Guest essay by Eric Worrall
For once Bill McKibben is right – if all the towns and cities in the world went 100% renewable, big oil would be crushed, and Washington’s bipartisan infatuation with Fossil Fuels would be defeated. The only problem with this plan: renewables are expensive, and they are not a viable replacement for fossil fuels.
We can battle climate change without Washington DC. Here’s how
Bill McKibben
Global warming is an immediate battle with enormous consequences. We dare not wait for Washington to return to sanity – nor do we have to
The most telling item in Donald Trump’s State of the Union address may have been what wasn’t there: any mention of climate change, the greatest problem the world faces. And just as telling was the fact that official Washington seemed barely to notice.
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Even if Democrats manage to take back the House and Senate in the midterm elections, they wouldn’t be able to get meaningful legislation past Trump – and there’s nothing much to suggest they’d try very hard.
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New York City is not as big as the federal government, but it’s big enough: it’s got lawyers aplenty, and the resources to do real damage. And it won’t be alone. We’ve just launched a huge Fossil Free US campaign, designed to make sure there are a thousand New Yorks working on a thousand fronts.
It has three main components.
The first – joining in work pioneered by groups like the Sierra Club – is to persuade towns, cities, counties, and states to pledge to make the transition to 100% renewable energy. This is now easy and affordable enough that it doesn’t scare politicians – cities from San Diego to Atlanta have joined in, and they will help maintain the momentum towards clean energy that the Trump administration is trying so hard to blunt.
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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/feb/01/climate-change-action-trump
Activists like Bill McKibben genuinely believe that renewables are an inexpensive replacement for fossil fuels. They believe the reason fossil fuels haven’t been replaced by renewables is that fossil fuel interests are fighting to prevent the rise of renewables, to protect their own interests.
This view is a fantasy.
I’m sure fossil fuel interests do a lot of lobbying, but the truth is there is nothing, not a single thing that fossil fuel companies could do to prevent the rise of a better energy solution.
The problem with renewables is that they are not a better energy solution.
History is littered with rapid shifts to new energy technology. Kerosene replaced whale oil in just a few decades. Natural gas replaced kerosene lighting on a similar timescale. Electric lighting rapidly replaced natural gas.
Famous inventor and business tycoon Thomas Edison once tried really hard to prevent the rise of a superior energy technology. Edison failed. George Westinghouse’s AC electricity grid displaced Thomas Edison’s DC electricity, because at the time AC was easier to transport over long distances.
Nobody has to make pledges or campaign for the adoption of better energy solutions. The evidence from history is that people embrace better energy solutions of their own free will, without any need for government intervention or noisy activist campaigns.
If renewables were any good, the renewable revolution would be rapid and uncontroversial. The strongest evidence that renewables are inferior is the fact that the renewable revolution has been, is and for the foreseeable future will continue to be an utter failure.
Correction (EW): h/t rogercaiazza The gas used for lighting was not natural gas, at least not initially.
People can move from town to town and state to state in the USA. That’s exactly what people will do, unless Bill wants to build a mini Berlin Wall around each city as they go green. On that note, I suggest every sane person still in Kalifornia get out while you still can with more than just the shirt on your back.
California is becoming a real sh*thole, if ever there was one, all thanks to Jerry.
The walled enclaves is one of the aims of Agenda 21 and it’s later derivatives.
Here’s the rub Bill from The Australian 29/1/2018-
‘Battery plants will remain too expensive to meet long-term urban power storage needs, Nobel laureate and Obama administration energy secretary Steven Chu has warned.
Professor Chu said the huge lithium-ion battery built in South Australia by Tesla boss Elon Musk had cost about 40 times as much as an equivalent power plant using an existing hydro-electric dam. He said while the costs of building battery plants were likely to halve over the next decade, the approach would never be cheap enough to accommodate the big seasonal shifts in renewable power production.
