From: Critically Thinking About Select Societal Issues - Substack

By: John Droz Jr.

Date: January 6, 2025

Critically Thinking About Select Societal Issues

When I wrote the original version of this last year, some attentive readers said that although my list of ten costs were spot-on, I should have added more. My original list was intended to be a summary, not all inclusive. That said I believe that several of their suggested additions are not trivial, so I am reposting this commentary which now has fifteen typically ignored costs of industrial wind energy…

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Periodically I get asked: what is the TRUE cost of industrial wind energy?

It seems like that should be a relatively straightforward answer, but it is anything but.

To appreciate what is going on, we need to understand the Big Picture regarding wind energy. (FYI, the same applies to solar.) The system is setup to grease the skids for wind energy developers — not ratepayers. When it comes to wind energy, we are dealing with 21st century snake oil salespeople. They have a sophisticated multi-part strategy to profit at the public’s expense…

Their FIRST major strategy is to sell politicians on the bogus concept that our electrical Grid should be inclusive — i.e., include ALL electrical energy sources (whether they are good or bad. An all of the above policy makes no technical or economic or environmental sense. (For a discussion of this, see here.) My alternative motto is that our electrical grid should include all of the sensible.

Their SECOND major strategy is to sell politicians on the false belief that we need enormous amounts of industrial wind energy to “save the planet from pending climate catastrophe.” Ignoring the accuracy of the Climate Change fear-mongering aspect, the reality is that there has never been a genuine scientific study that has concluded that wind energy saves a consequential amount of CO2! In fact, there have been multiple scientific studies that have concluded that wind energy can make Climate Change WORSE! (See here for some examples.)

Their THIRD major strategy is to sell politicians and the public on the illusion that industrial wind energy is inexpensive — so we should do it anyway (irrespective of points #1 and #2 above). So what is the true cost of industrial wind energy? (continue reading)

Critically Thinking About Select Societal Issues

Today marks the changing of the guard for the government of the United States. The new Administration promises many changes to programs and priorities throughout government. However, few areas will experience changes of the magnitude of the changes which will affect energy and climate, which expect to experience an almost complete reversal.

The ”War on Fossil Fuels” is over at the federal level, at least for the next 4 years, though it will still persist in some states. The federal government will return to regular oil and gas lease sales and will cease “slow walking” exploration and production permits. The LNG export “pause” will be un-paused and new LNG export terminal construction will again be determined by market demand and project economics. Pipeline expansion and new construction will not be banned by federal executive action.

Federal goals for utility-scale renewable generation installations, including offshore wind installations, will be terminated, as will the federal subsidies and incentives for their installation. Wind and solar are mature technologies which should compete for market share with fossil and nuclear generation. Grid scale batteries (2-4 hour) are also mature technology and should compete in the market as well. Offshore wind is already far more expensive than any of the alternatives, even with subsidies, and interest in future projects will likely diminish as the interest in currently proposed offshore wind projects has already done.

The EPA “mandate” for electric vehicles will be un-mandated, though individual state mandates will likely persist. Federal government incentives for the production and sale of EVs will be dramatically reduced or eliminated. Federal support for EV and EV battery manufacturing facilities will cease. Federal promotion and incentivization of EV transit and school buses will cease. The federal program to install fast charging facilities for EVs will be dramatically scaled back.

Program planning and development in support of the DOE “Decarbonize the Building Sector” blueprint will be deferred because the decarbonization goal has been abandoned and the federal funding required to incentivize the required investments will not be available. Federal incentives for building solar installations will also be reduced.

These changes do not mean that utilities and other investors cannot proceed with economically viable wind, solar and electricity storage projects. However, they do mean that utilities and investors will have the choice of developing fossil and nuclear generation capacity if they are the economical and/or operational choice and are not constrained by state Renewable Portfolio Standards. Utilities would also have the freedom to insist that new renewable facilities connected to their grids be dispatchable, which would significantly increase their value to the grid but also their cost.

These changes do not mean that individual customers or fleets cannot choose EVs, or that transit operators and school districts cannot choose EV buses.

These changes do not mean that homeowners and commercial establishments cannot choose to improve their buildings’ energy efficiency, install solar and battery storage or purchase electric heat pumps, water heaters, cooking and laundry appliances and equipment. Rather, it means that they can continue to make free choices based on preferences and economics.

For the next 4 years at least, the US federal government will allow markets to function without undue government interference or pressure.

