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Page added on December 11, 2017
Footing The $9 Trillion Renewable Bill
As the world is growing increasingly conscious of the need to invest in cleaner and more sustainable energy to limit the impact of global warming, it’s no secret that a faster and universal renewable energy transition will require trillions of dollars of investment over the next couple of decades.
The trillion-dollar question is, who will foot the bill?
According to Bloomberg’s Nathaniel Bullard, the biggest future investors in clean energy could be the largest institutional funds that manage more than US$1 trillion of assets each. Basically, the money is out there, it just needs to be realigned to the demand for investment in renewable energy.
Demand exists. Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) has estimated that zero-carbon power generation is expected to attract US$9 trillion of investment until 2040.
According to BNEF’s New Energy Outlook 2017, “Renewable energy sources are set to represent almost three quarters of the $10.2 trillion the world will invest in new power generating technology until 2040, thanks to rapidly falling costs for solar and wind power, and a growing role for batteries, including electric vehicle batteries, in balancing supply and demand.”
CO2 emissions from the power generation sector are expected to increase by one-tenth before peaking in 2026. Still, an additional US$5.3 trillion investment in 3.9 TW of zero-carbon capacity would be required to keep the planet on a 2-degrees-Celsius trajectory, the NEO 2017 says.
According to the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), the overall energy investment needed for decarbonizing the energy sector will require an additional US$29 trillion until 2050.
So where would those funds come from? According to Bullard, they could come from the biggest asset managers. Each of the top ten institutional managers—BlackRock, Vanguard, State Street, Fidelity, BNY Mellon, PIMCO, J.P. Morgan, Capital Group, Goldman Sachs, and Prudential Financial—has assets under management worth more than $1 trillion, with the leader BlackRock managing US$5.7 trillion in assets.
There is demand and there is supply, and the challenge now is to align them one to another, Bullard writes.
A growing number of investors want to know how their investments impact climate change. According to Bloomberg Gadfly columnist David Fickling, many of the biggest institutional investors have been backing shareholder resolutions on more disclosure about sustainability and climate change.
So far this year, shareholders have filed more climate resolutions with U.S.-listed firms than the combined number of such resolutions proposed for voting in 2015 and 2016, data by sustainability nonprofit organization Ceres shows.
Then there’s the fact that investors are chasing higher yields, and today’s investment-grade yields are much lower than before the 2007-2008 crisis.
According to the Global Financial Stability Report October 2017 by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), “there is too much money chasing too few yielding assets: less than 5 percent ($1.8 trillion) of the current stock of global investment-grade fixed-income assets yields over 4 percent, compared with 80 percent ($15.8 trillion) before the crisis.”
Institutional investors are looking not only at sustainable investment strategies—they are also chasing higher yields.
So the trillions of dollars necessary for zero-carbon energy is out there on the market. Could it be as simple as just aligning demand and supply by reallocating it to investments in renewables?
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
58 Comments on "Footing The $9 Trillion Renewable Bill"
Antius on Mon, 11th Dec 2017 12:44 pm
“According to the Global Financial Stability Report October 2017 by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), “there is too much money chasing too few yielding assets: less than 5 percent ($1.8 trillion) of the current stock of global investment-grade fixed-income assets yields over 4 percent, compared with 80 percent ($15.8 trillion) before the crisis.”
A crisis with its roots in the falling EROI of fossil fuels will provide the momentum needed to invest in more low EROI energy?
This cannot end well. It locks us in to continuing energy supply from fossil fuels in backup power stations, with renewable energy saving between 30-50% of the fuel. Not a sustainable strategy for humanity or the environment.
Davy on Mon, 11th Dec 2017 1:09 pm
Right Antius. We are in a systematic and energetic trap. Traps are predicaments without fixes. There are solution but this involves adaptation and mitigation. Adaptation involves education and behavioral changes. Our biggest issue is behavioral. Demand management and cooperation in a common cause is the key to multiple solutions of adaptation and mitigation. There will be winners and losers and fairness and equity will often be random. Time is running out is the other issue. This is not something we can be reactive to for very long.
