I have been trying to get Shad Frazier on the podcast for the last year. We’ve been “LinkedIn friends” for a while now, and I always find his takes thoughtful and insightful. So today, we have him!
One of the posts we talk about is this one- which is Shad’s thoughtful response to a study that was released by Mark Jacobson out of Stanford University. As I discussed with Robert Bryce last week, and do again with Shad this week, there are so many flaws in the models that project we can get to net zero in any realistic way. In the meantime, here’s Shad’s post on it. I hope you enjoy the episode.
"Lies travel faster than the truth" Thomas Shelby
An article in the Washington Post today based upon a scientific simulation completed by Stanford says that we could replace all fossil fuels with Wind, Solar, and water energy and reduce our power consumption at the same time.
I wonder if we have lost our understanding of the scientific method. We have a higher learning institution that built a model based upon facts that they knew but didn't understand the energy chain or the efficiency loss of the electrical market. Did they start with the answer they wanted and work backward till they got a model to solve their problem?
Stanford Modeled the storm URI of 2021 and said we could have gone through URI if we just pushed for more renewables. In 2021 ERCOT the Texas grid added 8000 MW of new power generation 40.8% wind and 35.6% solar. The problem still stems from that during URI, wind and solar only made up less than 10% of the power generated when we needed it most. So how does Stanford say we fix that issue? We have to build home power storage. So their solution to the problem is that we need more batteries in everyone's homes. When unreliable power like solar and wind don't work, we can pull off a battery for our power off of home solar panels. This stored power will reduce our electricity demand in our homes and cause the need for energy to decrease.
Here is a real-world example of this case. Each home would need 6x400W panels to charge an electric car each night to drive just 30 miles the next day. That is to charge one electric vehicle. To charge two cars, we need 12 panels. Then the mean home would need another four panels to run the house. So now we need 16 panels. That is a cost of $64,000 to electrify each home in the US. Converting that current gasoline and grid power price based upon national averages, the average us home pays $8.62/day to power their home and drive their car each day. (Gas usage is total gas used per day versus cars or 337 B gals/286 B Cars or 1.17 gals per day, Home power is estimated at $117/Month per us home) It takes 7400 days to pay for the solar panels, and another 1200 days to pay for the battery in the home or 23.5 Years.
If we converted everyone over to solar and wind today, it would payout by almost 2050. Who likes that type of ROR. Not to mention the space needed to build those solar panels on homes in big cities with large apartment buildings.
Science is wonderful, but reality and science have to work together to bring truth to light.
#hottakeoftheday pod #136