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We had an interesting debate on renewable energy in the forum 100%renewables, so I thought I could reproduce it here. Those who intervened were Max Kummerow, Christian Breyer, and Ugo Bardi. (their picture, above, are in the same order as the names are written. If you are interested in joining the forum, write to ugo.bardi(thing-a-ling)unifi.it
On 04/09/2022 20:00, Max Kummerow wrote:
I am not clear why nuclear can't be part of the mix for base load, making the transition require less investment? Maybe that question answers itself--it might cost more to build nuclear plants than to oversize RE and build a more sophisticated grid and demand management approach. Anyway, Bill Gates is onto the cheaper, safer nuclear idea. Wish him luck.
A second quibble is that there are many processes, notably the manufacture of NH3 fertilizer by the Haber-Bosch process using CH4, cement manufacture, and cattle raising that generate greenhouse gasses, Also hundreds of other industrial processes, ag practices (soil abuse), forest clearing, etc. that cause emissions. Most of these can be addressed by improved technologies, I believe, but they are important. Half the world's food supply (grain yields, most used to feed livestock) goes away without N fertilizers. P and K are also essential plant nutrients with supply problems looming. So 100% RE is complicated.
But elephant in the room is growth. At present, world population is growing at 1%, and per capita incomes (equal to economic output/population) averages near 2% despite the economic cycle and pandemic variations. That adds up to approximately 3% growth in the human economy, doubling time 24 years. Say efficiency gains in use of energy and materials shave 1% off that, demand still doubles in 36 years. About 3 times per century. And then, of course, you have to double it all again in the first third of the next century. At some point about 1973, I think, this stopped working. Climate change can be looked at as a consequence of a supply constraint due to the limited size of the planet's atmosphere. Exponential growth goes from "abundant" to "all gone" in the last few doublings: Two from 25% to 100%. So hitting the wall is sudden and unexpected.
So why isn't everybody talking about reversing growth as the fundamental long-run solution for a prosperous, habitable, beautiful planet with abundance rather than scarcity? Reversing growth makes RE so much easier and a permanent solution.
I think the answer is that ending growth requires a shift in mindset, culture, practice, ideology, religion, worldview even more fundamental than the shift from the geocentric cosmology to the heliocentric solar system. Which took at least 150 years. Copernicus 1543 (sold by his editor as "another model, just a hypothesis"), Brahe data/Kepler theory, a better model, 1600, Giordano Bruno, 1600 "our sun and planets just one of many," Bruno tortured and burned as a heretic), Galileo (look through the telescope, moons of Jupiter, etc., threatened with torture and shut up), Newton, 1687 (Principia, calculus, law of gravity, laws of motion). And, by the way, 1992, Catholic Church admits it was wrong about Galileo, the earth does revolve around the sun. My point is that a major change in perspective takes a long time and has enormous consequences. We lost the divine right of kings as well as the Church as the monopolist divine authority. Science doubled life expectancy and increased incomes ten-fold, while population increased 16 times, so far (500 million in 1700, 8 billion in 2022, doubled in just 48 years from 4 billion in 1974.
The end of the growth forever meme began, maybe in Greek times (Ugo will know), but kicked off in modern times with Franklin who in 1751 wrote that doubling of population every 25 years in the colonies couldn't continue forever. Then Malthus proposed exponential growth encountering limits, 1798. J.S. Mill advocated on quality of life grounds for "the stationary state" in 1848. In the rush to invent technologies, mine coal, and steal whole continents from native peoples, Mill was Ignored, despite Jevons worries about British coal running out (it did, Maggie giving it the coup de grace)). Boosterism accelerated with 3 trillion a year (an old number, it's more now) paying for messages that mostly say "buy something, consume more, get richer." Economics and politics obsessed with economic development and growth. Then the ecologists with their depressing density dependent mortality, niche's, carrying capacity, limits to growth. The biophysical economists. But again, pro-growth didn't burn the MIT modellers at the stake after the Limits to Growth projected collapse in the 21st century, but they certainly did get dismissed and ridiculed and rebutted. I'm leaving out various scientists' warnings to humanity and other "growth has to stop" messages from scientists.
