An observation from a Swedish engineer:
“The notion that a nation can run on sunshine and breezes is worse than delusional.
People might fall for the idea that we can merrily run on sunshine and breezes, alone, but with a few trillion dollars worth of mythical mega-batteries providing backup for a few minutes, when the sun sets and the wind stops blowing.
A two-megawatt w!ndmill is made up of 260 tons of steel that required 300 tons or iron ore and 170 tons of coking coal, all mined, transported and produced by hydrocarbons.
A w!ndmill could spin until it falls apart and never generate as much energy as was invested in building it.”
Uncle Clif claimed in a vidya that if you dug up 100% of the worlds lithium (even the stuff far below the mantle) and made a huge battery it would power the planetary electrical needs (and only the electrical needs, not energy needs) for 22 minutes.
Just think of all that glorious diesel making all this possible.