Living in the Windless Dark
It doesn’t matter whether you build a million wind turbines and solar panels, or a billion, or a trillion. On a calm night, they will still produce nothing, and will require full back-up from some other source.
— Francis Menton
This blog is called Shortfall for a reason. No matter how many solar panels and wind turbines you install, you still need energy during the times when they are not supplying power. In separate posts, I’ll do the math on renewable energy, batteries, and the raw materials required. I’ve already shown that CO2 is not causing climate change. In five parts, I lay out the arguments against renewables.
Part I: The big picture
Part II: Renewable math
Part III: The Minerals Needed
Part IV: Energy Storage
Part V: The Way Out
Here, I’ll present the big picture.
Visualizing the energy shortfall
Here we see a compound graph of the UK energy mix. Green is wind, yellow is solar. The entire graph is the shape of the demand for energy. You can see it peaks in the afternoons and goes down at nights. You can also see the shortfall — days and days when wind barely contributes, and days when solar is essentially offline.
Here’s a similar graph showing Germany’s required energy (brown), wind power (blue), and solar (yellow), for November 2019, and it assumes solar and wind capacity are triple what they were at that time.
Look at November 20, 21, 25, and 26. Those are the days when you need to have already generated and stored the entire electrical needs of the country in addition to providing those services at the time. There are similar graphs for every month of every year — sometimes you can cover the energy needs, other times you fall short. Very short. All that brown area needs to be covered before you can start decomissioning conventional power plants. And that’s with triple the capacity of 2019.
It gets worse. This is just a typical month. Here is September 2017 in Germany:
Notice anything wrong? Are there enough batteries on earth to power Germany for all that time? There aren’t. Can you see the high-pressure and low-pressure systems in this graph? Think about it — high-pressure systems generally provide sunshine and wind, while low-pressure systems cut both sun and wind simultaneously.
Both sun and wind fall short exactly when you need them most. If you think solar, wind, and batteries can replace even one fossil-fuel plant, then you must explain how the blue and yellow area in the chart above will be substantially greater than the brown area.
Renewables are weather-dependent. Here’s a map of cloud cover in Europe:
The light and dark blue areas are usually cloudy. Green areas are very often cloudy. Everything north of the Alps is very cloudy, which means low pressure is common, and both solar and wind underperform. And this is where people have decided to overcommit to renewables.
Note to self: check energy prices in Europe; see if they might reflect this.
A 100 percent renewable grid will need to meet the energy requirements of its population while simultaneously generating and storing enough energy to cover low-wind periods, which can last for weeks. Otherwise, all the solar, wind, and batteries are IN ADDITION TO maintaining a fossil-fuel-powered grid that covers 100 percent of the shortfall.
Is that even possible? In this and later episodes, I’ll explore the issue in depth. I want to start by asking you to watch this amazing and brave story told by Alexander Pohl of what he discovered as he traced the origins of wind projects in Scandinavia. Not what you might expect. Do not miss this:
Part II: Renewable Math
An environmentalist should be someone who does cost/benefit calculations. Most of the time, people who call themselves environmentalists have no interest in cost/benefit calculations, because their funding comes from tribal sources, not neutral sources.
We might not need to destroy the environment to save it. We should always think in terms of cost/benefit rather than dogma, ideals, or slogans. Here I list several of the best “do the math” essays on both the costs and benefits of renewable energy, with short summaries because I know people don’t click.
If you like videos, here Rupert Darwall shows the data and explains why the UK grid is becoming less efficient, less effective, and more expensive.
Here’s Soren Hansen breaking it down:
If you prefer to read, these reports break it down further:
This report is the first comprehensive analysis of Britain’s climate and energy policies and their impact on electricity generation and costs, as well as on energy security. It shows how increasingly stringent climate policies have been justified on the basis of false claims of low and falling renewable energy costs, especially of offshore wind, so that net zero was adopted in ignorance of its likely costs. Subsequent official analyses of net zero paint an optimistic picture based on economic make-believe.
Net-Zero Targets: Sustainable Future or CO2 Obsession Driven Dead-end?
The primary challenge in relying on renewable energy sources is aligning consumption with the availability of intermittent energy fluxes. The distinction between stock vs. flux limited resources was first proposed with respect to water resources (2), but it is applicable to other resources including energy. Relying on flux limited resources consumed within the flux limits are clearly the pathways to sustainability defined as “a form of development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” (3), but stock limited resources serve both as a source and storage.
Fossil fuels formed over hundreds of million years offer the inherent flexibility of allowing consumption as needed, Flux limited resources necessitates the alignment of the consumption with their availability unless supplemental storage is available. Surprisingly few scientific papers have attempted to address this alignment that is so critical for relying on intermittent energy sources such as solar or wind that are envisioned as the primary energy sources in a sustainable future.