But the decroissance position is right. .There is no substitute for water. The planet is no bigger with 8 billion people than it was with 500 million 300 years ago. Growth has to stop. Relevant to the 100% renewables debate, so far, emissions have kept rising, more than doubled since 1990. So far RE has accommodated part of the rising demand. If demand were falling, the % of RE would be higher, dirtiest coal fired plants retired and a feasible target for 100% RE in sight. With growth continuing, 3x in a century, then 6x, 12x, 24x in the next century, I think we really do run out of lithium and cobalt. Or something else. The key insight of the 1972 LTG study was that a system dynamics modeling approach that linked various issues showed that if one thing doesn't get you, another will. Did anybody tell us about the ongoing extinction event? I'm a hobby farmer in Illinois on some of the best dirt in the world. I can tell you we are using it up. Unless we can lighten pressure on the earth, humanity is headed for collapse.
It took a couple of centuries, the Reformation, a few civil wars and several revolutions to move the earth out of the center of the universe. The Catholic Church, by the way, is playing a similar science denial role in the present transition to the no-growth version of humanity on a small home planet. The Church's irrational opposition to contraceptives and abortion leaves the world still growing at 80 million/year and poverty, violence and shorter lives the path to ending population growth. It is nice that they don't burn people like Aldo Leopold, Charlie Hall, or Ugo Bardi at the stake anymore.
Attached is a draft chapter from a book I'm working on that argues for completing the half-completed global fertility transition. About half of the world's countries (and population) have fertility rates less than replacement. Most of those are still growing due to 50 years of "population momentum" before young populations age after fertility falls. The other half still have more than 2.1 kids. Getting birthrates down in failed states where the medical system is dominated by the Catholic Church will be a challenge. So Africa's solution may be migration and higher mortality rather than birth control. Europeans would be wise to support global family planning initiatives. Africa is projected to double population from 1.3 to 2.6 billion by mid-century. I don't think Europe is prepared to accept the overflow.
The numbers in my Kaya projection table may be wrong or need updating. Help with that would be appreciated. Future growth rates are, of course, inherently uncertain in principle (see Popper on historicism). Opinions will differ and then reality will do something else. But I think the conclusion that ending growth will be necessary for the transition to RE to occur in time is becoming more likely as the world dallies.
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Comment by Christian Breyer
Dear Max,
renewables have NOT to be oversized. We regularly find a curtailment of about 3-5% of a well-balanced sector coupled with 100% renewable energy systems. That’s no oversizing, the self-consumption of thermal power plants is higher …
New nuclear power is simple extremely expensive, it costs 2-3 times what 100% renewables cost (including storage, grids, and curtailment). Why huge resources shall be wasted? Why not use such ‘extra’ resources for better education and health services?
Why 100% renewables should be complicated with respect to fertilizers? That can be done with renewable electricity, water, and air. That’s nowadays the least-cost solution and also the reason why green e-ammonia projects mushroom right now. More details can be found here (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306261920315750). Bioenergy can be used for 100% renewables, but optionally – it is not necessarily needed.
Let’s not quarrel on growth, since we agree that we disagree.
The Kaya identity is one of the most important equations of all. This is the fundament of my research. What we learn there: the poor in the world have to become rich as soon as possible since rich societies have typically 1.5-1.8 kids per woman, that leads automatically first to population stabilization, then population decline. Integral international policy has to be to get the poor as fast as possible rich, and of course that on sustainable energy basis, and as soon as possible on a full circular economy.
The beauty of the Kaya identity is that we ‘only’ have to use CO2-free energy, then the (energy-industry related) CO2 emissions are zero. That’s the by far simplest way to get climate stabilization, all other parts of the equation are by orders more complicated to bring in the right direction.
We get by a factor 500-1000 more energy from the sun as a civilization ever needs, year by year. Based on that the energy-industry energy needs and emissions can be fixed, and finally we can switch to net negative emissions to get the mess tidied up again. That’s also not that energetically expensive, as the latest research reveals.
Some more details here:
https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9837910
Dear Max,
renewables have NOT to be oversized. We regularly find a curtailment of about 3-5% of a well-balanced sector coupled with 100% renewable energy systems. That’s no oversizing, the self-consumption of thermal power plants is higher …
New nuclear power is simple extremely expensive, it costs 2-3 times what 100% renewables cost (including storage, grids, and curtailment). Why huge resources shall be wasted? Why not use such ‘extra’ resources for better education and health services?
Why 100% renewables should be complicated with respect to fertilizers? That can be done with renewable electricity, water, and air. That’s nowadays the least-cost solution and also the reason why green e-ammonia projects mushroom right now. More details can be found here (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306261920315750). Bioenergy can be used for 100% renewables, but optionally – it is not necessarily needed.