MASTERMIND on Mon, 11th Dec 2017 1:29 pm
Davy
There are no solutions…we missed the last exit over forty years ago after the limits to growth models came out…
Davy on Mon, 11th Dec 2017 1:48 pm
So you are saying pop a cap in our heads today?
GregT on Mon, 11th Dec 2017 2:07 pm
Predicaments do not have solutions, only uncomfortable choices.
The one that humanity has made, will present even more dire consequences down the road.
Live now, pay later. The deficit that we are creating, is our children’s futures.
GregT on Mon, 11th Dec 2017 2:19 pm
The author of this piece obviously does not understand fiat money. Money is debt. Debt is a claim on future productivity. Productivity requires energy. Fiat money must be paid back plus interest, which in turn requires continued future growth in both productivity and energy production.
Money does not create energy. Rather the other way around.
Davy on Mon, 11th Dec 2017 2:39 pm
“Predicaments do not have solutions, only uncomfortable choices.”
The predicaments I am talking about have uncomfortable solutions. These solutions are mainly behavioral. They involve mitigation and adaptation strategies. They involve cooperation and they involve respecting the timeliness of action. These predicaments do not have fixes.
GregT on Mon, 11th Dec 2017 3:01 pm
“The predicaments I am talking about have uncomfortable solutions.”
What is the solution to feeding 7.5 billion human beings, without adding more CO2 into the environment, leading to a runaway greenhouse event, and global mass extinction?
Or are you referring to some other more pressing human predicament that I might have overlooked?
Thanks.
Davy on Mon, 11th Dec 2017 3:01 pm
Money is not debt. Money in our modern economies can and is created through debt. Debt is money borrowed from one party to another. It becomes a claim on future production in a macro systematic sense but less so in a micro sense. A party might have surplus production that is loaned through debt to another party this means the interest cost might be paid through future productivity where as the principal has been produced already (as far as the economy is concerned) or the interest cost can be paid from with other surpluses from the debtor. In another sense it represents a future claim on resources in a systematic macro sense as used by an economy that has debt to GDP. That economy must produce to pay back these liabilities. Energy does not create money. Energy is part of what creates an economy that brings money into existence. All this is the abstractions of the pseudo-science of economics.
Davy on Mon, 11th Dec 2017 3:06 pm
You have defined your predicament. You can answer your predicament question you don’t need me.
GregT on Mon, 11th Dec 2017 3:15 pm
That would also be your predicament, and everybody else’s.
The only ‘solution’ requires the uncomfortable choices of ending modern industrial society, and the die off of a population in mass overshoot of the Earth’s natural carrying capacity.
The other choice would be to continue pursuing some semblance of BAU, which will ultimately end with the same result, albeit much more severe.
Predicaments do not have solutions. That is why they are called predicaments, and not called problems.
GregT on Mon, 11th Dec 2017 3:18 pm
“Debt is money borrowed from one party to another.”
Fiat money is loaned into existence, and must be paid back plus interest.
I thought you said you were a finance guy? It doesn’t get any simpler to understand.
Davy on Mon, 11th Dec 2017 3:36 pm
Look up the definition of solution and you will understand.
Oh, now you define it as fiat. Being loaned
Into existence does not mean money is debt. Money represents something this does not mean it is debt. There are two sides of a balance sheet if you ever studied accounting.
Antius on Mon, 11th Dec 2017 3:36 pm
Here’s a crazy idea:
1. Algae can convert up to 20% of photosynthetically active light into biomass energy.
2. A human being needs 2000 Calories per day to maintain a stable weight, which is 8.37MJ.
3. Compact redlight LEDs are 44% efficient.
To produce enough calories for one person, would require 95MJ of electric power per person per day, which is 26.4KWh per person per day. If 1kWh of nuclear electricity costs $0.05 before transmission, the total energy cost of one mans food, is $1.32/day. Even if it costs 10 times more than calculated, you can still feed a man <$15/day. That's $5000/year.
A blend of algae strains will be far more nutritious than normal vegetable matter. It can be packed with artificial flavours and made to taste palatable.