From: The Washington Times

By: Matthew Daly

Date: January 6, 2025

Biden, in 11th hour action, bans new offshore oil and gas drilling in most federal waters

WASHINGTON — President Biden is moving to ban new offshore oil and gas drilling in most U.S. coastal waters, a last-minute effort to block possible action by the incoming Trump administration to expand offshore drilling.

Biden, whose term expires in two weeks, said he is using authority under the federal Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act to protect offshore areas along the East and West coasts, the eastern Gulf of Mexico and portions of Alaska’s Northern Bering Sea from future oil and natural gas leasing.

“My decision reflects what coastal communities, businesses and beachgoers have known for a long time: that drilling off these coasts could cause irreversible damage to places we hold dear and is unnecessary to meet our nation’s energy needs,” Biden said in a statement.

“As the climate crisis continues to threaten communities across the country and we are transitioning to a clean energy economy, now is the time to protect these coasts for our children and grandchildren,” he said.

Biden’s orders would not affect large swaths of the Gulf of Mexico, where most U.S. offshore drilling occurs, but it would protect coastlines along California, Florida and other states from future drilling.

Biden’s actions, which protect more than 625 million acres of federal waters, could be difficult for President-elect Donald Trump to unwind, since they would likely require an act of Congress to repeal. Trump himself has a complicated history on offshore drilling. He signed a memorandum in 2020 directing the Interior secretary to prohibit drilling in the waters off both Florida coasts, and off the coasts of Georgia and South Carolina until 2032. (continue reading)

Biden, in 11th hour action, bans new offshore oil and gas drilling in most federal waters

The US federal government is supposed to conduct cost / benefit analyses of proposed programs to establish their cost effectiveness. In practice, the costs are often grossly underestimated and the benefits grossly overestimated.

Much has been written about the Social Cost of Carbon (SCC), which is shorthand for the social cost of anthropogenic CO2 emissions. SCC is a computer model generated estimate of the potential future societal damage which might be caused by continued CO2 emissions, typically through 2100. SCC, as it has been practiced by our government and others is an extremely malleable estimate. Pick a computer model, pick an estimate of climate sensitivity to CO2, pick an estimate of climate feedbacks, pick an estimated discount rate, push the button and “viola!”, there’s your estimate of the SCC. Current SCC estimates range from $0 up to $5500 per ton of CO2. The higher estimates can be used to justify almost any CO2 emissions reduction program.

While a search of the term “social cost of carbon” produces more than 19 million “hits’, a search of the term “social benefit of carbon” produces “crickets”. It would appear that the benefits portion of the government cost / benefit analysis is “missing in action”. However, the benefits are real, current and documented, while the costs are uncertain, future and computer model projected.

The most dramatic benefit is global greening, which has been documented by NASA  and NOAA  satellites. Studies attribute ~70% of the measured greening to the availability of increased CO2 in the atmosphere. The increased CO2 not only acts as a fertilizer, but also increases the efficiency with which plants and trees use available moisture, This has manifested in a decrease in the global desert area as plants and trees have advanced across the desert perimeters.

The availability of increased CO2 has also contributed to growing crop yields for a large number of plant species, including many of the cereal crops essential to the food chain. These crops also use available moisture more efficiently, reducing the need for crop irrigation. The increased CO2 also contributes to the growth of the grasses which feed ruminant animals including domesticated animals such as cattle, sheep and goats as well as wild ruminant animals including deer and antelope.

Crop science suggests that current atmospheric CO2 levels are still well below the ideal levels for plant growth. The CO2 levels maintained in commercial greenhouses are approximately 5 times the current atmospheric level. It appears that many crops would continue to benefit from increased atmospheric CO2 concentrations, though the effects would not be constant or universal.

Most government focus has been on the potential future costs of increased atmospheric CO2, in support of the climate “crisis” narrative and climate policies intended to reduce, halt and reverse the increase in atmospheric CO2. However, increased atmospheric CO2 has contributed to substantial societal benefits which should be recognized and valued. Reducing atmospheric CO2 concentrations would reduce those benefits and increase the strains on global food production.

From: Climate Etc.

By: Russ Schussler

Date: December 5, 2024

Wind and Solar Can’t Support the Grid

In October of 2024, the isolated small city of  Broken Hill in New South Wales, Australia with a 36 MW load (including the large nearby mines) could not be reliably served by 200 MW of wind, a 53 MW solar array, significant residential solar, and a large 50 MW battery all supplemented by diesel generators.

