Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
News hot off the presses, the madness spreads …
UN calls for doubling renewable energy by 2030
(AFP) – 1 day ago
WASHINGTON — UN chief Ban Ki-moon made a call to double global consumption of renewable energy over the next two decades in order to ensure sustainable economic development.
“It’s possible if we show political leadership,” Ban said. … “We have to be very austere in using energy… We have to completely change our behavior, at home, at the office.”
Figure 1. US energy use, 2008. Click on image for larger view. SOURCE: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories
Double our consumption of renewable energy by 2030 … what’s not to like?
Well, the first thing not to like is that renewable energy is intermittent. That means that if we add a million kilowatts of renewable energy generation, we also have to add a million kilowatts of conventional generators.
Second thing not to like is that renewable energy is expensive, typically around three times as expensive as fossil fuel. These first two things conspire to push the cost of power up, way up. Prices of electricity in California are double the prices in neighboring states because of this push for “renewables”.
More to the point, however, is the ludicrous size of what the Chief plans to do. Bear in mind that, as in California, the CO2 alarmists don’t see large-scale hydropower as “renewable” … don’t ask me why, I don’t understand it, but it’s supposed to be teh eeevil regarding CO2 … and as a result, few large hydro plants are under construction anywhere. So they’re not talking about doubling hydropower, that would be a crime in their world.
So the real reason not to like this plan is that we only get a trivial amount of energy from renewables. In the US, we get a tenth of one percent of our energy from solar, half a percent from wind, and a third of a percent from geothermal. Finally, we get 3.9% of our energy from biomass, mostly in industries that generate said biomass as a waste product. Total? A whacking great 4.8% of our energy comes from renewables.
If we double that over the next 18 years, we’ll increase the solar share to a resounding two tenths of a percent … and wind energy will go up to 1% …
Gosh, if we continue at that rate, with solar energy increasing by 0.09% every 18 years, solar will provide ten percent of the US energy by … let’s see, divide by 2, carry the 1 … well, by the year 4012.
10% solar energy by 4012 … that’s some goal there, Chief.
My main problem with the Moon Unit and his bizarro plans is that they are based on the idea that we need to decrease energy use by increasing the price of energy. They are doing that in Britain already, it’s called “fuel poverty”, and it causes old folks to shiver in the winter because they can’t afford to heat their houses. The fact that the Chief is advocating more expensive energy and thinks that reduced energy use is a path to “economic development” is just plain sick.
The opposite is true. We need to increase energy use, and to do that we need less expensive energy, particularly for the poor. Inexpensive energy is the best friend that the poor ever had. The UN’s Chief Moon-ki wants to increase energy prices. That increases prices for all products and services, because from food to clothing to medicine, everything contains energy. The Chief pretends to be a friend to the poor, but his actions do nothing but shackle the poor to a lifetime of energy poverty.
w.
PS—There are a some countries and societies (e.g. the Solomon Islands) that use 50% or more renewable energy, in the form of burning wood, sticks, twigs, and cattle dung for cooking and heating. This leads to indoor and outdoor pollution, lung disease, and eye problems, particularly affecting women. Having been in a number of those countries, I can assure you that the poor people living there would like nothing more than to get OFF of renewable energy … and Mr. Ki-moon is being willfully and criminally blind if he does not know that.
“Solar makes a big contribution to heating our houses just by coming in the window. ”
What a hoot, the report is from Canada. Pop quiz! Who is dumber than rock? a) A fencepost. b) A Canadian government employ promoting energy conservation. c) A California government employ promoting energy conservation. d) All of the above,
At least a fencepost is useful.
When I moved to California from Michigan to California, the plans for my passive solar house got reject because I has too many windows. California wanted me to build a Michigan house. I sent my plans back to the architect who labeled all my south facing windows ‘solar collectors’. That and 35 pages of alternate calculations explaining the angle of the sun at that latitude, low-e glass (new at the time), design of overhands , and the heat loss in mild winters; got my plans approved.
So commieBob lots of factors have to be considered. Unless you live in the mild part of Canada south of 40 degrees latitude, windows do not reduce heat load.
While I am an advocate for nukes, I also am an advocate for renewable energy. I am anti-idiot.
