Dems “Renewable” Energy Plans Face Battery Shortage As They Run Up Cost Of Reliable Fossil Fuels
One industry CEO says battery shortage will be followed by lack of raw materials.
One aspect of wind and solar power that doesn’t get mentioned much is that the power generated from these energy sources must be stored in batteries to be used, as needed, by the public.
With no batteries, you get wind machines and bird fryers.
So the green justice plans to convert the entire nation to renewable energy use may fizzle as a result of a potential energy shortage.
U.S. renewable energy developers have delayed or scrapped several big battery projects meant to store electrical power on the grid in recent months, scuttling plans to replace fossil fuels with wind and solar energy.
At least a dozen storage projects meant to support growing renewable energy supplies have been postponed, canceled or renegotiated as labor and transport bottlenecks, soaring minerals prices, and competition from the electric vehicle industry crimp supply.
The delays may last for quite some time, and to be primarily driven by supply chain issues.
“I have not seen a nascent industry challenged on so many fronts,” said Jamal Burki, president of IHI Terrasun Solutions, the U.S. energy storage arm of Japanese heavy equipment maker IHI Corp (7013.T).
European energy storage projects are also facing delays, but that region lags the United States in the development of grid-scale storage, making the issue less pronounced.
Ben Guest, fund manager at Gresham House Energy Storage Fund (GRID.L), which invests in battery projects in Britain, said he has seen two- to three-month delays in projects primarily due to component shortages and shipping challenges.
In terms of batteries for electric vehicles, a car industry executive points to a shortage of raw materials as another significant factor in the looming shortages, and is calling for an end to the aggressive timelines for mandating electric vehicles by policy makers.
Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares said he expects shortages of the batteries and raw materials needed to make electric vehicles in the coming years, as the global automotive industry pivots to EVs to meet an expected increase in consumer demand and government regulations.
Tavares said he expects a shortage of EV batteries by 2024-2025, followed by a lack of raw materials for the vehicles that will slow availability and adoption of EVs by 2027-2028.
“The speed at which we are trying to move all together for the right reason, which is fixing the global warming issue, is so high that the supply chain and the production capacities have no time to adjust,” he told media Tuesday after the company announced a new $2.5 billion EV battery plant in Indiana.
Stellantis, the world’s fourth-largest carmaker, was formed by the merger of Fiat Chrysler and France-based Groupe PSA last year.
Tavares used the prospect of a shortage to urge policymakers globally to stop aggressively moving targets for EVs forward.
This situation will not be helped if lithium, a key component of these batteries, is declared a hazardous material by a European agency. This move will likely reduce the production of a German lithium plant.
Top lithium producer Albemarle Corp may have to shut its Langelsheim plant in Germany if the metal used in electric vehicle batteries is declared a hazardous material by the European Union, its finance chief told Reuters.
Lithium’s pivotal role in electric vehicles makes it an important commodity in meeting global targets to cut carbon emissions, and it was added to the EU’s list of critical raw materials in 2020.
However, the European Commission is currently assessing a proposal by the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) to classify lithium carbonate, chloride and hydroxide as dangerous for human health.
That would result in a more restrictive regulatory framework for their use at a time when the EU is aiming to be self-sufficient in electric vehicle batteries by 2025.
When the use of technology is forced, rather than allowed to progress along sensible production, engineering, and economic timelines, these are the types of issues that can be predicted.
That is, unless you are wearing green-colored glasses…either because you are profiting from the renewable energy mandates or you are a green activist ideologue.
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This global-warming/climate change BS is simply an excuse to kill modern Western civilization and to return us to pre-industrial times. We do not have the technology, and I think we will never have the technology to generate sufficient energy with wind and sun. Try flying an airplane on battery power alone. It will be too heavy to fly. If indeed the planet is warming because of things we are doing, then we can adapt as needed. But to destroy the one technology we have at this juncture is insanity.
Remember these? Rubber band powered planes! https://www.amazon.com/Guillows-Balsa-Wood-Flying-Machine/dp/B000GL1CT6
I don’t remember the government building gas stations except in Afghanistan.
