Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Simple economics is now driving the unstoppable rise of renewables, according to advocates – or would be, except for a mystery political obstacle.
The Myth About Coal Being Cheaper And More Reliable Than Renewables
Renewable energy is now the cheapest form of new power.
04/10/2017 11:51 PM AEDT
Anthony Sharwood
Nope, nope and nope again. There’s yet more proof this Friday that coal is neither cheaper nor more reliable than renewables as an energy source, and that coal is only going to get more expensive in the future.
We were given excellent evidence of this in April, when the CSIRO and Energy Networks Australia report told us that renewables could save households $414 a year by 2050.
Further proof arrived in June when the Independent Review into the Future Security of the National Electricity Market (aka the Finkel Report) told us that ramping up renewables would lead to lower power prices.
And now the Climate Council has weighed in, showing that we really can have our energy cake and eat it too — if by energy cake you mean cleaner, cheaper power, and by eating it, you mean reliability of supply.
The Council’s new report is entitled ‘Powering a 21st Century Economy: Secure, Clean, Affordable Electricity’ and you can find it here.
…
So if technology’s not holding us back, and cost is not the issue, what on earth is stopping us from transitioning as quickly as possible to cleaner, more affordable renewables?
One word: Politics.
“Politics is the only factor standing in the way of Australia’s transition to a modern electricity network, powered by renewable energy and storage technology,” Climate Council CEO Amanda McKenzie said.
…
What is the “politics” which seems to be such an impediment to a cheaper renewable future? One clue might be the conclusion of the report referenced by The Huffington Post. The report prepared by the Climate Council, the body led by our old friend Chief Councillor Tim Flannery;
… Importantly, while we may use some existing gas plants during this transition, we do not need new gas or coal plants built. Persisting with existing coal plants beyond their technical design lives will lead to unreliable power and higher electricity prices and continued high levels of pollution from Australia’s electricity sector.
This transition requires shifting away from obsolete “baseload” concepts and inflexible old coal power generators to a modern, flexible, 21st Century grid powered by a diverse mix of renewable energy and storage technologies. …
Read more: Climate Council Report Available Here
Is the political obstacle an outmoded adherence to the concept of baseload power? Maybe. But I’m not convinced we’ve fully explored this “politics” obstacle, so I decided to delve deeper;
Politics preventing Australia’s switch to 21st Century energy
BY CLIMATE COUNCIL
04.10.2017
Politics is the only factor standing in the way of Australia’s transition to a modern electricity network, powered by renewable energy and storage technology, according to a new report released by the Climate Council today.
…
Climate Councillor and energy sector expert Andrew Stock also pointed to states and territories across the nation pushing ahead with the transition to renewables and storage technology, in a bid to achieve secure and reliable power, while also tackling climate change.
“South Australia is a global leader and is investing in solar PV, solar thermal, pumped hydro storage, and the world’s largest lithium ion battery. Others like the ACT, followed by Victoria and Queensland, are now rolling out large-scale renewables such as wind and solar,” he said.
“There’s no disputing it – fossil fuel technology is obsolete, expensive and unreliable. In fact, Within 10 years, over two thirds of our coal plants will be over 50 years old. It’s time to look to the future with an energy system fit for the 21st Century.”
…
Read more: https://www.climatecouncil.org.au/politics-preventing-australia-s-switch-to-21st-century-energy
Do Greens think the political obstacle is a failure by governments to invest in renewables? But if renewables are cheaper, why is government investment required? Why aren’t private investors rushing to fund cheap renewables even without government help, to make a huge profit driving their obsolete fossil fuel rivals out of business?
If cheaper renewables are skyrocketing even without government help, why is politics still seen as such an obstacle?
I don’t want to jump to conclusions. Maybe I have misunderstood something. I’m genuinely interested in understanding what political obstacles greens think are preventing the realisation of a low cost energy future powered by renewables.
Because we all want cheaper power, right?
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The transition requires customers to be flexible in using electricity only when the Sun is shining and/or the winds are blowing at an acceptable speed.
And not too many other people want it.
Smart meters can do that for you – your supply can be turned off whenever renewables aren’t able to generate sufficient electricity, and presumably why the UK is trying to force them to be installed in every home.
They don’t need smart meters to shut down electricity delivery when adequate power is not available. Any grid will take care of that. Conceptually, smart meters allow some flexibility in what get shut down. i.e. hospitals get power, pubs and poolhalls don’t. While it could work that way, my bet would be that it won’t.
Great device that smart meter! All who want to use only renewables can do so. Get a smart meter and sign up for renewables-only power. When the wind stops, clouds appear, or the sun sets, your power turns off. The scheme could even be tied to the energy market. When there is just a little wind or sun, or the amount available fluctuates, the power will be distributed to the signees in accordance with what they have agreed to pay. Your power-purchase scheme could even be instantaneous – like the stock market. When the power goes out – enter the market (using your battery powered backup computer and hot spot of course) and start bidding higher and higher until the power comes back on. Even that could be automated and you will discover just how much you paid when the bill arrives.
Ain’t technology wonderful?
Don’t believe everything you read about Smart Meters (especially that which is presented by their opponents). I have already looked into this as a possible application to reduce Solar input from rooftop installations during times when the grid is already at 100%. Smart Meters cannot be “Turned off” (opened) from remote locations. This still requires a representative from the power company to visit your house to physicaly remove the meter from the base. All they can do is send a usage read every 15 minutes to a remote gathering antenna and send a signal to that same antenna if the power goes out. Basically the meter says, every fifteen minutes “I’m on and this is the usage for the last 15 minutes” Or “I’m currently out of power, please send help”. Although the second will happen the moment power is lost for more than a minute.
@Bryan A
Your information is, ahhh, out of date. See below for a discussion on an electrical contractor’s forum.
http://forums.mikeholt.com/showthread.php?t=152676
And a discussion of security here:
https://www.wired.com/2010/03/smart-grids-done-smartly/
Can they shut you down remotely? Why yes, yes they can.
Bryan,
Smart meters Absolutely Can be turned off and on remotely.
Why would they need or want to do that?
The UK has commercial demand management where commercial consumers are paid to have their electricity demand managed, with no effect on their operations.
Provides GW of savings and money for consumers…
Typically achieved by control of aircon, heating and freezer demand, where the appliances need to operate at some point in a given hour, but I doesn’t matter when. Management of large scale resources syncing demand reduces demand peak.
