A recurring question at this blog has been, how do the world’s politicians plan to provide reliable electricity without fossil fuels? Country after country, and state after state, have announced grand plans for what they call “Net Zero” electricity generation, universally accompanied by schemes for massive build-outs of wind and solar generation facilities. But what is the strategy for the calm nights, or for the sometimes long periods at the coldest times of the winter when both wind and sun produce near zero electricity for days or even weeks on end?
When pressed, the answer given is generally “batteries” or “storage.” That answer might appear plausible before you start to think about it quantitatively. To introduce some quantitative thinking into the situation, last December I had a Report published by the Global Warming Policy Foundation titled “The Energy Storage Conundrum.” That Report discussed several calculations of how much energy storage would be required to get various jurisdictions through a year with only wind and/or solar generation and only batteries for back-up, with fossil fuels excluded from the mix. The number are truly breathtaking: for California and Germany, approximately 25,000 GWh of storage to make it through a year; for the continental U.S., approximately 233,000 GWh of storage to make it through a year. At a wildly optimistic assumption of $100/kWh for storage, this would price out at $2.5 trillion for California or Germany, $23.3 trillion for the U.S. — equal or greater than the entire GDP of the jurisdiction. At more realistic assumptions of $300 – 500/kWh for battery storage, you would be looking at 3 to 5 times GDP for one round of batteries, which would then need replacement every few years.
But even these numbers wildly understate the real world costs of storage that would be needed. Here’s why: the calculations that I presented were based on actually data for particular years, and what storage would have been needed to make it through that year. For example, here is the chart from my Report of the annual charge and discharge cycle for a collection of batteries that would have been sufficient to get California through the year 2017 on a wind/solar system, fossil fuels eliminated, without running out of electricity:
As you can see, the calculation assumes that California would run its batteries right down to zero in March with the expectation that they would then begin to recharge.
But if you are planning a system that must have 99.9% reliability, you can’t just look at one year and assume you can run your storage down to zero. You need to consider the worst-case year. This is particularly true in the case of an electricity system consisting only of wind and solar generation plus batteries. If the batteries run down to zero, then what? It is not at all obvious how to restart. You might need to dedicate the generation exclusively to charging the batteries for weeks or even a month or more before you can have confidence that you can restart without immediately crashing again.
So, in the real world, how would you run such a system prudently?
There actually exists a closely analogous type of system from which we can make inferences of what kind of margins are necessary to assure reliability. That analogous type of system is the system for water supply. The supply of water from a reservoir system, like generation of electricity from wind and sun, is dependent on unpredictable weather. What kind of margins for storage are necessary to assure reliability?
The New York City water supply system makes lots of data available to investigate this question. Here are some key data points:
- New York City consumes about 1 billion gallons of water a day from its reservoir system. (Although the population has grown somewhat over the past couple of decades, that figure has remained quite stable, and actually decreased by a little, largely due to universal metering and increasing prices.)
- The New York City reservoir system has a capacity of approximately 550 billion gallons — which is about 1.5 years of consumption, or 18 months’ worth.
- Rainfall, on average, is a generous 4 inches per month, year-round. However, there can be droughts, which can continue for months on end.
The New York City reservoirs have a usual annual cycle. Usage exceeds replenishment in the summer and fall, and then the reservoirs refill in the spring with run-off from melting winter snows. In a typical year, the reservoir level never falls below 70% of capacity. However, there are periodic drought years, when reservoir levels can get much lower.
Here is a chart from New York City on historical droughts going back to the 1960s. There were droughts in 1963-65, 1980-82, 1985, 1991, 1995, and 2002. The lowest level reported for the reservoirs in this chart occurred on January 19, 1981, when the level reached 33% (which would represent approximately 6 months of usage). A drought “Emergency” was declared at that point. Another “Emergency” was declared in April-July 1985, with the reservoir level ranging between 55% and 62% (10-11 months of average usage), and again in April 2002 with the level at 57.5% (10 months average usage).
I would contend that this represents government over-reacting as usual and trying to scare the people into compliance. All of these drought conditions resolved themselves when rains came and refilled the reservoirs long before they emptied out.
But the point remains: Nobody is going to let the reservoirs get anywhere close to zero before declaring an emergency. After all, there is no further back-up when the reservoirs are empty. At that point, there is no more water until some rain shows up. And so we consider it a drought emergency when the remaining storage is somewhere in the range of 6 to 10 months of water.
Now apply that to a prospective wind/solar/battery electricity system with fossil fuel back-up eliminated. Are we really going to run such a system in accordance with the models in my Report, where we allow the batteries to drain right down to zero every spring? What if the wind and sun don’t cooperate for the next month (or two, or three)? Won’t we insist on having at least a month’s worth of spare storage at the normal low point of the year, just in case we have a worst-case situation?
