by Edward Ring
California’s net-zero crusade is colliding with arithmetic: soaring costs, stubborn fossil-fuel dependence, and physics itself expose a 2045 target built more on aspiration than reality.
California’s state government has set an official goal of “net zero” by 2045. That’s less than 19 years from now. Already in pursuit of that goal, the state has managed to have the highest priced gasoline and the highest priced electricity in the entire continental United States.
Condemning its residents to a poverty inducing bleeding edge of energy progress in hopes of proving to the world that the “climate crisis” can be successfully addressed might be justifiable if, to begin with, we really face a climate crisis that will be alleviated by converting the entire world economy to net zero. It might even be justifiable if there were any signs that the massively more populous developing nations in the world were even slightly inclined to follow suit. And more to the point, even if those conditions were applicable, it might be justifiable if Californians, to date, had made any significant progress toward the goal of net zero.
They have not. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, in 2023 (the most recent year for which we have data), Californians relied on petroleum for 46 percent of their raw energy input, and natural gas for another 33 percent. After investing hundreds of billions of dollars and imposing the most expensive energy market in America on its residents, California still relies on fossil fuel for 79 percent of its energy.
A few weeks ago, I examined the worldwide challenge to replace fossil fuel with renewables. Using data from the Statistical Review of World Energy, the numbers were unequivocal. In 2024, oil provided 34 percent of global energy, coal provided 28 percent, and natural gas provided 25 percent. Last year, fully 87 percent of global energy came from fossil fuel.
In response to this analysis, renewables proponents accused me of ignoring the “fallacy of primary energy.” They argue that it is the amount of energy actually delivered and used that matters, and that since fossil fuel is not considered as efficient as renewable electricity, I have overstated the challenge of eliminating fossil fuel from the global economy.
This argument isn’t wrong, but it’s still a bit glib. To recap: the world consumes 591 exajoules (EJ) of primary energy per year, with 87 percent coming from fossil fuel. That equates to 72 gigajoules (GJ) per person; without taking America’s consumption into account, that world average drops to 64 GJ per person. As for Americans? Our per capita primary energy consumption averaged 268 GJs in 2024.
It doesn’t take an energy economist to recognize the immensity of this challenge represented by this disparity. Per capita energy is precisely correlated with per capita prosperity, and the average person on earth has access to less than one-fourth as much energy as Americans have. My analysis went on to propose 1,000 EJs/year as a minimum target for primary energy inputs by 2050, when the world population will peak at approximately 10 billion people; that would equate to only 100 GJs per person. Even someone fully cognizant of the “fallacy of primary energy” might find this a reasonable target and may have to wonder how we can possibly get there if we throw away what currently offers 87 percent of that primary energy.
But what about California? What about this pioneering state that recognizes the potential for electricity to deliver energy far more efficiently? How do the numbers play out?
Californians, benefiting from far less heavy industry and a moderate climate, do not use as much energy as most Americans. Based on the energy flow charts produced by Lawrence Livermore National Labs, the per capita average in 2023 was 177 gigajoules (GJ). This is based on “primary energy” of 7 exajoules (EJ). That was the raw energy input.
But when proponents highlight the potential for renewable electricity, they do so based on its potential to more efficiently convert primary energy into the net energy actually reaching the end user in the form of horsepower, or heating and cooling, or lights, pumping, computing, communicating, and so on. As it is, California is not very efficient at converting primary energy into net energy services. Californians “waste” 64 percent of their primary energy input. It is lost in combustion, transmission, heat, and friction. The actual per capita net energy used by Californians in 2023 was only 63 gigajoules. Put another way, for the whole state, 7.0 EJs of primary energy were input into the system, and 2.5 EJs, only 36 percent, made it to the other end as net energy services.
This case for electrification rests on one basic assumption. By using electricity, we may be able to as much as double our overall efficiency converting primary energy input into net energy services. That certainly could be true in California’s transportation sector, which consumes 50 percent of California’s primary energy but only turns 21 percent of that input into horsepower and thrust. EVs, for all their lingering flaws, can achieve full-cycle energy efficiency of 80 percent or more.
To examine this assumption, let’s review California’s energy use in terms of gigawatt-hours (GWh) of electricity.
According to the California Energy Commission, in 2023, Californians generated 215,000 GWh per year and imported another 66,000 GWh. That represented only 14 percent of the 1.9 million GWh of primary energy (7 EJ = 1.9 million GWh) inputs to the state. On the other end, the net energy services consumed by Californians in 2023, if expressed in terms of electricity, were equal to 693,000 GWh (the energy equivalent of 2.5 EJs). So what if California went fully electric and was able to double the current 36 percent efficiency, and could convert 72 percent of its primary energy input into net energy services?
Hypothetically, estimating this would simply require dividing 693,000 by 72 percent, and doing that would suggest that at that level of efficiency, you could power California entirely with electricity if you could generate 963,000 gigawatt-hours (GWh). That would require California’s electricity production to rise to 3.5 times its current output. Could this be done with renewables?
