sendler2112 said:
You are an expert on Germany.
Happens to be my country, so I know most about this one obviously.
But you keep forgetting that Germany is only .08 billion people out of 8 billion.
Sure. But most countries in the world have much better wind and solar resources than Germany, so if it works well for us it will do for the rest of the world
Germany did not produce those 7GW per year of new wind and solar capacity all by itself for those few years that it was at that level.
difficult to say. Modul production is now mostly in China, but we produce a huge amount of Silicon, Glas, converters and other stuff. Same for the wind industry.
The ability to manufature machinery has never been a problem in Germany.
How much of the world's total solar and wind raw materials and manufacturing capacity did that represent? You were 20% short of your modest goal of 1000TWh/ year in 30 years, so for the world to achieve your per capita energy wealth and make the goal of having it done in 30 years, so that the first ones can start to be rebuilt in 30 years perpetually, world installation of wind and solar would have to increase 120X beyond what you did for a couple years at the peak.
I think this is quite doable. We still have exponential growth rates in world wide solar and wind.
solar and wind have a MUCH higher change to scale to the demand within 30 years than has nuclear power.
1000TWh/ year of rebuildable electricity is a lofty goal and will be much better than nothing but is realistically a little low in order to replace what Germany is currently using for Primary energy. Currently almost 14,000 PetaJoules which is 3,900 TWh/ year.
This includes coal and nuclear ower plants which waste 66% of primary energy, gasoline cars that waste 80% of primary energy and heating of homes with gas that need 3x more end energy compared to heat pumps and more than 10x the end energy compared to heat pumps in efficient buildings.
On the other hand turning electricity to gas or fuel waste energy as does electricity storage systems.
I assume that Germany would import most of its green liqud fuels in 2050 and doesn't make it itself. It can be made cheaper in other counries and with up to 100 billion Euro in energy imports today and still amiantaining a huge trade surplus it seems not so important to make 100% of the energy at home at whatever cost.
There must be a future business case for countries like saudia Arabia or Russia when noone buys their fossil fuels.
Many industrial heat processes that now use thermal gas or coal, such as cement and steel, which will be needed in huge quantities for wind installs, will not see any efficiency gain from switching to electric. So estimates of efficiency improvements from full electrification of human civilization are closer to 2:1. Leaving 1,500 TWh/ year for Germany. 70,000 TWh/ year for the World! would be less than half of the total primary energy we are now using. And 3 billion people still cook and heat with wood as their only means.
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I agree. There is still a significant way ahead of us.
But compare solar and wind worldwide in 2008 to 2018.
Along with battery production. When GigaFactory 1 was announced, it was stated to at once double the world's capacity of production. With .035 TWh/ year. Has it ever had a year that matched it's stated capacity yet? World capacity is now stated to be about .4 TWh/y. Projected to be 1TWh/y by 2025. Just to replace the worlds 1.3 billion current gas/ diesel light vehicles, to say nothing of farm tractors and heavy trucks, with electric cars with 60 kWh batteries, requires 80 TWh of batteries! Just for cars and light trucks! And most people in the world do not even have one yet, but want one. And we talk of a proposed addition of another .1 TWh GigaFactory like it is a big deal.
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Some is true for batteries. Exponential growth is possible and we have the resources to build the first 2 billion electric cars worldwide. After that recycling should be done.
We would also hit resource limits with 2 billion conventional cars, i.e. Platinum and Palladium
Greta gives us a new buzz word in the media. Fairy tales. We have fairy tales by under informed economists and politicians of eternal exponential growth on a finite planet. And just as inaccurate, fairy tales of a possible Green replacement to the same standard that we have now. While (forgetting) uplifting the exploited Global South. Many of our demands are untenable. Net zero in 12 years? Extinction Rebellion demands that it be so within 5 years. This will certainly precipitate the collapse that they claim to be fighting against. Be pragmatic. Maybe it is better to slide down now under control to a simpler, more cooperative way of life, rather than keep growing to a higher, steeper "Seneca Cliff".
Greta is just an avator.
She is not an engineer.
I am.
I know what is possible on a technical point of view.
If you look at home many cars we produce each year, on how many waste we produce each year, and how much oild and gas we waste for drinving around in our cars and heating oru homes it is rediculous if you say that we could not use the same resourcese for a transformation of our energy system.
Of course it can be done, it's just a matter of will.
France forced its industry to built the nuclear reactors, bevause decades ago they didn't like to be depended on energy imports and they wanted to have nuclear bombs. So they did it, no matter the cost. Just a matter of will.
Today you can power a industry nation from mostly solar+wind within 20 years. Its just a matter of will.
Many of our ideas will turn out to be wasted moves. Such as individual families living in "green" McMansions. Such as executives earning 500 times the amount as the base employee. Such as mail ordering whatever frivolous "green" gadget "the market" has advertised (brain washed) us to want, before throwing it away to lust after the next thing. Such as "green" 60kWh personal vehicles for each of the eventual 10 billion people on Earth.
We do agree on many of such things. People in US/Europe could very happily live on 1/5th the energy consumption of today.
But reality is that this is not negotiable for people as long as oil and gas is cheap as dirt.
Instead of forbidding cars it's easier to encourage people to use electric cars.
you need to do what is possible. Fantasies are of no value. This includes fantasies of nor cars as it includes fantasies of a nuclear power Renaissance.
It's already to late to keep the global warming at +2K. Best case (but unrealistic) seems to be +3K, but buisness as usual will get us more likely to +4K until 2100.
This is a desaster and the costs will be MUCH higher than just transforming our energy secror to solar and wind
but this is not the worst case secanrio.
At the end of Perm the Sibirian trap realeased huge amounts of CO2 into the air and overa few thousand years the cold climate warmed by around +5K caused by that CO2.
It didn't stop there, because than methane was realease and the climate "collapsed" and reached +16K
95% of all sea species died when most of the seas have been free of oxygen and 75% of all land species. This was most likely the largest mass extinction our planet had seen in its entire history. Caused by CO2 emissions.
Homo sapiens could reach +5K after 2100 if we keep burning the available fossil fuels as we do today.
Obviously most poeple don't care a bit.
...i dont think anyone knows much about that period .
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