In that case, I suggest that the number presented in my Report for the cost of batteries to back up a fossil fuel-free system are low by at least a factor of two, and probably more.
For more on electrical engineering and grid issues go to our ClimateTV Page
“The number are truly breathtaking: for California and Germany, approximately 25,000 GWh of storage to make it through a year; for the continental U.S., approximately 233,000 GWh of storage to make it through a year.”
As I showed here, these numbers are complete nonsense. They are based on providing only enough W&S to meet average demand, and so the storage required is that required to carry through the annual demand cycle. If you provided only that amount of FF generation and left the rest to storage, you would have the same problem.
But of course that was never done. You provide enough generating capacity to meet peak demand, and then some. And if you do that with W&S, as they would, storage for the US comes down to just a few TWh. And a slight degree of overbuild brings it down even further; I looked at four years of hourly data here to search for the optimum, which gives about $5T for the US, not 23.3.
That assumes total reliance on batteries, ignoring what can be done with pumped hydro, or even more artful use of existing hydro.
Nick, are you going to deal with the objections of the Green Blob to building dams? If so, how?
Then where is one to put the pumped storage? I live in Texas, with no good sites and routine water shortages.
You don’t need a huge dam for pumped hydro. And we could make better use of existing hydro. That has happened in Tasmania. Basslink to Victoria was built so that they could sell baseload power to Victoria and beyond. But then Vic developed a whole lot of wind power, which became very cheap, when the wind blew. So Tas took to using Vic power when cheap, and only using the water from their dams when the wind failed, and they could sell their power for a much higher price. The result is that net power flows from Vic to Tas, Vic gets Tas power when they need it, and Tas gets a higher price. Win-win.
As to the Texas situation, ERCOT may finally have to connect to the outside world.
do not need a big dam ?then you have very little fall hence very little energy available per cubic meter of water so to get a decent amount of energy you need a huge river hence a huge dam
As for the wind wind is not cheap when you consider the capital needed, the short life of the turbines, low utilization, need for backup
High pressure zones cover more than one state stop talking shite Bowen
“then you have very little fall”
No, you need a hill.
At Britain’s main facility, Dinorwig, the upper storage is an old slate quarry.
With the generators at depth in Caverns.
“The project site in the Elidir Fawr mountain was preferred over the other two sites in north Wales because of the presence of two natural lakes at the peak and the bottom of the mountain as well as because of the cavity created through hundreds of years of excavation in the mountain by the slate quarrymen.”
https://www.nsenergybusiness.com/projects/dinorwig-power-station/
Seems Nick-pick is totally unaware of the losses in a pumped hydro system.
He’s just a mindless parrot-like shill. !
Dinorwig is a pretty unique site. It was designed to kick in to meet demand peaks, it can be up and running in about 15 seconds. It would run out of water in a few hours at max output. The water is pumped back to the top during low demand – tricky on a windless night if reliant on W&S. Conveniently there’s a nuclear plant not too far away.
Yep, like most so-called “pumped” storage…
the energy for the pumping comes from coal or nuclear.
You know… RELIABLE sources.
That is what Snowy 2 in Australia will use, if it ever gets built.
Cost run-aways may make that impossible.
A true white elephant from start to finish.
In a fully renewable system it has to come from surplus wind and solar. Nuclear will be 5% baseload
In Nick’s world, you only need to create a little bit of extra power to charge all of his non-existent pumped storage systems.
If you mean If you mean Trawsfynydd, that closed in 1991.
Heysham isn’t too far away and still operating. Originally when built it was matched with Wylfa.
The UK electricity system already benefits from 24 GWh of pumped storage capacity, split across four sites, largely in Scotland. Around another 50 GWh has planning permission equivalent to the amount of electricity the UK uses on average in one hour, giving a total of 1.5 hours.
That’s a great comfort to know the lights will stay on for another 90 minutes when it’s likely we’ll need months of coverage including weeks in winter with 97% from storage.
I guess things are different on your planet?
Why, pray tell, would anyone voluntarily allow themselves to be regulated by the Feds?
Nick, just in –
Tasmania’s hydro power operator has just told hopeful buyers that there is no more to be sold.
It’s reached supply capacity.
Oh dear. . .
Any generator can fail if badly managed.
Read the words Nick-pick..
Reached supply capacity..
WTH has that got to do with bad management.
Try building a new dam in Tassie for hydro power, see how far you get.
In Nick’s world, he has designed the perfect system, it’s not his problem if the rest of you aren’t smart enough to run it properly.
