69 thoughts to “Open Thread Non-Petroleum, May 19, 2022”

  1. It’s reasonable to say that Fossil Fuels (FF) powered the Industrial Revolution (IR). FF greatly accelerated the IR, and there’s no question that FF was the primary source of extrasomatic energy for most of the period of the IR, but the IR started without FF, and FF wasn’t essential to that process continuing.

    Coal accelerated the IR not because it was cheap, but because it was scalable – wood had become limited and scarce in England hundreds of years before. Coal wasn’t cheap, and it wasn’t safe: it required quite a lot of work and lost lives to dig up, transport and turn into something useful: early mines required a lot of work and occupational risk; coal trains were an enormous pain, and required a lot of labor; and early coal powered engines were inefficient and blew up often (rail passenger travel was very dangerous, more than contemporary car travel).

    Contemporary wind, solar and even nuclear, even in the worst settings, are far cheaper than pre-WWII coal powered transportation (oil was a johnny-come-lately, which made transportation somewhat easier and faster, but certainly wasn’t necessary for the Industrial Revolution).

    hydro power, nuclear, wind and solar all took longer to become affordable than digging up coal. So coal powered the Industrial Revolution.

    But…contemporary hydro, nuclear, solar and wind are all cheaper than coal in most places, both pre-WWII coal and contemporary coal (even in if you don’t include the cost of basic pollution controls for sulfur, mercury, etc – coal becomes much more expensive if you recognize these costs, even excluding CO2). They’re all perfectly affordable.

    So, to say that “cheap” fossil fuels powered the Industrial Revolution is incorrect. They were affordable. They were cheaper than horse power, and more scalable than biomass. But, by contemporary standards, they were very far from cheap. And, now, they’re more expensive than renewables.

    1. It’s reasonable to say that Fossil Fuels (FF) powered the Industrial Revolution (IR).

      No kidding. It would be unreasonable to say anything different.

      but the IR started without FF, and FF wasn’t essential to that process continuing.

      Nonsense, It was the only thing that enabled the industrial revolution. There was a little wood and a little water power, but they could go only so far. And yes, compared to human and animal power, fossil fuels were dirt cheap. You cannot just rephrase something and make it what it was not.

      From the web, bold mine

      The Industrial Revolution transformed the energy base of human society. Energy is essential for making things, for transport, and for bodily survival. Before the use of fossil fuels, people could harness only a tiny fraction of the energy available on earth… Wind and water power, available only in favorable locations, also harnessed a fraction of the annual energy delivered to the earth from the sun…By burning wood or charcoal, people could tap energy stocks accumulated in trees over a century or two. But ultimately all these methods provided a very limited energy harvest, which meant that almost all people would always be poor, dependent upon grinding toil for their rice or bread.
      Fossil fuels changed all that…People around the world had known of coal’s uses for a long time, and Song China had used it on a large scale in its iron industry. London had burned coal for home heating from at least the thirteenth century. Britain had abundant coal deposits…
      With cheap British coal it became easier to stay warm in winter and to stoke the energy intensive industries.

      1. Nick believes that technological innovation was the key driver of the industrial revolution, and that fossil energy development was more incidental to the era.
        Perhaps without the the mass fossil fuel industry we could have had a few thousand ‘artisanal’ ICE vehicles on the muddy roads around London. But forests would only have been known from oral history stories (there would have been very little paper available by 1900 due to deforestation in support of proto-industry)

        Maybe technology will allow humans to live with very little energy in the future, in a state of suspended animation with occasional brief episodes of wakefulness.

        1. Nick believes that technological innovation was the key driver of the industrial revolution, and that fossil energy development was more incidental to the era.

          Yes, that’s about right. By the 1700’s people had learned how to dig up fossil fuels and burn them in a useful way. Fossil fuels existed for all of human history before that. For instance, the Romans didn’t develop coal fired steam engines. They had coal all around them, but didn’t know how to use it.

          And now…we know how to use renewables, and fossil fuels are obsolete. Still used widely, still needed very much for the short term, but still, FF is a dead man walking.

          Like horses in 1920, kerosene for indoor lighting in 1890, and oil for electrical generation in 1979.

