I have been an engineer in the petroleum industry for all of my adult life, 44 years now. Much of that time was spent in finance and economics. Engineering after all is the application of physical sciences to feasible economic ends.
What the author describes are scoping studies, a broad brush of work to as much detail as practical with an attempt to provide equal assumptions and accuracy to all of the alternatives so as to see which, if any, merits more work to develop. The wheat is separated from the chaff and then if there is any wheat it gets ground into flour so-to-speak.
Most options fall apart on cursory inspection. This fool hardy idea of carbon zero life as we know it needs to be forgotten in favor of something else like Thorium based and distributed electric power.
Even without all these calculations the author mentions the idea of carbon zero life via wind, solar and batteries is a failure if you require it to be economic and efficient. As for the economic assumptions, when did the cost of anything in enforced and massively increased demand ever come down in cost? No scoping study cost I have ever seen went down.
We have 1.2 billion killowats of installed electric generating capacity in a single system consisting of coal, natural gas, hydroelectric, nuclear, solar and wind. It is complex but not nearly so complex as a zero carbon system would be. How many Texas winter of 2021 events are necessary to demonstrate the folly of solar and wind power? Answer, infinite numbers without good sense applied. How about Germany or Denmark where pollution went up when wind conversion went full swing because of all the spinning fossil power reserve that was needed to back-up periods of insufficient wind? Oh right, batteries will take up the slack. By-the-way, batteries mean you must also have a sufficient excess of power generated to charge them as well as meet base load demands.
Zero carbon requires MULTIPLE and nearly completely duplicate sources of power. By inspection, any fool should be able to see that such a system is vastly more costly and less reliable than the system we already have in place.
Sadly though this is not a debate of reason but reason attempting to sway emotion and hidden agendas of the zero carbon crowd who can only think with all they have, a heart instead of a brain.
Never mind that this issue is one of throwing away something that works to take a headlong rush down a dark tunnel that is probably just a dead end and for no good reason. Don’t look now but global temps are moderating. The world has been right here and worse many times before. It is the sun that controls our temperatures but having that argument with non-thinkers is also a waste of time.
Whole hog conversion to carbon zero is the same as scrapping your perfectly good IC car that does all you need for some expensive pie-in-the sky less capable alternative.
50 percent of the people you went to school with were in the lower half of the class, they still are. At least half of the other half were marginal thinkers at best.
We are doomed.
Very good post.
Thanks for the great reply. I am an electrical engineer, though in satellite communications systems, not power related. All I see in this zero carbon push is fear mongering and emotion. It appeals most to those who only want to tear down the existing system just for the sake of tearing it down.
Great post.
“scrapping your perfectly good IC car”
Used cars aren’t cheap.
The ICE car will be used until its repair costs creep up, just as now.
There are about 130 million cars and light trucks on US roads. It will take many years to replace them.
Over 100 million ICE vehicles will still be rolling on US roads when Joe Biden starts pushing up daisies.
Excellent analysis ... especially the observation about the “lower half of the class”, etc.