Saul Griffith believes engineers are working at one of the most exciting points in history and we must shift to sourcing all our energy needs from renewable electricity.
Inventor and engineer Saul Griffith says there’s very little reason to be optimistic about what we’ve done to the planet. Despite that, when it comes to climate change, he sees the need for proactive, positive stories.
“I am naturally an optimist and I think there are tentative reasons to be optimistic,” he tells create.
Described by The New Yorker as “an extraordinarily innovative engineer who is trying to think his way around the limits of innovation,” Griffith is the founder of Otherlab, a San Francisco-based research and design lab devoted to creative solutions in the fields of renewable energy and robotics.
After decades working in the US, he has recently returned to Australia, where he hopes the country can go from a climate laggard to a world-leading example of how sustainable policy can improve people’s lives for the better.
Griffith’s plan to remake the nation’s energy landscape for a sustainable future is certainly an inspiring and forward-thinking one. His plan for a green future is a simple one: electrify everything.
And he believes the returns on an economy-wide shift to sourcing all our energy needs from renewable electricity will be remarkable.
“Electrification is going to be the majority of the solution outside of land use and agriculture. We just need to focus the mind on that, and build the policies and the technologies for that,” he says. “You could supply nearly everyone in the world with an improved quality of life, do it with zero emissions, and do it on time to beat a two-degree target.”
Potential world leader
Griffith identifies Australia as a potential world-leader when it comes to decarbonising our economy.
“Australia is unique globally because we are such an enormously out-sized primary producer — our peer nations are like Saudi Arabia, meaning we export multiples of the amount of energy we use in a domestic economy, so that makes us weird,” he explains.
“The other thing that’s unique about Australia is low population density, mild climate, enormous land mass, best-in-class-in-the-world wind and solar resources. So we have the easiest pathway to fix climate change of any country in the world, without doubt. If you can’t solve it in Australia, you can’t solve it anywhere.”
Griffith nominates a few areas in which Australia should be focusing its attention, noting that the nation already has a high take-up rate of rooftop solar cells.
“You need a similar set of policies around vehicle charging infrastructure, you need a similar set of policies around converting or building heat from natural gas to electric heat pumps, you need a similar set of policies around installing a profusion of batteries,” he says.
“Batteries, batteries, everywhere. Whether it’s on the side of your house, whether it’s in your car, whether it’s on the distribution grid, we’ll need a lot of storage.”
As an engineer, Griffith understands how crucial other engineers will be to making the changes needed.
“I think becoming an engineer is an optimistic act. What is the job description of an engineer at large? Making machines that improve people’s lives. And that’s what we all sign up for. Here’s the biggest opportunity to do that ever,” he says.
“We get to work at one of the most exciting points in history. We get to drive the transition. Are you telling me that the most important job in Australia for the next decade is being an engineer? That’s me. I love that.”
What about energy storage?
A predominantly renewable grid cannot operate without storage due to stability issues. Storage can help enhance grid stability by coping with intermittent supply, frequency changes, voltage support, supply and demand fluctuations and more.
When the Hornsdale Big Battery proved to be a great success, batteries finally appeared on the radar of those in the energy space. “That was a milestone, a peg in the ground in terms of proving what battery technology could do, and be scaled up to achieve,” says Conan Jones, engineer and Business Development Manager with FIMER Australia when he spoke with create earlier this year.
Late last year, Australian engineers announced development of the world’s first integrated hybrid hydrogen battery that combines with rooftop solar to deliver sustainable, reliable and renewable energy for residential and commercial properties.
LAVO is a hydrogen battery system that works by drawing electricity from a rooftop solar array, using an electrolyser to split water into hydrogen and oxygen, storing the hydrogen in a solid state in silver hydride tanks, before dispatching this as electricity via a fuel cell when needed to generate electricity.
Dr Saul Griffith is a speaker at the Climate Smart Engineering conference. See the full line-up here.