Any renewable adds weather to bad management, I think that’s what’s known as double jeopardy
“‘Battery of Nation’ runs out of power. Tasmania does not have enough power generation to meet demand, stymieing new industrial development and associated jobs, prompting claims of an energy supply crisis” (The Australian Aug 10 2023).
Tasmanian (hydro) energy crisis 2016.
The 2016 crisis was caused by failure of Basslink, plus some bad management. Soon enough, we’ll have another bigger link.
From the above link: Hydro Tasmania — storage levels.
That is 2016, when with summer dry and without Basslink, things got tight (but the power stayed on).
Basically, when Basslink started up, it looked like a bonanza, and they drained the dams to sell on the NEM. Then came dry weather and the Basslink fail. They have learnt from that. They are currently at 45%, with the equivalent of 6.5 TWh in storage. If they sent it all down Basslink, we’d have 500 MW for 540 days.
The Tassie hydro company should get you down there run the operation for them Nick.
You know, draw upon your vast experience in entrepreneurship and business management.
(tip – the “P” in P&L stands for “profit’, not “prophet”)
“run the operation for them Nick.”
The greed of the bog-standard leftist would drain the Tassie dams in a week !
NIck has proven several he has basically zero engineering competence or understanding.
They relied on an emergency import of diesel generators to keep the lights on.
Loose with the truth again Nick. Tasmania suffered below average rainfall for a few years prior to 2016. Which resulted in lower than normal dam levels. Failure of the Bass link just exasperated the power shortage.
Subsea HVDC links have a record of regular failure. It often takes many months to effect repairs. As happened with Basslink of course.
In the UK IFA1, BritNed, North Sea Link and Western Link have all had extended outages, as did Rampion wind farm.
The solution is similar to the problem with wind and solar.
Just install 10 times more than you need, that way you should always be able to find one that’s working.
Right there with the pixie dust. Clap to save Tinkerbell. You people will believe anything.
Again , Nick is speaking through idiocy
The amount coming to Vic from Tas is pittance of Victoria’s demand…
…. just as any amount occasionally coming from excess wind in SA is a tiny amount compared to Victoria’s demand.
And of course, when Tas gets greedy and runs down its reservoirs, they are left having to import diesel pumps to keep the lights on.
Tasmania is a particularly low population density area in a nation of low population density – and therefore qualifies as a bad example.
The issue with grid level electricity is scale.
Have you actually looked at how many cubic meters of water would be needed to store even 1% of US electricity consumption per year? And compared it with total dam capacity extant in the United States?
What about Europe? UK?
Tas 6.7 folks/km^2
Aus 3.5 folks/km^2
Yes, Australia ranks very near the bottom of the list of over 200 countries in pop density.
The US has states with more people.
The places with the most people are hundreds of times more population dense.
Math denier.
Apparently Tasmania has sold all its hydro to mainland and is burning gas in order to have electricity for Tasmanians:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0E5U1GWVvzI
LOL
That happened in 2016, and only because the Basslink broke at a criticial time. And the power stayed on.
Pumped storage? One needs a really big uphill storage reservoir, plus a really big catch basin to collect the outflow. And, lots of reserve power to handle pumping. Have you by chance calculated the sizes of such thing to power a large area? I suspect not.
Even if you could find space for the dams, you’d not be able to build enough wind to recharge them after an outage. Think about it, you have a one week calm. Either from batteries or from hydro you get through it. Now your storage is empty. The wind picks up. Now you are supplying demand from it.
Where do you get the power to recharge your storage? Another calm could happen any time. You have to get recharged ASAP, or blackout. You have to have generating capacity over demand installed and waiting. So you overbuild to meet peak demand in low wind conditions, and then you overbuild again to be able to recharge after exhausting your storage in near calms.
Think it doesn’t happen? Look at gridwatch.co.uk. It certainly does.
Its a total pipe dream. Like the Miliband fantasy that the UK will quadruple its installed base of wind by 2030. and even that would be enough.
The HORNSDALE Power Reserve is one of the largest batteries in Australia
Almost all days, it is charged when rates are low and discharged when they are high.
Daily records show about a 20% round-trip loss; High voltage to High voltage
In early years, the batteries were charged to 90 to 100% and discharged to 10 to 0%.
It turned out, such a wide range of charge caused rapid aging, and increased round trip losses to more than 20%
Subsequently, Tesla recommended charging to at most 80% and discharging to no less than 20%, but the damage had been done.
The battery system capacity was expanded, and the entire system, old and new, is operated as one system.
The daily graphs show about a 20% loss, but capacity is still decreasing, due to rapid aging.
Hornsdale is one of the few to provide daily graphs to some people, but not the general public
Others carefully hide their data
On top of this misery, the battery systems, in arbitrage mode, last at most 15 years, before recycling/replacement is required.
