The International Energy Agency released a report on Tuesday that declares reaching net zero CO2 emissions by 2050 will require “huge leaps” in clean energy innovation, including the widespread use of technologies that aren’t on the market yet, but that focus heavily on tapping renewable energy sources.
The most fundamental thing gating net-zero around the world is the will to change.
That report from the IEA is talking about installing over a thousand gigawatts (presumably nameplate capacity) of wind and solar per year, which is ridiculous. The entire world’s nuclear fleet, that provides 10% of the world’s electricity, is just 400 GW. Check out “Roadmap to Nowhere” to get a data-based idea for where such renewables fantasies get us. And don’t get me started on the environmental impact of such absurdly huge deployments of wind and solar, even if they were economically and logistically possible (which they aren’t). Thanks for nothing, IEA.
I’ll tell you what, the reading I’ve been doing in the last three or four months leads me to believe this is not the case. Granted, I’m an armchair quarterback on the subject. But a couple of big changes are in the mix recently that make the next 20 (not 30) years look pretty doggone bright. Highlights –
Solar cells have plummeted in price. Solar sites are overbuilding their cell-to-inverter ratio by as much at 300% because it’s more cost effective to turn off cells during the mid-day hours and run at 100% inverter-rating earlier and later in the day, and during inclement weather.
Wind has scored several breakthroughs regarding size and yield. Public acceptance of windmills with the exception of the obscenely rich has changed in favor of them. GE has built a 12,000-home windmill, the first at that scale. 15,000 of them could power every home in the United States all on their own.
Geothermal, the renewable that’s been kicked to the curb for the last 20 years has gotten a big boost from fracking technology, with controlled directed drilling making for deep thermal loops that could potentially support 100% of base load, run 24 hours per day and can be deployed anywhere in the world including off-grid locations. I’ll mention that the United States has the most expertise on this technology, a potential money-maker in foreign countries for an industry that has been taking a beating due to declining fuel prices.
What remains is energy storage for transportation. Energy storage for fixed locations is largely solved by the breakthroughs above, but the need for “batteries” for cars, trucks, trains and aircraft remains. Frankly, the idea of being Net-Zero doesn’t require all liquid fuels to be banned, just to be manufactured from raw materials using Net-Zero emission energy sources. Given enough solar over-production during daylight hours the excess could be routed to synthetic fuel generation. The vehicle of the future may already be in your driveway. It may just be a matter of generating its fuel from carbon dioxide that’s in the air.
True 100% Net-Zero may be a tough goal. But I’d wager 99% Net-Zero is well in reach. At this point it’s about which countries and companies figure out they can make a killing taking the lead on this, and what they choose to do.
Nothing like trying, to bring about innovation.
Solar efficiency may be improving, but that’s not the problem right now. The problem is where you do put huge industrial-scale solar farms?
They aren’t going to be placed where the major consumption is, the cities and suburbs. They’re going to be in farmland, and that disrupts communities in those locations.
There was an article about this in the Seattle Times recently, about resistance to siting industrial solar farms East of the Cascades (Trump country), while most of the power would be going West of the Cascades (Biden country) where the major population lives. As one person interviewed put it:
"“I understand you want green energy by 2050. But … you are sure not going to put it in Seattle, Olympia or Tacoma. You don’t want it in your backyard. You want it in our backyard,” said Dan Christopher, one of the two county commissioners who passed the deciding votes in favor of the Klickitat County permitting moratorium that includes the area west of Goldendale. “And even if we don’t want it. You can force it into our backyard.”
It’s an interesting article that lays out some of the problems:
What appears to be missing in this report is a significant role for sequestering carbon through regenerative agricultural and livestock approaches to land management. Reducing monocropping and healing soil, particularly with the use of multi-paddock grazing management, if widely adopted, will literally remove carbon from the atmosphere and put it in the soil where it will nourish our vegetative and animal food supply. Sequestering carbon is not the only solution, obviously, but it is one that is complementary to human needs and those of the planet. Plus, we already have the technology in the form of proper land management practices.
