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You realize we’re nowhere near decarbonizing the manufacturing sector and the related transportation right? Like probably not even 2075. Think diesel trucks, di

You realize we’re nowhere near decarbonizing the manufacturing sector and the related transportation right? Like probably not even 2075. Think diesel trucks, diesel excavators, diesel power tools, diesel boats, etc etc. You have to take the world as it is not as you’d like it to be. You also mention the time spent waiting for nuclear to come online but fail to consider that PV has consistently failed to reduce fossil fuel usage (in absolute or percentage numbers) even as the market share of it has skyrocketed. That would indicate that at best solar panels are helping offset energy growth from using fossil fuels although in practice it’s more likely that it’s been eating market share from things like biomass and other alternative fuels. Sure in some hypothetical future it might be a lot less. But notice how you complain about not factoring in the manufacturing time of a nuclear plant in terms of lifetime CO2 emissions but then conveniently ignore the time we’d need to supplant those same co2 emissions with solar + batteries? That’s a terribly bad faith argument. Also more PV installations don’t help get us to true net 0 because some manufacturing needs such high levels of heat that they collocate with power plants that generate heat (fossil fuels or nuclear). Not to mention what do you with boats? I’m pretty sure we’d need nuclear on shipping boats to get rid of that massive amount of CO2. PV and wind power plants can’t help with that either. There’s some talk about electrifying the ports but best case attached solar in ports will be used to get to net 0 while at port (but still massive emitters during transit). Lifecycle emissions today definitely matter because we have to build a realistic trajectory. And in 2050 when PVs have failed to help us achieve net 0 the argument will come up again “oh but now nuclear is too expensive / takes too long to build” etc. we should be investing in and building nuclear power aggressively not continuing to put our eggs in the perennial disappointment that is PV power plants.

ViewTrick1002 3y ago
> You also mention the time spent waiting for nuclear to come online but fail to consider that PV has consistently failed to reduce fossil fuel usage (in absolute or percentage numbers) even as the market share of it has skyrocketed. You should look at flows rather than stocks. > However, stocks are a lagging indicator. Stocks follow flows; the car fleet follows car sales. Flows are the leading indicator. In the early stages of a transition, flows present a very different story to stocks. For instance, it is frequently noted that fossil fuels account for over 80 percent of global primary energy and this number hasn’t budged meaningfully for decades. > Rarely mentioned is the fact that renewables have been taking an increasing share of the growth in energy supply, and all of the growth in 2019-21. Moving the focus from stocks to flows moves the conclusion from no change to radical change. Concentrating on the size of the fossil fuel system today is like focusing on the large number of horses in 1900 — it was as good a guide then as it is now. https://www.theclimatebrink.com/cp/138702709 https://www.theclimatebrink.com/cp/138702709 For example, China's fossil use is set for structural decline since renewables more than make up the required grid expansions. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/nov/13/chinas-carbon-emissions-set-for-structural-decline-from-next-year https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/nov/13/chinas-carb...
- vlovich123 3y ago
  No I’m looking at flows. Look at the change in % of fossil fuels to other energy sources over time. When Nuclear goes up, fossil fuels goes down, when it goes down fossil fuels go up. When solar/wind go up, fossil fuels are untouched. https://ourworldindata.org/electricity-mix https://ourworldindata.org/electricity-mix Also, again - PVs can only replace grid energy (well not even then because we don’t have an answer for storage & there’s nothing being built anytime soon & we don’t really have anything realistic in the R&D pipeline). Plenty of energy use in the production of PVs is off-grid and we’re doing terribly on replacing that. PVs manufacturing isn’t going to be net-0 for a very very very long time.
  - pfdietz 3y ago
    > PVs can only replace grid energy PV can replace anything. The question is cost. At historical experience rates, PV energy will be under $0.01/kWh by the time the world is solar powered. Resistive heat using this would be comparable in cost to combustion of currently cheap US natural gas, perhaps even cheaper. It would literally be cheaper to use that to heat up a large mass of rock and use that to make steam to make power, than it would be to make that steam (and then generate power) with a nuclear reactor instead.
pfdietz 3y ago
If those sectors are not decarbonized by 2075 that means global society will have placed a rather low value on avoided CO2 emissions. In that case, the value of the residual lifecycle CO2 from PV or nuclear will be very small compared to the direct cost. If nuclear is more expensive than renewables, as it clearly is currently (as evidenced by the world installing so much more renewables than nuclear, and the renewable installs growing so much faster than nuclear ever did), this small increment cannot save it. Nuclear for process heat is talked about, but never seems to happen. Process heat tends not to be a 24/7 thing, while nuclear wants near continuous use to amortize its fixed costs. In any case, heat is extremely storable, so acts as an excellent store for excess renewable power, stored as sensible heat in a large thermal store. This is much cheaper per unit of energy than storing energy in batteries. Nuclear will be competing against otherwise curtailed renewable output. Your projections about renewables in 2050 seem deranged, given the rate of increase in renewable installs and the rate of fall in renewable costs (and also storage). By 2050 people will have long since given up hawking nuclear, if current trends continue.