@Griff;
Because they’ve already captured the low-hanging fruit of demand-side control via the agreements with industrial consumers. In 2016, according to the EIA, US residential electricity use was larger than either commercial or industrial, although it was about 38% of the total (residential+commercial+industrial+transportation).
https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.php?t=epmt_5_01
Griff:
The UK has commercial demand management where commercial consumers are paid to have their electricity demand managed, with no effect on their operations.
Yes and no. I have been working in a chlorine factory where power demand was 132 MW at full production. They were involved in “peak shaving”, and if peak demand was imminent, the electrolysis could go down to 40 MW in about 15 minutes. No direct steering from outside as these can’t see and don’t understand anything from a working factory, that is calling for big trouble. The 40 MW was the base load to keep everything running and that was bought at long term contract price, the difference with 132 MW was much cheaper, as long as we were out at a peak, or there were huge fines… It was a hell of a job for the operators to keep an eye on the country (Netherlands) power demand and get down (just) in time…
So you can’t say that it has no effect on the operations, as ultimately the factory needed to build more electrolysers as not the full capacity could be maintained… Thus in fact these type of operations is simply diverting the investments of power companies to others…
Having your electricity turned off has no impact on operations?
How many times have been inside an actual, for profit company Griff?
Socialism is all about allocating shortages, Griffie. If you can’t acknowledge that, you are either ignorant or a liar. Which is it?
DJ,
Thanks for that update.
I knew that the ability had been turned off but never heard that this wasn’t the case with the newer generation meters.
Smart meters aren’t about turning off your energy, they’re about rationing it. Subtly different.
Socialism’s only recourse to meeting peoples’ needs; ration shortages.
@Dave Fair
ECONOMY is all about allocating shortages, Dave.
Socialism is all about allocating them to average Joe, while powerful people get all the stuff.
Capitalism is all leaving average Joe trade his share of shortage with other people as they see fit, so shortage are where they hurt less, and even disappear.
This is what’s make the difference.
Capitalism is all about meeting the needs and wants of all people.
Ferdinand Engelbeen,
There you go again, bandying that obsolete ‘baseload’ concept about. 🙂
Turning off your electricity is how they ration it.
Socialism at its finest, MarkW.
….obsolete “baseload” concepts and inflexible old coal power generators to a modern…”
Incredibly Orwellian, and unsurprisingly ass backwards. Baseload is ever necessary and only Baseload power allows inflexible solar and wind utility. Their inane idea is to replace base load coal or gas or nuclear with far more expensive baseload storage, pumped hydro or VLBs. ( very large batteries)
paqyfelyc October 12, 2017 at 1:52 am
Capitalism is about creating wealth, making more goods and services available to more people.
AKA who would have thought … a banner for renewables! Gee…
“Smart meters Absolutely Can be turned off and on remotely”
Indeed – it’s part of the SMETS specification – at least here in Blighty. And this applies to gas as well as electricity, although turning gas back on will require an engineers visit to ascertain that all appliances (and pilot lights) are turned off first.
CBC News | Toronto, Oct. 11, 2017
‘Exhibition Palace wind turbine hasn’t produced power since March’
“Toronto Hydro says turbine suffered water damage during a storm, repairs took months.”
More information on the CNE wind turbine problems.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/wind-turbine-electricity-power-cne-toronto-hydro-1.4349292
Yes exactly like the “Energy Upgrade California” infomercials show…. the upgrade is using less and not using when you want to or how you want to…. that is an upgrade?? I think not. As someone else stated Energy policy and production used to be about being available for how and what people wanted to do with it at a price they were willing to pay, now it has shifted to people having to only use when energy is available and as little as possible. Like most “progressive” policies slogan etc…. they are exactly the opposite of what their words say.. their “energy upgrade” is actually a downgrade and do without energy policy.
Cheers!
Joe
The notion of ‘baseload’ being obsolete is the pea under the thimble here. ‘Baseload’ is just the statistical total of the energy demand over the day/week. What on earth is ‘obsolete’ about that notion? Tim Flannery really is a buffon imo and this sort of over the top assertion is pretty typical of his utterances over the years.
Tim, on any given day millions of your fellow citizens will have all sorts of lights, appliances, heaters, airconditioners, pumps, refrigerators, ovens, stoves , washing machines, televisions etc etc etc switched on and requiring 240 VAC 50 Hz power. That is not a difficult concept for a ‘professor’ to understand so on what bloody basis is it ‘obsolete’?
Its ‘obsolete’ because ‘obsolete’in Green Blob Theory means irksome reality that must be airbrushed from the discourse so that utter piffle does not have to compete with it.
Baseload is NOT an ‘obsolete concept’ it is just a statistical reality same as droughts and flooding rains being part of our national climate/weather pattern and ‘endless drought’ is not.
PS
Not only are private households statistically running all these items, there are factories, hospitals, office buildings, street lights, electric trains and trams etc all drawing power 24/7/365 that also constitute (the major part of) ‘baseload. Are all these things ‘obsolete’?
I hear talk of replacing cars with IC engines with battery powered electric propulsion which will need recharging so I assume all that recharging will become part of the ‘baseload’. Is the ‘baeload’ demand from electric cars also deemed ‘obsolete’. WOW, that didn’t last long then did it?
Baseload for the Australia’s National Energy Market never drops below 18,000 mw (except on Christmas Day) and that lowest level occurs around 4 am in the morning.
You mean “the pea under the mattress”? A more salient metaphor.
Interesting how renewables advocates misuse (intentionally or through ignorance) the term ‘baseload’. The term is “base load” i.e.the power required to supply the base load on the grid.Theoretically, this could come from any source, but renewables aren’t going to supply it any decade soon.
Good article explaining this by TonyfromOz (a while ago) at http://jennifermarohasy.com/2011/03/the-base-load-misconception-part-1/
and what’s wrong with that? Or new about it?
In much of Australia water heaters are set to come on in the middle of the night when demand is low and power available.
(which needs changing now it would be better to run this when peak solar output is happening!)
What’s wrong with it? Everything.
That sounds great Griff … as long as the folks living in those houses want to get up and shower in the middle of the night and then do their laundry and start the dish washers. Perfect for a family of vampires though 😉
Stewart,
These types of water heaters are usually oversized and highly insulated. I have a 100 gallon unit and it provides all the hot water my wife and I need on a daily basis, all day. The reason I went this route is because where I live, natural gas is not available and heating water with propane is expensive. It is cheaper to use electricity and take advantage of the lower nighttime costs. The unit itself is only US$900, and with the $300 rebate from the electric company, competitive with equivalent gas units.
