Could anybody possibly be stupid enough to believe the line that wind and solar generators can provide reliable electricity to consumers that is cheaper than electricity generated by fossil fuels? It takes hardly any thought about the matter to realize that wind and solar don’t work when it is calm and dark, as it often is, and particularly so in the winter, when it is also generally cold. Thus a wind/solar electricity system needs full backup, or alternatively storage — things that add to and multiply costs. Surely, our political leaders and top energy gurus are fully aware of these things, and would not try to mislead the public about the cost of electricity from a predominantly wind/solar system.
If you think that, you must have missed the State of the Union Address yesterday. Nor is Presdident Biden alone in peddling the preposterous fantasy of cheap electricity from the wind and sun The internet is filled with seemingly authoritative voices asserting with complete confidence that wind and solar generators are the answer to providing consumers with cheaper electricity.
No amount of pointing to the failed experiments of places like Germany, the UK and California seems to get any traction. We need to demand a working demonstration project of a fully wind/solar system so that the full costs can be shown for all to see.
So there was President Biden last night talking about his great green energy plans.
Look, the Inflation Reduction Act is also the most significant investment ever to tackle the climate crisis. Lowering utility bills, creating American jobs, and leading the world to a clean energy future.
It’s so spectacularly contrary to reality that it doesn’t nearly do it justice to call it just a “lie.” In Germany and the UK, energy transition fantasies have led to electricity bills three times and more the U.S. average, and continuing to increase, and millions of ratepayers thrown into energy poverty. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out why the costs explode. They can build thousands of wind turbines and solar panels, but they can’t get rid of any of the dispatchable power plants because they are all needed for backup. So now they are paying for two duplicative systems. Then they must pay the dispatchable plants enough to cover their capital costs at half time usage. Then they must buy the fossil fuels for backup on spot markets where production has been suppressed by, for example, banning fracking.
But as I said, it’s not just President Biden who is too dumb to figure this out. Consider Mark Z. Jacobson, Professor at Stanford and tireless promoter of his WWS (water, wind and solar) system as the “low cost” way of the future. No amount of debunking of Jacobson’s models can keep him from endlessly repeating the same ridiculous claims. He got another shot just yesterday in the Guardian, headline “We don’t need ‘miracle’ technologies to fix the climate. We have the tools now”:
Wind, water and solar energy is cheap, effective and green. We don’t need experimental or risky energy sources to save our planet.
Jacobson goes on with endless mumbo jumbo about how his fantasy system can deliver electricity at low cost. Excerpt:
When combined with electricity storage, heat storage, cold storage and hydrogen storage; techniques to encourage people to shift the time of their electricity use (demand response); a well-interconnected electrical transmission system; and nifty and efficient electrical appliances, such as heat pumps, induction cooktops, electric vehicles and electric furnaces for industry, WWS can solve the ginormous problems associated with climate change at low cost worldwide.
Is there any such thing as a demonstration project on any scale — small, medium, or large — to vindicate these claims that such a future system would be “low cost”? Absolutely not. I would say that everybody with even half a brain knows that Jacobson is a charlatan. But then we have our President, not to mention the entire federal bureaucracy backed by trillions of dollars of annual taxpayer largesse, buying into his nonsense.
Nobody would be happier than me to see a demonstration project built that showed that wind and solar could provide reliable electricity at low cost. Unfortunately, I know too much about the subject to think that that is likely, or even remotely possible.
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Calling perfessor Jacobson…..calling perfessor Jacobson….?
South African president declares ‘state of disaster’ over power crisis (msn.com)
but personally I wouldn’t trust lefties to run a chook raffle.
And we won’t see it until very large capacity storage batteries are developed able to power entire cities. What’s ironic about this reality is that the advocates for renewables fail to realize it and continue to babble away about the urgency to eliminate fossil fuels in favor of wind and solar. The whole argument is like building a reservoir full of holes and wondering why there are continuing water shortages.
