This commentary was first published January 2, 2022 at the Washington Times
by Dr. Patrick J. Michaels – January 4, 2022
Anticipating earlier in December that Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) might scuttle his climate plan (which he did Dec. 19 on Fox News), President Biden signed an Executive Order commanding that all the electricity that the federal government uses be from “100 percent carbon pollution-free” sources by 2030.
The order means that federal juice either has to come from zero-emission sources (like solar and wind) or that any carbon dioxide emissions be sequestered away, which usually means burying them underground. There hasn’t been sufficient success with this “sequestration” to make any dent in the growing global emissions curve. Biden’s non-carbon dioxide sources explicitly include electricity from nuclear fission, which his green allies are doing their best to put out of business.
Our Energy Information Agency (EIA) claims fully 40% of our power is already carbon dioxide-free, with 20% from “renewable” solar energy and wind turbines and 20% from nuclear.
Nuclear is pretty much off the table. California is about to shut its lone nuke at Diablo Canyon, which supplies nearly 10% of the state’s power. Last April, (then) Governor Cuomo shut down one of New York’s, the Indian Point plant, which the AP cheekily headlined “Gone Fission”. There are three reactors remaining in the state.
So how is the government going to come up with the remaining 60% of electricity by 2030, which now comes mainly from natural gas (40%) and coal (20%)? It won’t be made up with nuclear, as there’s only one new plant in the current pipeline, Georgia Power’s Vogtle plant, scheduled for a 2024 completion. There’s not likely to be any other until after 2030.
Biden’s order means that all of this power is going to come from wind and solar. (Non-emitting new hydropower is a political nonstarter.) But they are terribly unreliable. The sun is below the horizon half of the time, and too close to it to produce much electricity for at least an hour after sunrise and before sunset. Ninety percent of incoming solar radiation can be blocked by dense overcast. And some of the coldest temperatures occur when the wind doesn’t stir the air, which also peaks electricity demand with no supply from the wind.
Because a stable electrical grid requires stable power, quick backup can only be provided by maintaining a large reserve of gas-fired generators. The importance of this became obvious last February in Texas , when improperly insulated gas plants couldn’t make up for shortages in wind generation. The Texas grid, which is independent from the rest of the country, came to within minutes of a complete black crash, restarting from which would take up to a month. Given the cold temperatures, that would have been one of the greatest disasters in U.S. history.
Besides courting disaster, Biden’s Executive Order is fantasy. The government can’t deploy enough solar and wind — let alone making it reliable — to supply all of its power without carbon dioxide emissions. There is no battery technology that can reliably accommodate for the intermittent failures of wind and solar. Protecting this fragile grid from its obvious inability to supply a steady stream of power 24/7 will require massive backup from a nimble source like natural gas.
It’s not clear at all that Biden — or whomever is handing him the note cards before he faces the camera — is interacting with reality when ordering the federal government to do what is simply impossible.
Fortunately, people are catching on. The likelihood that he will have any legislative authority after next years’ election is vanishingly small. The Democrat Party made a deal with unreality when it thought it could push such a weak and compromised president for four years without an intervening electoral disaster. Barack Obama lost 65 hours seats because of political overreach in the 2010 congressional races. Biden’s poll numbers — as shown by the generic congressional ballot — are even worse, much worse. Currently, the largest repudiation of a governing political party in U.S. history seems not only possible but likely.
Dr. Patrick J. Michaels is a Senior Fellow at the CO2 Coalition in Arlington VA, Virginia State Climatologist 1980-2007, and Past-President of the American Association of State Climatologists. He also serves on the Board of Directors of the Science and Environmental Policy Project
This commentary was first published January 2, 2022 at the Washington Times
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“…20% from “renewable” solar energy and wind turbines and 20% from nuclear.”
Is this capacity or energy?
How many here know the difference?
That has to be what is going on here, i see no stats anywhere that renewables provided 20% of usa generated electricity.
This is like all these corporations buying renewable credits which is nothing more than virtue signaling because they will never use that electricity.
