[Newfie]

No doubt we will have to reconsider what the “finer” things are. M

I agree storage is the killer.

Quite some time ago now Scientific American had a piece that suggested posts of renewables in the SW, with big HVDC lines connected to deep pressurized gas lines in the NE, I think. The idea was to use the surge capacity to pressurize the gas mines. Then when power was needed to let the pressurized gas burn through turbines to create base load power.

But here’s the other part to this. How much lower do we truly need? Look out at night and see the waste glowing at you. Personally we get by with 600 watts of solar and wind turbine, but we are living (6 months) in the tropical trade winds. So that’s kinda like cheating. Chicago can’t pull this off.

I agree we are very unlikely to do anything intelligent. Which will just make the shock worse when it comes.

The real answer will be how the bottle neck survivors fare. And none of us will live to know that.

So what do we do in the meantime? I’m stumped.

[ralfy]

Monte,

Interesting. You have a link for that graphic?

I wonder how he came to define the minimum required EROI.

He should tell you shortly, but in case you're interested, there are "Search Google for image" and similar addons or extensions in various browsers. Using those, I found the ff:

http://energyskeptic.com/2013/2012-glob ... rgy-cliff/

https://www.resilience.org/stories/2014 ... e-know-it/

According to the second link,

The "Net-Energy Cliff" with EROI expressed as the number of the horizontal axis to one, i.e.e 20:1 (this figure is from Lamber and Lamber, adapted from Murphy and Hall (2010)). Concepty courtesy of Euan Mearns. Image by Josh Kearns.

[MonteQuest]

How much lower do we truly need?

We are getting a preview at the moment. But all of this "wasted" energy is bought and paid for before it's wasted. It's part of the economy. Conservation is a death knell. The question is how much of our society can be sustainably supplied by renewables without fossil fuels?

The real answer will be how the bottle neck survivors fare. And none of us will live to know that. So what do we do in the meantime? I’m stumped.

I'm 69. I think I will live to see the bottleneck if it's not already here. Poverty and famine are right on the Covid-19 heels. Deflation/inflation is afoot. Supply chains are disrupted. Oil is shut-in. A world depression is likely. As Aaron used to say, "No one knows how the monkeys will react." In the meantime, we cope and adapt.

[MonteQuest]

I agree storage is the killer.

Euan Mearns says storage is an impossible dream.

Grid-Scale Storage of Renewable Energy: The Impossible Dream

Battery storage* in perspective – solving 1% of the problem

[MonteQuest]

According to the second link

Yes, this article from Resilience lays it out pretty well.

THE END OF GLOBAL DEVELOPMENT AS WE KNOW IT

"Hobbled by relatively low EROIs and owing to their dependence upon a platform of cheap high-EROI fossil fuels for their manufacture, installation, and maintenance, it’s not feasible for renewables to be rapidly scaled to meet future energy needs if we are aiming to maintain business as usual with exponential growth in national economies, population, and wealth."

I go a step farther. The EROEI of renewables is too low to support the complex industrial society necessary to produce and maintain them--without fossil fuels.

[kublikhan]

That's not what's been happening in this country. Total energy demand has been more or less flat for over the last decade. Coal plants have been retired.

Energy demand has fallen due to outsourcing of much of our industrial production to other countries. Energy demand is flat due to the GFC and declining GDP. Retired coal plants have been replaced largely with NG.

Incorrect. There was a dip in US manufacturing in 2009 due to the financial crisis but it recovered and within two years was already setting new records again. There was actually an industrial renaissance in this country during the last decade where cheap shale gas encouraged a huge build out of the petrochemical industry. And overall US manufacturing output has grown over the past decade, not shrunk due to outsourcing or the financial crisis:

Total output from manufacturing was $2,334.60 billion in 2018.
Total output from manufacturing was $1,847.30 billion in 2007.

The surge in investment into the US petrochemicals industry over the past seven years has been one of the biggest spending booms in a developed country this century. A series of giant new plants that will make chemicals used to produce plastics, from companies including Dow Chemical and ExxonMobil, are about to come online. A second wave of projects is now being proposed, as some chemicals producers become increasingly confident that the cheap gas feedstock that makes their spending possible will last for a long time.

