We must halve our energy use to avoid climate catastrophe, according to new modelling https://phys.org/news/2022-04-halve-energy-climate-catastrop…
The research, published recently in Climate Policy, models different energy-use scenarios for reducing global energy-related CO2 emissions to zero by 2050. It found that simply substituting fossil fuels with renewable energy at current energy usage levels is no longer enough…
“We have a situation where renewable electricity and total energy consumption are growing quite rapidly alongside one another. So renewables are chasing a retreating target that keeps getting further away,” says Mark Diesendorf, author of the study and Honorary Associate Professor at the School of Humanities & Languages, UNSW Arts, Design & Architecture. “The research shows it is simply impossible for renewable energy to overtake that retreating target.”
Hollywood Icon Whoopie Goldberg was on TV yesterday stating that the European location where they were shooting her latest film had gasoline priced at 4.02 Euros per liter which equals $16 per gallon.
As the price of fuel continues to rise you will see that it will be more economical to go for EV’s or Hybrid autos. I just filled my Hybrid yesterday and 3/4 of a tank was $30. My next door neighbors just got a new Ford Diesel pickup and filled up their tank for $200 for 3/4 of a tank.
I predict that it won’t take very many $200 fill ups to make them question their purchase.
paul:"When we get serious we will put solar panels on every roof and wind turbines in every farmers field.
Our main problem is under investment."
really? Wind turbines only work when there is sufficient wind to run them. Most of the country is NOT suitable for economic wind generation.
Really? The economics of solar in northern climates is marginal. Near zero in winter months in many areas. OF course, we could only run industry when the sun shines. Everything shut down at sundown including businesses, theaters, restaurants, etc…
One large solar farm produces more power than 10,000 home solar installations…and likely more efficiently because they don’t have shading, trees, blockage from neighbor houses, non-ideal house orientation.
"As the price of fuel continues to rise you will see that it will be more economical to go for EV’s or Hybrid autos. I just filled my Hybrid yesterday and 3/4 of a tank was $30. My next door neighbors just got a new Ford Diesel pickup and filled up their tank for $200 for 3/4 of a tank.
I predict that it won’t take very many $200 fill ups to make them question their purchase."
True but likely you can’t haul 10,000 of trailer with your hybrid…and if a Prius, not recommended to haul ANYTHING…but you might get away with 500 lbs.
If it’s a work truck…hauling stuff around, you’ll make 100 trips in your Prius to carry the same amount of stuff.
Yeah, my Prius gets 44 (an older one - newer ones get 55mph)…and a fill up once a month is $28 bucks or so…
but I can’t haul a boat, travel trailer, work trailer, horse trailer, etc…
Their diesel probably gets 22 mpg on the road. Diesel at the moment is $5/gal.
So many clean energy sources remain to be developed who can say what the potential is.
I think they were focused on the rate of change rather than the potential. If your goal is to cut emissions in half by 2030 and get to zero by 2050 (unrealistic, IMO) then just concentrating on expanding renewables won’t get you there because of the growth in total energy demand/usage. Kind of an Alice in Wonderland “running to say in place”.
Wind turbines only work when there is sufficient wind to run them. Most of the country is NOT suitable for economic wind generation.
Are you saying that there are places in the US that don’t have wind? Also any electricity that IS generated by wind power is transportable thru regional power grids.
The economics of solar in northern climates is marginal. Near zero in winter months in many areas.
Direct solar power generation is more efficent than home installations. Plus having traveled in Europe including in the Alpine regions, where they get more than their share of snow, we saw multiple solar rooftop installations and because of the slope of the panels plus the direction of the panels they don’t seem to have an big issue with the snow.
It does seem to be more of an additional source of electricity than the only source in these areas with hydro-electric being the main power.
You should move up to a RAV4 as they have a tow package available that can handle up to 3,500lbs. Or you could go for an all electric Ford F150 Lightning which can tow up to 10,000lbs. As the Ford Lightning is a brand new model I would probably wait a year to give them a chance to work out any bugs.