He said batteries could prove viable for storing power produced during the day for use during night hours, and “maybe” up to a week later, but not over seasonal timeframes. “You need other new technologies to convert cheap renewable energy into chemical fuel when the sun is shining or the wind is blowing,” he told The Australian.’
Now Professor Chu is no doubter of CO2 being a problem and after poo-pooing the battery fan club goes on to promote hydrogen as an alternative-
“If you make really cheap hydrogen from renewables and store it underground, then you have something very different.”
Well in the absence of pumped hydro in a dry flat state like South Australia and molten salt storage not making any headway he would have to think hydrogen now wouldn’t he? Even more over the horizon stuff as the true believers with some brains still in gear grapple with the problem of unreliables and the cost of making them equivalent to traditional thermal power. Do keep up Bill Nye and Co.
“If you make really cheap hydrogen from renewables and store it underground, then you have something very different.”
Huge quantities of hydrogen are manufactured and used already. Out of fossil fuel, not renewable. For a reason (guess what).
And even if some miracle hydrogen source appeared, you can bet the first thing we would do with it would be to turn it into … liquid fuel.
Another self proclaimed ‘environmentalist’ with a cause and no solutions. It is about the drama of the cause not doing the hard work of spending time in a classroom learningf how to identify and solve the problems.
If you look at all the dramas, there is always another sillier than the last.
This is why I am in favor of modest mandates. Proof of concept or proof of failure.
Failure of renewables is an option.
I’d have to add that any town or city that goes 100% renewable (unless of course it is a very small town and most of the residents heat with wood – if the greens consider firewood to be a renewable….) will end up very quickly defeating itself! For larger cities, what you will have is Detroit on steroids. Large areas of residential and commercial land will be abandoned because (of course) reliable on demand 24/7 energy will be a thing of the past!
Followed by the millions out of work, empty store shelves and the collapse of the pension plans would be recipe war. To which a lot of people would be looking forward to get their revenge.
Sounds like Venezuela…
As an aside here’s an interesting determination for those eager US burghers wanting to sue Exxon, Shell, BP, etc for not cease and desist apparently and note the defence the Court accepted-
https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/australia/court-rules-against-former-gambling-addict-who-sued-crown-over-misleading-poker-machines/ar-BBIAOkm
That’s one Constitutional Right the US founding fathers didn’t forsee, namely the right to not be hounded or prosecuted retrospectively for epidemiological risk with 20/20 hindsight. In other words any entity or individual is free to actively promote, supply, sell and trade any good or service until such time as the community decides otherwise legislatively.
Activists like Bill McKibben genuinely believe that renewables are an inexpensive replacement for fossil fuels.
It would be easier to convince me that CAGW is an actual threat than it would be to convince me that McKibben believes his own rhetoric.
The city of Seattle claims to be 100% renewable. It is all smoke and mirrors. They sold the coal plant instead of closing it down.
Think about every thing we need. Tires for example. Not made in a renewable city but they get the food to town and haul the garbage to the dump.
Suggestion for Bill McKibben and others: Make the next climate conference 100% renewable. Not with carbon credit indulgences, but with actual real renewable power – for everything. Lighting, AV equipment, wireless APs, elevators, kitchens, transportation. Everything excepting emergency lighting. Not enough renewable power? Then the conference participants get to lead by example and get together and decide what to shut down. Maybe they can talk Elon Musk into loaning them a super battery to give them more time to meet — after all climate conferences are used to days of arguing over minor resolution wording changes, so making critical decisions in 5 minutes or less will likely be unfamiliar to them.
If it really would be easy for major cities like New York to go 100% renewable permanently, it should be much easier to get one convention site somewhere to go 100% renewable for a week.
Even a journey of 1,000 miles starts with a single step. Until I see somebody take that first step, I will remain skeptical on the possibility of the longer journey.
And go there in a renewable way. No flying or trains. Tall ships and horses.
And pogo-sticks.