How Many km2 of Solar Panels in Spain and how much battery backup would it take to power Germany, by Lars Schernikau and William Smith
To match Germany’s electricity demand (or over 15% of EU’s electricity demand) solely from solar photovoltaic panels located in Spain, about 7% of Spain would have to be covered with solar panels (~35.000 km2). The required Spanish solar park (PV-Spain) will have a total installed capacity of 2.000 GWp or almost 3x the 2020 installed solar capacity worldwide of 715 GW.
To produce sufficient storage capacity from batteries using today’s leading technology would require the full output of 900 Tesla Gigafactories working at full capacity for one year, not counting the replacement of batteries every 20 years. For the entire European Union’s electricity demand, 6 times as much — about 40 % of Spain (~200.000 km2) — would be required, coupled with a battery capacity 6x higher.
Impacts of Large-Scale Sahara Solar Farms on Global Climate and Vegetation Cover, by Lu et al.
Large-scale photovoltaic solar farms envisioned over the Sahara desert can meet the world’s energy demand while increasing regional rainfall and vegetation cover. However, adverse remote effects resulting from atmospheric teleconnections could offset such regional benefits. We use state-of-the-art Earth-system model simulations to evaluate the global impacts of Sahara solar farms. Our results indicate a redistribution of precipitation causing Amazon droughts and forest degradation, and global surface temperature rise and sea-ice loss, particularly over the Arctic due to increased polarward heat transport, and northward expansion of deciduous forests in the Northern Hemisphere.
The paper finds that with current technology, the cost of the grid would be as high as £250 billion per year, or £8000 per household. That level of expenditure would need to be maintained indefinitely.
Offshore wind: Cost predictions and cost outcomes, by Andrew Montford
This paper compares and contrasts the different views of the costs of offshore windfarms through consideration of the individual cost drivers and the levelised cost of electricity (LCOE), a measure of the overall cost base. LCOE has been strongly criticised when applied to intermittent energy generators such as offshore wind, because it presents an over-optimistic view.12 Nevertheless, renewables advocates and the media continue to use it as a way to make claims about the viability of such technologies. However, this paper will show that the claims of renewables advocates are unfounded, even on an LCOE basis.
Out to Sea: The Dismal Economics of Offshore Wind, Jonathan Lesser, 2020
Proponents of offshore wind energy tout its clean energy bona fides and rapidly decreasing costs (as evidenced by recent competitive solicitations), which will enable states to meet ambitious targets to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions and reliance on fossil fuel and nuclear power. Advocates also see offshore wind as an avenue to create a manufacturing and economic renaissance in their respective states, one that will create thousands of construction jobs and generate billions of dollars of new economic activity.
Addressing the high real cost of renewable generation, Watt-Logic
The study points out that the LCOE (Levelised Cost of Energy, which reflects the cost of generating electricity from different types of power plants, on a per-unit of electricity basis over an assumed lifetime and quantity of electricity generated by the plant) for renewables is higher than for fossil fuel generation once the costs of backing-up their intermittency is included, something many analyses including the ones used by BEIS, fail to include. Cost comparisons should reflect the costs of delivering reliable electricity to end users …
Decarbonizing electricity in the European Union: A programmed failure demonstrated by the figures, by Pierre Kunsch Physicist PhD in Sciences Honorary Professor at Free University of Brussels
Wind and photovoltaic capacities, expressed in Gigawatts, i.e. in millions of kW, negligible in 2000, rose to 347.3 GW in 2021 (+2.678%). Meanwhile, traditional dispatchable capacities (natural gas, coal, nuclear, run-of-river hydro and biomass) have not decreased, but on the contrary increased, going from 493 GW to 563 GW (+14%). There was a sharp rise in natural gas (+230%) and a moderate rise in hydropower (+12%), offsetting the sharp reduction in coal capacities (-33%), a strong emitter of CO2, but also nuclear ( -21%), yet non-CO2 emitter. Total capacity has increased from 508 GW in 2000 to 916 GW in 2021, an increase of 80% to satisfy only 9% more consumption! The lion’s share is represented by variable renewables with 39% of this capacity. There was therefore no replacement of dispatchable sources by these so-called ‘clean’ renewables, and therefore no energy transition for electricity which would have led to the gradual disappearance of fossil sources.
Compendium for a Sensible Energy Policy, by Dr Nikolai Ziegler
Despite this enormous effort, security of supply is increasingly under threat. At the same time, people and the biosphere are suffering; wildlife protection has become subordinated to climate mitigation, even though the possibility of achieving the goals of reducing carbon dioxide emissions is becoming increasingly distant and the measures for the energy transition seem to become more and more questionable from a constitutional point of view.
