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Energy transition: Even if it were technically possible, it would be very expensive
Dr. Daniel StelterJune 21, 2023
On Sunday (June 18, 2023) the podcast will be about the energy transition. We are going into the question of whether it is true that this energy transition is not technically a problem. That's what prominent figures claim. For example, from the energy expert Prof. Dr.-Ing. Michael Sterner from OTH Regensburg. He writes the following in his (heavily advertised) book and articles:
● “Wind and solar power are inherently dependent on the weather and therefore tend to fluctuate. However, we have learned over the decades to deal with it very well in our power grids, so that a high level of technical security of supply is always guaranteed and there are hardly any power outages due to renewable energies. (...) On the one hand, the problem of weather dependency is solved by a large network of regions in Europe , since there is always some wind blowing somewhere and there is solar power across the time zones." - bto: Here, however, we know that this is also the problem of the dark doldrums solved, because we would have to build up gigantic overcapacities across Europe for precisely this time and the networks are not even developed for this.
● “On the other hand, there are also renewable energies, such as hydropower, biogas plants and geothermal power plants, which are constant and flexible at the same time. Furthermore, more and more flexible back-up power plants are being used, which are still fired with coal and natural gas, but can be replaced with renewable gases such as hydrogen or synthetic gas in the future .” – bto: But that contradicts the assertion that the problem is already solved .
● “ And there are still the most diverse types of storage that guarantee security of supply . (...) We have mature technologies for this purpose: for the daily balancing pump storage and battery storage and for the
long-term seasonal fluctuations the gas storage, which we fill with renewable gas and convert back into electricity." - bto: That is a false claim, because this there is neither in theory nor in practice to the extent required.
● "It's not a question of technology or technical possibilities, but purely one of political framework conditions and thus economic efficiency ." - bto: That's exciting. Politics determines profitability! It's an economic miracle. Because profitability is decided by the market.
His demand: "It is the responsibility of politics, science, society and businessultimately everyone - to critically question the claims, to examine the facts and, above all, not to spread fake news, but to conduct the dialogue objectively and openly. “ – bto: And that is exactly what we are doing this week and on Sunday. Let's see how true these statements are.
Let's start with the enormous costs that such a system causes. Politicians can supposedly – see above – define them away. Prof. Dr. Gonde Dittmer is the author of the article that first appeared on bto in January 2022 . Prof. Dr. Dittmer was then a guest in the podcast episode #117 "Ideology meets reality" . He showed how inefficient and therefore expensive the energy transition is:
Political announcements
Politicians announce in a firm tone that they want to expand renewable energies (RE) massively and with great emphasis.
That sounds very determined.
What "massive and with great emphasis" means is not said.
In hundreds of extensive publications and statements about the energy transition, it is usually not mentioned that the conversion and processing of apparently renewable energies into usable energies are comparatively inefficient.
Politicians concentrate on the visible parts of the energy transition (converters and grids) and ignore the technology in between.
The causes of inefficiency
In order to be able to recognize the problem of inefficiency, one has to delve a little deeper into the matter.
Of the renewable energy sources such as hydroelectric power, geothermal energy, tides, wind and sun, essentially only wind and sun can be used to meet the quantitative requirements of mankind in terms of energy supply.
The energies contained in these energy sources are converted by converters (e.g. wind turbines, photovoltaics) e.g. B. converted into electricity, processed by technical equipment and routed to the consumers. The technical effort for the preparation is significantly higher than that for the conversion.
The energy sources wind and sun are characterized by two properties:
1. The power densities, ie the power per area transported by the energy sources wind and sun, are relatively low.
2. The energy sources wind and sun are volatile, ie renewable energy can only be obtained when the wind is blowing and/or the sun is shining.
Unfortunately, no amount of research and development can change these physical facts. As a result, all technical components of the emission-free energy supply system only work in the lower partial power range.
When comparing renewables with fossil energy, it is not noticed that the processes of conversion, compression and temporal stability are supplied free of charge with fossil energy sources and that they first have to be produced at great expense in the case of renewable energy sources.
Technical system elements
The low power densities supplied by wind and sun therefore require
● converters of gigantic proportions that convert wind energy into electrical energy;
● large converters to convert the electrical current from direct to alternating current (and vice versa) and filters to reduce the reactive power generated;
● control systems to produce voltages with constant amplitude and frequency;
● huge storage facilities to keep the converted energy ready for regulation, for so-called dark doldrums and for balancing out windless and windy months;
● Germany-wide transmission networks to transport the energy to the consumers and storage facilities;
● a charging infrastructure with tens of millions of charging stations;
● huge areas.
