Is “Renewable Energy” Renewable?
Part 1: PV & Polysilicon
“All Words are Pegs to Hang Ideas On”
--Henry Ward Beecher
Labels are powerful. In energy, there is none more consequential than "renewable.” But straining to avoid carbon, we’ve swallowed a camel. A🧵/1
Part 1: PV & Polysilicon
“All Words are Pegs to Hang Ideas On”
--Henry Ward Beecher
Labels are powerful. In energy, there is none more consequential than "renewable.” But straining to avoid carbon, we’ve swallowed a camel. A🧵/1
To qualify as renewable, a resource must be capable of being “replaced by natural ecological cycles...”
Well obviously there’s nothing more natural and renewable than daily solar radiation. The planet is awash in free photons. /2
Well obviously there’s nothing more natural and renewable than daily solar radiation. The planet is awash in free photons. /2
But free photons mark the beginning and the end of “renewability” for solar energy. To convert free photons into electricity requires, among other things, POLYSILICON. And polysilicon is anything but renewable. IT’S NOT EVEN RECYCLABLE - constant replacement. /3
POLYSILICON manufacturing requires three inputs:
1. High-purity silica from quartzite rock.
2. High-purity coking coal.
3. Lots of dispatchable (fossil) electric energy.
Yet none of these is, in any sense of the label, "renewable.” /4
1. High-purity silica from quartzite rock.
2. High-purity coking coal.
3. Lots of dispatchable (fossil) electric energy.
Yet none of these is, in any sense of the label, "renewable.” /4
Naturally, PV promoters and ESG fact checkers seem to be the most fanatical of all about ending production of the very fossil fuel resources upon which PV depends for its existence. And PV’s fossil fuel dependence will never change - because it's not renewable. /5
Polysilicon: Chemical grade quartzite is relatively rare and is no more renewable than fossil fuels. There is a world-class resource near my home. I know the current owners. It was located over 100 years ago as a flux resource (Kennecott smelter). /6
Production drilling using more carbide bits and drill steel than any mine the drilling contractors know. Quartzite is one of the most abrasive stones on earth. Tight patterns. Many holes. Carbide production is from China. It's not renewable. But no carbide, no mining. /7
Next - BLASTING using Ammonium Nitrate / Fuel Oil (ANFO), which is 100% derived from fossil fuels. No crude oil, no gas, no ANFO. No ANFO, no mining. No quartzite. No polysilicon. No PV. None of this is renewable, nor is the diesel fuel, tires, mining equipment, etc. /8
Next, shot rock is sorted and fed into a primary crusher, where stone smaller than 2” is rejected and the larger stone is crushed and re-crushed into sand. For some applications, milling is required. Quartzite is extraordinarily hard and abrasive. Fossil power. Not renewable. /9
Second, coal. (Oh the horrors - avert the gaze). Metallurgical coal is too valuable and rare to burn for heat. It is high-carbon coal that is suitable to use in essential industrial processes such as ironmaking and polysilicon production. /10 blairsergeant.com/what-is-coking…
Naturally, PV and renewable energy supporters, and ESG fact checkers bent on ending the use of coal, have almost destroyed the world’s production of metallurgical coal resources, so much so that China’s primary source is Russia. Ethics aside, none of this is renewable. /11
Utah used to be a significant producer of metallurgical grade coal but since the City of Oakland scuttled an essential bulk coal terminal, exports stopped. Dear protesters and ESG fact checkers: No metallurgical coal = No polysilicon = no solar panels, no cell phones, etc. /12
JUICE: When the Empire State Building spire was clad in bright aluminum, the metal was worth more than gold. Its value was determined not by the rarity of bauxite, but by the extraordinary amount of dispatchable electrical energy required to turn bauxite into aluminum. /13
Polysilicon is an electricity beast: “An electricity requirement for purification, ingot pulling, and wafering of ≈360–380 kWh kg−1 for silicon wafers and carbon intensity can lead to a cumulative amount of ≈16.4–58.8 Gt of CO2-eq emissions by 2050.” /14
ESG fact checkers: Ever wonder why China is cranking out hundreds of coal-fired power plants? Hint: It’s not to make t-shirts. Ever wonder what all the minerals are for? Renewable energy, naturally. /15
“If you can’t see it, it doesn’t exist.”
Polysilicon’s high fossil fuel demand is a primary reason China is the world’s #1 producer. /16
Polysilicon’s high fossil fuel demand is a primary reason China is the world’s #1 producer. /16
Yet consider what France did in 10 yrs. No wind/solar/batteries. No polysilicon. No cobalt. No lithium. No child labor in Africa. Little fossil fuel. Truth is that “renewable” energy is a Rube Goldberg farcical solution to civilization’s simple thermal energy needs. /17
Wind/solar/batteries energy resources are not “renewable” in any material sense of the word. They do not deserve special taxonomy. Humans will need to continuously build and replace turbines, solar panels, and infrastructure. Fossil Fuels Forever. /18
Because of its extraordinary energy density, nuclear power generates far more energy per unit of natural resource input (mining, fossil fuel, metal, labor) than any other energy source, and significantly more than the resources arbitrarily branded as being “renewable.” Bunk. /19
Replacement Label for "Renewable" Energy
what about nuclear waste?
https://twitter.com/MadiHilly/status/1550148385931513856?s=20&t=UFju7NH8M-2JE7jy3xyHlg
@dale_wen let's use the Chinese word. Post on that when you can
Other options to replace "renewable"
Solar panels are not economically recyclable. The panel layers are fused in such a way that it would require even more fossil energy to "recycle" them than to build new panels. There are many startup companies trying to raise capital under the guise of recycling but...
Solar panels are not recyclable. Throw away and start over. Ad infinitum. Not renewable in any sense of the word. BTW I left out glass, aluminum, hydrochloric acid, and many, many other fossil-fuel-dependent inputs.
Solar panels are no more recyclable than a computer, probably less so. Used solar panels are similar to e-waste. There is no way to unravel the permanently-fused and precisely-etched layers (nano-technology).
PV solar = fossil-fuel-based manufacturing and petro-chemical feedstock inputs ad infinitum. Virgin material inputs required. Throw away. Replace. Not renewable. Not recyclable.
Recyclable much?
“While supplying only about 1 percent of global electricity,” Scientific American reported in 2019, “photovoltaics already relies on 40 percent of the global tellurium supply, 15 percent of the silver supply...
a large portion of semiconductor quality quartz supply, and smaller but important segments of the indium, zinc, tin, and gallium supplies.” AND all the FOSSIL FUEL and CARBON INPUTS that went into creating these resources...mackinac.org/blog/2022/brig…
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