A few weeks ago, I posted on “Cassandra’s legacy” the result of an informal survey among experts in renewable energy. I asked about the chances of a transition to a world that would be completely powered by renewable energy, and about the chances of being able to attain that before climate change becomes a true catastrophe. Out of some 70 respondents, the large majority was of the opinion that a fast 100% renewable transition is possible and that can be attained without the need of heroic efforts.
I must confess that I found that result surprisingly optimistic, probably because I tend to frequent rather doomerish circles (and note the name of my blog!). Indeed, the people who read doomer sites seem to be even more pessimistic than me. So, “Reverse Engineer” of the “Doomstead Diner” ran the same survey with his readership, finding completely different results. In the Diner’s survey, some 250 people participated and 54% of them said flatly that the renewable transition is impossible.
So, what can we say about these surveys? An obvious observation is that reality will decide what’s going to happen about the renewable transition without paying too much attention to what puny human beings think. However, there are a few points that may be worth remarking.
1. The optimism of the experts should be considered as something more than just the opinion of the general public. Here, it is clear that the experts have a direct connection with the progress of the field and they perceive the rapid growth in efficiency and the reduction of costs. They are seeing a glimpse of hope.
2. The strong skepticism of the doomers shouldn’t be discounted as a fringe opinion. It is an attitude that pervades society and that is not due to ignorance since the respondents to the Diner’s survey reported a high level of formal education. However, that didn’t shield them from believing in some of the various legends pervading the web. For instance, one respondent said, ” All Electric RE require >70 elements of the periodic table. And they are NOT RENEWABLE.”
3. The greatest shortcoming of renewables according to the doomers is their intermittency. That is a little strange, and it indicates how most of us tend to think in the BAU frame only. People are accustomed to have electricity “on demand” and won’t consider the possibility of a world in which the supply is “demand managed.”
4. The majority of the doomers indicated that the best renewable source is human slave labor. That’s not surprising; after all, they are doomers!
5. It is refreshing, however, that only 2% of the doomers indicated that they believe that homo sapiens will soon go extinct.
There are a lot of details that you may find interesting in the survey published on the Doomstead Diner. But I would like to conclude this post with a personal note. It is something that I was telling to RE (Reverse Engineer) yesterday. I find that I am becoming less doomerish than I used to be. I can’t really say why, but I think I see a chance. Just a chance, and that won’t save us from crashing against the limits of the ecosystem. But, with a little luck, we will emerge into a new world, better than the present one.
makati1 on Mon, 13th Jun 2016 7:06 pm
“Will Renewables Ever Replace Fossils?”
Short answer: NO!
He is giving in to the paycheck, no matter what motive he claims. Ending every article with a unicorn dream is NOT reality.
Anonymous on Mon, 13th Jun 2016 8:47 pm
Even if we take all the technical points out of this question, there is one that wont go away. The majority of the ‘western’ consumer-sphere’s power, is provided by corporate owned, but publicly subsidized energy corporations. The arrangement is a lucrative one, with trillions in fixed investments. Never mind most of it was subsidized by tax-payer dollars and is underwritten by public debt as well. But anyhow, all these corporate energy welfare queens *want* to keep shoveling coal into dirty CPP, piling up spent fuel rods in the backlots of leaking nuclear power stations, or fraking for radioactive un-natural gas to send to the local gas plant. They love strip-mining for tar-sands goop, and not-quite-oil in uS colonies, be it alberta, or trying to do the same to say, ukraine.
IoW, even if no significant technical hurdles stood in the way of the ‘100% renewable world’, it wont happen because corporations rule this planet, and they dont want coal, nuclear or fraking to stop-ever. As App might say, they like selling us that cancer energy. If they didn’t call the shots, it might be a trivial matter to start moving in this direction in a serious way, but they DO rule the roost, so ‘we’ don’t, and ‘we’ wont, be doing anything remotely resembling a renewable world.