It’s going to be funny when, after doing all these expensive things, the climate continues to change. Who knew?!! The Earth changes!!! Shocker!!!!
Said nobody who believes we have had ice ages.
Environmentalism is where the communists migrated; the goal remains the same, i.e. destroy capitalism.
Environmentalists are like watermelons; green on the outside, red on the inside.
The EU is on the verge of mandating EV by 2035. This despite the known supply problems with batteries and the immediate problems with their electric generation. Hopefully the coming implosion can serve as a warning.
There are 12 critical minerals necessary for EV’s. Their supply chains run through 60 different countries and half go through Russia or China.
Volkswagen needs nickel to keep their batteries from exploding. So, they have a plan to Clear-cut the Indonesian Rainforest, so they can strip mine nickel laterites that can be dumped into giant coal fired furnaces in one of the most CO2 intensive operations around. All this so they can replace the most effecient fleet of diesel cars in the world.
Proving, once again, the germans are insane and idiots.
The Germans built out 159% of peak energy consumption in Solar and Wind. In practice, it produces about 8% of total consumption. Since they closed their nuke plants, the largest energy source in Germany is Lignite. The 2nd largest energy source in Germany is Coal.
“Since they closed their nuke plants…”
🙂 Proving the germans are even dumber than the French.
“When the use of technology is forced, rather than allowed to progress along sensible production, engineering, and economic timelines, these are the types of issues that can be predicted.
That is, unless you are wearing green-colored glasses…either because you are profiting from the renewable energy mandates or you are a green activist ideologue.”
This! This so so much! I was going to type something along those lines until I got to this last paragraph. I might also throw in that another reason would be rabid hatred of one’s own country and knowing that forcing radical changes like this is key to destroying it.
There’s that “technology” word again.
Don’t buy the lie!!!!
“technology” is a “process” by which “science” is applied to “solve” a problem.
In the case of “green” ( the political definition and usage)- no such element known to exist can handle the energy density required in a 1:1 with nuclear, Hydro and Fossil.
“Engineering” has told people this for a century- they just don’t want to accept it so the “left” has created a new discipline called “theoretical” and dumped all the “hope’ into it.
Those who live in the Newtonian/Euclidian universe however will tell you straight up- its IMPOSSIBLE. ( that’s a hard one to get around)
“….That is, unless you are wearing green-colored glasses…either because you are profiting from the renewable energy mandates or you are a green activist ideologue.”…
….or pathologically STUPID.
Please note – in order to optimise your grid you need enough stored energy so that when the sky gets cloudy or the wind quits blowing, you can start your backup plants. Nuke plants take 3 days to start, so they cannot backup green energy. Coal plants and Natural Gas plants can start in 3 hours. So, they are used as the back up.
So, you need 3 hours of battery back up to optimize. Currenty, the state of California (the furthest along) has less than 5 minutes total. And, LA is hoping to reach 20 minutes by 2035.
Lithium is hazardous if mishandled or those batteries are not designed and charged correctly. Just look up the videos of electric vehicles (including that recent incident with a bus somewhere in Europe) catching fire to see how dangerous it can be. That’s not even getting into issues of toxicity which is another factor.
Lithium is a rare-earth mineral (1st column on the Perodic Table.) Rare-earths react with water (violently). That’s why they can’t be flown in the belly of passenger aircraft. It also does not occur in it’s elemental form in nature, but must be processed extensively. The energy required to create batteries is more than the output.
“The energy required to create batteries is more than the output.”
Technically, batteries do not have “output” as they are a storage medium. They receive an input, store it, then output it with some efficiency factor.
Is your statement intended to mean the energy require to produce a battery exceeds the energy that can be stored in the battery for one cycle? Or for the lifespan of the batteries storage cycles?
Energy storage has a cost and a benefit. The benefit might be greater than the cost regardless of the energy consumed in production.