Many people falsely believe that wind, solar and batteries have been demonstrated to provide grid support and deliver energy independently in large real word applications. Few people realize that we are a long way away from having wind, solar and batteries support a large power system without significant amounts of conventional spinning generation (nuclear, gas, coal, hydro, geothermal) on-line to support the grid.

Broken Hill Outage – Wind, Solar and Battery Can Not Support the Grid

The recent outages occurring in Broken Hill help illustrate the inability of wind, solar and batteries to support electric grids without significant help from machines rotating in synchronism with the grid. (Note – wind power is produced by rotation but not in synchronism with the grid).

Around 20,000 people live in the Broken Hill area. Over $650 million in investment made Broken Hill home to a 200 MW wind plant, a 53 MW solar array, and a large battery that could provide 50 MW of power for 100 MWh through advanced grid forming inverters. Broken Hill is home to over 6,000 small-scale solar systems providing a per capita energy small solar production level almost twice the Australian average.  The area also contains two poorly maintained diesel-powered gas turbine generators in the area, one which was off-line for maintenance.

Broken Hill became renewable energy industry’s Potemkin Village:

 In 2018, Broken Hill City Council announced its goal to become Australia’s first carbon-free city by 2030. Three years ago, then mayor Darriea Turley welcomed the announcement that AGL was proceeding with plans to build a grid-scale battery, which the company claimed would be a reliable backup power source for 10,000 homes. “This is a great opportunity for Broken Hill and renewable energies,” Turley told the ABC. “What they will see is when there is an outage, the battery would click into operation.” (continue reading)

Wind and Solar Can’t Support the Grid

Misinformation: incorrect or misleading information
Disinformation: false information often deliberately or covertly spread
Malinformation: information which is based on fact, but removed from its original context in order to mislead, harm, or manipulate

UN’s new mission: ‘Fight the climate-related disinformation running rampant on social media’ – ‘Debunk myths & put an end to the narratives of denialism’ – ‘Global Initiative for Information Integrity on Climate Change’

The United Nations, through its General Secretariat, and the IPCC, through its Summary for Policymakers, are primary sources of climate and climate change mis/dis/mal-information.  They are principally responsible for the “climate crisis”, “existential threat“ and “climate emergency” narrative running rampant in the main stream media, which is not supported by the science reported by IPCC Working Group I. The UN Secretary General is famous for such hyperbole as “the era of global boiling has arrived” and  “on the highway to climate hell” among others.

The Global Initiative for Information Integrity on Climate Change is not focused on the honesty (integrity) of the information, but rather on keeping the “crisis” narrative whole and undivided (integrity), to maximize its effectiveness in convincing the public to support government climate change policies. This is becoming increasingly important as those policies result in higher electricity prices, growing energy poverty, reduced electric grid reliability, industrial uncompetitiveness and job losses
It is not clear what constitutes the “narratives of denialism” the UN intends to “put an end to”.  It is not clear what “denialism” denies. It is certainly not the existence of a climate, or the fact that climate changes, or even the fact that humans can affect climate. Certainly skeptics question the UN “crisis” narrative, which constitutes misinformation, based on the IPCC science.

Perhaps the greatest climate “myth” in circulation, though not associated with “denialism”, is the myth that “the science is settled”, which is clearly disinformation. This is simply another aspect of the effort to protect the integrity (wholeness) of the UN climate narrative.

Skeptics question the assertion that climate change is worsening extreme weather events, such as tropical cyclones, tornadoes, floods and droughts, which is clearly disinformation based on historical data. Skeptics also question the focus on current extreme weather events in the absence of the historical perspective, which frequently constitutes malinformation.

Skeptics also question assertions that climate models provide accurate projections of future climate, both because there are still multiple climate models which produce differing projections and because the model projections do not agree with observations. That means that the outputs of the climate models are misinformation.

Skeptics also question studies which lead to the development of “scary scenarios” using climate models and unrealistic Representative Concentration Pathways, such as RCP 8.5. These studies are yet another form of misinformation.

The UN continues to aspire to a role in “global governance”, or more precisely to the role as the global government. It has discovered, as have many current national governments, that mis/dis/mal-information is easiest to “govern” if they are the sources of the mis/dis/mal-information. The UN clearly seeks a monopoly on climate mis/dis/mal-information and has no tolerance for “competitors”, real or imagined.

