Lifetime carbon emissions of renewables vs fossil fuel. Problem or solution?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 18 มิ.ย. 2022
- Renewable energy sources are playing an increasingly important role in electricity girds all over the world. They emit negligible greenhouse gas emissions at the point of use. But is that the whole story? How do lifetime emissions from manufacture, transport and disposal of renewables stack up against fossil fuels?
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You are one of the best and well researched alternative energy presenters on TH-cam. Thank you.
I wonder how much money this guy gets from windmill companies?
The Earth is cooler with the atmos/GHGs/albedo not warmer.
To perform as advertised the GHGs require “extra” energy upwelling from the surface radiating as a black body. th-cam.com/video/0Jijw7-YG-U/w-d-xo.html
The kinetic heat transfer processes of the contiguous atmos molecules render that scenario impossible.
No greenhouse effect, no GHG warming, no man/CO2 driven climate change or Gorebal warming.
@@scottslotterbeck3796 probably less than you are getting from shell
@@electroflame6188 he obviously doesnt watch regularly.... It would be clear to him that alll kinds of energy gadgets have a place on this channel, which is absolutely brilliant
Did his calculations account for intermittency and storage systems such as batteries needed to make solar and wind able to be baseload sources
One factor often not considered when comparing wind with PV solar is that by its very nature wind power will require the electrical grid to be expanded in its capacity, whereas solar PV located close to and within the heavily populated areas coupled with energy storage can actually reduce dependence on the electrical grid. Residential and commercial solar PV is not just a renewable energy source it is also the energy delivery system. In contrast wind and utility scale PV is just a renewable energy source that is dependent on the electrical grid.
All this being said I still think that we should be embracing all currently available forms of both wind and solar renewable energy sources.
Exactly, the position is worse with large scale power generation such as nuclear and hydro, although there are small hydro schemes which can supply a local area.
Yes, domestic PV has efficiency benefits as there are fewer losses due to transmission lines, voltage steps etc. Most significant perhaps is the change to household behaviour where we try to optimise our solar usage.
I'd like to see more community owned wind projects that would bring some of these benefits to that technology too.
The other consideration is that wind and solar need a backup, which currently is derived from fossils. Hence the real-life carbon intensity of wind and solar today is substantially higher than nuclear. If we're to achieve very low carbon intensities then we need to scale up nuclear at the same time as renewables.
Did you read the meantioned reports? Maybe they did consider external infrastructure in their life cycle analysis? In any case green energy looks promosing for the future, whether it be solar panels or wind turbines.
Well you're moreso talking about Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) rather than just one or two types of technologies.
Solar can be at the pico-, nano-, micro-, and milli-, or utility-scale, if not due to its incredible modularity and this scalability.
As Dave has covered on this channel, as well as Matt Ferrell with his Undecided YT channel, there are many, many attempts at inventing and implementing micro-wind, micro-hydrokinetic, micro-geothermal, micro-biogas, micro-grid Demand Response Mechanisms (DSMs) like supercapacitors, and micro-storage.
Your concerns are still valid, but you're resting your distinction on a false categorization.
Resilience is the ultimate goal though, at every scale from the home unit to the community to the city to the administrative division to the sovereign nation to the world.
We should be considering how failure can disrupt things at every level, and plan accordingly.
I'd recommend listening to the podcast episode of the channel The Energy Transition Show with Chris Nelder where Chris discusses with Lorenzo Kristov from the California Independent System Operator (CAISO) about grid architecture.
The episode is titled "Grid Architecture of the Future", and while it is 1h30m long, it gets into the technical details of just the kind of resilience we need for a sustainable electricity grid.
Cheers
Given the reliance of wind and solar on energy storage support, a significant investment cost and also emissions potential in manufacture/recycling, perhaps we ought to be factoring this element into the competitiveness of such natural energy sources in order to make a comparison with those power production systems that do not directly need such storage?
Yes precisely. It's far too generous to just account the carbon intensity of wind power on windy days - the backup needs to be part of the equation. We need more wind power *and* more nuclear power
I was quite surprised by the low emissions of PV, as I would have estimated them quite higher. Nonetheless I too was disappointed by the missing mentioning of energy storage. Though to be fair there doesn't seem to have been a conclusive solution to the problem, thus estimating its weight on the environment might be a challenge. Nonetheless I would expect models that solely focus on its CO2 emissions (in the case of batteries like Li) to be possible.
Dave if you see this, please do consider doing an update.
So sure, factor in that cost. I’m gonna dig a couple of holes, fill them with cheap locally sourced mass (you DO have rocks where you live, right?), add stuff to heat that mass, and hook up a Stirling engine or other heat pumps. What’s the carbon footprint of that, and what’s the lifespan? Yes, do the math. PLEASE. Don’t just raise abstract doubts with abstract questions.
@@davestagner Stirling engines don't seem to be common in large scale energy storage. Why not? I don't know but I assume they must be more expensive (and maybe more resource intensive) to make than other engine designs?
Your energy storage would have to be REALLY bad to push renewables to be worse than fossil fuel power plants. Nuclear is great especially as baseload, but I think new reactors could be made to be adjustable
The only reasons this topic remains the subject of much debate and disagreement are disinformation, ideology and profit-making. Many people still find it difficult to accept the realities of renewables, decarbonisation and climate science. We should be supporting each other to deal with the truth of what we’re collectively facing and move forward with the best solutions as quickly as possible - rather than entertaining regressive debate that only produces more hot air.
I think you are unfairly lumping people together, some of us worry that people will be driven into poverty by energy rate hikes, it makes every product more costly and will reduce our standard of living. I worry more about government regulation than the sea level even though i live 6 meters below already, maybe i'm stupid, maybe it is my ideology. But so far it has been very cheap to keep the water out and very expensive to heat my home and drive to work. I would be less bitter if I saw investments into reliable base loads like nuclear but instead solar panels and windmills are put online that have so much variability that adding more would be diminishing returns. I agree that solutions can work, but so far i have not been sold on any feasible image of what a renewable grid would look like.
- Energy storage is many orders of magnitudes too low to help European countries through night, let alone winter. anything but pumped hydro has not been proven to work at scale and pumped hydro is not feasible to meet even 10% of energy storage needs because it needs the right geography.
- High voltage busses can work but are extremely expensive even when used on 1% of the needed scale to import solar energy from Africa to Europe
- Biofuels and such are very expensive without subsidies and take a lot of land
Many people would rather shut down the fracking and gas drilling after effective solutions are found and implemented, i'm happy to pay a little more for sustainable green energy.
You can straw man me and lump me in with the idiots that think the earth is a hexagon or address my concerns in a constructive matter. Both sides have strong ideological people in their ranks.
Unfortunately, the cost of this tomfoolery shows just once voted in, how hard is it to return anything back to the taxpayer without recreating some New tax
Now if this was put into purpose sooner rather than later, moneys just about all in favor over ** INITIATIVE & COMMON SENSE**
@@kapytanhook I use 100% solar power from a few panels I have. There is a small (400 watt hour) battery to provide power at night. What you claim as "needs" are not needs. Humans do not even need electricity or fossil fuels to live: it is extra convenience only. The solution is for the 10% in the rich countries to live like the rest of the world. This more than cuts emissions in half which is the fastest way to reduce emissions.
@@seandepagnier you don't live on an island, energy intensive things run day and night, winters up north get really cold and dark. No heat and you won't live for very long. Sure we can go back to the stone age, 90%+ of people would die from food shortages. The rest would be doomed to a short painful life.
The downsides of Fossil Fuels are less severe. This modern comfortable world needs a lot of energy, it's not optional just because you outsource your carbon footprint to farmers and manufacturers.
How carelessly you throw around that 100% makes me think you really believe it.
@@kapytanhook I do not emit fossil carbon for heat in the winter. I do not kill living trees for wood. I dont use the power grid or buy any fuels. The modern world needs to not be comfortable: this will save a lot of carbon more than any technology, and it is essentially required to succeed at this point. My emissions are somehow below world average despite living in a nation with the highest historical emissions. The richer you are, the more means you have to emit less, but statistically it is the opposite, and wealthy people cause most of the emissions. keep air conditioning for hospitals only, refrigerators only for medication and similar changes.
Loved the subtle use of sarcasm in the intro :-)
Subtle? Was a bit on the nose. Humorous none the less.
So subtle I missed it
Glad you liked it! :-)
@@whoshotashleybabbitt4924 Hence the :-)
Loved the wholesome assumption that climate change is driven by man and not natural phenomena and that higher CO2 levels are necessarily detrimental to life on earth!
The emissions for manufacture of renewables also improves over time due to the energy mix used by the factories becoming less emissive as the previous batch of renewables are installed. Current household solar is only around 20% efficient and industrial solar around 25%, so will be interesting to see how those numbers change as the newer 40+% panels become commercially viable. In theory the emissions should be lower than even wind, but depends how the manufacturing and lifespan changes with these new ones.
You do realize that over 90% of solar panels are made in China, i don't think they are going to switch off all the coal any time soon.
The production of solar panels guarantees the coking and combustion of metallurgical coal and the mining of very small and non-renewable stockpiles of high grade quartz.
How much energy is required to make a watt of solar, a watt hour of battery and for their recycle? How much is left over to power humanity AND to double it's growth?
