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Bet. When we look at the increased demand due to population growth, electric vehicles, crypto and AI, I am going to disbelieve this goal until I see it. I woul

Bet. When we look at the increased demand due to population growth, electric vehicles, crypto and AI, I am going to disbelieve this goal until I see it. I would go as far as to bet we see a higher amount in MW produced from coal, but perhaps a smaller percentage. It takes like 20 years to build a nuclear power plant in the US. Maybe if we somehow fix our endemic construction issues and are able to put up a couple nuke plants a year for the next decade we will reach it. Or at best we just replace coal with natural gas, and in which case who cares, our CO2 production is still going up?

Symbiote 3y ago
Electric vehicles are a net reduction in energy use — you could burn the oil to make electricity and still come out ahead.
acdha 3y ago
> Or at best we just replace coal with natural gas, and in which case who cares, our CO2 production is still going up? The rate of change matters: every bit of carbon emitter now makes it worse, so any form of power less polluting than coal buys a little time to deal with the hard problems like heavy industrial processes which take more time to convert. The big thing you’re leaving out is the growth curve on renewables, especially solar. We’re already seeing major economies (Germany, California) hitting periods of completely running their power grids on renewables, and as the cost goes down it’s going to be even less economically viable to burn coal. One of the big questions is who will figure out how to use peak overproduction effectively since that has the potential to make things like EVs even cheaper than the fossil fuel alternatives. This is also why we need some kind of tax or an outright ban on proof of waste cryptocurrencies. Everything else will improve as cheap renewables become widespread but the whole point of something like bitcoin is to show that you’re wasting the most power, and that scales with production in a way nothing else does. Given the minimal economic impact, a ban would be most beneficial but a general carbon tax would be effective on a slower scale.
LUmBULtERA 3y ago
There is enough wind, solar, and batteries in our interconnection queues right now to make a net zero electric grid: https://emp.lbl.gov/queues https://emp.lbl.gov/queues. Many of those specific projects will not be built, but others will as some of those drop and others are added. Check out CAISO.com right now to see the massive decline in natural gas use on a daily basis in April of 2024 vs. April of 2023 -- batteries are already crushing natural gas use in the afternoon peak, in just one year. As others point out, switching to EVs will result in an overall decline in energy use, and those EVs can also be set to charge when renewable resources are abundant and might otherwise be curtailed.
- sqeaky 3y ago
  I would prefer all green energy, but there is a lot of natural gas in the US. Likely, closing down a coal plant and replacing it with a gas plant will happen in more than a few places.
  - LUmBULtERA 3y ago
    I don't doubt that will likely occur in more than a few places. I just doubt the need for it to happen. As natural gas use diminishes and those interconnection queues start cranking through the massive traffic jam of renewables and batteries trying to get on the grid, that means less and less volumes of natural gas paying for all of the fixed-cost infrastructure. Gas rates will consequently go up and up in a spiral, making short-run decisions to build more gas infrastructure very short-sighted and likely to cause a significant amount of stranded assets in the future.
thebruce87m 3y ago
> electric vehicles Most people who are able charge at night when demand is lower anyway. Not sure about your other points, but here are some points about EVs in the UK: > The highest peak electricity demand in the UK in recent years was 62GW in 2002. Since then, the nation’s peak demand has fallen by roughly 16% due to improvements in energy efficiency. > Even if we all switched to EVs overnight, we estimate demand would only increase by around 10%. So we’d still be using less power as a nation than we did in 2002, and this is well within the range the grid can capably handle. https://www.nationalgrid.com/stories/journey-to-net-zero/electric-vehicles-myths-misconceptions https://www.nationalgrid.com/stories/journey-to-net-zero/ele...
throw0101a 3y ago
> Or at best we just replace coal with natural gas, and in which case who cares, our CO2 production is still going up? One should care about coal versus natural/methane gas because: > Coal produces more CO2 per unit of energy than natural gas does when burned. Coal consumption for electricity generation produces 209 pounds of CO2 per million British thermal units (MMBtu), compared with 117 pounds of CO2/MMBtu for natural gas. * https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=48296 https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=48296 > Coal contains more carbon than oil or gas. When we burn these fuels, the higher amount of carbon in coal reacts to form CO2, while a higher proportion of hydrogen in oil and gas causes them to form H2O along with CO2. * https://climate.mit.edu/ask-mit/why-does-burning-coal-generate-more-co2-oil-or-gas https://climate.mit.edu/ask-mit/why-does-burning-coal-genera... (Happy to switch to nuclear and/or renewable instead though.)