          1. I’ll take literature review for $500, Alex

            The steam engine, either used on its own or as part of a train, is the iconic invention of the industrial revolution. Experiments in the seventeenth century turned, by the middle of the nineteenth, into a technology which powered huge factories, allowed deeper mines and moved a transport network.

            https://www.thoughtco.com/steam-in-the-industrial-revolution-1221643

            Fueled by the game-changing use of steam power, the Industrial Revolution began in Britain and spread to the rest of the world, including the United States, by the 1830s and ’40s.

            https://www.history.com/topics/industrial-revolution/industrial-revolution

            Britain had large and accessible supplies of coal and iron – two of the most important raw materials used to produce the goods for the early Industrial Revolution. Also available was water power to fuel the new machines, harbors for its merchant ships, and rivers for inland transportation.

            https://tinyurl.com/5aepprtt

            The coal-fired steam engine soon became the key technology of the Industrial Revolution. Water power was widely used as a source of energy in preindustrial Europe. By the late 1700s, however, steam engines had been perfected. Steam power soon replaced water power.

            https://www.nationalgeographic.org/article/industrial-revolution-and-technology/5th-grade/

          2. The difference is that horses can be made in to tasty “hamburger” sandwiches, but old car engines just rust.

            Cheap horsemeat changed America’s tastes, and started a worldwide craze for unspiced ground beef sandwiches, but interestingly, tastes are changing back.

            https://www.anthropocenemagazine.org/2022/05/a-15-year-snapshot-of-us-diets-reveals-a-gradual-shift-away-from-beef/

            Most beef consumption is ground beef, because beef is more or less unfit for human consumption — we just don’t have the digestive system for it. We eat a few tender bits like the tongue or a few other select cuts, or we predigest it by cooking it for hours, or grinding it. Grinding meat and selling it cheap became popular in the twenties when horse population was collapsing, but a century later, the craze is ending.

            All those old combustion engines are just going to rust, if they don’t get melted down.

          3. This conversation reminds me of Jeremy Grantham’s (GMO) announcement from over a decade ago where he announced his belief in peak oil – he figured without oil we’d be stuck in the 1870s with some medical advances, but nevertheless, struggling against nature. It’s evocative articles such as those that make me think about the impact of oil on our lives – how it has transformed the human race, leading some even into believe in UFOs. (LOL – UFO’s would’ve look like Pegasus otherwise). Unfortunately, unlike the Star Trek fantasy of a future of universal harmony, we’re on the way to extinction instead … the human race wasn’t ready for oil.

        2. Nick, yeh I’m concerned about scale.
          I think that this fossil fuel energy age is a ‘one off’ in the history of the planet and humanity.
          While I am a solar and wind enthusiast, I see it as extremely low probability that humanity will pull off a successful replacement of the fossil energy in time and at scale.
          I think we will get some of the job done, but not in time to require a massive forced downsizing of human population.
          And energy shortage is just one part of that equation.
          Other big parts include global warming, food shortage, water shortage, and
          the fragile complexity of our civilization, and the underlying nature of the human being.

          1. Hickory,

            There is a lot of fossil fuel remaining, it will be more expensive to utilize than competing sources of energy so the World economy is likely to shift to alternative sources of energy.

            It will not happen overnight, but energy supplied by wind and solar has been growing at very high rates and it is cheaper than competing fossil fuel. It might continue to grow quite rapidly due to the rising cost of natural gas. In the US it is expected that US natural gas prices in August 2022 will be about 5 times more than the 2021 average price.

            There is a lot of room in the US to reduce energy consumption with EVs, heat pumps, wind, solar, and hydro. Much of fossil fuel energy use is simply waste heat, typically about 65% of the energy in fossil fuel is simply wasted as heat that is not used for any purpose.

            1. All true Dennis.
              If the US had unified intention and policy regarding energy transition it would have a good chance, given the excellent S/W resource, the fossil resource during transition decades, and reserve currency status.
              We’ll see what the market gets done, despite poor management.

              Most other countries not quite as fortunate.

            2. Hickory,

              Perhaps not, but note that the US is a huge energy hog, as US and other OECD nations reduce their fossil fuel use there will be resources freed up for others to use if needed.

