I recently heard Dmitry Orlov speaking to Jim Kunstler regarding the Dunbar Number in which he came up with the term ‘Thermodynamic Trap’. As the ERoEI of every energy source known to humanity starts collapsing over the energy cliff, I thought it was more like a thermodynamic black hole, sucking all the energy into itself at an accelerating pace… and if you ever needed proof of this blackhole, then Alice Friedemann’s latest book, “When the trucks stop running” should do the trick.
Alice Friedemann
Chris Martenson interviewed Alice in August 2016 about the future of the trucking industry in the face of Peak Oil, especially now the giant Bakken shale oil field in the US has peaked, joining the conventional oil sources. This podcast is available for download here.
Alice sees no solutions through running trucks with alternative energy sources or fuels. I see an increasing number of stories about electric trucks, but none of them make any sense because the weight of the batteries needed to move such large vehicles, especially the long haul variety, is so great it hardly leaves space for freight.
A semi trailer hauling 40 tonnes 1000km needs 1000L of liquid fuel to achieve the task. That’s 10,000kWh of electric energy equivalent. Just going by the Tesla Wall data sheet, a 6.4kWh battery pack weighs in at 97kg. So at this rate, 10,000kWh would weigh 150 tonnes….. so even to reduce the weight of the battery bank down to the 40 tonne carrying capacity of the truck, efficiency would have to be improved four fold, and you still wouldn’t have space for freight..
There are not enough materials on the entire planet to make enough battery storage to replace oil, except for Sodium Sulfur batteries, a technology I had never heard of before. A quick Google found this…..:
The active materials in a Na/S battery are molten sulfur as the positive electrode and molten sodium as the negative. The electrodes are separated by a solid ceramic, sodium alumina, which also serves as the electrolyte. This ceramic allows only positively charged sodium-ions to pass through. During discharge electrons are stripped off the sodium metal (one negatively charged electron for every sodium atom) leading to formation of the sodium-ions that then move through the electrolyte to the positive electrode compartment. The electrons that are stripped off the sodium metal move through the circuit and then back into the battery at the positive electrode, where they are taken up by the molten sulfur to form polysulfide. The positively charged sodium-ions moving into the positive electrode compartment balance the electron charge flow. During charge this process is reversed. The battery must be kept hot (typically > 300 ºC) to facilitate the process (i.e., independent heaters are part of the battery system). In general Na/S cells are highly efficient (typically 89%).
Conclusion
Na/S battery technology has been demonstrated at over 190 sites in Japan. More than 270 MW of stored energy suitable for 6 hours of daily peak shaving have been installed. The largest Na/S installation is a 34-MW, 245-MWh unit for wind stabilization in Northern Japan. The demand for Na/S batteries as an effective means of stabilizing renewable energy output and providing ancillary services is expanding. U.S. utilities have deployed 9 MW for peak shaving, backup power, firming windcapacity, and other applications. Projections indicate that development of an additional 9 MW is in-progress.
I immediately see a problem with keeping batteries at over 300° in a post fossil fuel era… but there’s more….
Alice has worked out that Na/S battery storage for just one day of US electricity generation would weigh 450 million tons, cover 923 square miles (2390km², or roughly the area of the whole of the Australian Capital Territory!), and cost 41 trillion dollars….. and according to European authorities, 6 to 30 days of storage is what would be required in the real world.
The disruption to the supply lines of our ‘just in time’ world caused by trucks no longer running is too much to even think about.
Empty supermarket shelves, petrol stations with no petrol, even ATMs with no money and pubs with no beer come to mind. I remember seeing signs on the Bruce highway back in Queensland stating “Trucks keep Australia going”. Well, oil keeps trucks running; for how much longer is the real question.
Damn the Matrix 
It should be painfully obvious to anyone that you aren’t going to run this population level without the energy (i.e. fossil fuel) inputs. Of course it isn’t though, techo-hubris reigns supreme as usual.
BTW, semi trailers actually get between 20-50 litres per 100 km fuel consumption on average, not 100 litres per 100 km (source, know some dudes who run semis).
Also, Dmitry Orlov is a total nutjob. Lost any credibility he had when he proclaimed Sandy Hook to be a “false flag operation” with “crisis actors”. Seriously? WTF. I stopped reading his blog at that point and have never been back.
Kunstler is a nutter too, but at least he’s eloquent and entertaining. Plus he correctly called the US sub-prime crisis well ahead of time.