OK. Not one of my better ideas, but the point is that with abundant energy solutions are available one way or another.
fmr-paultard on Mon, 11th Dec 2017 4:17 pm
Gregg you’re only tard can’t understand me. Why that
SENTAPBs didn’t want Ben Carson why
What he said about Islam look it up
MASTERMIND on Mon, 11th Dec 2017 4:22 pm
Renewable’s are a scam and don’t even get me started on Tesla anything.
onlooker on Mon, 11th Dec 2017 4:49 pm
Good luck footing the 9 trillion bill amid a monstrous Asset/Debt bubble that is fated to pop and an Oil Industry whose prospects are fading with each passing day
Oh and don’t get me started with bitcoin
Makati1 on Mon, 11th Dec 2017 5:12 pm
Fiat Money: Money that is not backed by anything other than a government trust. Fiat money has no intrinsic value; it only has value at all because all participants in an economy agree to trust the government issuing the currency. All modern money is fiat money. While deflation is possible for fiat money, it is much more susceptible to inflation.
https://financial-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Fiat+money
Created by banks out of thin air. A demand on future energy use. IOUs based on faith. Basically worthless.
Antius on Mon, 11th Dec 2017 5:48 pm
The historical costs of nuclear power plants:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421516300106#
The French were able to build reactor plants for as little as €1000/kW and completed construction within 5 years That would reduce electricity costs to €0.02/kWh.
With power that cheap, we could be running cars off synthetic fuels. We could swallow the energy losses if power were really that cheap.
There is no practical reason why we cannot do the same or even better today, with mass production of repeatable units. This is the real energy transition that we need to have, not expensive boondoggles based on intermittent energy.
onlooker on Mon, 11th Dec 2017 6:07 pm
Said in the most simple and clear way by an Indian proverb
“When the Last Tree Is Cut Down, the Last Fish Eaten, and the Last Stream Poisoned, You Will Realize That You Cannot Eat Money”
Kenz300 on Tue, 12th Dec 2017 12:13 pm
Save a lot of money by ending all fossil fuel subsidies.
Cloggie on Wed, 13th Dec 2017 4:59 am
Do I have a treat for you! Update 2012 study from 2015 of 100% renewable energy base for Germany.
*** in the English language ***
(So excuses like “I do not read German” are no longer possible.lol)
https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/content/dam/ise/en/documents/publications/studies/What-will-the-energy-transformation-cost.pdf
On page 17/87 you find the blueprint, with energy numbers of what it takes to get rid of fossil fuel completely. The beautiful thing is that a renewable energy base comes at the same price as our fossil based system today. There is only one time extra cost: reducing the energy required for space heating through thorough renovation of buildings for insulation.
The beauty of this study is that it provides an integral system overview, silencing those who claim that EROI etc. would make a renewable energy base impossible, because too expensive because of storage cost.
It is simply not true.
For non-doomers, looking for a constructive way out of at the least the energy and CO2-emissions predicament [*], here is the Holy Grail.
[*] Other than Outcast-Searcher, boat, the guy from the NW (forgot his nick) and myself, most people here are too deep dug into their collapsenik stories/theories to be able to climb out of their hole, mostly for private reasons and relocation investment and story-telling to their own families. Abandoning their stories would mean too much loss of face.
So be it.
Davy on Wed, 13th Dec 2017 5:24 am
“On page 17/87 you find the blueprint, with energy numbers of what it takes to get rid of fossil fuel completely. The beautiful thing is that a renewable energy base comes at the same price as our fossil based system today. There is only one time extra cost: reducing the energy required for space heating through thorough renovation of buildings for insulation.”
Theoretical rambling with little economic basis. This fantasy (blueprint) is little more than wishful thinking that does not include scaling nor the inclusion of the inconvenient truth that German lives within a global world. The graph looks cute. Lots of fluffy cutesy feely colors and assumptions.
“The beauty of this study is that it provides an integral system overview, silencing those who claim that EROI etc. would make a renewable energy base impossible, because too expensive because of storage cost.”