A decade ago, the US petrochemicals industry seemed doomed to long-term decline, eclipsed by rivals in the Middle East, which had cheap oil and gas for feedstock, and in Asia, where the market growth was strongest. The US shale revolution transformed that outlook, unleashing a flood of cheap natural gas liquids such as ethane and propane, which are key chemical feedstocks. Since 2010 $85bn worth of petrochemicals projects have been completed or started construction, with about a further $100bn proposed. “This is the place to be,” says Kevin Swift, the ACC’s chief economist. “We are the low-cost producer.”

The biggest new opportunity in the US has been for ethylene “crackers”: plants that take ethane and convert it into ethylene, a building block for plastics. Dow, Exxon, Sasol of South Africa, and CP Chem, the joint venture of Chevron and Phillips 66, have built large crackers along the US Gulf of Mexico coast that will be starting up in 2017 and 2018. US ethylene production is set to rise from 25.8m tonnes last year to 34.2m tonnes next year, an increase of 33 per cent.

Most of the additional output will go for export, typically after being converted to polyethylene pellets. As emerging economies adopt the habits of developed countries, their demand for plastics is growing 1.5 to 2 times as fast as their gross domestic product. “These expansions in the US are geared towards exports to Asia. What drives demand for plastics is the growing middle class in China and India.”

Chemical industry split about the case for more US plants

1994 - The U.S. chemical industry is the largest in the world, and responsible for about 11% of the U.S. industrial production measured as value added. It consumes approximately 20% of total industrial energy consumption in the U.S.

Energy Use and Energy Intensity of the U.S. Chemical Industry

2018 - Energy use by type of industry
Every industry uses energy, but three industries account for most of the total U.S. industrial sector energy consumption. The U.S. Energy Information Administration estimates that in 2018, the bulk chemical industry (the largest industrial consumer of energy at 28%), the refining industry, and the mining industry combined accounted for about 58% of total U.S. industrial sector energy consumption.

Energy use in industry

[kublikhan]

We also don't have the grid capacity to move renewable power if we had it. I have 155 large wind turbines 5 miles south of me. They often are not turning. I asked them why, and they said the line capacity does not exist to move the power generated. Just part of the boondoggle hype to sell wind turbines without the infrastructure to support them.

The old creaking grid infrastructure is not just a problem for wind, but for all power sources and consumers. The grid is in serious need of an upgrade anyway as transmission problems impact far more than just renewables.

OVERVIEW
Much of the U.S. energy system predates the turn of the 20th century. Most electric transmission and distribution lines were constructed in the 1950s and 1960s with a 50-year life expectancy, and the more than 640,000 miles of high-voltage transmission lines in the lower 48 states’ power grids are at full capacity. Energy infrastructure is undergoing increased investment to ensure long-term capacity and sustainability; in 2015, 40% of additional power generation came from natural gas and renewable systems. Without greater attention to aging equipment, capacity bottlenecks, and increased demand, as well as increasing storm and climate impacts, Americans will likely experience longer and more frequent power interruptions.

2017 Infrastructure Report Card

[MonteQuest]

Energy demand has fallen due to outsourcing of much of our industrial production to other countries. Energy demand is flat due to the GFC and declining GDP. Retired coal plants have been replaced largely with NG.

Incorrect. There was a dip in US manufacturing in 2009 due to the financial crisis but it recovered and within two years was already setting new records again. There was actually an industrial renaissance in this country during the last decade where cheap shale gas encouraged a huge build out of the petrochemical industry. And overall US manufacturing output has grown over the past decade, not shrunk due to outsourcing or the financial crisis:

We are talking about overall USA energy demand, not manufacturing production. The GFC and declining GDP have been a huge factor. That's hardly debatable. Most of the outsourcing occurred before the GFC.

[MonteQuest]

The old creaking grid infrastructure is not just a problem for wind, but for all power sources and consumers. The grid is in serious need of an upgrade anyway as transmission problems impact far more than just renewables.

On this point, I wholeheartedly agree. My point is they knew the line capacity didn't exist before they installed the wind capacity.