The 2023 turnkey prices of large systems are about $550 to $600 per kWh, delivered as AC.
There is near-zero prospect of these prices decreasing in the near term, say at least 5 years.
There is no way, the rich part of the rich world can afford to go that route.
The poor part of the rich world just say “adios”.
The poor part of the world, say no thank you.
We will stick with fossil, nuclear and hydro as much, and as long, as we can
In non-arbitrage mode, such as grid balancing/regulation, the throughput is much less, at most 10%, and battery systems will last about 20 years
Here’s the performance of the Hornsdale Power Reserve since the beginning.
The monthly charge and discharge volumes give some indication of the modes of operation. The reality has been that the battery has made out like a bandit from FCAS grid stabilisation revenues, which have often far exceeded energy arbitrage profits.
You can see the latest week’s operations at 5 minute resolution here:
https://opennem.org.au/facility/au/NEM/HORNSDPR/?range=7d&interval=5m
It seems that have had 2-3 days of shutdown. Perhaps they are installing some new battery packs again – performance was dropping.
Thank you for the URL
Lucrative FCAS requires very little charge/discharge, which causes little wear of the battery, but arbitrage charge/discharge is the bull in the China shop.
The continued rapid aging likely is from previous damage from charging too high and discharging too low.
The battery has been compromised.
If you were to charge your EV to 80% and discharge it to 20%, each day, such as with a long commute, you would very quickly have a pre-maturely aged battery.
You battery would be compromised
A replacement would be at least $15000
I just read an in-depth article about fast-charging versus slow at home charging.
Fast chargers on the road usually charge to 80% full, because it takes to long to go from 80 to 100% full, plus Tesla does not recommend charging to over 80% full and discharging to less than 20% full.
The article states, battery aging is up to two times as rapid with fast charging compared with slow at home charging at 220 V
BATTERY SYSTEM CAPITAL COSTS, OPERATING COSTS, ENERGY LOSSES, AND AGING
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/battery-system-capital-costs-losses-and-aging
EXCERPT:
2) Example of Turnkey Cost of Large-Scale, Megapack-Based, Battery System, based on 2023 pricing
The system consists of 50 Megapack 2, rated capacity 45.3 MW/181.9 MWh, 4-h energy delivery
Power = 50 Megapacks x 0.979 MW x 0.926, Tesla design factor = 45.3 MW
Energy = 50 Megapacks x 3.916 MWh x 0.929, Tesla design factor = 181.9 MWh
Estimate of supply by Tesla is $90 million, or $495/kWh. See URL
Estimate of supply by Others is $80/kWh
All-in, turnkey cost about $575/kWh; 2023 pricing
https://www.tesla.com/megapack/design
?itok=lxTa2SlF
https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/tesla-hikes-megapack-prices-commodity-inflation-soars
This is why overbuild helps. It reduces storage and, of course, gives excess for recharge when the wind is blowing.
There is plenty of overbuild in the existing FF system (eg diesel or gas peakers).
Why do you push this nonsense?
It’s his job.
And still with no wind or no solar, there is no generation. 200 times nothing is still nothing.
No Nick, wind will never produce enough for there to be excess.
Are you lobbying for a wind industrial estate in your town, Nick?
If not, then it’s time to get of your festering, hypocritical ass and get on with it.
Nick,
I, now retired, spent over 40 years in the power industry as an energy systems analyst.
I can assure you, any over-build is very expensive, because it is hardly used, and kept to the very minimum.
Making statements and having no facts is like yelling fire in a crowded theater. It should be punished.
We must always remember that Nick’s overbuild solution is to replace EXISTENT FF generation.he thinks that he’s saving the world from — some climate catastrophe.
Overbuilding gas and coal is expensive, because of their high capital cost. W&S much less, and the advantage of no fuel cost makes it compelling.
“Making statements and having no facts is like yelling fire in a crowded theater. It should be punished.”
Then all of WUWT would be in jail (except me:)).
Not in Australia, according to the IEA’s LCOE figures – https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/data-tools/levelised-cost-of-electricity-calculator
The big cost advantage of W&S are fuel costs.
In round figures, excluding CCS:
Technology $/MW
CCGT 11
OCGT 21
Coal 27
Wind 34
Solar PV 34
Lignite 42
There are 2 fuel prices listed for each (fuel th) and fuel (el), but I can’t find an explanation
Did you manage to say that with a straight face?
Nick, overbuilding is the solution? What’s the cost of overbuilding to the tune of 35 to 5,500 times current build to meet peak demand WITHOUT FF backup?
Why is it any of your solutions ALWAYS adds costs over what is already available?
We’re not really talking peak though are we?
We’re just talking normal demand in a period of low output from weather dependant generation.
