Solar and wind are only relatively cheap if you don’t need to buffer. Unfortunately, you do. And electricity production is only a fraction of primary energy use. Concrete, steel, glass, fertilizer, chemistry, diesel and bunker fuel for shipping and mining. Can’t make new renewable infrastructure without fossil extraction.
With current battery and hydro storage prices, their cheaper than natural gas with with the cost of the buffer, and absurdly cheap for any industrial application that doesn’t.
Also there are bulk industrial processes to make steel, concrete, fertilizer, and glass with little to no carbon emissions, they just require more electricity and so aren’t cost effective if your electricity comes from fossil fuels, hence why most such plants only started construction once the cost for electricity in general dropped below the cost for fossil electricity.
Moreover while mining and shipping are only starting decarbonization, the required fossil fuel extraction is already far, far smaller than what’s continually required to run the generation they are replacing, and that’s only going to continue to drop as more and more primary energy is electrified with renewables.
Electric batteries have a low energy density but overall higher efficiency than diesel. Fuel cells with liquid synfuels like methanol have similiar energy density (about half) and twice or more the efficiency of diesel.
Solar and wind are only relatively cheap if you don’t need to buffer. Unfortunately, you do. And electricity production is only a fraction of primary energy use. Concrete, steel, glass, fertilizer, chemistry, diesel and bunker fuel for shipping and mining. Can’t make new renewable infrastructure without fossil extraction.
With current battery and hydro storage prices, their cheaper than natural gas with with the cost of the buffer, and absurdly cheap for any industrial application that doesn’t.
Also there are bulk industrial processes to make steel, concrete, fertilizer, and glass with little to no carbon emissions, they just require more electricity and so aren’t cost effective if your electricity comes from fossil fuels, hence why most such plants only started construction once the cost for electricity in general dropped below the cost for fossil electricity.
Moreover while mining and shipping are only starting decarbonization, the required fossil fuel extraction is already far, far smaller than what’s continually required to run the generation they are replacing, and that’s only going to continue to drop as more and more primary energy is electrified with renewables.
About half of the fuel used in shipping is to move fossil fuel from one place to another.
Some ways are more efficient than the others https://maritime-executive.com/article/barge-transport-wins-on-fuel-efficiency
Electric batteries have a low energy density but overall higher efficiency than diesel. Fuel cells with liquid synfuels like methanol have similiar energy density (about half) and twice or more the efficiency of diesel.