My brother in law used to drive semis between Brisbane and Sydney, and he told me that they do one litre per kilometre.
Ha, you’re bang on RE Orlov & Kunstler.! 😀
I also don’t bother with Orlov no more, but Kunstler’s still my Tuesday breakfast blast of big words and bigger cheek… as you noted he’s just soo darn entertaining!
I was thinking of listening to the latest Kunstler Cast to see if Orlov was still wearing the tin-foil hat or not…
P.S. I’m sure you’re familiar with Tom Murphy’s excellent blog, but here’s a link WRT storage to refresh your memory:
http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/08/nation-sized-battery/
In short, it ain’t gonna happen. Move on, nothing to see here.
As for storage… a good post here by physicist Tom Murphy on using pumped hydro as a ‘battery’ just for the US
http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/11/pump-up-the-storage/
as he points out, it’s ludicrous as a fossil fuel replacement, the scale is beyond breathtaking 🙂
Slowly you come to realize our capitalist system is not at all robust. Robustness is the enemy of efficiency and has been gotten rid of. Energy, particularly energy for transport, is the most obvious but there are many more critical fragile systems.
Here at Public Research Institute we created an energy model of the US economy. Thanks to improvements in manufacturing technology the EROEI of PV is now >56. NGK insulators solved the reliability problems with NaS batteries and now offer them containerized in TIUs. The Danes / Chinese now offer 1Mwe direct drive wind turbines at <$1/watt.
We found that emplacement of 6kwe of PV on the roof of every house, 50Kwe of PV on the roofs of every farmstead, 1 – 1Mwe direct drive wind turbine on every farmstead, with 2Mwe of NaS storage at every farmstead, and 50Kwe of NaS storage in the garden of every house, was sufficient to run the US economy including the industrial sector, IF we converted all homes to PassivHaus standard and improved the energy efficiency of all commercial buildings to half that of the Bullit Building in Seattle. Our model also envisions 95% of all freight ton-miles carried by dual track electrified rail. and 50 wind fuels plants of 100,000 Bbl/day capacity providing the remaining liquid fuels requirement using atmospheric CO2 and excess renewable electrical energy.
For a copy of this study in xls format, write us at indy@pri.asia
INDY
And with which fossil fuels and what money will you do this with…….? The world is already bankrupt, and the ERoEI of the fossil fuels needed to achieve the tasks you describe is falling off a cliff….
Oh and PV ERoEI >56? You’ve obviously left out a whole lot of inputs, which is why there is so much discrepency between your results and those of other who leave nothing out, like Pietro and Hall.
PassivHaus conversion $$3 trillion. Eliminates all heating demand.
Installation of PV-NaS systems on all US housing 2.8 Twh.
Installation of PV-NaS systems on all US commercial buildings 4 Twh
Installation of PV-NaS systems on all US farms 3.6Twh
Total US NaS capacity 1,5 Twe
Total US PV capacity 2.2 Twe
Total US wind capacity 1.75 Twe
Total US hydro capacity 0.2 Twe
Total US geothermal capacity 0.5 Twe
Total US pumped storage capacity 0.022 Twe
Total US eletricity capacity 6 Twe.
One other thing…. The US can never run out of money………
The USG is the monopoly issuer of the USD$$$. If USG can create $$17 trillion to bail out the banks………. it can create the $$$ needed to convert to renewable energy…….
BTW……… we are quantative……….. we do the math………. we use historical Solar Insolation and Wind data in our models……… We verify………
You?????
Bardi????
Orlov??????????
Ah yes……. US exceptionalism.
I hate to tell you, but the US is bankrupt, and will soon go down the toilet.
For more about sovereign currency issuers, including the non-issue raised above, visit Dr. Bill Mitchell’s blog…….
http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/
There you will find that the US is not financially bankrupt. USG can always pay it’s debt via issuance of currency BECAUSE ALL US DEBT IS DENOMINATED IN THE US DOLLAR.
if there is any bankruptcy in the US……… is a bankruptcy of ideas, vision, and leadership!
INDY
The trouble is, last time I looked The US was still on planet Earth, and when the rest of the world goes tits up, likle China and Australia and Europe, the US will go the same way…….
Besides, the biggest problem facing the financial world is NOT government debt, it’s private debt. Once people can no longer afford to spend in the economy because they are flat out servicing their debts, the economy tanks, then they lose their jobs, and then they can’t service their debts anymore, and the entire show goes down the toilet. Bankrupt. The whole world is bankrupt, INCLUDING the USA…….