Our problem description … shows that wind and solar energy, which seem to promise a quick fix, are not simple alternatives to fossil fuels. Indeed, they are not even part of the answer; as their deployment becomes widespread, they become a problem in themselves and make it even more important to find sensible solutions.
Junk Science Week: Net Zero Edition — Vaclav Smil: Why net-zero 2050 really won’t work, by Vaclav Smil
Cutting per capita energy demand by half in three decades would be an astonishing accomplishment given the fact that over the previous 30 years global per capita energy demand rose by 20 per cent. The projection assumes that the much lower demand for energy will arise from a combination of moving away from owning goods, the digitalization of daily life, and a rapid diffusion of technical innovations in converting and storing energies.
Donn Dears does the math. Net Zero Reality
If wind turbines are used in an attempt to eliminate fossil fuels, it will require building more than 995,141 new wind turbines rated 2.5 MW between now and 2050. The most wind turbines ever installed in one year has been 5680.
Geophysical constraints on the reliability of solar and wind power worldwide, Nature Communications; Tong, et al.
Abstract: If future net-zero emissions energy systems rely heavily on solar and wind resources, spatial and temporal mismatches between resource availability and electricity demand may challenge system reliability. Using 39 years of hourly reanalysis data (1980–2018), we analyze the ability of solar and wind resources to meet electricity demand in 42 countries, varying the hypothetical scale and mix of renewable generation as well as energy storage capacity. Assuming perfect transmission and annual generation equal to annual demand, but no energy storage, we find the most reliable renewable electricity systems are wind-heavy and satisfy countries’ electricity demand in 72–91% of hours (83–94% by adding 12 h of storage). Yet even in systems which meet >90% of demand, hundreds of hours of unmet demand may occur annually. Our analysis helps quantify the power, energy, and utilization rates of additional energy storage, demand management, or curtailment, as well as the benefits of regional aggregation.
Are We Nearly There Yet?, by Chris Bond
On one of the sunniest days of the year so far — 15th June — the solar energy generated was just under 20% of installed capacity. Don’t look at the unsunny 5th of June if you like getting value for your ‘green levies’ on your energy bills. As for winters when we need all the energy we can get, try not to cry when you look at the November through February charts in my last substack post.
Roadmap to Nowhere, by Mike Conley and Tim Maloney
This is a little out of date, but it’s outstanding. These guys really do the math and show the results visually. Here is one tidbit:
Generating all U.S. primary energy by 2050 with renewables: Bare-bones cost: $15.2 Trillion. With 4 hrs of additional pumped hydro: $16.5 Trillion.
And that’s still in addition to growing the fleet of fossil-fueled power plants to keep the lights on in the windless dark. You can’t run a hospital or an airport on 4 additional hours of pumped hydro and batteries. In contrast, the authors calculate:
Generating all U.S. primary energy by 2050 with nuclear power: Total cost (depending on the reactors used): $3 Trillion — $6.7 Trillion.
The Six Ways Renewables Increase Electricity Bills, by Net Zero Watch
“In order to reduce bills, a new generator generally has to force an old one to leave the electricity market -- otherwise there are two sets of costs to cover. But with wind power, you can't let anything leave the market, because one day there might be no wind. … Renewables need subsidies, they cause inefficiency, they require new grid balancing services that need to be paid for; the list of all the different effects is surprisingly long. There is only one way a windfarm will push your power bills, and that's upwards.
Intermittent, Diffuse & Costly: Why Wind & Solar Can Never Power This Planet, by Lars Schernikau
The media says the share of solar and wind will grow exponentially but does not mention the growth of electronic waste shipped to Africa that comes with it. And it certainly does not mention that solar and wind technology can literally never be the main source for the world’s power generation due to their low energy density and the issues described below.
The era of 10-fold gains is over. There is no Moore’s Law in energy and therefore, what is seen in the domain of computers, cannot be expected from energy. Costs will not continue dropping and it is time that a whole-system view is taken when looking at solar and wind or any form of power generation. The three key problems of wind and solar generation are: 1) their variability, or intermittency, 2) extraordinarily low energy return on energy invested (ERoEI), 3) low energy density.
Here Comes the End of the Energiewende Again, by Energy Post
This post shows five days in a row where practically 100 percent of energy was needed from fossil fuels, and on the 13th of December, it was 100 percent:
Current policy support across Europe is grossly inadequate to support the required volumes of flex from low carbon sources, by Timera Energy
Take an illustrative example of a high-demand month like January. Average wind & solar output across the month was the equivalent of 21GW of continuous capacity contribution. But there was a day in Jan 2019 when output fell to the equivalent of 3GW (and it was lower in individual hours across that period) and another day when output topped 40GW. You cannot run a reliable electricity system based on the 21GW average wind & solar contribution. System flexibility is required to cope with the 3GW and 40GW days as well.