As an HV PM for 40+ years, I know it won’t work, the green blob knows it won’t work, therefore they will never build a model that definitively shows it won’t work – it’s all about money, not reliable, affordable energy
BREAKINF NEWS
Nut Zero pilot project planned for small Amish community in PA.
Expected to be 100% renewables
Will sell electricity elsewhere and make a profit
The Amish almost never use electricity.
They use horses and buggies and hand tools.
It is acceptable within Amish communities to use some limited forms of electricity (such as battery power for the lights on their buggies), and some machinery (such as tractors without rubber tires).
Mabve that’s our future too?
You give the Amish too little credit. They use electricity to run the refrigeration systems in their dairy barns and milk tanks, probably milking machines, and the computers they need to run the business. It is the only way they can meet USDA standards for milk production, and they will do what it takes to stay in business. Now, inside the house is another story—the family can live in the 18th century.
Are you trying to ruin my already lame joke?
I did mention “some machinery”
When energy costs go up, everything is cheaper. It’s what liberals think because they say that all the time.
Yep. Here’s what 10MPs/Lords said in a letter in Grauniad 9th Feb
‘Net zero means energy security. Net zero means clean energy. And net zero means lower bills’
Meanwhile their constituents are facing the highest electricity bills ever and they are due to rise again in April.
Fascinating that Nut Zero utility resource plans rely on “emissions-free backup generation.” The plans would have been just as realistic had they cited fusion generation backup. Emissions-free backup generation systems do not exist and there are no plans for their development.
Just another symptom of English Lit majors designing our energy and transportation systems of the future. FJB and FLeftists.
Don’t worry the UK Government has launched a task force to build the UK’s first prototype fusion reactor in West Burton, Nottinghamshire by 2040.
Unfortunately, I don’t think I will still be around to see it fail!
“Is there any such thing as a demonstration project on any scale”
I think that there have been one or two islands where they tried to use wind and/or solar to pump water upstream so they could later use it as hydro to cover bad supply times. However, neither worked. They had to keep using their diesel generator, more or less continuously.
In other words, it’s been tried and failed.
I like Francis Menton’s bold call to action. I suggest that his sample project needs to be conducted in a city with a population of, say, 10,000.
Georgetown, Texas Mayor Dale Ross claims his city, 30 miles north of Austin, is 100 % run off of renewables and is “the most beautiful city on planet earth.” I wouldn’t know about either claim, but perhaps he would open up his utility ledgers for a close audit of total costs to build and operate, and who knows, Georgetown might be the first city to verify a claim of 100% renewables at sustainable prices. Odds are that such an audit would reveal that their citizens endure unpublicized shortages, cost overruns, supplemental power from the pre-existing grid, or ongoing subsidies. Their 100% renewables grid looks like this:
And Energy News Network said in 2019 they really haven’t achieved what they claim.
https://energynews.us/2019/11/05/how-100-renewables-backfired-on-a-texas-town/
Maybe a bigger sample size is needed. There are fifty king-sized ghost cities in China… maybe the Chinese would like to claim the first fully renewable (if empty) city. They could simulate normal power consumption by AI. The’ve built a Paris of the Orient over there which could be the Asian City of Lights. Closer to home (and easier to audit)…
U.S. has some decent sized ghost towns. Let Bill Gates or Elon Musk put up the cash to wire Jerome, Nevada with renewables and batteries and run a five-year test there.
Greens have been claiming they could do this for years. Clearly, the fact that none of their wealthiest spokesmen have endearvored to “finish the job” – and prove irrefutably that renewables can do what they are touted to do – is a hefty indictment of their desire not to be embarrassed and an example of the common business sense that allowed them to prosper in the first place.
But yes, by all means, let there be an open contest with a reward for the first successful city-wide design that can function as efficiently and at costs as low as a city fueled by unhampered fossil fuel generators and gas. The world is waiting with baited breath.
As far as I can tell, Australia at the moment is running about 57% coal and about 38% wind, solar and hydro.
If you look here
https://opennem.org.au/energy/au/?range=1d&interval=30m
you can see the last 24 hours (or any other period for that matter). The last 24 hours shows that renewables varied between 16% and 63%. Coal is about 70% at its peak, which is when there is no solar.