Note to author:
Autocorrect is not your friend
No chit! I just looked at the original MS that went to the Times and indeed “hours” is there. Thanks for pointing this out; sorry I missed it. I must have read this thing over a dozen times before it went off.
It’s OK, tomorrow Biden will sign another executive order that will require the earth to stop rotating once the Sun is over Chicago, and that way solar power will become 3-4x times more effective. Also nightly use of electricity will drop as well as crime and traffic accidents. Win-win all around.
wind, 8%, solar 3%, hydro 7%, Geothermal and biomass 2% (roughly)
Believe that adds up to 20.
I see my mistake, I thought Biden was referring to energy, when he just mentioned electricity.
Most of the charts I see are primary energy, renewables a much smaller proportion of that.
Still the only way they can pretend the government is only using electricity from renewables by any date is if they claim all the bad stuff goes to homes and industry.
Short of setting up their own grid it’s simply a book keeping exercise
Surely the government does not use 20% of the electricity generated in the USA so technically they could make this claim today?
Renewables became the second-most prevalent U.S. electricity source in 2020 – Today in Energy – U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)
In 2020, renewable energy sources (including wind, hydroelectric, solar, biomass, and geothermal energy) generated a record 834 billion kilowatthours (kWh) of electricity, or about 21% of all the electricity generated in the United States.
(2021 figures don’t seem to be collated yet)
Blah, Blah, Blah……
“second-most prevalent” = also ran
I might point out also that hydroelectric (first installed in 1882), biomass, and geothermal are not intermittent sources. They actually make sense.
Naughty, naughty!! Hydroelectric, biomass, and geothermal were all being used before solar and aeroelectric became partially successful subsidiary electric sources.
There is NO way a electric grid can be run efficiently with just solar and aeroelectric. It would require impossibly large batteries just to keep them running reliably, much less 24/7.
Griff
From the same report.
We expect coal-fired electricity generation to increase in the United States during 2021 as natural gas prices continue to rise and as coal becomes more economically competitive. Based on forecasts in our Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO), we expect coal-fired electricity generation in all sectors in 2021 to increase 18% from 2020
Swings and roundabouts. No absolutes in this life.
I used the most recent annual data from the Energy Information Administration (EIA). Despite its parent agency being the Department of Energy, most people think their data is pretty robust.
Normally I would be very suspicious of anything climate-related coming out of DOE (i.e. Ben Santer works for them), but I haven’t seen a lot of criticism of their retrospective data, which this is.
we should make the wind and solar brigade use the Oil industry RAU (reliability, Availability, Utilisation) criteria
Reliability = will it be mechanically / electrical running all the time (should be better than other forms for solar and probably worse for wind)
Availability = well this is terrible for both wind and solar way worse 33% for wind at best and solar 25% at best on an annual average) most thermal stations exceed 98%
Utilisation wind and solar will again fail way to much solar in the middle of the day so you cant use and you cant store sensibly similarly for wind power at the wrong time of day
overall RAU for wind and solar is probably less than 10% of name plate capacity – so if you have a 100MW nameplate you will be probably only 87,000MWh in a year vs a 100MW thermal station of 100MW would give you 850,000MWh in a year
using this you would need 10 times as much wind and solar but remembering it is not transferable this is probably optimistic and it would be more like 15 to 20 times of the name plate capacity
good luck America
Agree except
Multiplying what is produced when not needed at times when not needed doesn’t really change much – wind and solar are basically worse than useless.
As a general comment, I seriously doubt 20% of electricity actually used comes from wind and solar, since much is produced when/where it is NOT needed; “produced,” maybe but that is just another way to make their contribution look like it is bigger than reality.
“It’s not clear at all that Biden — or whomever is handing him the note cards before he faces the camera — is interacting with reality when ordering the federal government to do what is simply impossible.”
