You've reminded me of an issue I have with Elon Musk....and others.....along these lines.
On the Joe Rogan podcast (approaching 20 million subscribers) from 10/31/23 there was this brief exchange:
Musk: You could actually power the entire United States with 100 miles by 100 miles of solar.
Rogan: Really?
Musk: Yes.
Rogan: So you could just pick some dead spot that you fly over....
Musk: Of which we have plenty
Rogan: .....Cover that sucker up with solar panels and charge the whole country?
Musk: Absolutely.
Rogan: 24/7?
Musk: You'd need batteries, but yes.
Rogan: Wow
Musk: Yeah, it's not hard. Meaning it's very feasible.
I have no educational background or work related experience on the topic, but it certainly seems from what I've read from Substack authors that Musk's comments here are massively oversimplifying an incredibly complex issue. I've been highly skeptical of him ever since.
He just wants to sell his MegaPacks & Powerwalls. Doing a roaring business in those. His solar business has been a flop.
Maybe he can sell the Greenie cult on millions of miles of underground superconducting transmission lines, run through his Boring company tunnels, which is what you would need to make that plan work. Besides the mountains of batteries.
And "If 1.8 million square km of solar panels doesn’t seem like much, note that it is more than all cities, towns, villages, and human infrastructure combined (~1.5 million sq km)" that much in solar panels made with coal energy:
Sounds pretty Green, eco-sensitive and renewable to me - it "just needs the political will". Funny irony is that the major opposition to this ElonPlan will come from... environmentalists (as indeed it should). Dont ya just hate tradeoffs?
I think their leaders know the plan won't work, what they really want is DeGrowth, Deindustrialization & population collapse, if not human population extinction.
Given how he has disrupted not only the car market but also (and more impressivley) space flight it is hard to ignore this kind of comment. That said, I'd agree that this is a massive oversimplification. I've seen similar comments about the Sahara and Europe for example. The problems will come in transmission, environment and especially storage - the "You'd need batteries, but yes" comment is probably the Achilles heel. This is the kind of "solution" that works well on a spreadsheet...
Thanks. I agree it’s foolish to ignore what he’s accomplished. I just have a problem with oversimplification, especially from someone with this much influence. I don’t think he’s going to change. He has a tendency to shoot from the hip.
for sure its going to be interesting to watch - the TechnoBro-optimist Musk and the very Energy Literate/pragmatic Chris Wright. IMHO whatever the outcome it can't be worse than a Harris-Walz Green New Steal
Excellent. So many people are just bad at quantification in general, and scale and orders of magnitude entirely eludes them. Hence, in place of numbers we get a lot of magical thinking.
Quite onerous but it would be quite good to see this comparison by region or country on a more likely business-as-usual scenario and compare against regional/country 2P reserves and 2C resources. That will give an idea of how much each region/country will probably consume and how much it can depend on its own resources for its own demand. Have you seen something similar to that Richard?
Great idea and probably can be done from public data - but I'd think one could have a good guess at the outcome.
North America can/could be eneregy independent.
Asia will be a major importer (from Russia, the Middle East and Africa).
Africa could be energy independent - but has issues around supplying its own needs.
South America is complicated but has huge "resources" in Venezuelan oil.
Then there is Europe... ah Europe. Energy demand will decline - but slowly as economic activity stagnates - and is very energy poor. From the point of view of legacy resources only Norway has much oil and gas. The ability of wind (and solar) to plug the gap is limited by cost. I can imagine Europe going back to coal mining and/or fracing for oil and gas in a big way... cue the cries of anguish and outrage.
A whole lot easier and lower cost to just go nuclear. There is enough uranium & thorium within a mile under your feet in pretty much every nation on Earth to supply all their energy needs for millions of years.
Thank you for your excellent summary of the problem with big numbers. Given the scenario you describe, I believe it is a safe bet that inflation-corrected oil prices will increase during the next two decades. ;-)
Good article!
Along the same lines:
Part per million (ppm) = milligrams of a material in a kilogram of the whole.
You've reminded me of an issue I have with Elon Musk....and others.....along these lines.
