Wow, this EPA guy (Joseph Goffman, EPA Associate Assistant Administrator & Senior Counsel) thinks that renewables are going to make up 30% of the power grid by 2030. That may be, but the big hidden gotcha in that is that 30% is not power on demand. It is at the whims of wind and clouds. By replacing that much of the power grid with transient energy, look for brown-outs and black-outs in our future. What happens in a major heat wave (which they predict will be more frequent) and the wind does not blow? Watch the video:
youtube=http://www.youtube.com/embed/AcNTGX_d8mY
See also this report: Renewable Energy Poses Security Risk, New Paper Warns
The reality today:
![fig_if7-1[1]](https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/fig_if7-11.png?quality=75)
Source: http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/aeo/elec_proj.cfm
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I see a market developing for small reliable gensets for household and industrial use. The prototype is already out there as ‘back up’ emergency generators.
It’s not the hot weather that people need worry about – it is the cold. In UK thousands die in energy poverty when it gets cold (5000 deaths in March 2013 alone). If next winter in the USA is as bad as last winter with the fuel costs as they are there will be deaths here too. By 2030 there will be mass migration to the southern states, being hot unable to afford air conditioning is uncomfortable, being cold unable to afford heating is deadly.
Brought to you courtesy of EPA and in UK DECC. But do not expect EPA to be disturbed by people dying of cold DECC is not at all concerned in the UK.
The only way that renewables could make up 30% of the power grid by 2030 is if Mr. Obama’s incresingly terrible policies are not severely reformed or tossed falt out and the American economy is shrunk to a small fraction of it present size.
I laughed at the end of Cosmos, they showed an idyllic city with plants on every level and green spaces everywhere. Looked beautiful, but I thought; “shouldn’t they be showing Detroit?”
As I read on another website “If a foreign nation had launched an attack on America to destroy its coal-fired plants, to shut down its coal mines, and to thwart its ability to drill for oil and natural gas, we would be at war with it” – Alan Caruba
Obama really stands for One Big Ass Mistake America
The faces and the graphics may change, but this is just another example of transferring California enviro policy to the rest of the country to keep CA at least half way competitive. That is always part of the their plans by the way.
haha…remember hanging out with radicals in the 70’s and thinking how crazy they were to imagine that the US could be taken down. Not so crazy after all…
How many natural gas shortages where there this last winter? Wont using more natural gas for electricity generation make for more winter shortages?
Just one word for the entire scam: LUNACY
Since Nat Gas is the cheapest type of peak producing plant, those are the backup generators that will be built.
And when they kick in, spot nat gas prices will SKYROCKET!
wws says:
June 2, 2014 at 7:35 am
Since Nat Gas is the cheapest type of peak producing plant, those are the backup generators that will be built.
And when they kick in, spot nat gas prices will SKYROCKET!
And when they kick in, spot nat gas prices will necessarily SKYROCKET!
It’s a tax.
I guess this means we’ll solve the storage problem for wind & solar…
Commenters suggesting Nat Gas prices will skyrocket don’t understand how much resource is sitting out there waiting to be developed, currently not being developed due to lack of demand constraint. Prices might rise slightly but we have huge resources to satisfy power gen if coal is put out of business.
Message : be long on Nat Gas & Nat gas producers
It is a shame that the American people will only wake up when they see their utility bills go through the roof. Everything else that the need to buy in order to survive will also go up in prices, like food and the cloths they put on there back. All because of higher energy costs across the board. Only then will this country wake up to the fraudsters that are controlling more & more of our lives. But that doesn’t mean that good people should stay quiet on these subjects. Thank you Anthony for having a place like WUWT so real & honest debate is encouraged so that we can get closer to the truth about the climate on this beautiful planet that we all come home.
Renewables are no longer unreliable. Offshore pumped storage hydro provides unlimited energy storage to be released on demand. From MIT.
http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2013/wind-power-even-without-the-wind-0425
Does not look like 30% to me.
Lets see we have NERC and we have FERC.
Where exactly did the EPA get this new found expertise in power generation? I’ve worked in the power industry and it seems like very single bureaucrat. Looking at this guys bio he is a fricking lawyer. He hasn’t taken a single electrical engineer class in his life.
Roger Sowell says:
June 2, 2014 at 8:10 am
“Renewables are no longer unreliable.”
Nuts!
The press release starts: “Offshore wind could . . . ”
Reminds me of this:
How much wood
would a woodchuck chuck,
if a woodchuck
could chuck wood?
As much wood
As a woodchuck would,
if a woodchuck
could chuck wood.
So, from Roger Sewell’s link, it claims “.. 1,000 such spheres could supply as much power as a nuclear plant for several hours…”
Several hours!! I suppose it’s a start. Roger, come back with another link when they’ve multiplied the storage life by 24.
Roger Sowell says:
June 2, 2014 at 8:10 am
Renewables are no longer unreliable. Offshore pumped storage hydro provides unlimited energy storage to be released on demand. From MIT.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>.
Seriously Roger? The last thread you pumped this idea on it got shredded so badly that I actually felt embarrassed for you as your efforts to defend it became increasingly ludicrous. It isn’t feasible from either a capex or an opex perspective. If it is, by all means, stop hyping it. Just invest all of your money in it along with as many like minded souls as you can talk into it, and build it. If you’re right, you’ll make a fortune, and those of us who have pointed out the glaring flaws in the plan will look like complete fools.
So go for it Roger. Stop hyping it and start building it. Just do it with YOUR money, not the tax payers’. Put you money where your mouth is Roger. I dare you. I double dare you. C’mon. Make a fool of me.
Anyone who uses the words “Unlimited energy” in the context of human built systems is either a loon or a liar.
Quinx says:
June 2, 2014 at 7:44 am
It’s a tax.
============================
Unless Chief Justice Roberts decides to call it something else.
Roger Sowell – Idiot!
Are you too addled to understand that renewables must be backed by ‘always on’ 24/7 power?
Natgas is only relatively cheap and abundant. Relative to renewables and thanks to coal. Get rid of coal and they won’t even be able to mine enough sand to frack enough. (With a little help from their environmental friends.) Not to mention that the enviro movement will have to accommodate the shock of erecting 100 times the wind fields we have now.
If the EPA were an industry association and not a government agency, the SEC would be investigating them for fraudulent advertising.