Rough calculations, cost of SAI on energy infra

[Andrew Lockley]

Just a quick envelope calculation on possible costs to energy infrastructure from SRM. I don't recall seeing anything like this published. Please attack. 

Total world energy consumption is a bit under 20TW and growing fast. 

https://www.theworldcounts.com/stories/current_world_energy_consumption

We can crudely assume approximately that amount will come from solar, mid century - due to expected energy consumption growth and other technology providing the balance (wind, nuclear, etc).

Let's assume that SRM makes solar PV about 1pc less efficient. That's 200GW lost to SRM. 

Mid point solar PV LCOE is about $35/MWh at the moment. We can assume that might fall to around $2-20, although that's a broad range. 

Even at the bottom of this range, the cost to replace the "lost" energy is therefore $400,000/hr. Per annum that's roughly $4bn - and could easily be $40bn that, if solar costs don't fall precipitously. 

Even at the low end, that's approx the cost of an SRM program.

My thinking is that this might be a tipping point that makes other forms of SRM preferable - eg MCB or polar SAI. 

Comments welcome 

Andrew 

[Andrew Lockley]

List, 

To correct my earlier post on this matter. 

At the recent GRC I met with Susanne Baur of CERFACS (bcc) who is researching this. After seeing her work I realised I had completely messed up my workings. The diffuse vs direct radiation term in the PV capacity calculation is swamped by changes to module temperature (colder = better) and cloud fraction (cloudy = worse).

A sobering lesson in taking beer mat calculations seriously without proper models. Also, a reminder to check my workings with grad students with actual subject matter expertise before rushing out results that later turn out to be wrong!

I'm on the science naughty step for a week now. 

Andrew 

[SALTER Stephen]

Hi All

 

Perhaps we should also consider  the proportion of photovoltaic generation deployed in cloudy mid-ocean regions and its connection cables relative to that in land installations.

 

I think that 800 spray vessels weighing 90 tonnes each and controlled by intelligent climate engineers could do most of what we need.  If we can index link the 1940 cost of Royal Navy corvettes, or the £600 a year salary of RV Jones, the chief scientific advisor who bent Luftwaffe navigation beams, or the present £8000 per tonne of JCB earth-moving machinery (which now days has lots of electronic controls) we get a vessel cost of $4 million each in mass production. To pay off this over 25 years at sensible bank rates and do some maintenance would need about $ 320 million a year.

 

How many beach front properties would we need to save from rising sea levels?  How many Chelsea football players could we buy?

 

The attached note shows what might be done with just 60 vessels put in sensible places.  Let me know if you would like calculations for sea level rise.

 

Stephen

 

From: geoengi...@googlegroups.com <geoengi...@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of Andrew Lockley
Sent: 16 July 2022 15:49
To: geoengineering <geoengi...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: [geo] Re: Rough calculations, cost of SAI on energy infra

 

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