It is more than that: minerals are a reciclable stock, while fossil fuels are flow. They are “burned” in use. Vaclav Smil said (Materials and dematerialization) that 75 per cent of Aluminium extracted in history is still in use. Fossil fuel substitution is difficult, and in my view we will use fossil fuel for backup power for the foreseeable future, but even the partial substitution of fossil fuels by wind and power will be a massive dematerialization event: the largest since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.
Hannah, with reference to your footnote about renewables having variable output, it is really important to note that intermittent renewable power production has been revolutionised by quality weather forecasting. This means that grid managers have estimates of power to be delivered substantially ahead of time and this makes easier managing a renewables-based grid. The point is that even 48 hours out from delivery there are indications about likely solar PV and wind power delivery. The estimated power delivered gets more accurately measured as the time for delivery approaches. When coupled with time shifting (eg run air con during the day), grid interconnectivity accessing power up to 1000 km away using HVDC cabling, and demand management, the need for fossil fuel (eg gas peaker) backup goes away. A fully electrified wheeled transport system will ultimately provide huge accessible stored power. And of course there is massive adoption of grid-scale battery storage being implemented.
All of the above support energy security and avoid the sovereign risk of depending on fossil fuel supply from far away.
Meanwhile China is subsidising PV production and virtually giving the stuff away. €120 per KW if you can pick it up in Shanghai.
We can either say:
- "This is wrong, we will tax you to protect our few remaining PV makers", or
- "Thanks, not I just need to figure out where to put the PV".
We should get out hands on cheap PV whilst we can. It probably makes sense for the EU to pay some subsidies to keep factories on standby, and maybe keep land next to the factories ready for expansion, just in case China decides to stop exporting.
"Other countries cannot block the sun". Geoengineering most certainly can cause cloud cover to block the sun and greatly diminish solar panel performance. In fact, that is a strategy that Bill Gates and others are experimenting with as a means to reflect sunlight back into space to reduce global warming. And global warming itself will cause more cloud cover from increased evaporation. New England has experienced an unprecedented cloudy winter, reducing solar panel performance to 6% capacity factor for weeks at a time. Winds have also been relatively calm and studies have shown that wind velocities are in decline. Not good news for the transition. We'd best build next gen nukes and gas power plants ASAP because no amount of batteries will power the grid when wind and solar are AWOL for weeks or months at a time due to changing weather patterns.
Ireland does have energy security risks because of renewables (wind) - namely that grid reliability costs are outsourced to natural gas. One need only look at government capacity auctions for years ahead to see how reliant the grid is on gas to underpin high renewables penetration.
The impact of fossil fuels on energy security varies greatly by geography. In North America fossil fuels enhances energy security and national security, and the attempt to force a transition away from them undermines security.
This is particularly true since 2005 with the Shale revolution:
Considering nuclear, nuclear fuel and natural uranium is dense, harmless if not yet irradiated amd fuel price per kWh is low. Reactors also need to be refuelled in 1-2 year intervals.
Which means that you can easily store fuel for a transition period to a different supplier, so nuclear power has high energy security too!
Developments in alternative sources of energy is a good thing. But degrowth is necessary for the immediate future. Anyone who does not advocate for that or even mention it, is basically advocating for climate catastrophe.
There will be a market for technologies the can utilise intermittent supplies of energy. Or to look at another way, there will be a market for low cost energy which gets cheaper as it gets more unpredictable. Of course rechargeable batteries do this but have high capital cost. A really cheap cell to purify a metal by electrolysis could just sit there and soak up energy that would otherwise get dumped.
I disagree with your claim there is less security risk with wind and solar. Our adversaries may not be able to turn off the wind and sun at-will, but we can’t turn it on at-will either. China controls most of the wind and solar mining, mineral processing and manufacturing. That concentration is far worse. There are dozens of countries contributing to the worlds supply of fossil fuels, including # 1 - the US, which produces more than it consumes. China controls the pricing for most of the minerals, the wind turbines and solar panels. As a large buyer, we are subsidizing China’s military build-up with our energy policy (Trillion$ from the IRA) while degrading the reliability of our grid with expensive, intermittent and unreliable energy.
It is interesting that the temporal differences in energy security are not a key focus. Renewable and climate change are a longer term energy security risk while fossil fuel energy security is shorter term. How this is balanced is difficult and challenging. The potential to “lock-in” fossil fuels via the capital investment is a concern but a realistic time frame for the transition to low-carbon energy will be out beyond the 20-30 year life of these assets. This pushing out of the clean energy goals is likely and also going to make it more affordable.