Diesel price in this market is now up to $6.00/gal and gas $4.00/gal
“Are you saying that there are places in the US that don’t have wind? Also any electricity that IS generated by wind power is transportable thru regional power grids.”
Most of the country does not have sufficient STRONG winds that average daily to reasonable values. You really need 15 mph plus winds. The power generated is related to the CUBE of the wind speed. Twice the average wind, gives you EIGHT times the wind power generated.
Yes, most of the country does not have continuous strong enough winds. Or have locations where you can put wind farms like half the coast lines east and west do to opposition or population density.
Direct solar power generation is more efficient than home installations. Plus having traveled in Europe including in the Alpine regions, where they get more than their share of snow, we saw multiple solar rooftop installations and because of the slope of the panels plus the direction of the panels they don’t seem to have an big issue with the snow."
With prices THREE TIMES the USA for kilowatts in Germany… solar can save you money there. Plus I’m sure there are generous subsidies there.
Here, it’s investment (and tax credits and writeoffs), and long payback for most areas of the country. Money better spend on industrial sized solar farms that don’t have problems with trees, shading by neighbor houses, city smog and pollution, short days much of the needed time in winter/fall/spring, hail/storm damage, etc.
Federal money would be better spent on industrial mega solar installations. Lower cost per MWH, more MW per day per solar panel, etc.
Some states like Rhode Island and Massachusetts have projects approved but not yet completed and as mentioned before any electricity that is generated is usually fed into a larger grid with Texas being an exception.
With some states paying more than $0.16/kwh the payback time can be very short.
The only reason Warren Buffet invested in Wind Farms…was for the tax credits.
If the government showers private industry with tax breaks…you get lots of projects that don’t necessarily pay for themselves quickly enough…but if the government goal of reducing carbon intensity means anything, then giving tax breaks to private investors is one way to reduce carbon intensity.
““I will do anything that is basically covered by the law to reduce Berkshire’s tax rate,” Buffet told an audience in Omaha, Nebraska recently. “For example, on wind energy, we get a tax credit if we build a lot of wind farms. That’s the only reason to build them. They don’t make sense without the tax credit.””
Wind and solar plants generate electricity cheaper than natgas power plants. That is proven by the fact that wind and solar are the fastest growing power generation sources in 2022 - 2023.
EIA forecast for 2022 - 2023
We forecast that the annual share of U.S. electricity generation from renewable energy sources will rise from 20% in 2021, to 22% in 2022, and to 23% in 2023, as a result of continuing increases in solar and wind generating capacity. This increase in renewable generation leads to a decline in natural gas generation, which falls from a 37% share in 2021 to 35% in both 2022 and 2023. Natural gas generation falls in the forecast even though we expect the cost of natural gas for power generation to fall from an average of $5.85/MMBtu in 2Q22 to an annual average of $4.21/MMBtu in 2023. Although new natural gas-fired power generating units are scheduled to come online in 2022, they are likely to be run at lower utilization rates than in recent years. Increasing renewable generation also contributes to our forecast that the share of generation from coal will fall from 23% in both 2021 and 2022 to 21% by 2023. A major contributor to coal’s declining generation share next year will be the retirement of coal-fired generating capacity during 2022. Nuclear generation remains relatively constant in the forecast at an average share of 20%. Although one nuclear reactor will be retired during 2022, that loss will be offset by the opening of one new 1.1 GW reactor late in 2022, which will be the first new nuclear reactor to open in the United States since 2016.
Planned additions to U.S. wind and solar capacity in 2022 and 2023 increase electricity generation from those sources in our forecast. We estimate that the U.S. electric power sector added 14 gigawatts (GW) of new wind capacity in 2021. We expect 10 GW of new wind capacity will come online in 2022 and 4 GW in 2023. Utility-scale solar capacity rose by 13 GW in 2021. Our forecast for added utility-scale solar capacity is 20 GW for 2022 and 24 GW for 2023. We expect solar additions to account for nearly half of new electric generating capacity in 2022. In addition, in 2021 small-scale solar increased by 5 GW to a total of 33 GW. We expect small-scale solar capacity (systems less than 1 megawatt) will grow by 4 GW in 2022 and by almost 6 GW in 2023.