From: Watts Up With That

By: Rupert Darwall

Date: December 13, 2024

Stern’s Climate Lesson for the Trump Administration

“The 2015 Paris climate should take its place as one of the great triumphs in history,” Jonathan Chait wrote two days after it was concluded. Todd Stern, America’s climate envoy for all but eight months of Barack Obama’s presidency, was indispensable in making the Paris agreement happen. With his new book, Landing the Paris Climate Agreement: How It Happened, Why It Matters, and What Comes Next (MIT Press, October 2024), Stern has written an indispensable history of the genesis, the whys, and the wherefores of the Paris agreement, indispensable both to supporters and critics and therefore for members of the incoming Trump administration as they consider, for a second time, future American participation in the agreement.

Stern’s account starts with the run-up to the 2009 Copenhagen climate conference. Stern knew what needed to be done. The firewall in the original United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), signed at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, had to be erased and a treaty text produced that wouldn’t be sent to the United States Senate for its advice and consent.

Stern had witnessed the Senate’s preemptive rejection of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol because the UN firewall protected China and other major developing countries from future treaty requirements to cap their emissions. This goal was initially opposed by the Europeans, who wanted to bounce the U.S. into a legally binding climate treaty that he knew would fail and premised on the delusory belief that developing countries would follow if the developed world led by example.

Stern had an ally in the Danish conference hosts, who wanted a short, legally nonbinding agreement. The longtime British climate negotiator, Pete Betts, had also suggested that countries should submit their own national plans as part of a new agreement, rather than negotiating emissions targets and inking them into a treaty. But a quartet of China, India, Brazil, and South Africa moved to block any agreement that set a goal for agreeing to a legally binding treaty. “They were not prepared to take the risk that a legally binding agreement would bind them,” Stern writes.

The Copenhagen conference of the parties (COP) is usually portrayed as a disaster. It ended in near-chaos, when a handful of South American countries blocked the conference from adopting the two-and-a-half-page Copenhagen Accord and only just succeeded in “taking note” of it. Stern challenges this assessment. The U.S. side never saw Copenhagen as a failure, he says. “We knew that the accord was an important document that it began an essential pivot away from the old firewall paradigm and was a potentially significant step forward.”

The next COP was in Cancún. “If Copenhagen was cold and gray with wet snow … Cancún was the opposite. The air was soft and warm, the sky was blue, the Gulf of Mexico lapped the edges of the beach,” Stern recalls. Stern’s aim was to embed the Copenhagen Accord in the process, while China did its best to kill it. A European colleague summed up the dilemma: the U.S. would not accept the firewall between developed and developing countries, but China and its allies would not give it up.(continue reading)

Stern’s Climate Lesson for the Trump Administration

“Predictions are hard, especially about the future.”, Niels Bohr

In 2025,the past is unlikely to be prologue. President elect Trump is reportedly prepared to sign ~300 Executive Orders (EOs) “on day one”. (Sounds like writer’s cramp to me.) The bulk of these EOs would reverse EOs issued during the Biden Administration. Many EOs are expected to deal with energy and climate.

Mr. Trump has stated his intent to withdraw the US from the Paris Accords again, as he did during his first term. He is being encouraged to submit the Paris Accords to the US Senate for advice and consent as a treaty, Failure in the Senate would remove the US from the Accords permanently. He is also likely to discontinue US contributions to the UN Green Climate Fund and to resist formation of a UN “Loss and Damage Fund”.

Mr. Trump is also expected to cease pursuit of “Net Zero by 2050” and “All-Electric Everything”. This would end the Biden Administration’s war on fossil fuels and return the federal government to conducting regular oil and gas lease sales on federal lands. The Trump Administration is also expected to attempt to speed up permitting for oil and gas exploration and production activities.

The new Administration is also expected to challenge the EPA EV “mandate”, abandon the federal goals for EV sales and reduce or eliminate the federal subsidies and incentives for EV sales. The existing federal program to install EV charging infrastructure would also be eliminated or reduced in scope.

The Administration will attempt to reverse the EPA Endangerment Finding regarding CO2 emissions and withdraw the EPA Powerplant Rule which would have required 90% CCS on existing coal and natural gas powerplants. The CCS technology has not demonstrated the ability to achieve this capture rate at scale or economically.

Electric utilities not bound by state Renewable Portfolio Standards are expected to be able to structure their generation fleets to meet projected demand without requirements to prioritize intermittent renewable capacity. There is the prospect that electric utilities could require that all new intermittent renewable generating capacity be combined with storage sufficient to render the renewable capacity dispatchable.

The Administration might seek repeal of the “Inflation Reduction Act”, but will likely reduce funds dispersed under the Act and perhaps attempt to “claw back” some of the funds already dispersed but unspent.

