Thank you for this informative and well written piece. Not sure how you keep a highly respectful tone given the lunacy which permeates the transition junkies. Seems obvious that forecasts become extremely dubious as the number of variables increases and time frame extends. Yet we are continually bombarded with precise numbers which have the seal of approval from organizations such as the IEA.
It seems to me that every day the IEA sacrifices another portion of their respect as they move from a reporter of energy facts to a proselytizer for transition
Imagine if we had one politician, just one, who could distill this into a speech and distill it into sound bites for television and that he or she repeated over and over. I imagine that within six months, the entire “energy transition” farce would collapse as Americans learned how absurdly ridiculous and technologically and scientifically impossible the net zero “plan” really is.
Greens truly live in a world of all day lollipops and unicorn fairies. I am having a hard time imagining middle class populations the world over whose heads are right now on fire over climate change giving up their addiction to Starbucks lattes, hip street fashion and hair dye let alone flights to over there because of a government edict. I would as soon join a secessionary force to create a new country than pledge fealty to a government that tells me what to do and when in every facet of my life. F that. We shall call our country New America or Maybe East America.
Gosh I guess I'm on a terror watch list somewhere since Merrick Garland has proven that people like me are uneducated, terror machines. Lord knows I can't be trusted, because independent thought = rightwing cultist.
There something to be said about how a large chunk of the political leadership is divorced from energy reality. And they’ll use fear and ignorance as political levers. There’s nothing wrong about not understanding energy- just don’t try and reshape an industry without understanding it.
I completely agree. The same could be said of every large scale government program. Idiotic policy/desire for universal home ownership combined with Barney Frank's ridiculous assertion that big banks were the equivalent of the Nazi Party yielded the worst financial crisis since the Depression. LBJ's Great Society ead to increased urban poverty and decay. It all goes back to a sense of believing that I KNOW better than other people and am going to force my policies on everyone.
Thanks for the answer. For all intents and purposes, we've been using bio-sources since fire was discovered. Not much new under that sun! It is disappointing that IEA places so much faith in those sources.
I asked Isaac Orr of Energy Bad Boys this question earlier, and will ask you. Are you aware of any research or studies that equate power density with the economic construct of opportunity cost? One of my many complaints about renewables is that they require more resources to produce the same kilowatt of power. When producing renewable energy, resources that could be used for other applications are taken up by an energy source with diffuse density. Thus, the "opportunity" for those resources is sunk, or lost, or something.
It seems like a silly thing, I guess, but steel is an example of my concerns. If you pursue a nut-zero emissions goal using renewables, the demand for steel, cement, and land will significantly increase. Necessarily, the price of steel will go up, making it more costly to build schools, hospitals, bridges, etc. The higher price would have a lesser effect on energy projects, because the cost is subsidized and utilities are able to spread the cost over a much, much larger rate base.
Enviros world wide preach sustainability, but how is it sustainable to use a power source that is 10 times more demanding for raw materials.
Off the subject of today's essay, and I apologize. But if energy demand is to continue to rise, or hell, even stay the same, power density/resource sustainability/opportunity costs have to figure in the plan someplace.
That’s a very good point, we are surrendering a large opportunity to advance human flourishing. If we spent just 10% of the energy transition on, say, developing agriculture and reliable energy production in poor countries, imagine the results. Or if we invest led that here at home.
Can’t vouch for the study but here is one exploring opportunity costs.
Excellent essay, folks. Thank you very much. Some questions:
1. From the IEA chart on total energy supply for nut zero, about 20 percent of that energy is derived from "modern [***] bioenergy. Do such sources exist today? Are these technologies such that they are scalable in a few years, or soon enough to make a meaningful contribution? Wind and solar have been around for over 40 years, yet still account for less than 20 percent of the non-carbon fuels. The mathematics needed to reach nut-zero are pretty straightforward; a high school student could do it. But the scale of energy needed is unimaginable, and i wonder if the lab rats at IEA have been outside much.
2. The study from Energy Institute at University of Chicago was interesting. Do you know if it is available in PDF? Further, are you aware of any intrinsic bias in their studies. Can someone shout, Oh their funded by big oil, or big wind, or big sun, therefore their results are trash? For what it's worth, I thought their results appeared reasonable.