I can – close your eyes if sensitive – visualise The Great Algoreithm pogoing down from DC . . . .
Apologies if the jelly-flapping offends!
Auto
You may be interested to know that in the 1970’s I had presented a proposal to the Ontario government in Canada to construct a rotary kiln power plant fueled by municipal garbage. It would have taken up to a half of Toronto’s landfilled waste and produced electricity, steam, recovered metal and glass.
As part of this project, I proposed to build adjacent to this power plant a high rise vegetable garden in which vegetables would be grown year round for the Toronto market. It would have been heated and powered by this power plant.
However, the “environmentalists” opposed this project for all the usual reasons, and it died in its embryonic stage.
How does it go? The stone age didn’t end because they ran out of stones … and big quarry wasn’t defeated, either.
I was recently in Acre in Israel and visited a museum showing the traditional utensils used by people – some of these were kerosene lamps (I believe the name comes from the original Swedish manufacturer) which replaced whale oil.
Just as inevitably, renewable energies will steadily replace – although not completely – fossil fuels as the costs of the technologies decrease over time – this is already being witnessed in countries like China and Saudi Arabia that are investing very large sums of money in solar, wind etc.
I agree with fossil fuel advocates that renewables alone will not be sufficient to power the world’s energy needs. However, where I disagree is what the back up will be. I am pro nucleur and believe that this technology is much cleaner and efficient than fossil fuels.
“Just as inevitably, renewable energies will steadily replace “
Fantasy-land again, ivan?
Just as inevitably, renewables will CRASH and leave behind a load of decaying husks and toxins when subsidies and feed-in mandates are removed, once this anti-science, anti-CO2, AGW FARCE is relegated to the sewer from whence it came.
Don’t skewer the argument and the facts. You know as well as I do that fossil fuels get as much subsidies as renewables. Stop the absurd lie that one does and the other doesn’t.
Also don’t just put renewables in the context of the climate change debate. There is a strong economic argument for their usage with energy prices coming down year on year.
“Don’t skewer the argument and the facts.”
I’ll leave the bs’ing up to you, ivan… you are so much more practiced at it.
“There is a strong economic argument”
There absolutely ZERO economic argument for them , because need a complete extra system to back them up when they don’t deliver.
@ivankinsman
” You know as well as I do that fossil fuels get as much subsidies as renewables.”
Oh. You do KNOW that? No you don’t,
You never would want to be “subsidized” the way fossil fuels are, as you claim.
A) the Saudi subsidies:
I own oil, that I can sell $60/bbl to any people on Earth. But I decide to sell it to citizens of the country only $10/bbl. I can afford, actually I still earn money since production cost are even lower, close to 8$. But, still, this is a $50 (60-10) subsidy (so they say).
B) the tax man subsidies
I tax oil. Big tax, and make huge money on it. All sort of taxes, for all sort of oil and usage, to extract as much money as I can. However, people complain, and sometimes, they even lobby successfully to get some tax reduction; some other times, the tax is so great it would just yield zero as people would stop using the taxed product, so I compensate.
So, sometimes, some oil product are taxed $50 instead of $100. Another $50 subsidy.
Which one of the fossil fuels subsidies do you want, Ivan? I can provide a substitute. Yes, I can.
For the A subsidies, just pay me $60 every time you buy 42 gallons of gas, and I’ll subsidies you $50, no question asked.
For the B subsidies, just pay me $100 every time you buy 42 gallons of gas, and I’ll subsidies you $50, no question asked.
C) the renewables subsidies
Unfortunately I cannot provide C subsidy to you. It would cost me money (as opposed to my A and B subsidies to you, where YOU are the one to lose money)
Couldn’t have said it better myself. LOL
Maybe these people really need to live in this utopia they envision for a year, and see why their point of view is so incredibly wrong.
ivan, you haven’t presented any facts, and it is a lie that fossil fuel gets subsidies.