So that is irrelevant
Now nitpick-Nick is spreading out into weasel words.
Just how much is “plenty”?
Given the fact that W&S average around 20% of faceplate, you are already having to build 5 times what you need in order to actually have the power you need.
And that’s before you start tapping some of that power to charge up these fanciful storage schemes.
And that’s before dealing with the problem that the first W&S sites have taken the best locations. Average production will decrease as ever more marginal sites are exploited.
And if these sites are even further from the population centers, the line losses will go up as well.
Perhaps you can answer — Why replace a reliable system with an unreliable system that requires duplicated generative capacity and expensive storage? Why double or triple the costs?
For fossil fuel power generation, coal, gas and oil, are fuel and the storage. For misnamed “renewables,” we need a Rube Goldberg system to store energy. We need to run extra power lines across the country to get power to where it’s needed. We can’t generate power when we want or need it most and we can’t reduce output when there is too much.
Renewables are destroying the environment in order to save it.
I’ve been travelling in Europe by car and train the past couple of weeks, until yesterday, and most of the solar panels in Germany I saw were covered in dirt and it appeared that weeds growing between panels most certainly required hydrocarbon energy for their periodic cutting.
I will note that the road maintenance in the Netherlands, Germany, France and Switzerland, of the areas I visited, however, was excellent.
These numbers are realistic based on China producing all the equipment needed using low cost coal as their primary energy source with current margins.
The problem is that the rest of the world cannot rely on China to supply all the stuff needed in the time frames demanded while maintaining existing margins. The cost will climb as the demand goes up. It is highly inflationary as we can now observe.
The fundamental problem with WDGs; associated battery storage and all the other stuff needed to make them work is that it results in negative net energy. There is more energy going into making all the stuff needed than it can produce over its lifespan. That reality is currently hidden by the fact that China is making most of the stuff using their coal reserves at their cost of production.
Don’t forget the slave labor.
You provide enough generating capacity to meet peak demand, and then some.
We have all the stats anyone should need on UK power generation. Would you like to state how much wind and solar faceplate capacities the UK would need to ‘meet peak demand and then some’.
What do you think peak demand and then some is? Wikipedia says “Between 2007 and 2015, the UK’s peak electrical demand fell from 61.5 GW to 52.7. By 2022 it reached 47.1 GW.”
You can also check gridwatch.co.uk for peak demand last year.
Lets leave aside the fact that this will something like double if the country really does move to EVs and heat pumps, and just settle for 45GW for the sake of the calculation.
How much of each, wind and solar, do you think would be required to meet it ‘and then some’.
He won’t answer the tough questions.
I did those calculations for the USA here. If H=1 is current W&S, H=10 matches peak requirement, and gives a storage requirement of 51 TWh. But if H is increased to 15, the storage requirement drops to 2.4 TWH, and of course creates a lot of surplus for recharging, or whatever other use can be found/
No Nick, you have to allow for the maximum period of little or no W and S.
And you have no idea how long that would be.
And everything you have ever calculated in twisted and distorted by your manic anti-CO2 idiotolgy. Not worth a brass razoo.
I really hope to see your local area surrounded by wind turbines in the very near future. !
As bnice says, this isn’t good enough. The problem isn’t just meeting 45GW peak demand on a spot basis.
The problem for the UK is to deliver, for a period of up to 10 days, 30-45GW continuously, depending on time of day and season. When your solar has vanished with winter, and when wind is delivering 10% or less of faceplate. Overbuild doesn’t help if the problem is no wind.
And you also have the problem that when the wind picks up, you have to recharge your storage at the same time as meeting the regular demand.
Maybe it can be done. I don’t believe it till I see a proper calculation using the hourly wind generation and total demand data that is readily available for the UK.
The case for the prosecution is on gridwatch. If you want to make your own case, do it. I looked at last month. The minimum from the UK’s 28GW of faceplate was 0.189 GW. Indistinguishable from nothing.
It was down well below 5GW for several days. Doesn’t matter how much more wind they install, there is no way they are putting in enough wind to deliver 30-45GW for hours or days at a time when output is this low. You cannot install enough overbuild to do it, and if you could do it, you couldn’t afford it.
And there is also no way they are installing enough batteries to deliver that 30-45GW. No-one has ever installed a national system of that scale, no-one has even tried.
If you want to actually do the work, you can download the raw data free from templar
http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk.
Make the case. Otherwise stop claiming what looks from the charts to be obviously absurd.
I would add as a last point, none of this will work. But also, even if it did work, its not going to make an iota of reduction in global emissions.