Symbiote 3y ago

Electric vehicles are a net reduction in energy use — you could burn the oil to make electricity and still come out ahead.

acdha 3y ago

> Or at best we just replace coal with natural gas, and in which case who cares, our CO2 production is still going up? The rate of change matters: every bit of carbon emitter now makes it worse, so any form of power less polluting than coal buys a little time to deal with the hard problems like heavy industrial processes which take more time to convert. The big thing you’re leaving out is the growth curve on renewables, especially solar. We’re already seeing major economies (Germany, California) hitting periods of completely running their power grids on renewables, and as the cost goes down it’s going to be even less economically viable to burn coal. One of the big questions is who will figure out how to use peak overproduction effectively since that has the potential to make things like EVs even cheaper than the fossil fuel alternatives. This is also why we need some kind of tax or an outright ban on proof of waste cryptocurrencies. Everything else will improve as cheap renewables become widespread but the whole point of something like bitcoin is to show that you’re wasting the most power, and that scales with production in a way nothing else does. Given the minimal economic impact, a ban would be most beneficial but a general carbon tax would be effective on a slower scale.

LUmBULtERA 3y ago

There is enough wind, solar, and batteries in our interconnection queues right now to make a net zero electric grid: https://emp.lbl.gov/queues https://emp.lbl.gov/queues. Many of those specific projects will not be built, but others will as some of those drop and others are added. Check out CAISO.com right now to see the massive decline in natural gas use on a daily basis in April of 2024 vs. April of 2023 -- batteries are already crushing natural gas use in the afternoon peak, in just one year. As others point out, switching to EVs will result in an overall decline in energy use, and those EVs can also be set to charge when renewable resources are abundant and might otherwise be curtailed.

sqeaky 3y ago
I would prefer all green energy, but there is a lot of natural gas in the US. Likely, closing down a coal plant and replacing it with a gas plant will happen in more than a few places.
- LUmBULtERA 3y ago
  I don't doubt that will likely occur in more than a few places. I just doubt the need for it to happen. As natural gas use diminishes and those interconnection queues start cranking through the massive traffic jam of renewables and batteries trying to get on the grid, that means less and less volumes of natural gas paying for all of the fixed-cost infrastructure. Gas rates will consequently go up and up in a spiral, making short-run decisions to build more gas infrastructure very short-sighted and likely to cause a significant amount of stranded assets in the future.

thebruce87m 3y ago

> electric vehicles Most people who are able charge at night when demand is lower anyway. Not sure about your other points, but here are some points about EVs in the UK: > The highest peak electricity demand in the UK in recent years was 62GW in 2002. Since then, the nation’s peak demand has fallen by roughly 16% due to improvements in energy efficiency. > Even if we all switched to EVs overnight, we estimate demand would only increase by around 10%. So we’d still be using less power as a nation than we did in 2002, and this is well within the range the grid can capably handle. https://www.nationalgrid.com/stories/journey-to-net-zero/electric-vehicles-myths-misconceptions https://www.nationalgrid.com/stories/journey-to-net-zero/ele...

throw0101a 3y ago

> Or at best we just replace coal with natural gas, and in which case who cares, our CO2 production is still going up? One should care about coal versus natural/methane gas because: > Coal produces more CO2 per unit of energy than natural gas does when burned. Coal consumption for electricity generation produces 209 pounds of CO2 per million British thermal units (MMBtu), compared with 117 pounds of CO2/MMBtu for natural gas. * https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=48296 https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=48296 > Coal contains more carbon than oil or gas. When we burn these fuels, the higher amount of carbon in coal reacts to form CO2, while a higher proportion of hydrogen in oil and gas causes them to form H2O along with CO2. * https://climate.mit.edu/ask-mit/why-does-burning-coal-generate-more-co2-oil-or-gas https://climate.mit.edu/ask-mit/why-does-burning-coal-genera... (Happy to switch to nuclear and/or renewable instead though.)