Guest essay by Eric Worrall
h/t Dr. Willie Soon; If Energy Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has calculated how much must be spent on energy storage to stabilise a 100% renewable grid, she does not seem keen to share.
Why Treasury Secretary Yellen testified that climate change ‘must be addressed’
Grace O’Donnell·Assistant Editor
Mon, October 4, 2021, 11:54 PMSecretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen recently reiterated her stance that climate change poses a threat to the U.S. economy.
“Climate change is an existential threat, and it is a very high priority of President Biden’s and of mine to address it,” Yellen told the Senate Banking Committee last week.
…
Yellen also responded to a question about the Biden administration’s plans to shift U.S. energy to be reliant on renewable sources by 2035.
“I don’t believe that the president’s program is going to lead to increases in the cost of energy,” Yellen said, referring to the fuel shortage and high gas prices in the UK and Europe more broadly.
She added that “in the case of the UK, there’s a question of what to do if the sun isn’t out and the wind doesn’t blow, and I believe there is storage technologies that can be deployed and, you know, other means to address that, and of course that has to be part of a plan to switch to renewables and address climate change.”
…
Read more: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/treasury-secretary-yellen-climate-change-135431579.html
A while ago I performed a rough calculation, total cost of wind turbines to produce enough annual power, to replace the current US generator fleet is around $20 trillion.
But the cost of battery storage to redistribute the peaks and troughs into a smooth supply throughout the year, by my calculation, was around $50 trillion. My rough calculation didn’t take seasonal variations in supply and demand into account – that $50 trillion only buys you five days backup, and assumes the batteries have a full charge at the start of the 5 day “energy drought”.
Maybe my rough calculation is wrong. But hand waving proposed expenditure of anything like that magnitude just isn’t good enough.
US Treasury Secretary Yellen must be totally candid about her department’s green energy generation and storage cost calculations, her calculation parameters, her expenditure timeframe, and explain to the American people how the USA will be more financially stable after the USA borrows or raises 10s of trillions of dollars, and somehow passes those costs onto US businesses and consumers.
President Obama, whatever his faults, was honest and forthcoming about what his plan would do to the cost of energy. The Biden administration should at least match President Obama’s candour on what his green energy revolution will do to the energy bills of the American people.
Correction (EW): h/t TonyL, dk_ – First paragraph mistakenly called Yellen the energy secretary.
They should eat more beans.
Maybe that person doesn’t carry a smartphone, smartwatch (or anything “wearable” “smart”) that needs to be recharged every day, and where the part that wears out the fastest (under normal and prudent use) is the battery…
Or she is a conspitard who believe that:
And same issue for all pure electric or hybrid cars: does she believe they are voluntarily kept expensive and low range to make room for ICE cars?
She seems nuttier than Alex Jones.
“US Treasury Secretary Yellen must be totally candid about her department’s green energy generation and storage cost calculations”
I have a portrait of Benjamin Franklin that says they do not have any such calculations. They have never even tried to model the situation. They have just assumed that if they have wall sockets, electricity will come out of them.
Yes, it’s true. Janet Yellen is a moron.
To think this clown was in charge of the Federal Reserve Bank.
“I don’t believe that the president’s program is going to lead to increases in the cost of energy,”
It seems the Biden admin is being staffed with innumerate idiots and/or professional liars who think voters are foolish enough to believe spending trillions costs nothing.
Folks must understand that consequences are of no importance.
It is good intentions that matter.
John Lennon forgot to include a CO2 free world in “Imagine”.
My paper of a two years ago came out at £50B per annum CAPEX replacement cost for 1TWH of backup in the UK. Ine days consumption. Based on Lead Acid deep discharge batteries as cheapest, with a 4 year replacement life. That is matched, roughly by Li-Ion at twice the CAPEX per unit energy – if you assume 8 years life. It’s here is you need it.
http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3274611
The CAPEX cost of pumped storage is similar, but lasts longer so is, say, 60 years. Only £3B pa for 1Twh of backup, BUT we don’t have anywhere to put it.
AND ALSO it is equally unnecessary if we prefer to use much less money to build 24/7 zero CO2 nuclear to replace gas and coal.
And, “if you can get through the winter on nuclear ……. you don’t need renewables”. Sir David Mackay, FRS, UK DECC Chief Scientist.
The details are irrelevant, the cost if managing the weak and intermittent energy sources of wind and solar is as economy ruining as it is unnecessary and avoidable.
So YES, spot in. Delusional economic suicide, totally avoidable by using the best solutions, imposed by the wholly incompetent speakers of nonsense who govern us. Not the first idea how engy supply works, and how econmies fundamentally depends upon cheap plentiful energy and maximising energy use per capita. Less is less,