Just because EVs use ‘more’ electricity is only important for upgrading the grids to accommodate renewable inputs. They should reduce coal, petrol, and gas consumption in aggregate so it becomes a ‘win’.
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Thanks! That’s most informative.
Incidentally, some 20 years ago, I ran a relatively small exempt government energy supply business. I closely followed the activities of the NEM. Not surprisingly, the projected electricity demand curves back then were just as exponential as they are today. One worries for our children.
This is the nature of many forms of growth. Even if major changes to humanity’s way of living as mentioned by @phb are adopted and combined with greater efficiency of equipment that will only alter the doubling time of the growth curve. It will not stop growth being exponential.
There are many other resources (land, water, fertiliser …) that exhibit the same growth demand: and the earth is finite. Humanity must get hold of these problems some time soon or they will get hold of us. Given the entrenched attitudes in favour of population growth dished out by nearly all economists, all popes and billions of citizens, that task will make dealing with climate change look easy.
World population levels are predicted (depending on assumptions) to level out some time after 2100 at around half as big again as it is now. If the miracle of bringing the poorest countries up to a decent standard of living takes place resource consumption will rise way more than 50%. Some of us understand the lives of our grandparents who endured two great wars and a depression were tough. The lives of our grandchildren could be worse. In the meantime our leaders look forward a year or two at best, sometimes only to the next news cycle.
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Some press releases earlier this year from China have highlighted their drive toward renewable energy.
A couple of points from the release
Renewable energy reached 47.3 percent of total power generation capacity by the end of 2022.
They have also implemented compressed air energy storage as part of their pumped storage.
This amount of renewable energy produced is enough to power almost all homes in China according to a post in Bloomberg News
Another Chinese Government release that expresses how their Grid is using smart grids and power storage to support the Grid basing it’s supply on renewable energy sources (much of this generation is intermittent in nature and so the grid is exposed to random and rapid changes in generation)
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Some interesting points from the release
The State Grid Corp of China installed capacity of pumped storage totaled 28.06 million kW in 2022. Another, which is the Southern Power Grid has its seven pumped storage power stations, which have generated 8.585 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity.
Of the 200 million kW of the new installed power generation in 2022, 160 million kW of that was of non-fossil fuels (they include biomass and nuclear generation as part of their non-fossil fuel generation).
A South China Morning Post post about a renewable energy plant that uses solar and tidal generation
Are we as a country that has an abundance of renewable energy resources being left behind by intransigence and a lack of vision?
Some comments here are suggesting that states like Tas and SA need coal, gas from other states to be reliable.
They don’t. Over the course of a long enough period the import/export amounts balance out. The importing/exporting of electricity to Tasmania (as the example I’m familiar with) is purely economic - it’s based on generators and retailers bidding for supply from certain generators.
Sometimes the coal plants in Victoria are running at their absolute minimum but demand is even lower, so they sell the energy for cheap to other states (including Tasmania). Sometimes in Tasmania the rainfall is high, and some storages are reaching capacity, so they sell the energy for cheap to Victoria. When Melbourne has an extremely hot afternoon and the air-con units are max grid capacity, they will import from Tassie to keep up that peak. And sometimes, in Tas, they want to conserve their storages, they will import gas and run the gas power station.
It’s all swings and roundabouts, but the important thing is… it’s all the same electrons. Imports/exports doesn’t mean “dependent on coal”. They could just as easily be relying on renewables in other states.
When Tassie and SA increase their generation (e.g. more wind farms), the other states will be relying on them. Or if the other states also boost their generation, it might be the other way around - or some of each, since it isn’t always windy at the same time in each region. (And “renewables” doesn’t always means the same thing in each region - could be hydro in Tas, wind in SA and solar in Qld, for example).
https://www.energy.gov.au/data/australian-energy-mix-state-and-territory-2020-21
Australia’s current energy mix. Renewables comprise a small segment, but this will grow substantially.