              Note however that the falling cost of alternatives as they are ramped up is likely to make it far cheaper for other nations to utilize alternative energy rather than fossil fuel because it will likely be cheaper to do so.

              I absolutely agree that better policy would help, perhaps at some point the US will look at what is being accomplished in Europe and elsewhere with more forward lookng policies and emulate those nations for fear of being left behind. One can hope as well as vote for smart leaders, if some can be found. Eventually the old white guys will die and be replaced with a more diversified and perhaps more intelligent crop of politicians. Probably not given recent history as the average US citizen doesn’t pay attention.

      2. There was a little wood and a little water power, but they could go only so far.

        Well, we seem to be back to the basic question of scale. Are you arguing that hydro, wind and solar power are much smaller in scale than fossil fuels?

        1. Nick, don’t change the subject. We were not talking about today, we were talking about the industrial revolution and what powered it. There were no solar panels then and no giant windmills. Steam engines came later after coal.I just googled it, the first steam engines were powered by coal. Only a few tiny water wheels and that’s about it.And if you think that would have powered the industrial revolution, you are out of your mind.

          Wood was used to power some locomotives in the late 1800s but if that was all we had, and no fossil fuels were ever used, there would be no trees standing today. Fossil fuels fueled the industrial revolution. Every school child knows that. I am shocked that you would question that.

          Nuff said.

        2. Change the topic indeed! Nicks rhetoric style leans heavily on gish gallop and intellectual dishonesty.

          Here Nick accuses Jason Bradford of pushing fossil fuel talking points.
          http://peakoilbarrel.com/usa-oil-production/#comment-686913

          Here Nick accuses Nate Hagens of pushing fossil fuel talking points.
          https://peakoilbarrel.com/opec-october-2020-production-data/#comment-711028

          Here Nick states “Eliminate fossil fuels, and we’re no longer in overshoot”
          https://peakoilbarrel.com/open-thread-non-petroleum-december-17-2021/#comment-731835

          Nick will likely continue to parrot these same platitudes and unfurl these same moral exhortations, even as famine takes hold.

  2. The global landscape is rearranging.
    Don’t be surprised if China supply of solar, wind, rare earth metals, electric motor, and battery components
    are no longer available for purchase here.
    It is no guarantee.
    Even if the US elects a right wing authoritarian next election I don’t think they will be too impressed, unless the fleets return to home waters.

    1. That could escalate into a complete breakdown of global trade, with huge consequences. A bit like starting a nuclear war, it’s a lose-lose proposition. Global trade dependencies is one of the reasons why we have had so few major wars the last decades. It is still relevant for years to come I would guess. But once trade is substantially reduced between the major power blocks, it would lay the groundwork for a devastating conflict. I hope that is decades away.

      1. Indeed. The Russian invasion is a big example of this, with the energy, fertilizer, mineral and grain trade disruption such a lose-lose proposition.
        Hope that China (or the US) doesn’t have similar plans.
        US leadership is up for grabs, with conspiracy theory disciples and ultranationalists having a shot at even more leadership positions.

        1. The saying goes that every solution creates at least two new problems. Damned if we do, in terms of globalization. Damned if we don’t.

    2. The near term solution is to do what my local utility is doing; that is to give big discounts for charging at night. My Chevy Volt allows me to program it so that even if plugged in no charging takes place until after the utility rate changes. My particular utility uses no fossil fuels, even at night, using geothermal, wind and hydro power in addition to solar. How well this will work at the EV need ramps up I can’t say but for now it’s a win-win as the rates are lowest at night when everyone’s asleep.

      1. My friend here in the UK pays 41c/kWh daytime rates but only 9c/kWh from 00:30 to 04:30 when he charges his Kona EV.
        PS Diesel here in W.Wales is now $8.74 per US gallon… (£1.849/€2.166/litre)

    1. It’s also interesting to see shareholders shelling out billions for him. But I guess sex is more interesting.

  5. Supply chain disruptions will likely get episodically worse over time, as countries scramble to adjust to the emerging reality of post peak oil, peak prosperity, and the shifting geopolitical landscape.
    Resource nationalism, diplomacy failures, economic warfare, flawed leadership, failed states, and war.
    We will see all of these mechanism play out as we have in the past, but on a scale and duration that will be crippling to various sectors and countries.
    Failed states can spill over borders rapidly. Allies and trading partners can evaporate.