@@gregorymalchuk272
You would think that electricity can also be used to make solar/battery. Just how much, though, begs a valid concern.
Imagining that solar PV will approach 40% efficiency flies in the face of reality. I would love that to be the case, but the big minds working on these things have assured me we are nowhere close. I'll quite happily go with panels and turbines and call a swift end to the fossil fuel industry
Thanks for the update! Development is so fast now that we really need a quarterly or so review of the latest calculations to keep informed.
I suspect that most people have (like me) a mix of old, medium and recent figures in our heads and need to make a conscious effort to educate ourselves on what really is going on. The power of the oil industry to plant twisted and false conclusions is unfortunately very high and it is just too easy to fall for it as a layperson. For example, my "knowledge" about discarded windmill blades was a photo of a large blade cemetery somewhere, that I saw some five years ago, didn't know until you told me that blade recycling has achieved such high levels.
You might enjoy reading “Factfulness”, by Dr Hans Rosling. It’s mostly about world health and economics, not energy policy, but he focuses hard on how people’s beliefs are governed by seriously obsolete data, and faulty conclusions and biases from that incorrect data. One of the best books I’ve ever read, and I think anyone who thinks themselves “smart” should read it.
Luckily Putin is driving a shift away from oil and gas power.
@@aaronbaker2186 Yes - the one positive to all those dead and maimed Ukrainians and Russians. Not to mention the excessive additions to the CO2/Methane output from the fires and explosions.
Also India seems to be going right off the rails - they have a space program and yet they "can not" replace their coal plants or even deliver water to many regions....
@@aaronbaker2186 Thanks Mr. Putin! :D
I read that the larger blades were buried in the ground, sometimes next to the tubines due to being to expensive to transport. I suppose it doesn't affect the carbon footprint, at least.
The point is that to say that they are being recycled doesn't mean much without any figures. I recycle old t-shirts and underpants, but I doubt I will save the planet, on my own, despite them actively being recycled..
I wonder if the energy costs of recycling the composites/materials for solar and wind are included in the lifecycle calculations? What can the recycled materials be used for?
It certainly looks like a mix of nuclear (for a constant baseload), in addition to wind, and solar, would be the best solution, with excess energy going to supplying industries that make hydrogen, or something similar. We still need more facts on what and how much is being recycled, and how much this is costing/saving emissions.
Everyone is pushing their own agenda, without enough thorough fact-checking.
A good video, thanks.
Thank you. The present CCS technologies are very expressive, energy intensive, do not remove enough CO2, and are horrible for every other environmental parameter (acidification, air pollution...). It is madness to invest in it instead of in modern renewables and storage.
Wrong wrong wrong
CCS is a 100% conjob on the part of the fossil fuel industry. Any politician that has been sucked into this conjob should be voted out of office asap.
A statement couched in ideological absolutist terms.
@@criticalobserver5720 blah blah blah.
Try harder mr critical observer.
Is it really true? Any references?
Glad to see Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) getting a much needed mention, having written my Engineering Honours Thesis on the topic, it's crazy to me that there isn't more of a drive to pursue the technology! So many commenters have queried whether the storage systems (batteries) for Wind and PV have been considered in the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) studies presented. A LCA is a controlled and standardised methodology and a well performed one would be required to include the entirety of the system in its scope, so if the systems presented had battery backups they'd most likely be included. Nowadays though the majority of CSP plants are designed and built with their own storage system, Thermal Energy Storage (TES) literally heat batteries utilising molten salt. This mean they have 24hr access to heat energy used to generate electricity, as needed, night or day!! And as you all saw in this amazing video from Dave, CSP only produces 27g CO2-E/kWh!!!! WE NEED MORE CSP!!!!
The problem with CSP is it works best in hot dry climates, but it also can consume quite alot of water, which is a problem since that's usually a limited resource in the area. Advancements have been made in cooling towers so more of the steam produced can be reused, but it's not enough.
This is why CSP has been getting shut down for years in the western US and replaced with solar PV and wind.
Maybe we'll see a resurgence with MIT's new heat engine, which is solid state and can beat steam engine efficiency in some senarios.
What's happening with that CSP install in California where purchasers are suing because it generated a small fraction of specified amount over a few years before they mothballed it ?
Yeah, that super hot salt can be an issue if it leaks, but the tech is awesome. We need more development here.
Also with regards to water consumption, countries could use solar desalination plants, fresh water for CSP and use the brine for mineral extraction.
@@drewcipher896 heat transferring media can be other materials which will replace water maybe.
CSP can't compete with wind and solar PV on price per MWh when you are in an overall energy mix where storage is not required because there is enough gas power to fill in the gaps. Once we get closer to 100% low carbon electricity, having dispatchable power like CSP will become much more important. Those early CSP plants were just trying to operate in an economic environment that didn't properly value their primary advantage. They were before their time. In the future I think CSP can have a role to play, provided they can deal with the molten salt corrosion problem. Which by the way is an even bigger concern for molten salt nuclear plants!
These are great numbers, but what is rarely mentioned is energy independence and redundancy by decentralization. As a lot of european countries must have seen now, the world is not as stable as we expected. If your economy is still 90% dependent on an energy source from unstable countries, you're basically their hostage. It's easy for a foreign power to cut off fossil fuels and/or destroy/hack a powerplant that supports a whole region/part of your economy. Good luck trying the shoot down every single solar pv panel from every single home rooftop. Yes, we don't have enough batteries to support every home, but just having reliable power during the day can take you through tough times easily. There are still signicant parts of the world, where electricity is not stable or reliable, even from the grid, and they're managing. If fossil fuels were to be cut off without warning in winter in my country, there would be no forests anymore after a month. And I don't like the idea having a single mentally unstable person with the ability to do just that.
I've been pointing out the security aspect of PV and other decentralized power sources for a long time. That pipeline hack a while back really drove the point home.
They didn't even get into the pipeline itself, just the office computers, but in a fit of uncommon logic the company shut down the pipeline just in case.
It's a lot easier to hack, or otherwise disrupt, a large single plant than it is to hack thousands of individual homes. Especially if people wise up and stop with all this insecure IoT stuff. If you're going to have it that's fine, just make sure it's secure.
Yep. If people really want energy independence, fossil fuels are NOT the way to go
So if we want energy independence, we need to shift away from fossil fuels and towards solar? You mean, the same panels that are almost entirely produced in China? Gotcha.
@@timippel9048 Firstly, not all. Secondly, energy independence means not dying of exposure and living in the dark if a political relationship deteriorates. It doesn't matter where renewable infrastructure comes from; it can continue operating for a very, very long time without new imports, so the energy is therefore independent from geopolitical tides.
@@planefan082 unless you live somewhere with an abundance of them, such as the United States, in which case it could make the country completely energy independent (it was a few years ago.)
I still maintain that the “solution” isn’t just one thing, it’ll be a combination of things. And second… I really think decentralised power generation (e.g. we all have solar on our existing roofs) will play a huge part in this.
Imagine the impact if every house, retail/commercial building had some solar installed and even for e,g, small panels on every traffic light.
The Earth is cooler with the atmos/GHGs/albedo not warmer.
To perform as advertised the GHGs require “extra” energy upwelling from the surface radiating as a black body. th-cam.com/video/0Jijw7-YG-U/w-d-xo.html
The kinetic heat transfer processes of the contiguous atmos molecules render that scenario impossible.
No greenhouse effect, no GHG warming, no man/CO2 driven climate change or Gorebal warming.
Distributed power generation is way less efficient than powerplants.
@@JasminUwU in the UK, the electricity grid that was built for centralised energy production is not suitable for distributed production. This has been shown, by the fact that a lot of the wind energy is generated in Scotland. The transmission lines between Scotland and England have insufficient capacity to get the energy south. When the wind blowing Scotland, the Grid pays the wind turbine operators, not to generate. These are known as Constraint payments. Some wind farms shut down 50% of generating capacity and between them receive £500million per annum. The Grid was aware of the problem in 2013 and started building an HVDC inter connector down the Irish Sea, which was completed in 2017. Unfortunately the increase in wind energy in Scotland made it too little too late. Even with the closure of Hunterston B and Torness nuclear power stations, they have started two more HVDC inter connectors on the East coast. In the meantime Constraint Payments are with us for another two years. If we get a couple of comparatively windless years like 2019, when Constraint Payments halved, we may be OK. The grid knew of this problem in 2013, and could have got Hydrogen Electolysers built with the spare money and electricity, pumping hydrogen into the grid at a maximum 20% blend, which is safe for the pipework and safe for the domestic supply. ESO, what are they paid for?
Yes I agree. All eggs in one basket, bad/good, on/off, green/not-green. I like to view the solutions as steps in the right direction and being honest about the drawbacks.
The limousine liberal solution: why don’t we all just put solar cells on our expansive suburban roofs? It’s the 21st century equivalent of Marie Antoinette asking of the bread-starved poor “Why don’t they eat cake?”
There's one big / important omission in the studies cited: it's the energy delivered that matter, not just energy "produced". Which brings the power grid into the picture. The power grid, which uses alternating current, has not just to be connected to both generators and consumers, but also needs a lot of technical stability / safety criteria to be fulfilled every second of operation.