Dustin Hoffman on Mon, 13th Jun 2016 8:55 pm
Sure they will! But not what we have in mind at all….watch the Flintstones and that is the best renewables are going to get.
Harquebus on Mon, 13th Jun 2016 9:44 pm
A lot depends on who you call an expert. Vested interests?
“The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function.” — Prof. Albert Bartlett
onlooker on Mon, 13th Jun 2016 10:42 pm
NO! For reasons that have been exhaustively and expertly explained on these boards and in the main forum
meld on Tue, 14th Jun 2016 4:37 am
I’ve noticed most “normal” people seem to be in the bargaining phase now. These are the people who are intelligent and open minded but who haven’t been following peak oil like the rest of us nutters on here. They will need considerable support once they move into the depression stage. Anyone who is still in the denial phase can be chalked up as an idiot and left to their own devices.
godq3 on Tue, 14th Jun 2016 4:59 am
Of course renewables energy sources will replace nonrenewales. Unfortunately vast majority of people won’t survive this transition.
brough on Tue, 14th Jun 2016 5:26 am
The ‘proof of the pudding’ on this matter is this. At what time in the future will there be a solar panel manufacturing factory powered wholly by solar panels? It should be now of course, otherwise there will not be enough power available in 20 years time to replace exhausted solar panels in use today. Assuming we are not still using FF in 20 years. This is simple thermodynamics.
onlooker on Tue, 14th Jun 2016 6:04 am
“They will need considerable support once they move into the depression stage” Very true Meld. We can help them reach the acceptance stage that is the goal of all true doomer even the ones actively preparing.
makati1 on Tue, 14th Jun 2016 6:04 am
brough, correct, but I wonder if anyone believing in ‘renewables’ has considered the energy required to melt down, form and assemble the parts of any of these ‘renewables’? Glass, steel, aluminum, not to mention the rare minerals etc. I don’t think they have or they would understand that ‘renewables’ will vanish shortly after the fissile fuels do. Not that it will matter. Odds are, humans will be gone about the same time. Think about it.
Davy on Tue, 14th Jun 2016 6:16 am
This is a great short little article that hits the nail squarely. Excessive unsupported optimism in a human transition that scales within the realities of time and size is intellectual fantasy. Just reviewing the population numbers should give pause. We are soon going to be lucky to feed everyone. The economy is never discussed because we are conditioned to “THE” economy. It is always there and bounces around in health but per the optimists it will always be there. The economy is the most fragile part of this equation and the reasons renewables won’t be our transition.
Our economy is now in a deflationary momentum of no return. If one understands deflation then they will understand that new products will be in a state of declining growth and eventually actual decline. Current energy assets are built out and ready to go at a fraction of the cost to new renewable assets. It is a game to say solar costs less than coal if the solar is not built yet and the coal plant is built now. If you take away all those economic resource including the abstract of confidence that debt represents then you see renewables have a hurricane size headwind. Take away confidence and debt dies as in no new loans. Deflation is pessimism and declining confidence and ultimately the hyperinflation of complete loss of confidence. We don’t have the time to get this transition done per abrupt climate change, peak oil dynamics, and economic decay.
Ugo brought up a good point of intermittency. The greenies will always tell you storage is coming but the reality is storage can never scale up to eliminate enough intermittency to allow on demand globalism. The scale of just the collection devices is huge then scale up the storage devices. The real problem is attitude and that attitude completely revolves around on-demand. We want electricity on demand individually but also the economy that runs on just-in-time production and distribution must have it. You add in intermittency and you disrupt the economic system as in it fails quickly.
We are in a catch 22 trap of globalism. Even if we could change attitudes and the technology materialized the missing link is the transition period variable. Transition with the current system running and at the same time scaling up the new shiny one does not work. We can’t just turn off the lights to current BAU globalism and by morning fire up the shiny new renewable world. The point is the two systems are incompatible in their nature so trying to juggle the logistics and management of a change out is beyond possible. The reality of a global world with 7BIL people doesn’t work that way. The predicaments and problems are converging and accumulating quicker than human’s capacity to produce and transition. Entropic decay is clearly winning and much of our efforts are going to be devoted to battling decay, dysfunction, and destructive change not being shiny.