This is nothing special to the USA, he’s just using it as an example. No nation with its own sovereign, floating, fiat currency can run out of that currency. Providing that it does not borrow excessively in foreign currency denominations, it will never be incapable of repaying its debt.
Also, just where did anyone get the idea that China is going in the same direction economically as Auz and the EU????
The PRC economy is managed by the government thereof, using marxian economic principles, including key components of MMT.
The economies of the EU, USA, and Auz are managed using neo-liberal/neoclassical economic principles, which glorifies private ownership of almost every aspect of those economies.
For example, much has been said regarding the imminent collapse of PRC banks, with claims that the debt ratios are too high, the realestate market is going to crash, doom is coming. Those claims are hogwash because all PRC banks are arms of the government, have access to unlimited funds from the treasury, and have unlimited ability to write off bad loans. In other words, PRC bank lending is government policy to stimulate sectors of the economy, occurs with full support of the government, and is subsidized by the government, and is in Reminbi, which the PRC can create in infinite amounts….. at will………..
The Russian and Iranian economies are moving in the direction taken by the PRC, under it’s influence, because they can see how effective those policies are.
The issues lying before us have nothing to do with Mikestasse’s wailing….. They are anthropogenic climate change, impending collapse of petrofuel production in the G-7, due to depletion, and canibalization of infrastructure for the purpose of maintaining hegemony.
For example, virtually all US infrastructure was built during the Roosevelt and Eisenhower administrations, including water supply, highways, railways, sewage treatment plants, power stations, electrical distribution system, bridges, tunnels, pipelines, refineries, buildings. This stuff is 60-80 years old!
It’s falling apart! Yet, the congress seems oblivious to the pressing need to refurbish it! They prefer to put money into Zumwalt Destroyers which don’t work, F-35 airplanes which don’t work, Tanks which are obsolete, artillery which is obsolete, an army which can’t win wars, an airforce whose most effective strike aircraft has the performance envelope of a Cessna 180, a navy whose major strike arm can be destroyed anywhere by a missile guided by satellite targeting.
As I said earlier, what is in short supply is vision, ideas, pragmatism.
Battery storage is proving very useful and cost effective on the time scale of hours and the weight scale of cars. It’s early days yet, but these are solved problems with a very rapid technology adoption curve.
With cars and diurnal cycles taken care of, the challenge of seasonal variation and long haul freight won’t look so daunting. B
But there are several solutions in the offing, one of which, synthetic fuels, is more than adequate as an existence proof.
Liquid alkane fuel, indistinguishable from the primary constituents of petroleum derived fuel products (but of superior purity) can be manufactured using electricity, water and air.
Thank you Johnathan for bringing this discussion to matters of the state of the art in respect to energies.
NGK Insulator solved their fire problems with NaS batteries, and provide such batteries for stationary applications in sizes from 50Kwe up to 50Mwe. The larger batteries are containerized (enclosed in standard 20ft shipping containers) and designed to be trucked to the site, mounted on a slab, and connected to the grid using standard connectors.
Recent breakthroughs in catalytic conversion of CO2 & H2O to Ethanes and Propanes make it practical to create liquid fuels from those feedstocks using energy sourced in wind turbines and PV arrays.
Our energy model of a carbon neutral USA economy included production of 3MmBbl/day of such fuels at 30 plants rated at 100,000Bbl/day mostly located in the plains, southwest, Pacific Coast, and Atlantic Coast.
There is no free lunch, however, as efficiency of this process is ~50%, which specifically means the fuel produced contains half the energy input to the process, with the balance lost as heat.
Regarding claims postulating the necessity of 6 or more days storage……
We at PRI find it amusing that in an age wherein the computing power of a laptop exceeds by an order of magnitude that contained in the CDC 6600 Cyber Super Computer we used in the 70s, no one has chosen to use the extensive wind and solar insolation data collected by NASA to back test demand vs supply under postulated topologies of renewable power sources.
Instead we get WAGs claiming impossibility due to the need for monstrous storage. RUBBISH!!!!
Renewable power works! We at PRI use it every day! The computer I’m writing on is powered with it! It’s 3 am here……… dark as hades……. but the ship has power……… my computer has power……. and tomorrow, cloudy or not, the 920 watt PV array will run the ship, and produce enough to charge the batteries fully, as it has been doing for years!
INDY
Of course renewables work……. I use them too. But they will never run the world as we know it.