(1) Public knowledge of the Climate Crisis
(2) Job-Relation to the Climate Crisis
That headline is incorrect, and completely aligned with the campaigns for delay and denial.
It is also a complete and total lie, “The path, it said, would be “technically feasible””
We have the technology. That is what " “technically feasible” means.
I will credit you with the decency to believe that, because of your credentials, you do not embrace the delay strategy of defeating actions against climate change but rather got hoisted with a toxic headline.
If I am incorrect, please read “The New Climate Wars” and then stop being on the side of Chevron.
I can not believe this headline was at TPM. Just shameful and ridiculous.
I was reading recently about the rate of ice melt at the South Pole. Two of their contentions:
1.The Antarctic can hit warming conditions that would be irreversible in anybody’s lifetime, and could hit that as close as 2030. 2030. That’s earlier than my next optometrist appointment.
2.If all the ice at the South Pole melts, the ocean will be 20 feet higher. Swimming will be mandatory.
Republicans, do something!
According to the report, it is critical that agriculture emissions also go down to zero, and regarding agriculture emissions highlights that reducing demand for animal products (meat, dairy) is an effective solution, particularly given the difficulties of reducing methane emissions from animals.
But we don’t have time for fantasies. I’ve been an advisor to the IEA. They’re way too influenced by the fossil fuel industries, and the companies that sell “natural” gas know full well that the more intermittent (read unreliable) energy systems that get built the more gas plants will get built for “backup”. So when you see the big fossil fuel companies touting wind and solar, be aware that they’re greenwashing and trying to get policies into place that will lock in their business for more decades.
Agreed. But that’s not ever going to happen. Even most liberals refuse to accept or talk about the need to eliminate or vastly reduce meat/dairy because everyone likes the way it tastes so much. In fact, liberal politicians are letting themselves get beta-cucked by the industrial agriculture lobby like the governor of Colorado having to do a meat promotion day after backlash to some day where he said don’t eat meat. It’s f*ing ridiculous and even TPM is guilty of not taking the animal agriculture issue seriously because everyone loves steak and cheese so much.
It all started with Carter’s “Sweater Speech”.
People may not like changing their behavior now, but it won’t even be an option later.
Nobody wants nuclear waste, it is a fantasy that we can store it forever.
Smaller, and everywhere.
You don’t have to store nuclear waste forever. It can be recycled and used as fuel in fast reactors which, yes, are a real thing that exists today (and have been running for four decades). The “nuclear waste” problem is a non-problem that’s handy for getting people to be afraid of nuclear power. It’s actually fuel that’s incredibly energy-dense. If you want to understand the situation, read this book. And yes, most politicians are clueless about this, but that doesn’t mean it’s not real. It only means that they’re ignorant about it or using phony obliviousness for political advantage.
If I read this correctly, basically everyone including the state, the counties, the companies and the vast majority of landowners want these solar panels installed. However, the Seattle Times found four people who expressed some doubts or opposition. This is a “1/10 doctors disagree” approach to journalism.
Airports… lots of open space
Yes, but what industry or billionaire will be enriched by sequestering carbon via soil?
None. That’s why it will never catch on
With EVs, mining interests win. Wall Street and investors win. Car manufacturers win because they can employ a third less people and sell the vehicles for a substantial premium. Ford’s electric F150 will start out in the 70s and the most desirable models will cost triple digits like the Hummer. Utility companies win. And even the insurance industry wins because they can and do charge double for insuring many EVs.
Unless an influential billionaire or industry hires lobbyists to lobby for the all around best environmental solution for our planet regarding lowering CO2 in our atmosphere: Carbon capture via soil, it will be ignored.
And you’re right:
Added:
And it’s imperative that we act on the soil route because with lumber prices spiking, trees will keep disappearing.at an accelerated rate. If the oceans get warmer, they will absorb less CO2. Biden’s solutions will make money for many, but in the long term, do very little to reduce C02 in the atmosphere. For a 10 to 15 year period, his policies may actually cause CO2 levels to spike a bit. Figure it out yourselves, I’m not going to explain it.