Technologies such as heat pumps make for much more efficient home heating and cooling, along with hot water systems. Also, double glazing and more efficient ventilation and insulation systems. Australian houses leak air, which means warm air escapes in winter, and cool air escapes in summer. Unfortunately, these measures can be expensive. Movement sensing lighting systems are another area of efficiency gain. Depending on driving needs and habits, when EVs can be used as a battery backup for homes. AFAIK, current Australian standards don’t generally allow this.
It should be noted that all battery storage gives an efficiency loss. In the case of lithium or other chemical battery, the loss is converting between AC and DC, or vice versa. In the case of hydro, or compressed air, it’s in pumping, friction and/or heat loss. That means you need a significantly higher capture feed than you’ll retain as stored (i.e potential) energy.
In 2016, out of 209 countries with recorded CO2 emissions, only 24 reduced their emissions year on year. These included 3 of the 4 largest emitters.Two countries remained static, while 183 increased their emissions. Australia was one of the 24, but then Australia’s per capita emissions were 17.1 Tonnes; the world average is 4.63 T.
People need to walk to the shops more, or at least ride a bike. We need to consume less.
Having waded through all of the above, I am shocked to find so little acknowledgement of the real issues involved.There are literally thousands of papers by well qualified people available if one searches, pointing out the practical and physical impossibility of achieving anything like net zero using existing renewable energy technology. Wind droughts, for example, are a critical reality which when they occur (often at night when there is no solar input) and require immense battery backup at colossal cost if they are to sustain a city increasingly dependent on electricity. They also need to be replaced every 12 to 15 years. Heat pumps also require electricity to drive them and become increasingly ineffective as the weather cools. Who wants to come out in the morning to find their EV won’t go anywhere because the electricity supplier has drained it overnight to sustain the grid? There are
numerous research papers showing that there are not enough minerals available in the world to enable renewable technology to phase out fossil fuels. One such paper comes from Professor Simon Michaux, Associate Professor of Geometallurgy at the Geological Survey of Finland. He points out that to make enough wind turbines, solar panels batteries and electric vehicles to replace fossil fuels for twenty years, the world would need just under one billion tons of nickel. It would take 400 years to produce enough to go to net zero at current rates of production. A similar situation faces miners of copper, lithium, cobalt and other rare earth minerals.
In Australia, Chris Bowen stated the goals to be met if Australia was to meet the target he believes we need. And that, he said last November, requires the installation of 22,000 500 watt solar panels every day for 8 years, along with 40 seven megawatt wind turbines every month. All this in turn will require around 10,000 kms of new transmission lines. The practicalities of achieving this are impossible. If you really want to reach net zero, the only way forward is nuclear power.
And a final question if I may. If Australia did reach its targets by 2034 and 2050, what precisely would the effect be on the Australian and world climate and the Great Barrier Reef? Ponder that anthropogenic CO2 makes up only 3% of CO2 in the atmosphere, and Australia produces about 1.3% of that 3%.
Going to ‘net zero’ in no way means stopping ALL CO2 emissions from coal or gas electricity generation.
I think you think net zero means zero. It does not.
It means there is a balance between what is put into the atmosphere and what is taken out in the earth’s natural carbon cycle.
I find it odd that you spend so many words attempting to tell us that wind and solar cannot replace burning fossil fuel, finding many of the climate contrarian arguments along the way, and then in one sentence tell us that the solution is nuclear power. You don’t mention any of the problems that there are with building substantial numbers of nuclear power stations or that the power they produce will be more expensive. This is cherry-picking your evidence.
In telling us that unobtainable resources will be required and this will prevent the transition as generally framed you are assuming (aside from that assessment being correct) that there can be no substitution. There is a long, long way to go on battery development and we cannot say now which minerals will be required for new solutions. You also assume there will be no recycling of valuable mineral or metal components.