Some places in the world are going to change more than others. Other places will remain poor and not even part of this great game of change. The vast majority of those that are at risk of a failing fossil fuel world will not transition to a shiny renewable world they will transition to slums and physical drudgery. Pain, death, and suffering will visit us all regardless of who you are where you are. The real transition would be acceptance of this fact and rejection of denial of this. We can lower the worst of what is coming but we can’t get out of jail free.
onlooker on Tue, 14th Jun 2016 6:23 am
For those who do not wish to believe us about the limitations of Renewable Energy I direct you to some with great acumen on this matter the author Richard Heinberg. I believe he also has a website as well.
Kenz300 on Tue, 14th Jun 2016 7:47 am
The world is in transition to safer, cleaner and cheaper alternative energy sources…………
7 Charts Show How Renewables Broke Records Globally in 2015
http://ecowatch.com/2016/06/03/renewable-investment-broke-records/
Solar Added More New Capacity Than Coal, Natural Gas and Nuclear Combined
http://ecowatch.com/2016/06/09/solar-new-capacity/
5 Huge Climate Success Stories 10 Years After the Release of Al Gore’s ‘An Inconvenient Truth’
http://ecowatch.com/2016/05/24/al-gore-inconvenient-truth/
Big Oil Could Have Cut CO2 Emissions In 1970s — But Did Nothing
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/big-oil-emissions_us_573c9d81e4b0aee7b8e8a046
Kenz300 on Tue, 14th Jun 2016 7:48 am
Pope Francis’s edict on climate change will anger deniers and US churches | World news | The Guardian
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/27/pope-francis-edict-climate-change-us-rightwing
Head Of The Episcopal Church Says It’s ‘Sinful’ To Ignore Climate Change
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/26/katherine-jefferts-schori-climate-change_n_6949532.html?utm_hp_ref=green&ir=Green
yoshua on Tue, 14th Jun 2016 8:05 am
“A new study by Ferroni and Hopkirk estimates the ERoEI of temperate latitude solar photovoltaic (PV) systems to be 0.83. If correct, that means more energy is used to make the PV panels than will ever be recovered from them during their 25 year lifetime. A PV panel will produce more CO2 than if coal were simply used directly to make electricity. Worse than that, all the CO2 from PV production is in the atmosphere today, while burning coal to make electricity, the emissions would be spread over the 25 year period. The image shows the true green credentials of solar PV where industrial wastelands have been created in China so that Europeans can make believe they are reducing CO2 emissions.”
ghung on Tue, 14th Jun 2016 8:15 am
What’s the matter, yoshua? Chicken? No link to this “new study”? Anyone with enough money could fund a study that proves you’re an idiot, but that wouldn’t make it so….. Well, in your case….
Oh, Wait! It’s the same “new study we’ve been debating for months.
Dustin Hoffman on Tue, 14th Jun 2016 8:53 am
Here you are
http://euanmearns.com/the-energy-return-of-solar-pv/
he net energy cliff.
References
[1] Ferruccio Ferroni and Robert J. Hopkirk 2016: Energy Return on Energy Invested (ERoEI) for photovoltaic solar systems in regions of moderate insolation: Energy Policy 94 (2016) 336–344
[2] Murphy, D.J.R., Hall, C.A.S., 2010. Year in review-EROI or energy return on (energy) invested. Ann. N. Y. Acad. Sci. Spec. Issue Ecol. Econ. Rev. 1185, 102–118.
[3] Murphy, D.J.R., Hall, C.A.S., 2011. Energy return on investment, peak oil and the end of economic growth. Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci. Spec. Issue Ecol. Econ. 1219, 52–72.
[4] Prieto, P.A., Hall, C.A.S., 2013. Spain’s Photovoltaic Revolution – The Energy Return on Investment. By Pedro A. Prieto and Charles A.S. Hall, Springer.