I’ve tried to get Nick to respond to these kinds of calculations, but he just deflects. Using your numbers Nicks overbuild need would be 148 time current nameplate build values (29/0.189=148.1) or 9 times current generation (45 Peak demand / 5 Avg Wind output = 9)
Neither solve any actual problems and still add either 148 to 9 times current Wind investment costs.
What is really funny is to watch him say $5T cost is just a fraction of annual GDP, while ignoring that there is no real need for these costs except for him and his ilk to feel good about saving the planet from themselves.
Another problem with these calculations that end up requiring huge over builds in order to keep the power on all the time.
They are assuming that all of the wind and solar plants will have the same average productivity as the current wind and solar plants.
This can’t happen, in order to build that many plants, you are going to have to start utilizing more and more marginal sites, and they will be getting ever further from the population centers which means line losses will be increasing as well.
There’s about a dozen years of data downloadable on Gridwatch, other sources will given amount of installed wind and solar in each year.
It should be possible for Nick to work out just how accurate his opinion is versus reality
As a first pass, it was pretty good for the USA, and the geographic diversity allowed surprisingly little variation in output vs demand.
The UK doesn’t have the geographic dispersion, so is on a hiding to nothing.
Transmission and storage losses would increase the necessary US overbuild as well, as would providing a larger safety margin.
Nick,
You are concentrating solely on the generation side of the problem. What about distribution? Let’s say the wind is blowing really well in Tehachapi Pass (California), but it is dead calm in the southeastern US, or Maine, or Hawaii or Alaska? How will you move the electricity there? Yes, there are interconnects (except for Hawaii and, I suspect, Alaska), but can they handle the load?
Floria is one of the largest and fastest growing US states, and we have very high demand for power.
Florida has zero wind potential.
And despite the latitude, we have very poor solar potential.
We have peak demand on Winter nights and Summer days.
Summer days are cloudy, Winter nights are dark.
Wind is absent on nights with radiational cooling, often for a thousand miles around.
There are oodles of places with hundreds of millions of people with no potential to use these sources, even if they had the money and lack of sense.
Andlet’s recall, current demand is nothing compared with what it is intended to be by the same people pushing the wind and solar conjob.
They want all our cars, all out cooking and heating, all the things we currently use fuel oil and nat gas for, to all be mandatory electric.
There are no concrtet4e plans for a nuclear buildout, little chance of new hydro dams, screaming for tearing out existing dams in fact…
And where are all these batteries gonna be built, when the whole world wants them all at once, for everything, and we are already so far behind on the ability to manufacture them?
We have an energy infrastructure that is complex and ubiquitous, and it took over 100 years to build it. We can not even add a line to existing power corridors without a decades long court battle and congressional fracas. But yeah, we’ll just replace everything with stuff that is fiendishly expensive and lasts not very long, in a big giant hurry, all over the world and all at once, at the same time as no one wants to mine anything or build a factory.
We are not at the dawn of a new energy paradigm. It is midnight of the longest night ever, it is stormy and cold, and a bad moon is rising.
Last year, and this in fact, will have usually low domestic demand. It will remain like that until incomes rise and we get used to high energy costs and a large chunk of the population get back to heating as well as eating
The problem you will have in the UK, to take a concrete example, is apparent from gridwatch.co.uk. The current peak is about 45GW. But in the winter months you have no solar. You also have periods of several days, sometimes as much as ten days, when wind produces less than 5GW from an installed faceplate parc of about 25GW.
You say that you would provide enough capacity to meet ‘peak demand and then some’. Lets say you want to provide 50GW.
You are going to have to have 250GW, are you not? And then you will have times when your 250GW faceplate is producing something like 180GW, but your demand is down well below 30GW.
Look at gridwatch.co.uk. This is a perfectly reasonable scenario. In fact there are often periods of several days when wind produces under 1GW. So the 250GW requirement is probably a serious under estimate. If you are going to meet peak demand while getting 1GW from your 25GW parc, and you need to get 45GW at the same generation rate, you will need…. how much?
How many turbines is that, by the way?
And where is there an example of a grid which is delivering 10s of GW from battery storage for hours or days at a time?
The CEO of the gas transmission company in the UK put it perfectly. ““If we hadn’t had gas in 2022, there were 260 days when we would have had rolling blackouts, and for 26 of those days we would have had a full blackout.”
He is quoted to this effect in the Telegraph.
Overbuilding is not going to solve the problem of intermittency. Its impossible to implement, because the UK simply cannot build that many turbines. And its also financially bust. Even if the country could manage to install them, it cannot afford the cost.
This is also by the way the point at which your earlier claims about fuel savings more than paying for the costs of installing the wind are clearly absurd. Its not true in any scenario, but especially not when you allow for how much overbuilding you would need.
The UK also has summer wind droughts combined with low sunshine hours.