Griffie, like all socialist endeavors, government control of individual energy distribution leads to rationing. But not by the elite.
Griff, what is it about baseload you do not understand? If machines, appliances, computers etc. need a constant power source and will fail or burn out if voltage or current or both vary much, this is called baseload. Neither solar nor wind power can supply a baseload.
In Griffs world this will be infinitely adaptable and change every day according to the local weather and season. Meanwhile back in reality world , I have a smart meter on the wall for 5 years and they still havent been able to do remote meter reading on it, such is the talent that will deliver the agile/virtual/fairy dust grid.
Where 18GW comes from on a still summer night in Oz without coal power over the next decade remains a mystery
What it shows is people without a power generation background should not be commenting on power generation because they don’t know how it works. So lets deal with the problem that all the would be internet geniuses don’t know about, BASELOAD MUST HAVE INERTIA. It is the single most important characteristic because the grid has slightly different timings because of the power factor on the grid at any given point. You try and hold the grid at as near to 1 as you can but it is impossible to make it perfect. That is why you can’t provide a simple timebase or synching pulse to the generators or inverters the whole synching is done from the power source itself which requires INERTIA. The whole South Australian power blackout was caused by lack of inertia, the power suppliers had to pull their equipment offline because they lost synchronization and each power station would in effect be fighting each other until destruction. You can read that finding on report into the incident.
The only way to get around the inertia problem is to break the grid into micro-grids, so now you are talking about re-designing the entire grid. Your power sources and your power use must be closely related and that is not something any power grid in the world has. So please don’t pretend you are just going to throw a few renewables around the place and you will magically get that situation. To do it each microgrid must basically function on it’s own with a backup feed providing stopgap as required. In other words you need to factor in the cost of replacing the whole grid because that is what you are talking about.
I should add that in Australia the NBN rollout should give some idea how long restructuring the entire power grid would take. I would argue it would be slower because the infrastructure is larger and requires more specialized trades.
David Middleton
October 11, 2017 at 9:06 am
The transition requires customers to be flexible in using electricity only when the Sun is shining and/or the winds are blowing at an acceptable speed.
———————————
David, is far much worse than that, at least from my point of view and understanding.
These guys are not that stupid, even when actually showing very clear signs of insanity.
But lets not spoil it for them yet, till they put the money and their chips in the pot for their “cake”, at see them eating it…..
There are many around just waiting for that moment.
The only problem is the naive and innocent investors falling for such a “scheme”.
To be fair at this time, lets just point out at their “scheme’s” weakness.
It requires a full support and insurance from governments in the nations or states that will fall for it.
Where the governments will have to force an artificial ever increasing energy price artificially, for the population and small-medium businesses, but not for the industry and heavy infrastructure.
And a very wide and a very very expensive schemes like the smart meter one will allow and give the right to such governments to push the energy price up as required by their “new masters”.
Case in hand the British…….which at this point seem to be contemplating a surrender in to submission, or a soft pull back that may lead even to a “declaration of war” at some point.
But whatever the case, all will depend in governments that are subject to change at any time, if the demand be it………especially when time to explain and being hold to account for clearly obvious and immense and insane “book cooking” ………
And to keep properly fair, the energy storage, which is the back bone of such scheme, it will be bursting the bubble….if this madness keeps persisting towards that point………
cheers
Agreed David. This is just utterly daft.
They seem to be implying that we need to transition from baseload producers (by their definition large plants that cannot adapt to load quickly) to dispatchable producers (presumably gas fired or similar.)
Renewable energy producers need to be paid by how reliable they are. They could (for example) purchase backup services from dispatchable producers.
This would offload the need for balancing from the grid operators back to the producers and give economic incentive to dispatchable producers making themselves available to backup renewables.
In what market or industry does small, dispersed producers make cheaper and better products? This is like saying we should replace large farms with backyard gardens, or that cars manufactured by a local auto shop will be cheaper than those of Toyota. And the only thing stopping this from working is “politics”. It is really that crazy.
Think of a power plant as a factory that produces electricity. The bigger the factory, the cheaper the unit price. The base load power concept is not about providing power to the BASE LOAD, it is about providing power AT SCALE. Making one giant plant that is working always at maximum efficiency will produce the cheapest possible power. Once you move away from that concept, you will lose the scale cost discount, and costs will rise accordingly. Base load is simply a “volume discount” for manufacturing of power.
Are they really that dumb?
Right. A fully “flexible” and “modern” grid cannot possibly rely on RE and storage technologies without curtailing time of use and regulating overall consumption. Period.
Socialism: Regulating shortages.
In Australia the “transition to renewables” based on “the cheapest form of power” has produced the world’s highest electricity pricing.
I liken this argument to someone growing apples in their garden, and trying to sell them at the grocery store for full price. “Politics! I could make a fortune selling these apples except for Politics!” They simply do not understand how markets work, or the differences between wholesale and retail prices, or what those differences represent. They also have no idea how utterly idiotic they sound.
Those who live in echo chambers are easily deluded by lies.
They’re just bonkers. They mix up plate and real capacities, they mix up production cost and value, and price with and without government intervention.
They also mix up taxes, subsidies, and externalized costs. Basically, they just misunderstand if it is possible in the first place, and always favouring solar/wind.
No, they are not bonkers, this obfuscation is quite deliberate. It is called disinformation, or as it used to be known ‘baffle them with bull$hit’. If you have ever met a good baffler, you will know that it impossible to have a rational discussion with them, because their aim is to prevent rational discussion. Get it? Look carefully at griff’s posts for this kind of thing before replying to him. His aim is to misdirect the conversation, not to be proved wrong.
Do those costs include in their calculations the costs of the gas and coal (and in California, hydro – since it is not considered a renewable here) baseload generators? If not – it’s an incomplete analysis of the costs of green power.
Why do not the proponents of electrical storage not describe the time that their equipment will supply before running out?
Hmmmm, I wonder……
See my post above re disinformation.
The falsehood of this claim has been demonstrated by Willis, here at WUWT, see the scatterplot in this post –
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/08/03/obama-may-finally-succeed/
The countries with the most renewables (Germany, Denmark) have the most expensive electricity.
Currently wind is supllying 13% of output in the Nordic countries
http://driftsdata.statnett.no/Web/map/snpscustom
and in Germany about 30%.
https://www.energy-charts.de/power.htm
It’s night in Europe so neither is getting anything from solar nor are we in France, it is a bit more windy than in recent weeks so wind is at 6%.