[5] IEA-PVPS T12, Methodology Guidelines on the Life Cycle Assessment of
Davy on Tue, 14th Jun 2016 8:53 am
Yos, I am sure the benefits of renewables are enough to offset the negative you mentioned. I would like to see the study I find anything as bad as coal hard to believe.
The importance of resilience and local detached sustainability are of great importance which properly applied renewables offer. We are likely toast with abrupt climate change but we have a chance to adapt in the interim to something less bad.
PracticalMaina on Tue, 14th Jun 2016 10:35 am
Thats why NASA uses solar, because they are inefficient devices and its free for NASA to get unnecessary shit into space, those decade old calculators with solar cells were actually a ploy by OPEC to use more fuel 😉
yoshua on Tue, 14th Jun 2016 10:35 am
Energy Return on Energy Invested (ERoEI) for photovoltaic solar systems in regions of moderate insolation
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421516301379
yoshua on Tue, 14th Jun 2016 10:39 am
Solar is actually said to be very effective in space… 24h sunlight, no clouds and no winter.
PracticalMaina on Tue, 14th Jun 2016 10:48 am
I realize that yoshua, but the panels on most satellites are very old and therefore less efficient than the peak of technology today, PV is semiconductor based tech, look what happens with all semiconductor based tech. Most satellites are in geosynchronous orbit so they would therefore experience the shadow of night as would terrestrial based arrays.
PracticalMaina on Tue, 14th Jun 2016 10:56 am
“The main reasons are due to the fact that on one hand, solar electricity is very material-intensive, labour-intensive and capital-intensive”
Pardon me, what the fuck does capital expense have to do with eroei? Seems biased, just saying.. labor intensive, which is more labor intensive, a mechanized coal mine, with dozens of mechanics replacing one ton tires on dump trucks, or a solar array with a worker or 2, washing some panels and keeping an eye on things. The study also seems to be based on older studies, thats a mistake considering how fast semiconductor tech moves, no one writes articles on computer tech based on 2010 information.
yoshua on Tue, 14th Jun 2016 11:13 am
The study is based on solar in Germany. A nation with more sun would show better results, but for Germany and northern Europe solar doesn’t seem to be the solution with todays technology. If the technology improves, then it might be a solution in the future.
rockman on Tue, 14th Jun 2016 11:28 am
“Out of some 70 respondents, the large majority was of the opinion that a fast 100% renewable transition is possible and that can be attained without the need of heroic efforts.” As has been said many times: when all you have is a hammer evert problem looks like a nail. LOL.
A common problem with many alters and greenies: an all of nothing philosophy. Any effort to REPLACE fossil fuel source energy with an alt is that they already have $TRILLIONS invested in infrastructure whereas the alts need $BILLIONS invested to ramp up meaningfully.
One just has to look at the history over the last 15 years of one of the global leaders in alt development: Texas. As mentioned many times: if it were a seperate country (which it is in the minds of many Texans. LOL) we would Tue with Germany as the 4th largest wind power generator. And it wouiwouiod not have happened without solid cooperation cooperation between govt and private enterprise. And not $1 was invesdted TO REPLACE a fossil to ff sourced plant. It was dond TO SUPPLIMENT the existing system. Texas will continue being THE major US coal burner for many decades which explains why we are constructing the largest CO2 sequestration project ever built on the planet to handle the secondf largest source of GHG in the US.
One might consider such supplementation as a bridge to a much expanded alt system over time. Eventually the country must reach that point. But for the alt “fanatics” that’s not going to happen anytime soon. And the truth of that is based on the fact that it hasn’t happened to any significant degree in the last 10 years despite having a long period of record high oil prices.
CA has made gains in solar. I’ll let those more familiar characterize how that has come about.