3. A simple examination of the data provides an excellent framework for expressing the magnitude of the task of reach nut zero. In 2022, the US consumed about 80 quads of fossil-based energy. To replace that by 2050 would require 2,400 GWH PER DAY of new energy. That's about 100 new wind turbines, every day, every week, every month between now and the end of 2050. Simple math, not exactly doable in real life.
4. An excellent discussion of the problems facing the mining industry brought on by nut-zero is The War Below, by Ernest Scheyder. Good book!
Short answer, no, we don’t have the ability to scale.
Longer answer: bio energy has 2 big problems: sourcing it and low energy returns on energy invested.
While we can recycle scraps of bio waste, like sawdust or waste cooking oil, there’s only so much to go around. And many of those sources are relatively small and dispersed, making efficient collection challenging.
And it can take a tremendous amount of energy to transform bio fuels into say, bio diesel. And that’s assuming we’re using waste materials. When we have to grow, harvest, and transport new biomass like trees to get turned into wood pellets that get burned at Drax power plant in the UK, we spend so much energy- and land- to reinvent the wheel.
Here are some links on the topic:
Here’s a post where we discussed renewable (so-called) aviation fuel.
Tom Sowell has said that same thing for decades. The left is collectively too dumb to enact a diabolical plan. Unfortunately they are truly dedicated to their stupidities. And they have numbers. Hence BLM, white fragility, the patriarchy, etc.
And that's very interesting point! Net Zero as a whole isn't something that shows up on the ballot. Much of what happened was a political target, partially voted on indirectly through the green parties in Europe, but as a whole not something that reflects what the vast majority of the population wants. And in large part adopted by the administrative state or by a very few states in the US.
If I'm not mistaken, Net Zero is legally binding to signees of the Paris agreement. This is why its never on the ballot. It effectively takes the issue off the ballot, making it a requirement regardless of which party is in government.
The vast majority of citizens would like at least a say but that's been taking out of their hands. At the same time it is them that must pay for it.
and I cannot imagine it will ever be ratified in the US. getting tw-thirds of the senate to vote for something to impoverish the nation seems highly unlikely, not merely by 2050, but ever
The only way that nutty plan of there's could possibly work is if they plan on reducing the World population down to 2B as the Globalitarian Misanthropists who run the West, have often promoted through their NGOs like the Club of Rome. Even doing that won't work, because they will shatter the World economy, creating chaos and economic collapse in the process. Under such terms wind & solar, EVs, battery storage and electrification will all fail.
As Bret Weinstein often warns, this depraved ruling class of ours are just plain dumb, and have no idea about the implications of their fantasies on the World economy. They suffer from the Caligula effect. Dangerous people, dangerously incompetent.
Net Zero has to pick its poison: it incompatible with either physics and reality, or it’s incompatible with human flourishing and a democratic / constitutional society. Most people if they understood Net Zero would not support it. It looks good from afar, but close up, it’s far from good. It’s clever marketing for sure.
Thank you for this informative and well written piece. Not sure how you keep a highly respectful tone given the lunacy which permeates the transition junkies. Seems obvious that forecasts become extremely dubious as the number of variables increases and time frame extends. Yet we are continually bombarded with precise numbers which have the seal of approval from organizations such as the IEA.
Thank you ! 100% the forecasts stand on very shaky ground.
It seems to me that every day the IEA sacrifices another portion of their respect as they move from a reporter of energy facts to a proselytizer for transition
Thank you for this article.
Imagine if we had one politician, just one, who could distill this into a speech and distill it into sound bites for television and that he or she repeated over and over. I imagine that within six months, the entire “energy transition” farce would collapse as Americans learned how absurdly ridiculous and technologically and scientifically impossible the net zero “plan” really is.
We do need politicians who can do that! 💯
Greens truly live in a world of all day lollipops and unicorn fairies. I am having a hard time imagining middle class populations the world over whose heads are right now on fire over climate change giving up their addiction to Starbucks lattes, hip street fashion and hair dye let alone flights to over there because of a government edict. I would as soon join a secessionary force to create a new country than pledge fealty to a government that tells me what to do and when in every facet of my life. F that. We shall call our country New America or Maybe East America.