His order won’t last till 2030 either a future president (2024 or 2028) that’s a little more in touch with reality will sign an EO that nullifies Biden’s EO, or reality itself will slap whomever is in charge as we approach 2030 upside their silly heads and they will be forced to “update” the order to a later date that will also never see fruition. The laws of physics aren’t going to change just because Brandon has a pen and a phone.
Um John, Brandon has a pen and he’ll change the laws of physics with an EO!
Maybe he’s going for a do over.
Tomorrow he’s going to sign an order that will stop plate tectonics.
Until the early ’60s, the “scientific consensus” was determined plate tectonics had never started. All the White House needed to do was to cancel Wegener and declare that they’re going back to the consensus. Google would have been on it like white on rice.
He also needs to sign the no more twister executive order that caused a bit of grief.
Biden regime’s ‘Broke Back Better’ plan!
How many times did Trump struggle to overturn an Obama EOs that should’ve been easy-peasy? All it takes is a judge somewhere willing to stand up and say “no”, it seems.
I don’t recall when the USA became a constitutional monarchy, where what the King says goes?
Executive orders, along with all these academics who say we have to destroy democracy to save the planet seem to be a far greater problem than climate change
Probably already too late for us here in canada.
True, but the next president can take a page out of Brandon’s book and simply ignore what the courts (including the supreme court) say and press a head anyways.
Unfortunately, there does seem to be an element of legal inertia that impedes changes once the EO has been in force for a period of time. That tends to encourage EOs. That is particularly bad when the EO is written out of frustration with Congress being unwilling to actually legislate on what is their responsibility, and not the president’s. Some of the EOs should be challenged on constitutionality because of a violation of separation of powers.
Many, if not most of them should.
That, or I guess we’ll just have to have a lot more “government shutdowns.” As long as they take the concomitant pay decrease for hours not worked!
The major problem in Texas was too much use of wind, period. The subsidized wind reduced the amount of conventional sources on the grid, so when we had several days of freezing rain and still air, it nearly went down.
Failure to charge weather dependent sources for the required backup was the major problem, along with the coldest weather since 1913.
Plus the fact that the Eco-Nazis forced them to use electric, as opposed to gas powered, compression to move gas through the natural gas pipelines.
Which meant when the wind face-planted the gas fired plants stopped getting a reliable supply of gas. Double face-palm!
“Days of Our Life” used to just be a daytime soap opera.
I love that. Thank you
Easy solution Brandon. Build back better solar panels in all the pristine federal land that was prohibited from fossil fuel exploration. Wouldn’t it be grand to view millions of solar panels/windmills in our national treasures?
Those who support climate and energy reality should need nothing more to stop the crazy renewable tide than photographs of wind farms and solar arrays that already exist and create a shocking blight on favorite greenist landscapes. The existing eye-gouging of these energy “farms” is only the beginning; we need to start telling people in California, for example, that the horrifying windmill vista on the way into Palm Springs is no longer a quaint headshaker of an experiment, but what is waiting for them in their own neighborhoods when they return home. Photos of the windmills offshore at last year’s Open Championship in the UK were jarring just in the background; we need to provide a lot more of the photographic evidence of what is in store for our environment without fossil fuels. Should put an end to the insanity pretty quickly.
Live in a fantasy world and expect to die young. Hitch your political career to unicorn farts and you can stop calling it a career, maybe just call it missed opportunity.
Expect to see lots of kwhr accounting tricks as multiple electricity customers each take credit for the same carbon free power.
I have no doubt that this is firmly in the wings, likely to sweep up multiple brokers.
This is another proof that Biden has some form of dementia. Signing an EO that is obviously impossible to achieve is not a good look. One of many. No wonder 25 House Dems have already decided to retire. More will be in November.
But the Soviet Union did this for almost 30 years – if not still until today. When you silence critics and outlaw debate, all kinds of nonsense gets promulgated.
The social media
giantsNazis are already cancelling people, ideas and opposition everywhere they can … using ever more effective tools.And the Soviet Union ultimately collapsed as a result.
This is an executive order that is easy to achieve. The US federal government uses less than 10% of the total amount of current renewable energy generation in the US every year. Hence all that is required is that the US government switches its electricity supplier to one that uses renewable electricity.