Let’s not quarrel on growth, since we agree that we disagree.
The Kaya identity is one of the most important equations of all. This is the fundament of my research. What we learn there: the poor in the world have to become rich as soon as possible since rich societies have typically 1.5-1.8 kids per woman, that leads automatically first to population stabilization, then population decline. Integral international policy has to be to get the poor as fast as possible rich, and of course that on sustainable energy basis, and as soon as possible on a full circular economy.
The beauty of the Kaya identity is that we ‘only’ have to use CO2-free energy, then the (energy-industry related) CO2 emissions are zero. That’s the by far simplest way to get climate stabilization, all other parts of the equation are by orders more complicated to bring in the right direction.
We get by a factor 500-1000 more energy from the sun as a civilization ever needs, year by year. Based on that the energy-industry energy needs and emissions can be fixed, and finally we can switch to net negative emissions to get the mess tidied up again. That’s also not that energetically expensive, as the latest research reveals.
Some more details here:
https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9837910
Comment by Ugo Bardi
Max, your reflections are similar to many things which have been said and promoted during the past 50 years or so. Already in 1972, "The Limits to Growth" had identified growth as the source of all problems and proposed to reduce it.
It didn't work -- not just that: it may have backfired when it generated a vicious backlash from many people who felt threatened. Imagine having to do with an addict and threatening him to cut his supply of cocaine. His reaction may well be to create a stock of it as large as possible.
We are slowly learning how to manage complex systems, but it is something that will take a long time to complete, and perhaps it will never be. The main point is, I believe, that we have limited power to manage such enormous systems as the ecosphere and the human economic power. The only hope we have is to identify trends and encourage them or discourage them. There is just no way to force the system into what we want it to be. It is what Jay Forrester had named "pulling the levers in the wrong direction." The more you push, the more the system drags its enormous (planetary scale) feet. Try it with your dog, and you'll see how it works, even though the dog has much smaller feet.
So, I think there are two major trends that we can encourage -- and even if we don't, they will encourage themselves well enough.
One is the demographic transition. It is a small miracle that it exists: it was never planned and a lot of people opposed it as much as they could. And they still do. But to no avail. Birthrates are dropping like stones: right now we are at 2.4 children per woman, the trend is very clear, even in African countries, although they are arriving later than in the other continents. The population is going to stabilize and then, hopefully, will slowly decline. Every time I think of this, I am amazed. Think of what the world would be if every woman, everywhere, wanted to have 10 children as their grandmother did! I don't know if there is an inner wisdom in the human species that's being tapped right now, or if it is a gift that Mother Gaia gave to us, who knows? But it is like that. We don't need to do anything about that, just wait for the trend to unfold.
The other trend is renewable energy. Another miracle. Think if it didn't exist, if it was still true that renewables would cost 50 times more than fossil fuels, as was the case 50 years ago (more or less). What would we do now? Would we have to go for a plutonium-based economy as it was fashionable at that time? Think of what's happening near the nuclear plant in that unnameable place in Ukraine. Then multiply that by a factor of 1000, and add that the plants would be fueled with plutonium. Unimaginable, or perhaps even too imaginable. Instead, we have an energy source that not only is cheap and efficient, but -- and this is the true miracle -- it is self-limiting! You can't go in overshoot with renewable energy, You have limits to the area you can cover with panels. So, you can have a large amount of energy, and you can also afford to leave in peace a very large fraction of the ecosystem to stabilize itself and provide us with those (horrible name) "ecosystem services" that nobody cares about, but will when they are not available anymore.
So, what do we have to do, in practice? Regarding population, there is little that we can do, but I think we have to explain that, even though there is such a thing as "overpopulation," there is no such thing as "population overgrowth." We have already seen in a not-so-remote past how easy it is to get into "extermination mode" when people were convinced (maybe even in good faith) that there existed such a problem as the lack of "vital space" (call it "lebensraum" or "posto al sole" as you like). If the meme of lebensraum starts diffusing again, then it is not impossible that someone will concoct again some kind of "final solution" and try to put it into practice. Hopefully, that won't happen, but it might.
