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#9 | Posted by earthmuse at 2024-07-01 01:41 PM | Reply
It's a No Brainer that the Oil and Gas Lobby (i.e. the U.S. auto industry) wants them dead.
"Oil and Gas Lobby" is actually a "Big Energy" lobby - yes, "Big Oil and Gas," including Saudi Aramco, are primary participants in research and development of "green and blue hydrogen" and other renewable clean energy sources.
Also, "Big Energy" is primary beneficiary of "modern electrification" political efforts, because most electricity in the US (~84.5%) is derived from so-called "fossil fuels," nuclear and hydroelectricity, while "intermittent renewables" (wind and solar, which incur additional and "not clean" recurring storage expenses) have been stuck at about 14%... and because their actual "new capacity" requires increase in backup "fossil fuel" plants:
Total - all sources - 4,178 Billion kWh
Fossil fuels (total) . 60.0%
. Natural gas ....... 43.2%
. Coal .............. 16.3%
. Petroleum (total)... 0.5%
Nuclear ............. 18.7%
Hydropower ............ 5.8%
Wind ................. 10.1%
Solar (total) ......... 3.9%
Biomass (total) ....... 1.1%
Geothermal ............ 0.4%
"Utility-scale solar has almost quadrupled in the past decade, rising from 5% to almost 20% of the grid. Yet it has not displaced thermal generation, which rose from 28% to 36% of the grid. We even wonder whether wind and solar are entrenching natural gas generators that can backstop their daily, weekly and even seasonal volatility." - report: thundersaidenergy.com
So, increasing energy supply with intermittent "renewables" is impossible without first increasing energy supply with firm power (nuclear, hydrogen, natgas, etc.) - which raises the question why the intermittent utility-scale wind and solar (at cost of 2,900-4,200 acres/GW) may be needed at all, or ever becomes TCO-cost-effective, except possibly in very special circumstances.
Hydropower supplied about 16% of the world's energy in 2020, in the US it's less than 6% and pretty much limited to current capacity due to geography.
Nuclear power supplied 10.5% of world electricity in 2020, the US has just under 19%, and the US Energy Secretary recently finally called for restarting "retired" and building more nuke plants. Many other countries, including Japan and European countries are following the suite and rethinking their reliance on "intermittent renewables" in favor of nuclear power.
There are also designs for floating nuclear power plants (FNPPs), which don't produce a huge amount of energy, but are safe and mobile, so often can provide power where needed, e.g., in cases of natural disasters, to power temporary or long-term offshore projects, such as desalination or fishing stations or oil and gas production, building artificial islands, or where the land-based power plant would be too difficult or too costly to build.
World's first FNPP ("proof of concept") was built in 1967, in a converted Liberty ship. Russia's first FNPP "Akademik Lomonosov" started operations in 2019. China had FNPP plans since 2016, which have been suspended for a while, but some "baby reactors" may soon be deployed in South China Sea.
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