A Mostly Wind- and Solar-Powered U.S. Economy Is a Dangerous Fantasy, by Francis Menton
It doesn’t matter whether you build a million wind turbines and solar panels, or a billion, or a trillion. On a calm night, they will still produce nothing, and will require full back-up from some other source.
If you propose a predominantly wind/solar electricity system, where fossil fuel back-up is banned, you must, repeat must, address the question of energy storage. There should be highly-detailed engineering studies of how the transition can be accomplished…. But the opposite is the case. … There is no detailed engineering plan of how to accomplish the transition.
Ken Gregory calculated the cost of such a system as well over $100 trillion, before even getting to the question of whether battery technology exists that can store such amounts of energy for months on end and then discharge the energy over additional months. And even at that enormous cost, that calculation only applied to current levels of electricity consumption.
Fortune: The U.K. went all in on wind power. Here’s what happens when it stops blowing
As the European energy market grows increasingly reliant on a renewable energy source that is cheap to harness and carbon-emission free — but is clearly unreliable when the wind isn’t blowing — surging electricity bills are an unintended consequence of the energy transition.
Unintended? Really? No one saw this coming?
Challenges of Electrification & the Energy Transition, by Gareth Lewis and David Siegel
(Sorry, that link needs to be rescued, since Medium deplatformed me)
Gareth and I worked to publish a simplified analysis of the “energy transition,” concluding:
The rush to Net Zero causes more problems than it solves. Natural gas and coal store highly concentrated solar energy in stable forms, which can be easily moved at ambient conditions to where they are needed, through extensive distribution systems that already exist, and need not be developed at exorbitant cost. The derivatives of oil, diesel, gasoline and aviation fuel, are similarly flexible. While we cannot use these energy sources indefinitely as a society, a smart, measured approach to transitioning our energy systems toward reliable nuclear power would be well advised.
The Excess Costs of Weather-Dependent Power Generation, by Ed Hoskins
The result shows that all assertions of Wind and Solar power generation reaching cost parity with conventional fossil fuels or nuclear power are patently false. Weather-Dependent power generation Wind and Solar technologies are in fact parasitic in Energy terms on conventional power generation and are not viable to support the power needs of any developed Nation.
The Dark Side of Solar Power; Harvard Business Review — the economics aren’t what you think they are.
Wind Concerns — a website and newsletter to stay on top of the wind-energy debacle.
Stop These Things — a website and newsletter to get stories of wind disasters.
Scotland Against Spin — a group of smart people fighting to save their land.
Part III: The Minerals Needed
We must destroy the planet to save it
— David Siegel
The world needs eight projects the size Escondida in Chile, the world’s largest copper mine, in the next eight years. (Image of Escondida courtesy of BHP.)
I have a hypothesis that there’s no such thing as irony. Here’s an example:
“It’s absolutely ironic, but to save the planet we are going to need more mines,” says Allison Britt, director of mineral resources at government agency Geoscience Australia.
I don’t think it’s ironic. Whenever you see the word “ironic,” substitute the words “not surprising.”
Here are just a few of the “do the math” essays and papers to help us understand whether rushing to renewables and electrifying everything will help or hurt the environment. As usual, I provide short excerpts, because I know people don’t click and read anything these days.
Mines, Minerals, and “Green” Energy: A Reality Check, by Mark Mills
For example, a single electric car battery weighing 1,000 pounds requires extracting and processing some 500,000 pounds of materials. Averaged over a battery’s life, each mile of driving an electric car “consumes” five pounds of earth. Using an internal combustion engine consumes about 0.2 pounds of liquids per mile.
Here’s his video presentation, which I highly recommend:
Numbers Don’t Lie, by Vaclav Smil
For a 5-megawatt turbine, the steel alone averages 150 metric tons for the reinforced concrete foundations, 250 metric tons for the rotor hubs and nacelles (which house the gearbox and generator), and 500 metric tons for the towers. • If wind-generated electricity were to supply 25 percent of global demand by 2030 (forecast to reach about 30 petawatt-hours), then even with a high average capacity factor of 35 percent, the aggregate installed wind power of about 2.5 terawatts would require roughly 450 million metric tons of steel. And that’s without counting the metal for towers, wires, and transformers for the new high-voltage transmission links that would be needed to connect it all to the grid.
Hype-Dream: World’s Renewable Energy Storage Capacity Destined to Remain Totally Trivial, by Francis Menton
Today, I am going to look at discussions of the storage situation coming out of three jurisdictions with ambitious “net zero” plans: California, Australia and New York. First a very brief summary of the problem. It is (or certainly should be) obvious that wind and solar generators have substantial periods when they generate nothing (e.g., calm nights), and other times when they generate far less than users demand. Get out a spreadsheet to do some calculations based on actual historical patterns of usage and generation from wind and solar sources, and you will find that to have a fully wind/solar generation system and make it through a year without a catastrophic failure, you will need approximately a three-times overbuild (based on rated capacity) of the wind/solar system, plus storage for something in the range of 24–30 days of average usage. For these purposes “usage” at any given moment is measured in gigawatts, but usage for some period of time is measured in gigawatt hours, not gigawatts. California’s average electricity usage for 2020 was about 31 GW; Australia’s was about 26 GW ; and New York’s was about 18 GW.