    The semiconductor current shortage, the prior restriction of rare earth metal exports by China, the numerous sanctions/tariffs enforced by the US, the loss of agricultural and commodity exports from the Black Sea courtesy of Russia are ‘tip of the iceberg’ examples of what we should expect to see more and more of as time goes on.

    We should not be surprised if it becomes prohibitively expensive or even impossible to import items we have taken for granted previously or plan to purchase in the future, including-
    batteries, fertilizers, computers and cell phones, HVAC equipment, household equip such as Refrig or W/D, motorized tools, photovoltaics, turbines and generators, vehicle components, farm equipment, etc.
    This goes for individuals, companies and governments.

    This vulnerability to international system disruption is one facet of the complexity of modern industrial society,
    and one of the big reasons why I do not believe a successful transition from the fossil fuel age will be possible for the 8 billion. A small number of clusters perhaps.

    1. Supply chain disruptions will likely get episodically worse over time

      Why? And what time frame?

      1. My 2 cents

        I suppose that supply chain woes will perhaps get worse because the economic environment has become more challenging, COVID 19 contracted the economy, and sustainability is being emphasized in the re-expansion. That combined with some record high pump prices will likely result in consumers learning to accommodate a less diverse product mix on the shelves.
        Further more, for example, a shortage of computer chips has knock on effects to other product availabilities. I believe it’s called supply chain contagion.

      2. Alim- Why?..
        The easy times of growth of population, economy, personal prosperity, crop yields, favorable hydroelectric sites, massive oil and gas field discovery and development, vulnerable countries to exploit, new forests to clear, high grade ores to be mined, and new croplands to plow…
        are grinding to a permanent halt, and then retreat.
        There will be a smaller carcass for humanity to pick over.
        People act even more poorly under these conditions than they did during the easy growth phase.
        The conditions for are ripe for a fragmentation of globalization.

        Thats the very short version- the novel or historical version is for someone else to write.

        Time frame?
        Those who lived in Japan in the 1930’s saw the US oil blockade as supply chain disruption, as did those who lived through seiges of cities over the past couple thousand years
        “Jerusalem 1099, First Crusade-
        High civilian casualties are common in sieges, usually the result of starvation or disease. The ghastly toll in this case, though, was the result of deliberate slaughter. European knights—the Crusaders—besieged Jerusalem for little more than a month before they took it by storm. The atrocities of the victorious knights sullied their glory: The entire garrison and almost all the men, women, and children—Jew and Muslim alike—were put to the sword. As many as 70,000 perished.”

        When will it get worse during current times?……in this decade.

        Could I be wrong on this and humans will be graceful as they are faced with declining resources/capita, and international relations and trade will be smooth and functional?….yes.
        I hope to be.

        1. Just repeating the assertion doesn’t answer the question of why.

          1. More people competing for smaller pie.
            I see that as a recipe for failure of international market function, considering human nature.

            You ask ‘why’, as if you have something to say about it.

            1. If someone makes an assertion here, it’s not my job to prove he is right.

              And yes, there are many mysteries in life. As Socrates put it, a wise man is a man who knows he is a fool.

    2. With regards to “a small number of clusters”

      Quite right. Populations will become more fragmented and some will do well and some not so.

    3. Hickory,

      An alternative scenario.

      Current supply disruptions are primarily due to China’s zero covid policy.

      This policy has made apparent that the World’s over dependence on Chinese manufacturing was likely a mistake and might result in factories being built in Europe, North America, and elsewhere to diversify sources of supply.

      If that occurs it would make the World supply chains more resilient. Rare earth metal supply was strategically developed by China, other countries could do the same and may be attracted by high prices to develop those resources (Brazil and Vietnam have large undeveloped rare earth resources).

      If the trend of the past 10 years of decreasing population growth rate continues into the future, we would see World population peak in 2065 at about 9.7 billion and then decline in population to about 1 billion by 2200.

      Potentially we could see population fall more quickly.

      I agree some places may fare better than others. Sometimes humans manage to cooperate, mostly they do not.

      Perhaps when faced with a global crisis humans will recognize that cooperation works better than conflict, but looking at human history this seems a very dubious assumption.