Balance is closed, done, over, fini, “Ttthhhat’s ALL folks!!”
So where does this second source of surface upwelling heat flow of 396 come from?
396 is the S-B BB calculation for any surface at 16 C, 289 K, that serves as the denominator of the emissivity ratio: 63/396=0.16.
It is a theoretical calculation.
It is not real.
It is a duplicate “extra.”
It violates LoT 1.
396 up – 2nd 63 LWIR (How convenient.) = 333 “back” from cold to hot w/o work violating LoT 2.
Not that it matters.
Erase the 396/333/63 GHE “extra” energy loop from the graphic and the balance holds true.
IR instruments do not measure power flux, they are calibrated to report a referenced temperature and infer power flux assuming the target is a BB. (Read the manual.)
16 C + BB = 396 & incorrect.
16 C + 0.16 = 63 & correct.
There is no GHE.
There is no GHG warming.
There is no CAGW,
The consensus is wrong – aahhgain!!!
Disagree?
Bring science which is not appeals to authority, off topic esoteric Wiki handwavium and ad hominem gas lighting and insults.
Rare-earth elements are technically relatively plentiful in the entire Earth's crust (cerium being the 25th most abundant element at 68 parts per million, more abundant than copper), in practice they only occur with low concentrations, so to obtain rare earths at usable purity requires processing enormous amounts of raw ore at great expense, hence the name "rare" earths. Opening new mines is a slow, politically and environmentally difficult process
As you point out separating the individual elements needs an expensive processing plant. Also needing time and investment to build.
A risk to energy transition that will be overcome.
Free market policies have handed China the power to hold the rest of the world to ransom over climate change. The rest of the world needs to take back control. (There is an irony somewhere here!)
It is more than that: minerals are a reciclable stock, while fossil fuels are flow. They are “burned” in use. Vaclav Smil said (Materials and dematerialization) that 75 per cent of Aluminium extracted in history is still in use. Fossil fuel substitution is difficult, and in my view we will use fossil fuel for backup power for the foreseeable future, but even the partial substitution of fossil fuels by wind and power will be a massive dematerialization event: the largest since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.
Hannah, with reference to your footnote about renewables having variable output, it is really important to note that intermittent renewable power production has been revolutionised by quality weather forecasting. This means that grid managers have estimates of power to be delivered substantially ahead of time and this makes easier managing a renewables-based grid. The point is that even 48 hours out from delivery there are indications about likely solar PV and wind power delivery. The estimated power delivered gets more accurately measured as the time for delivery approaches. When coupled with time shifting (eg run air con during the day), grid interconnectivity accessing power up to 1000 km away using HVDC cabling, and demand management, the need for fossil fuel (eg gas peaker) backup goes away. A fully electrified wheeled transport system will ultimately provide huge accessible stored power. And of course there is massive adoption of grid-scale battery storage being implemented.
All of the above support energy security and avoid the sovereign risk of depending on fossil fuel supply from far away.
Meanwhile China is subsidising PV production and virtually giving the stuff away. €120 per KW if you can pick it up in Shanghai.
We can either say:
- "This is wrong, we will tax you to protect our few remaining PV makers", or
- "Thanks, not I just need to figure out where to put the PV".
We should get out hands on cheap PV whilst we can. It probably makes sense for the EU to pay some subsidies to keep factories on standby, and maybe keep land next to the factories ready for expansion, just in case China decides to stop exporting.
"Other countries cannot block the sun". Geoengineering most certainly can cause cloud cover to block the sun and greatly diminish solar panel performance. In fact, that is a strategy that Bill Gates and others are experimenting with as a means to reflect sunlight back into space to reduce global warming. And global warming itself will cause more cloud cover from increased evaporation. New England has experienced an unprecedented cloudy winter, reducing solar panel performance to 6% capacity factor for weeks at a time. Winds have also been relatively calm and studies have shown that wind velocities are in decline. Not good news for the transition. We'd best build next gen nukes and gas power plants ASAP because no amount of batteries will power the grid when wind and solar are AWOL for weeks or months at a time due to changing weather patterns.
Ireland does have energy security risks because of renewables (wind) - namely that grid reliability costs are outsourced to natural gas. One need only look at government capacity auctions for years ahead to see how reliant the grid is on gas to underpin high renewables penetration.
The impact of fossil fuels on energy security varies greatly by geography. In North America fossil fuels enhances energy security and national security, and the attempt to force a transition away from them undermines security.