At what marginal and total costs to ratepayers and taxpayers?
Sandy, the %age figures always seem a bit misleading to me. Absolute power output is better. There have been summer days in france when wind and solar have been supplying 25% of power but the absolute figure was very meagre. I’m sure you have also noted your association and tax charges are rising significantly on your facture as well.
That seems about right, 15.3% just now in Sweden.
http://www.svk.se/drift-av-stamnatet/kontrollrummet/
It is indeed night in Europe, but it is also autumn and stormy weather. A gale warning is in effect for most of Northern Europe:
http://www.meteoalarm.eu/maps/EU-171011.gif
In other words, not your typical average weather or average wind power production.
Which is you know, meaningless. You could power Europe with gerbils on little wheels, if you had enough gerbils and little wheels. You can make any power source work, even intermittent ones. with enough back-up.
But what is the cost? What is the reliability? Right now Germany pays, get this, double what we pay in the U.S. There is no reason electricity should cost half here of what it does in Germany. No technical reason anyway. It is just they have made a series of very poor, and very expensive choices on energy, political choices, not scientific choices.
In fact, when people complain about “politics’ preventing the roll out of renewable energy, what they mean is that politics isn’t FORCING the roll out.
Stephen Richards go and look at the links I provided and you can see absolute values. Go to
https://www.energy-charts.de/power.htm?source=all-sources&week=41&year=2017
and you’ll see German “Uranium” is producing 10GW continuously whilst solar peaks at 10GW for a short time each day. Wind has fluctuated between less than 4GW to over 30GW this week.
And renewables are so cheap and reliable that major electricity users like aluminum smelters and server farms are locating in jurisdictions heavily into that technology./ sarc
Who knew? I guess that’s why a plot of percent renewables versus electricity costs goes up from left to right. I must have the graph upside down. Silly me!
If “Renewables” are cheaper then there is no longer need for subsidies of any kind, there is no longer any need for any Government to intervene or control energy mixes or type of supply. We can expect an explosion in wind farms and a massive drop in energy prices …….
The Free Market will choose to build unsubsidised renewable plants rather than coal or gas fired.
Only one area of government intervention and legislation is needed to achieve this wondrous change to 100% renewables – that is to require all renewable generators to enter into legal agreements to supply power 24/7.
Australia hasn’t found renewables cheaper – one of the reasons that consumer spending is falling rapidly as energy bills rise astronomically and industry requiring high amounts of energy are leaving the country taking jobs and tax revenues with them.
Curiously the European wind industry doesn’t share this view that renewables are cheaper than conventional power generation – as Wind Europe argue in their lobbying paper – end of life and out of contract wind turbines need the same level of subsidy as new ones if they are to be replaced and continue generating.
If electricity from wind is so much cheaper to produce than from a coal or gas plant then the profit margins from wind must be huge – more than enough to replace worn out wind turbines.
Wind Europe’s subsidy-lobbying paper can be seen here :
https://windeurope.org/wp-content/uploads/files/policy/position-papers/WindEurope-Repowering-and-Lifetime-Extension.pdf
No, No! Mustn’t mention the S word… it’s a “revenue stabilisation mechanism” they claim they need. Which sounds so much more innocent, doesn’t it. \sarc off\
Hah! “Revenue Stabilization Mechanisms?” Do you doubt that said mechanisms are powered by energy that is provided from fossil fuels? The real ‘kicker’ in all this is the well known fact that money neither grows on trees nor does money actually, spontaneously and magically erupt from magic holes in the air even if it is money that governments intend to use for the noblest of causes. Regardless of the nobleness of causes, if money is needed for the cause then there must be a source(s) of adequate and reliable energy for use to power the productive processes and systems that are the producers and providers of the money. And that can be governments? Ah, hah, hah, hah. Sarc-a-doodle-doo and Humptey Dumptey rides again. For as long as the sun shines. (After all, the wind is driven by the temperature differentials that are produced by spatial and temporal insolation and albedo differentials — By the energy of sunshine.)
Thomas says… ” Hah! “Revenue Stabilization Mechanisms?” Do you doubt that said mechanisms are powered by energy that is provided from fossil fuels? The real ‘kicker’ in all this is the well known fact that money neither grows on trees…”
Thomas your Orwellian vocabulary is far to limited. “Revenue Stabilization Mechanisms” are supported by “currency debasement electives”
German offshore wind is now being built without subsidy, also UK solar farms… yet in the US Trump is planning new subsidies to keep coal plant running
“Offshore wind is now being built without subsidy, also UK solar farms”
Except they are NOT subsidy free:
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2017/10/09/affordable-offshore-wind-the-real-facts-greenpeace-dont-want-you-to-know/#more-30311
Sure, if you don’t call it subsidy but force people to buy what they don’t want at an exaggerated price instead it’s not a subsidy.
And Lassie is a cat!
You know that is a LIE, griff.
Why do you keep LYING about basically everything ???
Is LYING the only way you can convince yourself that your totally irrational chicken-little bed-wetting about climate issues, actually has some merit ?
You certain are never going to convince anyone else , because your LIES are so easy to expose.
“Trump is planning new subsidies to keep coal plant running”
Yes, Guarantee of supply is a huge economic benefit.
The premium should be extended to all electricity supply sources that can guarantee to provide electricity for 24 hours a day, 90 days ahead.
Why limit it to coal.
Wouldn’t you agree griff. -)
I haven’t seen any reports of them turning off the diesel generators keeping their major off shore wind farm turning while they find an interconnector that will allow it to work. I think it was using 25000ltres a week, but i’m not 100% sure.
By the way, what is being called “a subsidy” to coal mining, is actually just a rollback of an Obama Administration rule.
“Late last week, the administration filed a repeal of an Obama-era measure designed to increase mineral royalties on federal lands.
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/08/trump-to-increase-subsidy-for-coal-mining-on-federal-lands.html
I think that in the interests of energy security, a premium SHOULD be offered to all sources that show they have the ability to deliver 24 hours a day for 90 days in advance.
This would be totally fair on everyone.
Wouldn’t you agree , griff. !
One constant with Griff. No matter how many times his lies are refuted, he’ll keep posting them.
I assume Griffie is paid by the number of responses to his provocations.
I disagree a law requiring generators to operate 24/7 is required. All that is required is repealing laws requiring grid consumers to pay for renewables. If renewable providers can profit from selling into a high demand market period, good luck to them. But conversely they shouldn’t be paid when nobody wants their electricity.