      1. Yeh, it is possible that best case scenarios will play out.
        I just don’t see that as very likely,
        based on past performance and last of urgency/common purpose.

        I do think that decrease in affordable energy (and perhaps climate change) will force a downsizing of population more rapidly than prior projections of population growth and peak indicate. In that simple phrase there is tragedy beyond imagination. I hope to be extremely wrong on it.

  6. The Modern World Can’t Exist Without These Four Ingredients. They All Require Fossil Fuels

    “The unfolding transition to renewable energies will demand huge amounts of steel, concrete & plastics…Fossil fuels remain indispensable for producing all of these materials.”
    –Vaclav Smil

    https://time.com/6175734/reliance-on-fossil-fuels/

    1. And yet none of these include burning oil for transportation. Which is about 80% of the worlds consumption. Let the EV transition continue without your BS of distraction.

      1. 80% globally lol Take it up with Smil. And maybe include a reference on your next drive by.

        In 2020, petroleum products accounted for about 90% of the total U.S. transportation sector energy use

        About 26% of total U.S. energy consumption in 2020 was for transporting people and goods from one place to another.

        https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/use-of-energy/transportation.php

        The IEA estimates this shift will save nearly two million barrels per day of oil, relative to its business-as-usual projection of the world using at least 70 million barrels of oil per day for transportation by 2040.

        https://theconversation.com/amp/how-electric-vehicles-could-take-a-bite-out-of-the-oil-market-81081

        Transport Uses 25 Percent of World Energy

        https://www.maritime-executive.com/article/transport-uses-25-percent-of-world-energy

        In 2020, 48.6 percent of all oil consumed in the OECD was related to motor vehicle usage.

        https://www.statista.com/statistics/307194/top-oil-consuming-sectors-worldwide/

        Road transport consumed more than 40% of all oil demand in 2019.

        https://about.bnef.com/blog/oil-demand-from-road-transport-covid-19-and-beyond/

        That took me 10 min on a popular search engine.

        You’re talents are wasted here. You should be CIA; Department of Complicated Analysis.

  7. Elon Musk says he is going to vote Republican in the future.

    This may be political hyperbole, but it’s probably true.

    The question is whether there’s any silver lining in this potential black cloud.

    I don’t see him going so far as to deny global warming, or the inevitable depletion of oil and gas, etc. He’s still the king of the electric car world.

    So……. will any significant number of Republican voters hear what he has to say about such issues and possibly give up their life long loyalty to the internal combustion engine running on oil? Etc?

    He’s big into batteries, and into solar electricity in a big way. This means his primary products, electric cars and batteries are largely going to be running on wind and solar power, more so every year……… some of it generated by his own solar roof panels.

    As an insider will he have any significant impact on moving Republican voters toward the middle due to environmental issues, etc?

    1. In some ways he is like Trump- putting personal aggrandizement above any particular principle.
      I don’t trust anybody like that.
      Putting the 2nd Tesla vehicle and battery factory in Texas was a smart move however.

      1. “I don’t trust anybody like that.”
        Fully agree.
        I doubt if I will ever again have anything good to say about him, as a person, rather than as an entrepreneur.

      1. It’s not that he would WANT to move Republicans to the right.
        It’s more that with him in their camp, the ones of them capable of something approaching the ability to think a little are going to be looking at the old status quo party positions on fossil fuels, renewable energy , etc , on the one hand….. as epitomized by the giant cheeto.

        And on the other hand……….. their very biggest, brightest , and newest supporter, the one with better name recognition than anybody in the USA, excepting maybe half a dozen others, is the KING of the electric car business, with the openly proclaimed goal of doing away with the fossil fuel industries…… by moving not only the USA but the world to electrified transportation and renewable energy.

        People such as many of my neighbors won’t have any problems. They can and do believe anything at all that their giant cheeto tells them. He can contradict himself every week or two , in terms of his position on any factual issue, no problem, they can’t remember as far back as a couple of weeks.

        But there ARE a LOT of people who have been voting R who will be doing some thinking about environmental issues because having Musk in their midst means he’s rubbing their noses in the difference between his vision of the world and the status quo vision of their Party as it exists today.

        This is going to have SOME effect on the political landscape. How big an effect, I can’t say.