On average, all of these technical facilities are only used in the lower partial load range (about 20%).
Storage
Storage systems are of central importance for a high-quality supply of electrical power. To ensure the stability of the power system, short-term storage (instantaneous reserve) is required for buffering. For the temporal shifting of energy (over hours, days and weeks) you need storage for the circulation of energy. Long-term storage enables seasonal compensation. The harvest in the individual months can differ by a factor of up to 4.
Inefficiency illustrated using the example of wind turbines
One can see these connections e.g. B. make it clear on the wind turbines:
A wind turbine (converter) is characterized by its rated power. This is the power output in full load operation (wind force 7 to 8 Bft = Beaufort scale/unit of measure for wind force). The almost 30,000 wind energy converters on land in Germany have an average yield of around 20% of their rated output. This means that we need to set up five converters to get the average power rating of a single converter. The same applies to all other required facilities.
One of the reasons for this low yield is that the converted power follows the third power of the wind speed. This means that the power drops by a factor of 8 when the wind speed is halved.
The consequence is that the construction and operation of an emission-free energy supply system requires large amounts of resources such as money, material, energy and space. About 30% of the energy supplied by such a system has to be used for the company's own needs (maintenance, operation, repairs, renewal, recycling, etc.). i.e. approx. 40% more energy (ie factor 1.4) has to be converted than is supplied to the consumers.
About 20% of our current total energy requirement is electrical energy. 80% is mainly used for heat and mobility.
Required number of converters
In order to gain an overview, it is assumed that the entire energy requirement is to be converted with wind turbines.
Due to the poor efficiency of the use of renewable energy, the converters of a future system would have to supply around seven times (5 x 1.4) as much electrical energy as all of today's power plants combined.
● Today's total energy requirement is around 2560 TWh/year, of which around 560 TWh/year is electrical energy. The maximum power requirement is currently around 80 GW. Of this, the nearly 30,000 onshore wind turbines supply around 100 TWh/year. This gives a rough estimate of the total number of plants required: (2560 TWh x 1.4)/(100 TWh) = 36.
The number of wind turbines would therefore have to be increased by a factor of 36 to around 1.1 million converters. These converters would supply zero in calm and low wind conditions and a maximum of 2000 GW in strong winds. That is about 25 times as much as all current power plants deliver at maximum. If an area of 250 mx 500 m were taken as a basis for each converter, 80% of Germany's agricultural area would be required, plus the area for networks and all other technical facilities, without taking settlements into account.
completion of the invoice
Unfortunately, this calculation is not complete. Significant influences are still missing:
1. Today's wind turbines are almost 50% in the north and almost 40% in the middle of Germany. The more systems are set up, the worse locations have to be accepted. While the yield of the converters in Schleswig-Holstein is up to 30% on the coast, it is only 10% in the south.
2. The wind energy converters take the energy they supply from the wind. Contrary to popular belief, this energy is then lost to the wind and is not renewed. This reduces the average yield of large-scale wind farms. In addition, vortices are created that do not contribute to the generation of power.
3. Energy harvests vary by +/- 15% from year to year. The interpretation must be made for the worst case.
4. Some of the converters (approx. 5%) have to be replaced each time and are therefore temporarily unavailable for energy generation.
5. Energy storage devices have a finite efficiency. According to many experts, hydrogen will play a major role as an energy storage medium in the future. Since the efficiencies in the conversion (electricity-hydrogen-electricity) are still very low, significantly more electrical energy would have to be available for this.
The consequence would be that the number of converters would be so large that the entire agricultural area of Germany would be converted into an industrial park and would still not be sufficient.
Adaptation of the energy demand to the supply of volatile renewable energy
Clever people suggest adapting the energy demand to the volatile energy supply. Everyone understands that you can B. can not operate a refrigerator. Even five parallel refrigerators would not be enough for this.
However, a factory that produces goods using energy could be adapted to supply by deploying five such factories in parallel. Of these, only rarely are all five active at the same time, often none and on average only one.
In doing so, each of the five factories must have sufficient staff at their disposal, with an average capacity utilization of only 20%.
Such a system would merely shift the inefficiency to the energy users.