The stability / safety are at this point largely provided only by the conventional power generating units (I include hydro & nuclear under this umbrella term here), which have inertia and can provide fast reserves. Renewables - again, at this point in time - do not contribute to it to any significant degree. As a result, comparing emissions at the point of generation only, may lead some people to imagine, that we could power up all of our lives with just wind, solar and some batteries - which is now still an impossibility.
Now, if you make a simplified assumption, that 1 MWh of renewable energy requires at least 0,2 MWh of energy produced by power units providing inertia & power reserves, you can provide a more realistic comparison of total emissions needed. And even that would still not reflect the emissions increased by the necessary build-up of the power grids.
To compare true total emissions, what you really need is a comparison not of just generation, but also the results of grid buildup and grid stability security services. Would not fit in 12 minutes, but would be worthwhile to point out, to avoid inflated expectations (of those of us, who do not feel the need to know the details of intricacies of power delivery).
Batteries and other storage can supply stability to the grid. Lithium is already used for frequency regulation, and pumped hydro plus lithium is used for load shifting.
There's actually the possibility of using solar power plants for frequency regulation using special equipment. It isn't common because these "ancillary services" aren't always sold since they come for free with spinning turbines. And the incentives aren't there for renewables doing these things, they're usually rewarded for maximum kWh output.
It's also worth noticing the vast difference between fossil fuel carbon intensity and solar/wind/nuclear. These ancillary services would have to be orders of magnitude more carbon intensive to make fossil fuels better than low carbon alternatives. And that's just not the case. Batteries cycled frequently and charged by renewables have only double the carbon intensity of using solar/wind directly. Per a 2019 paper from IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute
@@ThomasBomb45 That's why I wrote "Renewables - again, at this point in time - do not contribute to [stability / safety] to any significant degree". It's technically possible, but will require years of building capacity, while providing financial incentives for renewable generators to provide those ancillary services. Just time and money. And a lot of both. A comparison now should take into account the "now".
I heard lifespan for solar panels is just ten Years, so this & whether these can be recycled safely & where they are installed needs to be taken into consideration as not everywhere has the same amount of sun exposure.
Did I miss reference to battery power storage, or other methods, with the inherent intermittent nature of PV and wind?
Thank you for this but I have a number of issues with your assessment of Hydro:
1. with Hydro Electricity it is controllable and it is like its own battery - you really need to add a battery to the wind and solar to get the equivalent dispatchable electricity.
2. with hydro most of the carbon that goes into making them virtually lasts forever - you really just need to replace the turbine blades every so often and rewire the generators occasionally and maybe even replace penstocks when they wear out (I've seen hot riveted penstocks still working well in the mountains of Italy and they must be well over 100 years old). So I think if you looked at the carbon emissions say over 200 years between the different power generation assets you would get a different story - the intriguing thing is how different!
3. I suspect the methane emissions from hydro dams differs substantially. A lot of them here in NZ are glacier and high country fed where there is very little vegetation, I'm guessing not only are they not silting up much, they probably aren't producing much methane either.
And with wind turbine blades, you suggest they are being recycled. But what I think you mean is that they are being de-cycled - being composite I wonder if they really are being separated into their component parts or just chopped up and burnt?
And I think you had an article about wooden windmill tower construction (fantastic in that its carbon negative), you might be interested to know that there wind turbines that have been in successful operation in NZ for some 20 years that are made from locally grown exotic Raditata Pine veneers laminated together (Contact Geoff Henderson now at Seawind technology in Genoa) . While not necessarily any more recyclable than the glass fibre ones, they do store sequestered carbon and timber has I believe a very good fatigue life compared to other materials.
UK
All really good relevant points! Thanks.
Although basic but functioning very well, you may enjoy Kris Harbour's YT channel. He has built Hydra and also wind powered units for his self build home and workshop in Wales. It is not high tech but it may gladden your heart to see what this young man has designed and built from scratch and mostly alone. 👍
The problem is not that he didn't question his source of information. The problem is that he did it on purpose. I think he is bias and dishonest for this same reason.
I don't even know why TH-cam keep sending me this dude videos. I feel offended by his cynicism and disrespect to my intelligence.
Peter O - the problem with hydro moving forward is that global warming is causing significant changes in the Earth's water cycle. Hydro was a good option over the past 200 years because of the stable climate, but we don't live there any longer. Look at Lake Meade for one example - long-term drought is negatively affecting both hydro production and drinking water availability. Also note that your high-country glacier feeds are declining - using glacial melt to generate electricity isn't a good long-term strategy on our new planet.
definitely not recycled as you cannot recycle composites, ever. Epoxy that has undergone chemical changes is a one and done material. It becomes landfill.
Your graph animations are really nice. Interesting topic and great presentation 🙂👍
Thank you :-)
Very helpful, thanks. My information on this had become quite outdated, it turns out.
Really enjoy your presentations.
Glad you like them!
Excellent discussion and information, as always! 😃
Would be really interesting to do a similar look at the eroei of these options, and perhaps the materials availability to support each of these options. Great work! Loving your videos, thanks 🙏
Excellent video as always. Just a thought on my part.
One major problem with this kind of comparison (fossil fuels Vs renewables), is that the industry doesn't know how to correctly price fossil fuels. You have to account for the damage they cause to the planet, and this damage must be incorporated into the price ( in the face of a certain catastrophe, on an unknown future time, this damage actually tends to infinity from a risk assessment perspective. I am a risk officer in a large firm, so risk is my field of expertise). If you include the risk pricing argument, then the "dilemma" becomes even less puzzling.
Excellent vid again. One thing not considered is the need for battery for delivering "base load". It would be interesting to include this in the CO2 costs for renewables.
You would also have to include the need for batteries into nulear to some degree, because the load cannot be matched by nuclear which can only deliver energy in a very constant way.
@@alphablondy04 Nuclear plants can also load follow if they are designed with that purpose in mind.
@@scarlet_phonavis6734 strange one. If the idea of renewables is to halt the rising waters. Flooding vast areas, making people homeless and destroying ecosystems seems abit harsh. How big a hole is needed to get the raw materials and the machinery needed to do it must be immense. For its lifetime it may be one of the better solutions, if you have an empty mountain and a river, but it's far from cost free.
@-.--.- It's true that we'll need some amount of storage on the grid. We will need most of the storage during this transition period, however, and very little once we're 100% wind/water/solar. This is well documented by the three major transition programs: RMI's Reinventing Fire, Rifkin's Third Industrial Revolution, and the Stanford 100% Wind/water/solar plans. The concept of 'always on' baseload generation is an artifact of the fossil fuel and nuclear age that becomes irrelevant once the transition is complete.
@@scarlet_phonavis6734 Rare earth materials actually aren't rare - they're dispersed. The most common has a similar concentration as copper. The video clearly addressed wind/solar waste - which is already baked into the lifecycle calcs, while nuclear generally is not. Solar panel production (depending on which of the many types you're addressing...) does use some toxic materials, but those materials aren't emitted in order to produce a panel, and aren't released during recycling, that's why there's no significant impact on the lifecycle of these products.
The problem with dams, aside from the ecological damage of altering water flow and changing the land, is that global warming disrupts the water cycle. This is causing long droughts, higher evaporation, lower river levels and thus less energy produced. Hydroelectric generation was good on the old Earth, but is no longer a viable option here on Eaarth.
It's really good and important to take the critics head on and solve the real issues they raise.
True in all fields. Sadly, discourse seems to be lost on the vast majority of the populace.
Nuclear power, safe, carbon-free, always on.
@@scottslotterbeck3796 issues:
1# nuclear waste
2# massive upfront costs
3# large timescales to plan and build
4# huge potential danger if something goes wrong
@@bigbootros4362 Nuclear waste is solved. Upfront costs are the inly big expense. What can go wrong? Chernobyl? No one builds those plants. Before or since. Fukushima? Din't build were tsunamis can iccur. Duh
Nuclear is the answer. Look at his graph. Carbon-free during operation. China is building 229 Gen IV plants. Do you want to freeze in the dark?
@@scottslotterbeck3796 nuclear waste has been solved!?!? In what universe??
And you just proved yourself wrong by saying Fukushima wasn't built correctly. In can happen again. It quite possibly will happen again multiple times. Humans have flaws. They do mistakes or are corrupt. And the risks are so high with nuclear... It's absolutely crazy.
And the waste.... The waste is the biggest reason I'm against nuclear. Burying it ??? It's insane.
That was a BRILLIANTLY explained overview of quite a complex subject - many thanks!
Good job on the metrics! Love your work
Interesting comparison, assuming the numbers are truly accurate. I'm currently on grid and heat with both wood and NG, but in the process of piecing together a DIY PV solar system to go off grid and also hopefully offset a significant portion of my heating needs with the PV system. Every little bit helps, but sadly most people just don't care...
I just installed 7.5kw array and 12 kw battery - after a month during the middle of winter it looks like a 6 - 7 year payback (and we get ZERO government support in New Zealand).
We did this for strictly financial reasons - New Zealand has 81+% renewable energy on its national grid already.
Interestingly, the guy who installed the export meter said he is flat out in the Wellington region because of the high volume of solar being installed.
