|
The U.S. Solar PV Industry will never be able to grow large enough to
power the transportation industry. Why? Because the amount of
energy needed is well beyond the forecasted growth of U.S. solar power
generation. And, it’s even worse than that. Industry analysts are
making their forecasts based on rising fossil fuel production… the critical
energy necessary to manufacture and build solar power plants.
There seems to be this notion by Americans, that in the future, they will
just plug in their electric cars and drive to their heart’s desire. It
seems as if no one takes the time to do a bit of simple math. While
U.S. solar power generation has increased significantly over the past several
years, it is still a fraction of the total energy supplied.
For example, U.S. fossil fuel production (coal, natural gas, and oil)
still supplies 88 times more energy than solar PV power. However,
if we just focus on the U.S. solar power generation versus the transportation
sector, it only amounts to 2.6% of the total:
According to the EIA, the U.S. Energy Information Agency, total U.S. solar
power generation in 2017 was 0.77 Quadrillion BTU’s versus 29.5 Quad BTU’s
consumed by the entire domestic transportation sector… cars, buses, trucks,
and trains. To give you an idea of how much 1 Quad BTU equals,
it represents the energy in 170 million barrels of oil. Thus, the U.S.
transportation sector consumes 29.5 times that amount or roughly 5 billion
barrels of oil per year.
For the U.S. Solar Power Industry to increase in size to equal the same
energy that is consumed by the transportation sector, it would need to grow
by over 33 times. Now, I am just making some simple calculations here,
but even with the optimistic projects in this renewable energy industry,
solar would still only represent about 15% of the present transportation
energy consumption by 2035:
The forecast for U.S. solar power generation growth is to increase from 44
billion kilowatt hours (kWh) in 2017 to 245 kWh by 2035:
So, if we multiply the present 0.77 Quad BTU’s of solar power generation
(in the first chart) by six, it would equal roughly 4.6 Quad BTU’s by 2035.
Thus, 4.6 Quad BTU’s versus the 29.5 Quad BTU’s consumed by the
transportation sector would only be 15%.
Now, we must remember, not all of this solar power would be used to charge
electric cars. The majority of future solar power generation would be
used to supply electricity for residential, commercial and industrial sectors
of the market.
I wanted to provide this information to show how inconceivable it is for
the United States to be able to switch over to renewable energy such as solar
to power our economy. For example, the U.S. consumed 78
Quadrillion BTU’s of fossil fuels (coal, natural gas, and oil) in 2017.
Present solar power generation only represents 1% of this total.
I believe once U.S. shale oil production peaks and declines in the next
few years, we will not have the necessary energy to ramp up solar power
generation in the future. Americans better prepare for a much different
world tomorrow. And NO, it will not be like the cartoon show, the
Jetsons.
|
|