“To date, grid-connected wind and solar power and corn ethanol are energy nonsense. ”
Wind makes sense in the PNW in combination with hydroelectric. Solar makes sense in the Southwest. Corn and sugar cane ethanol makes sense where farmers can produce more crops than people can eat.
The problem is the idiots who do not stop after achieving a good idea. While 10% renewable energy may be a good idea, we should see if 15% works before going to 20%. State what is clearly working is also Allen.
“Here is your picture ”
Well I like the pictures with smoke coming out before the wind turbine self destructs throwing burning debris and starting wild fires on windy days. I am not against wind farms, just improperly installed wind turbines.
UN never changes: just remember the billions collected in 2005 for the “50 millions 2010’s refugees”. With these billions UN buy media, Politics, Presidents and any other kind of idiots available (Politics and Presidents are not idiots, they are a smart part of the UN plot and they share the spoils).
Billions well invested, because here we see again Presidents and Politics inviting to collect money for UN (and themself, as Gore shows).
Gail Combs says:
April 22, 2012 at 9:56 am
“Solar is just as bad. The maximum theoretical efficiency of a perfect solar cell is 33%.”
That is for a perfect unijunction cell. In the labs multijunction cells with up to 53% have been developed, and I think multijunction cells are already used for satellites as it is economic in that case; you want to minimize the weight you have to transport.
Also, scottish researchers have recently announced that they develop a coating that would receive UV photons and for each received UV photon would emit 2 visible light photons. If this can be turned into a product, you make another part of the spectrum usable for standard silicon cells.
Bruce Cobb: you, a Warmist troll
“Troll” is poorly defined, so I won’t deny it. I deny being a “warmist”.
Here is an installation where the intermittency and cost of solar are not problems:
http://cleantechnica.com/2012/04/20/worlds-largest-solar-pv-power-plant-added-to-indias-grid/
In much of rural India, distributed solar PV power is the cheapest source of electricity. That installation is not an example of “distributed” power, but in most of rural India coal is an intermittent source of power and natural gas is expensive. Production and distribution costs for PV power are decreasing, but the production and distribution costs of power from fossil fuels are not.
Prices of electricity in California are double the prices in neighboring states because of this push for “renewables”.
California is a bad example for lots of things. Compared to the poor of India, for example, the poor of Callifornia are rich. Solar power for peak demand to drive air conditioning in California is barely justifiable, because peak energy supply in California is expensive for any source. Solar power in India is justifiable in most rural areas, as I said, because fossil fuels are expensive and intermittent. For many of the poorer people of the world, not just India, the PV panels of the present and future will be the most economical sources of electricity because the richer people of the world continue to bid up the price of fossil fuels.
That means that if we add a million kilowatts of renewable energy generation, we also have to add a million kilowatts of conventional generators.
In the US and other developed nations, the backup power generators are already in place. Adding renewables will extend their lifespan, without requiring new backup power.
My favorite writer on energy is Peter Huber. He has lots of essays on the web and the astounding book, “The Bottomless Well”. He even debated Bill McKibben back in February of 2000. The mp3 is available here:
http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/events_audio.htm
davidmhoffer says:
April 22, 2012 at 12:52 am
Given the UN track record of achieving their other goals, such as preventing wars, preventing genocide, enforcing human rights and such, I’m not certain what the concern is.
Calling him a “moonbat” is an ad hominem attach BTW, and I am certain that the entire moonbat population is very insulted by the comparison.
###
Thanks for putting things in their proper perspective.
What counts as renewable energy and what does not in the eyes of the UN?
As Willis points out, hydroelectric doesn’t count for renewable energy despite the water cycle being one of the oldest processes on this earth. The flip side of the idiocy is that the burning of wood is a recognized use of renewable energy — even when you do not replant!
According to the UN way of counting, one of the counties with the largest per capita use of renewable energy is Haiti, a country has become a deforested ruin.
Who argues we should double this kind of renewable energy? Why should we even listen to anyone who counts as renewable energy practices leading to deforestation?
Connect the dots? Let’s start with the stumps of trees that are not replanted.
“We have to be very austere in using energy… We have to completely change our behavior, at home, at the office.”
This is so contrary to the facts that this point of mass hysteria has become a particular curiosity to me as a feature of the liberal’s common “reality”.