That’s only true if you take the insane notion that any tax less than 100% is a subsidy.
“You know as well as I do that fossil fuels get as much subsidies as renewables.”
No we don’t.
Stop making stuff up.
which replaced whale oil. you do know that the lamps and source of fuel are two different things don’t you , i.e the same lamps that run on kerosene would run on whale oil.
And as for China and renewable, well take out hydro , and the greens do not included this , then the biggest investment they are making in in manufacturing solar panels for suckers in the west to waste their money .
Meanwhile, it coal , coal and yet more coal .
Don’t be absurd. The US manufactured renewable technologies and uses them as well on a huge scale so stop talking about ‘China’ and ‘suckers in this context. The coal industry is steadily shrinking as investors do not want to put their money into a dying industry, however much Trump wants to support it.
The U.S. invested $57 billion in 2016, making it the world’s second biggest backer of renewables. Developers channeled 1 percent more capital into clean energy than the previous year even though Trump worked to gut emissions rules governing power plants.
http://mankindsdegradationofplanetearth.com/2018/02/02/chinas-solar-boom-boosts-clean-energy-funding-near-record/
@ivankinsman
“The U.S. invested $57 billion in 2016,”
“invested”, really?
An investment is something you get money out of, because you earn more money or cut some spending (and any combination thereof), more than you invested.
As far as you told us, this is not an investment, this is just a SPENDING.
To justify your using the “invested” word, tell us how much this will allow US to earn or save.
Good luck with that.
Sorry Ivan. The cost of renewable energy has a floor. beyond which it cannot reduce and that cots is above that of nuclear power, if punitive restrictions are removed from that technology.
The reason is very simple. Sunlight wind and wave and tide are very diffuse., They require massive amounts of structure, and the energy cost of those structures is a significant fraction if not in excess, of the energy that is derived over the lifetime of the constructed plant. Only hydroelectric, where Nature has done most of the construction for you, is a cost effective renewable.,
Unless you are using cheap fossil or nuclear power to create the structures – cement for concrete is made by burning gas typically – you will bankrupt yourself as renewables will not generate enough energy to reproduce themselves.
Beyond fossil there is only nuclear.
http://www.templar.co.uk/downloads/Beyond_Fossil_Fuels.pdf
“and the energy cost of those structures is a significant fraction if not in excess, of the energy that is derived over the lifetime of the constructed plant”
Sorry, but this statement is complete c**p. These are examples of projects that completely negate your argument. This high level of investment would not be made if the ROI was insufficient:
Saudi Arabia touts US$500 billion wind and solar powered investment zone: https://www.pv-tech.org/news/saudi-arabia-invest-usd500-billion-in-special-zone-including-jordan-and-egy
Indian solar power prices hit record low, undercutting fossil fuels: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/may/10/indian-solar-power-prices-hit-record-low-undercutting-fossil-fuels
https://cleantechnica.com/2017/05/11/pe-fund-actis-plans-500-million-investment-indian-solar-market/
China’s Solar Boom Boosts Clean Energy Funding Near Record
About $333.5 billion poured into renewable energy and cutting-edge power technologies, up 3 percent from 2016 and 7 percent short of the record set in 2015, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Almost half went to solar projects, and China’s investment accounted for 40 percent of the total
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-16/china-s-hunger-for-solar-boosts-clean-energy-funding-near-record
Then why the need for campaigns and pledges Ivankinsman? If renewables are so attractive, why haven’t they completely displaced fossil fuels already?
Look into the financials of those projects, and show me where they factored the cost of the required backup. And all of those projects need backup, most within 24 hours of turning on the switch. What’s that? You can’t find that cost in those financial analyses…?
Another cost not built in. it all needs replacing in 15 to 20 years, unlike the mature FF & Nuclear Industry where 60 years is common..
The money is pouring into renewables alright—–right down the rat hole.
ivan.., your gullibility is magnificent. “This high level of investment” is and are not really made now, they are only pondered resp. talked about – like one Mr. Musk taking mental refuge on Mars when he despairs about everyday management problems.
