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Switching World to Renewable Energy Will Cost $62T, Payback Would Take 6 Years
- natch 4y agoAbout the article headline, the real concept that I would prefer to see articles written about is sustainable, not renewable. Not every part of the solution is going to be technically renewable in the short term according to strict definitions. But the overall energy picture needs to be sustainable. Or else, it cannot be… sustained. An article that talks strictly about renewables is fine (just not great); that's their right to write such an article if they want, but the transition to renewables should be understood in the context of the encompassing transition to sustainability. Sustainable solutions would, for example, include some reasonable and needed use of fossil fuels, for certain situations where they are still the best solution even accounting for their adverse effects.
- benj111 4y agoIf this is the situation why isn't any country just unilaterally going for it?
- klyrs 4y agocui bono, indeed
- mrob 4y agoThe next election is less than 6 years away.
- nayuki 4y agoNot in a dictatorship.
- makomk 4y agoThis isn't an explanation at all. I can tell you that, for example, the UK's renewable energy push is operating on a timescale rather longer than that - a good six years elapsed just between the government deciding to focus on offshore wind and the industry getting good enough to build it that it was cheaper than onshore (something which was predicted at the time) and it'll be a few more years before enough is built that we get substantial benefit from those lower costs. The more likely explanation is that it just isn't as easy as they're claiming. Admittedly, the government here seems to be getting zero benefit politically or in the public opinion from that long term planning.
- ceejayoz 4y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_renewable_electricity_production https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_renewable... 12 countries are listed as over 90% renewable currently. Iceland at 100%; Norway at 97.2%.
- Ekaros 4y agoAh hydro... Explains most cases, not really realistic in others. Though there is some interesting cases, but likely even those are hard to replicate.
- ceejayoz 4y agoSure. You do hydro in Norway. Solar in Spain. Wind in the North Sea. Geothermal in Iceland. Different places, different forms of generation. Trade regionally for redundancy. The question was “why isn’t anyone doing it”; the answer is “they are”.
- Ekaros 4y agoBut other than hydro and geothermal do those run 24/7/365? And is the storage in place? Or do they rely on some others to fullfil those? What if that isn't an option lets say middle of desert?
- natch 4y agoYes, wind runs 24/7/365. And cars have their own storage, so that's solved for cars at least. Let's say in the middle of the desert… Well, if there are no people there, then perhaps there is no need for power. And if there are people, they can choose to live a primitive lifestyle, or they can buy batteries and solar panels and wind generators, or (shocker) they can continue to use petroleum products for energy, that is also an option even if the world switches to renewable energy.
- ceejayoz 4y agoWind runs at night. Solar doesn't, but demand is correspondingly lower at night, too. Storage will evolve as the need evolves, just like cell phone batteries did.
- gehsty 4y agoDenmark in particular is, but lots of European countries are. Reality is it takes time to align markets, development permits and supply chains with government policies…
- sveme 4y agoAll studies that I read about 100% reneweables point out that you need a large, meteorologically diverse catchment area and a highly interconnected grid. That will balance out local fluctuations and will massively reduce the need for storage. Problem is, it will require lots of countries to cooperate - except if you are a very large country. The US should be able with its coastlines, deserts, hydropower and so forth.
- Ekaros 4y agoAlso that is rather worrying scenario looking back at USA attacks on NS pipelines. What if the target where these grid interconnects? That would be catastrophic.
- oneoff786 4y ago> Ford is spending $40 billion to transition to making electric cars. Volkswagen, Mercedes, GM, BMW, Hyundai, Honda, Nissan, and Toyota are doing the same. Does anyone think that money is just an expense or that the managers of those companies have not calculated the expected return on their investment down to the fraction of a penny? This statement really annoyed me and undermined their credibility
- emit_time 4y agoLol We have no effective way of storing energy. If you only want energy on sunny windy days during daytime, this is fine. Enjoy the power going out at night and when the wind slows down. Hopefully we will get much cheaper storage and production soon, but it's not completely viable now.
- kitkat_new 4y agothere are effective ways of storing energy, but there isn't a silver bullet that has high efficiency, low cost, long storage duration and high storage capacity
- Ekaros 4y agoCost competition is biggest aspect in my mind. Is the storage competitive compared to alternative if power is free is good benchmark in my mind to start with. And what are political and ecological implications of them. As I doubt even the Greens prepared to build up most effective pumped hydro locations anymore. Effectively flooding quite large areas. And also I take there is questions where to get the water from in parts of the world...
- kitkat_new 4y agoCost must include environmental costs such as direct destruction of the environment and greenhouse gas emissions. Competition on the basis of today's market prices which don't include this, is nonsense.
- nuancebydefault 4y agoEnergy storage is a part of the problem. The good thing is, if we combine multiple energy production methods and connect it to a smarter grid with a smarter consumption profile, we can do with storing much less. The solutions are already known and are feasible. The ultimate problem is, the transition takes a lot of time, certainly given it needs to be smooth, we don't want too many outages. And we seem be be running out of time.
- 4y ago
- choeger 4y agoYeah. Except that just building the factories to build the solar panels and wind turbines would take longer than that. And that statement ignores the whole supply chain. The thing is, despite what extinction rebellion et. al. tell us, the global economy is moving to renewables pretty much full speed. It's just that that same economy has so much inertia that it will take decades to make that switch. But the second half will not take nearly as long as the first.