Interesting charts. I haven’t done the detailed work necessary to make a proper assessment, but given this, am very skeptical that any particular region of this country is going to be a counter example to Francis’ argument.
Completely agree. We should start with small projects at the White House and 10 Downing Street in London.
Any 100% renewable energy colony must must include —
Food production
Sanitation, including potable water.
Public health
I love that they on the one hand tell us that wind and solar is going to be cheap and abundant, and on the other hand insist that we must reduce our use of electrical energy as much as possible.
Breaking — First – ever – 100% renewable human colony performs concert to celebrate success!
Story Tip
https://chrisbond.substack.com/p/part-2-of-uk-plc-power-decarbonisation?utm_source=url
This and the subsequent post are an excellent analysis of the UK situation and plans. On the same lines as the analysis Francis has produced and referred to on New York’s situation and plans.
Basically, you cannot get there from here.
A Rule of Thumb estimate of the true price of renewable energy is:
Price = Cost / (capacity factor)
Thus wind is actually 3 times more expensive than it appears and solar is 5 times as expensive.
Manhattan Contrarian is absolutely correct that we must demand to see a demonstration of a 100% renewables grid.
If they’re wanting to use hydrogen for storage, then I’m afraid it will be necessary to build/install between 8.5 GW and 14.5 GW of wind turbine capacity for each 1 GW of dispatchable power:
Suppose we want to use the excess energy from wind turbines to store energy for when the wind doesn’t blow using compressed hydrogen as a store of energy:
This involves electrolysis -> stored, compressed hydrogen gas -> electricity from standard generators as and when required (viz when the wind drops).
The following simple calculation, based upon power (GW), rather than energy (TWhrs) and thus not requiring an integration of the power/time graph and an estimate of the maximum period of insufficient power when the wind doesn’t blow, gives the amount of installed wind power required for each unit of dispatchable power required :
Suppose we want P GW of power to be “dispatchable”, meaning always available “on demand”.
Let us start with P GW of installed wind turbine power and calculate the extra installed capacity required to produce P GW of dispatchable/always available power.
Taking the “BEIS UK Energy in Brief 2022” figure of 65 TWhrs for 2021 for both onshore and offshore wind and an installed/nameplate capacity of 25 GW gives a capacity factor of 30% [ 65 TWhrs/(25GW x 24 x 365) = 30%]
A capacity factor of 30% means the average amount of power over a year supplied by a wind turbine is 0.3P GW and consequently we will require 0.7P GW of storage.
Taking the efficiencies as:
Electrolysis : 60%
Compression : 87%
Electricity generation : 60%
Gives an overall efficiency of 60% x 87% x 60% = 31%
So the amount of excess power required to produce the missing 0.7P GW is 0.7P GW/0.31 = 2.26P GW
Since the capacity factor is 30%, this means we will need 2.26P/0.3 = 7.5 P GW of additional installed wind power to provide the needed 0.7P GW of dispatchable power.
Hence a total of P GW + 7.5 P GW = 8.5P GW of installed wind turbine capacity is required to provide 1 P GW of dispatchable power.
This is a best case scenario. Electrolysis efficiency will be less than 60% because the power will be intermittent (say 50%) and the hydrogen burning generators will not have an efficiency of 60% because they will not be running at a constant power and hence more like 40-50% efficiency. If these worst case efficiencies are used then the same calculation gives a figure of 14.5 GW of installed wind capacity is required for each 1 GW of dispatchable power.
So for each 1 GW of reliable/dispatchable/always available power it will be required to install between 8.5 GW and 14.5 GW of wind turbine capacity.
This will not include also the costs of the demineralisation of the water used for electrolysis or the costs of the hydrogen compression and storage.
The same calculations for solar give figures of 30GW and 54GW for each 1GW of dispatchable power.
Battery storage is even more expensive and it is calculated there is insufficient mining capacity to produce all the minerals required.
This why they are working on smart meters for everyone and “behavioural change” to accept intermittency and rolling blackouts.