MORGANTOWN — The transition to green energy will be packed with hidden costs nationally and globally, an expert told shale gas industry leaders during Wednesday’s Shale Insight conference.
Mark Mills is a senior fellow with the Manhattan Institute think tank and a writer for the Wall Street Journal. He described the huge demands the transition will make on economies and natural resources.
The annual conference is put on by the Marcellus Shale Coalition, the West Virginia Oil and Natural Gas Association and the Ohio Oil and Gas Association. In recent years it’s been held in Pittsburgh and this year was set for Erie, Pa., until COVID-19 led it to go all virtual.
After hundreds of billions of dollars of subsidies, solar and wind’s contribution to the global energy supply has grown significantly, but still makes up just 2% of the global supply, he said. The subsidies and mandates for renewables will continue to increase, thereby decreasing the demand for gas power slightly over th enext 15 years.
But grid parity of fossil fuels versus wind and solar is a myth, he said. Wind and solar can’t supply energy on demand the way fossil fuels can, and the real costs of those renewables ranges for 200% to 300% higher. In Europe, a wind and solar’s contributions to the grid have doubled, so have the rates.
Projections show that going 100% carbon free with wind, solar and hydro would be 700% greater than any electric grid construction program to date, he said. “It’s a World War II level of construction mobilization. … It’s a way of saying it won’t happen.”
Subsidies don’t eliminate physics, he said. In recent years, battery and wind and solar technology has gotten 10 times better in terms of cost and efficacy. But as with any technology, there’s a law of diminishing returns and they won’t get 10 times better again; continued improvements will be incremental, unlike digital technology.
Mills also looked at the materials involved in the transition. Bringing 400 million electric vehicles online across the world wouldn’t displace even 10% of all world oil use. But there will be more batteries. And that will require mining more materials, which will benefit other countries but not so much the U.S., where expanded mining is frowned upon.
A single car battery, he said, weighs 1,000 pounds and requires 500,000 pounds of materials moved to make it. So the electric vehcile revolution will require a 2005 to 500% increase in mining for minerals, with all the associated environmental and energy impacts.
Going solar will probably benefit foreign producers more than American producers, he said. Now, 90% of all solar panels are imported. There are no plans to mine more materials here to make them domestically.
And batteries and solar panels will generate waste. Windmill blades aren’t recyclable, nor are portions of solar panels. Renewables now generate about 250,000 metric tons; that will grow to 2 million by 2050 according to projections. The problem will dwarf that of plastic straws that currently worries so many, he said.
The one positive for the gas industry, he said, is that sustainable development will slow drilling and decrease the supply faster than demand, leading to higher prices.
Another potential positive in the continued growth of the digital economy, he said. Data centers require power: $1 billion worth of data center requires $2 billion worth of power. Globally, data centers are growing at $400 billion per year and the power demand is more than wind and solar can supply. This will be an opportunity for American suppliers and the export market.
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