BTW, what is your definition of a WAG?
A WAG is a wild assed guess……….. which is exactly what you are touting.
We did the numbers……. renewables can run the USA economy at the current state of the art, including the industrial sector using 20 Quads vs the current 90 Quads.
Of course 95% of all ton-miles need be on electrified double tracked rail.
Motive power on farms need be shifted to Elsbett Diesel Engines powered by SVO. Housing need be converted to PassivHaus Standard. Commercial buildings need be modernized to use no more than twice the power consumed by the Bullitt Building in Seattle.
But doing something takes work…………
INDY
I don’t know how you can say Alice Friedemann or Charles Barnhart are a wild assed guessers……
To give you an idea of how far utility energy storage is from being able to store just one day of U.S. electricity generation (11.12 TWh), I used
(DOE/EPRI 2013) energy storage
handbook “Electricity storage handbook in collaboration with NRECA”, to calculate the cost, size, and weight of NaS batteries capable of storing 24 hours of electricity generation in the United States. The cost would be $40.77 trillion dollars, cover 923 square miles, and weigh a husky 450 million tons.
Sodium Sulfur (NaS) Battery Cost Calculation:
NaS Battery 100 MW. Total Plant Cost (TPC) $316,796,550. Energy
Capacity @ rated depth-of-discharge 86.4 MWh. Size: 200,000 square feet.
Weight: 7000,000 lbs, Battery replacement 15 years (DOE/EPRI p. 245).
128,700 NaS batteries needed for 1 day of storage = 11.12 TWh/0.0000864 TWh.
$40.77 trillion dollars to replace the battery every 15 years = 128,700 NaS * $316,796,550 TPC.
923 square miles = 200,000 square feet * 128,700 NaS batteries.
450 million short tons = 7,000,000 lbs * 128,700 batteries/2000 lbs.
Total Economy Wide NaS Battery Power Storage Twh 54.69
Days of storage 1.75
Energy Required To Replace PV-NaS Systems assuming 40 year life and replacement of 2.5% of systems annually Twh/yr 177
Recommended NaS Battery Size / farm 2.125 Mwe 12 TIUs stacked 2 high
Footprint 20’x48′
OR 2 package units Footprint 30’x28′
2 million farm batteries needed
NaS Battery Size / house – 1 — 15 Kwe module footprint 2’x2′ 90 Kwh
125 million house batteries needed
Note: Your costs are too high….. mass production of batteries will bring them down by an order of magnitude or more.
INDY
There’s no need to store an entire day’s electricity use for renewables to supply electricity for an entire day. There are already days like that — wind can be blowing near full capacity for days on end. In most countries, for most of the year, peak demand occurs during daylight hours. There is effectively no need (and therefore zero cost) to store any solar energy at all, as long as instantaneous demand exceeds instantaneous generation during the day.
Generation is cheaper than storage: progressively overbuilt solar and wind generation can cover more and more hours of the year without needing to store any of the excess at all.
Electric energy storage begins not as baseload but as arbitrage, able to profit (effectively, if not literally) from any gap between high energy costs at peak hours and low energy costs off peak. We already did this with a grid in which all generation was dispatchable, heating water in homes and pumping it uphill in pumped hydro facilities. We will do it more, and more effectively, with newer storage technologies and as the gap between peak and off peak becomes more clearly defined by the relative availability of cheap intermittent generation than by the internal economic penalty for ramping down large thermal generation when demand is low.
For the purpose of retiring fossil fuelled electricity generation, electricity storage only needs to cover the gaps when intermittent generation, plus hydro and whatever other dispatchable renewables might be available, falls short of instantaneous demand. It doesn’t even need to do much of that to begin with, as that “residual” demand is, and will continue to be, covered by (ever-dwindling) fossil-fuelled generation for as long as the transition lasts.
Assumptions:
1. All US housing is converted to PassivHaus Standard. (houses have been converted to this standard,
worldwide, so the techonologies, and techniques are known, and the required products to convert exist)
2. All lighting nationwide is converted to LED.(conversion is happening now, the products exist, I bought
enough of them to convert Pegasus in toto).
