Climate activists’ current stated goal is to limit global warming to 1.5° Celsius compared to pre-industrial levels. To achieve this goal, according to the latest IPCC report, atmospheric CO2 levels must peak by 2025. But this battle is already lost, so what’s their Plan B?
The above statement is not a critique of the desirability of the 1.5° goal, which I am not competent to evaluate. The unhappy truth, though, is that not all good goals are achievable. Not even all necessary goals are achievable. “We will achieve it because we must” is a logically incoherent statement.
But how do we know we can’t achieve it? In the end, simple maths. But before we get to that, let’s look at the political reality behind the maths. Poor nations are not content to remain poor and it takes energy to become (and remain) wealthy, and wealthy nations are not doing what would be necessary.
“There is one fundamental reason why renewables aren’t really cheaper, even as the cost of solar panels tumbles and wind turbines more gradually become cheaper on a per-megawatt basis”
If renewables were really as cheap as their supporters claim, developing countries would be rushing to build out their energy systems with them instead of with more carbon-intensive fuels, but we don’t see this happening. There is one fundamental reason why renewables aren’t really cheaper, even as the cost of solar panels tumbles and wind turbines more gradually become cheaper on a per-megawatt basis: variability, or low capacity-factor. In short, wind and solar aren’t always there when you need them. This means that one or more of the following expensive responses is necessary: overbuilding (building more of the renewable to get sufficient energy from it), storage (batteries are expensive and limited in how much energy they can store), extra transmission (to move wind and solar from where it’s presently available to where it is not), or building/keeping traditional firm resources, such as coal or natural gas, in place as backup.
So, what we see poorer countries doing is still building coal-fired power plants. China, for example, both has more wind power and is building more nuclear power plants than any other country on Earth, but they are also still building more coal-fired power plants and bringing previously retired ones back online. Although the new plants will be more efficient than older ones, this ultimately backtracks on previous pledges and actions they’ve taken, all in the goal of economic development and avoiding the type of severe blackouts they experienced in 2021.