What??? Silencing???? You have a theoretical assumption of technological evolution over time and this is going to silence current skepticism in the here and now of reality? You have little in the way of real achievements beyond the renewable/fossil fuel cohabitation. Let’s see how all this works with reality of EROI, ALL costs, and declining economy over time and the reality of scaling.
I”Other than Outcast-Searcher, boat, the guy from the NW (forgot his nick) and myself, most people here are too deep dug into their collapsenik stories/theories to be able to climb out of their hole, mostly for private reasons and relocation investment and story-telling to their own families. Abandoning their stories would mean too much loss of face.”
Techno optimistic drivel from the snake oil king. Dutchy is so sold on his renewable Europe mainly because he has to have that to make his fantasy empire of Paris Berlin Moscow happen which is supposed to save the white race
Cloggie on Wed, 13th Dec 2017 5:39 am
Let’s see how all this works with reality of EROI, ALL costs, and declining economy over time and the reality of scaling.
These are all covered in the model.
But I have realized a long time ago that you are fighting tooth and nail against any notion that your collapse narrative is build on quick sand and that a solution (for energy/CO2) is very well possible.
Fine with me. You are the embodiment of US collapse because you see no way out. Because there isn’t any. America will fail to impose its one-size-fits-all border-free world model upon the rest of the essentially identitarian world and has destroyed itself in the process. Communism sucks, both in the economic Soviet and racial Anglo variety. America and continental Europe are now going to swap places and the natural order is going to be restored, we the origin, you the colony (if you are lucky and won’t loose CW2 and have your country turned into the next Soros-run USSR).
Now do us a favor and go fight China.
Davy on Wed, 13th Dec 2017 5:55 am
“These are all covered in the model.”
When did a model instantly become reality?
But I have realized a long time ago that you are fighting tooth and nail against any notion that your collapse narrative is build on quick sand and that a solution (for energy/CO2) is very well possible.
Solutions to predicaments are only adaptation and mitigation. There are no fixes to predicaments especially multidimensional catch 22 traps that require pain, suffering, and sacrifice.
“Fine with me. You are the embodiment of US collapse because you see no way out. Because there isn’t any. America will fail to impose its one-size-fits-all border-free world model upon the rest of the essentially identitarian world and has destroyed itself in the process.”
Global collapse dutchy not just US collapse.
“Communism sucks, both in the economic Soviet and racial Anglo variety. America and continental Europe are now going to swap places and the natural order is going to be restored, we the origin, you the colony (if you are lucky and won’t loose CW2 and have your country turned into the next Soros-run USSR).”
Europe is closer to communism than the US. You invented both systems and can’t figure out which you are. As usual you Euros are wandering aimlessly without direction into a void of decline. This is what happens to a people who vacation too much.
“Now do us a favor and go fight China.”
War monger
Davy on Wed, 13th Dec 2017 6:05 am
“This Electric Truck Will Probably Beat Tesla’s to Market”
https://tinyurl.com/ybxk4zlt
“Thor Trucks’ custom models, due out in 2019, are meant for short hauls.”
“Semler and his 17 employees must contend with extremely long odds, but dramatic advances in battery technology, electric motors, and control software have made electric trucks more practical. While electric trucks will cost more upfront than diesel guzzlers, Tesla, Thor, and a handful of others suddenly have the range and horsepower to argue that customers will come out ahead in the long term, thanks to lower fuel and maintenance costs. Electric vehicles, of course, also pollute less, a serious consideration as cities and states prepare legislation aimed at phasing out dirtier diesel.”
“As Semler drives the ET1 around Hollywood, gawkers whip out their phones to take photos. The heavy-duty semi, which has a 22-inch touchscreen on its dashboard and a winged black logo splashed across its grille, uses a beach-ball-size electric motor and a couple of large battery packs to carry as much as 80,000 pounds of cargo, the industry standard for the highest class of truck. When it starts shipping in 2019, the ET1 will have a $150,000 starting price tag and a 300-mile range, meaning it’ll compete with medium-duty delivery trucks.”