@@MrBenHaynes Yeah I feed power to HOt water but its winter so Wet Back for Hot Water and Solar for everything else.
We get 8c per KW if we feed back to Grid because our grid operator and power companies are averse to small generators - so I am planning other ways to eat my excess power - like building an electric motorcycle and building an induction forge... Summer should fill my battery in 2 hours while running my house - lots of excess.
@@madpete6438 @Mad Pete Go one step further - find a way to use your excess energy to capture carbon from the air
@@fjsa_2471 I am not that wealthy. I would need someone to do the science and then write a how to... have not seen one yet.
Melting scrap and turning it into useful things is pretty good.
Brilliant episode Dave! Loved your BECCs breakdown and detractors of mono-cropping large outdoor acreages. 🙏🌎🙏
Cheers Tyler. Much appreciated :-)
Why the group hatred of bioenergy? As with food production, it can be disastrous if done badly, but bioenergy done well has advantages like no other. At a time when we need all the best solutions available, can we really afford to throw the bioenergy baby out with the bathwater?
Only if Dave were honest with the information presented and demonstrated some criticism to the source. I found the information really bias and he was unable to draw any questioning to the clear lies presented. I am sorry to see how some people are really bias and dishonest nowadays.
I’m not hating on bio energy at all, I’m all for it actually! There are very clear solutions that have been developed to address the BECCS and BiCRS detractors regarding land use and biodiversity. They just haven’t been adopted at industrial levels (yet)🙏🌎🙏
@@jfrjr7964 If only you lived up to your own expectations.
Thank you. Always informative.
A vert good representation of the situation. Very difficult and there are always balance issues to present this equally and fairly in such a short time of a few minutes. We did life cycle assessments for paint and coatings on steel already 20 years ago and it is mind blowingly difficult. Industry was not interested then - today is different, but acceptance means even more details and more complex models. We are getting there. The question is always how fast…..
Does the calculation for solar take into account for the need to have some kind of storage when the sun is on the other side of the world?
Check out thermal photovoltaics. The battery storage method with great potential.
No, because storage is optional and there are several options. Suffice it to say it would add a significant chunk. Allthough to be fair you don't need storage everywhere as long as you have other means.
As always, the key to all this how efficiently we use the energy we source, and how much stuff needs to get burnt to raise or lower the temperature, or move objects around that we want to move. "The best thing to do is nothing at all" is a useful mantra: insulating buildings and designing use patterns for technology can cut down markedly on the amount of electrons needed to be moved around or BTUs produced by burning things. Commuting to work, for example, is a massive, & not at all essential drain on societal, economic and environmental resources, as people are forced to consume massive amounts of energy, objects, landscape, time and mental equilibrium to maintain their family's life and happiness. Suburbia and consumerism, and illogically long and convoluted supply chains, economically perverted industrial and land use patterns all conspire to keep us more tightly locked into an increasingly unsteady & technocratic life-support environment. The destruction of ecology for the use-value of humans is western 'civilization's parting legacy, and one that deserves to be etched onto the surface of the gigantic concrete mausolea we are intent on building ourselves.
Probably the best summary of the situation I've seen yet
Nice and succinct once again. Another little video that I can pass around. Thanx Dave
It is misleading to discus solar solar wind without addressing availability, in other words, storage. This issue is two or three decades away from being addressed at the level needed to reduce carbon emissions to necessary levels. Currently manufacturers don’t have the battery production capacity, or raw materials, for a small fraction of personal vehicles. We are no where close to what is needed for the entire grid to switch to renewables. Your channel has given a fair look at nuclear in the past. I am glad you included it in the analysis of solar and wind but excluding storage misses a critical piece of the equation.
Nice, I was thinking "Here we go, a clean energy busting report", but no, the differences are way greater than I thought. I was especially surprised by nuclear power.
There are many places on the planet where solar/wind/battery solutions are problematic, hopefully the new micro nuclear generators I heard of recently align with this report and can fill some of the holes.
Now how about a similar vid/report on the transport industry.
+1 for a vid on the transport industry.
Glad you mentioned the possibilities of low carbon steel and concrete. The Australian government has spent millions on carbon capture and storage, yet it remains a myth. It was all to allow the coal industry to maintain business as usual under the guise of "we're working on it". Hopefully things will be different with the change of government.
As ever an excellent & succinct analysis. I knew about the swept area/ windspeed efficiency advantage but had never linked this to the sunk carbon reduction per unit of generation. It’s obvious when you say it. Thanks for the content Dave & team. Always thought provoking & interesting. 👏🏻
One of the many things not mentioned in this article is the visual impact of wind power. These wind turbines are getting bigger and bigger over time and covering more and more hectares of land and sea, these are to most people a blight on the landscape. Surely, with the advent of new Modular Nuclear Reactors and the small footprint of these units, plus their longevity and overall cost competitiveness, they come out as a 'No Brainer'! One other factor often overlooked is their ability to use the spent fuel rods from stored nuclear reactors as a fuel source which will decrease the amount of future nuclear waste.
Yep, specially considering that some of the "nuclear waste" could be used in next-gen nuclear plants, or in Thorium NR, while we await for nuclear fussion
It would be interesting to do a similar study as regards the various currently available energy storage technologies, then apply that as required to the calculations for wind and solar generation.
@realvanman1 That work's been done. Look at RMI's Reinventing Fire, Rifkin's Third Industrial Revolution, and Stanford's 100% Wind/Water/Solar. These three are the primary plans being implemented around the world. We need the most grid storage now, and during the transition from nuclear and fossil to 100% renewable. We need comparatively little storage on the grid once the transition is complete.
@@RechargeableLithium Nuclear is renewable.
@@nonyabisness6306 Please tell us how that happens - without finding uranium on other planets. We'll wait.
@@RechargeableLithium There's enough Uranium on Earth for tens of thousands of years.
No need for other planets. Or waiting for that matter.
@@nonyabisness6306 Unfortunately there's not. If we could find the engineers, the cement, the stainless, and other materials to supply the energy we need with nukes, we could only fuel them one time. We wouldn't be able to refuel them all after that. Additionally, it would take at least 50 years to get them built and that's too late if we want to keep the climate in a zone where we can still grow the grains we need to live. Nukes were a good idea in the 1970s. It's too late for them now.
Great vid as usual! Have you ever done a video on "clean coal?" People keep touting clean coal plants with CCS, but last I checked I couldn't find any that were actually up and running. At least not in the U.S. It seems to be one of these technologies that is perpetually "coming soon."
Beautifully done again!
Thank you :-)
Love the thumbnail with that huge CO2 emitter of Nuclear with the coal plants verses the “clean” wind and solar. Really drives home the “reality”.
great video of course. I'm all for renewables but perhaps taking into account the reliability factor (vs nuclear), and the need for energy storage for renewables would be a better way to compare. Batteries require a huge industry behind that also produces CO2.
Energy storage for renewables is to use the electricity to make Green Hydrogen then use that to make ammonia for fuel cells. Many chemical ways to store that energy today by making syn fuels.
Don't think of renewables in terms of reliability. Think of them as fuel savers. As long as a $1B investment in solar reduces fuel consumption by ~1TWh/yr why does it matter when that reduction occurs? Eventually they can reduce fuel consumption to < 0 (produce H2) to achieve 100% clean energy.
@@jerrywatson1958 True, there are some other creative ways as well. I guess this will all depend on what industry forms the most efficient one for doing that.
@@Chris-ie9os Great point. But remember that if we don't store we'll have a lot of wasted energy from times when consumption is less than output.
@@del669 I think it is all about the markets for the other products that can also be produced alongside. A lot of these other products have been made from natural gas. Now that the price has shot up, green hydrogen has started to replace it as it is stable for the long term and not dependent on any unstable countries or politics.
Always thoughtful and informative videos ... thanks!
A decrease in inequality is far more important than an increase in global GDP. I still think that we have to get cracking on nuclear. One reason is how I was hearing Daniel Ellsberg talking about the possible use of nuclear weapons in the Ukraine conflict, and how it would just take a few nukes to kick up enough dust in the atmosphere to attenuate sunlight to affect crop harvests as well as solar panel output. People just think the sun will always be a constant and don't really think much about latitude or how clear the air is.
Thanks for yet another brilliantly presented breakdown of this complex subject. What I would like more info on is the expected lifetime of wind and solar power generators. Lifecycle costs must include the length of time these devices are producing electricity, I have heard anecdotally that they last somewhat longer than the initial costing estimates.
Thanks for the video it was a really good one , one disclaimer that I think should have been added is the carbon intensity of energy storage, hopefully I didn't miss it.
One thing seems clear Coal is one of the worst methods so moving away from that is a good thing!
One aspect that seems (deliberately?) to be missed is the storage factor.
In order to compare like for like you need to include the total costs for a system. Nuclear is left on 24/7 but the wind is less than 50% .... Which means you need to factor in the storage of your energy into the mix. This is not a cheap thing and also has fairly heavy environmental costs!
Also an element that may have been missed off the off shore wind equation is the cost of linking into the electric supply network!
Indeed storage has to be taken into account although this makes it even more complicated to calculate for comparison as there are numerous storage option. Ultimately it comes down to finding the best mix of energy generation, storage and utilisation. This will likely be different depending on where you live.