Except the order says nothing about renewable energy.
Where did you get that idea? It says all electricity purchased must be “100% carbon-pollution free”.
Since all electricity is generated by turbines which use steel that requires carbon, the federal government is going to be sitting the dark. Since I seriously doubt that any president in 2030 will allow that to happen, the entire executive order is complete nonsense. It has no practical application.
Change ‘turbines’ to ‘something made with carbon’ and you would be right. Wind turbines blades are made out of wood and fibreglass – but use lots of materials like concrete and steel that have carbon emissions. Infact wind power has twice the carbon footprint per kWh produced as nuclear power. And solar has about 10x the nuke footprint. I guess Biden doesn’t really care about the environment.
You just get dumber with each post. Next you are going to tell us Benghazi was started by an internet video.
Izaac
or buy pieces of paper from A. Gore.
You are assuming that ‘Brandon’ actually has read the EO that he signed, but was written by staffers with degrees in law or liberal arts.
“President Biden signed an Executive Order commanding that all the electricity that the federal government uses be from “100 percent carbon pollution-free” sources by 2030.”
Assuming we survive this guy and his progressive supporters, I’d be in favor of bringing the date forward as much as possible in order to shut the entire unconstitutional mess down pronto.
It’s all for show to mollify their Warmunist True Believers and other assorted ultraliberal interest groups who have taken over the Democratic Party, much as the Trumplicans have taken over the Republican Party. Once upon a time the moderates in both parties ran things, but over the last decade completely lost control.
So Obama issues a set of unenforceable executive orders, then Trump comes in and unissues all those orders, then Biden comes in and issues his own executive orders, and whoever follows Biden will unissue them come 2024.
Biden is particularly under pressure to issue unenforceable orders because the Democrats realize their goose is cooked in this year’s mid term elections and likely will lose control of both houses of Congress, making Biden an emasculated lame duck for the rest of his term. If Trump is the GOP nominee again, the Biden will likely win reelection. If the GOPers have any brains they’ll dump Trump and nominate someone who won’t scare the hell out of independents and centrists like Trump did.
Could Nikki Haley then be the best-placed GOP candidate for 2024?
Hell no!
I asked because clearly ideas and policies no longer matter for electoral purposes, it’s now all about “identity”.
Haley is –
Those “attributes” are Shirley more appealing to US voters these days than someone who is –
Competent and numerate, as well.
In our brave new, intersectional, world those criteria, combined with Engineer_Jim’s two, are all social defects worthy of cancellation or worse.
“Surely, you jest.”
“Stop calling me Shirley!”
I have some hope that the Republicans can get their shit together.
Jordan Peterson just interviewed Dan Crenshaw. link What a pleasant change from some Republican meat heads who don’t need to be named. (No, I’m not referring to Trump.) The Republicans can become the party of intelligence and wisdom. They can consign the Democrats to being the party of whacko ideas and unintended consequences.
In the ongoing Country’s most important problem poll, the biggest single item has been “The government/Poor leadership” for a very long time. People want something better and the Republicans can provide it.
But can the Republicans become “the party of intelligence and wisdom” in less than six months?
All the Republicans need is a leader with intelligence and wisdom”, and Republicans have several to chose from.
He is my Rep and he listens to me on Climate Change.
Yes exactly! Dan Crenshaw for the win and restoration of rational, constitutional governance.
The January 6th Committee is going to make sure that they are still investigating “The Insurrection” and blame all Republicans for “the Threat to Democracy” right up until November. If the Republicans continue to acts as they are currently, I don’t see a big swing in seats in November. I can’t vote for any of them (Dem or Rep).
I hope that I am wrong.
“The January 6th Committee is going to make sure that they are still investigating “The Insurrection” and blame all Republicans for “the Threat to Democracy” right up until November.”
Oh, yes! The Democrats are definitely going to try to use Jan 6 as a means to smear all Republicans and Trump in particular.