Here is where it gets tricky, notwithstanding the derision of the cognoscenti who have decided that these tedious additional details don’t matter and seem to assume that anyone who understands the “primary energy fallacy” must immediately become comfortable calling for a ban on fossil fuel, starting with the Californian oil fields and refineries.
Let’s add up California’s production of GWh by source and assess the potential each source of electricity generation has for expansion.
In 2023, the state generated 32,000 GWh from hydroelectric sources. There is limited potential to increase that renewable source of electricity. Let’s suppose we increase that to 50,000. Maybe, only maybe, that could be possible with massive rollouts of innovative small hydro and maybe even a couple of new big dams. Don’t hold your breath.
Biomass is another problematic source of energy. It isn’t massively scalable. If every shred of agricultural waste, municipal waste, and logging slash were burned—not really a good idea; the organic stuff should return to the soil—electricity generated from biomass in California might rise from the current 5,000 GWh/year to 30,000 GWh/year.
And then there’s wind, a grotesque resource hog that also happens to kill raptors, smaller birds, bats, and insects (perhaps its biggest harmful impact). At present, and despite already carpeting hundreds of square miles, wind energy only produced 14,000 GWh in 2023. Now Californians want to put them onto the ocean: 12-megawatt turbines, 20 miles offshore, floating in water 4,000 feet deep. What could possibly go wrong? A recent analysis put the cost of energy from these monstrosities at more than $0.40 per kilowatt-hour. Nothing illustrates the corrupt stupidity of California’s legislators more than the prospect of large-scale floating offshore wind development. The state intends to develop wind energy to achieve over 200,000 GWh of electricity per year. God help us all if they succeed, but even if they do, we now have 280,000 GWh of planned renewable electricity, and we’re still looking for at least another 700,000 GWh.
We are left with nuclear, geothermal, and solar. In 2023, the last big nuclear power plant in California, Diablo Canyon, generated not quite 18,000 GWh. How many large-scale nuclear power plants will ever get built in a state as hyper-regulated as California? Two? Three? By 2045? Not a safe bet. But figuring with small modular reactors becoming commercially competitive and maybe one more big reactor, you may see nuclear power in California more than quintupling to 100,000 GWh per year. That is probably a very best-case scenario, but who knows?
As for geothermal, this is a wild card. Geothermal potential in California using conventional technologies has the potential to rise from the current 11,000 GWh to maybe 50,000. It isn’t yet clear if so-called enhanced geothermal can be commercialized, and it is important when evaluating enhanced geothermal concepts to differentiate between developing geothermal resources to store energy vs. actually tapping naturally occurring underground heat to generate primary energy.
So far, setting aggressive targets, we have a plan for 430,000 GWh, and we’re left with solar to provide the other roughly 560,000 GWh. Solar output in California is impressive and rising fast, but in 2023, nonetheless, the state only produced 41,000 GWh of electricity. Solar production would have to increase by nearly 14 times to fill the gap.
Very little of this is probable. The total GWh goal for primary energy may be unrealistically low because achieving 72 percent efficiency moving from primary energy to net energy services is very ambitious. The per capita goal for net energy is also potentially low because data centers, flying cars, robots, and all kinds of other things we can only begin to imagine may consume far more energy than what we’re planning on.
And then there’s the practical matter of actual implementation. Renewables at the scale we’re contemplating here are not terribly sustainable.
Is there any chance Californians are really going to nearly double their hydroelectric output, quintuple their nuclear energy capacity, and more than quintuple their biomass power generation? Do California’s energy planners really think the state can afford to build, deploy, and maintain more than 2,000 floating wind turbines out in the deep ocean, each of them longer than a modern supercarrier when measured from the bottom of the flotation pontoons to the tip of the rotor? Is it feasible to purchase and maintain 14 times as many photovoltaic cells, along with enough batteries to buffer the intermittent power? And for how long will Californians be able to buy turbines from Germany and photovoltaic panels and batteries from China? Does the renewables lobby acknowledge the sheer resource impact of all these wind turbines, photovoltaic panels, batteries, and EVs? And do Californians have any intention of mining or manufacturing any of this in their own state?
Of course not. California may someday thrive on renewable energy. But not now, and not by 2045. Natural gas and oil are going to be with us here in California and the rest of the world for many decades to come.
When somebody claims that ignorance of the “primary energy fallacy” is the only reason they must endure the criticisms emanating from that pesky and recalcitrant rear guard of troglodytic skeptics, share the numbers. They offer a reality check that points the way to a more balanced strategy, one that necessitates keeping oil and natural gas in our energy ecosystem. Whales and birds will thank you, along with every budget-stressed household in the world.
Edward Ring
Source: https://amgreatness.com/2026/04/15/can-california-thrive-on-renewable-electricity/
No comments:
Post a Comment