Besides being awash in hydrocarbons that can be converted to usable liquid fuels for vehicles, we have nuclear power. We have multiple centuries of thorium supplies when we start down the path of that particular nuclear path. What are these people going to say and what policies are they going to propose when some of the Low Energy Nuclear Reaction (LENR) [1] technologies reach commercial viability?
The common feature of all the liberal (er, now “progressive”) angst about energy is as an excuse to destroy personal liberty and prosperity by vastly larger government. But to me the claim is almost so silly there must be far more to it than meets the eye.
[1] see for example:
http://nextbigfuture.com/2012/04/brillouin-had-los-alamos-and-sri.html
@ur momisugly Mark S April 22, 2012 at 8:38 am
Gail Combs is right in everything she says about the physics. But she leave out some other factors to consider for your roof top windmill:
1. Noise
2. Vibration
3. Maintenance
4. Permitting and resistance from neighbors.
5. Insurance to protect yourself from damage failing turbines may cause.
6. Complaints from neighbors from all of the above.
It is not just a case of homes being ill-suited for wind turbines. It did not work so well on top of a new building in Houston, either.
Willis — You and many others commenting here might enjoy (?) this recently published book —
http://www.amazon.com/Eco-Tyranny-Lefts-Agenda-Dismantle-America/product-reviews/1936488507/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1
“We have to be very austere in using energy… We have to completely change our behavior, at home, at the office.”
UN, IPCC, AlGore, Hadley Center, NASA Climate folks, NCDC first. I’ll catch up later, in a decade or two… Just cancel all those meetings, symposium, conferences, and jetting all over the world. Set a good example. Cancel those Rio and Copenhagen and Durbin like events. We’re rooting for you! Show us how it’s done!
/sarcoff;>
Stephen Rasey,
Your comment reminded me off the construction of the Empire State building. The architects added a steel pole on top, to be used as an anchor post for blimps and zeppelins. But it was never used because of the fierce shifting winds in the built up canyons of NYC. Like windmills, it seemed like a good idea at the time…
Matthew R Marler says: April 22, 2012 at 11:08 am
That means that if we add a million kilowatts of renewable energy generation, we also have to add a million kilowatts of conventional generators.
In the US and other developed nations, the backup power generators are already in place. Adding renewables will extend their lifespan, without requiring new backup power.
____________
Sorry Matthew but I see yours as a specious argument.
Grid-connected wind and solar power are so uneconomic as to be laughable. The huge life-of-project subsidies required to make these boondoggles economic are a prime indicator. These boondoggles probably produce no NET high-cost (peak demand) power over their project life, if you deduct all the high-cost energy inputs required to fabricate, erect, operate and dismantle them. The off-peak power they produce is often not needed and is less-than-worthless. Finally, the huge, rapid surges and drops in wind power can seriously destabilize the entire power grid.
Grid-connected wind and solar power are energy nonsense.
@ur momisugly Matthew R Marler,
Whatever India does regarding energy, it should be based solely on their own cost-benefit analysis, not on getting C02 extortion money from developed countries. The point is, each country has to decide for itself what its own energy policy should be, based on its own cost-benefit analysis. For most of the developed world such as the US, renewables make very little sense except as a way for those in the “green” energy industry to make lots of money at everyone else’s expense.
@Rik Gheysens:
Per “running out” of Rare Earth Elements:
You have fallen into the typical trap of “proven reserves” or “economical reserves”. ALL resources are measured in a very peculiar way. Only “ultimate resource” tells you how much exists, and folks don’t quote that. The proven or economically recoverable reserves are a small fraction, that depends on present price and present developed / explored mine properties.
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2010/09/25/are-rare-earths-rare/
Rare Earth’s are not rare. They are all over the planet. Often found bound with Thorium. In the USA that Thorium is treated as a radiological toxic waste, so mining most of the properties is uneconomical (so their megatons are ‘not a resource’). If, instead, we used the Thorium to make energy (enough to power the planet for about 10,000 years…) then it would not be a ‘radiological toxic waste’ and instead would (suddenly) become a ‘resource’.
There is no energy shortage. There is no shortage of stuff. Both are fantasies promoted by the same folks pushing Global Warming. Fear mongering to drive the masses into tolerance for their noose to “save the planet”.
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/05/08/there-is-no-shortage-of-stuff/
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/03/20/there-is-no-energy-shortage/
(which leads off with the same chart, though a 2002 version, as this article. I wrote it a while ago…)
So please, whenever seeing a “Running Out!!!” issue being pushed, realize that the reality is far different.