There remain several aspects of climate science which are unsettled. There is hope that the Administration will halt the funding of climate studies intended to produce scary future scenarios based on unrealistic Representative Concentration Pathways and unverified climate models and redirect funding to unsettled climate science issues such as climate sensitivity, forcing and feedbacks. That might lead to new, more comprehensive climate models which actually model earth’s climate.

The Trump Administration’s expected actions will certainly arouse “wailing and gnashing of teeth” on the part of the consensed climate science community, environmental organizations, NGOs and others who have been “feeding at the federal trough”. However, to encourage energy and climate progress, government must first get out of its own way and then out of our way.

From: Roger's Substack

By: Roger Caiazza

Date: November 18, 2024

Pragmatic Environmentalist of New York Summary Update November 4, 2024 – November 17, 2024

Four articles all document planning problems associated with NY's net-zero transition

This is my fortnightly summary update of recent posts at Pragmatic Environmentalist of New York. I have been writing about the pragmatic balance of the risks and benefits of environmental initiatives in New York since 2017 with a recent emphasis on New York’s Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act).  A pdf copy of the following information and previous summaries are also available.  The opinions expressed in these articles do not reflect the position of any of my previous employers or any other organization I have been associated with, these comments are mine alone.

DPS Definitions for Establishment of a Renewable Energy Program

I believe that the biggest shortcoming of the Hochul Administration’s implementation of the Climate Act is the lack of a plan, and four articles addressed that concern.  The first points out that a plan for the Climate Act would include things like fundamental definitions.  Amazingly while there is a mandate that all electricity must be generated by “zero-emissions” resources by 2040, “zero emissions” hasn’t been defined until now.  On November 4, 2024, the Department of Public Service (DPS) staff finally proposed this definition.

The Staff Proposal definition states: The Commission’s interpretation of this term will lay the foundation for decisions about planning, investments, and more in the run-up to 2040.”  This is an admission that there is no foundation for the current planning process.  Some of the aspects of the definition are more important than others.  My post concentrated on the question whether non-greenhouse gas emissions were also required to be zero.  Practically speaking the issue was related to the use of hydrogen which is the recommended zero-emissions fuel technology for hard to convert sectors and the place holder for the new Dispatchable Emissions-Free Resource (DEFR) that the Integration Analysis argues is necessary.  Everyone agrees that compliant hydrogen should not be produced with fossil fuels, but the question was whether the hydrogen had to be used in fuel cells so that the only emission was water or whether it could be burned to produce energy.  I am sure that the ideologues are having fits over the proposed definition:

Staff recommends that the Commission interpret “zero emissions” to refer to greenhouse gases only and not to emissions of other air pollutants.

In my opinion the support cited for this interpretation was strong and I think that it is a pragmatic approach.  It will be hard enough and expensive enough to produce hydrogen for the uses proposed without adding to the challenge by insisting that it be used in fuel cells.  I expect that the ideological environmentalist organizations will disagree, vehemently.

I noted that the they have finally provided a fundamental definition. The law mandated that a program be established by 6/30/2021 to meet the targets.  The fact that the terms crucial to the development of an implementation plan were defined 28 months after the program was supposed to be established epitomizes the lack of planning throughout the Hochul Administration’s implementation of the Climate Act. (continue reading)

Pragmatic Environmentalist of New York Summary Update November 4, 2024 – November 17, 2024

The year 2024 was a year of growing awareness of the societal effects of “Net Zero by 2050” and of growing resistance to elements of government energy and climate policies intended to achieve “Net Zero by 2050”.

The governments of several developed nations realized that, while they had established goals to be achieved on the path to Net Zero, they had no actual plans to achieve those goals. Several national governments also realized that the goals they had set were unlikely to be achieved or even achievable.

Several wind and solar “droughts” helped make it obvious that storage was a critical component of an intermittent renewable generation powered electric grid. Two peer reviewed studies identified the magnitude of the storage required to achieve reliability of a renewable grid. Comparing their conclusions with the currently installed grid-scale storage capacity exposed the woeful inadequacy of the current storage fleet. Storage could be, and had been, largely ignored because there was adequate conventional generation capacity available to “fill in the blanks” when renewable generation was inadequate or unavailable.

The combination of demand growth and the scheduled closure of coal and natural gas generation capacity increased focus on the storage issue. Several approaches to expanding storage capacity have been studied, including combinations of short, medium and long-duration batteries, “Green Hydrogen”, pumped hydro, compressed air and even flywheels. All of these storage approaches are more expensive than the generating capacity they would support and have long implementation times.

