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The Energy Transition

I've long been concerned with the question of whether an energy transition as propagated everywhere is even possible, and so I gathered various pieces of information to calculate the matter. Such calculations aren't very precise because they're usually based on averages; in reality, accurate calculations naturally depend on precise individual values. Exact values are hard to come by, not only because they're often hidden or falsified, but also because no one has yet given them serious thought. Then, of course, there are a wide variety of technologies, each with its own unique values and efficiencies. Let's take a wind turbine, for example. In my calculations, I'm assuming the latest wind turbines with a capacity of around 10 megawatts. It's quite possible that in ten years there will be wind turbines with a capacity of 15 megawatts, which would then require different spaces, so any calculations would have to be redone. Nevertheless, the current calculations show certain limits and also a clear direction, a clear direction for continuing as before, regardless of the consequences of this action. But let's take a closer look at the results of various calculations:

Private cars in Germany alone require approximately 2,500 kWh of electricity per vehicle per year. Multiplied by the approximately 44,000,000 cars, that's approximately 110 TWh of additional demand. That's roughly 22% additional electricity demand, or 11 new power plants with 10 terawatt hours each per year, with approximately 1 gigawatt of power, or even approximately 12,500 new wind turbines, if all cars were actually electric tomorrow. That would require around 100 km² of space for wind turbines. As mentioned, that's just for private cars... Not included in the calculation are the 3.8 million trucks and 2.5 million tractor units. A truck consumes an average of 114,000 kWh per year, which would be another ~706.8 TWh. That's a shame, because that would require another ~81,000 wind turbines, which would then require ~648 km². The conversion of private households from oil, coal, wood pellets, and natural gas to electric heating methods will be another issue. Energy consumption for housing averages around 17,644 kilowatt hours per year per household. With 41 million private households, that's an additional ~723 TWh, which would require another ~82,000 wind turbines with a space requirement of ~656 km². German industry consumed 911.11 TWh in 2023, another ~103,000 wind turbines with a space requirement of ~824 km². We would therefore have to cover an annual consumption of roughly 2,450 TWh with electrical energy by 2050, because we want to be climate neutral by then. We could certainly supply part of this with photovoltaics, but even here the space requirements would be extreme. One square kilometer of photovoltaics only produces 0.18 TWh a year. To cover half the demand, a whopping 6,800 km² would be needed. Or 245 conventional power plants with 1 gigawatt each would have to be built. A 1 GW gas-fired power plant, including operating buildings, needs around 2 - 3 km² of space, gas-fired power plants require 530 million m³ of water per year, coal-fired power plants only need an area of 0.5 - 1 km³, but 4 - 5 km² are needed to mine the coal and consume 1.54 billion m³ of water, and nuclear power plants need 1.5 - 2 km² of space and 2.44 billion m³ of water. The construction of gas-fired power plants alone would require approximately 500 km² of space and consume approximately 130 billion m³ of water. This is just for one country, Germany, a relatively small country.

But that doesn't include data centers and the expected expansions related to artificial intelligence. According to forecasts, global electricity consumption by AI data centers will increase eleven-fold from the base year of 2023 to 2030: from 50 billion kilowatt hours to around 550 billion kilowatt hours. Together with the other data centers, this means that around 1,400 terawatt hours of electricity will be used for central data processing in 2030. This corresponds to approximately 56 percent of Germany's total energy demand. This is associated with an increase in greenhouse gas emissions from data centers from 212 million tons in 2023 to 355 million tons in 2030, despite the assumed expansion of renewable energies for electricity generation. Source: Öko-Institut

That's why we don't want to talk about various smart city projects; I don't think anything like that will happen anyway, just like I don't think about fantasies about CO2 capture.

The trend is becoming so clear that future electricity demand by 2030 will simply not be met by the repeatedly touted "renewable energies," which account for just ~10% of the global energy mix. Figures are constantly being put on the table showing that, in Germany, for the first time, more energy is now being sourced from renewable energy sources (>50%) than from fossil fuels. And that's usually in the summer, but that always refers to current demand without converting vehicles, households, data processing, and industry. By 2030, the EU wants to achieve 90% of its energy from renewable sources, not be 90% climate-neutral as one might think, because that's not possible, and I think those in charge know that. I also don't think climate neutrality by 2050 is possible.

Furthermore, all of this equipment: wind turbines, photovoltaics, and the vast amounts of electronics required to operate them contain large quantities of rare earths and critical metals. After 25-30 years at best, when these systems would have to be replaced, trillions of tons of waste and scrap would be generated worldwide, which currently cannot be adequately recycled.