Biden got up on tv today to try to blame everything that has happened in the past on Trump (what else is new?). There is no evidence that Trump is to blame for anything that happened on Jan. 6., but of course, Democrats and propagandists don’t need any evidence to make their charges.
Trump fired right back at Biden in his typical manner. It put a smile on my face.
Biden and the Democrats are trying to divide America, and this is part of the process. I think what they are going to end up doing is uniting the Right like never before.
Your hatred of Trump is causing you to see things that aren’t there again.
The idea that Biden could beat Trump is so strange that only you could come up with it.
BTW, I was wondering why you feel the need to display your mental delusions at every opportunity.
Trump has nothing to do with this issue, yet you drag him in, in order to prove your social justice credentials.
Duane’s point is that the Republicans have a better chance of winning in 2024 if Trump isn’t running. I agree that there are lots of people who won’t vote for Trump who would be glad to vote for another Republican.
I assume that the important thing for him (as it is for me) is to replace Biden. If some other Republican has a better chance than Trump to beat him, put me in the other category.
Duane is completely wrong. If Trump runs he will win. Biden hasn’t a hope in hell of even making it to 2024, never mind being in the running. Even his own party have rejected him. Trump has even greater support now than in the past.
“Duane is completely wrong. If Trump runs he will win.”
I know one thing: If Trump runs, I’m voting for him.
“Duane’s point is that the Republicans have a better chance of winning in 2024 if Trump isn’t running. I agree that there are lots of people who won’t vote for Trump who would be glad to vote for another Republican.”
Yes, there are a lot of misinformed and downright stupid people in the world. I can see them making the mistake of not voting for Trump.
“If the GOPers have any brains they’ll dump Trump and nominate someone who won’t scare the hell out of independents and centrists like Trump did.”
Duane, care to list which of Trump’s policies scared the hell out of independents and centrists, and while you’re at it, can you let us know what a “centrist” is? Thanks in advance.
“A centrist is anyone who agrees with me. If you’re more conservative, you’re a right-wing extremist. If you’re liberal, you’re a communist. I am a centrist.”
Exactly, people had a hard time disagreeing with Trump’s policies.
“care to list which of Trump’s policies scared the hell out of independents and centrists”
Sure:
CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, NPR, AP, etc.
Oh, I thought you said propaganda.
“It’s all for show to mollify their Warmunist True Believers and other assorted ultraliberal interest groups who have taken over the Democratic Party, much as the Trumplicans have taken over the Republican Party. Once upon a time the moderates in both parties ran things, but over the last decade completely lost control.”
Trumpians are not radicals. They are common-sense Republicans, Conservatives and Independents.
It’s a *good thing* that Trumpians have taken over the Republican Party.
You are saying that the American public is stupid enough to re-elect a man who has demonstrated that he is suffering from dementia, can’t deliver on his campaign promise of getting COVID under control, has to take responsibility for the highest inflation in decades, and has been impotent in addressing the supply line backlogs?
I think that your mental capacity has been compromised by your personal hatred of Trump.
Taken literally (in the actual meaning of the word “literally”, not the inverted way many people use it today), this is going to be a tall order, even assuming a permissive definition of “carbon pollution-free” to include nuclear and hydroelectric.
Aside from large swaths of the metro DC area, thousands of military bases and offices in the US count as part of the federal government. Additionally we have military bases in
dozens of other countries and embassies and consulates in pretty much all of them. Anyone have a clue on how to run Thule AFB (Greenland) on 100% carbon-free power, aside from permanently mooring a nuclear aircraft carrier there?
I take it back; this won’t be a tall order or even an impossible one. To do all this by 2030 is 100% pure fantasy.
And at some point, the fact that all the “carbon offset” investments don’t really reduce CO2 emissions will be recognized and prosecuted as fraud.
