Crunch Time for Renewable Energy Deployment

Almost seven years ago, I wrote:

When we arrive the limit of VRE (60%? 90%?) we have to either keep the fossil fuel plants going, driving the warming of the world, turn out the lights (or life-support) somewhere, or find something else to fill the gap.

And Trump and Netanyahu’s ill-considered war on Iran are bringing us to face that limit.

Since it is now relevant, I will reproduce the whole post here:

It is a commonplace on that we are building no more nuclear plants and shutting down existing plants because they are too expensive. But…

They are more expensive than wind and solar – variable renewable energy (VRE.) Good, fine. But VRE has its limits, and somewhere between 60% and 90% of grid power, and something more reliable is needed for the balance, either fossil energy, large-scale long-term storage, large-scale hydro, or nuclear. Right now, that something is fossil energy, derived from natural gas and coal, both environmental problems. Natural gas plants is what we currently building and we have to stop burning natural gas. Not only is it a fossil fuel, and therefore a contributor to carbon emissions, it is itself a potent greenhouse gas, though a less persistent one than CO₂.

So, a bit of qualitative economic modeling. While we are building the smart grid, everything is fine for a while. VRE is ramping up and fossil fuel plants are shutting down. But when we arrive the limit of VRE (60%? 90%?) we have to either keep the fossil fuel plants going, driving the warming of the world, turn out the lights (or life-support) somewhere, or find something else to fill in the gap. By that time it will be very late and the necessary work will be very expensive. It would be wiser to start investing and researching now.

Trump and Netanyahu’s war has brought us to a situation where 20% of the world’s oil supply is bottled up in the Persian Gulf. If the war continues–and none of the participants show signs of backing down–the price of crude oil is expected to double over time. Other raw materials are bottled up in the Gulf as well, fertilizer, and helium, important for chip manufacture.

Faced with the worst energy crisis in history, some countries, at least, will be turning to renewables, and there the limitations of variable renewable energy will be felt. We don’t yet have the smart grid, required to equitably distribute energy from diffuse wind and solar power. We don’t yet have plans for balancing the seasonal variability of these sources with stable baseload power. The Trump administration is in the process of shutting down, or at least redirecting, the National Renewable Energy Lab, one of the premier research institutions in this area. And China, the major supplier of photovoltaics and electric cars, is relying on slave labor to produce them.

This is the situation I foresaw almost seven years ago. I never dreamed it would come about so soon; I expected another generation of delay. But we are here now, and must deal.