Furthermore, there are already studies that sufficiently demonstrate that rare earths and critical metals cannot be sufficient for a global energy transition of this kind via wind turbines and/or photovoltaics. Only a few metals are available in sufficient quantities, and also a fixed lack of recycling – there isn't even an infrastructure for the initial waste collection – can't help either, because every country would first have to be supplied with materials before they could be able to meet the constant need to replace the systems with recycled materials.

According to reports, by 2050, China will generate the largest share of photovoltaic waste, at 13.5 million tons. The USA follows with 7.5 million tons, Japan with 6.5 million tons, and India with 4.5 million tons. Germany ranks fifth and could accumulate around 4.4 million tons of used PV modules by 2050. Europe's largest solar module recycling plant recycles just about 4,000 tons per year.

The energy used for production and recycling is currently still generated from up to 90% fossil fuels. The logistics required for this still function almost exclusively via fossil fuels. The entire recycling process initially causes more environmental damage than benefit. Critical metals such as silver, indium, cadmium, lead, selenium, and tin (depending on the type) still cannot be recovered; they continue to end up in hazardous waste landfills.

The efficiency of a photovoltaic system, in contrast to wind turbines, is only a mere 15–22% when you consider the complex and energy-intensive production process. A solar module manufactured in China is 90% produced using fossil fuels and then shipped to Europe on heavy fuel oil ships. The extremely short lifespan of 25–30 years and the fact that the output drops by half after just 15 years, as well as the complex electronics required for operation (an inverter, for example, only lasts 15 years), suddenly results in an efficiency of only 2–3%. This is because the inadequate recovery of the raw materials used and the energy required to dispose of the waste and store it for years must also be taken into account.

The impact on wind turbines is even more devastating. Wind turbines contain vast amounts of copper and rare earth elements; up to 25 tons of copper and up to 3 tons of rare earth elements are found in one wind turbine. A medium-sized wind turbine, including infrastructure, requires up to 400 tons of copper and 45 tons of rare earth elements such as praseodymium, dysprosium, terbium, or neodymium. A wind turbine with a capacity of 10 megawatts requires 2 tons of neodymium alone. In addition to GRP, newer rotor blades also contain balsa wood, meaning there are approximately 50 trees in one rotor blade. This means that an entire wind turbine requires about 150 trees. The nacelle housing, the gearbox, and the generator are made of aluminum or aluminum components, of which up to 350 tons are required per wind turbine. When a wind turbine dies, the bases are usually simply left in the ground because salvaging these blocks would be too costly, and they contaminate the surrounding area as they decay. The concrete from the tubes is now only suitable as filler material in road construction, and the nacelle, containing the valuable metals, is usually shredded, and the roughly separated metal is usually sold as mixed metal. The neodymium from the wind turbines is also almost impossible to reuse. Although it is technically possible to recover neodymium from old products, it is often uneconomical or the processes are not yet fully developed.

The biggest problem is the blades. Glass fiber reinforced plastics (GRP) cannot be disposed of in landfills because they do not decompose. They cannot be burned either because they hardly burn. Therefore, they are converted into a substitute fuel using combustion conveyors and then burned with other materials, which significantly reduces the value of the wind turbines as a source of green energy.

The exhaust gases produced during this process must be cleaned in extremely complex systems, and This process produces highly toxic dust and an equally toxic liquid, which then has to be disposed of in hazardous waste landfills.

A single 7-megawatt wind turbine releases approximately 4,500 tons of  CO2 into the atmosphere over its lifetime, from production to final disposal. These CO2 is remain there for a thousand years, by saving only around 6,790 tons.

And then, on top of that, we should talk about batteries. Millions of tons of batteries are needed to enable an "energy transition" of this kind, because energy from wind and solar is extremely unreliable over land and must be stored. So we don't just need batteries in vehicles, but would need them practically everywhere where electrical energy is generated. In 2050, storage in the terawatt range would be needed, especially from October to March, and much more than previously assumed, because the actual demand hasn't yet been adequately calculated. I know from some online sources that storage capacities are probably around 40 terawatt hours, although this is certainly based on current requirements, without cars, without trucks, and without a conversion of households and industry. However, if we really want to be climate-neutral by 2050, we must at least procure the 2450 TWh annual requirement calculated above and be able to store a very large portion of it. If we want to continue to increase economic growth exponentially, as industry wants, it will be much more. We won't get there with just 40 TWh. As I said, I'm assuming at least five times that, i.e. 200 TWh.

And all we have at our disposal so far to withstand periods of darkness is a so-called intelligent energy management system that switches on devices when electricity is cheap. This is particularly useful if you're getting on the highway at 5 a.m., but the device doesn't have to charge your electric car until 10 a.m., when the sun is shining and electricity is cheaper. So this is all half-baked nonsense, and it doesn't work that way. Very few people even get involved in something like this, and procuring and deploying such systems is a lengthy and complex undertaking. Of course, it requires storage, storage for hundreds of terawatts of power.

