What does it take to succesfully transition to a green energy economy?

[Marc v E]

Tesla has just released their plan for the energy transition.

What is takes in energy, mining and what amount of batteries we need. And of course the costs.

Turns out it will cost 40% less than what the oil industry cost us the past 20 years, uses 50% less energy at the source and will use less mining.

Let's discuss based on the numbers they came up with. The report can be found here: https://www.tesla.com/ns_videos/Tesla-Master-Plan-Part-3.pdf

 

[JktHifi]

I’d rather buy Bitcoin than TSLA.

 

[Marc v E]

That could be the case. I'm not asking you to buy Tesla, though. What do you think of their modelling for a green economy? Seems pretty solid on first glance to me. I'm curious what others think of the reasoning in the report, not so much Tesla.

 

[JktHifi]

After Twitter users charged by the new owner, I don’t think people like him anymore.

 

[DVDdoug]

Turns out it will cost 40% less than what the oil industry cost us the past 20 years, uses 50% less energy at the source and will use less mining.

When that happens the transition will happen automatically.

As of now, "green" energy needs subsidies and rich and upper-middle class people buy Teslas (as a 2nd or 3rd car) and these are the same people who can afford solar panels.

And then the Tesla is usually charged with natural gas or coal. The best and biggest source of renewable energy is hydro power and building new big dams is out of the question in the U.S.

 

[levimax]

The problem that most of these models ignore is "timing" i.e. except for Hydro all the "green sources" of energy do not match demand patterns of energy usage and practical storage solutions do no current exist either in reality or even in theory. This means that practically speaking for every Mega Watt of "green energy" added to the grid you need an equal amount of "traditional energy" in order to back it up. No model I know of takes this into account and in fact many utilities are removing "traditional energy" sources from the grid as they add "green sources" and that is why the grid is becoming so unstable (see Texas and California of practical examples of this). The cost of keeping these huge backup reserves eliminates that cost advantage of the "green energy" sources.

Subsidies always have unintended consequences so rather that "help" the transition to "green sources" they actually make the transition much more difficult and the costs are much higher than if free market forces were allowed to work.

 

[Marc v E]

The problem that most of these models ignore is "timing" i.e. except for Hydro all the "green sources" of energy do not match demand patterns of energy usage and practical storage solutions do no current exist either in reality or even in theory. This means that practically speaking for every Mega Watt of "green energy" added to the grid you need an equal amount of "traditional energy" in order to back it up. No model I know of takes this into account and in fact many utilities are removing "traditional energy" sources from the grid as they add "green sources" and that is why the grid is becoming so unstable (see Texas and California of practical examples of this). The cost of keeping these huge backup reserves eliminates that cost advantage of the "green energy" sources.

Subsidies always have unintended consequences so rather that "help" the transition to "green sources" they actually make the transition much more difficult and the costs are much higher than if free market forces were allowed to work.

If I read it correctly page 20 outlines the batteries needed for the transition in the US: 815 GW to create an annual capacity of 6.5TWh

 

[levimax]

While that is probably enough storage "In theory overall" it is not enough "locally". Perfect example is Texas with the big Ice storm and cold snap that shuts down almost all Solar and Wind generation. In order to get through they need pretty much 100% backup of the green sources available as they can't bring in energy from far away locations. I would argue you need 5,087 GW (don't need to back up Hydro or Nuclear) of traditional backup or storage for the 5,338 GW green generating capacity. This is way too expensive and won't happen so we will have a less and less stable grid as time goes by which is kind of discouraging since we are supposed to rely more and more on grid.

 

[Marc v E]

When that happens the transition will happen automatically.

As of now, "green" energy needs subsidies and rich and upper-middle class people buy Teslas (as a 2nd or 3rd car) and these are the same people who can afford solar panels.

And then the Tesla is usually charged with natural gas or coal. The best and biggest source of renewable energy is hydro power and building new big dams is out of the question in the U.S.

I think you're right about it happening automatically.

What I see at home is that leasing evs was the first step in this for cars, as leasing takes into account the cost of ownership over time. I agree we're now at the point where the upper-middle class can afford to buy an ev. Next step will probably be when there is an ev that is affordable for middle class income and the same price as an equivalent ice car.

Concerning charging, even when an ev is charged with electricity from a fossil source, it's more efficient than burning it in the car's engine. The reason is that at a larger scale efficiency goes up and ev cars are far more efficient.

I see the same happening now in the electricity grid, although it seems to be at an earlier stage. We're replacing gas peaker plants with batteries and building solar/wind farms, but supply of grid powered batteries seems to be far lower than demand. There apparently is a 2 year wait time between ordering and getting it installed.

 

[Marc v E]

While that is probably enough storage "In theory overall" it is not enough "locally". Perfect example is Texas with the big Ice storm and cold snap that shuts down almost all Solar and Wind generation. In order to get through they need pretty much 100% backup of the green sources available as they can't bring in energy from far away locations. I would argue you need 5,087 GW (don't need to back up Hydro or Nuclear) of traditional backup or storage for the 5,338 GW green generating capacity. This is way too expensive and won't happen so we will have a less and less stable grid as time goes by which is kind of discouraging since we are supposed to rely more and more on grid.