3. All cooking is electric & refrigeration/aircon is of the holdover plate type, operating during the day.
(existing technologies, products currently available)
4. All computer systems and electronics are converted to super energy efficient ones.(my computer uses
80watts and runs on 12 vdc, it is made from standard parts available today)
5. Each dwelling has one EV, which is used only on weekends for shopping/recreation trips, for a max of 100
miles, or one recharge(a sop on my part to the Americans, in France they commute on bicycles, or walk)
6. All commuting is via walking/bicycling to the nearest public transport stop, thence by public transport to
destination.(current French practice, ditto for Russia)
7. All public transport is electric.(current practice in Russia, China, EU,)
8. All rail transport is electric.(current practice in Russia, China, EU,)
9. 95% of all freight movements are by rail(achieved by the US in WWII)
10. The full GeoThermal potential of the US is realized( possible with existing technology and equipment,
and ongoing)
11. The full Hydro potential of the US is realized, including conversion of existing dams to produce
electricity. ( Idaho NREL has a database showing the dams)
12. The Grid is improved to the point power can be wheeled nationwide( possible, and ongoing in China)
13. Each dwelling has 16 hours storage capacity(curent practice in non-grid renewable systems, such as
yachts, I showed sufficient material, Sodium and Sulfur, to do this)
14. All PV is grid connected. (current practice)
15. All suitable commercial roof space is occupied with PV(USDOE analyzed the roof space, the numbers
are from their analysis)
16. Each dwelling has a solar hot water heating system(current practice worldwide)
17. Commercial energy efficiency is improved to half that of the Bullit Building in Seattle. (if they can do it,
so can everyone else)
18. Industrial energy consumption is halved via energy efficiency improvements. (if both the US Govt and
Bullit can reduce power consumption by 50-87%, industry can also be more energy efficient.
Assumptions:
1. All US housing is converted to PassivHaus Standard. (houses have been converted to this standard
How many times do I have to tell you……..??
CANNOT be done. Which part of cannot be done don’t you understand?
There are 4 million commercial buildings in the US
They would each need an average 700kwe of NaS battery storage, or one 4TIU battery bank occupying 20’x16′ on a slab outdoors.
Since the smallest current module made by NGK is 30kwe / 220kwh, one such
module in the garden of every detached house, and one such module for each group of 3 apartments, would provide nearly triple the modeled storage in this sector.
That is a 12 unit building’s storage can be met by a stack of 4 modules in one NEMA enclosure with a footprint of 3’x3′ and about 8′ high.
Larger buildings would use larger enclosures which exist in models stacking up to 8 modules high.
Production of batteries in mass quantities is currently done for vehicles with nearly 65 million batteries produced annually in the US alone.
NaS batteries are field servicable. Individual cells can be removed and replaced in the field. Modules and arrays can be instrumented to identify failures at their beginning, considerably reducing fire risk, and simplifying repair.
We analyzed the failure rates given the history of these batteries, and jobs would be created in the maintenance sector, staffed by personnel traveling in an EV with spares.
Maintenance workers would also be employed in servicing and replacing failed PV modules, and wind turbines.
The Power of One
Conversion to a Carbon Neutral Economy requires a paradigm shift in mindset. Massive central power stations give way to distributed power generation at point of use. The electrical distribution system moves power from millions of micro producers to countless consumers near and far, instead of from a handful of central power stations to millions of consumers in the service area.
Household PV power production:
There are 125 million homes in the USA. They occupy an area totaling 25 billion m2 . Let us assume each house is equipped with 6kwe of PV and one 30kwe NaS battery module occupying 1m2 of garden space , storing 220kwh of power.
In total US housing would produce 1300Twh/yr at an average 40Kwh/day/house and would store 27Twh in 4Twe of battery capacity, eliminating 2MBbl/day of fossil fuel consumption otherwise consumed in central power stations.
Commercial Sector PV power production:
There are 4.5 million commercial buildings in the USA. They occupy an area totaling 6 billion m2 . Let us assume each building is equipped with 280 kwe of PV and one 1400 kwe NaS battery module occupying 45m2 of garden space, storing 8 Mwh of power.
In total the US commercial sector would produce 2060 Twh/yr at an average 1800 Kwh/day/building and would store 46 Twh in 6 Twe of battery capacity, eliminating 4 MBbl/day of fossil fuel consumption otherwise consumed in central power stations.
Farm PV & Wind Power Production:
There are 2.2 million farms in the USA. They average 420 acres in size, most of which is open space. They have both dwellings and buildings for livestock and machinery storage, characterized by lots of roof space.
Let us assume each farm is equipped with 50 kwe of PV, one Enercon E-44 wind turbine rated at 800 kwe, and four 1200 kwe NaS battery modules occupying 180 m2 of farmstead space, storing 31 Mwh of power.