BTW anyone one wasnts to dig into the details of east coast wind development let us know if any of those folks bother to day whether the project will eliminated a single cubic foot of GHG frtom existing sources or will just be a suppliment to existing ff sources. Lots of grandiose words about reducing GHG but nothing about any specific plant being shut drowso
And while New England has significantly reduced GHG output by turning away from coal it’s not doing so by turning from fossil fuel to the alts but by switching from one to another…natural gas:
“Gas plants today remain the leading fuel type for new proposed power generation capacity in the generator queues in New Jersey, New York and New England. As the fossil fuel with the lowest carbon content, and with an outlook of abundant North American (and global) supplies, gas appears well-positioned as a reliable, cost-effective, environmentally responsible option.
As one example of the increasing recent role of gas in power generation, and its potential for growth, The New York Independent System Operator in its June 2015 report entitled “Power Trends 2015,” noted: Power projects using natural gas and dual-fuel power plants that can run on gas and/or oil account for 56 percent of New York’s generating capacity.
More than 70 percent of all proposed generating capacity in New York would use natural gas (gas-only and dual-fueled gas/oil units).
IOW my Yankee cousins are spending a sh*tload more money expanding fossil fuel sourced electricity generation then the alts while they continue patting themselves on the back for “saving the planet”. Some folks might not like the Texas position on fossil fuel consumption but at least we’re not hypocrites about it. LOL.
PracticalMaina on Tue, 14th Jun 2016 11:30 am
I agree that in Germany, without subsidies solar would not be a big winner, EROEI is probably not great at best, BUT, I do not think there is any question that the tech will continue to get better, it is a matter of how quickly and if it will be enough.
JuanP on Tue, 14th Jun 2016 11:55 am
I couldn’t care less about how much energy was spent to build my PV panels and windgens, or what their EROEI is. I am very glad that I have them.
I do not consider PV panels or electric wind generators to be “renewable” energy collectors, though. Sunlight, wind, and precipitation are renewable energy when collected using gravity, photosynthesis, and simple non electric mechanical devices like mills, terraces, small dams, and sailboats. Electric wind turbines, PVs, mega dams, electricity in general, and whatnot are not renewable.
PracticalMaina on Tue, 14th Jun 2016 11:57 am
Rockman, without a bustling fossil fuel economy in Texas, think about the destruction to electrical demand that would occur. That would make the impressive wind generation Texas has go much further than it currently does. I see actions like this by red states and the middle east as hedging for the inevitable.
When you mention the North East I think immediately about hydro power, already a major generator, even though there are hundreds of dams built that are not using a turbine at this time, as they were built for mills that are no longer operating ect. I hear there are many applications being submitted to restart these facilities, and the potential for micro hydro or seasonal is huge here as well.
In my state, the biggest fossil fuel savings will come from domestic heating and hot water, solar hot water, mini-split heat pumps, insulation and weatherization have huge benefit. We already have a high percentage of alt electricity, but we had the highest per capita oil usage for heating purposes, last I knew. (old housing stock) I have brought that up to people before and they say well, that is only seasonal and insignificant globally but they are underestimating the oil consumed to heat up hot water and wait for a demand 365 days a year.
Robert Spoley on Tue, 14th Jun 2016 12:07 pm
OH GOODY!! One more time we can confuse “wants” with “musts”. Nobody wants pollution in any sense of the word. However, the argument is enjoined by the fact that nobody “wants” to give up their “nice” lifestyle either. Can we have both? Maybe. (I’m an optimist), but not the way we are going about it now. This is very short term thinking. Fact. Third world places are reproducing at a rate that dooms the whole planet. Tackle that first with a lot of vim and vigor. They are the ones who will increase the demand for more power. The rest of the planet is pretty much stable or could stand to cut back a little. Thorium reactors can fill the gaps and are non – polluting. Methane hydrates are constantly releasing methane that is not being used. Eliminate the waste. What to do in the meantime? Ah Yes! The comfort of “short term thinking”.
makati1 on Tue, 14th Jun 2016 6:55 pm
It’s ALL about money, no matter which side of the ‘alternates’ fence you are on. As rockman said, there are TRILLION$ invested in the current energy system. That is NOT going to be abandoned for another system that will cost as much, or more, to implement. Profits drive the Capitalist world, not logic or even self-preservation.
