The idea that we would use ~ 1% of the earth’s surface for wind, solar and hydro is similarly nonsensical. Wind farms can be dual use (e.g., cows can live on them). Solar panels can more than power a one story building on average while using less than the entire square footage of the building. The earth’s surface is no where near 1% buildings. Cities account for less than 1% of the surface.

kbenson 4y ago
Instead of using estimated based on what you think the equipment should take up, perhaps you should take a look at the google maps link your sibling posted, and zoom into some oil wells (the cleared land lots) and use the measurement tool (right click) to get the area of some of them (which it shows if you create an enclosed area). I just measures three, with the following square footage: 443k sq ft, 338k sq ft, 164k sq ft. Each lot looks to have multiple wells, but there's a lot of just cleared empty land for each lot, so I suspect you're being very optimistic on your assessment of how much land is used for each well. The study cited may be overestimating also, but they cite their sources (even if they aren't explaining exactly where they get well land use amount from), so perhaps there's an explanation buried deeper in there.