Hi Johan . . .
Thanks for your comments.
A key paradigm I live in is that if a solution requires human nature to change en masse, then the solution isn’t viable. All solutions must respect the challenge that humans in statistically significant numbers will choose pleasure, convenience and cheapness over virtue most of the time. Behavioral change, in other words, requires presenting people with more fun, more convenient and cheaper options, in various mixes. That’s why people all over the world are buying Teslas as fast as Tesla can make them, and none are sitting on lots or in used car auctions to speak of. Want people to consume something less harmful to the climate? Make it tasty, easy to get and cheap.
Regarding heat, the vast majority of heat is wasted. We throw away two-thirds of primary energy, mostly as waste heat. I’ve calculated that about $3.3 trillion worth of wind turbines would provide all of the actual energy services required by the United States. Mark Z. Jacobson has done the same with his 100% Renewables by 2050 work, most recently extended to 143 countries covering 99.7% of fossil fuel use.
And industrial heat is a solved problem in Jacobson’s and my opinions. We already make most North American steel using electric minimills because its cheaper. And electric minimills run at 1800 degrees Celsius using electric heat. Similarly, aluminum smelters run on electricity. There’s nothing but economics that prevents us from running other industrial heat processes on electricity, and it will happen. To that point, I recently explored the Heliogen process, which doesn’t provide useful amounts of heat in useful spots in industrial processes and the industrial plants aren’t located where there is enough room for the solar reflectors. It’s interesting, but not a useful provider of industrial heat compared to generating electricity with wind, solar and the like, and using electric heating technology we already have.
To follow that onward, as I said in the article you commented on, we have to solve cement and concrete. I’ve explored that as well, and we once again can easily do it, but it will be more expensive, meaning that we’ll use less and shift to alternatives more. It won’t gut our economy to do so, but it will require effort. We have to keep working on that one.
I haven’t looked at the underground generation of hydrogen in detail yet, but am skeptical.
Basically, electricity is the fuel of the future for everything for a large variety of very good reasons.