Even with storage taken into account, total co2 emissions by kWh don't exceed 10g for wind energy, compared to the 400+g of co2 per kWh of natural gas which is the most "environmentally friendly" non nuclear fossil fuel.
Not to mention, these numbers will drop even further for wind energy when the first EV batteries are being repurposed or recycled as stationnary batteries.
Also, you can store energy without batteries, just using pumped hydro.
Another complication is there is no standard teck for storage. In the last year I've hears of .... 6 ---8 completely new systems of energy storage until a winner is adopted its impossible to make an accurate calculation.
I googled a bit and it seems current lithium ion batteries cause 73 kg CO2 / kWh (for cars) . It isn't clear how much storage we would need though as this heavily depends on the grid, weather, type of renewable and so on. Making some estimates based on this number doesn't look to bad though. Even worst case scenarios I can come up with are still better than all fossil fuels.
@@texanplayer7651 How much does a good dam cost nowadays .... lots of concrete = lots of CO2! Then there is the pesky problem of where to put them (which can be a difficult problem all on it's own).
While we are on point ....... Why Not Nuclear? Rolls Royce are coming up with small Nuclear plants that are modular and so easy(er) to get through planning. The hardest point is (in the UK) getting the grid able to handle the extra power!
Reducing emissions per kWh is a good idea, but reducing the kWh consumed is also important. Excessive consumption of energy is also a cause of excessive emissions. Smaller houses, smaller cars travelling shorter distances more slowly, for example, are ways of reducing emissions. The drive for GDP growth is a big source of emissions!
Thanks for letting us know that you'd like people to remain poor and have lower quality of life! Makes it easier to ignore whatever you say in the future on the topic 😉
@@timippel9048 Add my name to the list of those that you will ignore in future please, Tim.
I wholeheartedly agree with OTT NZ.
There is so much energy waste that we can (through efficiency methods and awareness) reduce consumption (and therefore emissions) without impacting our quality of life. Too many people let image and ego affect their consumption of resources.
@@MrBenHaynes Thanks Ben. Tim Ippel's comment reflects a common idea that quality of life increases with increased consumption. Climate change is another effect of excessive consumption. Reducing emissions should help, but we are far from achieving this. Some of the reason that emissions are hard to reduce is high levels of consumption way beyond real human needs.
It would be good to see this detail for the battery and storage methods and tech some day.
Very balanced presented video.
Excellent work as usual.
Facts are needed.
A few extremely wealthy profit from confusion and disinformation.
They pretend to present the alternative view, a fantasy that looks real.
Their wealth makes them appear genuinely honest and credible.
Most people are very busy and many trust others.
Planet of Humans (as an example), which Dave so kindly debunked for us.
Nuclear energy is by far the best solution. Carbon-free, always on.
@@scottslotterbeck3796 have you heard of the 'nuclear winter ' concept??
@@stephenbrickwood1602 Yes. That's why we don't fight nuclear wars. Nuclear power plants don't explode. You knew that, right?
@@scottslotterbeck3796 you know Mr Putin threatened the USA with nuclear weapons not to go to Mr Putin's neighbour's aid. Mr Putin is killing his neighbour's children.
Nuclear weapons are being used to threaten the USA. And children are being killed for no reason.
One thing missing from this, deliberately or otherwise, is the carbon footprint for storage of solar or wind energy. As great as the numbers appear for the renewables in this report, they have to be looked at in conjunction with storage to be a fair comparison. Maybe an update episode in the future?
Same would be true for nuclear, because the load is not constant over the day, but nuclear power generation is.
Yes, the storage is the elephant in the room. The problem is its very difficult, perhaps impossible to quantify. Not to mention the predicted conversion of ICE vehicles to EVs during the same period.
@@alphablondy04 designing for peak load with nukes is a solved problem. it's the reason control rods are variable. solar/wind batteries provide load control to be a comparison technology so they absolutely should be part of the cited study. otherwise you might have to build 10:1 ratio of solar/wind peak just to minimize the conditional generation aspect. 10 times more emissions would obviously be a significant difference in outcomes.
Energy storage was developed for grid balancing and coal and nuclear plants, it is only relevant to renewables because it is cheaper and cleaner to fill it with renewable power instead.
Renewables do not need storage at all, grid balancing does. Any shortage in production is local and can be covered by importing power from elsewhere, but a brownout of just a second could damage lots of electronics and batteries prevent that faster than any form of energy production.
@@AnalystPrime that's pretty disingenuous to say renewables don't need storage but grid balancing does. you gonna get megatron to put the energy in cubes and walk it to your house?
Impressive video as always 👍
Thanks for sharing your thoughts with all of us ❤️ 😊
My pleasure 😊
The VRE numbers need to be increased to include storage, and distribution losses. All the reductions in steel-and-concrete emissions can also be applied to nuclear
Renewables should be considered low carbon not carbon neutral, untill there is acompanying carbon capture, and whilst the nuclear waste storage will take some energy it will be relatively trivial as these are only for high level waste
Yeah I believe that is the common phrase for it. Low carbon, i.e. nuclear, solar, and wind. Possibly biomass and biogass, depending on the sourcing of that
" these are only for high level waste" Of which there are 400,000 tons of over 1000 deadly radionuclides, mostly sitting at NPP's and reliant on the power grid to keep them from burning unquenchably. Game Over!
Having worked in primary resources most of my working life (oil and gas, coal, oil sands, copper, and now iron production) I am all for going to green energy. What i missed in this episode is the impact on emissions when coal power has to pick up the load when wind and PV can't deliver. New tech in using hydrogen to produce steel has me very excited and I see this as an ideal math with wind and PV to produce large scale hydrogen. As nice as the chart looks wind and PV alone isn't a suitable power supply for the grid. New Nuclear tech is very close to filling this gap.
How about Wind turbines lining the highways in remote locations and they pump that power into a electrolyers then the hydrogen is stored in hydrogen tanks. The power from wind turbines is generating power and charging electric cars. If the wind is not running, then hydrogen in the tanks power a fuel cell which converts that to electrical power for charging cars? Another cool idea is to embed coils in the pavement and have them powered by a array of solar panels that are in large solar fields ever 5-10 miles and they provide the constant power to under ground grid of coils in the road.
Why would you need to factor in coal emissions for wind/solar if the emissions were coming from coal??? If not for solar and wind, ALL of that electricity would come from coal, right??
@@ThomasBomb45 the person you are responding to is pointing out that most renewables don't provide consistent power, and right now the backup power when they are not available is fossil fuels (though probably not coal, most of the gap power plants use oil or gas).
But it is a lot better to get most of your power from wind and solar and burn stuff for power on windless nights than to burn stuff 24-7 so...
New nuclear tech, huh? The 400,000 tons of 'spent' fuel from old nuclear tech has already rendered this planet unfit for life F_O_R_E_V_E_R_
@@aaronbaker2186 The gap in the logic that most people put forward is that they steady state emissions numbers for fossil fuels. The emissions are far worse when power plants are ramping up and cooling down like they have to do when picking up load when wind and PV stop supplying. There is lots of tech being developed now and some will work and some won't. It's just about finding the right mix and not tweaking the numbers to promote a single agenda. I strongly believe that a multi solution approach is needed. All good discussion to Just Have a Think about.
Great and really needed video. Thanks!
Good to see you again, its been a while.
Appreciate this sanity check. One thing we must not forget to do is not just compare our options, but also sanity check the actual long term sustainability of each option. If it's better than what we have today, but there is no chance we can sustain it under a zero carbon future, we must call it out quickly to avoid reliance of and adaptation to a bad bridge.
Please consider this framing of the topic of EVs. Many believe that with the switch to 100% renewables, EV cars, SUVs, and even pickups represent zero emissions tech and they therefore see them as sustainable. Others recognize the limitations of battery and motor resources, the embodied carbon in materials procurement and processing, parts manufacturing, assembly, and transportation of large EVs as being completely impossible at the scale of personal vehicles we have now including the demand which continuesto grow across the globe.
Assuming EVs are nowhere near sustainable by 2050 (and beyond) under zero carbon, and that their additional demand for more electricity is incompatible with our race to quickly decarbonize, while expending a deficit carbon budget trying to achieve a global fleet of EVs, isn't it critical that we assess, acknowledge, and abandon an EV strategy and all of its associated resource investments including excess charging infrastructure and using up all the motor, battery, and general electronics resources. We will surely regret not instead building sustainable electrified public transit, much more extensive freight rail, and bikes, e-bikes, and other micromobility, which all have a much higher chance of representing sustainable transportation by 2050 and beyond? Very few fully acknowledge this publicly, but those of us working in sustainable transportation have largely ruled out full sized EVs as a permanent option going forward. This is the debate we should be addressing with LCAs and 7th generation thinking. We are only thinking about what it takes to wrestle people out of a gas SUV and into an electric one. The Volvo & Polestar LCAs as well as the Trek LCA are good places to start. I'm happy to work with you on content for that episode if you choose to do it, because it is the most critical discussion not taking place in Climate Crisis solutions circles.