- thefz 4y ago> The thing is, despite what extinction rebellion et. al. tell us, the global economy is moving to renewables pretty much full speed. No, no. Until there's still a drop of oil or a lump of coal to exploit, there will be no "full speed". Corps want you to believe they are thinking green, while they just don't care. Events like the energy crisis in Europe might open a few eyes, but nothing more.
- kitkat_new 4y ago> The thing is, despite what extinction rebellion et. al. tell us, the global economy is moving to renewables pretty much full speed. bold statement - can you back this up? I find it very hard to believe
- choeger 4y agoPrices and lead time for solar power projects. Right now, solar power is a no-brainer for pretty much everyone in the industrialized world. No one does not invest into solar because they're stubborn or stupid. The pipeline is simply sold-out. It's similar for wind power, but somewhat distorted by the very long time it takes to build a wind farm (from planning to first watt-hour). Notably, noone can put a wind turbine on their roof.
- orwin 4y agoNot GP, but here highlight the issue: https://www.iea.org/reports/the-role-of-critical-minerals-in-clean-energy-transitions/executive-summary https://www.iea.org/reports/the-role-of-critical-minerals-in... Our bottleneck right now is processing, not mining (because of the energy crisis).
- stevenfoster 4y agoComrade! I have figured out renewable energy. Let me tell you of my top down plan to solve it! Wait in this line. No that's the bread line, wait in the other line for your energy then get back in the bread line. With that out of the way, the glaring miss here is that gasoline or coal burned at utility scale is quite efficient and while far from perfect, that is a different calculation than, wow somehow like there are hundreds of millions of gas cars everywhere. That's pretty inefficient. Also with all this renewable energy, how are you going to light up the forges that need massive amounts of energy to make the materials for wind capture? Will lithium, iron, and phosphate mining really do less harm at scale than fracking and mining for coal? If shipping and logistics use more energy than individual consumers, and consumers buy their home energy from their utility companies, why are you trying to hard sell individuals if you actually have a solid value proposition for utilities and shipping/logistic companies? They have the assets to leverage for loans and investments to deploy new means of energy at scale. Why do you need to preach to individuals that their gas car is evil, when your economies of scale at the corporate level should make a consumer option more affordable and accessible?
- bryanlarsen 4y agoA typical EV uses about 30kg of lithium. A typical gas car will use 50 tons of gasoline. And that lithium is recyclable while the gasoline isn't. Even if that lithium mining and processing is dirty, is it >1000x dirtier?
- tenpies 4y agoAt that point, the minute we start taxing scope 3 emissions, every single EV company goes bankrupt. Surprise: mining runs on diesel and natural gas. Now add in all those emissions to those 30 kg of lithium (and let's not even count all the other extremely environmentally hostile elements needed). Now we ship them accross the world, usually to China, and then from China to somewhere else. Then we burn coal (Germany today) to build that shiny "green" Tesla. If we were serious about this green thing we would be focused on urban planning, public transit, and retrofitting existing vehicles to be greener. The greenest car is a car you don't have to manufacture.
- edwnj 4y agoThis is so dumb it takes superhuman levels of restraint for me to not swear. We literally don't have the tech nor capacity for make this transition: - we dont have the rare earth minerals - we don't have the metals - with exception of nuclear all these alternatives are extremely inefficient. It takes years of sustained exponential demand to even let capacity catch up and thats if we can even feasible find new reserves (for rare earth). Let alone the game theoretic situation where u can only achieve this with a tyranny. It will cost significantly less to adapt and change..
- ram4jesus 4y agoDoes anyone actually believe this? This is not possible without deindustrialization.
- Proven 4y ago
- jaarse 4y agoGreat… Except Steel, Concrete, Plastics, and Ammonia production all require fossil fuels and we do not have any alternative. We also do not have a viable alternative for air travel, or large scale shipping. While I think it is a worthwhile goal to pursue clean energy technologies, we are a very long way (with no known alternative) from getting rid of fossil fuels.
- natch 4y agoWe aren't getting rid of fossil fuels though, so this concern is a distraction from the real work that needs to be done. Yes of course we will still need fossil fuels even after we finish transitioning to renewables, for some of the cases you mention, and for edge cases. It's a valid point for you to raise since they made the mistake of making their article about renewable energy, not about the larger encompassing solution of which renewables are only a part, namely sustainable energy. But raising this point doesn't begin to dismiss the fact that a huge component of transitioning to sustainable will be transitioning much of our energy sourcing to renewables.
- Gud 4y agoRegarding steel, it is being made carbon free by LKAB in Sweden. https://lkab.com/en/press/hybrit-the-worlds-first-fossil-free-steel-ready-for-delivery/ https://lkab.com/en/press/hybrit-the-worlds-first-fossil-fre...
- teilo 4y agoAdd this to the list of the article titles that are obvious bullsh*t without bothering to RTFA.
- pedalpete 4y agoUnderstandably so much negativity to this article, and I stopped reading after a few paragraphs, it's mostly garbage. However, let's take a look at it another way. If it would take $62T to convert to 100% renewable, how much would it cost to get to 80% renewable? I'm trying to get a read on how much of the current energy is from renewables, and I'm seeing figures in the 8-30%. It's a big spread, but it is showing how far we may have come.
- greggeter 4y ago