Just one little inconsistency to be found without doing a large amount of cross-checking and verification is that you seem to be assuming that nuclearfication can be done without expanding the grid. One of the key reasons for re-building the grid is to get stability and flexibility of the whole system based on having more smaller generators instead of few larger ones. Using nuclear plants as drop-in replacements for defunct coal fired power stations is hardly feasible and ignoring the destabilising effect of just existing distributed generation is hardly going to provide a safe and reliable system for the future. Also the growth of electric vehicles and machines to replace ICE powered equivalents, plus population growth, will requires more electric power overall. So a grid re-build is essential anyway.
I don’t doubt that there will be problems with the de-carbonising transition. There have been stumbles with all historical transitions of such magnitude. If the choice is between muddling along with solar and wind (and bits of geothermal, hydroelectric and wave power) and waiting for cheap, safe and generally acceptable nuclear power to become available I am betting on the former getting there first.
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I never said it did, and no, I don’t. What I was pointing out was that the stated goals by the federal and state governments are irrational and unrealistic, and have been increasingly shown to be unattainable for demonstrably practical reasons. And even if they were, the expense would be crippling and the difference it would make to the climate would be unmeasurably small. I am not debating whether CO2 has any effect on the climate. I simply point out the colossal and ongoing expense required to reach government aspirations. Wind turbines, solar panels and batteries have about a third the life of a nuclear power plant. To build the first three at the scale required necessitates huge amounts of mining and energy, and the squandering (pillaging might be a better term) of vast amounts of precious and limited non-renewable resources. Yes, some can be re-cycled, but at a cost — the law of diminishing returns applies. .
The challenges to achieve emission targets is extremely challenging to say the least. It has also become highly politicised and there are many in the industry which have concerns on Australia’s ability to meet established targets and the cost impact on future electricity pricing to meet current reliability standards. The current ‘cheapness’ of renewables is based on adding renewables to the current generation profile. As the current generation moves more towards renewable sources, the cost basis changes significantly (I have presented posts indicating why this is the case).
There are mixed views of whether the 2030 targets can be practicably achieved, such as this which has also become politicised:
As I indicated, unfortunately politics has got in the way of honest and open discussions in Australia (and other countries face) to replace conventional energy sources with renewable energy sources.
It is also worth noting that there is also a view that some of the current technologies being adopted will be interim technologies, used to reduce emissions in the short term but aren’t long term solutions. This includes technologies such as battery systems which there are concerns about its resource availability and environmental impacts. But, there is also significant work being done looking at alterative, long term solutions to replace these interim technologies.
From NASA Climate Info that figure you state is incorrect by a huge amount.
https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/carbon-dioxide/
Human caused increase in CO2 is 50% since the start of industrial times (circa 1750). What you have quoted is closer to what is added each year to the extra carbon in the atmosphere these days. Natural cycles account for about 760 Billion tonnes annually (mostly in recycle system), we add currently about 38 Billion tonnes each year or an additional 5% (which are not in a recycle system). In the early industrial period the extra amount was small compared to todays emissions. However, no matter how small they may have started at, our additions of CO2 are like additional water being put into a pool of water that was at steady state before the addition. It overfills beyond its capacity. At the start it isn’t too noticeable but each addition adds a bit more until the pool overflows. We have also removed large tracts of carbon storage such as trees, the Oceans have become more acidic as they act as carbon dioxide sponges. As the UN Secretary has stated we now have only a small window left to avoid very dangerous changes to climate, not just for ourselves but the whole Earth biome.
Disinformation such as you provided is why people get confused about what is really happening.
