Material Requirements by Energy Source - surprising data

[SubieRubyRoo]

Obviously hydro is easy to see why there’s a lot of material involved. But the almost exponential overall material increase needed to go all the way to solar really blew my mind. And these are actual DOE numbers they’ve known for at least a decade at this point! Now, it makes more sense why the estimates I’ve read for the “full transition to de-carbonization” carries a price tag of over $50T in the next 20 years.

It also really reinforces the easily apparent stupidity of pursuing these blindly when you look at what is used now combined with some of the newer nuclear technologies that @OVERKILL has posted about from the Canadian side. After looking at this, it may be slight hyperbole, but the plan appears to be to turn the earth into a big pothole to get enough materials out of it, in order to “save” it. This is really sad.

 

[Vercingetorix]

This if for the plant only? The last 4 require an external energy source that needs to be included in the material requirements.

 

[SC Maintenance]

A very interesting chart - but material is one small piece of the puzzle. Materials are usually only a small fraction of the cost of even the construction, let alone running one of these plants.

I did enjoy your "plan appears to be to turn the earth into a big pothole to get enough materials out of it, in order to “save” it." I will be using this quote in the future.

 

[Snagglefoot]

“ We had to destroy the town to save it”

 

[D60]

Why is geothermal so steel intensive? Just drill pipe?

Living in the gas patch I'd expect natural gas to be more steel intensive (nothing but buried pipelines and pump jacks around me).

Also, what's all the concrete for wind? Just foundations? I'd also expect wind to use more steel as the turbines are huge and almost exclusively steel. I remember ~20 years ago scrapyards were saying nearly all scrap steel was going back into the manufacture of turbines.

Which raises another point: the recyclability (sp?) of the materials used. Steel can be infinitely recycled. Concrete, I don't think so?

 

[Snagglefoot]

Why is geothermal so steel intensive? Just drill pipe?

Living in the gas patch I'd expect natural gas to be more steel intensive (nothing but buried pipelines and pump jacks around me).

Also, what's all the concrete for wind? Just foundations? I'd also expect wind to use more steel as the turbines are huge and almost exclusively steel. I remember ~20 years ago scrapyards were saying nearly all scrap steel was going back into the manufacture of turbines.

Which raises another point: the recyclability (sp?) of the materials used. Steel can be infinitely recycled. Concrete, I don't think so?

For concrete, this.

For geothermal. Drillpipe is used to drill the hole and is removed, then steel “casing” is cemented in place. There may be several “ strings” of casing cemented in place. None of it is removed.

 

[dnewton3]

I'm not familiar with the source document of the chart, but the DoE would (hopefully) apply some logic to the magnitude of the consumables.

Whereas one single natural gas or nuke plant would supply tens of thousands of homes and businesses, if the power supply were to shift to solar for those same consumer locations, and each location needed multiple solar panels on each roof ... well, you can see where the material resource costs really stack up (literally and figuratively) against solar. Solar is free and moderately abundant (much more or less depending on location). But the energy of harvested solar energy isn't really a power-dense product; it takes a lot of solar panels to fully power even a modest home. And don't forget all the batteries needed for 'round-the-clock demand; that also plays into the resource consumption.


This just further reinforces to me that we need to get over our phobia of nuclear energy and commit to it. It's very power dense, very safe, and very abundant. It also consumes a very low amount of raw and finished materials.

 

[OVERKILL]

This if for the plant only? The last 4 require an external energy source that needs to be included in the material requirements.

This graph covers that:

 

[GMBoy]

I'm not familiar with the source document of the chart, but the DoE would (hopefully) apply some logic to the magnitude of the consumables.

Whereas one single natural gas or nuke plant would supply tens of thousands of homes and businesses, if the power supply were to shift to solar for those same consumer locations, and each location needed multiple solar panels on each roof ... well, you can see where the material resource costs really stack up (literally and figuratively) against solar. Solar is free and moderately abundant (much more or less depending on location). But the energy of harvested solar energy isn't really a power-dense product; it takes a lot of solar panels to fully power even a modest home. And don't forget all the batteries needed for 'round-the-clock demand; that also plays into the resource consumption.


This just further reinforces to me that we need to get over our phobia of nuclear energy and commit to it. It's very power dense, very safe, and very abundant. It also consumes a very low amount of raw and finished materials.

I agree with you on the nuclear point - build nuclear plants and with all the concrete saved can make a heck of a safe storage for the waste. It is even possible to build several of these in remote desert areas and power line the power where it needs to be across the country? I know they are normally on water for cooling but perhaps we could make man made water cooling lakes? 99% of the lakes in Tx are man made.

 

[Cujet]

it takes a lot of solar panels to fully power even a modest home. And don't forget all the batteries needed for 'round-the-clock demand;

The participants in this thread are high bandwidth individuals who understand the situation clearly, without the impressive charts and graphs.

I have some solar, and enjoy playing with PV panels. My conclusion is identical to what the above charts seem to indicate, nuclear power is the only viable way forward.

A family member who 'believes" tried to heat-pump and Tesla solar his way into energy independence in the North East tip of the United States. With only 2.2 hours of daily Solar Insolation available in winter months. The 10kW panels often produce a whopping 450 watts mid-day due to gloomy conditions.

