The US EIA provides us with primary energy numbers (Table 1.1). The 2024 data are for the first 10 months of the year.
Year Fossil Fuel % 2024 83.5 2019 83.4 2014 82.1 2005 81.6
https://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/monthly/pdf/sec1.pdf
DB2
3 Likes
Net Zero is an expensive pipe dream. EVs might displace ICE cars but not fossil fuels. Then, what’s the gain?
- Electric motors are more efficient than ICEngines
- Regenerative breaking
- No need to truck fuel to gas stations
- No pollution risk at gas stations
- Better, more efficient pollution control in centralized power plants that in distributed vehicles
“Perfect is the enemy of good!” Voltaire
The Captain
1 Like
Centralized fossil fuel burning power plants are also quite a bit more efficient than internal combustion engines. 48% or so vs 25% for ICE. Probably not exact numbers.
3 Likes
The solution is more green energy. But massive investment is needed to get there.
1 Like
The Red Queen’s race…
“Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!”
DB2
1 Like
There seems to be no shortage of investment funds. Wonder why green investment is so slow.
It’s not.
Of course - China is going to own this market now.
A number of reasons. One is the existing fossil fuel infrastructure–pipelines, oil fields, refineries, coal mines, gas stations-- it so huge and constructed over so many decades that it would require enormous investment even to displace a small part of that, and the existing system is so large that it has enormous financial inertia.
Another is the fracking boom had made natural gas super cheap, which makes it hard for other energy sources to compete.
And then there is the anti-science, anti-intellectual political climate in the United States. For example, the current leader of the free world has said on many occasions electric boats would be so heavy they would sink and cause the passengers to either be electrocuted or eaten by sharks.
5 Likes
Document the White House is an electric boat that did NOT sink due to its weight. TIG sank it with his lies because just about everyone was able to put many holes in his false claims.
1 Like
The same source has the CO2 emissions from the burning of the main fossil fuels. Going back to previous years, the following are the CO2 emissions for the first 10 months of each year shown. This way we can compare 2024 with other years on an equal time basis. I couldn’t go back to 2005 as in the first post, since the EIA monthly CO2 data in this report apparently doesn’t go back that far. I did get the 2009 data, however.
CO2 from fossil fuels, Jan. thru Oct. of each year
Million metric tons of CO2
Coal Nat Gas Petroleum Total
2024 624 1455 1863 3948
2019 915 1367 1961 4252
2014 1443 1167 1869 4488
2009 1561 994 1922 4487
While CO2 from coal has come down in the last several years, CO2 from natural gas has gone up. The decrease in coal is larger than the increase in natural gas, so overall yearly CO2 has declined somewhat. CO2 from petroleum products (gasoline, diesel fuel, etc) has come down a little, but the rate of decrease has been slow.
It will be impossible to get to net zero in the US if the use of natural gas keeps going up as it is. Since natural gas power plants are the preferred back up for wind and solar, the CO2 from natural gas will keep being emitted and is increasing nearly every year.
It can also be noted that even with closing down a big part of coal-fired power generation, the US still has rather high per capita CO2 emissions compared with other developed nations. (14.3 tons per person in the US, compared with 4 to 8 tons per person for much of Europe, as an example.)
_ Pete
2 Likes
Somebody ought to tell the fable teller that before nuclear power submarines were hybrids, diesel on the surface and electric when submerged. I mention “fable teller” because it as not The Donald…
Trump’s recounting of the saga goes roughly like this: In September, a South Carolina boat manufacturer warned him about the scourge of electric boats — arguing that the battery is so large that it leaves little room for passengers and, worse, the battery is so heavy that the boat might not even float.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/07/26/trump-shark-ev-boat-electrocution/
Anything foolish to sink the ship!
The Captain
2 Likes
That’s if the vehicle is well maintained. How many are?
intercst
To get to 25%, they require the owners manually PUSH the vehicle for 50% of the time it is in use (for any purpose). Hopefully, they eventually remember to shift out of P and release the emergency brake before they start pushing…
OK - 20%, 30% for a diesel.
But only when running at high efficiency, like a constant speed on the freeway. The efficiency when braking or a stoplight is zero.
1 Like
Climate policy requires a more realistic approach
https://www.reuters.com/breakingviews/climate-policy-requires-more-realistic-approach-2025-02-28/
The pursuit of net zero carbon emissions has been a resounding failure. Despite trillions of dollars spent on renewable energy, hydrocarbons still account for over 80% of the world’s primary energy and a similar share of recent increases in energy consumption, according to The Energy Institute…
Solar and wind power have grown to a mere 3.5% of primary energy production. The levelised cost of renewable energy – which measures of the net present value of electricity produced over a plant’s lifetime – has declined sharply over the years. But this has not resulted into lower electricity prices. In fact, as the share of the energy mix provided by renewables has risen, electricity prices have tended to increase. That’s because wind and solar power are intermittent. Since storing energy in batteries is uneconomic, traditional sources of power are still needed as backup, which is expensive…
Vaclav Smil has likened the costs of the planned energy transition to those incurred by a nation fighting total war for decades on end. The era of zero interest rates created a sense that the supply of capital was infinite and its cost negligible. Rising interest rates dispelled that illusion. The economics of wind and solar power, with their large upfront investment costs and relatively low operating expenses, have been upended.
DB2
https://www.reuters.com/breakingviews/climate-policy-requires-more-realistic-approach-2025-02-28/
Wood Mackenzie calculates that every 2-percentage point increase in the risk-free rate raises the levelized cost of renewable electricity by around 20%.
Financial markets have got the message. The S&P Global Clean Energy Transition Index is down around 65% from its peak in early 2021. Over the same period, the S&P World Energy Index, comprised of oil and gas producers, has nearly doubled.
DB2
And for now, factor in new administration’s plan to cancel as many green energy programs as it can. For now growth is likely to slow. Bad timing. But that may change in the future.
Actually there are lots of myths in this. Let us just take solar, there is one time cost, but there is no on-going fuel costs. If you do TCO, it works out cheaper. Also, renewables “time to market” is lot shorter. Currently the real challenge is grid. Grid infrastructure from where you can generate these energy to bringing it to the consumers.
1 Like
Looked at from a macro perspective the issue is central power vs. distributed power. If this sounds political it’s because it’s the same issue, who has the power. Energy companies and power utilities benefit from central power. Consumers benefit from distributed power. Think in terms of Tesla’s Virtual Power Plants (VPP). VPPs allow consumers to sell extra power they generate and even to resell cheap utility power at higher prices arbitraging the disconnect between generation and consumption schedules. Think about what this does to Cost Plus rate setting. Old Ma Bell milked Cost Plus by promoting the most expensive technologies they could find. Cost Plus sounds benign but it’s the exact opposite.
While not an engineer I believe the biggest challenge is maintaining the AC grid at the proper frequency, 50 or 60 cycles, depending on the country. The inertia of giant rotating generators helps a lot. Solar panels not at all. Wind turbines have governors. Giant battery based storage facilities that reduce the cost of peaker loads seem to have the technology to maintain the grid at the required frequency.
To me it seems that issue is not technology but profitability.
The Captain