Why do the fans of sun-kings and wind-barons always cluck about eggs unlayed?
There are many reasons why one could seem be willing to spend other people’s money on uneconomic projects – later subsidies, letters of CO2-indulgence, etc..
“US$500 billion wind and solar powered investment zone” – what a mischievous way to put it.
Do you know, by the way, that that laying-concrete-in-the-desert is thought for the palestinians in Gaza, and the green coat of colour serves to make the project palatable to the leftist opinion-makers.
kerosene replaced whale oil
therefor renewables will replace fossil fuels.
Please tell me that this is not the best you can do.
Has anyone ever seen both ivan and Bill McKibben at the same time?
Activists like Bill McKibben genuinely believe that renewables are an inexpensive replacement for fossil fuels
But note not in their personal lives , now why would that be !
Perhaps there is a city somewhere in the US which would volunteer to have its supply of gas and petrol cut off at some agreed time in the near future? I’m sure Bill knows such a place?
I nominate Washington D.C. – it can become the first Electric City and showcase how splendidly it works. It’s going to take a lot of infrastructure work to make the transition, so we’ll allow fossil fuels to be used for that transition. Also, the generation of power by renewables is problematic, so we’ll allow for the transition to first leverage electric power generated by West Virginia coal. Once the entire city is consuming electric power in lieu of fossil fuels, the work can being to build the renewable energy production infrastructure. Of course building those structures will also require fossil fuel use. It will be a lengthy transition, completely dependent upon fossil fuels. But, once complete they can showcase how marvelous it functions. One caveat, energy production from both wind and solar is a function of land surface area so it will be interesting to see where they’re able to make these installations within the city limits.
What’s the reason for doing this all again? Because we’re concerned that we’ve been inadvertently increasing the base of the food chain for life by emitting CO2 from burning fossil fuels?
I calculated that an all renewable grid without any storage would put electricity at around $16 a kwh wholesale, and would leave nowhere for people to live or crops to grow, all land area being devoted to windmills and solar panels
The most renewable ridden nation on earth – Germany – will miss its emissions targets…
http://www.climatechangenews.com/2017/10/11/germany-miss-climate-targets-disastrously-leaked-government-paper/
https://www.forbes.com/sites/davekeating/2018/01/08/on-course-to-miss-2020-climate-targets-germany-opts-to-scrap-them/#5f38de348151
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-germany-politics/german-coalition-negotiators-agree-to-scrap-2020-climate-target-sources-idUKKBN1EX0OW
If you look anywhere its totally obvious that renewables dont work. Its been obvious for years….
http://www.templar.co.uk/downloads/Renewable%20Energy%20Limitations.pdf
http://www.templar.co.uk/downloads/Beyond_Fossil_Fuels.pdf
And yet the propaganda continues unabated.
Not only will they not meet their emission targets, they have not reduced their Coal use in 40 Years, even after spending Billions on renewables.
Even in this year, cold fusion procedures can be introduced at industrial scale. This can bring energy prices to the tithes and make absolutely pure energy. However, it will not be a simple process. This also shows that mainstream media do not seem to know the thing.
Well cold fusion doesn’t exist, and if it did, what’s the point? if its cold it didn’t make any energy.
Cold is a relative term. It’s cold compared to the temperatures needed to make traditional fusion work.
Cold fusion also fails my “why isn’t it happening” test sorry. If I am wrong I’ll publish an apology – but I don’t think I am wrong.
I will happly give you 1000-1 that should that ever get cold fusion working, the Greens will oppose it tooth and nail .
Sorry Mihaly Malzenicky, but as of this moment the claims of the cold fusion crowd have less credibility than those of the renewable energy crowd. At least the RE people can point to some working wind and solar facilities which actually do produce power. Ditto Eric Worrall above: show me I’m wrong and I’ll admit it and issue an apology.