“For the moment, the startup is more of a vehicle customizer than a true manufacturer. It rips the diesel motor and related innards out of an existing vehicle and replaces them with an electric motor and batteries. Thor has focused on doing its own battery-pack research and manufacturing to cram hundreds of small lithium ion batteries into a tight, safe container, and its software engineers write applications that maximize the packs’ charging abilities and life spans. Look around the Thor warehouse, and you’ll see UPS-style trucks and extended-body pickups awaiting modification. The goal, according to Semler, is to work on a one-off basis, customizing clients’ fleets per their specifications.”
Cloggie on Wed, 13th Dec 2017 6:25 am
Chile, the green country everybody is overlooking:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2016-04-04/what-is-driving-the-green-revolution-in-chile
http://www.collective-evolution.com/2017/02/27/the-uber-of-recycling-is-igniting-a-green-revolution-in-chile/
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/chile-electricity-renewable-100-per-cent-by-2040-climate-change-sebastian-pinera-presidential-a7961571.html
The country is on course for 90% renewable energy in 2050.
Or 100% in 2040:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/chile-electricity-renewable-100-per-cent-by-2040-climate-change-sebastian-pinera-presidential-a7961571.html
Chile has 4.7 ton CO2/capita/year, which is much less than the US or Western Europe.
Cloggie on Wed, 13th Dec 2017 6:49 am
Europe is closer to communism than the US. You invented both systems and can’t figure out which you are.
Complete BS. Capitalism is Dutch…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_people
the Dutch left behind a substantial legacy despite the small size of the Netherlands. The Dutch people are generally seen as the pioneers of capitalism, and their emphasis on a modern economy, secularism, and a free market ultimately had a huge influence on the great powers of the West, especially the British Empire, its Thirteen Colonies, and ultimately the United States.
…and 19th-century racialism is NW-European (English/German).
Communism and multiculturalism are Jewish, not European.
At the beginning of the 20th century the Koshers conquered both Russia (October revolution 1917) and the US (Fed-1912, Roosevelt Government 1933) and combined began to threaten Europe after 1933, that responded with right-wing opposition (national socialism and fascism).
The Anglo-Soviet communists won in 1945, but in 1991 the Soviets had auto-destroyed itself and America is about to, when the melting pot will boil over, between next month and the end of Trump’s presidency in November 2024 max. What happens next with America is undetermined and will be decided in a real drama: either balkanization or the establishment of the next USSR when the (((deep state))) manages to reassert itself after Trump.
Eastern Europe and Russia are solidly nationalist…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgPNYcEKE-U
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOVVp881Urw
…and western Europe is drifting in that direction. Bye-bye NWO, which the NWO now realizes itself:
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-09-27/america-s-new-world-order-is-officially-dead
Davy on Wed, 13th Dec 2017 7:03 am
All of the evil isms are Eurotard creations. The Eurotard way has destroyed the earth. You are a fraud dutchy and living a lie.
Cloggie on Wed, 13th Dec 2017 7:52 am
More US lies. Europe is spearheading the environmental revolution where America remains world champ CO2 farting. Get your facts straight, Yank.
Cloggie on Wed, 13th Dec 2017 7:59 am
Uh-oh, rumblings in the EU HQ: Pole Tusk and president of the EU declares EU refugee policies a failure and as such chooses sides with the Eastern Europeans and gives Old School Amerika c*ck sucker Merkel the finger:
http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/donald-tusk-eklat-um-verteilung-von-fluechtlingen-in-der-eu-a-1183114.html
Won’t be long until Merkel will be chased through the streets of Berlin strip-naked. Let the revolution begin.
Davy on Wed, 13th Dec 2017 8:51 am
US is your evil creation you dutch demon from the depths of depravity.
MASTERMIND on Wed, 13th Dec 2017 8:57 am
Cloggie
Renewables are a scam. Wind and solar made up less than 1 percent of total energy last year per IEA…And this is after over 50 years and over one trillion dollars spent. Are you mentally retarded?
Cloggie on Wed, 13th Dec 2017 9:07 am
US is your evil creation you dutch demon from the depths of depravity.
Translation: European giants created America that has in itself no will to act on its own. I like that picture.
Renewables are a scam.