Since the US Government is 100% supportive of the meme that “CO2 is the main cause of
global warmingclimate change”, they will NEVER prosecute themselves. Furthermore, I have heard it said that it is impossible for an outside individual or group to sue the Federal government unless you first receive their permission to do such.Im all in favor of running the federal government on 100% renewable power, except for the military. 90 % of the gov’t wouldn’t be able to operate if this happened and that wouldn’t be a bad thing.
So you are an advocate for smaller government and a strong defense. Sounds good to me. 🙂
The wording “carbon pollution-free” can no doubt be interpreted in many ways, especially within the legal system where words frequently don’t mean what they mean to the rest of society. It does not say “carbon free”, it could be saying only carbon sourced electricity is allowed, but that source has to not pollute, “pollution” itself being a very subjective word.
Carbon Pollution = Orwellian manipulation of the language
Alan,
great post…as one who spent over 2 1/2 years aboard a Navy ship (a Marine deployed) I would be very interested to hear how they will deploy enough solar panels or windmills to power the electicity demands of the 100’s of Navy vessels…they are Federal Property…could be very difficult for the Sub fleet. the Aircraft Carriers have lots of deck space…but really not much room for panels or windmills…
Also a lot of electricity demand on the helos I flew….no room for batteries, not very good for windmills…solar panels would not work in the high wind streams…
interesting challenges for the Pentagon folks to figure out!!
As coal and gas are “100 percent carbon pollution-free” then they should be fine.
CO2 is not pollution. It is completely clean, safe to breathe, odourless and invisible. It is what makes the planet green. If there were no atmospheric CO2 than all the plants and trees would quickly die and most of humanity would starve to death.
It’s extraordinary that people who call themselves green demonise the very thing that makes the planet green. What better proof that the whole thing is completely barking mad?
Chris
“If there were no atmospheric CO2 than all the plants and trees would quickly die and most of humanity would starve to death.” Slight quibble: ALL of humanity would starve to death.
If you’re getting electrical power through the national power grid you cannot know what power plant using what fuel or energy source generated the electrons flowing to your electrical outlets. All electrons are the same. They don’t have a return address saying where they came from. This executive order is simply silliness. There are hundreds if not thousands of separate Federal facilities around the country. Joe better be planning to disconnect all federal facilities from the grid and build dedicated solar power plants and wind mills for each and every federal site.
Don’t you just love those Green electrons?
Green electrons don’t clog the grid, that’s how you can tell the difference.
Well, true about individual electrons . . . but not so true about electrical energy accounting means.
As but one example under Biden’s plan, if the huge Norfolk Naval Shipyard in Virginia used, say, 1 million kWh of grid electricity in one month, it could be accounted for, and replaced by 1 million kWh of “carbon-pollution free electricity” supplied to the grid from hydroelectric dams in the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), a federally-owned electric utility corporation in the United States.
The core issue, I believe, is that the US government itself does not own the amount of fossil-fuel-free electrical generation capacity (hydroelectric, wind, solar, geothermal) that is sufficient to supply its US, let alone international, demand for electricity.
And there is NO WAY for the US to significantly add to its current capabilities to generate “100 percent carbon pollution-free” electricity within the next 8 years, short of converting US nuclear-powered naval vessels to docked energy sources.
You are seeing this in technical terms. It is far simpler than this.
It is a matter of just buying all the output of any number of “renewable” energy generators until the total energy purchased meets the Federal Agencies consumption.
Think how willing any “renewable” energy generator will be to lock in all they can produce over the lifetime of an asset in a government guaranteed contract. They will shave their margins. You could expect truck prices to be around $50/Mwh or even lower. So Federal Government has all its electricity supply locked in at the wholesale level. There will need to be some connection fee for local connectors but all the energy is paid for under a few large contracts.
You would think that even Slow Joe would think to ask, “How are we going to have electricity when the wind isn’t blowing?”
Can you see the fallacy of that idea yet?
Ziggy, instead of only a +/- option, we need a giggle+/- option for that kind of comment! That made me laugh.
“You would think that even Slow Joe would think”
Slow Joe doesn’t think, he just reads the script (including, at times, the stage directions, IE “end of quote”) that is handed to him by his handlers.