Has anyone actually worked out the effect of a summer wind and solar drought followed by a winter wind drought (no solar in any winter)
Has anyone down any research on a wind and rain drought. My feeling is that they go hand in hand
Plus at the rate they wear out, they will need to be replaced before the buildout can be accomplished.
Hell, the biggest manufacturers are going broke. And wishfully thinking it will not be that bad.
The problem has been pegged by top CEOs moving ahead too fast.
I am starting to think that if this goes much farther, we will be on the path to an unavoidable worldwide economic collapse that will be far worst and far longer lasting than the Great Depression.
The underpinnings of the entire world economy, food production, transportation systems, and energy production are now in the hands of people engaged in lies, wishful thinking, and hallucinatory fantasizing.
There is not and will not be grid scale storage. Period.
If you provided only that amount of FF generation and left the rest to storage, you would have the same problem.
Not so unlearned one
As the current (prior) 100% FF powered system has proved over the course of human history. Fossil Fuels and Nuclear are 100% reliable outside something akin to the Carrington Event or Nuclear Blast knocking out the grid. FF have never and will never need a “Reliable Back-up” in order to provide constant energy. Gas, Coal, Fuel Oil, Hydro and Nuclear have never run down to less than 50% combined capacity … Ever. They are not subject to the whims of weather or time of day to supply energy. In fact they have only required an availability of about a 20% overcapacity supply to allow for refueling outages and maintenance. And, that overcapacity an be turned off so no capacity is wasted. They are only limited to the whims of Maniacal Politicians and Uber Zealot Environ-Mentalists.
Solar on the other hand requires storage as it only produces so!trying close to nameplate 4 hours per day so requires 6 time’s capacity to refill the storage in the 4 hours available. Then Solar has an average capacity factor of just over 20% (around 22% at 38° latitude and less at higher latitudes or in Winter when the relative solar angle is less). This means that you need 5 times the capacity to meet your highest demand days or 30 times capacity to meet your highest demand days and allow for recharging back-up. But even that overcapacity produces nothing for 18 hours a day and little on stormy days.
Wind on the other hand will only function if the wind is in the Goldilocks zone between 9 and 50 MPH. Slower and the prop can’t spin against friction, faster and the generation automatically brakes so the turbine doesn’t.
High pressure cells are often accompanied by little to no wind speed.
High pressure cells in winter also limit solar.
Blocking highs in winter effectively eliminate both wind and solar and can last weeks.
Back up needs to provide required energy 24/7 for at least a month to cover this inevitability.
FF & Nuclear don’t care about blocking highs or wind less days or nights or winds above 60MPH and don’t require a 3000% overcapacity to be reliable 24/7/365
You are completely missing the point. Demand is not uniform. It peaks during the day, and during the year. You need enough generation capacity to meet those peaks, and they have that. Generators lie idle when demand drops.
You could provide just enough generation for average needs and rely on storage, but it would be very expensive. FF has never done that but it is what Gregory, Wojick and all were requiring W&S to do.
You could provide just enough generation for average needs and rely on storage, but it would be very expensive. FF has never done that …
But you can’t simply provide enough generation for AVERAGE needs as this doesn’t allow for high demand loading. You must allow for supply enough to meet those high demand days…something FF is/was more than capable of doing.
IF you only allow enough for average needs then you have insufficient to recharge back-up while supply is available.
Sufficient generation is needed to supply peak loading on high demand days during low potential supply days. Those winter peak evenings when the sun is no longer able to stimulate solar panels and winter blocking highs have reduced wind speeds.
If you are depending on back-up to cover these times then you need sufficient battery back-up fully charged that can supply 90-100% demand for weeks at a time as blocking highs can kill off wind for 2 weeks at a stretch. That back-up has only 4 hours to recharge before solar becomes unavailable and wind could die down.
I live on the west coast and have been under summer blocking highs when you can’t get a Kite off the ground and those wind turbines sit being back fed and turning slowly so the bearings don’t seize up.
FF has never done that…FF has never NEEDED to do that. FF is reliable and capable of functioning regardless of time of day or weather
“ FF has never done that “
Yes they have… You are showing your twisted ignorance yet again…
Storage in the form of coal stockpiles and gas tanks, for weeks in advance.
These can be accounted for and adjusted as needed.
They provide resilience and robustness to the supply system.
W & S cannot be accounted for, because you never know how much there will NOT be.
Solar lies idle EVERY night, and when there is cloud..
Wind lies idle when there is no breeze.
You cannot adjust them down when they are producing nothing in the first place.
They are a parasite on the supply system.