      2. Someone like him will come along, and their focus will be on weaponizing robots and providing government and corporate security. Perhaps based in Asia.
        I hope to be history by then.

  8. Hickory,

    You said earlier that “yeh I’m concerned about scale. I think that this fossil fuel energy age is a ‘one off’ in the history of the planet and humanity.”

    There is a common meme of fossil fuel being a very large, one-time energy source. Here’s another perspective: fossil fuel was convenient for the tech of the 1700s to 1900s (it’s relatively simple to burn stuff), but it’s not large compared to other sources.

    In particular, solar power is much, much larger. Humans burn about 10-25 terawatts of fossil fuel per year, but the sun drops 100,000 terawatts of power on the earth, continuously. One tenth of one percent of solar power is 5 to 10x as large as current FF output.

    Let’s put it another way: Fossil fuel could provide about 67 Zetajoules of energy or 18.6 million terawatt-hours, based on https://peakoilbarrel.com/projection-of-world-fossil-fuel-urr/

    That’s about 8 days of sunlight. Only 8 days of sunlight is equal to the whole FF resource.

    FF is not an incomparable, one-time gift of energy. It’s very, very replaceable.

    1. I don’t subscribe to the meme channel.

      The reality of the situation- depletion, time, scale, and lack of purpose starting 50 years ago are the facts of the matter from which my perspective is derived.

      In some bubbles the 1st generation or two after peak may do well. Good luck.

    2. I’ve been reading for years but never bothered to comment, until now when the most ridiculous statement I’ve ever read on this site appears…
      @Nick+G, how do you plan to make use of this sunshine without the use of any fossil fuels, or anything made from fossil fuels?

      I’d suggest planting plants by hand, weeding by hand, using sticks and stone implements is how it would turn out.

      To build anything of magnitude like vast amounts of renewables, especially solar, requires the rest of the system to be functioning in a normal growth pattern, using fossil fuels.

      To run solar for everything is so much more complex than the existing system with the number of industrial processes needed to run concurrently, co-operation world wide on a scale much larger than now, yet you think it can be done in a declining or non use of fossil fuels..

      With your belief of the future….
      I own a bridge on the dark side of Mars you might be interested in buying…

      or just explain how any of it can be built without fossil fuels….

      1. just explain how any of it can be built without fossil fuels….

        The next generation of infrastructure is built by the current generation. Oil wells were drilled by horses, and oil barrels were transported by horses as well. The few remaining contemporary horses are transported with gas/diesel.

        With time wells were drilled, and oil was transported using diesel. And the last wells will be pumped by renewably powered pumps and transported by renewably powered transportation.

        And eventually wind and solar (and hydro, etc) equipment will be manufactured, transported and installed with renewably powered plants, vehicles and equipment.

        how do you plan to make use of this sunshine without the use of any fossil fuels, or anything made from fossil fuels?

        In the long run, there isn’t anything we do now with fossil fuels that can’t be done with renewable power. Liquid fuels will still be convenient for some niche applications, but they don’t have to be derived from oil.

        To run solar for everything is so much more complex than the existing system with the number of industrial processes needed to run concurrently,

        There’s few things simpler to use than solar panels. They’re rocks that produce power.

        Now, the plants that manufacture them are certainly complex, but they’re no more complex than the plants that produce the parts for ICE vehicles, or the computer you typed your comment on.

        1. Again your hopium that everything just magically appears to be used, without understanding how the rest of the system needs to keep growing to allow for the complexity of the future you propose.

          Renewables like solar power have an EROEI of about 10/1 according to renew magazine a few years ago..
          https://renew.org.au/renew-magazine/solar-batteries/energy-flows-how-green-is-my-solar/

          3700Kwh just in the making of 1Kw of solar. That’s also a generous number, and OK for using fossil fuels to make the panels. If you use ‘electricity’ to make the panels, firstly you have to convert a great percentage of that electricity to ‘synthetic fuels’ and hydrogen, that can be transported to the mining sites (often remote away from grids), then use hydrogen or synthetic fuels for the heat processes, like the Siemens process to produce the silicon wafers. Part of this process is 1100*c for 200-300 hours!!!