Then, mostly, we can and we ought to push for renewable energy. We can do that, and I see that people understand what I am telling them when I speak about renewable energy (not all of them, but the smart ones. And they are not a minority). And after that I have explained to them the idea, they ask me what they can do to install PV panels on their roof, or invest in renewable energy. Compare this with what happens with climate change. People may (sometimes) understand what you are telling them. Then they will go home with their SUV and turn the TV on. And they won't do anything against climate change, because there is really nothing that they can do, except cosmetic actions of no importance on the overall effect. But every PV panel installed, is a small, but effective, step to limit global warming. And the natural stabilization of the growth of PV panels will also limit and eventually stop, economic growth, at least intended as the growth of material consumption.
Is all that enough? No, but in this way, it is realistically possible to have an impact. Once people have renewable energy, that will generate a market for a more efficient distribution system, for storage facilities, and all that. Then, the market for fossil fuels will gradually vanish We can use electric power to make fertilizers, in a stabilized economy, that will also reach a stable level, reducing the damage created by eutrophication. And stabilization will also make water available not such a pressing problem as it is now. No more wars? Probably not: humans are warlike creatures. But for sure, most recent wars have been for fossil energy.
Overall, I think that during the past two decades or so we have seen the opening of possibilities undreamed before. We have a chance. A fighting chance. We have to fight for it. And we can even win the battle!
________________________________________________
Max, your reflections are similar to many things which have been said and promoted during the past 50 years or so. Already in 1972, "The Limits to Growth" had identified growth as the source of all problems and proposed to reduce it.
It didn't work -- not just that: it may have backfired when it generated a vicious backlash from many people who felt threatened. Imagine having to do with an addict and threatening him to cut his supply of cocaine. His reaction may well be to create a stock of it as large as possible.
We are slowly learning how to manage complex systems, but it is something that will take a long time to complete, and perhaps it will never be. The main point is, I believe, that we have limited power to manage such enormous systems as the ecosphere and the human economic power. The only hope we have is to identify trends and encourage them or discourage them. There is just no way to force the system into what we want it to be. It is what Jay Forrester had named "pulling the levers in the wrong direction." The more you push, the more the system drags its enormous (planetary scale) feet. Try it with your dog, and you'll see how it works, even though the dog has much smaller feet.
So, I think there are two major trends that we can encourage -- and even if we don't, they will encourage themselves well enough.
One is the demographic transition. It is a small miracle that it exists: it was never planned and a lot of people opposed it as much as they could. And they still do. But to no avail. Birthrates are dropping like stones: right now we are at 2.4 children per woman, the trend is very clear, even in African countries, although they are arriving later than in the other continents. The population is going to stabilize and then, hopefully, will slowly decline. Every time I think of this, I am amazed. Think of what the world would be if every woman, everywhere, wanted to have 10 children as their grandmother did! I don't know if there is an inner wisdom in the human species that's being tapped right now, or if it is a gift that Mother Gaia gave to us, who knows? But it is like that. We don't need to do anything about that, just wait for the trend to unfold.
The other trend is renewable energy. Another miracle. Think if it didn't exist, if it was still true that renewables would cost 50 times more than fossil fuels, as was the case 50 years ago (more or less). What would we do now? Would we have to go for a plutonium-based economy as it was fashionable at that time? Think of what's happening near the nuclear plant in that unnameable place in Ukraine. Then multiply that by a factor of 1000, and add that the plants would be fueled with plutonium. Unimaginable, or perhaps even too imaginable. Instead, we have an energy source that not only is cheap and efficient, but -- and this is the true miracle -- it is self-limiting! You can't go in overshoot with renewable energy, You have limits to the area you can cover with panels. So, you can have a large amount of energy, and you can also afford to leave in peace a very large fraction of the ecosystem to stabilize itself and provide us with those (horrible name) "ecosystem services" that nobody cares about, but will when they are not available anymore.
So, what do we have to do, in practice? Regarding population, there is little that we can do, but I think we have to explain that, even though there is such a thing as "overpopulation," there is no such thing as "population overgrowth." We have already seen in a not-so-remote past how easy it is to get into "extermination mode" when people were convinced (maybe even in good faith) that there existed such a problem as the lack of "vital space" (call it "lebensraum" or "posto al sole" as you like). If the meme of lebensraum starts diffusing again, then it is not impossible that someone will concoct again some kind of "final solution" and try to put it into practice. Hopefully, that won't happen, but it might.