Meanwhile the risk takers toil on to pay for the politico nonsense.
ExxonMobil discovers more oil off Guyana’s coast – ABC News (go.com)
Hmmmm . . . I think I see through President Biden’s dictate (mandate?) that “all the electricity that the federal government uses be from ‘100 percent carbon pollution-free’ sources by 2030”.
Since it is quite obvious that no new nuclear power plants can be approved, built and brought on-line in next 8 years—and neither can any “carbon pollution-free” sources be emplaced in this time period to support this massive shift in supply source for electrical power—even under a crash program with federal funding, Biden’s unannounced plan must therefore be to permanently dock at US ports a large percentage of the US military fleet of nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and submarines to supply the needed electricity.
I guess Biden thinks that since he so “successfully” exited US military forces from Afghanistan last August, and since he has been “successfully” conveying to Putin strong warnings of severe sanctions if Russia invades Ukraine, the US doesn’t really need all of its military might anymore.
All Biden needs to do to complete this plan is to order up a large number of extension cords 🙂
And that would provide 1% of non-ship electrical demand.?
Just because an aircraft carrier is “nuclear powered”, that doesn’t mean the entire ship doesn’t produce any Co2. And since it does, that means the power it produces can’t be called Co2 free.
“Biden’s Executive Order is fantasy“
Fantasy is fun. This is not fantasy but lunacy.
100% CO2 free is easy to do
Utilities do it all the time, to LOOK GREEN, without spending a dime from their own pocket.
Utilities sign power purchase agreements, PPAs, with any wind or solar producer anywhere, at whatever price, and presto, they can call themselves GREEN.
The federal government would do the same.
This scheme works, because the political entity, called EPA, allows two categories, source-based, and contract-based.
All utilities ACTUALLY obtain their electricity supply by connecting, via substations, to the high voltage grid, which has an electricity mix of all the generators feeding into the HV grid.
In case you did not know, electricity travels on the grid, as electro-magnetic waves, at near the speed of light, or from northern Maine to southern Florida, about 1800 miles in 0.01 second.
Any politicians or RE aficionados talking about a Vermont mix, or Pennsylvania mix, is totally ignorant of the laws of physics.
But, that does not stop them from pontificating on energy matters, telling us to this and that.
Willem,
Thank you for that post. Critical thinking has been suppressed far too long.
Astonishment by real science is a lost art.
Y
Fun basic physics fact. The distance from Chicago to NYC is about 1000 miles. They are grid interconnected by HVAC.
So, (trick question) how far does an electron on the grid between them travel at near the speed of light?
A: Less than a meter, since it is AC and the EMF is a 60 hertz (alternating 120x/ second electromagnetic wave, unlike DC. It is all back and forth, not very far.
Please correct me if I’m wrong (I’m a former chemist, not a physicist) but I think there are a couple of technical errors circulating here. First of all references to electromagnetic waves in wires is wrong. Electromagnetic waves are photons not electrons and they travel through space – gamma, UV, infra-red and microwaves are examples. AC current has a waveform but it is not electromagnetic. Secondly I think it is the signal that travels through a wire at the speed of light, the individual electrons move much slower. None of this makes Biden’s plan any smarter of course.
An electron only moves from one atom’s outer valence band to another atom’s outer valence band in materials that allow electrons to be exchanged readily when exposed to an electromotive force. These are materials that do not have a complete number of electrons in the atom’s outer valence band. These materials are called “conductive”. The current flow through the complete circuit made up of these materials is called the “flow of holes” created by each electron leaving one atom for the next.
Back in the days when long-distance communication was through telegraph lines, it became apparent that electrons moving through copper wires did not propagate with the same speed as electromagnetic radiation in a vacuum. Actually, the electrons that come out at the far end are not the same as the ones that enter at the origin. It is the electromagnetic field that propagates, cascading electrons along the length of the conductor.