I agree Eric, Renewables are great just level the playing field.
Yes the hidden subsidy…
Imagine Griff has a successful store selling widgets, and along comes Mr Government to help. He says now Griff, for intermittent periods daily you must stop all selling, but continue to produce, or at the least, keep all your production people on hand and such so that at a given moment you can produce again. Oh, and Griff, I will not tell you in advance what these intermittent times will be, nor how long they will last.
Griff says ” hey Mr Government, my cost to produce will go up and my revenue will go down”
Mr Government says , Correct you are Mr Griff, and by the way, I will demonize you publicly while you do this. Thanks for allowing me to help.
Can anyone tell me what it would look like if the “world’s largest lithium ion battery” was to have a massive catastrophe? Worst case. Lets put the precautionary principal to work here.
I seem to recall numerous cases of lithium ion batteries in phones, tablets and laptops exploding or catching fire.
Boeing had a few problems too, I seem to recall.
Also at the battery storage shed at Hawaiian Kahuka Wind Farm a few years back.
And there are a LOT of battery cells in these battery farms. I’ve forgotten exactly how many batteries are used in a Tesla 10 kWh Powerwall, but I believe that they use similar battery modules as the cars, which have 441 or 444 batteries in each module. You can calculate the number of batteries from the number of modules used in the cars, then assume 10 kWh for the Powerwalls as compared to 76 kWh for the cars. Then ramp this up to the 100 MWh battery being installed in South Australia. That will thousands of batteries.
The big Aussy battery will maybe help with smoothing the grid, but is not going to time shift much power. It is 100 Megawatt hours. I don’t know what SA’s daily demand is, but in the UK in winter it is about 1000 Gw-hr per day, so if the wind doesn’t blow for ten days we would need about 10,000 Gw-hrs of storage or about 100,000 x 100 Mw-hr batteries to cover the gap if we were 100% wind powered. That is several orders of magnitude more than global lithium ion battery output.
I’m a fan of lithium batteries but they are not anywhere near ready to facilitate a 100% wind/solar grid
The website aemo.co.au shows the South Australian power demand. Around 1100 MW, peaking up over 1300 MW. And you’re right – often the wind doesn’t blow for days. They claim that the battery will hold up 30,000 homes for an hour. I’m interested to know how they plan to limit the battery’s output to a specified group of homes. If they can do this, I believe that they will confine the battery output to the Jamestown wind farm area, about 10,000 homes, which should hold them up just under 24 hours.
10,000 SA homes for one hour: let’s hope the power lasts until the end of the sports programme.
On smoothing the grid, that depends, if it is directly coupled to a mechanical power source (say a generator or alternator) then a battery can actually fight against the other source. Batteries generally have very low impedance so they don’t behave exactly like a capacitor when combined with a mechanically spinning power source. Some of it depends on the controller, but I’ve seen a system where an alternator was the primary source and the battery was supposed to help with surge currents, but in the end when a surge hit the two fought where the battery would pick up the full load, then the alternator would spin up because it went from full on to full off and the two just cycled back and forth. It’s a fixable problem, but it takes a lot of management and your controller needs to be faster than the battery reaction, which is pretty fast. I will say, having worked around 20Ah batteries at 55V nominal, you wouldn’t find me anywhere near a Mega Watt or Giga Watt battery station. That is a crap ton of energy just sitting there!
Wasn’t Elon Musk recently promising to supply Tesla Powerwalls to S. Australia in such numbers as to make their intermittency issues moot? How’s that going? What is S. Australia’s current “renewable” storage supply if the wind isn’t blowing. Did wind power stores anything during long becalmed periods lasting several weeks over a surprisingly large geographic area this winter? Can stored renewable energy power S. Australia’s grid for 15 minutes, even assuming those 15 minutes are not when the water heaters are scheduled to come on? Effing dreamers…
With a summer drain of around 1300 MW, and assuming that you can only pull 80 MW from the battery farm, that gives them 3.7 minutes, if they are lucky.
Effing liars, Mickey.
Mickey -I can’t answer all your good queries but Weatherill ( great name ) the Premier of South Australia, who has bragged about his state’s green energy (albeit supported by brown coal fired power from next door state Victoria via a connector line) has ordered 100 repeat 100 diesel generators in an attempt to cover peak demands when the wind ain’t blowin this coming southern hemisphere summer.
It has been claimed he was offered a coal powered station as back up to his state’s growth of wind and solar power but declined and the station has now been demolished.
The purpose of the batteries is to keep the system from crashing long enough to get the diesel generators started.
So you have to pay for wind/solar, batteries and diesel generators.
And they are still trying to convince us that renewables are cheap.
You mean if you did something silly like place large scale lithium batteries in the remote countryside, in the driest State of one of the most bushfire prone countries on Earth? that kind of thing?
And Jamestown SA summer temps often exceed 100F / 40C. Great for trying to maintain battery life…
Simple, they’ll air condition the building where the batteries are stored.
And heat it in the winter.
http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cpsprodpb/11026/production/_87507696_thinkstockphotos-456613403.jpg
Lol…..that would make terrible sunrise.😂
Then we should see bills coming down then shouldn’t we.
Simple test are bills going to come down Greenies? Want to make a bet?
The cheap renewable energy future is – like fusion power – always thirty years into the future. Advocates need to answer a simple question – what storage technology? Specifically how is the energy from solar and wind to be stored – realistically and using a technology available here and now and not in some speculative future – to a capacity that can supply an entire grid for days rather than hours, yet remove the need for baseload generation at a vastly inflated cost (given the reduced demand). I have never heard an answer to this that does not rely on hand-waving or magical thinking, and without one renewable energy is nothing more than a huge fraud.
Magic.
It will be stored by magic.
I mean I can sit down and calculate the maximum volume of energy one might need, and the pile of lithium to hold it, and the discharge rate, and all that malarkey, and if I did that it would become immediately obvious that this scheme would not work. Can not work. Ever.
But why bother? Magic!
By definition you cannot remove the need for base load generation. They are pathetically talking about replacing it with hydro storage and VLBs. ( very large batteries)
Not surprising that all of their “evidence” are someone’s opinions and projections (aka models). I wonder if they truly belief this garbage, or if this is just their attempt at propaganda.
I didn’t see any claim that renewable power was less costly and more reliable already, only that it will be once coal plants die of old age:
“we do not need new gas or coal plants built. Persisting with existing coal plants beyond their technical design lives will lead to unreliable power”
So they want to use political power to forbid new coal power plant construction. Eventually, when existing coal plants fail, renewables can be declared more reliable than expired FF plants.
