{"id":348503,"date":"2024-10-23T08:23:01","date_gmt":"2024-10-23T06:23:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=348503"},"modified":"2024-10-23T08:23:04","modified_gmt":"2024-10-23T06:23:04","slug":"navigating-the-physical-realities-of-the-energy-transition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=348503","title":{"rendered":"Navigating the physical realities of the energy transition"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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From Watts Up With That?<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Roger Caiazza<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A recent McKinsey Global Institute report The hard stuff: Navigating the physical realities of the energy transition<\/strong><\/a> (McKinsey Report) describes the challenges of the energy transition transformation for those who want a decarbonized society.  This post describes my review of the description of the power sector with respect to my primary concerns for the New York Climate Leadership & Community Leadership Act transition of the electric grid to zero-emissions by 2040.  Those concerns are the need for a dispatchable emissions-free resource<\/a> (DEFR) and the enormous risk<\/a> associated with determining how much DEFR must be deployed to prevent blackouts in electric grids that depend on variable renewable energy resources, .i.e., wind and solar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The McKinsey Report describes the realities of the global clean energy transition that proponents claim is necessary to address the existential threat of climate change.  I think the authors did a good job explaining many of the complicated issues associated with the energy transition.  The scope of the report is enormous because they are trying to cover the entire global energy system:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The energy system consists of the production, conversion, delivery, and consumption of energy resources across sectors as both fuels and feedstocks (that is, inputs for the production of different materials).  The system is a massive, interlocking physical entity that has been optimized over centuries. It has served billions of people\u2014if not yet all of humanity\u2014well. But in an era in which countries and companies around the world are aspiring to address climate change, the high emissions resulting from the current energy system are now firmly in focus. The world has duly embarked on a huge transformation, centered on switching from the high-emissions assets and processes on which the system is largely based to new low-emissions solutions.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The summary describes the key points in the report:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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