I have argued that we need to find a more moderate approach to sustainability, and listed several myths which prevail when it comes to the green economy and which obscure our path to preventing a sharp societal decline.
Here I pay closer attention to each of those myths, and the obstacles and risks associated with them.
Myth 1: We have sufficient resources to achieve net zero
In the past 150,000 years humans have, through mining, produced about 750Mt of copper. According to the US Geological Survey, we have about 870Mt of copper reserves left. As it turns out, copper is quite rare as far as metals go, which is a pity because its only viable substitutes as an electrical conductor are silver and gold. In 2021 the world mined 30.3Mt of copper, 1.3Mt of which was destined for green energies.
By 2030, Goldman Sachs estimates, we will need 41.2Mt annually, 5.2Mt of which will be for green energies. At current mining levels (and mines aren’t built overnight), we will have a deficit of 7.7Mt per year and growing as the world’s largest copper mine in Chile ramps down and very few new discoveries are being made. Bear in mind that this deficit arises with an almost nonexistent reduction in fossil fuel consumption. If we transition completely, we run out of copper really soon. And then there is nickel …
Myth 2: The cost of renewables will continue to go down
It is widely believed that advances in technology and manufacturing were the cause of reduced costs of solar panels and wind turbines. In reality, interest rates had dropped significantly and energy prices fallen dramatically (even reaching zero for oil at one stage) over the past decade. These two factors alone accounted for between 50% and 70% of the total cost reduction.
Solar panels (made from plastics and fossil fuels) rely on a key ingredient in the form of polysilicon. Polysilicon is what turns the sun’s rays into electricity. A 100% increase in coal prices in China led to a 300% increase in polysilicon prices. You can’t make solar panels without fossil fuels — this is just simply the truth of it — and the more expensive the fossil fuels, the more expensive the panels will become.
Wind turbines suffer a similar fate, in that the neodymium used in the magnets is mined with diesel equipment which has no prospect of switching to electricity or hydrogen for the next decade at least. The steel and cement costs are directly linked to the coal price, so this technology is also reliant on fossil fuels. Recent estimates by Goehring & Rozencwajg see the cost of solar power climbing almost 300% and wind 33% in the next few years.
Making more wind turbines and solar panels isn’t going to reduce their reliance on fossil fuels. In fact, it will enhance the overall consumption of fossil fuels at a global level. To illustrate this point, according to data by the International Energy Agency, from 2010 to 2019 the total energy produced by renewables increased 29%, and fossil fuels increased by a corresponding 11%.
Making more wind turbines and solar panels isn’t going to reduce their reliance on fossil fuels. In fact, it will enhance the overall consumption of fossil fuels at a global level
Myth 3: Wind turbines and solar have little to no climate impact
I believe we can all agree Harvard University is a credible institution. In 2018 it embarked on a study of the 57,636 wind turbines in the US and their overall impact on microclimates once operational.
The law of unintended consequences is sometimes not kind. The turbines have created “wind shadows”, reducing air flow which is inadvertently heating the affected area more than expected. This negatively affects the wind pattern and reduced wind over time, lowering the turbines’ output. Harvard’s conclusion was as follows: “If your perspective is the next 10 years, wind power actually has — in some respects — more climate impact than coal or gas. If your perspective is the next thousand years, then wind power has enormously less impact than coal or gas.”
The problem with this report is that it only factors in the impact once the turbine is installed. An average 1.5MW turbine needs about 180t of steel, 9t of copper, 600t of concrete and 15t of carbon fibre. That has a carbon footprint of 913t, just for the metals. While over 20 years this becomes a small component of the total emission of the turbine, the point is that none of this energy is carbon free, just lower in carbon footprint with potential unintended consequences. The truth is that over 1,000 years we have no clue what we will do to weather patterns by removing significant amounts of wind energy from the system.
The elephant in the room remains the mass production of solar panels. These rely on a horrible little molecule called nitrogen trifluoride. It is highly toxic and has a greenhouse gas potential more than 17,000 times worse than CO2, ranking it second-worst on the planet. Unlike methane or CO2, which nature can deal with, nitrogen trifluoride is inorganic and therefore stays with us for close to 1,000 years. Since solar became popular, we have increased the levels of this gas by more than 300%, and these levels continue to climb at astounding rates.