That’s not correct in engineering speak Barry, (although commonly used in conversation)
A “storage medium” is normally referred to as a “closet” ( a water closet being a commode)
A battery is a device that converts chemical energy into electrical energy.
Thus is does have an output unequal to input which degrades over time and usage. ( unlike a closet that would never change in terms of capacity)
Batteries are “excited” ( initiating an internal reaction) then that excitation starts to degrade ( losing a charge just sitting)- then comes “conversion” to electricity ( another net loss)
That’s why batteries have a minimum voltage and usage and have rates of discharge which are dependent on materials of construction.
That’s the reason why the EV will NEVER replace the IC engine in a 1:1 ratio.
NO ELEMENT EXISTS with the same energy density and characteristics as petroleum and nuclear.
Simple equation- “unobtainium” doesn’t exist therefore no device requiring it can be constructed.
The argument ends there. Everything else is an agenda being manipulated.
As an engineer I don’t speak on a forum in 100% engineering terms. A battery is a battery is a battery, no charging input, no freaking output. Chemistry is only involved in order to store the energy input and then allow it out. Explaining the battery is immaterial, no one here cares how the freaking thing works, just that it does.
All devices degrade including your water toilet. They just degrade in different ways and over different time frames. Water toilets eventually fail just like all other devices: scale, deterioration, etc.
My question stands and you nor the original poster has answered.
I know the answer.
Perhaps you should start and the title of “engineer” doesn’t mean much these days without the qualifier in front of it. Its clear you are NOT a design, mechanical, electrical,chemical or other relevant field so your words carry little weight relative to the subject. (maybe a sanitation engineer? process? do you drive the train?)
Since i have actually designed batteries (Globe Union/Johnson Controls)- my description stands and yours is false in every detail. (Cant fake knowledge you don’t have Barry)
Yes everything “degrades” but that has no context or application relating to the subject. You just threw it up there to make an immaterial point and sound intelligent. ( and failed)
Word of advice, you might want to check what you “know” because it may not be so.
In the future, shut up and learn from those who actually know the subject rather than make such stupid posts.
If my 2010 F-150 were an EV – I would already have sent the original batterpack to a Toxic Waste Dump.
And probably spent 4 times the cost of a new ICE to replace it…
Did you know there is a solar farm in Canada? In the winter, they use oil fueled machines to clear the snow from them because they don’t produce enough electricity to do so. Think about it. (ps, this is true, we won the service contract by price because we were the only one to suggest fossil fuels)
And now they are once again rolling out the hydrogen scam. The science is as simple as it gets. The amount of energy necessary to separate hydrogen from oxygen in water is more than the energy generated by recombining them in a hydrogen cell. What makes them competitive vs fossil fuels? Massive taxpayer-funded subsidies. Or we just go back to horses, bicycles and walking.
It’s just like those headlines declaring yet another fusion energy breakthrough. Every single time, we soon learn that they ignored the most important component of the energy input required to attain the output.
The road back to the stone age is going to be bloody.
Let me tell you why that happens. ( another truth the left doesn’t want you to know)
The Earth orbits the sun ( yeah, a new concept) which means at times any location on Earth ( your solar panel) it has a close interval ( getting high intensity energy, “max” production)
Then the angles turn somewhat “oblique” to the emitter which changes the energy intensity the PV cell can convert.
Then it moves away and wave propagation further reduces it.
Its not as evident in the visible light spectrum but that’s not what’s converted by the PV cell.
That’s a critical factor because conversion is NOT constant or consistent. ( that’s why the output is so low and they like to discuss collectors and mirrors)
Anyone who works with lasers, optics and does Thermography knows this is basic energy properties. Nothing changes due to a political wish list.
DONT BUY THE LIE
I challenge anyone on Earth to even attempt to refute or “work around” the hard science involving this. ( and produce a true working model that can be reviewed by the scientific method)
Thanks for that informative post.
I’m not a physicist, but, common sense and basic rationality would seem to indicate that attempting to build massive battery banks that can store solar/wind power for household and business use, later, is an intrinsically foolish waste of resources.