Several governments have concluded that Net Zero would require the installation of Dispatchable Emissions-Free Resources (DEFRs). The most likely DEFR technology is nuclear generation, including gigawatt-scale generators and Small Modular reactors (SMRs). However, nuclear installations require long lead times and SMRs are not yet commercially available.

Corporations which operate large data centers and Artificial Intelligence (AI) facilities have realized that renewable generation, even with storage, would not be sufficiently reliable for their needs; and, in many cases, utilities do not have adequate generating capacity available to supply them. These corporations are now refocusing on dedicated nuclear generation systems of up to 2 GW capacity.

In the US, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the North American Electric Reliability Council and several ISOs and RTOs have realized that the combined effects of renewable generation growth, storage inadequacy, grid load growth and planned conventional generation retirements threaten grid reliability.

Resistance to Net Zero policies is growing in the developed nations. Farmers and ranchers are protesting proposed government programs to limit the use of synthetic fertilizers, reduce cattle, lamb and hog herds, remove farmland from cultivation and require the use of currently unavailable electric farm equipment.

Public interest in electric vehicles has plateaued and is declining in some markets. Vehicle manufacturers are slowing or cancelling planned EV manufacturing facilities. Some governments have reduced or eliminated incentives for EV purchases, triggering significant reductions in EV sales. Range anxiety also remains an issue for EVs.

UK homeowners are resisting conversion from natural gas furnaces and boilers to electric heat pumps, both because of the high cost of heat pump conversion and because electricity rates have increased to the point that electric heat pumps are also more expensive to operate.. Others successfully resisted using their homes as demonstration sites for Hydrogen conversion from natural gas.

From: edmhdotme

By: Ed Hoskins

Date: October 15, 2024

Comparing Power Generation Technologies

Introduction
The Industrial Revolution and the exploitation of fossil fuels has provided and can continue to provide an ample supply of abundant energy for Mankind.  Fossil fuels have advanced the quality of life and prosperity particularly of the Western world over the past 2 centuries.  There remains a very large proportion of the Global population who are yet to see similar benefits and the same advances to their wellbeing.

Nonetheless, in spite of the rapid growth in the Global population there has still been a progressive advance of the well-being of Man-kind with the reduction of poverty levels and climate related losses worldwide.

Green Thinking is now a major obstruction to the availability of abundant energy.  At the same time Western Nations in tackling their idea that there is a Climate emergency and by promoting the concept of  “Net Zero“,  try to demonstrate their “Virtue” by demonising Carbon Dioxide as pollutant.  

This has to be nonsensical as atmospheric CO2 is the essential Gas upon which all life-on-Earth depends.

This posts collates, summarises and illustrates the performance characteristics of the different power generation technologies in a unified visual format.

Considerations in this post
This post considers the following power generation technologies:

• Onshore Wind
• Offshore Wind
• Solar PV on grid
• Gas-fired CCGT
• Advanced Nuclear
• Biomass
• Coal / Lignite
• Hydro + Pumped.

This post provides illustrated comparisons between these power generation technologies from the following points of view:

• Energy Return on Energy Investment, ERoEI ratio
• Achieved productivity / capacity percentages
  • Mass of installations required for a comparable power output: tonnes / GW
  • Non-fuel CO2 emissions embedded in various generation technologies:  tonnes / GW
  • CO2 emissions from Fossil fuels
  • Land Usage for comparable power output:  sqkm / GW
  • Estimated construction times for power generators
  • Approximate service life of generation installations
• Cost effectiveness comparisons between generation technologies:  $bn / GW
• Excess expenditures on Weather-Dependent Renewables in Europe:  $bn / GW

(continue reading)

Comparing Power Generation Technologies

Several “Big Tech” companies are planning to build data centers or AI facilities which would require as much as 1 gigawatt of reliable power supply. The first move in this direction was Microsoft’s decision to contract with Constellation Energy to reopen one reactor at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant to supply a Microsoft data center exclusively over a 20-year period. Other companies are pursuing powering their data centers and AI facilities with modular nuclear reactors in the 200-megawatt class.