The adjustment would, however, z. B. work for washing machines that are not fully utilized on average. However, the better solution would be for several families to share a washing machine.
use of resources
Such an emission-free energy supply system would require several billion tons of high-quality materials for its construction and operation, e.g. B. steel, aluminum, copper, tantalum, chromium, graphite, lithium, vanadium, cobalt, rare earths, concrete, etc. The costs would be several times the total financial assets of all Germans. Material is synonymous with energy.
It is therefore not to be expected that such a system could ever be manufactured. The question is how far we still have to go on today's path before we will recognize this impossibility.
All of this is obviously meant when politicians talk about wanting to expand renewable energies "massively and with great emphasis".
Corresponding relationships apply to the conversion of solar energy. The sunshine duration in Germany is 1300 - 1900 h per year (approx. 15 - 22% of the season). The yield is about 10%.
Import of excess energy from abroad
The German planning is based on the assumption that in the future large amounts of electrical energy - also in the form of hydrogen - can be obtained from the neighbors.
Just like Germany, all of our neighbors are faced with the task of having to replace at least more than 80% of their current fossil energy requirements with new, emission-free
power plants. It is impossible to see how they could supply us with surpluses at all in the future. The opposite is more realistic.
Example electromobility
On average, today's cars are only used 3% of their lifetime, but they require a gigantic infrastructure that is constantly being expanded and yet is never enough.
As long as we are still generating electrical energy from fossil fuels, every new e-car that is brought onto the market represents an additional consumer of electrical energy. Since the commissioning of the e-car does not increase the amount of emission-free energy, it must unavoidably converted from additional fossil fuels.
Then an electric vehicle inevitably causes more than twice the CO2 emissions compared to a fossil-fuelled car.
Because renewable energy cannot be used twice: once to replace fossil energy and then again to power an electric car. In order to prove that e-cars are emission-free, it is often assumed that the batteries are charged with volatile energy from converters (ie charging or driving only when there is wind or sun) or with energy from the current electricity mix. It is not considered that e-cars themselves change the electricity mix assumed for the calculation.
The political goal is to replace the 50 million fossil fuel cars in Germany with 50 million electric vehicles. This represents a huge energy investment, including the construction of a nationwide charging infrastructure. At the latest when we realize that not enough emission-free electricity can be provided to operate the e-cars, we will have to realize that this was a gigantic bad investment.
It would be wiser to set up an individual transport system with fewer than a tenth of autonomously driving e-vehicles immediately and step by step . That would already convince many people to give up their own car. Then a large part of the inefficient infrastructure of today's private transport could be dismantled step by step.
nuclear energy
Every year around 3 million people die in the world as a result of emissions from coal-fired power plants (sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, particulate matter). That alone is reason enough to phase out coal-fired power generation as quickly as possible. According to an American study, the phase-out of nuclear energy has resulted in around 1,100 deaths in Germany every year since 2011 due to the longer use of coal-fired power required.
Around 1.3 million people die in traffic every year worldwide. However, the means of transport are not regarded as unmanageable. Autonomous vehicles could dramatically reduce that number.
Reservoir dams pose a potential risk to thousands of people.
The use of materials and the associated use of energy to supply one KWh from renewable energy is around fifty times that of a nuclear power plant.
It is therefore understandable that the majority of countries see a future in zero-emission nuclear energy, especially since new developments promise a drastic reduction in radioactive waste. The discussion about nuclear energy is not conducted objectively in Germany. We cannot afford not to take part in the development if we want to remain competitive in the long term.
summary
From the point of view of the people, the previous energy supply with fossil fuels is ideal. The energy stored in it is available in any quantity in a highly compressed form. The price to be paid for this only covers production costs and profit expectations of the owners of the energy sources. This ideal situation has enabled humans to create energetically inefficient systems, such as B. individual mobility.
The planned energy supply system, which also includes the energy-intensive compression, stabilization and storage of energy (from volatile wind to quality electricity), requires huge investments in resources (money, energy, space) that we do not have to the desired extent.
In addition, we will be forced to adapt our entire infrastructure to the new forms of energy sources (electricity, hydrogen, heat, etc.) and their greatly reduced availability. For example, heating systems for millions of buildings have to be switched from gas, oil or coal to electricity. This will require large additional energy investments over many years. So we cannot afford to exclude a technology like nuclear energy.
Society can think of nothing else than to put the new energy economy 1:1 over the existing systems developed over the past centuries. This path inevitably leads to a dead end.
The task of the energy transition must not only consist of replacing fossil fuels with so-called renewable energies, but also of drastically and intelligently reducing the energy requirements of the new systems.