We cannot remove this poison, and it is accumulating fast. Either find a way to make panels without it, or ensure that when you buy a panel, you pay the premium and buy the really expensive one where you know the factory has made an effort to release as little of it into the atmosphere as possible. But then you need to understand your power isn’t going to be cheaper than Eskom.
Myth 4: Renewables are cheaper than current fossil fuels
If renewables were really cheaper than fossil fuels and Eskom, the mines would be falling over themselves to go off-grid immediately. That sector is arguably the most cut-throat in our country. They can install solar and wind whenever they feel like it, but their plans are only to begin installing in 2028-2035.
It isn’t government red tape stopping them. It’s the cold, hard laws of economics. Project the Eskom tariff increases for the next 15 years, assume reductions in the cost of battery storage over the next five years, and the discounted cash flow analysis shows you break even if you begin installing in several years’ time when Eskom’s tariffs have increased substantially. It’s that simple.
If you choose to look at a drag race shootout and compare 1kWh of solar power with 1kWh of Eskom electricity at noon, solar is about 15% cheaper. But a Mazda 323 will get around the Le Mans racetrack faster than a rocket-powered drag racer. If you want to cover the whole track, you need battery storage. This is expensive and is only going to get more so with escalating energy and commodity costs.
Myth 5: Battery energy density will achieve levels comparable to fossil fuels
At present, the best batteries hold 0.7% of the energy per kilogram that diesel can. The theoretical limit is 1.6%, which is a hard one and cannot be surpassed as it would break the laws of physics. So if your average truck fills up with 400kg of diesel, you are going to need a very substantial battery to match, even when you factor in that diesel engines are only 35% as efficient as electric motors.
Myth 6: Electric vehicles are going to change the course of the future and fossil fuel usage
By 2040 it is estimated that there will be 140-million electric vehicles (EVs) on the road. This will represent only 7% of the global fleet, thus we will still be at 93% of fossil fuel consumption for road. This assumes we have enough copper to supply into the manufacturing process, bearing in mind that this will not include trucks. My opinion is that EVs will become the premium luxury cars of the future that everyone aspires to own, but middle- and lower-income consumers will continue to own cars with internal combustion engines.
We need to regrow our forests. We need to change our way of farming. We need to stop overfishing
Myth 7: Green hydrogen is fossil fuel free
It is an indisputable fact that 100 units of energy put into an electrolyser will only produce 63-65 units of energy available as hydrogen. That then needs to be compressed or liquefied for transport, so this falls to about 58-60 units of energy. Putting this hydrogen into a fuel cell typically only releases 40% of the hydrogen’s chemical energy into electrical energy (the rest is heat), so our 60 drops to 24 units. Only 24% of the energy we obtained from the hydrogen made its way to somewhere useful. The 100 units came from a solar panel which, had we put it straight into the grid, would have eliminated 263 units of coal and given 100 units of electricity to charge an EV instead. On a like-for-like basis, to generate 100 units of electrical energy from hydrogen we need 416 units of solar energy, which could actually offset 1,094 units of coal.
What are we thinking? Take into account that solar panels need one unit of fossil fuel upfront to create five units of “clean energy” over 20 years, and then you take a quarter of that as useful energy from your hydrogen, and you have a ratio of one unit fossil fuel to create 1.25 units of electricity from hydrogen. You are almost better off just using the fossil fuel. And I haven’t mentioned that widespread use of hydrogen would require an enormous increase in the use of platinum, which is even scarcer than copper.
What is needed
Now that I have laid out the facts, which you are welcome to research as I did, you should draw your own conclusions. I am a believer in the simple fact that our current lifestyle isn’t sustainable. We need to regrow our forests. We need to change our way of farming. We need to stop overfishing. We need to reduce our red meat intake to save our water. We need to find new ways to power our lifestyle. We have come a long way and made great strides, but everyone needs to be a little more moderate in their approach to whether we should be green or fossil. There is a balance.
* Marani is CEO of Renergen
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