As the grid transitions toward a renewable plus storage generation structure, it seems likely that data center and AI facility developers will choose to install dedicated DEFR generation (SMRs) to assure the availability of reliable power and avoid exposure to grid outages resulting from either generation inadequacy or transmission and distribution infrastructure damage. A 1-gigawatt facility could be powered by a fleet of 5 SMRs, if adequate support were available from the utility in the region, or by a fleet of 6 SMRs if adequate utility capacity to carry the facility through a refueling or unplanned outage of a single generator were not available. Refueling can typically be scheduled for the shoulder months when utility demand is unlikely to peak. It is telling that, at least so far, no data center or AI facility developer has proposed to power a standalone facility with a combination of renewable generation and storage.

Large loads which operate 24/7/365 operate at a much higher load factor than the utility grid, making more efficient and cost-effective use of generation infrastructure. Ownership and operation of dedicated generation infrastructure allows the facilities to control their energy costs. Ownership also assures that adequate power will be available when the data center or AI facility is ready to begin operation, rather than relying on adequate and timely response from the local utility and its regulators.

Integration of onsite generation also offers the opportunity to recover heat from the generators to provide space heating or to power absorption chillers for facility and equipment cooling. Recovery of heat rejected by the onsite generators increases the overall energy efficiency of the installation, since it offsets the requirement to use electricity generated at the site for cooling. Cooling is likely to be a year-round requirement in these large facilities because of the heat given off by the computing and communications equipment. However, some heating might also be required in office and maintenance spaces during the winter months.

This approach places the investment required to power the data center or AI facilities on the owners of the facility, isolating utility ratepayers from those incremental generation and transmission investment costs. That will be important as the transition proceeds, since the investments in generation, transmission and distribution facilities necessitated by “all-electric everything” would strain utilities abilities to finance them. Also, the state utility commissions are likely to resist these large investments because of the impact on consumer rates. The utility commissions would also be dealing with the issues surrounding decommissioning of existing fossil fuel generators and the natural gas transmission and distribution facilities which currently serve those generators and other direct end uses, as well as recovery of undepreciated utility investment in the decommissioned facilities.

From: Watts Up With That

By: David Shelley

Date: November 14, 2024

The Geological Record of Climate Change and Why Today’s Increase in Atmospheric CO2 Is the Result of Global Warming, Not the Cause

The climate is changing, and the geological record of climate change clearly shows that (a) we live in an unusually cold climate, (b) recent warming is neither dangerous or unusual, and (c) the main drivers of climate change are the sun, the oceans, and plate tectonics.

First, I will describe climate change over the last million years, and especially the last 120,000 years, including local (Christchurch, NZ) and other well-known examples. Then I will put this in the context of the last 540,000,000 years, a period known as the Phanerozoic during which most complex life forms developed and evolved. This period was almost always much warmer than today, with this warmer climate being punctuated by three important cold periods, one of which we remain in today.

I will then discuss in section 3 below the roles CO2 and our emissions play in climate. I will argue that almost all our emissions should have dissolved in the oceans to maintain an equilibrium partitioning of ca. 50/1 CO2 between the oceans and the atmosphere, which means that all other things being equal, CO2 levels in the atmosphere should have risen by only 7 ppm. This is not what has happened, and climate scientists have proposed, therefore, that our CO2 emissions must “hang around” in the atmosphere for 300 to 1000 years. However, that idea makes no sense, given that every water droplet in clouds is dissolving CO2 and transporting it via rain into the oceans. No reason to hang around at all. Instead, I propose that the observed ocean warming since 1905 (probably due to the sun, possibly volcanic activity) has resulted in the release of oceanic CO2, which is the main reason why atmospheric CO2 has increased by 140 ppm. I propose, too, that ocean warming is responsible for warming the lower atmosphere. Our emissions play no part whatsoever in the global warming.

I go on to discuss the disgraceful mismatch between facts and the political and activist commentaries on present-day warming. It is remarkable that the UN and climate activists do not correctly report what the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concludes about severe weather events and their frequency. It is a fact that the IPCC finds no clear evidence for attributing most such events to the influence of human emissions.

I provide a section on agriculture and methane emissions. It is significant that a distinguished climate scientist has recently described those emissions as “not a problem”.

Finally, I discuss what comes next, climate-wise. A very cold glaciation in 80,000 years is probable. In the meantime we do need to cut our use of fossil fuels, but there is no rush, and we would do this, not to control emissions or climate, but because fossil fuels are valuable finite resources. (continue reading)

The Geological Record of Climate Change and Why Today’s Increase in Atmospheric CO2 Is the Result of Global Warming, Not the Cause

The current US Administration has set a goal to achieve Net Zero by 2050. However, this goal relies solely on Executive Branch initiatives rather than being established in law. Therefore, the goal is subject to adjustment or abandonment with a change of Administration or even a change of Administration focus. This situation creates major uncertainties for those who must invest in and manage the transition and its multi-trillion-dollar costs.