[kublikhan]

And therein lies our conundrum. Our system only works in one direction-growth. Conservation is a deathknell. It reduces economic activity. Efficiency gains leads to greater use-Jevons' Paradox. And there is no waste in our system that isn't paid for before it is wasted--it's part of the economy.

Incorrect. Jevon's Paradox refers to introducing a new disruptive technology. Aka: Steam engine, electric motor, etc. So unless you are talking about introducing some brand spanking new disruptive technology(Fusion?), Jevons' Paradox does not apply. I have given you links to studies in the past when you tried this argument. We have also seen this first hand with the US switching from incandescent lighting to LED lighting. The Efficiency gains in lighting were not overwritten by greater use of lighting. Overall energy consumption in lighting fell:

Solar panels and wind turbines get a lot of attention, but a more inconspicuous instrument is helping to reshape America’s energy economy right now: The humble light bulb.

Over the past decade, traditional incandescent bulbs, those distinctive glass orbs with glowing wire centers, have been rapidly replaced by more energy-efficient lighting. The shift has driven down electricity demand in American homes, saving consumers money and cutting greenhouse gas emissions. After climbing for decades, electricity use by American households has declined over the past eight years. “That’s a staggering change.”

America’s Light Bulb Revolution

In both residential and commercial buildings, lighting exhibits the greatest percent reduction in electricity intensity from 2018 to 2050[-51%]

[kublikhan]

We are talking about overall USA energy demand. It has fallen for the reasons stated. That's hardly debatable.

Incorrect. If energy demand fell because of outsourcing our industrial production, we would see a decline in industrial output. We did not. We saw an increase. And while we did see demand fall because of the global financial crisis, it was temporary. Demand post financial crisis rebounded within two years. That means blaming the fall in energy demand on the financial crisis is incorrect as well. All you have to do is look at the numbers to find the actual cause: increases in efficiency. The drop in electricity consumption by switching to LED bulbs(See previous post) was particularly instrumental in keeping overall demand down.

Well, it happened once again. Sales of electricity in the US declined in 2019 by a significant 2.8%, despite solid domestic economic growth with real GDP increasing 2.3%. Sales across all categories of users—residential, commercial and industrial— all fell. To put this in context electricity sales have fallen in five of the past ten years.

From 2010-2019 electricity sales actually declined by a slight 0.1% while real GDP rose 22%, the population increased 7% and industrial production rose 17%. Note especially the last number. It has been an easy (and we believe lazy) claim to attribute every slackening period of electricity demand to a weak or disappearing manufacturing sector. In this ten-year period of industrial growth, electricity sales to industrial customers nevertheless declined by 2%.

Server farms, pot farms, bitcoin mines and even electric vehicles—why don’t these new, supposedly prodigious consumers of electricity push upward electricity consumption in the aggregate? The annual drip-drip-drip of efficiency measures applied to electricity consumption throughout the economy offsets new sources of demand. Lower consumption due the switch to more energy efficient LED lighting by itself may have offset a large part or all of the growth in demand from the three new uses.

Has U.S. Electricity Lost Its Spark?

[MonteQuest]

Incorrect. If energy demand fell because of outsourcing our industrial production, we would see a decline in industrial output. We did not. We saw an increase.

We saw an increase in less energy-intensive industrial production. Much of the energy-intensive production had been outsourced before the GFC. Anemic GDP growth since the GFC has led to less energy use, not more. My point is that conservation and efficiency gains are not solutions to an overshoot condition. In fact, they perpetuate it.

[kublikhan]

We saw an increase in less energy-intensive industrial production. Much of the energy-intensive production had been outsourced before the GFC. My point is that conservation and efficiency gains are not solutions to an overshoot condition. In fact, they perpetuate it.

Incorrect. We saw an increase in more energy intensive industrial production. In 1994, the energy intensive US chemical industry represented 20% of our industrial energy consumption. By 2018, this increased to 28%. In 2018 58% of US electricity consumption for industrial production is in three very energy intensive industries: chemical industry, refining, and mining. It was infact labour intensive, low energy intensive industries that got outsourced the most:

Industries that outsource the most include:
Healthcare;
Law;
Business;
Accounting;
IT; and others.

What industries outsource the most?