To calculate how much storage you need in gigawatt hours, multiply average usage in GW by 30 days and 24 hours per day. So California will need about 22,302 GWH of storage, Australia about 18,720 GWH, and New York about 12,960 GWH. That is to supply current levels of demand. For the “everything electrified” case, triple all of these numbers: 66,906 GWH for California, 56,160 GWH for Australia, and 38,880 GWH for New York. Price that out at current costs of Tesla-type lithium-ion batteries (~$150/KWH) and you will get around $10 trillion for California, $8.4 trillion for Australia, and $5.8 trillion for New York. These figures are in the range of triple total annual GDP for each of these jurisdictions, before you even get to the cost of the three-times overbuild of the generations system to account for charging of the batteries when the sun is shining and wind blowing. Nor can Tesla-style batteries hold charge for months on end as would be necessary for this system, but at this point, that seems like a minor quibble.
Report On The Status Of The U.S. Energy Storage Project, by Francis Menton
… there is an almost complete disconnect between, on the one hand, current efforts of small research grants and pilot programs to investigate which of various new technologies might work, and, on the other hand, a multi-hundred-trillion dollar total transformation of the entire energy economy that will supposedly be accomplished within the next 13 years using technology not yet invented let alone demonstrated at scale.
This report is based on the premise that we MUST switch away from fossil fuels, so I question that assumption. But the report is very realistic on the minerals needed. Watch and learn from Simon:
Why do we burn coal and trees to make solar panels?, by Thomas A. Troszak
Troszak does the math in just a few pages.
The Pursuit of the Impossible: Materials Constraints and Realities for the Net Zero Utopia, by Robert Lyman
The 282.6 million tonnes of lithium just to power the 1.39 billion short-range road vehicles is beyond current global lithium reserves. Further, each of the 1.39 billion batteries would have a useful working life of only 8 to 10 years, according to International Energy Agency estimates. So, 8–10 years after manufacture, new replacement batteries would be required. Recycling, when that is possible, will face significant technical, cost and environmental challenges. In theory, there are enough global reserves of nickel to meet vehicle battery requirements, but it would require 48% of 2018 nickel reserves. There is not enough cobalt in current reserves to meet the demand. Further, these estimates ignore the need for lithium, nickel and cobalt to meet other industrial demands for these minerals.
“Elephant in the room”: Clean energy’s need for unsustainable minerals; Ars Technica
The report found that to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, overall mineral requirements would need to increase six-fold. In that scenario, the demand for lithium would rise by 90 percent. But those minerals have to come from somewhere, and that often involves harmful sourcing, increased greenhouse gas emissions, and limits on the mineral supply.
Raw Material Shortage: The New Big Challenge for the Battery Industry, by the Basque Research and Tech Alliance
However, the major challenge within the industry goes beyond the development of these extraction capabilities. As mentioned before, there is a very important geopolitical component derived from the concentration of these materials in the domain of only a few countries, which means that their access and control depend on a limited number of States. This explains the similarity with the current oil market, whose price and availability often depend on geostrategic variables, international policies, and trade wars.
Study: Europe needs huge increases in metals and minerals to meet climate goals, summary by JunkScience.com (here is the actual study)
Electric car production is the major driver for energy transition metals demand (responsible for 50–60% of the overall), followed by electricity networks and solar photovoltaics production (35- 45%), and then other technologies the remaining 5%. • Lithium, cobalt, nickel, rare earth elements and copper are the higher volume metals that will experience the strongest acceleration in demand growth. Iridium, scandium and tellurium are the low volume commodities most impacted by the energy transition.
The rush to renewable energy means a new mining boom. But first, Australia needs to make some tough choices; ABC News Australia
In Tasmania, a mine that’s been leaking contaminated water for the past five years wants permission to expand into a wilderness area because the lead, zinc and copper it produces are vital for solar panels, electric cars and wind turbines. King Island, famed for its high-end produce and rugged beauty, will soon be home to one of the world’s largest tungsten mines. Outside Darwin, an open-cut mine that will produce lithium vital for electric car batteries looks to be already impacting local waterways.
Recycling
California rooftop solar panels causing problems in landfill — LA Times
The Dark Side of Solar Power — Harvard Business Review
Wind turbine blade end-of-life options: An economic comparison — academic study
Copper
Visual Capitalist infographic on copper use in EVs and charging.