We should be building more nuclear power plants, which can provide clean, reliable and (relatively) inexpensive electric power, rather than wasting time and money on unreliable solar and wind.
Smaller scale projects/ tech optimized for residential applications have some value as a choice for consumers, a back up for an unstable grid and simple self reliance. Additionally these have far less room for the sorts of opaque graft that occur in larger grid scale applications.
First you have to convince The Big Guy that he’ll get his 10% up front.
The problem is that wind and solar don’t generate enough energy to meet the daytime demand much less any excess capacity to be stored. They never will.
A good example of storage is a hydro electric facility coupled with nuclear. The Hydro electric production comes from gravity, water is routed through tubes going down and through the electric turbines.
With a nuclear plant producing power, the night time demand is lower than the daytime, so generating capacity is wasted. Or, you pump the water back up the hill with the excess nuclear capacity, where it can be released during the day to generate peak energy. Works quite well. Lake Keowee and Jocassee in South Carolina is a good example. there are others.
Quite beautiful lakes. I used to hike the rivers now under Lake Jocassee water.
https://www.duke-energy.com/community/lakes/hydroelectric-relicensing/keowee-toxaway/keowee-toxaway-project
Damn you’re dumb.
You call yourself an engineer? you are a pretendgineer at best.
I want you to explain and define the process of this ‘storage” of which you speak.
Do we “store’ amps in 5 gallon buckets? Do we get watts by the square foot in a box?
How do we store current exactly? ( electron flow)
Depending upon the plant ( and associated grid) capacity can be throttled back off peak demand ( as is common) but can also be switched to another grid to supplement theirs- that depends on how its set up.
I’m curious now, what exactly and specifically your field of Engineering?
To say HE power comes from “gravity” is at best a misnomer. It comes from mass and velocity turning a turbine stronger than the magnetic field resisting the turn. Yes gravity plays a part but lets don’t forget mass and acceleration.
Any other errors in your learning/false knowledge you need me to correct?
Nihilism is at the root of all the rejection of reality and ‘common sense’. If the workable and the good are sacrificed then so much the better for the ‘true believer’.
The ECHA unwittingly let the cat out of the bag. Once fossil fuels engines are gone forever and electric vehicles are only ones left to choose from, the materials comprising them will be declared an environmental hazard.
But won’t that mean we cannot have personal transportation? Why yes, yes it does. Your ability to move about freely without the government’s knowledge is second only to firearm possession as to what governments cannot abide.
That’s what I’ve been saying for a long time: electric vehicle mandates were never about consumers buying electric vehicles, they’re about consumers having no personal vehicles at all.
100%
Take your cars so they can control your movement.
Take your guns so you cannot fight back.
It’s really that simple.
Bingo – I’ve been saying that for some time – it’s all about population control… not only in the Malthusian sense of “OMG too many people WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE,” but also in the sense of controlling what people do, where they can live, where they can go, etc.
They don’t want you living outside their “smart cities” where they can Big Brother you to death, so they are pushing the green agenda, demonizing fossil fuels and nuclear power, aiming to get rid of (internal combustion engine) cars by making them prohibitively expensive to own & operate (hence high gas prices, and eventually mileage taxes), and so on. That’s also the agenda behind self-driving cars, although like electric cars, they are merely temporary measures to wean people from the idea that they can go anywhere they want anytime they want.
It all fits into the larger picture of the “you won’t own anything, and you’ll be happy” hell they have planned for us.
Governments fuck up everything.
To them this isn’t a fuckup.
AOC came up with a solution. If we all buy a bunch of really long extension cords and connect them to our home outlets, which are powered by solar panels, then all is solved. The car tires can easily drive over the slack cords, and if we use all seven colors of the spectrum for the cords we will display our pride.
I posted this elswhere…PLEASE MAKE SURE EVERY REASONABLE MINDED PERSON YOU KNOW FINDS ABOUT THIS! Even liberals should get this science right, so we can progress instead of continuing this civil war to shitsville.