SR
Well in the US no new coal plant is under construction and no new plans for coal have been announced since Trump was elected. But coal plant is shutting down due to cost -as with Monticello plant close announced this week.
Yes, all coal plant in some countries has been scheduled for close – the UK and France, for example. But then the UK has shut most of its coal plant and hardly uses it for 8 months of the year anyway. Lights still on!
Griff, whether coal plants ever reach the end of their useful/reliable life was never the point of discussion. I will not respond to your replies any further unless you actually address my points.
SR
Griff
France Coal 4.17% Wind 6.17% Nuclear 73.49%.
UK Coal 7.30% Wind 21.64% Dutch ICT 2.74% Nuclear 20.43% the French ICT is offline currently.
So far in 2017 the UK has used more electricity supplied by Coal and the French and Dutch inter-connectors for 60% of the time. Coal fired generation has been online 92% of the year.
Download data here if you don’t believe me:
UK http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/download.php
France http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/france/
view Germany https://www.energy-charts.de/power.htm
Nordic http://driftsdata.statnett.no/Web/map/snpscustom
Spain https://demanda.ree.es/demandaGeneracionAreasEng.html
That way you can see what happens for the 97% of the time renewables (Wind and Solar anything that takes more than a year to replace isn’t really renewable) don’t produce enough to make newsworthy headlines or help line Zac Goldsmiths pockets.
Griff, so far so good. Until till we have a long cold hard winter with a week or two of freezing windless weather. When enough people freeze and wheeze their last in their beds you’ll see what happens. Politics in Great Britain is on the move dear boy. The average IQ in Westminster will rise (it couldn’t go any lower!) Things will change. King coal will return. As I said before, not everyone in Great Britain is an idiot..
you fail to say why UK coal plant shuts down for most of the year griff.
Legislation only allows them so many running hours before they must be shut down. so they use them up at times of highest price.
No new coal is built because legislation won’t allow it to be used at full capacity, so it becomes uneconomic
Its easy to make apples more expensive than oranges if you put 1000% tax on them…
Is the UK still using DRAX? Oh sorry that’s wood pellets.
Lee,
As far as I know Drax is currently uses a mix of coal and wood some boilers have been converted some not. It also has a backup of gas fired capability (unlike most windfarms). The power station was built in close proximity to the Selby coal field so transport costs were minimized. The wood is shipped from America to a specially built facility at Immingham.
Griff is about to make that very claim below. However this is what Griff is really talking about…
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/10/11/claim-renewables-are-the-cheapest-form-of-power/comment-page-1/#comment-2634818
It’s 2022 and half past 11 at night. The wind has hardly blown for over 2 weeks now and all the batteries are now empty (they only installed enough capacity for 13 days). Where is the electricity coning from?
No, I’ll leave it as CONing.
Well mine will be from a standby diesel generator and hopefully some extra from a small scale water turbine if the water wheel doesn’t get trapped in ice on the stream.
I can see the day coming where the things to invest in will be petrol / diesel generator manufacturers, firewood producing woodland, wood-burning stove manufacturers, some land and a solid cart and a couple of horses.
“I can see the day coming where the things to invest in will be petrol / diesel generator manufacturers, firewood producing woodland, wood-burning stove manufacturers, some land and a solid cart and a couple of horses”
Except petrol / diesel generator manufacturing (and the fuel to power them) will be banned. And good luck finding any “firewood producing woodland” – by that stage there probably won’t be single tree left standing…
The Energy Fairy.
Put a coal plant under your pillow and you’ll get a shiny new solar power plant to replace it for less than the cost of a coal plant
And Griff that solar farm will be dead and useless after 25 years but the coal plant will still be running after you have replaced the solar three times. It will also be able to deliver 10 times the total output of the solar farm in a nice clean controlled “Dispatch-able” manner. Only a poor idiot would build renewable without subsidies.
Less than the cost, and 1% the power generation capacity. When the wind is blowing. 0% the rest of the time.
I’ll never put a coal plant under my pillow if that’s what happens.
Griff, do you know the difference between Low Mass power production to High Mass power production?
“It’s 2022 and half past 11 at night. The wind has hardly blown for over 2 weeks now and all the batteries are now empty ”
Seems to me that you are entirely too optimistic Musk’s “World’s largest Lithium battery” will store 129 mWH.A few months ago South Austrailia wind turbines managed to peak at 1540MW which was presumably all used. So, if there are users for 1540MW and the wind stops blowing, how long can Musk’s battery keep the users on line? 129MW-hr / 1540MW = .084hr = a smidge over 5 minutes.
Seems kind of inadequate.
Surely less Don – you can’t pull 129 MWh from the batteries. Also the types of lithium batteries used (I’m assuming the Powerwalls use the same battery modules as the Tesla cars) don’t like high current drains – their lifetimes would be greatly reduced.
The double back up pumped hydro storage.
.
Anthony Sharwood cites ‘evidence’ from some distant future. How can that make any sense to even the most simple-minded? That’s like our son telling us his room is tidy because he could later tidy it.
Politicians in the UK tried that approach and were swiftly exposed as deliberately misleading.
UK ex-politician, ex-convict and perjuror Chris Huhne, when a government minister at the Department of Energy and Climate Change claimed that renewables would mean lower energy bills for people in the future.
When his twisted logic was examined in detail it was found to be based on assuming that people would drastically cut electricity consumption because of much higher electricity prices (because of the very high cost of renewables) and would better insulate their homes to help achieve a reduction in electrical usage.
No mention that inflation will not only raise prices but $414 in 33 years time will be worth a lot less.
I have a comparison between a brand new Nissan Leaf and an IC engine powered car that I think will prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the all electric car has become vastly superior to the comparable IC car.
The IC car, I think is well represented example of what you can expect. It is a 1969 Fiat 850 Spyder that was never ever used, nor even considered for use, for anymore than one Chicago winter immediately after it was brand new. Thus, it has only minimal rust perforation. And, after 48 years it only has 30,000 miles on that (zillion rpm, ‘pushrod’) 850cc engine, so it should be representative of a new car.
I only do fair comparisons.
I like your fair comparison!
EVs have a lower total cost of ownership though…
https://seekingalpha.com/article/543861-report-shows-lower-total-cost-of-ownership-for-electric-vehicles
[as an EV owner myself, I can say that in my case, that’s not true – Anthony]
Griff, please don’t push that garbage. EV is NOT a poor person’s choice. You need to be a Musk, person with money and willing to spend it on the moral pose / fast car.