David Blackmon: The Future of Copper is Coming at us Fast.
David Middleton: Copper is the New Oil.
Electric Vehicle Market and Copper Demand; Copper Alliance — To keep up with demand, copper supply must more than double in the next four years.
Miners need to invest over $100 billion to meet copper demand
Nickel
Electric vehicles are great, but the environmental cost of nickel batteries is too high; Seattle Times
Nickel demand to outstrip supply by 2024, causing headaches for EV manufacturers; Rystad Energy report.
The dirty road to clean energy: how China’s electric vehicle boom is ravaging the environment; A Rest of World report
CNBC can’t spell “nickel,” but they can add up the numbers:
Lithium
The Dark Side of our Electric Future — Euronews
Lithium mining: How new production technologies could fuel the global EV revolution — McKinsey report
The spiralling environmental cost of our lithium battery addiction — Wired UK
Rare-Earth Metals
Rare Earth Minerals Pose Challenge in Clean Energy Transition — report
The Role of Critical Minerals in Clean Energy Transitions — IEA report (never trust the IEA)
Global and USA Thorium and Rare-Earth resources — Thorium Alliance
Creating a Multi-National Platform: Thorium Energy & Rare Earth Value Chain — Thorium Alliance
Part IV: Energy Storage
Hydrogen is the most dumb thing I could possibly imagine for energy storage.
— Elon Musk
Will new battery and storage technologies enable the transition to Net Zero?
The point of this essay is to show people that Net Zero is a house of cards built on political virtue signaling, not science. Here, I focus on grid-scale storage, which has to support large numbers of people during the windless, cold, dark days and nights of winter.
While I don’t subscribe to some of the beliefs in the following short video, and things have changed a bit since it was made, I think it’s still a good overview for people who prefer to watch than read:
What’s the worst that could happen?
I keep saying this, because people don’t realize it: if the goal is to store wind or solar power, you need x times the amount of wind and solar needed to power a given area for 24 hours, where x is the number of shortfall days you may need back-up for when the wind isn’t blowing and the sun isn’t shining. You need to look at historical weather graphs for that, and in many places the worst-case is beyond 2 weeks. So however much solar and wind you have, multiply that by 15 before you can decommission a single fossil-fuel plant.
The big reports
Energy Storage Grand Challenge: Energy Storage Market Report, by the U.S. Department of Energy
The largest markets for stationary energy storage in 2030 are projected to be in North America (41.1 GWh), China (32.6 GWh), and Europe (31.2 GWh). Excluding China, Japan (2.3 GWh) and South Korea (1.2 GWh) comprise a large part of the rest of the Asian market. Much of the expansive growth is 4-hour-duration hybrid configurations coupled to utilities, commercial and industrial (C&I), and residential renewables (generally photovoltaics [PV]).
Yet, a) there’s no hope of getting that much lithium out of the ground in time, and b) 4-hour storage doesn’t cut it. We’re still left freezing in the dark. Because lithium can’t store energy for very long, we’re on the wrong path to “sustainability.”
The Energy Storage Conundrum, by Francis Menton
“The truth is that, barring some sort of miracle, there is no possibility that any suitable storage technology will be feasible, let alone at affordable cost, in any timeframe relevant to the announced plans of the politicians, if ever.”
The Future of Energy Storage, An Interdisciplinary MIT Study
The feds will “support research” into “novel technologies,” of course using the infinite money pile, and the technology will magically appear. And what exactly is the technology that will then emerge to rescue us? They have no idea:
‘While several novel electrochemical technologies have shown promise, remaining knowledge gaps with respect to key scientific, engineering, and manufacturing challenges suggest high value for concerted government support. Innovation in these technologies is being actively pursued in other countries, notably China.’
You’ve got to hate those “knowledge gaps,” but clearly all that is needed to fill them is enough federal funding.
The 2021 Annual Energy Paper, by JP Morgan
Vaclav Smil, the lead researcher and author, says lithium can’t do the job, so …
When going big we must still rely on a technology introduced in the 1890s: pumped storage. You build one reservoir high up, link it with pipes to another one lower down and use cheaper, nighttime electricity to pump water uphill so that it can turn turbines during times of peak demand. Pumped storage accounts for more than 99 percent of the world’s storage capacity, but inevitably, it entails energy loss on the order of 25 percent. Many installations have short-term capacities in excess of 1 GW — the largest one is about 3 GW — and more than one would be needed for a megacity completely dependent on solar and wind generation.
But most megacities are nowhere near the steep escarpments or deepcut mountain valleys you’d need for pumped storage. Many, including Shanghai, Kolkata, and Karachi, are on coastal plains. They could rely on pumped storage only if it were provided through long-distance transmission. The need for more compact, more flexible, larger-scale, less costly electricity storage is self-evident. But the miracle has been slow in coming.