This is particularly true since 2005 with the Shale revolution:
https://frompovertytoprogress.substack.com/p/why-greens-should-love-fracking
Considering nuclear, nuclear fuel and natural uranium is dense, harmless if not yet irradiated amd fuel price per kWh is low. Reactors also need to be refuelled in 1-2 year intervals.
Which means that you can easily store fuel for a transition period to a different supplier, so nuclear power has high energy security too!
Developments in alternative sources of energy is a good thing. But degrowth is necessary for the immediate future. Anyone who does not advocate for that or even mention it, is basically advocating for climate catastrophe.
What about uranium? Isn't that a low carbon fuel that's disproportionately concentrated in autocracies?
A little bit off topic: there are important synergies between renewables and electric vehicles:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/jJap6KhzFe3mgh32M/electric-vehicles-and-renewable-electricity
There will be a market for technologies the can utilise intermittent supplies of energy. Or to look at another way, there will be a market for low cost energy which gets cheaper as it gets more unpredictable. Of course rechargeable batteries do this but have high capital cost. A really cheap cell to purify a metal by electrolysis could just sit there and soak up energy that would otherwise get dumped.
I disagree with your claim there is less security risk with wind and solar. Our adversaries may not be able to turn off the wind and sun at-will, but we can’t turn it on at-will either. China controls most of the wind and solar mining, mineral processing and manufacturing. That concentration is far worse. There are dozens of countries contributing to the worlds supply of fossil fuels, including # 1 - the US, which produces more than it consumes. China controls the pricing for most of the minerals, the wind turbines and solar panels. As a large buyer, we are subsidizing China’s military build-up with our energy policy (Trillion$ from the IRA) while degrading the reliability of our grid with expensive, intermittent and unreliable energy.
It is interesting that the temporal differences in energy security are not a key focus. Renewable and climate change are a longer term energy security risk while fossil fuel energy security is shorter term. How this is balanced is difficult and challenging. The potential to “lock-in” fossil fuels via the capital investment is a concern but a realistic time frame for the transition to low-carbon energy will be out beyond the 20-30 year life of these assets. This pushing out of the clean energy goals is likely and also going to make it more affordable.
Published, peer reviewed and undisputed.
ISR = 1,368 W/m^2.
From the Sun’s perspective Earth is a flat, discular, pin head.
To average that discular energy over a spherical surface divide by 4.
(disc = π r^2, sphere = 4 π r^2)
1,368/4=342.
(Not even close to how the Earth heats & cools + this is Fourier’s model which even Pierrehumbert says is no good.)
Deduct 30% albedo.
(Clouds, ice, snow created by GHE/water vapor.)
342*(1.0-0.3)=240.
Deduct 80 due to atmospheric absorption.
(If this were so ToA would be warmer than surface.)
Net/net of 160 arrives at surface.
Per LoT 1 160 is ALL!! that can leave.
17 sensible + 80 latent + 63 (by remaining diff) LWIR = 160
Balance is closed, done, over, fini, “Ttthhhat’s ALL folks!!”
So where does this second source of surface upwelling heat flow of 396 come from?
396 is the S-B BB calculation for any surface at 16 C, 289 K, that serves as the denominator of the emissivity ratio: 63/396=0.16.
It is a theoretical calculation.
It is not real.
It is a duplicate “extra.”
It violates LoT 1.
396 up – 2nd 63 LWIR (How convenient.) = 333 “back” from cold to hot w/o work violating LoT 2.
Not that it matters.
Erase the 396/333/63 GHE “extra” energy loop from the graphic and the balance holds true.
IR instruments do not measure power flux, they are calibrated to report a referenced temperature and infer power flux assuming the target is a BB. (Read the manual.)
16 C + BB = 396 & incorrect.
16 C + 0.16 = 63 & correct.
There is no GHE.
There is no GHG warming.
There is no CAGW,
The consensus is wrong – aahhgain!!!
Disagree?
Bring science which is not appeals to authority, off topic esoteric Wiki handwavium and ad hominem gas lighting and insults.
Rare-earth elements are technically relatively plentiful in the entire Earth's crust (cerium being the 25th most abundant element at 68 parts per million, more abundant than copper), in practice they only occur with low concentrations, so to obtain rare earths at usable purity requires processing enormous amounts of raw ore at great expense, hence the name "rare" earths. Opening new mines is a slow, politically and environmentally difficult process
As you point out separating the individual elements needs an expensive processing plant. Also needing time and investment to build.
A risk to energy transition that will be overcome.
Free market policies have handed China the power to hold the rest of the world to ransom over climate change. The rest of the world needs to take back control. (There is an irony somewhere here!)