          By using electricity to make synthetic fuels we have the Haru Oni plant in Southern Chile as an early example. The efficiency of the process from electricity in to synthetic fuel out is just under 6%. It ignores all the embedded energy in the plant build, all the energy in the transport of fuel and workers, all the energy used by workers for repairs and maintenance. So the real efficiency is way lower than just the process. It’s just a boondoggle…

          https://www.hifglobal.com/haru-oni

          Using the 6% efficiency number and 4000Kwh from Renew (allowing for structures to hole the solar panels, and inverters, and transmission lines etc, plus I’ve seen much higher numbers from those not so bullish on solar), 1Kw of solar panels would need to produce 66,666Kwh over it’s life just to replace itself, with no energy left over for the rest of society.

          At an average of 6 hours/day for 365 d/yr X 25 years = 54,750Kwh of electric production for the life of the solar panels. In other words the production of electricity is not enough to rebuild itself based on ‘hopeful’ numbers that exclude lots of energy use!! The real situation is worse!!

          I’m all for using lots of fossil fuels to build renewables, but it’s a one off shot while we have plenty of fossil fuels to buy time for civilization to continue existing. We can’t build renewables with renewables, either now or in the future.
          Energy use is directly related to GDP, they go up and down in lockstep on a world wide scale. If economies go into recession/depression due to lack of energy, then the building of renewables will also decline.

          2. You don’t need Diesel for mining. Mining has been done with coal before, and with horses before that. Diesel is convenient for pit mining.

            Mining is very local transportation. Underground mining has to be complete electric anyway because of air poisoning, and pit mining can be done electric, too.

            Replacing heavy batteries in Fork lifts I have seen 20 years ago – it was just a small crane – so the forklift could go 24/7 on batteries. Or do fast charging at the dumping station. You have short distances, so range is no issue.

            Really big machines will be run electric anyway because of transmission problems. You don’t power anything a few megawatt+ directly with Diesel.

            The DDR had it’s huge brown coal mines full electric in the 70s – I think the technology is better these days.

            Air travel is the field where liquid fuel will be needed for a very long time – and military.

            And I can think with rising energy prices there will be plants consuming Solar directly without storing – especially energy hogs like aluminium production or electric steel mills when coal is routed out. You can get it at 1 cents / Kwh in the right desert, and costs will be the key to this.

            In old times it was transport iron ore to the coal, not the other way around. Here it will be transport bauxit to the solar farm.

            1. I’m of the opinion that we can use synthetic diesel fuel for some essential work, if we don’t have the real stuff available in adequate quantities a few decades down the road.

              Mining truly is well suited to electrification. But barring green hydrogen and fuel cells, or super batteries, we’re going to have one hell of a time electrifying agriculture and heavy construction work.

              A grid capable of supporting fast charging the last few miles to individual farms will be extraordinarily expensive, and both the IBIG flow of juice and the chargers will be used extensively only a few weeks out of the year in farm country.

              Plus farmers would have to buy the super batteries for their tractors and combines, etc.

              Synthetic diesel fuel may actually be affordable, in terms of the big picture, compared to the alternatives, on farms and on big construction jobs.

              Furthermore, once we are forced to deal with oil shortages the way we deal with shortages of goods during wartime……. meaning rationing……. Enough diesel can be set aside for critical work for a long time……. long enough to figure out something else.

              Beer is an essential……. but hauling it hundreds of miles from brewery to customer is a waste. Local beer can make a comeback, lol.

            2. There is still enough oil for a 30 year of a bumpy plateau (peak oil is more defined by politics than geology as seen these days), and a decline after this. More than half of this oil is used to do things already replacable now ( Most land based transport, most mining ). It will cost most of the 30 years to build the infrastructure – so high oil prices are good since they are a wakeup call.

              If we bring away all more easy to do stuff from oil, the hard to do stuff has more than 50 years time – a new generation can realize it’s good ideas then.

              In farming a lot of stuff has to be thought new. It’s not only Diesel usage, it’s water fertilizer weed killing, too.
              In more arid parts they are working with no plowing at the moment – and there are robots in the making to enable more traditional hand like work. In the end these working robots will take a lot less energy than this working with 300 KW Diesel heavy equipment.

