determine what percentage of a baseload grid can be reasonably managed with stochastic sources like PV. It is not remotely 100% and is probably under 30%. Therefore, at least for the time being, what does happen with the scaling of ‘renewables’ is that some fuel (coal and gas) is saved from being burned while the sun shines and the wind blows. Yet there has been no detectable down- ratchet in fossil energy use as “renewables” have b een added; either society has just found other energy stuff to do with the “saved” coal and gas, or it’s having the effect of slightly slowing the annual fossil energy increase. In the absence of a new cultural metric displacing GDP, modern renewables will largely function as FFEMs - fossil fuel extension mechanisms - as the infrastructure and capacity remains geared to 24-7 production/consumption of products in global supply chains.
where the panels are made versus where they are used...
TaaL: At this point, your rebuildable energy capturing devices (like solar panels and windmills) are, at best, extending fossil energy by trading a lesser amount of higher-quality dispatchable energy for a greater number of watts of intermittent, slow-payback e nergy (photovoltaics and wind). There’s certainly no indication they have much altered your human carbon-burning extravaganza, which is linked to growth of the superorganism. Bottom line, you need two things simultaneously: fossil-fuel extending mechanisms, like wind and PV, AND some mechanism to require the rest of the human species to stop extracting coal from the ground. One without the other is a dancer without a dance. Hitherto “stopping coal” – while necessary to save the currently-extant biosphere denizens – would impact GDP and the musical chairs of financial claims underlying it. Until building renewables and stopping coal extraction happen together, FFEM’s will be just one more thing your cultures do to expand total energy use, footprint, and impact.
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