Net-zero power: Long-duration energy storage for a renewable grid, by McKinsey Sustainability
Our modeling projects installation of 30 to 40 GW power capacity and one TWh energy capacity by 2025 under a fast decarbonization scenario.
Furthermore, all the evidence suggests that this could be a highly attractive market for investors: a sizeable new industry providing 1.5 to 2.5 TW of storage capacity, requiring an investment that could reach $1 trillion to $3 trillion by 2040 with potential competitive returns. The prize is within reach, and the time to seize it is now.
Grid Energy Storage Supply Chain Deep Dive Assessment, by the US Dept of Energy
This is a very good and unusually readable report from the US Government highlighting the supply-chain dependencies and constraints. The most common word I see is “China.” It doesn’t do cost-benefit analysis, but it does highlight the weaknesses in the various scenarios.
Reserve margin may need to rise to 300% by 2040 as more renewables added to grid, by ISO New England
The reserve margin on the ISO New England system may need to increase from about 15% to 300% by 2040 in some scenarios, as more renewables are added and dispatchable generation is retired to meet state clean energy goals, according to a July 29 report from the grid operator. The first phase of the ISO’s Future Grid Reliability Study models a variety of decarbonization scenarios in 2040 and concludes they “may require a significant amount of gas or stored fuels to support variable resources.” A scenario where reliability criteria are met using only solar, wind and storage, would challenge the transmission system and require “an outsized amount of land or offshore areas” for wind and solar farms, the report found.
Replacing Peaking Power Plants with Battery Energy Storage Systems, by Roger Caiazza, Pragmatic Environmentalist of New York
I conclude that until you have a viable alternative, and I submit that the renewable energy battery storage option is not viable, then it is premature to shut down the existing fossil fired peaking generation in New York City and the state. Not only will the closures have minimal effect on health impacts but closure could affect reliability. Given the impacts of New York City blackouts I don’t believe any threats to current reliability standards should be accepted.
The Academic Journal
Fortunately, there’s an entire journal, the Journal of Energy Storage, dedicated to finding solutions, including high-temperature superconductors, supramolecular gel polymer electrolytes, carbon nanosheets, and more. I’m sure the geniuses are on the verge of the next big breakthrough, but I’m not holding my breath.
Proposed solutions
Any system that stores and releases energy is going to have a round-trip efficiency of less than 90 percent. There are other things to consider, but round-trip efficiency is a key indicator of potential:
For me, if the round-trip efficiency isn’t over 80 percent with at least the possibility of 85 percent, then I don’t see it scaling.
Gravity
The Fall and Rise of Gravity Storage Technologies, by Aaron Fyke. This is a readable and reasonable assessment, written by a venture capitalist who founded Energy Vault. He makes a good argument for why Energy Vault is the clear winner. There are problems, however. And a lawsuit. And the stock price has tanked. And — you need a ton of these things, far more than just a few here and there. Hmm — is this really the future of energy storage?
Pumped hydro is already working. The problem is that there are a reasonable number of economically viable sites, but they are clustered in the mountains. So if you maximize PHS, you kind of have to destroy a lot of mountains and build a lot of infrastructure. From a practical standpoint, it’s pretty limited in scope.
Hydrogen
Elon Musk has said, “hydrogen “is the most dumb thing I could possibly imagine for energy storage,” and I agree. I don’t see any reason to mix hydrogen and energy for any commercial application. If you can change my mind on that, you’re welcome to send me the relevant research. With round-trip efficiency near 30 percent, it’s going to be difficult.
Hydrogen, the Once and Future Fuel, by the Global Warming Policy Foundation.
Heat
Could we store energy as heat? Maybe. If we could do that, we could use thermophotovoltaics to turn the heat back into electricity. Researchers have recently been setting efficiency records doing just that, but they are still under 40 percent. Could they really get up to 80 percent? While promising, I think we’re probably a decade away from understanding whether this could be a scalable solution to the storage problem. If we used that same ten years to accelerate the development of molten-salt thorium reactors, we’d be much closer to solving our energy problems, reducing prices, and stabilizing the grid.
Lithium
This is worth watching:
Lithium Is Key to the Electric Vehicle Transition. It’s Also in Short Supply — Time Magazine
The Lithium Gold Rush: Inside the Race to Power Electric Vehicles — New York Times
The Hidden Cost of Lithium Mining — Interesting Engineering
Lithium Shortage May Stall Electric Car Revolution And Embed China’s Lead: Report — Forbes
The lithium curse: why Bolivia has failed to turn minerals into gold — The Economist
Potential environmental impacts of lithium mining — academic paper
Concerned about Lithium? Don’t be. We’ve got Tons. — This author says the Salton Sea has enough lithium to last the US for a long time. What will it take to get it out?