Chile has 45% renewable electricity. Quite the scam:
https://deepresource.wordpress.com/2017/12/13/the-forgotten-green-energy-champion-chile/
Wind and solar made up less than 1 percent of total energy last year per IEA
It’s more like 8%, antifa clown:
https://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/energy-economics/statistical-review-of-world-energy/renewable-energy.html
fmr-paultard on Wed, 13th Dec 2017 9:12 am
please eurotard go on permanent retirement like you said for the 3rd time. my presence here displeases supertards and he lost his LOL. i’m honorable and I do what I say.
your extremist idealogogy is not uncommon so get in line. SENTAPBs media has crashed and alabama turned dem. this is the power of MSM and i’m a trustworthy self-appointed historian. I think supertards trust my assessments more than you stupid propaganda revisionism
Cloggie on Wed, 13th Dec 2017 9:13 am
The power of innovation. Batteries from $1000 down to $273/kWh in merely 6 years:
https://cleantechnica.com/2017/12/11/batteries-keep-getting-cheaper/
Won’t be long and you can buy your home solar 5 kWh backup system for under $1000.
Cloggie on Wed, 13th Dec 2017 9:15 am
i’m honorable and I do what I say.
A pity though that nobody has a clue as of WHAT it is you are saying.
Bumpski? SENTAB?
Not a clue.
fmr-paultard on Wed, 13th Dec 2017 9:21 am
why did SENTAPBs maligned ben carson. I was a paultard and I went to support mr. carson but his campaign has shuttered. a black man who upheld democracy and christian doctrine is still a black man? if skin color is so strong and indication of human action then what’s the use for the constitution, christianity, islam, hindu, judaism? wouldn’t it be the written words? a bunch of propositions?
if it’s not a proposition then why the use of “confederation?” MPBB eurotard confederation haha
Boat on Wed, 13th Dec 2017 12:03 pm
Clog,
Check with Gibraltar, they burn the most FF.
Boat on Wed, 13th Dec 2017 12:13 pm
Paul tard dude,
Sara Palin looked good till she answered questions. Most Republican candidates are like that. Not a sex or color thing. Just yell we want our freedom, love guns, drill baby drill and abortions kill babies and your a candidate.
GregT on Wed, 13th Dec 2017 12:43 pm
“Paul tard dude,
Sara Palin looked good till she answered questions. Most Republican candidates are like that. Not a sex or color thing. Just yell we want our freedom, love guns, drill baby drill and abortions kill babies and your a candidate.”
Well at least somebody appears to have the foggiest notion as to what you’re going on about fmr-paultard.
I seem to have misplaced my secret decoder ring.
MASTERMIND on Wed, 13th Dec 2017 12:55 pm
Cloggie you are an idiot we are not going to run the world on batteries and they have been around over 200 years.
GregT on Wed, 13th Dec 2017 1:00 pm
“Won’t be long and you can buy your home solar 5 kWh backup system for under $1000.”
Just my charge controller alone, cost me almost twice that much.
GregT on Wed, 13th Dec 2017 1:59 pm
“Won’t be long and you can buy your home solar 5 kWh backup system for under $1000.”
Hopefully at that price, the manufacturers will offer at least a 3 year parts and labor warranty.
Boat on Wed, 13th Dec 2017 2:20 pm
Every death by climate change inherently reduces demand and pollution. Warm thoughts as we approach Christmas.
GregT on Wed, 13th Dec 2017 2:34 pm
Boat,
Do you write your nonsensical posts all by yourself? Or is something else directing you?
DerHundistlos on Wed, 13th Dec 2017 3:23 pm
@ GregT
“Well at least somebody appears to have the foggiest notion as to what you’re going on about fmr-paultard.”
Thanks, brother, for a good laugh!!!!!
DerHundistlos on Wed, 13th Dec 2017 3:40 pm
@ formerly retarded
Maybe the following Ben carson quotations will help you understand why your guy was rejected for being just plain nuts.
1. “Gayness must be a choice, because prisoners who are raped come out gay.”
2. “The Big Bang is a “fairy tale” and the notion of evolution was encouraged by the devil.”
3. “There’s no war on women; there may be a war on women’s insides.”