Potentially the EV is cheap, but batteries make it sure you won’t compete at the same market.
Try and convince the owner of a Nissan Leaf of that after 5 years of ownership when looking at a value of £1500 or so because it needs £thousands to replace the battery in the next year or so.
The MSRP of a Tesla Model S is higher than the total cost of ownership of a Mercedes E-Class.
https://www.edmunds.com/tesla/model-s/2016/cost-to-own/
https://www.edmunds.com/mercedesbenz/e-class/2016/st-200732940/cost-to-own/
The Tesla Model S MSRP is nearly twice the total 5-yr cost to own of a MB E-Class.
Before someone says the Model S is not comparable to the E-Class…
http://www.autotrader.com/car-news/the-tesla-model-s-is-absolutely-not-the-best-selling-luxury-sedan-in-america-258097
In 2016, Tesla sold “76,230+ vehicles (Model X + Model S) delivered”.
https://cleantechnica.com/2017/01/03/teslas-2016-deliveries-production/
In 2016 Mercedes-Benz USA sold 380,752 vehicles in the US. MB USA sold more C-Class (86,080) vehicles than Tesla’s combined sales.
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/mercedes-benz-usa-reports-best-year-ever-with-2016-sales-of-380752-units-300385664.html
Griff, in the UK all electric Cars (EVs) depreciate by between 75% and 80% after 3 years, the worst performance of any cars.
David:
If you are lucky to own a Tesla and live in Puerto Rico, you will have just found out that it now runs on diesel – the only generators working on the island after Hurricane Maria.
(If you live in Los Angeles, you are probably oblivious to the fact that it is getting charged overnight from a coal burning facility in Utah).
This is part of the zero emission/green energy canard.
Sorry Griff, that comparison doesn’t cut it. First; they admit up front that the Leaf’s advantage disappears if the $7,500 tax credit disappears. Second; the vehicle used for comparison uses a 2.4 liter 4 cyl. gas engine (among others). I can almost guarantee you that a vehicle the size of the Leaf will not come with a 2.4 liter engine – more like a 1.6 liter (33% smaller). Finally; they extrapolate it out to 120,000 miles (the break even point for a Leaf w/o the tax credit), but I rather doubt that cost includes a battery replacement on the Leaf.
Griff, that’s only true up till the first time you have to replace the battery pack.
That’s also ignoring the gas taxes that IC cars have to pay to provide the roads you are using for free.
Mark, bingo. As are the many comments above refuting the Griff. Yet the Griff will make that same comment and link many more times, and ignore these comments endlessly.
Oh, its just silly, goats.
http://www.energy.ca.gov/almanac/electricity_data/electric_generation_capacity.html
A worthy diagram. Tells it all: a LOT of power is required, and presently near-none of it is stored solar energy. Plenty of make-it-and-use-it-immediately solar. No storage.
This article’s referenced position is a marketing piece for the renewable / storage market. Ask a butcher what to have for dinner and inevitably it won’t be Quiche Lorraine.
GoatGuy
@GoatGuy
Ohh, I don’t know. A good Quiche Lorraine has a fair bit of bacon in it. Now that you mention it, I’m going to call my wife and see if she’s already planned dinner…
Germany has gone greenish, sorta-kinda. They’ve spent heavily on PV and windmills — and on tax-supported schemes to prop these up financially — but they closed down all their nuclear power plants. After years of this, electric power prices have now DOUBLED, and utility related carbon emissions have gone UP because 1) renewables simply cannot carry the freight, so 2) coal-fired and gas-fired generation have to make up the shortfall. The only people benefitting from this are the few who get big government subsidies for putting solar panels on the roof of the barn.
I’m starting to wonder how long it’ll take American taxpayers and voters to see through the “renewables” scam. It’s just a way to let people compete for utility market using technology that never could (and likely never will) succeed on its own.
They still have 8 nukes left – close date is 2022.
However 4 were offline together earlier this year for various reasons with no effect on German power, so I think they’ll probably do fine without them.
German power production increased last year as did German power exports… power to spare.
Renewables made up the slack after half the nukes shut down overnight in 2011, by the way
Griff, you didn’t respond to his comment “… electric power prices have now DOUBLED ….”
You did say power to spare.
Spare power, just laying around for want of a use. And the cost of that spare power has doubled. German society has me very confused.
I was keen that we should all be clear about how many nukes Germany actually has: that was my reason to post.
But note while German power prices are high, German power bills are lower than in the US as Germans use more efficient appliances. There was a tiny increase between 2016 and 2017.
Also very many have solar panels and/or a share in community renewable power…
People can’t afford to use that expensive green power. That’s why Germany has to spare.
German residential consumers subsidise big energy users like steel plants. Last count there were over 800,000 germans without power through their inability to pay their bills. Germany is still building many lignite powered stations and bringing back on line mothballed stations.
Griff,
German installed power is about 120% of peak demand in “conventional” plus 10% nuclear plus 110% wind and solar. Thus they don’t need nuclear, but still use it as base load, because that is the cheapest power…
Thus they can have 100% nameplate “renewable” at ideal wind and solar, but they never do that, as that is uncontralable: they prefer to pay (!) part of the windfarms to not deliver power… They dump what they don’t need of wind and solar on their neighbours,,,
If there is little wind and solar, like in the first weeks of January this year (as much of Europe did encounter), then all (brown)coal plants are full steam.
Thus despite 110% nameplate wind and solar power you need over 100% conventional power for when there is no/little wind and sun… Net result: doubling of the costs for German households and zero change in CO2 emissions…
To people like Griff, having hoi polloi unable to afford to use power is the goal.
Griff,
I’ll give you 10 to 1 that you that less than 10% of German population with a similar situation to me (1,100 sf single family house; no gas; electric only; 2 people) has a “bill” lower than mine AND NO ONE in Germany has a rate less than mine.
I haven’t looked at German rates or average bills … I’ll bet blind.
Are you willing to admit that you are completely full of shit or are you willing to bet.
Stephen that 800,000 is a completely bogus figure (I note this bogus figure has been increasing lately – when Lomborg invented it I think it was only 300,000).
show me an official German source for it… and while you are at it tell me what percentage of Grman households it would represent if true – and then look at percentage of good old fossil fuelled US households cut off (official figures actually available). Marvel at more in US being cut off!
Mark
I see that many poor people in the UK are being provided with solar panels thorough social housing and housing associations…
Griff, you say that like it means something.