[kublikhan]

In the long term we all simply have to use much less energy, maybe even get used to having intermittent power supplies.

I don't think that is a good idea. If people get used to having intermittent power supplies, that will just encourage them to go out and buy their own diesel generator. Portable diesel generators are much less efficient compared to a power plant. Plus they require more resources to build them, burn dity fossil fuels, etc.

The Impacts of Fossil Fuel Back-up Generators in Developing Countries

About 1.5 billion people around the world live day-to-day with “broken” electricity grids and experience blackouts for hundreds and sometimes thousands of hours a year. For this population, reliance on distributed diesel and gasoline backup generators, or BUGS, is a common stopgap measure. These generators are deployed across the globe on a large scale both on- and off-grid, at homes, businesses, and industrial sites. They support access to energy but come with significant costs.

Major Findings
The fleet of generators in the developing countries modeled serves 20 to 30 million sites with an installed capacity of 350 to 500 gigawatts (GW), equivalent to 700 to 1000 large coal power stations. The fleet has a replacement value of $70 billion and about $7 billion in annual equipment investment. Electricity from backup generators is expensive, with $28 billion to $50 billion spent by generator users on fuel each year.

Backup generators are a significant source of air pollutants that negatively impacts health and the environment. As a pollution source, generators are often hidden from policymakers since their fuel consumption may be lumped in with the transport sector in official statistics. Generators consume the same fuels and also emit the same pollutants as cars and trucks, except they are used in closer proximity to people’s homes and businesses. Often, emission limits for generators are also less stringent than for vehicles. As a result, the pollutants emitted from generators may represent meaningful but largely unaccounted or misclassified impacts on population health and the environment. . Generators emit the same pollutants as cars and trucks, except they are used in closer proximity to people’s homes and businesses, and emission limits are often less stringent than for vehicles. In Sub-Saharan Africa, we estimate that generators account for the majority of power sector emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOx) and fine particulate matter.


Overall, our results indicate a significant opportunity to reduce costs and negative health and environmental externalities by replacing diesel and gasoline generators.

The Dirty Footprint of the Broken Grid

[MonteQuest]

low energy intensive industries that got outsourced the most:

Not before the GFC. From the late 80's to the early 2000's many energy-intensive industries were off-shored to other countries, like steel.

[kublikhan]

Not before the GFC. From the late 80's to the early 2000's many energy-intensive industries were off-shored to other countries, like steel.

Why are you now talking about the 80s when my original comment was talking about the last decade:

That's not what's been happening in this country. Total energy demand has been more or less flat for over the last decade. Coal plants have been retired.

Energy demand has fallen due to outsourcing of much of our industrial production to other countries. Energy demand is flat due to the GFC and declining GDP. Retired coal plants have been replaced largely with NG.

And in the last decade, the energy intensive petrochemical industry has seen a huge surge in activity. Industrial energy consumption actually rose slightly between 2007-2019. However this was offset by slight falls in other sectors such as residential, commercial, and transportation.

[MonteQuest]

Why are you now talking about the 80s when my original comment was talking about the last decade:

Because you keep conflating the two eras in your replies. When I said, "Energy demand has fallen due to outsourcing of much of our industrial production to other countries." I was referring to the 80's and 90's. That' when it happened.

The GFC of 2008 caused massive demand destruction across the OECD countries. We have yet to recover the economic growth that was destroyed. I don’t buy the argument that efficiency gains (using anecdotal micro-economic citations) drove down energy consumption more than the financial crash and the anemic GDP growth over the last decade, especially when most large efficiency gains were wrung out of our systems decades ago. Efficiency gains and conservation may well be tools we can use to stay under an energy consumption cap—if we ever have one—but not as solutions to our coming energy poverty or infinite growth desires. Both make resources monetarily more abundant, thus lowering the cost and ultimately increasing consumption. People will always consume to the limits of their ability. I know you will disagree. Let's agree to disagree and not belabor the point. Ok?

