Elektrizität ist viel weniger umweltschädlich (auch heute noch, ganz zu schweigen von der erneuerbaren Energieerzeugung) als jede andere Energiequelle, bei der es sich in der Regel um die direkte Verbrennung von Brennstoffen handelt, wie z. B. industrielle Heizung oder Verkehr. Ich bin einigermaßen zuversichtlich, dass wir das Netz bald überwiegend mit erneuerbaren Energiequellen betreiben können. Aber [electricity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_electricity_consumption) macht nur etwa 13 % der USA aus [annual energy consumption](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_energy_consumption_and_produktion) – Beachten Sie, dass 1 GWh 3,4 Milliarden BTU entspricht. Der Rest entfällt größtenteils auf die direkte Nutzung von Öl und Erdgas (und einer schnell abnehmenden Menge an Kohle). Jetzt weiß ich, dass ein Großteil dieser direkten Nutzung elektrifiziert werden kann – durch Elektrofahrzeuge, Wärmepumpen anstelle von Gasheizungen für Häuser und Gewerbeflächen usw. Aber ich möchte verstehen, was wir NICHT elektrifizieren können, zumindest ohne auf viel Effizienz zu verzichten. Was mir ins Auge fällt, sind Güterkraftwagen, Schifffahrt, Lufttransport, Industrieheizung, Chemieproduktion und Zementproduktion. Ich weiß, dass einige Anstrengungen unternommen werden, um Alternativen dafür zu schaffen, aber diese liegen im Allgemeinen in weiter Ferne und werden möglicherweise nie funktionieren. Im Wesentlichen möchte ich eine ungefähre Zahl für den Prozentsatz des direkten Kraftstoffverbrauchs in unserer Wirtschaft haben, den wir in absehbarer Zeit NICHT ersetzen können, ohne entweder wirklich neue Technologien zu verwenden, die Effizienz aufzugeben oder beides. Danke schön!
https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/1brjowl/how_much_of_the_economy_can_we_not_electrify/
8 Kommentare
You cannot electify plastics, plastics and synthetic polymers all come from oil. IT’s a lot more than just energy.
Most electricity is still generated using coal or methane. There is no way we’ll reduce emissions enough to avoid the worst of the climate breakdown in time to roll out 100% renewables or fusion. [It’s just basic physics](http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2023/UhOh.14August2023.pdf).
I think it’s much less a question of capability than will.
Fossil fuel lobby is in very deep with a lot of politicians, and has been for a long time. Alternative fuels are catching up, but you don’t undo that much inertia quickly.
I’ve heard suggestions of things like offering free training to coal miners to learn to install solar panels or help in the construction and maintenance of nuclear facilities, but it sounds like there is fierce resistance to the idea of those jobs going away, including from the miners themselves.
Ultimately I think capitalism is going to make the choice for them, but it’s going to take a long time.
There is nothing that’s powered by fossil fuels that can’t be powered by electricity. However, there are areas that will take longer to electrify. A few examples below:
The hardest thing will be industrial work, for example steel mills consume tons of energy and they use it in burst. There are electric steel mills in Europe and, ironically, in Venezuela that I’m aware of. But my bet is that for industrial power to be based on electricity we will have to wait until fusion energy comes online or for way more fision plants to be created. FYI, fusion is basically clean energy and fision’s foot print is super low.
The other area that’s hard but getting better is aeronautics and space travel. Airplanes need fuel to be light and batteries aren’t yet. This will take a few years but it will happen. With rockets there are already some companies making fusion or fision rockets so that probably will take care of it sooner rather than later.
1. Commercial & Military Aircraft.
2. Large transoceanic shipping & military navy.
3. Portable / remote heat.
4. Portable / off grid emergency electricity.
5. Long haul trucking.
6. Fertilizer production.
7. Industrial process heat. (e.g. paper products, plastic injection molding, steel hardening, etc)
8. You can pry my wood pellet smoker from my cold dead hands. I will never go back to propane, electric smoker, or charcoal.
9. Heavy equipment (e.g. excavators, tractors, skid steers, mining trucks, well drilling, forestry, etc). We are trying to electrify, but its so hard & expensive without another order of magnitude improvement to battery energy density.
10. Orbital class rocketry.
11. Remote pumping stations (e.g. irrigation pumps, natgas pipeline pumps, etc).
Anything stationary can be fed electricity. Anything that moves short distances can carry a battery. Anything that moves long distances on set routes along the ground can be fed electricity via a pantograph (ie trains). It’s things which need to move long distances not on land or on varied routes which are the problem. Aircraft, ships, trucks.
Electric railways can take some of the demand from those vehicles. But not all. They’ll keep burning something.
The current contenders here are ammonia and methanol, both made with green hydrogen. My money is on methanol, but there’s considerable momentum behind ammonia for ships, so it’s not a slam dunk.
There’d be so many tons of Carbon dioxide and other pollutants removed from the air if we electrified trains.
Many commuter trains run on one track back and forth, yet still spew diesel.
Doing this for long distance lines like freight and Amtrak lines would remove thousands of tons of unnecessary pollution from happening every day.
We could and should have done this decades and decades ago, yet in 2024 it’s still not even a plan.
The current move is to handle the industries you mention through green hydrogen. Hydrogen is the highest energy density fuel that can be made with renewables. Green hydrogen is made by using renewable power to split the hydrogen off a water molecule. Blue Hydrogen is splitting the hydrogen off methane and then carbon capturing the CO2.
In both cases you move it primarily by combining with Nitrogen to create ammonia.
There are dirtier ways to make Hydrogen which is in some ways helpful because there is already an infrastructure in place for it. It’s energy dense enough to run a steel mill off of. Current gas fired plants can burn hydrogen mixed in without modification but would need to get rehabbed to burn 100% hydrogen.
It’s the way to store renewable power or transport it long distances. It’s non viable for cars due to how difficult it is to handle.
The one thing it won’t be good at is air transport as it has a similar yet opposite problem to batteries. It takes up a lot of volume which would necessitate radically different looking airplanes and create a drag issue because of it. Battery powered planes are an issue due to weight.
There are a metric ton of hydrogen deals going on right now. Think dozens each in places with traditional petro chemical industries.