Yes, we need the biggest German air conditioning manufacturer Golfstrom GmbH to start selling in the US.
Also, environmentally sensitive citizens from Munich to Hamburg must educate ugly Americans in Miami and Houston about the proper use of air conditioning. Just because it gets a little warmer outside is no reason to turn it on and destroy the planet. As a matter of fact, this whole climate and energy issue is so simple that even Ms Griff could explain it to them from London.
http://www.vividmaps.com/2016/07/usa-compared-to-europe-at-same-latitudes.html
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_by_latitude
It was a hot and humid early evening in the island of Lido offshore of Venice, Italy. There was no central air conditioning in the restaurant. There was one of those little wall units with a small through-the-wall tube for heat exhaust. I asked the waiter to turn it on because of our very real discomfort; and I’m from Las Vegas!
A nearby couple apparently complained, because I overheard the waiter say something, ending with “American.”
Apparently much of the rest of the world doesn’t value their comfort as much as Americans.
From the World Association of Nuclear Operators: “Germany has some of the lowest wholesale electricity prices in Europe and some of the highest retail prices, due to its energy policies. Taxes and surcharges account for more than half the domestic electricity price.”
This is what the Green Gadget economy is all about — taxes and surcharges that punish certain producers so inferior ones can survive. If the production tax credit and similar stipends and forced-purchase agreements suddenly stopped in the United States, virtually all windmills and solar panels would be abandoned in the next five minutes.
http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles/countries-g-n/germany.aspx
Even if we assume this is accurate, storage is not factored into the cost of new power generation.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-09-11/gas-not-coal-the-fix-to-australias-soaring-electricity-prices/8890818
Let’s assume that they can purchase battery backup for $140/kWh and the Li-ion cells last 10 years. Over ten years, $140/kWh works out to about $38.50 (US) per MWh of generation.
Over the twenty year lifespan of the wind and solar power plants, the batteries would have to be replaced once. That brings the storage cost up to $77 (US) per MWh of generation. Convert to AUD and it’s $99/MWh. Tack that on to the LCOE:
Even with Australia’s high natural gas prices, combined cycle natural gas is much cheaper than wind & solar, if you factor in the storage costs.
David,
I’m not sure if you have factored in the back-up storage period required for when the wind doesn’t blow enough ?
Can’t remember who it was but there was a post in recent comments that said the backup requirements for wind in the UK would need to be around 55 days to achieve constant supply. No calculations were supplied but it was based upon records of succeeding days where the wind generation was very low and thus not available for recharging batteries that were already down and been used for topping up the lower than required supply to ‘keep the lights on’.
I don’t know if you have factored anything like that into your calculations, but it is a major cost element when comparisons are made.
Another imponderable I have seen raised is the actual life of the batteries. Lithium Ion batteries in cars have been subject to a great deal of research and testing based on partial to full discharge, rate of recharge and ambient temperatures etc. Where there seems little knowledge is how these will perform as renewable backup where a battery may have to be recharged over several days, or wait at full discharge for days before surplus energy is available for recharge, or remain fully charged for days until needed. This may (or may not) significantly reduce both lifespan and charge capacity.
Another aspect to consider is the huge energy requirement to make the battery storage as well as the resultant CO2 emissions – currently with around 50% renewables CO2 emissions during battery manufacture are between 150kg and 200kg per 1KWh of storage 0 15 to 20 tonnes CO2e for a Tesla car battery..
PS
Based on a 55 day back up storage being required for wind then every 1MW of average generation will require 1,320 MWH of backup battery storage. At $99 per 1KWH storage that would cost $130.68 Million – and these may be the figures you have used.
I just backed up each MW of solar & wind with 1 MWh worth of batteries. Since wind & solar only have about 1/3 the capacity factor of coal & gas, you would have to deploy 2-3 MW of solar & wind to offset 1 MW of coal & gas. But the LCOE is in MWh, so the capacity factor differential is supposedly already factored in.
David
In general, you seem to be correct that low capacity generation needs to be paired with storage (“buffering”) and the cost of the storage needs to be included in the sticker price of the technology. There are a few applications where there are built in buffers — e.g. pumping water to reservoirs and for those, backup electrical storage might not be required and the cost of electricity might be close to the LCOE value.
Not just the batteries for buffering, but you have to pay for the cost of whatever form of alternative power comes on line after the buffering is used up.
Usually gas turbine or diesel.
David, the figure of $134/MWh for a ultra super critical coal plant seems high. What is the calculated lifetime of the plant? I thought the Chinese were building HELE for reasonable prices.
Just checked – the Mineral Council, in their February report, estimated a ultra super- critical plant LCOE at $67-91/MWh, without CCS. Have you included CCS in your figure?
I think the US DOE amortizes the cost over 20 years. I don’t know if Australia does the same. Amortizing the cost of a coal plant over 20 years, rather than 30, would elevate the LCOE.
The chart is mendacious B.S. Where is conventional coal? Combined cycle gas-fired turbines? Hydro? Modern nuclear? Wood?
You are vastly underestimating the cost of storage. 1) you cannot use the entire battery. 2) the battery will decline with usage, so, you have to oversize again. 3) You have to account for diurnal nature of sunshine due to the tilt of our axis. Again, more storage. 4) This means you have to install more name plate rated to charge the batteries… … …
This is wonderful news! We can drop the government mandates and subsidies to allow private investment to take the reins.
But wait! If reality means anything at all (questionable with today’s utopian weltbild) then we may wish to consult the pioneer of ecodogooders, Germany.
Ratios to US power costa per KWh:
US 1
France 1.8
Germany 3.3
Windmills, anyone?
https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/what-german-households-pay-power
“…obsolete “baseload” concepts…” That statement proves the people planning this renewable future don’t have a clue what is required to provide reliable energy. What do they call the batteries they are hyping?
This is progress in that Greens normally don’t use a price term at all. With the speed of a Vatican inquiry, they might just tell the truth on price at some point.
Once again, when reading the reports about Unicorns and Fairy dust please take note of the density of the following modifiers: could, may, perhaps, projected, if, proposed, forecast, expected and model. When you see a high enough density of these words associated with government funding you must run. Don’t wait, don’t linger, don’t stick around to see what their real point is…just grab your wallet and run.
“Please take note of the density of the following modifiers:”
Just copy/paste the text into a word processing application, select one of those words, and use “Find” or “Find All” Can be very revealing…
Green energy is for people who can’t count.