[kublikhan]

Anecdotal micro-economic citations? I quoted GDP figures which capture the entire economy. I guess you missed that. Let me repost it for you then:

Fact 1: From 2010-2019 US GDP grew 22%.
Fact 2: From 2010-2019 US industrial production rose 17%.
Fact 3: From 2010-2019 US electricity sales declined by 0.1%.
Fact 4: In Q3 2008 US GDP was $14.83 trillion. In Q3 2019 it was $21.5 trillion.

Do you see why your idea makes no sense? GDP and industrial production grew during this time period. And they have far surpassed their pre-financial crisis peak. These facts conflict with your theory that the financial crisis caused those two to fall and have not yet recovered. Therefore we have to look at other reasons for the flat US electricity demand during this time period.

Economic growth picked up a little in the U.S. in 2017. But electricity use fell, according to data released Tuesday by the Energy Information Administration. It's now been basically flat for more than a decade. Measured on a per-capita basis, electricity use is in clear decline, and is already back to the levels of the mid-1990s. Electricity use rose and rose and rose and then ... it didn't anymore.

The 2017 numbers make clear that higher gross domestic product no longer necessarily requires more electricity. There's not a whole lot new to say about what's causing it: mainly increased energy efficiency (driven to a remarkable extent by the rise of LED light bulbs).

[MonteQuest]

GDP and industrial production grew during this time period. And they have far surpassed their pre-financial crisis peak. These facts conflict with your theory that the financial crisis caused those two to fall and have not yet recovered.

No, they don't. OECD energy use plummeted after the GFC. We never recovered to the energy growth trend we were on. 9.6 mbpd of oil consumption was taken from the growth curve. And we are not talking about industrial production or GDP, we are talking about per capita energy use. US GDP has been anemic with 2% GDP for a decade. Energy use declined in step, as they are linked to real GDP growth in goods and services. Even under Trump, GDP is still no better than the last 4 years of Obama (2.2% GDP). We haven't exceeded Obama's GDP in any year, quarter or combination of quarters. Most of what drove GDP in the last decade was financial speculation via record low-interest rates and QE that inflated the stock market, bonds, and real estate. Without this debt, GDP would be negative. Can you really say US energy use wouldn't be higher if we had 3.5% GDP growth like in 2005 before the GFC?

[kublikhan]

Of course energy consumption would be higher if we had 3.5% GDP growth. Yet even 2.2% growth adds up to 22% over the period of a decade. 22% growth in GDP, 0% growth in energy consumption. It is a good thing for per capita energy consumption to fall while GDP is growing. It means we are using our energy inputs more efficiently to achieve higher economic outputs. This is exactly the conclusion the EIA came to. They note some of the efficiency improvements have come from market forces. IE: lower electricity usage = lower costs to do business. Others come from government mandates: Air conditioners need higher SEER ratings, cars need higher MPG ratings, lights switch to LED, etc.

EIA: Total electricity sales fell in 2015 for 5th time in past 8 years
Total electricity sales in 2015 fell 1.1% from the previous year, marking the fifth time in the past eight years that electricity sales have fallen. The flattening of total electricity sales reflects declining sales in the industrial sector and little or no growth in sales to the residential and commercial building sectors, despite growth in the number of households and growth in commercial building space. Some improvements in energy efficiency have been market driven, reflecting the interest of consumers and businesses in reducing their electricity consumption and expenditures. Other improvements, mainly related to electricity use in homes and commercial buildings, have been driven by federal and state policies. Examples of policies at the federal level include energy efficiency standards for appliances and lighting equipment.

Residential
Standards such as the lighting standards to phase out incandescent bulbs during the 2012–14 time period decreased residential demand for electricity.

Commercial
Standards to improve efficiency for major end uses such as lighting and space conditioning equipment have helped to moderate growing commercial building energy demand. Total electricity sales in 2015 fell 1.1% from the previous year, marking the fifth time in the past eight years that electricity sales have fallen. The flattening of total electricity sales reflects declining sales in the industrial sector and little or no growth in sales to the residential and commercial building sectors, despite growth in the number of households and growth in commercial building space.

Industrial
Electricity sales have declined at an annual rate of 0.9% from their peak in 2007 to 2015. Electricity-intensive industries have grown at about the same pace as the rest of the industrial sector, and efficiency improvements in these industries have contributed to declining electricity sales to industry.