It does appear that folks are energy blind. It seems impossible to take apart all the hydrocarbon technology while still employing it do all the work it does for us. The only logical solution is to radically reduce demand. The dilemma is that I don't know of a single individual that would surrender their personal living standard (represented chiefly by owning one if not more motor vehicles) for some grand idea of saving the world. I haven't done it and I be either has anyone living in America. We all rely upon the same roads, pipes, electric grid etc. even if we don't "own" a car.
We will have to have a collapse before demand is significantly reduced. The dream of a smooth process of transition is just that. Industrial society is not built on dreams but instead the work of machines. If you can imagine all the changes that would need to occur to have a sustainable future, you are a better seer than me.
Yes, more of this line of thought please. Would be great to see a collab with Dave on this topic. Cheers.
A question (apologies if I could answer myself by checking all the papers) ...
Do the figures for Wind and PV include a factor for the associated storage technologies which must be used to ensure on demand electricity generation?
I can only guess too that is nit.
A fair comparison needs to compare continuously available energy sources, ie renewables + storage plus fossile standby plants vs nuclear and fossile.
Since storage technology at scale is not yet decided yet, its carbon foodprint is not known too.
.Don‘t get me wrong, I operatr a 19kwp PV on my roof top to supply me and my neighborhood.
But I also recognize that this does not yet represent the final solution (still evaluating battery storage options)
I doubt these are included as most places in the world haven't reached high enough renewables yet for this to become a major part. Although it looks like these will not be high enough to make a major difference. Costs is the big issue with storage not CO2 emissions.
Thanks David for a great analysis!
Just Have a Think is one of the best. I appreciate the high quality of your work. Also some of the expert feedback in the comment section.
One thing I'd like to see considered would be using surplus wind and solar to power hydrogen production. Wouldn't that help to eliminate the down side to both?
Yes. You're precisely describing a "battery", You're precisely describing energy storage. It's known to be a huge, and expensive, part of the solution. I have no opinion on the merits & demerits of your specific battery selection because my knowledge there is superficial and I know vast numbers of bods argue like their life depended on it for & against this or that battery.
There are facilities producing green hydrogen from surplus renewables already in Germany. The main issue is that you have to spend the same amount on your electrolyzer as other plants but you only get to use it about 30% of the time and it sits doing nothing the rest of the time.
Hydrogen storage and transport kind of sucks. There is research being done on storing and shipping hydrogen as ammonia but that even further reduces efficiency and creates other problems.
Turns out that there just isn't a perfect liquid fuel.
I think the modeling should include hybrid systems that would provide grid power for appliances and a small solar array and small battery system for lights and other limited power needs. Most people cannot afford a $40k or more investment in solar but a lot more homes could adopt a smaller system at $2k and up to perhaps $10k. The problem with a single solution is the need to store energy. And also the loss of energy moving electricity long distances. If we blended micro nuclear plants with solar and wind and kept the natural gas power as a the power source of last resort...... how would such a blended system compare with the other models? Lower cost with less construction, lower battery costs and a more distributed solar array close to the power consumption needs.
That would be way too pragmatic and sensible in a world driven by opposing ideologies.
You can't just put small solar on your home. The power companies don't allow it. You need to have enough output to be completely self sufficient because it's very expensive for the additional hardware to "sell" power back to the grid, which is a lie in itself. Nothing is sold back, you simply get credits which expire after x amount of time and they cannot be exchanged for actual payment.
Great video!
“If future generations are to remember us with gratitude rather than contempt, we must leave them more than the miracles of technology. We must leave them a glimpse of the world as it was in the beginning, not just after we got through with it.” ― Lyndon B. Johnson.
Nuclear has been considered an essential element in our energy future. I would like to see a similar comparison between nuclear and battery grid storage. Maybe even adding pumped hydroelectric in that comparison.
I think hydro storage would be a big part if it didn’t need so much space. Nuclear is just ages ago from being really accepted by the public but it might have made sense too leave more of them running till they are really not usable anymore. Today building new doesn’t make a lot of sense.
And then we need to take into account that lots of energy companies don’t want to build anything like that any as there aren’t enough people to maintain and build these things in the first place till we get that again it’s already over.
What you going to do with the nuclear waste?
@@jamesag4135
And small reactors will produce more none fuel waste
@@jamesag4135 It can be reused or stored deep underground even lower than oceans. This way, it can never contaminate our environment.
Of course, the inherent problem with this method is digging the hole. Which would likely produce a lot of carbon emission. But presumably, if the hole is large enough and can be used for a considerable length of time before being sealed up completely, it would mitigate the carbon cost to dig.
I have learned that a lot of the critics of green energy throw out "what about-isms" to try to convince themselves and others that we should not try, or at least that is the impression I get. It often comes from politics or people are just flat out uninformed. This is a great video talking about the emissions for some of my favorite green alternatives. I think you should also find out what the emissions output for battery storage since that is going to play a major role in using solar and wind power. It would also be interesting to look at what the energy costs will be, historically and projected for each source, since economics is also a major driver in implementing green energy. I personally think green energy will be cheaper and more price stable than fossil fuel once we get it going.
Volvo, who produce ICE as well as EV vehicles did a large study on lifetime emissions and they found that EV does not get level with ICE until somewhere like 100,000Km - but that changes to a much higher mileage if vehicle ever gets a new battery, and that recycling batteries and their toxic components is not yet figured out..
Awesome video, Dave. Thank you!
Did they account for the manufacturing of components being much less carbon intensive in a world without fossil fuels, thus almost been a compound decrease in total carbon output? Like if a wind turbine takes 150kwh to build, and 1/2 comes from prexisting renewables that is much lower carbon output in the construction phase than if the grid was only 1/4th renewable
I think they did. Notice that current CO2/kWh is 11g for wind, while future is 4g, and much larger improvement for solar. Might be just improvement in technology, though.
Do the numbers for wind/solar take into account the batteries needed along with their lidecyle carbon impact? I am particularly concerned with this aspect considering not only the carbon, but other environmental and ethical concerns. It may well be that we have to swallow ethical concerns as we wait for better storage solutions, but it is still disheartening.
I personally doubt 11g per kwh includes battery emmissions. That said, there are a lot of improvements in battery technology as well that have been coming through in the last few years and not every grid uses lithium cobalt batteries for storage, so it may be hard to determine actual average emissions for the various technologies.
Don't forget the peaker plants powered by gas turbines; they seem much more common than batteries.
@@ethanwhitehead2085 peaker plants can also be hydro or nuclear, though in both of those cases the plants operate 24/7 and just have their generation levels turned up when used as peaker plants.
@@aaronparry2636 Most peaker plants are not though. Availability of sites limits hydro, while nuclear plants are almost always kept at near maximum capacity so they can repay the loans for their construction sooner. Gas turbines seem to be the go to peaker plant thanks to their dispatchability.
In any case with storage, you have to deal with significant energy losses (either from pumping or from conversions between AC/DC and dis/charging), which is why energy storage is only competitive for peak hours (from a price point anyway), but not so much for shoring up renewables' unreliability issues.
Thanks, very interesting and well presented.
I often hear people saying you cannot recycle EV batteries, wind turbine blades,Solar pv panels etc. Of course you can, and they will be recycled when the volume of waste is sufficient to warrant the investment, or Gov incentives cover the cost.
I spent my working life in recycling materials, it is a very innovative industry and will sort out the waste problem.
Why on earth would you go to all the trouble of mining and refining all the elements needed for an EV battery when you have them all readily available in a very pure form in an expired battery.
The scaling of power generated against blade length is a fourth power relationship I think. Impressive.
May the fourth be with you.
Thanks for that video. I wonder though, when you account for the energy storage required for the intermittent (P/V and wind) options how the equations might change?
It looks like a combination of nuclear for base load to go along with wind/solar and of course energy conservation (we are an affluent and wasteful lot) might be the most promising solution,...at least for now.
wouldn't be much if the extra electricity was used to make hydrogen and then that hydrogen could be used in a fuel cell to create electricity again. even if you had 10x more wind/solar then what was needed and even if you only got 10% efficiency from the conversion of electricity > hydrogen > electricity. it still wouldn't come even close to the other major polluters. granted this 10% efficiency is laughably low and it's actual rate is much much higher then that already (70%+).
with current lith batteries, i doubt it would even be worth it. however the new batteries that are being worked on, well those might be quite different.
the reason to go hydrogen over batteries is that hydrogen has uses well beyond just energy storage.
If you mean batteries, then what we hear about EV production suggests quite a large carbon footprint.
So you're asking for the calculation to include the assumption of a stable grid given climate/planetary variables like wind streams, cloud formations, and sun angles.
I think the IPCC would be a better organization to get a better sense of that kind of LCA since the IPCC tries to incorporate those kinds of actors that deal with these kinds of variables outside of just the costs of construction, operation, maintenance, and deconstruction.
Edit: with that assumption in mind, I'm sure reports like this would need to incorporate battery storage because that is 100% needed to ensure grid stability
@@emmabird9745 Source?? "What we hear about EV batteries" is often naysaying from fossil fuel interests. Or they make valid criticisms about OTHER pollutants, not CO2. In the case of EVs the extra CO2 from building the battery is more than made up for after 3-5 years of average American driving patterns. So I can't imagine battery storage bumps the CO2 intensity of solar and wind anywhere near fossil fuels
@@emmabird9745 depends on the battery. Most people think of lithium batteries, which are expensive so they can be small and light.