There is no plan in place for the transition, largely because many of the elements essential to the transition do not currently exist and their future availability is uncertain. While government can fund research and development focused on these elements, it cannot assure success nor schedule the timing of commercial availability. The key elements currently unavailable for the electric sector include long-duration storage and Dispatchable Emission-Free Resources (DEFRs). The key elements currently unavailable for the direct fossil fuel end use transition include numerous industrial processes, such as steelmaking and cement production.

The electric industry is faced with a potential tripling of demand and consumption resulting from the transition to “all-electric everything” in existing markets. It is also faced with rapid increases in demand resulting from the growth of data centers and artificial intelligence facilities, some of which are projected to impose approximately one gigawatt of demand on a continuous basis.

The absence of a plan leaves the pace of the “all-electric everything” transition uncertain, as does the growing resistance to key elements of that transition, including renewable generation installations, electric vehicles and heat pumps. Robert Bryce has documented more than 700 renewable installations which have been blocked by local resistance efforts. This issue has caused states including Illinois, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island and California to take siting decisions out of the hands of local governments. Consumers are also resisting purchase of electric vehicles and the replacement of natural gas, propane and oil furnaces, boilers and water heaters with electric heat pumps.

Renewable generation facilities cannot be sited unless they have access to the grid, but grid operators cannot afford to extend the grid to the locations of facilities which might not be built. Data centers and AI centers require access to large quantities of reliable power, but many grids do not currently have the capacity to support their demands and are unwilling to add generating capacity without assurance that the large data centers and AI centers will actually be built. Both of these situations have contributed to reconsideration of “take or pay” contracts with grid operators prior to grid and generation expansion. They have also caused grid operators to consider ownership of renewable generation and data center developers to consider ownership of dedicated generation resources.

Generation capacity expansions must lead load growth to assure grid reliability. However, FERC, NERC and many grid operators are already concerned about declining capacity reserve margins, closures of coal and natural gas generators and the long lead times necessary to add generation and transmission capacity. There is also the growing realization that current electricity storage capacity is inadequate to support the current intermittent renewable generation fleet as conventional generation assets are retired; and, that the cost of adding the necessary storage capacity is enormous.

These uncertainties add to the cost and complexity of funding the required expansion of the electric grid.

From: Watts Up With That

By: Roger Caiazza

Date: November 14, 2024

Renewable Transition Raw Materials Challenge

The Bulletin of the Geological Survey of Finland “publishes the results of scientific research that is thematically or geographically connected to Finnish or Fennoscandian geology.”  Bulletin 416 Special Issue publishes two articles by Simon P. Michaux that are of interest to anyone concerned about challenges of the transition away from fossil fuels.

The Preface to the Bulletin explains the purpose of the report:

The two contributions published in this Special Issue of the Bulletin of the Geological Survey of Finland highlight that a successful transition to renewable energy requires a comprehensive raw materials strategy that considers both the upstream metal demands and the downstream infrastructure needs. In technological and innovation space, exploring alternative battery chemistries, improving recycling rates, and developing more resource-efficient technologies will be crucial to mitigating the strain imposed on metal supply chains.

The earlier work of the sole author of these two papers has been widely quoted, debated, and criticized in the media and amongst policy makers and academic audiences in the past few years. The premises, process, and conclusions of these studies have questioned the validity of some of the basic assumptions underlying the current energy and natural resource policy, but have still, largely mistakenly, been taken as a statement in favor of the status quo. On the contrary, these contributions are intended as the beginning of a discourse and attempt to bring alternative, often overlooked, views into the discussion about the basic assumptions underlying the material requirements of the energy transition. Out of necessity, they make simplifications in recognizing and mapping out the scale of some key challenges in the raw materials sector that need to be overcome if the energy transition is to be realized. Calculations and estimations need to be refined and, naturally, in addition to raw materials production and the material transition, other crucial aspects such as technology and infrastructure development, workforce requirements, land use changes, and societal impacts, among others, also need to be considered.

Nevertheless, the challenges related to the complex and interconnected nature of the problem should not be taken as a cause to halt the development and innovation needed to overcome it. Further research, policy interventions, and international collaboration are all essential in securing sustainable supply chains, promoting responsible sourcing practices, and ensuring a just and equitable green and digital transition for everyone. (continue reading)

Renewable Transition Raw Materials Challenge