If you’ve been reading this blog lately, you know that the mythical transition to an energy future of pure “green” wind and solar electricity faces a gigantic problem of how to provide energy storage of the right type and in sufficient quantity. To make the electrical grid work, the wildly intermittent production of the wind and sun must somehow be turned into a smooth flow of electricity that matches customer demand minute by minute throughout the year. So far, that task has been fulfilled largely by natural gas back-up, which ramps up and down as the sun and wind ramp down and up. But now governments in the U.S., Europe, Canada and elsewhere say they will move to “net zero” carbon emission electricity by some time in the 2030s. Natural gas emits CO2, so “net zero” means that the natural gas must go. The alternative is energy storage of some sort.
Clearly, it is time to start figuring out how much energy storage we’re going to need, and of what type. Indeed, it is well past time to start figuring that out. If our government were even slightly competent, and also serious about “net zero” electricity by 2035, it would by this time have long since put together detailed feasibility and cost studies and demonstration projects showing exactly how this is going to work. Naturally, they don’t have any of that.
Those studies are only for follow-up grifting.
Common sense!
How dare you infidels show any thinking!
Follow our ‘paid for experts’ and shut the hell up.
Oh and pay your taxes…and fees as we monkey hammer your currency worth lower and lower.
Remember the ‘penny’…it died here too.
Net zero is not actual zero.
You can achieve net zero by paying indulgences. Money paid to developing nations, for example, transmorgifies our CO2 emissions so they no longer absorb heat.
They will claim this in all seriousness.
Whenever I see “net zero”, I read it as “not zero”. Problem solved.
The biggest problem with all the green crap is nothing can be built without fossil fuels. There is no discussion to be had after that fact is presented. Prove me wrong.
It’s not about energy conservation or anything of the like.
It’s about depriving the average person of electricity, keeping it only for the elites.
Remember – people used to think that alchemy could work, too.
Asphalt and roofing shingles…
You would think our politicians have a clue what they’re made of and where they go too.
Not exactly environmentally friendly materials.
Ah but going after it’s citizens is a tradition now.
Please, politicians don’t know where sunlight comes from.
More likely it is to keep people from travelling so that they can be better kept track of and under control.
“detailed feasibility and cost studies” are irrelevant when virtue signalling is the goal, which is what Liberal/NDP/Green voters are only after. Throwing tax money down a hole is all that’s needed to show that Canadians are “doing something”.
All this could be eliminated simply by forcing a “practice what you preach” policy on the elites.
“… forcing (any) policy on the elites.”
Stocked up on the makings of torches? Being diligent at bayonet practice?
All this assumes we will be allowed to have personal transportation, reliable power supplies etc. I suspect we won’t, and we’ll be told sometime around 2032 or so. Be prepared for 90% public transit, rolling blackouts, (only a few hours at a time in winter), etc, etc.
They have no intention of following through with any of it. They are going to kill off most of us so problem solved.
100% of the reason we have civilization is cheap energy. I suspect living in Canada using wind and solar is impossible at other than a subsistence level.
In the 19th century, there was a lot of wood and coal burning. And dysentry and typhus and cholera among many other diseases eliminated by energy consuming sanitation.
As a software development manager, I became adept at identifying when projects were in trouble. The lack of planning, design. reviews, and technique — in other words, just seat-of-the-pants hacking — were a sure sign of that the project would not be on time nor be of high quality.
The author is right. We are not going reach these energy goals by 2035 through wishful thinking. Hell, it’s far from certain that it’s even technically and economically feasible.
So very far from certain that by 2035 we won’t even be significantly closer to knowing whether it’s technically and economically feasible. If I had money to bet I’d put it on “it’s not and never will be except for a global population so much smaller than the current size that they could carry on with fossil fuels without noticing any negative impact on the environment.
It’s not just storage that is currently impossible. It is also distribution. We do not and can not have an infrastructure capable of charging millions of electric vehicles.
Can’t be done.
Not to mention the hundreds of square miles (a guess on my part) that will be required for recharging electric stations, which will have to be on a scale much much larger than the current land footprint of gasoline stations, given the amount of time necessary to recharge an EV. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone actually mention that whole aspect. And what about the asphalt devoted to these electric filling stations, the heat island effect, and the huge increase in stormwater runoff to streams, lakes, rivers. What about that whole deal environmentalists?
You imagine that in our green futupia, there will be large numbers of cars.