You can make batteries out of iron, water, even CO2, if you are willing to devote some land and space to it. I'm not talking about gravity storage either. Iron batteries use the same mechanism as lithium. They take 10 times the soace but 1/10th the cost, they are also better "long load" batteries, good for lasting decades of a 12 hour charge, 12 hour drain cycle.
Interesting video. The jury is still out for me but personally I think nuclear is the way we should be going.
Now, I live off grid, I generate 100% of my power by solar for around half the year (I'm in the UK), the other half is part solar, part generator/engine using diesel and petrol. Bear in mind that most of my power consumption is 12v and all 240v comes via an inverter connected to a battery bank, so no electric kettles etc. I mention all of this because batteries, inverters and solar/wind controllers are an essential element in these systems and so must be included in a true lifetime use cost surely? Also, is the environmental impact taken ito account for the various sources of energy? We hear lots of stories of wind turbines slaughtering millions of birds each year for instance.
It's important to look at the impact of each option from every angle.
Mike, Nuclear really does generate a enormous amount of power for a small foot print vs huge solar farms and...nuclear is reliable. Modern nuclear power plants are safe if build with modem design in mind. Fukushima was safe but it was the original design of placing Generators in the basement. When the Tsunami crashed over the wall, and into the side walls of the plant, it crashed though the wall and flooded the generator room. The water level ceded the intake height of the generators. The power was cut during the quake and the pumps lost power to cool the steam that would be sent though steam turbines then though the cooling towers and returned back to the core. The rods could not be forced back into the core to absorbed the neutrons and it started to over heat and boil off the water. Eventually the reactor vessel could not withstand the pressure and it blew the top! The design of the reactor should have had had a mechanical winch that could be powered by humans and thus, they could have turned the crank or wheel, and mechanically lower the rods into the reactor. I still think reactors are the best way to prevent Climate Change. Humans need to also play a roll and only have two kids per family between USA,China and India. Most of the record co2 levels are coming from china. China is the largest emitter of coal and oil.
I have got beat up pretty bad about destruction of birds on this site. What was still overlooked was not the destruction of birds but the type of birds being killed. Sea birds, which are near the coast areas are the main bird that is important. Nobody including me cares about pigeons, sea gulls, and or sparrows which are also killed. But most sea birds and large predator species are the ones everyone cares about. These are already endangered species so ecosystems that kill these birds are the main focus. I have not seen any recent studies done lately but ten years ago these deaths were well published and being studied. Anyone who attacks or challenges the green industry is at risk of being cancelled or attacked furiously so the current numbers are not being released about the wind industry killing the birds outright or just destroying their breeding grounds which is just as important. Lack of studies being published does not mean the damage is not being done as honest debates on free speech is where a real conversation can begin but lacking in today's hostile environment.
I too am a nuclear proponent and amazed at the well organized organizations that totally attack the nuclear industry and put out garbage data packages that no where resemble the truth of the matter. Plus in the background is the Natural Gas industry which has invested hundreds of billions in the wind and solar industry. This industry loves these green technologies because they only operate at about 30% of the time over the duration of any given year. That leaves Natural Gas as the main fuel to supply the power when these dormant periods happen and means that thousands of Natural Gas plants will be built during the coming decades.
I agree with much of your statements.
However, In the U.S., all wind turbines combined killed 681,000 birds. So globally, bird deaths to wind is in the *low* millions.
*And* ... that number is dropping as they figure the problem out. For example, painting one blade a different color apparently reduces bird strikes by a great percentage.
*Meanwhile...*
Domestic Cats kill 3 to 4 *Billion* birds annually globally (about 1.8 billion in the U.S.A. as I recall) ...
and motor vehicles kill 89 million to 340 million birds annually.
and Skyscrapers kill 600 million birds annually in the U.S.A.
And.. on topic...
Nuclear power plants killed about 460,000 birds annually in the U.S.A.
And fossil-fueled power plants kill roughly 24 million birds.
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So rest easy when it comes to Wind Turbines. The number is small. Not even a rounding error. Global wild bird population is roughly 200 Billion to 400 Billion.
@@macmcleod1188 Only in the low millions? How about if that were people, would it still be called 'low' millions?
I hear what you're saying but 2 wrongs never make a right... domestic cats are a nuisance and I'd rather see the turbines taking them out than the birds!
In any case, the birds are only one small part of the environmental issue. The so called green solutions are responsible for an incredible amount of destruction, the question needs to be asked, is it worth it? To me it's not, not when we can have nuclear power instead.
Batteries could be included in the comparison. Weather dependent energy production will need additional storage to maintain grid stability.
Thank you
Honestly the audacity of some people to suggest burning stuff does not release more CO2 than spining motors with wind and water or capturing energy from the sun.
Also, I think land use should have been included in the analysis. Us here in Georgia were planning on building another hydro plant and a lot of debating was done over the environmental impact of cutting down the forests to make space for it.
Hydro works best where water is and water is also were life is, so finding land that is not occupied by a settlement or forest near a substantial river will be impossible.
You can mount wind turbines on mountains and solar panels in deserts with little to no environmental impact. You can also mount them on rooftops.
And nuclear and most fossil fuel plants take little space for how much energy they produce.
yeah ... i always say land is not a renewable resource. ;-)
@@justgivemethetruth that’s why I say that nueclar is much better than renewables because they take up over 200x more land per kilowatt hour than renewables
A few things that should be addressed:
1) the current PV recycling strategy is "dump them in africa and let them burn it in trash piles"
2) massive footprint of windfarms destroying local ecosystems, birds, etc.
3) non optimal use of PV, and wind, that is extremely location based
4) relating to #3, to store all the energy in the off times, we'd need massive dam networks (more than we have now) which, as stated in the video, create massive amounts of methane from stagnant water, as well as emissions from LULUC
5) the cognitive dissonance of handicapping of our energy strategy in the name of "green energy" while still doing things like ordering products from china (their ships produce more pollution than all the cars in the world combined)
6) What about all of the petroleum products that life is based around?
7) we'd be taking trillions on trillions of watts of energy that was destined for the earth's surface, destined to move winds around, destined to make plants grow, or even destined to bounce back in to space, what environmental impact would that have?
I'm all for changing things for the better. But there IS in fact a bigger picture at play here. What use is green energy if you collapse the country you're living in while polluters continue to pollute?
Great video! Really important info
Thank you for the new video! It's good to see you again.
Don't know how much of a difference it would make, but I've heard that AI can be used to optimize the placement of wind turbines, so they don't interfere with each other when placed in large groups. That might increase their efficiency even more.
AI should be used in the networking most effectively; because modern devices can provide more details and we can have solar insolation and wind pattern data from independent sources on a very low granularity. People who produce and consume locally must be the greatest beneficiary. AI can play a very important role in the distribution and regulation and pricing.
Absolutely. More information means better models and more efficiency. Lots of tiny little solar powered sensors distributed over a wide area could provide that fine grained data for AIs to chew on. Meanwhile, truly smart electrical grids could help each household determine our individual costs and benefits better than we do now.
One thing that frustrates me is getting an electric bill that fluctuates wildly from month to month and not knowing why. AI could help explain what's going on in a more simple way.
Funniest naysayer argument I heard last week. "Geothermal sounds good, but what happens when it runs out of heat?" I wanted to say "then the people 1.5 million years from now will have to dig slightly deeper."
@@factnotfiction5915 It would help if governments subsidized clean energy and phased out subsidies for unclean energy production.
@@AtheistEve "It would help if governments subsidized clean energy and phased out subsidies for unclean energy production."
Ok - just how much subsidies do VRE require?
According to the Joint Committee on Taxation, the production tax credit for wind is estimated to cost taxpayers $4.9 billion in fiscal year 2020, the investment tax credit for solar is estimated to cost $2.4 billion, and the three tax deductions for oil and gas listed below combined are estimated to cost $0.9 billion
www.jct.gov/publications/2018/jcx-81-18/
Thanks for another unbiased and informative video.
Cheers Michael
Great vid 👍
Great video thanks!
Thank you for another excellent video. Still we run into the problem of the Duck Curve (PV) and times when wind does not blow. How does adding reasonable storage using pumped and currently available battery storage systems add to Wind and PV? And of course some of the best CO2 reduction technologies is improvements in end use efficiency.
Just an additional question. Would some industries be able to switch to solar where production rates are adjusted to match energy production peaks and valleys ( again the Duck Curve). Something like a desalination plant where it is mostly idled at night but, peaks during bright sunlight. It is an obvious adaptation but, I haven’t seen anything discussed about trying this.
I have read large scale desalination for the worlds fresh water needs could be very damaging as the end product is brine. Most likely this would be dumped back in the oceans of the world and would drastically change the salinity and chemical content of existing ocean ecosystems. Small scale desalination would never be a problem but when the process becomes world wide on an industrial basis than the real problem which might be irreversible begins.
I think a problem with these is that large scale solar very often isn’t used for this.
@@anthonycarbone3826 depends on how the brine is added back in.
The mechanism that produces all the rain and snow in the world is a solar desalination process, it is just very spread out.