On the Joe Rogan podcast (approaching 20 million subscribers) from 10/31/23 there was this brief exchange:
Musk: You could actually power the entire United States with 100 miles by 100 miles of solar.
Rogan: Really?
Musk: Yes.
Rogan: So you could just pick some dead spot that you fly over....
Musk: Of which we have plenty
Rogan: .....Cover that sucker up with solar panels and charge the whole country?
Musk: Absolutely.
Rogan: 24/7?
Musk: You'd need batteries, but yes.
Rogan: Wow
Musk: Yeah, it's not hard. Meaning it's very feasible.
I have no educational background or work related experience on the topic, but it certainly seems from what I've read from Substack authors that Musk's comments here are massively oversimplifying an incredibly complex issue. I've been highly skeptical of him ever since.
He just wants to sell his MegaPacks & Powerwalls. Doing a roaring business in those. His solar business has been a flop.
Maybe he can sell the Greenie cult on millions of miles of underground superconducting transmission lines, run through his Boring company tunnels, which is what you would need to make that plan work. Besides the mountains of batteries.
And "If 1.8 million square km of solar panels doesn’t seem like much, note that it is more than all cities, towns, villages, and human infrastructure combined (~1.5 million sq km)" that much in solar panels made with coal energy:
https://alexepstein.substack.com/p/refuting-the-myth-that-just-a-small
Sounds pretty Green, eco-sensitive and renewable to me - it "just needs the political will". Funny irony is that the major opposition to this ElonPlan will come from... environmentalists (as indeed it should). Dont ya just hate tradeoffs?
I think their leaders know the plan won't work, what they really want is DeGrowth, Deindustrialization & population collapse, if not human population extinction.
Given how he has disrupted not only the car market but also (and more impressivley) space flight it is hard to ignore this kind of comment. That said, I'd agree that this is a massive oversimplification. I've seen similar comments about the Sahara and Europe for example. The problems will come in transmission, environment and especially storage - the "You'd need batteries, but yes" comment is probably the Achilles heel. This is the kind of "solution" that works well on a spreadsheet...
Thanks. I agree it’s foolish to ignore what he’s accomplished. I just have a problem with oversimplification, especially from someone with this much influence. I don’t think he’s going to change. He has a tendency to shoot from the hip.
for sure its going to be interesting to watch - the TechnoBro-optimist Musk and the very Energy Literate/pragmatic Chris Wright. IMHO whatever the outcome it can't be worse than a Harris-Walz Green New Steal
Agree!
Excellent. So many people are just bad at quantification in general, and scale and orders of magnitude entirely eludes them. Hence, in place of numbers we get a lot of magical thinking.
The world has 10 kinds of people, those who understand binary and those who don’t.
Funny!
Better prepare to work until I am 80 then :)
Quite onerous but it would be quite good to see this comparison by region or country on a more likely business-as-usual scenario and compare against regional/country 2P reserves and 2C resources. That will give an idea of how much each region/country will probably consume and how much it can depend on its own resources for its own demand. Have you seen something similar to that Richard?
Thanks!
Great idea and probably can be done from public data - but I'd think one could have a good guess at the outcome.
North America can/could be eneregy independent.
Asia will be a major importer (from Russia, the Middle East and Africa).
Africa could be energy independent - but has issues around supplying its own needs.
South America is complicated but has huge "resources" in Venezuelan oil.
Then there is Europe... ah Europe. Energy demand will decline - but slowly as economic activity stagnates - and is very energy poor. From the point of view of legacy resources only Norway has much oil and gas. The ability of wind (and solar) to plug the gap is limited by cost. I can imagine Europe going back to coal mining and/or fracing for oil and gas in a big way... cue the cries of anguish and outrage.
A whole lot easier and lower cost to just go nuclear. There is enough uranium & thorium within a mile under your feet in pretty much every nation on Earth to supply all their energy needs for millions of years.
Thank you for your excellent summary of the problem with big numbers. Given the scenario you describe, I believe it is a safe bet that inflation-corrected oil prices will increase during the next two decades. ;-)