To replace one coal fired power station with renewable electricity generation like wind and solar you need three sources of electricity generation of equal size: 1) The solar power plant, 2) The pumped hydro power plant, 3) The batter storage plant. ThIs is three times the production cost of a coal fired plant. Then you have the additional expense of needing 10,000 km of new transition lines.
Even though you initial solar electricity generation is cheaper than that of a coal fired power plant, by making it available when and where the consumer requires electricity the costs of the alternative generated electricity is three times more expensive than our present price to the consumer
Best example of this is Germany with over 50% alternative electricity generation capacity and the highest electricity costs in Europe three times our costs.
Why do Engineers hide this reality?
Even when Australia is wealthy enough to do the madness of wind and solar for 26 million people on a sunny continent, China cannot do the same for 1.4 billion people, nor the rest of the world with 8 billion people.
It is time the Institue of Engineers becomes realistic about Nuclear Power Station!!!
There is not enough metal on earth to build enough batteries to “electrify everything”, and to keep our current way of life. Priorities must be set on electrifying essential activities, such as heating/cooling houses (together with isolation) or transporting food, and other non essential activities must be gradually stopped, such as flying for tourism or driving 2+ tonnes vehicles around. As engineers we need to look for inovations but also be realistic about what is possible with the current timeframe we have left and resources available. Let’s not forget to do basic rule of three to keep the order of magnitudes in mind.
“When the Hornsdale Big Battery proved to be a great success, batteries finally appeared on the radar of those in the energy space.”
Great success indeed…Being paid $1000/MWh to absorb excess power supply – and selling at $14,000/MWh at peak – yeah, I would say it is a success. But what does it have to do with “green future” or making renewable energy feasible, sustainable or even affordable ? What doe it have to do with solving energy problem (which, to a large extent, is artificially fabricated) ?
And:
“Batteries, batteries, everywhere. Whether it’s on the side of your house, whether it’s in your car, whether it’s on the distribution grid, we’ll need a lot of storage.”
Yes. We will need so much battery storage that there is not enough lithium in the world to make them. Nothing new here.
I would also love to hear what the definition of “zero emisssions” is to various people. It seems that it is mostly a slogan – without understanding that in reality there is no such thing as “zero emissions”. But hey – this is Australia, and let no one dare to say that we ever let the facts get in the way of a good yarn…
1—–. NOTE: Analysis by Refer Stephen Brick & Samuel Thernstrom California and Germany climates analysis: (this was done for year 2016 weather in that year)
An electricity supply system that comprises of IR’s solar + wind System AND back-up.
For a 40-50% supply capacity from Solar & Wind system would require 75% peak-demand capacity back-up supply
For an 80% supply capacity from Solar & Wind system would require 85% peak-demand capacity back-up supply.
That means base-load-back-up comprising off NGCC (natural gas combine cycle) best for instant back-up, and/or coal (HELE) for base-load capacity. But unquestionably nuclear power (currently fission) solves all, even SMR’s small modular reactors.
2 ——Green hydrogen is produced by the electrolysis of water using intermittent green energy like solar or wind power.
It requires heaps of fresh water and electricity, neither of which can ever be fully recovered. Every ton of hydrogen uses nine tons of water.
The crazy West losing the plot on energy moves to “green hydrogen”. The main combustion product of hydrogen fuel is water vapour which has a greater per molecule IR (“warming”) effect than carbon dioxide! And that’s before we get to the relative mass basis of atmospheric water / CO2 ie 10,000 ppm water to 400+ ppm carbon dioxide. Crazy extremists!
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3——-A short reminder of Dan Andrews proposal to replace the Yallourn-W, 1200MW power station, WITH off-shore wind mills. Dan A and Lilly D’A announced a huge 150MW battery.
Any speak about batteries-hydrogen-CO2 capture-is stupid talk. A high school student would (maybe should) know that apart from fossil fuels only nuclear-fission plants and SMR’s can ensure guaranteed-affordable electricity just like we have developed in the last century.
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4 ——-Simple Example:
VICTORIA: YALL-W 1.2 GW output supply: There was excitement about a “huge 150MWh BATTERY.
