"Net-Zero Carbon Dioxide
Emissions By 2050
Requires A New Nuclear
Power Plant Every Day"
by Roger Pielke
Quotes from
Pielke's article
in Forbes magazine,
about the empty
virtue signaling of:
"Net zero
CO2 emissions
by 2050":
" ... among Democrats competing for the presidency in 2020, several, including Joe Biden, have committed to achieving net-zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2050. ... Bernie Sanders has offered a 71% reduction by 2030."
"To conduct this analysis I use the BP Statistical Review of World Energy, which presents data on global and national fossil fuel consumption in units called “million tons of oil equivalent” or mtoe.
"In 2018 the world consumed 11,743 mtoe in the form of coal, natural gas and petroleum."
"The combustion of these fossil fuels resulted in 33.7 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions. In order for those emissions to reach net-zero, we will have to replace about 12,000 mtoe of energy consumption expected for 2019."
"To achieve net-zero carbon dioxide emissions globally by 2050 thus requires the deployment of >1 mtoe of carbon-free energy consumption (~12,000 mtoe/11,051 days) every day, starting tomorrow and continuing for the next 30+ years."
"Achieving net-zero also requires the corresponding equivalent decommissioning of more than 1 mtoe of energy consumption from fossil fuels every single day."
"The International Energy Agency currently projects that global energy consumption will increase by about 1.25% per year to 2040."
"That rate of increase in energy consumption would mean that the world will require another ~5,800 mtoe of energy consumption by 2050, or about another 0.5 of an mtoe per day to 2050."
"That brings the total needed deployment level to achieve net-zero emissions to about 1.6 mtoe per day to 2050."
"The amount of energy reflected in 1 mtoe is approximated by that produced by the Turkey Point (Homestead, Florida) nuclear plant over a year."
"So the math here is simple: to achieve net-zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2050, the world would need to deploy 3 Turkey Point nuclear plants worth of carbon-free energy every two days, starting tomorrow and continuing to 2050."
"At the same time, a Turkey Point nuclear plant worth of fossil fuels would need to be decommissioned every day, starting tomorrow and continuing to 2050."
" ... we can substitute wind energy as a measuring stick."
"Net-zero carbon dioxide by 2050 would require the deployment of ~1500 wind turbines (2.5 MW) over ~300 square miles, every day starting tomorrow and continuing to 2050."
"Of course, in this analysis I am just looking at scale, and ignoring the significant complexities of actually deploying these technologies. I am also ignoring the fact that fossil fuels are the basis for many products central to the functioning of the global economy, and eliminating them is not nearly as simply as unplugging one energy source and plugging in another."
For the United States Only:
"To reach net-zero by 2050, the US would need to deploy one new nuclear power plant worth of carbon-free energy about every 6 days, starting this week, and continuing until 2050. This does not include possible increases in future energy consumption."