Exactly so, FT. A former rather intelligent Minister of Energy in Ontario would agree with you. At a closed door (industry only) meeting, he was asked about EV penetration into Ontario in connection with the support program provided by the government. He said flat out that the maximum penetration of EVs for ICEs was 5%. Very simply, the distribution grid was incapable of handling any more regardless of the number of charging stations.
Could you use a word other than “penetration?”
It is too close to current gov’t policy.
Can’t we organise our power into that which must be on now and that which can come on later when available. Must be on – lights, computer and TV and one kettle for tea. Variable – washing machines, electric dryers, charge the car, heat.
“Comrade, I have good news and bad news for you. The good news is that you will have electricity to wash your clothes. The bad news is that it’ll be on at 3 AM….. 6 months from today.”
… and you are scheduled to attend a five week environmental awareness indoctrination camp that month.
The only heat is a variable? This is a freakin cold country. No energy for heat, we freeze.
I there was some way to store energy in solid, liquid or gaseous form and in natural structures beneath the ground. Sigh
“Net zero” is a mythical construct right along with sustainable development useful only while practicing green theocracy as the mindless serfs empowering their clergy can’t or won’t do math. Access to energy is the key to prosperity and power and the elected sociopaths and their legions love the power and the glory……….
Why would anyone expect the government to prepare for the future? It’s spent an extra half trillion or so in a couple years for absolutely no benefit. I don’t see any worry lines in the faces of my rulers over the repercussions of that. Politicians live for today because their policies do not affect them.
Every technological change in history has happened the same way. Someone creates a new technology that has advantages over the old one. Eventually, the majority of the population switches to the new technology of their own volition. Some continue to ride horses, heat with wood, or whatever, but that is their choice.
But the technology exists FIRST. The public then reacts to the already existing and viable technology. We make no changes based on pie-in-the-sky fantasies. That order cannot be reversed.
There is no technology that can replace fossil fuels. Nor does there need to be, as all the climate models that drive the climate Narrative have proven false.
How long before we invent the Cloak of Invisibility? Should we all base gov’t policy on that, too?
I see what you did there. Wait, where did it go?
Everybody sing along now “All you need is love, green love; green love is all you need”.
The only fix to Y2Kyoto is to cancel the whole thing and incarcerate anyone involved in it for wasting everyone’s time. They are obviously to dumb or lazy to do the math. There is enough known lithium reserve to supply batteries for about .7 of one percent of the number of vehicles on the road right now. Obviously not near enough for electrical grid batteries. Maybe someday when miniature nuke reactors are invented
Assuming I have any Internet skills (hint: warning) Ontario uses about 3 Bcf/day (billion cubic feet) of natural gas, much of it for residential heating and representing about 25% of Canada’s total usage. This converts to 800,000 (ish) MWh of electricity (MegaWatt hours). Total installed electricity capacity in Ontario is 913,896 MWh.
Ontario would have to DOUBLE its electricity grid to cope with the loss of fossil fuels. Not sure what we would do with the 150,000 kilometers of petroleum pipeline infrastructure. Also not sure if the local power lines could handle the extra load. But as the article says, the “low status people can do the menial task of working out the details”.
https://www.ieso.ca/learn/ontario-supply-mix/ontario-energy-capacity
My good buddy owned the electrical company that controls airports and other companies as to security and power and I asked him how could we possibly provide charging power to apartment buildings with hundreds of cars and to the many homes in downtown Toronto that don’t have driveways and use on street parking. He says it can’t be done. It takes, what 5-10 minutes to fill an ICE vehicle and hours to charge an EV. Still waiting to see an EV run out of battery power on our jammed highways and look for a bucket of energy to top it up.
NUKES….Lots of small efficient ones.
And ya still gonna need Oil n Gas.
Ain’t no Jumbo jet flyin on batteries
Ain’t no container ship cruising on Wind power
& Aint nothing that moves without Fossil Fuels – EVER.
Seems to me we shrunk down an 8 bit chip into .005 nM size….maybe we aught to be looking at doing that with a Fission reactor… They’ve done it for submarines…???
Menton’s work and articles on this topic the past several months are absolutely fantastic; and ruthlessly and factually blistering to the woke-fuk politicos who constantly make claims about the future which they are utterly incapable of delivering.
It has been looked into. The cost to store all that electricity makes the electricity thirty times more expensive. Imagine your electricity bill, now imagine it thirty times more. Maybe, if you give up little things like food, clothing, and shelter, you will be able to run a few appliances.
And don’t even start on how many resources that would all require, or what damage getting them might do to the environment.