It's hard to imagine how large the largest battery storage facility in China, with a capacity of just 16 gigawatt hours, will be. But if these LFP batteries were distributed among electric cars, it would only be enough for about 250,000 vehicles. However, this would require an area of approximately 8 km². Now let's quickly calculate how much space we need for our estimated 200 TWh, and that would be an unbeatable 100,000 km²—just consider that for Germany. This is extrapolated from the largest German battery storage facility for which I have the data. But even if there were better batteries and/or the batteries were stacked vertically, the ultimate space requirement would be simply gigantic.

My calculations aren't necessarily the ultimate truth; the truth depends on so many factors, for which you ultimately need very precise data, which most bidders don't even have yet. Nevertheless, the fundamental problems are visible.

The costs for such a storage system are also very high and depend on the technology and size. For industrial storage, the costs are between 400 and 700 euros per storable kWh. Even with other types of conversions, let's take hydrogen for example, there are losses, and the costs skyrocket. Pumped storage plants report a particular need for space, and here, too, the losses are considerable. Apart from that, the material requirements for thousands of such battery parks would be almost impossible to realize. Batteries typically have a lifespan of around 8 to 10 years or 1,000 full charging cycles, after which they must be replaced or recycled. This results in three to four replacement cycles per system's lifetime; the effort would be considerable, which is probably why there would be no more unemployed, because they would all be employed in maintaining these systems and the extreme battery parks.

This isn't to say that all efforts should be abandoned. There are governments that are increasingly relying on gas or even nuclear power plants, even calling nuclear power plants emission-free, even though the waste remains radiant for a few to millions of years and also represents a radiation emission. This way, we won't achieve any goal, because if the entire world were to switch to nuclear power, the already scarce supplies of nuclear material would soon be exhausted, and we can't achieve climate targets with gas.

Nevertheless, it is clear that an energy transition cannot be achieved with wind turbines and photovoltaics alone. At best, one could cover part or even all of current consumption—cars, trucks, private households, retail, and industry—and even new data centers with artificial intelligence couldn't be converted with it. There wouldn't be enough space for that; there aren't enough rare earths and critical metals to cover global demand. To ensure the necessary replacement of the systems every 30 years, we would have to create a gigantic recycling system that could guarantee recycling with virtually no losses. Otherwise, the entire project would fail in the first replacement cycle due to a lack of materials.

Fusion energy could potentially circumvent all of these problems, but whether there will ever be a functioning reactor is still a complete open question. Even the last reactor, even initially promising, at the NIF in 2009, failed in 2024 and was put into minimal research due to a lack of future prospects. The primary mission of the NIF was to test the behavior of materials under conditions similar to those encountered in a nuclear weapon explosion (German Bundestag Document 20/14352). Instead of being completed in 2025, ITER will not be ready for test operation until 2034. The first real fusion reactions using the hydrogen isotopes deuterium and tritium as fuel will therefore also be delayed and will not begin before 2039. But even this gigantic reactor will never produce energy. It would still be at least another hundred years before a functioning reactor could actually go online, if at all. Current climate problems cannot be solved with fusion energy.

A solution that could work

The first functioning parabolic mirror with a Stirling engine and a generator for generating voltage was built around 1900. The technology is well-known, works, is sufficiently efficient, and very simple in design. Parabolic mirror systems can be powered by conventional motors; no neodymium is required. The control system is extremely simple and can be implemented with a single notebook per field. Such systems are extremely durable and, with proper maintenance and care, can be operated for over a hundred years and then recycled to at least 95%.

The systems are technically simple and can be installed quickly. Installation times in deserts are very short, typically only three years, and the systems generate energy from the start.

By standardizing parabolic mirrors worldwide in three or four different sizes, these or their components could be installed anywhere in the world and repaired and/or maintained by any technician anywhere, significantly reducing costs compared to custom manufacturing.

By distributing systems suitable for energy generation throughout the world's deserts and linking all systems (including wind, hydropower, geothermal, and photovoltaics) into an international energy network, a 24-hour, 365-day energy supply could be achieved relatively easily.

Energy storage can be achieved relatively easily in deserts using thermal storage, allowing the systems to continue to generate energy even at night. This would eliminate the need for large battery storage facilities.

By combining this with an international water network fed by coastal salt-water desalination plants, i.e., from the oceans, it would not only be possible to replenish various depleted groundwater reservoirs, but also to produce hydrogen locally in smaller plants all over the world and distribute it to households via local low-pressure networks. Industrial plants could produce their own hydrogen as needed.

This would probably not solve the current problems with global warming, but it could at least stabilize it at a high level.

 

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