My old abode, The Manse, used both propane and wood to keep it toasty warm, with 90% being handled by the woodstove. We’d burn anywhere between 2-1/2 and 4 cords of wood between late October and mid-April. The propane furnace would be used sparingly, usually if we weren’t going to be around to stoke the stove or if the outside temps were going to be well below zero. (The woodstove couldn’t quite keep up when it got that cold, so the propane furnace made up for the deficit.)
All of this got me thinking about a post I’d read about ‘green’ energy and eliminating our dependence of fossil fuels by 2050. The premise of the story was those pushing the Green Nude Eel keep choosing to ignore the math. Proponents tell us what their goals are, but don’t tell us how we’re going to meet them. Their ideas sound great, but they don’t reflect reality because the math doesn’t work and no amount of wishing will help them meet their stated goals.
...if we are going to zero emissions by 2050, we will need to replace about 193 petawatt-hours (1015 watt-hours) of fossil fuel energy per year. Since there are 8,766 hours in a year, we need to build and install about 193 PWhrs/year divided by 8766 hrs/year ≈ 22 terawatts (TW, or 1012 watts) of energy generating capacity.The article goes on to clarify a few points, so I suggest you Read The Whole Thing.
Starting from today, January 25, 2021, there are 10,568 days until January 1, 2050. So we need to install, test, commission, and add to the grid about 22 TW / 10568 days ≈ 2.1 gigawatts/day (GW/day, or 109 watts/day) of generating capacity each and every day from now until 2050.
We can do that in a couple of ways. We could go all nuclear. In that case, we’d need to build, commission, and bring on-line a brand-new 2.1 GW nuclear power plant every single day from now until 2050. Easy, right? …
Don’t like nukes? Well, we could use wind power. Now, the wind doesn’t blow all the time. Typical wind “capacity factor”, the percentage of actual energy generated compared to the nameplate capacity, is about 35%. So we’d have to build, install, commission and bring online just under 3,000 medium-sized (2 megawatt, MW = 106 watts) wind turbines every single day from now until 2050. No problemo, right? …
Don’t like wind? Well, we could use solar. Per the NREL, actual delivery from grid-scale solar panel installations on a 24/7/365 basis is on the order of 8.3 watts per square meter depending on location. So we’d have to cover ≈ 96 square miles (250 square kilometers) with solar panels, wire them up, test them, and connect them to the grid every single day from now until 2050. Child’s play, right? …
Of course, if we go with wind or solar, they are highly intermittent sources. So we’d still need somewhere between 50% – 90% of the total generating capacity in nuclear, for the all-too-frequent times when the sun isn’t shining and the wind isn’t blowing.
As such, ignoring the math is anathema to me, being one of those engineering types. The math defines what can and cannot be done. The math says it isn’t possible to meet the 2050 goal, no matter what proponents claim. Construction on that scale would take up a good percentage of the world’s economic output for three or more decades. Financing such an effort would likely bankrupt every nation involved in such an endeavor. In the end, would it actually be worth it or would it end up a boondoggle that never delivers on the promises made? Of the two, I am inclined to believe it would be the latter. Maybe it’s the cynic in me, but having seen so many other Grand Plans follow that route to oblivion, is it any wonder I think this one would be no different?
If I was of the suspicious sort, I would come to think those pushing ‘green’ energy don’t really care whether their public goals are met. It would be perfectly fine if energy supplies plummeted, forcing many of those they see as not being worthy into an 18th century existence. What do they care if the unworthy are forced into subsistence farming to survive, or worse, don’t survive at all?
More than a few ‘green’ energy proponents have come right out and said they would prefer to see two-thirds of the human population ‘go away’. They didn’t come right out and say they would like that two-thirds actively eliminated, but I wouldn’t be surprised if more than a few of them have thought just that kind of heinous thought. Some few have actually voiced such thoughts. I would be OK with that...if I was the one who got to select who lived and who died. I’d start with eliminating them...and then decide everyone else deserved to live. (Would I have been a bastard for doing such a thing? Maybe. But I would have also prevented genocide on a scale that makes those committed by the socialist regimes of the 20th century look like rank amateurs in comparison.)
This is something we should stay as far away from as possible.