Modern society is falling apart over the cost of getting to net zero. I don't think we have the funds to put lakes on artificial life support in the foreseeable future.
Of the interests pushing for net zero, the bulk of them are only doing it insofar as it can be done in a way that basically guarantees them incomes and all of these earmarks are what's driving the non-starter cost while simultaneously souring people on the whole premise. You'd think that people who allege to think on environmental time scales wouldn't need to be told that a movement that looks like branded rent seeking and legalized corruption when viewed through the perspective of anyone who isn't rolling in money isn't gonna last long enough to do its job.
Really? Where? Sure looks like we've completely given up. Where are these costs? Who is spending any money on Net-Zero.
California has a dramatically easier climate, and is similarly struggling - without even taking into account goods shipping/transportation, thermal heat in the less nice climate zones, etc.
California might have a chance of getting to actual net zero without completely breaking the bank. But it’s not obvious it will. Germany is an order of magnitude harder.
Like the movie The Arrival (1996)
How can we burn more coal, more gas.
I figure we’ve got at least a year or two before we start puking all over the place. Maybe less though!
Fun times, eh?
I guess we're trying much harder than most, but it's expensive, as you said, and politicians have become very careful to push things further. That said, I do think it's totally feasible in theory, it's just there's a lot of powerful bad actors out there throwing wrenches in the works.
Thermal heating for example, even using heat pumps, will require more than 5x the existing electrical grids peak energy capacity - just on its own. I’ve done the math several times, it’s staggering.
And it will do it during typically minimal insolation times.
Germany has made good progress, don’t get me wrong, but it highlights just how hard of a problem this really is.
The reality is likely worse for a number of reasons, but even if way better it doesn’t get around that you’d need many multiples of the entire electrical grids peak capacity to come close. And that is assuming there is zero other load on the grid, which isn’t going to happen.
If everyone completely redid all their structures and all their use of heating, and installed all the best heat pumps, AND doubled grid capacity, maaaaybe. But we’re talking massive amounts of Capital. Capital that used to be cheap, but isn’t anymore.
Far more Capital than likely has been spent so far on renewables too, but it’s hard to calculate it because of the sheer distortion that it would cause trying to do something of this scale.
It might be legitimately cheaper to buy Northern Africa and move all Germans there instead (in new construction). That seems pretty unlikely for sócio-political reasons though.
A 3 million BTU boiler will consume 85 cubic meters of gas in one hour running at max, or about 300kWh of electricity for the same amount of heat from a heat pump over one hour, assuming a COP of 3. It’s 360 amps of current at 480V three-phase (300kW/480/1.732 = 360.8A), or ~400 horsepower. Divide the above units by 30 for a large 100,000 BTU furnace in a home.
Where I live, 85 cubic meters of gas costs about $9 and 300kWh of electricity costs about $45. Natural gas still wins in cost even if your NG heater is only 25% efficient. Even though the heat pump is 3 times more efficient, it costs 5x as much to run vs an HE condensing boiler (at maximum, variable speed compressors will make the COP of the heat pump in practice better than 3 but it will still cost more to operate.)
Anyways, the above is why virtually every building in Minnesota (and similar climates) uses natural gas for heat: cost.
Last year we used 7000kWh of natural gas (at 0.14€/kWh). Assuming 90% efficiency of our condensing boiler that's 6300kWh for heating water and air. We heat from ~November to ~February and use hot water all year round (though the cold water will vary by ~6 degC).
We have PV: 7.5kWp, 6kWh storage, electricity 2024: 6.3MWh generation, 2.1MWh usage at 80% autarky (100% from April to August, 90% March, Oktober, avg 50% November to February). 435kWh drawn from grid at 0.36€/kWh, 4.2MWh sent to grid at 0.075€/kWh
We can replace the boiler with a hot water heatpump that would be ~fully powered by our PV from ~March to ~Oktober. And for space heating we can use an air-air heatpump(s). We also have decent insulation and decentral ventilation with enthalpy exchanger.
Now the mystery is how much gas we waste in the non-heating period for hot water, and how little space heating we can get by with (small 60m^2 flat, kitchen, bedroom don't need heating) as well as the actual COP. My guess would be 3-4kWh of heating would be quite adequate plus whatever hot water will use.
We're currently looking for offers for getting rid of gas (and maybe central heating) completely. Wonder what calculation they'll come up with. Note that it doesn't need to be profitable at current prices as gas prices will rise, renewables will get cheaper, and you can still get 30-55% of subsidy.
I also consider getting rid of fossils completely a worthy struggle in itself as it reduces geopolitical dependence and increases resilience. But yeah, it's a multigenerational problem at this scale and scope, esp. considering all the other areas of overuse that need fixing.
California had to start killing grid infeed and solar subsidies for instance as it was starting to bankrupt utilities.