I do a ‘thought experiment’ here on how to get Uranium from sea water at a reasonably economical price (though a bit more expensive than current land sources, still quite usable for power production).
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/05/29/ulum-ultra-large-uranium-miner-ship/
Very similar technology could be used to get Thorium and, I would assert, other minerals, if we ever really needed to do so.
theBuckWheat says: @ur momisugly April 22, 2012 at 11:26 am
…We have multiple centuries of thorium supplies when we start down the path of that particular nuclear path…..
___________________
When I went to pay my last electric bill at my electric Co-op, I asked when they were going to invest in a thorium reactor. The ladies at the counter did not understand what I was talking about but a guy in the back had been to a seminar and explained to all of us about the turn-key operation at the presentation. He mentioned that everything could be moved in on a fleet of trucks, the only problem was the high price tag.
In my more optimistic moments I wonder if the jacking up of energy prices and the rest of the maneuvering isn’t to herd us into thorium nuclear or something similar. Only after rolling blackouts hit the USA, EU and Australia will the general population be willing to look at thorium as a reasonable option.
This is a worthwhile piece to read considering Maurice Strong’s leading role in CAGW Maurice Strong, Chairman, Ontario Hydro and Chairman, The Earth Council, to the Uranium Institute, London
Philip Bradley said @ur momisugly April 22, 2012 at 12:28 am
The Git must be an idiot then. He grows trees to fuel a very efficient combustion stove (a Bosky) that provides for 95% of our hot water, cooking and space heating. In 2004 he purchased a truckload of logs that provided all of this for somewhat less than a dollar per day including the cost of the fossil fuel for the chainsaw. Just think, instead of spending somewhat less than $500 per year, he could have been spending $2,000+ enriching the government.
@Steve from Rockwood:
I can generate electricity from gasoline at rough parity with my top rate from my California Electric Bill using my Honda generator. ( I don’t mostly due to sloth). It would be cheaper if I used a small Diesel and used non-road-taxed Diesel fuel.
There are immense economies of scale in power generation. Coal and Nuke running in the low single digit cents / kW-hr; not the 20-something average on my bill (that has Politically Correct price tranches based on quantity used).
The disconnect between these two is entirely due to the Political Process that drives our “Rate Commissions”. It has nothing to do with technology, efficiency, or anything physical.
On my “someday” list of projects is to install a micro-scale generator run off my natural gas bill as the natural gas is not driven up for political reasons. It is seen as ‘needed’ for home heat.
In what rational world is it more economical for me to burn natural gas in a small machine than for a giant company to do so in one with about double the efficiency?
These are the kinds of disconnects you get with Social ‘Justice’ driven ideology (such as in the old Socialist Soviet Union where it was cheaper to feed bread to hogs than grain, as bread was subsidized…)
We have a very large ‘renewables’ mandate. Prices have risen, and continue to rise, in step with that mandate. I bought my generator back when we had another Loony Left market intervention and governor “Gray-out Davis” was making Enron rich by insisting on our buying power “at mini-bar prices” (h/t Miller ) and putting our wonderfully stable utility company into bankruptcy (causing many retired folks to lose their ‘safe stable’ widows and orphans stock income…).
So we’ve “Lived The Dream” already once. It’s been a few years since we tossed Gray-out Davis out (in one of the few Governor Recalls ever) and I’ve not needed to run the generator much since then. Once a year, or so, to make sure it’s still good. I’m expecting to start running it more regularly for economic reason “real soon” as the rates keep rising.
Natural Gas sells, in bulk, for about 20 CENTS per gallon-of-gasoline equivalent. IFF I could get a natural gas feed untainted by political manipulation of regulated utilities, I could make my own electricity for a few single digit pennies per kW-hr. Large utilities can do that. But between them, and me, stands our “renewables mandate” and government regulations. That is why my electric bill has rates between $1/4 and $1/2 per kW-hr on it.
That is economic (and political) reality.
We have a Socially Politically Correct electricity structure in California, with rates between 2 x and 4 x higher than what they plausibly ought to be and up to 10 x higher than the lowest cost sources. Even HIGHER cost sources being mandated as ever higher percentages. Welcome to Socialism in The Peoples Republic Of California.