My point: Not practical to use solar where massive heat is needed. Might be worthwhile and inexpensive to have a small PV setup (say 3000W) in FL (or the SouthWest) to offset what the AC uses during the day.

 

[sloinker]

I will play the devil's advocate. With the exception of Nukes, the efficiency of carbon based energy is easily recognized. The wrong argument is being applied. The reduction of greenhouse gas is the goal. Whether you like it or not. I don't know if anyone else has noticed how more extreme the weather has become over the last decade. Is it climate change? Probably. I'm in the camp that we are too late to affect the eventual outcome, so we may as well continue using the cheapest available energy sources. Your grandchildren are going to live in some severe suckage. Too late.

 

[wag123]

My conclusion is identical to what the above charts seem to indicate, nuclear power is the only viable way forward.

I agree with you.
Unfortunately, expanding nuclear power generation is not currently politically or economically viable.
I still believe that geothermal power generation is the answer for the near term. It is technologically viable, it is not cost prohibitive, it is not problematic for environmentalists, private industry in Texas is moving forward with development (on their dime), and it has strong political support from the State (as well as possible financial support from Texas, we will see next year).

 

[Langanobob]

Why is geothermal so steel intensive? Just drill pipe?

Living in the gas patch I'd expect natural gas to be more steel intensive (nothing but buried pipelines and pump jacks around me).

Also, what's all the concrete for wind? Just foundations? I'd also expect wind to use more steel as the turbines are huge and almost exclusively steel. I remember ~20 years ago scrapyards were saying nearly all scrap steel was going back into the manufacture of turbines.

Which raises another point: the recyclability (sp?) of the materials used. Steel can be infinitely recycled. Concrete, I don't think so?

The geothermal wells can be a distance from the plant, requiring steel pipelines. And, after the electricity is generated, the spent geothermal fluids have to be piped to reinjection wells, which need to be a distance from the production wells to keep from cooling the not fluids.

I kind of suspect that the cost of natural gas pipelines was not factored into the material cost of gas burning plants.

 

[Snagglefoot]

I will play the devil's advocate. With the exception of Nukes, the efficiency of carbon based energy is easily recognized. The wrong argument is being applied. The reduction of greenhouse gas is the goal. Whether you like it or not. I don't know if anyone else has noticed how more extreme the weather has become over the last decade. Is it climate change? Probably. I'm in the camp that we are too late to affect the eventual outcome, so we may as well continue using the cheapest available energy sources. Your grandchildren are going to live in some severe suckage. Too late.

I agree. I’ll mention one more thing. Most of politicians of the developed world have jumped on the anti-carbon bus. The US is a bit of a potential hold out, the Ukrainians don’t have time to worry about it and Hammas isn’t interested in it unless carbon is something you can eat.

 

[SubieRubyRoo]

I will play the devil's advocate. With the exception of Nukes, the efficiency of carbon based energy is easily recognized. The wrong argument is being applied. The reduction of greenhouse gas is the goal. Whether you like it or not. I don't know if anyone else has noticed how more extreme the weather has become over the last decade. Is it climate change? Probably. I'm in the camp that we are too late to affect the eventual outcome, so we may as well continue using the cheapest available energy sources. Your grandchildren are going to live in some severe suckage. Too late.

It’s not though. I don’t want to get too much into anything that will require a mod to step in, but do your own research on solar cycles, solar activity, and the Van Wijngaarden and Happer Radiative Transfer Paper for Five Greenhouse Gases Explained.

TL;DR: the infrared absorption can only increase slightly even if CO2 is doubled, if it was already blocking all of the radiative energy from the Earth.
https://co2coalition.org/publicatio...er-paper-for-five-greenhouse-gases-explained/

Looking at historical charts of temperature vs CO2, temperature rises first, and then CO2 follows. Seems it has to do with Milankovitch cycles, and here’s what one study said:

What seems to have happened at the end of the recent ice ages is that some factor – most probably orbital changes – caused a rise in temperature. This led to an increase in CO2, resulting in further warming that caused more CO2 to be released and so on: a positive feedback that amplified a small change in temperature. At some point, the shrinking of the ice sheets further amplified the warming.”

So, in my opinion, these things point to, yes, climate is changing. Always has, always will. But it has nothing to do with man, or our emissions. The Sun, and how the Earth moves in its orbit around the Sun are about 95% responsible for the climate and the change. The next chunk is the amount of water vapor in the air which is a huge heat sink as we all know, and then waaaaay down at the bottom we have at 0.04% of the atmosphere, CO2. And man is responsible for 3% of that 0.04%.

Any “severe suckage” was going to happen anyways. That’s my take.

 

[Cujet]

Any “severe suckage” was going to happen anyways. That’s my take.

Many are unaware that in 3,300 years, all glaciers and land ice will have melted, regardless of the anthropomorphic CO2. The best we can say is that 'maybe' we've sped that up by one quarter.

The Milankovich cycles are one part of the equation, for sure, solar output/storms are another.

But my point remains, nuclear power is the only viable source of sufficient energy to accomplish certain tasks. Namely pulling 25% of the Carbon from the atmosphere, without sequestering Oxygen. In other words, to store the Carbon, as Carbon. The secondary part of this equation is that nukes can produce liquid fuels for portable needs without atmospheric risk.

If it's not clear by now, batteries do not have the energy density to fly planes.