Bunk.
Go post your cold fusion crud elsewhere.
Cold fusion never existed and never will.
It is as stupid as the idea we can run a prosperous world on “renewables” or believe Area 51 has et artifacts and bodies.
Those who promote either cold fusion or 100% “renewables” or UFOs are equally deceptive or deceived.
Renewables suffer from the second law of Thermodynamics, in that it requires an outside source of energy to raise energy at a low “State” (say low temperature) to that of a high and useful “State”. Fossil fuels come already in an high “state” of concentrated energy; but renewables need to be harvested and also raised to a sufficiently high “State” to be useful, which takes a lot of energy – A major problem.
OK; you can use some of these harvested renewables to raise some of the rest ; but perhaps one can see the problem when comparing the usefulness of this energy with that of fossil sources where nature has already sorted the problem.
Indeed there is a niche market for renewable energy; but that is where it should remain – a niche market .
PS: As an aside: If you want to warm the planet; plaster it with Solar Panels, for that is what they are designed to do.
Bill has the look of a fanatic.
Yeb , the type who are first to light the fires under books or people , to save their soles .
We had to burn their shoes in order to save them.
…..or a RONCO TV salesman with kitchen knives.
Eric, you missed that the previous shifts in energy have been driven by free markets, capitalism. Not by neo-communism and corrupted, politicized science. To quote Christiana Figueres:
“This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time, to change the economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the Industrial Revolution,”
Spot on.
McKibben obviously included to attack on “big oil” from habit. Big oil, of course, is not affected by any changes in power generation – oil is not use to make any significant amounts of power these days – far too expensive. Oil executives must laugh at McKibben’s utter ignorance,. Meanwhile, oil companies (like Royal Dutch Shell) are buying up electric car charging companies and replacing gas pumps with chargers. I assume the commanded renewable power only refers to the power used by the town or city itself, not its population. If so, that doesn’t really amount to much.
Perhaps it’s time to warn these low carbon folks to NOT reduce atmospheric CO2 levels to any great extent. The less the CO2 , the less sustaining the planet becomes.
You know, McKibben even looks exactly like he acts – crazed and quite ugly. Ugly people produce ugly ideas.
Hateful people produce ugly ideas .
Wife of a Chief on the boat was so facially ….deficient … that she was know as “The Sea Hag”
But she was one of the kindest and nicest persons you could ever meet .
He is ugly on the inside.
Seriously, this guy is certifiable. I’m sure many on here have said as much. My worry is that our young think he is right. I mourn for their future if is ever based on people like McKibben and their incredible claims. A few hundred years ago he would have been a touring snake-oil salesman or alchemist claiming all sorts of benefits from his elixirs. He’s to old to be a ‘snowflake’; now he’s just a fake.
Tablets!! Too old….
How will those towns and cities going 100% renewable know they defeated Washington and big oil? They’ll be in the dark, literally.
Does anyone really think that intelligent information disseminators don’t know that wind turbines and solar panels can never replace coal-fired power generation in a month of Sundays? Get real; this is a no-brainer for pre-schoolers, let alone pretentious wannabe-scientists. This ilk sell their souls to “The Program”, while pensioners freeze in their beds as collateral damage.
Same old same old twaddle. What Bill McKibben needs to defeat is not big oil, but the population’s economic need for petroleum products. And that is just what they cannot do for at least many decades. If he really means what he says then he should go retrain as a nuclear engineer.
People who genuine wish to, say, cure cancer will train as an oncologist or biomedical researcher. What they will not do is try and pass new laws that make cancer illegal. Simply won’t work.
McKibben and his cities are deluded fools. What do they think they are going to do? Buy everyone a free Tesla? No. If they ban the internal combustion engine and fossil-fuel related electricity they will end up with emptied-out shells of cities far far worse than Detroit. Industry and people will flee like rats abandoning a sinking ship.