              Some things will have to scale down, some things can be done on a new way. And a place like the Kalahari can be seen like a new coal field because of optimal solar output. Or Island – I think this Island with it’s easy to get geoenergy can get a hot spot, too.

              When earning the low hanging fruit first without panic, we can free fossile ressources for more difficult things.

              There still will be oil stripper wells in 100 years – and it will also be possible to provide a few mbpd in form of biological oil or booze for the more complicated forms of transportation.

          3. Hideaway,

            Note that If fossil fuel has an EROEI of 30:1, only one third of that can be converted to work in a heat engine so in terms of exergy it is 10:1, the solar power produced is electricity with very low losses so in terms of exergy it would be close to the 30:1 EROEI fossil fuel.

          4. Hideaway, 10:1 EROI? What’s not to like?

            From your Renew link:
            >> Estimating the energy use is tricky, but the best information we can find indicates that creating a one kilowatt (kW) grid-connected solar system with monocrystalline panels consumes about 4200 kWh of energy, including an allowance for transport. … These embodied energy estimates include energy used far upstream, such as mining of raw materials. <<

            And as they are system estimates, they also include the inverter, transport and "other". See chart for a polycrystalline system:

            1. 10:1 EROI? What’s not to like?

              Yeah, the difference between 10:1 and 30:1 sounds big, but when you look at the inverses, 30:1 is 96.3% and 10:1 is 91% efficient. The difference sounds smaller that way, only a 5.3% loss.

          5. Hideaway —
            3700 hours is about 154 days. If you figure 6 hours of sunshine a day that’s 616 days, less than two years. And efficiency has increased greatly since 2016, not least because a lot less silicon is used per panel these days.

            Frauenhofer Institute reckons the energy payback of a solar energy systems in not very sunny Northern Europe is about 1.2 years, and faster in sunnier areas.

            The Energy Payback Time of PV systems is dependent on the geographical location: PV systems in Northern Europe need around 1.2 years to balance the input energy, while PV systems in the South equal their energy input after 1 year and less, depending on the technology installed and the grid efficiency.

            https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/content/dam/ise/de/documents/publications/studies/Photovoltaics-Report.pdf

          6. Isn’t this to a fair degree a societal question?
            If society decides to use available energy to mine bitcoin or use that same energy to create solar panels it will have two very different outcomes.
            In a way the choice to mine bitcoins (to use an example) reflects the makeup of our society, where individuals have the freedom to spend their resources on whatever they want. Is the better choice a societal configuration where you’re not allowed to use resources the way you want but have to direct them to becoming “green”?
            Not sure what the right balance is between individual rights and the collective good……
            Rgds
            WP

  9. OFM, in reference to your synthetic diesel comment above, there’s a good article comparing synthetic fuels on ScienceDirect:

    https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S235248471830266X

    >> The direct use of electricity in an electric vehicle without any energy conversion in between of course leads to the lowest energy consumption. Even for the future scenario with charge sustaining hybridization, fuel cell vehicles consume approximately 3 times more energy. Cars fueled with methane, methanol or DME need about 4 times more energy and a vehicle fueled with FT Diesel has a 4.5 times higher energy consumption. <<

    If only they had compared synfuels to conventional and not just EVs!

  10. GREENHOUSE GAS POLLUTION TRAPPED 49% MORE HEAT IN 2021 THAN IN 1990

    “The AGGI tells us the rate at which we are driving global warming,” said Ariel Stein, the acting director of NOAA’s Global Monitoring Laboratory (GML). “Our measurements show the primary gases responsible for climate change continue rising rapidly, even as the damage caused by climate change becomes more and more clear. The scientific conclusion that humans are responsible for their increase is irrefutable.”

    NOAA measurements showed the global average concentration of CO2 in 2021 was 414.7 parts per million (ppm). The annual increase was 2.6 ppm during this year, about the average annual increase for the previous decade, and much higher than the increase measured during 2000-2009. CO2 levels have risen by 61 ppm since 1990, accounting for 80% of the increased heat tracked by the AGGI since that year.

    https://research.noaa.gov/article/ArtMID/587/ArticleID/2877/Greenhouse-gas-pollution-trapped-49-more-heat-in-2021-than-in-1990-NOAA-finds

  11. For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.

    H. L. Mencken

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