I’d rather have the 7 cents / kW-hr of some other places in the USA.
Putting renewable resources on top of buildings ought to be one of those “No brainers” Why isn’t every flat roofed building covered in photovoltaic panels? Why doesn’t every skyscraper harvest wind energy? The simplest answer has to be “It isn’t worth it.”
Here is a 2008 report on the which includes a case study on Houston Discovery Tower before it was built. http://www.cppwind.com/support/papers/papers/windenergy/Building-Integrated_Turbines.pdf. Page 9 and Page 11 indicate the turbines would generate 70 MWhr/year (assuming 100% availability), but the facts are scant on the wind rose probabilities at Discovery Tower. I make that to be $100K/yr @ur momisugly about $0.15/kwh. Less maintenance. Less insurance. Less depreciation of capital. Less corrections for optimism: (It is the Author’s opinion that this value is inflated due to the manufacturer overstating their turbine performance, which indicates efficiencies in excess of 40%.)
Build one of those in an urban setting and it might be mildly profitable if all goes well. But if something goes wrong — in our litigious society — is it really worth it? Given the noise and the potential for shrapnel, to wind turbines and urban environments mix?
BTW, there are videos of the turbines working in Oct 2010 and reports of their failure in Dec. 2010. They were removed by mid-January 2011 and have not returned.
correction to my 12:42: ….potential for shrapnel, do wind turbines and urband environments mix?
Bruce Cobb: Whatever India does regarding energy, it should be based solely on their own cost-benefit analysis, not on getting C02 extortion money from developed countries. The point is, each country has to decide for itself what its own energy policy should be, based on its own cost-benefit analysis. For most of the developed world such as the US, renewables make very little sense except as a way for those in the “green” energy industry to make lots of money at everyone else’s expense.
I agree with all of that, but it isn’t what you wrote the first time, which you might want to reread. In my view, Willis Eschenbach and some commentators (including your first criticism of me) have responded to a poor speech by Ban Ki Moon with a poor set of rejoinders.
“Most” in the developed world will have access to electricity from solar power in their lifetimes that is cheaper than electricity from other new sources, if the current rates of investment R&D are maintained. In Southern California now, new PV facilities to meet peak power are cheaper than new facilities of other kinds. In much of California and Arizona, if you want electricity for A/C, PV panels are worthwhile (in my case, I don’t use A/C, but if I did it would be economically advantageous to buy PV panels, even without a subsidy or feed-in-tarriff.)
“At everyone else’s expense” is how the jet engines of contemporary commercial aircraft were financed. Perhaps it could have been done better, but it was done well.
In 2011, the world installed approximately 24GW of electical generating power in the from of PV panels. It’s less capital intensive, easier to carry out, requires fewer grid resources and less cooperation from (unionized) employees far away than any other source of electricity.
Stephen Rasey said @ur momisugly April 22, 2012 at 11:34 am
Nor here in Southern Tasmania. David Rockefeller had four wind turbines put on the Marine Board building on Hobart’s waterfront. The first decent (not even gale force) wind blew one of them over, and damaged another. Fortunately, no-one was injured. It took a year after repair was effected until an engineer could be found to sign off on their safety, so they are spinning once more to generate a claimed 10% of the building’s electricity consumption.
Of course this is “renewable” energy unlike the filthy hydro-electricity that accounts for 99% of Tasmania’s electricity production. For some odd reason, that electricity is sold to consumers in Victoria over the Bass Strait, and we in Tasmania are sold electricity generated by coal-fired power stations in Queensland.
None of this makes sense to me, but then I’m an idiot.
Allan MacRae: Grid-connected wind and solar power are so uneconomic as to be laughable.
It depends where you are and how much you use. I mentioned A/C. If I decided to use A/C, then I could replace my furnace and unused A/C unit with a heat exchanger, power the heat exchanger off PV panels, and heat the house in winter off the PV panels. I would save several hundred $$$ per year on natural gas, besides the electricity savings on A/C. Instead, I differ from my comfortable neighbors and keep my overall electricity consumption low. I review the economics every year or so; given my conditional life expectancy at my age, I “expect” to install PV panels 10-20 years from now when the prices have fallen from what they now are. It would be even better with a small feed-in-tariff (but that’s a topic for a later time.)