ViewTrick1002 3y ago

> You also mention the time spent waiting for nuclear to come online but fail to consider that PV has consistently failed to reduce fossil fuel usage (in absolute or percentage numbers) even as the market share of it has skyrocketed. You should look at flows rather than stocks. > However, stocks are a lagging indicator. Stocks follow flows; the car fleet follows car sales. Flows are the leading indicator. In the early stages of a transition, flows present a very different story to stocks. For instance, it is frequently noted that fossil fuels account for over 80 percent of global primary energy and this number hasn’t budged meaningfully for decades. > Rarely mentioned is the fact that renewables have been taking an increasing share of the growth in energy supply, and all of the growth in 2019-21. Moving the focus from stocks to flows moves the conclusion from no change to radical change. Concentrating on the size of the fossil fuel system today is like focusing on the large number of horses in 1900 — it was as good a guide then as it is now. https://www.theclimatebrink.com/cp/138702709 https://www.theclimatebrink.com/cp/138702709 For example, China's fossil use is set for structural decline since renewables more than make up the required grid expansions. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/nov/13/chinas-carbon-emissions-set-for-structural-decline-from-next-year https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/nov/13/chinas-carb...

vlovich123 3y ago
No I’m looking at flows. Look at the change in % of fossil fuels to other energy sources over time. When Nuclear goes up, fossil fuels goes down, when it goes down fossil fuels go up. When solar/wind go up, fossil fuels are untouched. https://ourworldindata.org/electricity-mix https://ourworldindata.org/electricity-mix Also, again - PVs can only replace grid energy (well not even then because we don’t have an answer for storage & there’s nothing being built anytime soon & we don’t really have anything realistic in the R&D pipeline). Plenty of energy use in the production of PVs is off-grid and we’re doing terribly on replacing that. PVs manufacturing isn’t going to be net-0 for a very very very long time.
- pfdietz 3y ago
  > PVs can only replace grid energy PV can replace anything. The question is cost. At historical experience rates, PV energy will be under $0.01/kWh by the time the world is solar powered. Resistive heat using this would be comparable in cost to combustion of currently cheap US natural gas, perhaps even cheaper. It would literally be cheaper to use that to heat up a large mass of rock and use that to make steam to make power, than it would be to make that steam (and then generate power) with a nuclear reactor instead.

pfdietz 3y ago

If those sectors are not decarbonized by 2075 that means global society will have placed a rather low value on avoided CO2 emissions. In that case, the value of the residual lifecycle CO2 from PV or nuclear will be very small compared to the direct cost. If nuclear is more expensive than renewables, as it clearly is currently (as evidenced by the world installing so much more renewables than nuclear, and the renewable installs growing so much faster than nuclear ever did), this small increment cannot save it. Nuclear for process heat is talked about, but never seems to happen. Process heat tends not to be a 24/7 thing, while nuclear wants near continuous use to amortize its fixed costs. In any case, heat is extremely storable, so acts as an excellent store for excess renewable power, stored as sensible heat in a large thermal store. This is much cheaper per unit of energy than storing energy in batteries. Nuclear will be competing against otherwise curtailed renewable output. Your projections about renewables in 2050 seem deranged, given the rate of increase in renewable installs and the rate of fall in renewable costs (and also storage). By 2050 people will have long since given up hawking nuclear, if current trends continue.