4. “Nope, I don’t see any global warming when I look around.”
5. “Planned Parenthood is a plot to kill black babies.”
6. ““You know Obamacare is really I think the worst thing that has happened in this nation since slavery. And it is in a way, it is slavery.”
7. Trump appointed this genius to be in charge of HUD. This is a quote from Carson addressing the department in which Carson compares slaves to immigrants: “There were other immigrants who came in the bottom of slave ships, who worked even longer, even harder, for less, but they too had a dream that one day their sons, daughters, grandsons, granddaughters, great grandsons, great granddaughters might pursue prosperity and happiness in this land,”
By the way, tard, you are constantly preaching about the need for women to arm themselves and kill men due to inequality. How could you support a candidate that makes statements as in #3? Appears just a wee bit inconsistent with your opinions.
Antius on Wed, 13th Dec 2017 3:50 pm
Cloggie wrote: ‘Do I have a treat for you! Update 2012 study from 2015 of 100% renewable energy base for Germany.
*** in the English language ***
(So excuses like “I do not read German” are no longer possible.lol)
https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/content/dam/ise/en/documents/publications/studies/What-will-the-energy-transformation-cost.pdf
On page 17/87 you find the blueprint, with energy numbers of what it takes to get rid of fossil fuel completely. The beautiful thing is that a renewable energy base comes at the same price as our fossil based system today. There is only one time extra cost: reducing the energy required for space heating through thorough renovation of buildings for insulation.
The beauty of this study is that it provides an integral system overview, silencing those who claim that EROI etc. would make a renewable energy base impossible, because too expensive because of storage cost.
It is simply not true.
For non-doomers, looking for a constructive way out of at the least the energy and CO2-emissions predicament [*], here is the Holy Grail.’
Cloggie, many thanks for an interesting report. I haven’t had chance to read all of it, but have skimmed through it and examined the chart. A few initial thoughts:
1. By looking at a whole systems approach to energy, the problem of intermittency is made a little easier as some amount of pumped heat for hot water and space heating can be stored either as thermal inertia within the fabric of buildings or in district heating networks.
2. The 2050 favoured scenario offered is far from being fossil fuel free. The scenario shows a total fossil fuel consumption of 671TWh per year, which is less than it is today but still substantial. Some two thirds of this energy is in the form of natural gas, the remainder being petroleum. As these fuels have lower CO2 emissions per unit energy than coal, it makes sense to adopt this strategy if CO2 reduction is the only goal.
3. It is remarkable how little storage is actually envisaged for renewable electricity. The architects envisage battery storage, presumably for short-term fluctuations and a relatively small amount of hydrogen storage for transport (101TWh). Instead of storage, baseload supply is maintained by backup power supply provided by combined heat and storage and CCGT. This is provided by natural gas and biomass.
4. A relatively large contribution from biomass is assumed – some 340TWh. This is environmentally problematic and would require a dedicated growing area roughly the size of Belgium.
5. The most striking feature of the plan is how little energy the architects foresee being used in 2050. Baseload electricity is 360TWh, versus 577TWh today. That is drop of some 40%. You mention the energy costing no more than it does today. For space heating it is possible to achieve sizable efficiency savings through insulation, such that the cost of the energy service is no greater than today, even if energy is more expensive and scarce per unit. Unfortunately, the same thing cannot be done with electric power. The amount of electric power used per unit GDP has declined very weakly in industrial economies and is likely to be linked to outsourcing of industries. This is because electricity is very efficient at producing mechanical work. There are limited opportunities for efficiency improvements. This is not well understood even in the energy science community. A 40% reduction in electricity use per capita will be very difficult to achieve without a direct reduction in wealth per capita.
6. The transport energy scenario seems to be achievable enough, although I would question the use of hydrogen and biomass derived fuels. The first is an inefficient use of expensive energy. The second is environmentally damaging.
More later.
Ghung on Wed, 13th Dec 2017 3:55 pm
GregT: “Just my charge controller alone, cost me almost twice that much.”
What in the world did you buy? A top-of-the-line Outback FM80 (MPPT) can be had for a bit over $500; $600 at most. I have four.