Gosh I guess I'm on a terror watch list somewhere since Merrick Garland has proven that people like me are uneducated, terror machines. Lord knows I can't be trusted, because independent thought = rightwing cultist.
There something to be said about how a large chunk of the political leadership is divorced from energy reality. And they’ll use fear and ignorance as political levers. There’s nothing wrong about not understanding energy- just don’t try and reshape an industry without understanding it.
I completely agree. The same could be said of every large scale government program. Idiotic policy/desire for universal home ownership combined with Barney Frank's ridiculous assertion that big banks were the equivalent of the Nazi Party yielded the worst financial crisis since the Depression. LBJ's Great Society ead to increased urban poverty and decay. It all goes back to a sense of believing that I KNOW better than other people and am going to force my policies on everyone.
And trying to force a lifestyle on people doesn’t usually work out to well
I really should have proofread my own writing. Egads.
Thanks for the answer. For all intents and purposes, we've been using bio-sources since fire was discovered. Not much new under that sun! It is disappointing that IEA places so much faith in those sources.
I asked Isaac Orr of Energy Bad Boys this question earlier, and will ask you. Are you aware of any research or studies that equate power density with the economic construct of opportunity cost? One of my many complaints about renewables is that they require more resources to produce the same kilowatt of power. When producing renewable energy, resources that could be used for other applications are taken up by an energy source with diffuse density. Thus, the "opportunity" for those resources is sunk, or lost, or something.
It seems like a silly thing, I guess, but steel is an example of my concerns. If you pursue a nut-zero emissions goal using renewables, the demand for steel, cement, and land will significantly increase. Necessarily, the price of steel will go up, making it more costly to build schools, hospitals, bridges, etc. The higher price would have a lesser effect on energy projects, because the cost is subsidized and utilities are able to spread the cost over a much, much larger rate base.
Enviros world wide preach sustainability, but how is it sustainable to use a power source that is 10 times more demanding for raw materials.
Off the subject of today's essay, and I apologize. But if energy demand is to continue to rise, or hell, even stay the same, power density/resource sustainability/opportunity costs have to figure in the plan someplace.
That’s a very good point, we are surrendering a large opportunity to advance human flourishing. If we spent just 10% of the energy transition on, say, developing agriculture and reliable energy production in poor countries, imagine the results. Or if we invest led that here at home.
Can’t vouch for the study but here is one exploring opportunity costs.
https://www.nber.org/papers/w30956
thanks. looks like good reading
Excellent essay, folks. Thank you very much. Some questions:
1. From the IEA chart on total energy supply for nut zero, about 20 percent of that energy is derived from "modern [***] bioenergy. Do such sources exist today? Are these technologies such that they are scalable in a few years, or soon enough to make a meaningful contribution? Wind and solar have been around for over 40 years, yet still account for less than 20 percent of the non-carbon fuels. The mathematics needed to reach nut-zero are pretty straightforward; a high school student could do it. But the scale of energy needed is unimaginable, and i wonder if the lab rats at IEA have been outside much.
2. The study from Energy Institute at University of Chicago was interesting. Do you know if it is available in PDF? Further, are you aware of any intrinsic bias in their studies. Can someone shout, Oh their funded by big oil, or big wind, or big sun, therefore their results are trash? For what it's worth, I thought their results appeared reasonable.
3. A simple examination of the data provides an excellent framework for expressing the magnitude of the task of reach nut zero. In 2022, the US consumed about 80 quads of fossil-based energy. To replace that by 2050 would require 2,400 GWH PER DAY of new energy. That's about 100 new wind turbines, every day, every week, every month between now and the end of 2050. Simple math, not exactly doable in real life.
4. An excellent discussion of the problems facing the mining industry brought on by nut-zero is The War Below, by Ernest Scheyder. Good book!
5. Please, keep up the great work. Thank you.
Thank you! And excellent questions.
Short answer, no, we don’t have the ability to scale.
Longer answer: bio energy has 2 big problems: sourcing it and low energy returns on energy invested.
