Let me welcome to the small and elite membership of essential thinkers on the supposed power transition a man named Balázs Fekete. Fekete, with a number of co-authors, has not too long ago (September 18) succeeded in getting an article printed in a journal known as Frontiers of Environmental Science, with the title “Storage necessities to mitigate intermittent renewable power sources: evaluation for the US Northeast.” Fekete then adopted up by publishing on November 14 at Judith Curry’s Local weather, And so forth. weblog a prolonged put up summarizing the article, titled “Internet-Zero Targets: Sustainable Future or CO2 Obsession Pushed Lifeless-end?”
As with the earlier competent analyses of power storage necessities wanted to again up intermittent renewable technology which were featured on this weblog and in my power storage Report, there may be nothing sophisticated concerning the Fekete, et al., evaluation. The authors name it “a modified surplus/deficit calculation [as] taught to water engineers to dimension reservoirs for assembly water demand when the water assets differ.” When there may be surplus manufacturing you add it to storage, and when there’s a deficit you subtract; and then you definitely sum over a yr (or two, or ten) to calculate how a lot storage you want. It’s all fundamental arithmetic. What may very well be easier?
You’ll not be shocked that the conclusion is “CO2 obsession pushed dead-end.”
This topic would appear virtually too apparent and trivial to cowl on this weblog. There’s nothing sophisticated right here. All people who’s concerned in any method within the power transition recreation, and who has even the bottom stage {of professional} competence, merely should concentrate on this topic and of those calculations. And but I simply attended the massive New York “Local weather Summit,” (aka the Krazy Klimate Konference), that includes all the highly effective politicians and bureaucrats and business leaders who’re answerable for our state’s power transition, and to an individual they don’t know about any of this. And by no thought, I imply none, zero, zilch. One man even got here as much as me and accused me of being “impolite” for laughing out loud at his astounding ignorance. (The one different risk was that it was intentional comedy.)
Unsurprisingly, the authors of Fekete, et al., make no declare to being “local weather scientists.” Local weather scientists as a category are method too sensible to stoop to doing fundamental arithmetic. Within the intro to the paper, Fekete identifies himself as a professor on the Metropolis College of New York — of Civil Engineering. Second writer Mihály Bacskó is a former government of the Hungarian Energy Firm. The opposite two co-authors are meteorologists working on the College of Oklahoma. In different phrases, the main target right here is just not on scaring the general public with scary eventualities from the occult voodoo of local weather “science,” however relatively solely on whether or not the proposed options will or is not going to work.
The actual calculations in Fekete, et al., take a look at information from twelve states of the northeastern U.S. — New England, plus New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland and West Virginia. Quite than utilizing manufacturing information from present wind and photo voltaic services, the authors obtained day by day wind velocity and photo voltaic irradiation information for the area. For consumption information, the weblog put up states that the authors utilized an assumption of “fixed power consumption,” after figuring out that “seasonal differences of power consumption are comparatively small (deviate by solely 10-15% of the annual common).” (Maybe this determination may very well be criticized, however I doubt that it makes any materials distinction to the conclusion.)
And the underside line is:
The storage capability wanted to align energy technology from photo voltaic or wind is round 25% of the annual power consumption.
In different phrases, you want three months price of storage to attempt to make this work. Earlier research that I highlighted in my power storage Report — for instance, these of Roger Andrews and Ken Gregory — had calculated storage wants within the vary of 1 to 2 months. Nevertheless, these research solely used one yr’s price of information for every calculation, and allowed operating the storage steadiness proper right down to zero. For those who assume that it’s too dangerous to run the storage proper right down to zero earlier than the steadiness begins to refill, then three months of storage is a way more affordable determine. Certainly, it’s nonetheless relatively conservative.
Fekete, et al., don’t get into the specifics of value of any doable storage resolution. However then, they don’t have to. The potential prices are so monumental as to fully rule out any try even to start out down this street. In keeping with the U.S. Vitality Info Administration, complete U.S. electrical energy consumption in 2022 was simply over 4 trillion kWh. So one-quarter of that might be simply over 1 trillion kWh. Simply to get an thought of the price of that a lot power storage, this web site (Tesla followers) offers a (extremely optimistic) value for Tesla batteries of simply over $100 per kWh. So a trillion of these will run you about $100 trillion. That’s 4 instances the complete U.S. economic system. In the meantime, a Tesla-style battery is just not remotely as much as the job of the power storage wanted to again up wind/photo voltaic electrical energy technology, which might essentially embody the flexibility to avoid wasting up energy over a yr or extra and discharge over a yr. However then, the economics are so wildly out of line that it’s hardly price worrying about such technicalities.
Fekete, et al., in a really understated method, put it this fashion:
Within the absence of power storage know-how that may retailer a number of months price of power, one has to conclude that every one research suggesting that photo voltaic or wind are worth aggressive with different types of power ought to be retracted.
The Fekete weblog put up at Local weather, And so forth. incorporates two different topics of curiosity. One pertains to the peer overview course of. It seems that one of many peer reviewers made a run at getting the paper blocked, with out stating the character of any substantive criticisms:
One of many reviewers acknowledged that “The manuscript incorporates basic errors that can’t be rectified via writer revisions” with out venturing into any particulars.
Fekete calls this effort “unscientific, unjust, and unethical,” which is once more fairly an understatement. Sadly, such conduct is the norm in what goes by the title “local weather science” right now. Fortuitously, on this case, one other reviewer was supportive, as was the workers of the journal.
The second topic of additional curiosity within the weblog put up is that one other reviewer criticized the draft paper for alleged “lack of references to the “plethora of labor” associated to integrating renewables to the present power programs and transitioning to a sustainable power future.” The criticism brought about the authors to “roll up their sleeves” and exit and overview some 360 papers advisable by the critic. Here’s a record of what they discovered:
- The inter-annual and seasonal differences have been not often studied.
- The overwhelming majority of the research have been restricted to diurnal and minute-by-minute variations.
- The publications solely investigated the usage of few hourly storage capacities.
- The first sustainability metric was lowering CO2 emissions.
- A lot of the publications have been restricted to low renewable penetration.
- No publication tried to deal with full decarbonization.
- Even probably the most formidable “deep decarbonization” eventualities stopped at 25-50% renewable contributions that was thought of “excessive renewable penetration”.
And in abstract:
A lot of the reviewed papers assumed that photo voltaic and wind shall be at all times supplemented by some type of “agency technology capability”, which is the obfuscated title of utilizing fossil fuels complemented with “carbon seize and sequestration”.
In different phrases, the orthodox “peer reviewed” scientific literature is nearly fully missing in consideration of a very powerful, basic drawback of transitioning to an power system based mostly on electrical energy generated by the wind and solar. Properly, now there may be one competent paper within the combine. They’ll do their finest to disregard it, no less than till the entire wind/photo voltaic factor has conclusively proven that it may possibly’t work.