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Grahroll, which ever way you look at it, Australia produces 1% of the 3% that is anthropogenic. It is an infinitesimal amount, even if the amount is increasing overall. It’s pointless doing it when it is so expensive and while China, India and now Europe are increasing rather than curtailing their output. We may have removed some carbon storage such as trees, but overall as NASA has reported, the planet has become greener as the amount of atmospheric CO2 has increased, although this is now being dwarfed, it also reports, by the intensive amounts of crop planting in India and China. The seas may absorb CO2, but if they warm, they give it up (increasing the amount of Co2 in the atmosphere), and if they get colder they absorb more, but I have no idea where the balance lies. I’m afraid I can’t place any value on what the UN Secretary has stated. He, along with Al Gore, Prince Charles, David Attenborough and Leo di Caprio and many others have been forecasting the tiny amount of time we have left. And when it doesn’t happen they move the goal posts. In 2009 the (then) Prince Charles said we had only 96 months to save the planet. When that didn’t occur, he amended his forecast in February 2020 to “Just 10 years left”. 10 years ago it was forecast that by 2010 the Maldives would be under water. Never happened, and they keep building fancy new hotels there. Tuvalu and the majority of islands in the Western Pacific are not submerging but are actually increasing slightly in size, because they are coral atolls. The satellite records from the University of Alabama Huntsville show that the global temperatures have only increased at a rate of 0.13C per decade since 1979 when satellite records began. The question I posited earlier remains unanswered: By meeting Chris Bowen’s stated targets, by 2034 and 2050, by how much will Australia have reduced world temperature and at what cost?
Sorry Grahroll. I’ve just noticed an error in my post above. The sentence about the Maldives should, of course read “30 years ago it was forecast that by 2010 the Maldives would be under water…”
The problem here is, phb, that in the past, mainstream technologies developed through the adoption of those which proved most successful. The motor vehicle is an example. As the industrial revolution progressed, various power sources were tried: steam, electricity and fossil fuel. It became obvious fairly quickly that fossil fuels in the form of diesel or petrol powering an Internal Combustion Engine were the most effective. The ICE was not mandated by governments as the power source that must be used. Neither was our rapid adoption of smart phones and flat screen tvs. But in the case of renewable energy, the superior technologies we hope for have yet to be produced, and it is not sensible to close down existing energy generators before reliable alternatives are available and proven. Yes, there is hope for a new breed of batteries, but these are still likely to be a long way off, and their cost is unknown. Whether they can ever match the energy density of a litre of diesel is still highly questionable. Hydrogen is a possibility but it’s mass use requires substantial problems to be overcome (including massive safety issues). And the other point I made, and make again, is that renewables require wasteful and obscene amounts of raw, mined materials such as concrete, steel and rare minerals compared to nuclear or fossil fuel based energy generators. Renewables so far deliver only intermittent power, offer only a relatively short life span at the end of which unconscionable levels of toxic waste have to be disposed of. And the end result of all this expense and effort is?
Energy is more than just a consumer issue but this is a consumer forum. I am putting this on hold for a while in the anticipation it might, after a breather, move along the topic ‘The future of energy’ rather than rehashing the past, present, and the established pros, promises, and cons of various renewables.
As for our consumer interests, it is about our planning for our own purposes as well as the direction our national energy policies take us, largely driven by lobbyists (eg donors) and to an extent our interaction with policy makers. Antagonists and proponents for any particular energy options have the ability to vote their beliefs within the complex bags of policies our parties offer us.
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@AlanKirkland rightly mentions the struggles of people on low incomes but for a comprehensive statement it seems part of the picture.
This article is timely and whether or not one agrees it is comprehensive or objective is not the point for posting it here. It reflects to some degree how ‘we’ got to where we are with prices. ‘We’ is not just Australia but ‘western consumers’.
Another component is that the very wealthy apparently use far more power to maintain their lifestyles. This from the EU.
One could surmise that many of the most wealthy demographic are not interested in that excepting for optics because costs are ‘noise’ to their accounts. They use lots of energy in their life styles so it could be the case where one wealthy person would need say 1000 regular consumers to become more energy efficient to make a difference at the end of the day as the wealthy add a property, larger yacht, or travel in their personal biz jets.
Per the article on the EU, practicality for a 'how to do"? How would doing anything go politically (no need to reply) so window dressing in front of business as usual might be the best case.
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Privatisation of monopoly ==> failed market ==> consumer exploitation.
