It is Impossible to Convert to 100% Green Energy
Only Fossil Fuels Currently Have the Density of Energy We Need
First, many of my followers on the various social media platforms might not know that I started my working career as a chemical engineer with a BS degree out of Clarkson University in upstate New York, an excellent school for science and engineering and now many other degrees. Every project I ever worked on back in my former life had aspects of energy conservation, especially during the oil embargo years in the 70’s.
Many are loving their new electric vehicles and feel as though they are doing their part in moving towards a solution to what some are calling Climate Change. Well, electricity is not at all “Green”. Electricity is a secondary form of energy that is converted from typically burning something that is a fossil fuel. Then, that electricity is transported by high power wires to your charging stations frequently losing more than half of the energy value in the transportation process. The chart below shows the recent breakdown of where our electricity in the US comes from and more than half is fossil fuel:
Let’s now look at wind energy. They are somewhat “green”, but have their own carbon footprint that few talk about. The Yale Climate Connections organization at https://yaleclimateconnections.org/ looked at a number of studies attempting to calculate the amount of CO2 equivalents per kilowatt-hours of electricity by wind turbines in various places around the world. They ALL have a carbon footprint! Lots of oil is used in keep those large blades spinning smoothly. And what happens to those very large blades when you retire the turbines some day in the future?
I live in Arizona, a place where solar power is religion. The big problem is that every day the sun has this nasty habit of going down behind the mountains to the west of us. Zero solar energy just when we are trying to cool the houses down from a day of living in a place that has 330 days of sunshine! Not very helpful.
One of the key drawbacks of solar is that it recovers energy from a relatively low density source, sunlight. A normal sized thermal power plant for example would require less than 10% of the land area of a similarly sized solar facility. And since either type of power generation plant would preferably be placed away from population centers, you are back to the inefficiency of transmission and loss of electrical energy that was mentioned above.
Batteries would be needed to smooth out the electrical peaks and valleys using solar, but do you have any idea the nasty chemicals that are in typical batteries and how many exotic metals are necessary for some of the new fancy Tesla batteries? How much power is used creating them and what are we doing with those items when they reach the end of their useful life?
Geothermal, or drilling down to hot areas of the earth, heating water to steam and generating electricity is only convenient if you happen to have some volcanos or thin places in the earth’s crust nearby.
Water can be used in areas where water is plentiful like Canada. Throw up a dam, put in some turbines and you’ve got some inexpensive electricity. But try that in the Southwest US where we are experiencing a drought and the idea will be quickly quashed.
Nuclear is now being talked about as “green” which amazes me with all the controversies back in the 70’s when I was considering concentrating on nuclear engineering in my chemical engineering degree. There used to be demonstrations against nuclear power way back then. Nuclear is fairly clean, but you do have the sticky issue of spent uranium and what to do with it. We probably should building more nuclear plants than we are.
It’s simple. Over a very LONG period of time, I have confidence that scientists will figure out fusion (which based on the process should be very clean), nuclear and who knows what other new innovative form of electricity generation. Renewable energy sources will creep, and I do mean creep into the mix. The cost and availability of fossil fuels will slowly move the world to other forms of electricity generation. In the meanwhile, we should use fossil fuels to generate our power to run our economies and allow citizens of the world to live their lives.
A great, easy-to-understand piece on how so much is misleading in the energy world was written my the Mises Institute, link below
Until we invent “free” energy, adjust your thermostats, add justified energy conservation measures to your home, turn off lights when you leave a room, try to get down to fewer trading screens and enjoy the ride!