You could be right. I'm the first to admit I'm not an expert in this field. Still, I would assume Texas is not that far ahead in green energy that they are already completely relying on green energy, right? If that is the case, then that would imply the blackout was happening in a grid supplied by fossil fuel.

In any case, to prevent such things happening local batteries would be preferable imo.

 

[tomtoo]

Time, Brain and work.

 

[Willem]

In 2021 25% of Dutch electricity was from solar panels and wind turbines, and rapidly increasing. The grid is coping, but there is also a lot of investment to expand it, and increase long distance transport capacity to connect to regions with different climate and weather. Research into hydrogen storage is ongoing, and hydrogen storage would obviously offer an interesting option to store electricity. Two new nuclear power stations are now also in the planning to provide a floor in the production. The first electricity companies have now introduced dynamic pricing, and we are waiting for the first domestic appliances to arrive to benefit from off peak hours. Finally, saving energy also helps a lot. As a family we have reduced our private electricity consumption by about 20% last year, and for the country as a whole electricity consumption went down by about 25%.
There really is no alternative, and we will almost certainly have to use each and every technology. The mechanism will be the tried and tested combination of the price mechanism and public investment in infrastructure, and interventions with subsidies and taxes to get things going, i.e. the basic playbook of any economics textbook.

 

[bloodshoteyed]

answering strictly the question in the title?
30 years of waiting for fusion (or maybe only 29?)

 

[tomtoo]

answering strictly the question in the title?
30 years of waiting for fusion (or maybe only 29?)

Or 50 ?

 

[Marc v E]

answering strictly the question in the title?
30 years of waiting for fusion (or maybe only 29?)

But why wait for fusion energy when we already have it? In that big bright ball in the sky?

 

[Marc v E]

The image below is from the report and outlines the cost per kw for each energy source.

 

[Doodski]

@Marc v E in Alberta Canada we are some kinda blessed in that we have many capped oil and gas drill holes and many of them can be used for geothermal. So the expense is reduced. We also have the present oil and gas workers, O&G engineers, scientists, technologists etc that are already drilling deep and know all about this stuff and the manufacturing of big drills is already in progress because they need them for O&G. Even instrumentation and electronics are manufactured here for O&G. So it's a natural fit to use geothermal.

 

[Timcognito]

This means that practically speaking for every Mega Watt of "green energy" added to the grid you need an equal amount of "traditional energy" in order to back it up.

So what, if you are getting solar, wind, hydro and nuclear most of the time you only need that backup infrastructure (that are already installed and paid for) to run some of the time. In the meantime CO2 emissions are dramatically reduced. My whole house battery gives me free electricity all night even after cloudy days. It is rare in these discussions, that efficiency and technology are curving consumption, like LED lighting and modern high efficiency heat pumps. The real issue is that diverse fractional ownership of the grid is holding back ready available supply of power and new clean power suppliers. Ths article from the other thread.

Wind and solar power generators wait in yearslong lines to put clean electricity on the grid, then face huge interconnection fees they can't afford

Interconnection applications and fees make it slow and expensive for clean energy providers to connect to the electrical grid.

www.cnbc.com

 

[robwpdx]

Tesla has just released their plan for the energy transition.

What is takes in energy, mining and what amount of batteries we need. And of course the costs.

Turns out it will cost 40% less than what the oil industry cost us the past 20 years, uses 50% less energy at the source and will use less mining.

Let's discuss based on the numbers they came up with. The report can be found here: https://www.tesla.com/ns_videos/Tesla-Master-Plan-Part-3.pdf

Tesla is not a reliable source in this case. Tesla wants to continue its lithium battery business for vehicles, PowerWalls, and grid storage. They want to make their products slightly cheaper by building their own conventional lithium battery supply chain. We have sodium batteries on the doorstep and many other grid and home storage options.

The paper is correct that there will be curtailment. Grid storage costs maybe $30-$800/kWh, you can do the math on 6.5 TWh.

Better sources are

https://www.nrel.gov/news/program/2...ives-deep-transportation-decarbonization.html

and

https://acee.princeton.edu/rapidswitch/projects/net-zero-america-project/

RMI.org has good material and efficiency, and load flexibility "demand response" is cheaper than new generation/storage.

BTW, I'm not signing up to go to Mars either!

 

[levimax]

So what, if you are getting solar, wind, hydro and nuclear most of the time you only need that backup infrastructure (that are already installed and paid for) to run some of the time. In the meantime CO2 emissions are dramatically reduced.

Except that is not what is happening. As green sources get added the old capacity is being retired so there is not enough backup. Texas and California are prime examples .... eveything is good until unusual weather and then the grids collapse. The economics of green energy don't work out if you have to back them up 100% so reliabilty suffers. Unfortuneltly people die when the grid collapses during very cold or very hot weather.