YALL-W to be replaced by off-shore wind turbines plus a “BATTERY” to maintain supply during no wind!
A STUPID COMMENT!
YALL-W @ 1.2GW power station capacity generation 1200MW (28,800MWh per day).
For a supply-demand of 1,200MW, the 150MWh battery will last 7½ minutes. (That’s not back-up)
To supply 1200MW for a peak one hour, requires 1,200/150 = 8 of the “huge 150MWh batteries”. BUT back-up required is not just hours but DAYS and WEEKS.
At say $1.0m per 1MWh Say 150Mwh battery =S150m
8 off 150MW batteries = 8 x $150 = $1200m ==$1.2bilion
Of course that requires huge extra quantities of turbines supply electricity AND to recharge batteries. YES STUPID__WILL NEVER HAPPEN.
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[email protected] (article in herald –sun)
5 ———Recharge Industries in Geelong’2026 will open with a 6GWh battery.
Then increase to 30GWh batteries.
AS an example compare to the Yall-W closure. A 1.2GW capacity every hour every day every week etc supply according to demand.
So Yallourn supplies 1.2 GW x 24 hrs = 28.8GWh on daily demand.
The Recharge Industries 30GWh =30,000MWh will do that BUT- BUT after one day it needs to be recharged.
Say $1.0m per1MWh battery is $1.0m x 30,000MWh =$30,000m = $30Billion (A huge cost)
And if 8MW windmills are used and CF =0.4 then charging supply is 3.2MW.
30GW =30,000MW : (requires 30,000/3.2 =9317 of rated 8MW wind mills)
For wind mills @S10m per mill that requires $10mcx 9317 = $93,170m = $93 billion (A huge cost)
So Batteries can only play a small part-keep grid stability-and very short-time supply
To back-up daily-weekly supply requires coal or gas or nuclear (SMR’s) generation up to 80-85% +peak hour capacity
Hydrogen will never work—huge cost of up to 10 times the normal coal-gas generation costs.
And for green hydrogen, 10 times more water quantity (tonnes) is required per every 1 tonne of hydrogen produced.
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6—–There is Aussie Mr Forrest; pretending CO2 is the devil-evil, said a “peaceful mutual engagement” between the United States and China must be had to take a more pro-active stance on “CO2 changing the climate”. “I am desperate to stop the building coal-fired power stations”, he said.
Of course he would “Mr Forrest” has taken full advantage of Aussie political energy generation ignorance, and is investing in solar farms to lay the groundwork for Fortescue Future Industries to be producing 15 million tonnes of green hydrogen by 2030. (That means about 150 million tonnes of water is required—about 20 million tonnes of water every year! (About 20 trillion litres of water every year—–Good luck with that!).
AND-The energy content 0f liquid hydrogen is about 70% of the energy required to produce it. Burn it in a combined cycle gas turbine (energy efficiency 50%) and see that energy return drop to around 35%. —-Good luck with that! . Then add the over-build necessary in solar panels for the inefficiency of hydrogen.
Words to Mr Forrest: Prof Fritz Vahrenholt, has analysed schemes for Germany: storage of wind power via hydrogen –it requires doubling the wind turbine numbers to supply and store into hydrogen-, meaning ten-fold increases in electricity prices”. A similar result with solar power.
Prof Plimer: “A cost analysis shows that the “all in” cost of hydrogen produced by electrolysis is ₤137 per MWh whereas the cost for gas as a fuel is ₤13.60 per MWh. End of story. Why even bother thinking about hydrogen”
“Green” steel using hydrogen is six times more expensive than steel made using coal further problems—manufacturing costs, storage and transport make hydrogen an expensive and dangerous fuel. —Good luck with that
Mr Forrest has been discussing his plans with King Charles and the new UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. (Won’t have enough water in UK to produce masses of hydrogen!) The UK will be unable to afford the cost of hydrogen-to-electricity. No Nation will. —-Good luck with that.
Mr Forrest has fooled Ex PM Turnbull; who thinks he will be in the money!