Then, mostly, we can and we ought to push for renewable energy. We can do that, and I see that people understand what I am telling them when I speak about renewable energy (not all of them, but the smart ones. And they are not a minority). And after that I have explained to them the idea, they ask me what they can do to install PV panels on their roof, or invest in renewable energy. Compare this with what happens with climate change. People may (sometimes) understand what you are telling them. Then they will go home with their SUV and turn the TV on. And they won't do anything against climate change, because there is really nothing that they can do, except cosmetic actions of no importance on the overall effect. But every PV panel installed, is a small, but effective, step to limit global warming. And the natural stabilization of the growth of PV panels will also limit and eventually stop, economic growth, at least intended as the growth of material consumption.
Is all that enough? No, but in this way, it is realistically possible to have an impact. Once people have renewable energy, that will generate a market for a more efficient distribution system, for storage facilities, and all that. Then, the market for fossil fuels will gradually vanish We can use electric power to make fertilizers, in a stabilized economy, that will also reach a stable level, reducing the damage created by eutrophication. And stabilization will also make water available not such a pressing problem as it is now. No more wars? Probably not: humans are warlike creatures. But for sure, most recent wars have been for fossil energy.
Overall, I think that during the past two decades or so we have seen the opening of possibilities undreamed before. We have a chance. A fighting chance. We have to fight for it. And we can even win the battle!
________________________________________________
The word is "and" not "or". Doing all these things is far more effective through synergies and feedbacks, than relying only on technology (RE and efficiency) or behavior (lower birthrates, reduce growth a la Herman Daly). I disagree with Ugo when he says cutting birthrates is impossible and caused pushback. Simply not true. Women have freely chosen smaller families when they get good information (novellas in Mexico, "two is enough campaigns in China and Korea and Singapore", STD info in Thailand, etc.) and access via legal abortion, affordable family planning clinics and contraceptives. Half of the pregnancies in the world are "unwanted" according to surveys, resulting in 50 million abortions. Cutting unwanted pregnancies is feasible. Read Gabrielle Blair's twitter post where she says it's all men's fault. Over 90 countries are now below replacement fertility rate. Policies like USAID pushing family planning. Lee Kuan Yew's two child efforts, Park's 25% of Korea's medical expenditure for family planning clinics--all this worked. There was backlash against the heliocentric universe too, but it was true. Growth has to stop. (It still moves.)
ReplyDeleteIt is wonderful that we have both RE and modern contraceptives.
An associated big cultural change that accompanies lower birthrates is the liberation of women. Women can now have careers. They are not slaves to abusive husbands any more (in most countries). Liberating women in fact, is the key to ending growth.
As for economic growth, it will take decades and hundreds of trillions of dollars to implement the RE solutions for 100% carbon free energy. Economic growth rates can be cut overnight by monetary policy (tighten money supply, raise interest rates, require more bank reserves to cut lending) and fiscal policy--carbon tax or consumption taxes. If we need quick action to save the world, cutting economic growth would be fastest.
Ending population growth would be the most fundamental and permanent way to live in harmony with what the planet can provide.
Just say "and" would be nice, even if you personally want to work on the technology solutions. And let's wish that all the four Kaya terms can move in the right direction and support efforts to get all of them doing that. In case people haven't heard of Kaya (I hadn't 20 years after Kaya published in 1990.) the identity is:
C = C/E * E/Y * Y/P * P
This is a quantifiable version of Ehrlich and Holdren's I=PAT
C=GHG emissions
C/E = emissions/energy unit
E/Y = energy/GDP (efficiency measure)
Y/P = per capita income
P = population
The right hand side all cancels out except for C so this is a way to find why C increases or decreases. Put realistic estimates of future changes in these terms
(including growth doubling Y every 25 years) and you will find it is hard to keep below 2 degrees C. Continued doublings of RE eventually cover the earth with solar panels and then what do we eat? Long before that, another doubling or two will cause an extinction event that may include us.
Kummerow:
ReplyDelete" Half the world's food supply (grain yields, most used to feed livestock) goes away without N fertilizers. P and K are also essential plant nutrients with supply problems looming. So 100% RE is complicated."
It looks the opposite to me, RE, now the least expensive source of raw energy, is ideal for energy intensive activities, their produces can be manufactured where and when the sun shines and the wind.....to be used when necessary
By definition energy intensive is where the production cost of the kWh exceeds the one of the equipment, in this case the cost of the equipment times the duty cycle of its use. Manpower? Unions will adjust too.