People are right to point out that Lithium lasts forever, but it might be a long time before we have effective ways to reclaim and remake batteries with “used” lithium. Here’s a good short explainer:
And, don’t forget:
Conclusions
One of the things that struck me doing this research is how much kinetic energy it takes to replace today’s fossil-fuel energy systems. Not only do you need to raise a huge amount of mass up and down, but one single unit — whether moving concrete blocks or pumping water — doesn’t cover that many homes and businesses. We would have to cover a huge percentage of land with both primary generators (wind turbines and solar panels) and yet again dedicate a huge amount of land to storage and release of that energy.
Remember that the primary generators must a) feed the grid when they can, and b) store energy at the same time. So to store energy, you need to multiply all the wind and solar solutions by roughly 3x to account for each additional day of stored power.
I don’t think it’s too far off to say that to run New York City on 100 percent renewable energy would likely take half of New York state’s land and resources. It’s probably on that scale, even with tomorrow’s technology.
This is more than too much to ask, especially if CO2 is not causing climate change.
Part V: The Way Out
No country should have a climate policy, period.
— David Siegel
In previous posts, I showed how the math of renewables doesn’t add up. You can’t replace fossil fuels with alternatives, you can only add alternatives, which makes everything more expensive and less reliable. Last week, I discussed energy storage. Today, I’ll propose a framework for an international energy policy based on science and cost/benefit analysis.
Is there a way out of this trap?
There is a level-headed approach to energy policy based on cost/benefit, environmental considerations, and free markets. Here are 11 principles that can guide us through the 21st century:
No climate policy. The US shouldn’t have a climate policy any more than we should have an eclipse policy or a rainbow policy. All climate policies are social manipulation. CO2 is not the problem people think it is. We should be working to reduce pollution, not CO2 emissions. Decarbonization solves no existing or future problem and diverts resources from many real problems. For people, animals, birds, and the environment, “doing nothing about CO2” is the best solution.
Government neutrality. People who work in government agencies should not pursue political agendas. They should not doctor data, produce fake reports, or support causes. They should apply level-headed cost/benefit analysis and be open to debate. Closing debate hurts everyone. Agencies like the SEC have no business forcing companies to comply with fake environmental campaigns.
Industry organization neutrality. Groups like the International Energy Agency, the National Academy of Sciences, the American Geophysical Union, the British Geophysical Association, the UN, the EU, the central banks, the WEF, and many more have turned into extremist activist groups rather than trying to help people or the environment.
Minimal environmental policy. You can make a case for some environmental policies, especially for the oceans and overfishing. National and state parks should be protected by law. But capitalism is pretty effective — the richer we become, the better care we take of our land and resources. Most policies are just virtue signaling by politicians. Worse — many policies backfire and hurt the environment. All environmental policies should be reviewed for cost/benefit, many should be removed, and a new framework should mostly provide incentives for doing the right thing rather than providing strict rules and regulations. Most of the time, people game the system and get around regulations, so they are less effective than we think. For example, if the US passes strict regulations on certain processes, those processes will just move offshore and the products will come in anyway.
Encourage the use of fossil fuels. We need fossil fuels for the next 100+ years. We have enough. They help raise people out of poverty, and then those newly middle-class people naturally care more for the environment. As the world population grows to 11 billion, we’ll use less fuel and less land because we are getting much better at using resources.
Do not electrify everything. We should use fossil fuels and electricity for what each is good for. Electric vehicles, boats, and airplanes probably play no role in an optimal energy future. Hybrid vehicles could very well provide a smart solution, because hybrid vehicles need a much smaller battery than EVs do, and they can recapture energy when braking or going downhill.
Nuclear technologies should replace fossil fuels. If we let the transition happen naturally, with little to no regulation, that would be optimal for humans and the planet. By using thorium, we get a bunch of rare-earth elements almost for free. We have plenty of all that stuff here in the US. It’s abundant around the world. Reduce regulatory drag and encourage nuclear energy.
Wind and solar play almost no role in a rational energy future.
Energy policy should be based on cost/benefit analysis, not virtue signals, tribalism, fake data, or political gamesmanship. I think we need a loose cooperative framework for international energy, but it should first do no harm. Eliminating the fake fear of climate change should bring countries to the table to discuss smart energy policy.
Science is in huge trouble. In today’s scientific research, you get what you pay for. We are misallocating research resources at a tremendous scale. Anyone who says “the science is settled,” doesn’t understand science. We need huge improvements in science.
Let markets sort this out. We need cooperation and a rational energy policy for the world, but we shouldn’t impose too many restrictions, because ultimately entrepreneurs will solve the problems. Bureaucrats won’t.
That’s it. Not very hard, really. All we need to do is get out of our own way.