In total US farms would produce 4913 Twh/yr at an average 6175 Kwh/day/farm and would store 68 Twh in 9 Twe of battery capacity, eliminating 8 MBbl/day of fossil fuel consumption otherwise consumed in central power stations.
Summary:
The above 3 sectors, residential, commercial, and agricultural could under our assumptions provide 8273 Twh/yr. 141 Twh of this power would be stored in 19 Twe of battery capacity, providing 4.5 days of storage. This topolgy would save 14 Mbbl/day of fossil fuel consumption otherwise consumed in central power stations. These three sectors would field 2 Twe of PV and 1.74 Twe of wind turbines, providing 28 Quads/yr, 71% of the total 31 Quads/yr electricity supply needed to run the economy, including production of 3Mbbl/day of wind fuels for air/marine transportation.
The PassivHaus concept originated in Germany. The first PassivHaus was a converted building.
If the Germans who devised the concept achieved conformance with a building conversion, so can anyone choosing to do so.
Well, it seems you are wrong, again……. from Wikipedia…:
First examples
The eventual building of four row houses (terraced houses or town homes) was designed for four private clients by the architectural firm of Bott, Ridder and Westermeyer. The first Passivhaus residences were built in Darmstadt, Germany in 1990, and occupied by the clients the following year.
PassivHaus is a CONCEPT. Just like the 10 star house I am building. It’s very simple to achieve, and it’s not even more expensive to build than conventional housing, but if you have built a lemon, it will ALWAYS be a lemon. I have even found from personal experience that if you add insulation to a stupidly built house, you can make it WORSE by trapping heat in a hot climate…..
90% of houses are built on blocks of land never designed to build a PassivHaus on, blocks of the wrong shape and facing the wrong way. It’s just the way it is, get over it.
BTW, here are PassivHaus groups all over Australia, but they all build NEW houses…….
The cost of retrofitting to PassivHaus standards – 3 case studies
Conference Paper (PDF Available) · July 2011 .
Abstract:
The aim of this paper was to analyse the cost of retrofitting a Victorian house to PassivHaus standard. This paper is based on 3 real case studies including 100 Princedale Road PassivHaus retrofit, Midmoor Road (Prewett Bizley) and Hawthorn Road (AT Architects).
Apparently as of 2011 at least 3 buildings have been converted in the UK to
PassivHaus standard.
That is, conversion of existing buildings has been done in many countries, with multiple examples.
Again, missing is not money……… there is an infinite amount of that…….
Missing is vision, determination, and cojones……….
INDY
LINKS…?
OK, I found it…….
The building’s heating burden is now just 15 kWh of energy per m2
per year NOT BAD… my last house was rated just THREE. Yes, 3kWh/m2/year….. Our next house may well be ZERO…..
Further googling found “Research just published in the journal Energy & Buildings found the house consumes 62.5 kWh/m2/yr” Which is only about half the UK average of 130. Good, but hardly groundbreaking…… and it’s not meeting its rating.
I can’t find plans that show orientation. I would not be surprised if the houses were facing South, making it a lot easier to retrofit. There are houses that can be retrofitted, but like I said, 90% cannot.
Then there’s the cost. It cost £178,000! That’s THREE TIMES as much as what I expect our house to cost, building it from scratch…….
Now you need to see where I’m coming from. £178,000 = £178,000 of CONSUMPTION….. an enormous amount of fossil energy went into that retrofit, and now, another £178,000 worth of DEBT has been added to the UK’s already monstrous debt load. Someone is going to have to go to work to pay for it, earning wages that will encourage more consumption, and more greenhouse emissions. These are ALL inputs to the EI part of ERoEI for this. How long will it take to repay for itself?
There is no free lunch here.
Now I know building our new house will have a similar impact – though it will be about 1/3 as much, but I am not claiming to be doing it to save the world or fight climate change……. I’m doing it as a matter of survival, and stuff all the idiots who did nothing to stop growth over the past 45 years.
All this crap you go on about, turning the US into an emission free zone is just that, crap.
EVERY single NaS battery made, every wind turbine, every solar panel off the production line is MORE CO2. It’s that simple. Switching to all your wet green dreams will be the climate’s death knell……
And one other thing…… In 2014, the average UK dual fuel bill reached an eye watering £1,344. So to repay £178,000 will take over 130 years.
I can really see this catch on…….