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Both of these videos are from people who are very interested in climate change and both explain why electric cars are a bad idea and solar/wind will kill our environment. People like Tom Steyer and the DNC desperately want to shut this up and it’s a golden opportunity for conservatives to get on the science that Dems don’t want to accept.
https://www.ted.com/talks/michael_shellenberger_why_renewables_can_t_save_the_planet/transcript?language=en
https://www.ted.com/talks/graham_conway_the_contradictions_of_battery_operated_vehicles
And the petrol industries aren’t going anywhere…we use them to make a lot of products…every plastic, many industrial greases, etc. Even if we use less fossil fuel for “burning” we still have many imporant uses for it.
We need to go nuclear, solar should be no more than a niche option for personal use only and only in areas where remote, long-distance powering becomes inefficient and the conditions are right for harnessing. Wind should NEVER be used; it’s inefficient, picky, expensive due to maintenance, and is a big killer/habitat destroyer.
This is going to be Compact Fluorescent Lighting all over again … they introduced radiation issues, mercury exposure, recycling and disposal issues …
How many more problems will EVs create if something as simple as a lightbulb could wreak so much havoc on the public?
As much as grocery stores LOVED recycling bottles, I wonder how car dealers will LOVE recycling EVs and waiting on the government trucks to come pick them up?
Oh the fun we’ll have reducing our carbon footprint!
“We split the atom. We broke the fabric of reality. That’s how far we’ve come. Now, the lights of our cities stretch further than the stars in the sky. But the more perfect society gets, the more psychotic we become. And as it waited, we became slaves to the systems we built.”
As I said in a reply above:
Take your cars so they can control your movement.
Take your guns so you cannot fight back.
It’s really that simple.
So the auto companies go bankrupt. Isn’t that part of green justice? Too bad they jumped on the bullschiff gloBULL warming bandwagon instead of fighting them.
Probably some liberal will buy the bankrupt companies for pennies per millions owed and just like the roooskie oligarchs they’ll have 300 foot yachts that will run on diesel once they take over the energy sector.
I would imagine it would come as a great surprise to bipolar people all over the world that lithium carbonate is hazardous to human health.
Want to meaningfully cut emissions? Build nuclear power plants but it’s not about doing anything meaningful, it’s about power and control of the population. Switch to a digital currency so you can be tracked and “allowed” to spend your money on the right things or cut off of use if you engage in wrongthink and shut off the recharging stations if government thinks they don’t want you going anywhere during, idk, the next pandemic. Just to make sure you stay put shut off your digital credit card so you can’t pay to charge anything.
Government subsidies of “alternative “ energy sources and electric cars created inefficiencies. Anyone surprised?
Right now it’s RAINING ! The WEATHER FORECAST for TODAY that I checked LAST NIGHT had bright sunshine and 96 degrees! Now – if they can’t PREDICT the WEATHER that WILL happen in less than 24 hours how can anyone with any degree of INTELLIGENCE argue that the EARTH will do something in the NEXT 50 to 100 YEARS?? My SCORCHED EARTH Policy for the next R President calls for an END to ALL Government Financial Support or DECISIONS made based on “globull worming”!!
One of my favorite movies is “Idiocracy”! It’s based on the US and World being populated by complete MORONS in 500 years because smart people put off having babies and a single nitwit redneck couple in a trailer park are responsible for the population! It’s very funny but very PROPHETIC!! We ARE LIVING IN IDIOCRACY!!!! (intentionally spelled that way)!
I have no problem at all with EVs as long as I’m not coerced into it. There are positive things to say about them, particularly the latest versions with bigger batteries. They make for great urban commuter vehicles and all-around grocery getters. They’re fun to drive and need far less maintenance, and even before the motor fuel runup the fuel was cheaper in most places.
Both the promoters and the opponents put way too much political baggage into it. I look at it as just another motive power. The tax credits are going away, which is appropriate. Let them compete in the market and see what happens.