The Stock Market is proof that many humans are greedy fools and not logical thinkers. We are in days similar to those before the crash of 29′ and again it is being poo-pooed as not possible to crash again. So many things are similar to those days, including the lead up to a world war. History. Those who do not know/study it are doomed to repeat it. The sheep are being lead to slaughter once again, faces buried in some techie toy and sipping government Koolaid 24/7/365. Pity them? Nope. We all get what we deserve.
rockman on Tue, 14th Jun 2016 10:34 pm
Practical “…without a bustling fossil fuel economy in Texas, think about the destruction to electrical demand that would occur. That would make the impressive wind generation Texas has go much further than it currently does.”
True but to a degree. The oil patch has a much smaller electrical demand then our restaurant industry. Except for lighting our offices we use very litle electricity. Almost all power comes from deisel and a !ittle bit from NG. I’ve mentioned before why Texas got into wind so quickly and it had absolutely nothing to do with climate change. Texas has a huge coal reserve. It also knew it was heading towards the Mother of all Showdowns with the feds over GHG emission from burning coal. And based on population growth (due largely to folks moving here) thanks to a relatively strong economy we project a very high rate of increase in electrical demand. And despite what many believe we’re not nearly as dependent on oil/NG production as we were 35 years ago. In fact, despite all the oil patch layoffs Houston had a net GAIN of jobs in 2015. Last census Texas increassed representation in Congress. I suspect it will happen again on the next count.
But as I implied even with the good alt start we’ve had it’s not the end game. We’ll have to keep expanding. But like other states we’ve lost some incentive due to low oil/NG prices. But hopefully the next cycle of politicians will keep focused on the long game. Besides wind we also have a lot of untapped solar potential. We also don’t have as strong an aversion to nuclear as many others. In fact a major expansion of our S Texas Nuclear Facility was about to start when Japan had their little nuke problem. That and low coal prices and rediculously low NG have stalled it.
Apneaman on Wed, 15th Jun 2016 12:38 am
More toxic mess courtesy of rockman & Co all covered up by the Texass Cancer Commission. rockman & Co got paid so fuck you and your kids and clean drinking water and land. I can shit right in your living room and get paid for it. Mo money mo money mo.
Texas Officials Have Photos of Flood-Related Oil Spills, but No Record of Any Response
Massive oil spills during Texas’ flooding in 2015 were captured by aerial photographs, but were not recorded, or treated, as spills by the state.
“AUSTIN — At the direction of state emergency managers, the Texas Civil Air Patrol took scores of photos of massive spills from oil wells and fracking sites during last year’s flooding of the Lower Trinity River. Yet the state agency in charge of responding appears to have no record of them in its spill database.
The deficiency raises questions about whether state officials have any knowledge of the quantities and types of toxic substances that have flowed in recent years into the Trinity, as well as the Pecos, Red, Sabine and Colorado rivers, where energy-production sites have sprouted rapidly.
To scientists and environmentalists, the apparent lack of record keeping is unacceptable.
“If you’re making money off of a natural resource that I technically own part of, I want to know what you’re doing,” said Meredith Miller, senior program coordinator at the Meadows Center for Water and the Environment at Texas State University in San Marcos.”
http://insideclimatenews.org/news/13062016/Texas-oil-spills-flooding-photographs-no-response-railroad-commission
Kenz300 on Wed, 15th Jun 2016 8:27 am
The transition to safer, cleaner and cheaper alternative energy sources continues…………
Germany Achieves Milestone – Renewables Supply Nearly 100 Percent Energy for a Day
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/articles/2016/05/germany-achieves-milestone-renewables-supply-nearly-100-percent-energy-for-a-day.html
Portugal ran entirely on renewable energy for 4 consecutive days last week
http://electrek.co/2016/05/16/portugal-ran-entirely-on-renewable-energy-for-4-consecutive-days-last-week/