The index of refraction of transparent materials is inversely proportional to the speed of propagation of the electromagnetic wave. That is, the higher the index of refraction, the slower an electromagnetic disturbance moves through the material. For opaque conductors, the equivalent to the complex refractive index of transparent crystals is the complex dielectric constant, which is large for metals.
It’s true that any load serving entity (LSE) can satisfy some portion of its load obligations through a PPA. But all that means is that the system operator (ISO) will be looking at the counter party to that PPA to provide the required amount of physical energy to the grid at the appointed time. So, I don’t see how the Feds could just sign a bunch of agreements with suppliers of phantom green energy to satisfy the EO. Maybe I’m missing something.
King Canute comes to mind.
A silver lining is that Joe Biden clearly won’t run for President in 2028.
You misunderstand Canute’s point
Canute, Ostriches, owls – metaphor and myth – wrong
I too can write meaningless unconnected words, but I choose not to.
Indeed, like the albatross, many have gotten the meaning of the actions of King Canute (aka Cnut the Great) entirely backwards.
King Canute was one of the good guys … playing on our team.
The concern is who the DNC will nominate to replace him! Kamela? Hillary? Some dark horse willing to hide in their basement while the MSM campaigns for them?
Peter Paul Montgomery Buttigieg seems to be the frontrunner. 🙂
Bring it on, Traitor Joe!
Note that the due date is 2030. That’s after Biden leaves the White House.
Anyway reality is not something the Dems know how to deal with.
Most Dem/Progs are career bureaucrats
They have not a clue regarding reality, because all they do is cost, plus more cost.
There is never a thought of efficiency
Making a profit is off the street table, because it is a dirty word, to be taxed away, as much as they can get away with.
Whatever happens in 2024 and 2028 it is an instruction to spend up big now. A Trillion in the hand….is worth many after the next election… etc.
There is considerable evidence that even when occupying it, he’s rarely all there. He’ll be lucky to complete his current term.
The man’s a figurehead. His handlers are insane.
I guarantee the White House temp will never be affected .. The Brandon administration needs to be ignored by real Americans . Do not comply with any law passed in the last twelve months . It’s your legal right under the umbrella of civil disobedience.
Right now California law requires wearing a mask when inside public spaces. Went to 3 grocery stores yesterday. Big signs just inside the door about masks being required.
About 30% of shoppers were NOT wearing a mask, and no one said a word about it to them. 😉
And one has to keep in mind that any power source, Wind, Solar, Nuclear, Hydro, has its own associated GHG emissions so there is no chance that any power source can have Zero Emissions. Unless and until every component and every process used to make the power production device has zero associated emissions. Right now, and for the foreseeable future, Zero CO2 emissions is a fantasy.
Correct Dr. Bob. To make wind, solar, nuclear, or hydro, you need first to make steel. There is no way to make steel without prodigious amounts of coal. Game over.
That is one way to have less government, easier than cutting off funding, you just cut the power to various departments, agencies etc.
I didn’t think the democrats were about that?
There’s a hole in the bucket.
At the foundation of the calls for lunacy is the inconvenient truth that the Democrats took control of the US by electoral fraud. They are not supposed to be there at all. Highly malicious tactics were involved to steal the election. Deliberate traitors are calling the shots.
If you think about it, could basement hiding, demented Joe Biden have received more votes than any Presidential candidate in US history? Really? Anyone who believes that Joe Biden really received 82 million votes-even more than Obama must still believe in Santa Claus.
What is looming is the State of the Union address. How will Joe get through this? How will he get through the cognitive tests?
We live in interesting times.
High T. The Liberals call that “the big lie,” which makes me think it’s probably true.
True Fact:
To date Brandon has spent 25% of his alleged “Presidency” on vacation.
25% on physical vacation. fully 100% of it has been on mental vacation
It does seem improbable that a person with such low polling numbers could have received a record number of votes.
But, then to quote Lincoln, “You can fool some of the people all the time.”
You left out the other part of the quote.
And of course, you can’t win a National election with just “some” votes. That takes a strategy of ‘vote early, and vote often’.