While we can recycle scraps of bio waste, like sawdust or waste cooking oil, there’s only so much to go around. And many of those sources are relatively small and dispersed, making efficient collection challenging.
And it can take a tremendous amount of energy to transform bio fuels into say, bio diesel. And that’s assuming we’re using waste materials. When we have to grow, harvest, and transport new biomass like trees to get turned into wood pellets that get burned at Drax power plant in the UK, we spend so much energy- and land- to reinvent the wheel.
Here are some links on the topic:
Here’s a post where we discussed renewable (so-called) aviation fuel.
https://open.substack.com/pub/penguinempirereports/p/flying-high-on-fat-and-sugar?r=2og74c&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
And a recent piece by Doomberg on biodiesel:
https://open.substack.com/pub/doomberg/p/rodeo-clowns?r=2og74c&utm_medium=ios
Here is the 2023 poll data pdf.
You’re on the same track with the astonishing amount of wind and solar we’d need to build to reach a yet unknown amount of renewable energy.
Thanks again!
Here is the poll pdf.
https://epic.uchicago.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/EPIC-Energy-Policy-Survey-2023_Topline.pdf
Tom Sowell has said that same thing for decades. The left is collectively too dumb to enact a diabolical plan. Unfortunately they are truly dedicated to their stupidities. And they have numbers. Hence BLM, white fragility, the patriarchy, etc.
Sowell is one of the brightest minds of the past 50 years!
What bothers me is that no one voted for net zero but it seems every country will implement steps (at a cost) to achieve it.
And that's very interesting point! Net Zero as a whole isn't something that shows up on the ballot. Much of what happened was a political target, partially voted on indirectly through the green parties in Europe, but as a whole not something that reflects what the vast majority of the population wants. And in large part adopted by the administrative state or by a very few states in the US.
If I'm not mistaken, Net Zero is legally binding to signees of the Paris agreement. This is why its never on the ballot. It effectively takes the issue off the ballot, making it a requirement regardless of which party is in government.
The vast majority of citizens would like at least a say but that's been taking out of their hands. At the same time it is them that must pay for it.
For the EU, it is a ratified and legally binding treaty. 100% agreed, it’s something, as you put, taken out of the hands of the average voter.
For the US, it hasn’t been ratified yet by the Senate.
and I cannot imagine it will ever be ratified in the US. getting tw-thirds of the senate to vote for something to impoverish the nation seems highly unlikely, not merely by 2050, but ever
Fortunately the US constitution requires a 2/3rds vote by the senate, something not likely anytime soon!
The only way that nutty plan of there's could possibly work is if they plan on reducing the World population down to 2B as the Globalitarian Misanthropists who run the West, have often promoted through their NGOs like the Club of Rome. Even doing that won't work, because they will shatter the World economy, creating chaos and economic collapse in the process. Under such terms wind & solar, EVs, battery storage and electrification will all fail.
As Bret Weinstein often warns, this depraved ruling class of ours are just plain dumb, and have no idea about the implications of their fantasies on the World economy. They suffer from the Caligula effect. Dangerous people, dangerously incompetent.
Net Zero has to pick its poison: it incompatible with either physics and reality, or it’s incompatible with human flourishing and a democratic / constitutional society. Most people if they understood Net Zero would not support it. It looks good from afar, but close up, it’s far from good. It’s clever marketing for sure.
I keep looking for those globalists to lead the way toward depopulation.
I’m sure you probably have read Doomberg’s excellent work on that topic. If not, it’s very good.
I read everything they write as soon as it appears. one of the best substacks around!
Agreed!
Water vapor, clouds, ice, snow create 30% albedo which makes the Earth cooler not warmer.
W/o GHE there is no water and Earth goes lunarific, a barren rock ball, 400 K lit side, 100 K dark refuting a warming GHE.
“TFK_bams09” GHE heat balance graphic and ubiquitous clones don’t balance plus violate LoT.
Kinetic heat transfer processes of contiguous atmospheric molecules render a surface black body and it’s “extra” upwelling GHE energy impossible.
GHE is bogus and CAGW a scam so alarmists must resort to fear mongering lies, lawsuits, censorship and violence.