After two decades of commercial wind power, we have a large pile of excellent data about the output variations of wind turbines, and wind farms. “When the wind does not blow” really isn’t a problem for wind turbines. They’re not down on the surface like we are, subject to surface turbulence. They are hundreds of feet in the air, where the wind is both more consistent and more powerful. And since the numbers are so predictable, it’s a straightforward exercise to compute how much storage is needed for a wind farm to produce a consistent base-load power for a given period of time before potential drop off. Keep in mind, too, that it’s not just energy production peaks and valleys that need compensation - it’s energy consumption peaks and valleys as well (which are also pretty predictable long term). So build enough, overbuild enough to give an acceptable safety margin, and that’s the system, with a predictable cost.
Solar is subject to the same sort of measurement. We can know precisely the angle of the Sun at any given time on any given day, giving us a range of output from zero to 100%. We also have detailed historical data for cloud coverage and weather conditions going back decades. Despite the popular delusion among the anti-solar reactionaries, a PV solar cell is not an on-off switch. It doesn’t stop producing power just because it’s cloudy - it just produces less, and how much less can be measured and predicted. So again, we compute how much storage is needed to stabilize as a base load, and how long we need it to be able to go in unusual conditions, and build to that. We’re overbuilding, but overbuilding is standard engineering practice across any discipline where reliability is an issue. You just roll it into the cost.
I'd say for as long as there aren't any reliable methods for storing our current nuclear power should back up renewables during times of low productivity. Nuclear power is expensive to build and maintain, but so far i'ts the most viable way of closing all those gaps in energy production.
If you count every hole dug for ore to satisfy entire transition of transport AND storage till COMPLETE transition, it STILL doesn’t come anywhere close to the USE ONCE AND POLLUTE FOREVER fossil fuel side of the equation.
These videos are great. I'd love to see something comparing the impact of large scale hydro vs small scale hydro. Large scale definitely seems to have some problems, but small scale stuff, where you don't need a dam, seems pretty good, but I'd love to see your take on it.
Hi Dave, Thanks as always. Just out of curiosity does the research mention the Carbon Emissions for the life cycle of grid scale electricity storage options (whether pumped hydro, battery storage or super heated material). I doubt it would change the result compared to Coal or Gas very much as the gap seems way too large, but comparative to Nuclear which can supply base-load power, renewables are intermittent and aren't really a direct comparison without including storage capacity.
Also do construction costs include mining, transport and refining of the raw materials. As an example here in Australia we have a lot of Lithium for batteries, we have plenty of coal and gas, and an abundant supply of Uranium (as well as plenty of the other elements required I believe). However we don't really manufacture much, we mostly ship the raw materials off shore and get the finished products shipped back.
Agreed that storage needs to be taken into account.. but surely battery banks are the worst type of storage as we all have experience with batteries holding less and less charge over time.
We aren't changing, we'll ride the heat engine to the end.
Yep. It sure sounds pessimistic, especially on this channel where we're all heading for better solutions. But it is very most likely the way it'll be.
Good to see a fair CO2 ratio for Nuclear. A thought tho. Renewables must be backstopped due to intermittent power delivery. Usually filled in by fossil. The metric in this video seems to miss the CO2 expelled by these fossil sources that must be used to even make renewables viable on the grid. Such a metric inclusion would drastically change these numbers. Also, ramping fossil plants up and down constantly reduces their efficiency and pushes the CO2 number higher sometimes nearly completely offsetting the CO2 reduction by the renewables in the first place. Hope for storage is high but as yet not fielded in any way close to a scaling reality. Plus, there’s a CO2 cost for batteries that would change these numbers as well as the EROI. Lots of Rube Goldberg here. Why not just go with the Nuclear that’s lower to start with? The false fear of nuclear waste storage needs to be set aside. Nuclear has what we need now and is proven to work. Just have a think about that.
There is no need for those back stops.
They are necessary, because they have not installed enough of renewable generators, or enough storage.
@@antediluvianatheist5262 storage has a carbon footprint which is not accounted for... I mean, just look Germany (pro'renewables) vs France (pro-nuclear) CO2 figures any day and you'll understand that fully renewables is not clean nor viable.
@@antediluvianatheist5262
No sir. You are incorrect. In virtually every case so far, renewables installations have been either supplemented by new fossil installations or by existing extra grid capacity. It is usually in the form of natural gas power plants.
Nice, I'd wondered about this myself.
Very informative, with wind and solar being the quickest renewables to deploy its comforting to know their carbon footprint doesnt require further justification. Would have liked a bit more about geothermal in the content.
Grids were designed for traditional power stations, with big grid connections at them which gradually get stepped down in multiple stages until it reaches your home. The wide geographic distribution of wind and solar and the bidirectional flow, means that wide scale grid re-engineering will be needed, and that is a hidden source of emissions that I've not seen any papers about.
Contrast that to building a new nuclear power station on the site of a decommissioned nuclear or fossil fuel site, where you can simply reuse the existing grid connection.
I'd also echo what others have said about the carbon cost of backup storage (including round trip losses) or generation not being factored into the carbon footprint of solar and wind and other variable, intermittent and non-dispatchable generation sources.
It just seems so obvious to me that nuclear is not only the way to go, it is the only way to go, and it needs to be kicked in fast a possible.
@@justgivemethetruth Nuclear is not the best way to go. Look up levelized cost of electricity or levelized cost of energy. Nuclear costs 5 times what solar and wind cost. Costs have come way down with solar and wind electrical power plants the last 10 years. (I didn't look over my original comment very well and didn't put in that nuclear electrical power costs 5 times what new solar electricity and new wind electricity costs.)
@@ronaldlindeman6136
It's not just about cost. It is about lots of other factors. If there is a nuclear exchange in Ukraine and a few nukes go off the whole world for some period of time will be blanketed by dust. It's been calculated that this can affect crop yields and solar panel output. I am all for solar and wind, but not so much for wind because I think they are ugly and not good way to go. Both solar and wind are intermittent, and also as others have mentioned it is hard to power the whole national grid on those sources.
Solar and wind are still minute fractions of the total energy mix, and if we went totally in on solar and wind it would mean reducing the lifestyle expectations of the whole world. So, good luck convincing the Chinese that they should give up mobility, A/C and heating or other Western norms. People all over the world demand energy.
If you did not have nuke-o-phobia you could see objectively that nuclear is really the only massive solution for the world.
@@ronaldlindeman6136 if cost is your main concern, then nuclear is in its current large solid fuelled form the most expensive but LCoE. Given the climate emergency, should money be the only factor?
Personally, I favour a mix of nuclear, wind and solar, with some storage too. To me that makes sense, especially when you build nuclear reactors that can be retasked to high temperature electrolysis when wind/solar is plentiful, which is more efficient than standard electrolysis, for producing clean hydrogen.
@@davidpowell8249 If you want nuclear, then you are going to have to Government subsidize the building of nuclear power plants, the costs are huge, as with the VC Hammer nuclear plant startups that went bankrupt and Vogtle nuclear plants that totaled over 28.5 billion.
The schizophrenia of humanity : desperately seeking environmental friendly solutions on one hand, and feeding the beast, the elephant in the room aka the military industrial complex on the other.
You clearly have zero concept of human nature or human history. Anyone who thinks we'd be living in some utopia of peace and security if you got rid of militaries is just delusional. Its no different than the past two years of "defunding the police" which resulted in a 30% increase in murders the first year, and the second year another additional 30% increase. If bad actors have no fear of getting their butts kicked, they'll pillage and terrorize with impunity.
As many others said, we need to include storage for green energy
As we need to include costs on storage of burnt fuel and radioactive waste with demolished of ncr
Extremely informative. :-)
Kinda disappointing that the wind and solar numbers aren’t taking into account batteries, peaker power plants and excess capacity needed for these systems to work since they are intermittent energy sources. If you do those numbers I’d bet nuclear would be the best choice by far for carbon emissions and for maybe 1/10 the cost
Yes
Only if we exclude the cost of storing the radioactive waste for 2 million years. Even if we pay them just minimum wage, the salaries of the guards alone add up to quite a bit. Add in land use costs, construction, and maintenance, and it becomes astronomical. Until the industry can get its act together and build a couple of permanent storage sites, they should stop making more dangerous waste.
Please always include storage in your calculations. Storage is required for solar and wind to be an alternative to coal and gas.
Agreed but these weren't his calculations. I think nuclear probably come out on top once you factor in the need to build the grid and battery's.
great video, thanks
Though these numbers paints a pretty picture, the biggest drawbacks of these technologies are not mentioned. Due to the low energy density of PV Solar and Wind, these technologies needs to be deployed at very large scales, resulting in huge land losses and enormous wildlife impacts. Huge solar farms literally burns birds alive, not to mention the habitat loss of these large scale projects. Wind energy is more efficient in its land use, but still affects the habitat of those creatures blessed with the ability of flight. PV Solar and Wind is also an inconsistent and unreliable source of energy, again requiring a larger scale to account for fluctuations in the output. They also require some form of storage(battery farms, dams) to compensate for their unreliability, again requiring large land use.
Another thing...if a product is advertised as being "100% recyclable", that does not mean that they are being recycled and remade into new products. Just look at the lies of the plastic industry...