Nick, dissect these articles and point out their deficiencies. Your reply that we just need to build more wind and solar to compensate for their intermittencies, and variabilities – where do we get the land?
https://wattsupwiththat.com/?s=bright+green+impossibilities
https://edmhdotme.wpcomstaging.com/comparative-costing-power-generation-technologies-2022/
https://manhattan.institute/article/the-energy-transition-delusion
You are completely ignoring the point.
Yes FF does over build for contingencies, however this over building is on the order of 5 to 10 percent.
W&S on the other hand require over building by a factor of 10 to 100 at a minimum.
No, a factor of 1.5 should do fine.
Incorrect … A factor of 1.5 would have proven futile in Texas on that fateful February Freeze Day. A factor of 4 would still have generated just slightly more than zero during that week long cold spell in 2021
I am having an impossible time trying to tell if you are stupid and wrong or evil and lying.
Its wishful thinking based on ideology. There are a lot of people like Nick, intelligent, numerate, but who have bought into a sequence that goes from an imaginary climate crisis to endorsing things like running a grid on wind and solar that (a) aren’t feasible to implement (b) even if they worked would not materially reduce the emissions they claim to be so worried about.
They have one thing in common: they are completely unaccountable for the consequences of governments following their policy advice.
Australia follows Nick’s formula, for instance, and overprovides by a factor of just 1.5 and installs what he thinks is needed in storage. It leads to disaster, but its not tied back to Nick or anyone else vociferously urging the move to wind.
The other thing I am having trouble with in his remark is, 1.5 times what? What is the base level of provision that he thinks is needed assuming huge storage. Then we can tell how much total he thinks is needed.
I suspect he’s taking average generation as the parameter. So to meet 45GW he will argue that you need 200GW (the production factor is about 25% of faceplate). Then 1.5 times that, and it will be 300GW. Its a pipe dream of course.
But if its not that, tell us what it is.
That’s why I asked, for the UK, with demand between 30GW and 45GW, how much faceplate wind does he think is needed.
Let’s see if there is an answer.
For the UK, then, how much faceplate wind do you think it would take to deliver 45GW with a manageable level of storage?
Use the numbers available from Gridwatch, either eyeball at gridwatch.co.uk, or downloadable as csv from gridwatch.templar.co.uk
I don’t think it can be done, I don’t think there is any level of overbuild that will do it, because demand does not correlate with wind production.
Nick – you have no idea what you are talking about – what about the long windless & sunless days & even weeks (dunkelflaute as the Germans say), how do you back those up with your silly batteries, you’d need thousands of fields full of them? And you’d have to keep making them to replace the ageing, failing ones, on top of the new ones – there isn’t enough lithium in global reserves to power your grids
We need a gas transition to a complete nuclear future
Finally, I believe you are really Klaus Schwab and I claim my $100
“ what about the long windless & sunless days & even weeks”
I took 4 years of hourly USA generation data, broken down into types (w,S,gas etc). That was the basis of the modelling. It is in the style of Ken Gregory, but allows for adequate provision.
Then your modelling is nonsense, as most of your junk non-science is.
4 years only of data… then you have no clue what is the worst scenario that could happen.
Adequate?? WTH does that mean ?
It doesn’t need to be true, it just needs to sound scientific and engineery.
Taking continental wide averages is an enormous error.
Solar or wind being X percent of the entire US does not mean the electricity from solar or wind farms is evenly distributed across the entire country like a CO2 emission.
Unless and until cheap room temperature superconductors are created, the devil is in the details.
Four years is no use, the UK had 46 years between super heatwaves. You need at least 5 decades of data. It’s not the 49 good years that are important it’s the two consecutive bad years
No Nick-pick.. you need enough storage to cover for the lack of wind and solar over an unspecified unknown legth of time, when W/S are not providing.
FAR better to just go with a system you know is able to provide electricity 27/365 from the outset.
Forget about trying to compensate for junk electricity supply that you know are intermittent and UNRELIABLE.. That is just complete stupidity. (which explains why you back it)
Switching from ICE cars and lorries to EV will increase electricity demand.
Switching from gas boilers and stoves to heat pumps and electric cookers will increase electricity demand.
So the numbers can only go up.
Also, the Netherlands will find it hard to use hydropower to store electricity.
Dinorwig has a capacity of 9.1GwH
I make that approx. 15 minutes supply for the UK.
Dinorwig took 10 years to build. So will these dams be ready by 2035?
Actually, the numbers in the article above are more than a little optimistic.
Europe has seen 2 different periods, just in the past 5 years, where wind electricity production was 30% or more reduced vs. models.
The numbers above are therefore subject to more than just seasonal variation over the year.
There is also the issue of granularity. Multi-year averages don’t take into account significant variations in demand vs. supply in any given moment in any given year. These do NOT always average out.
The problem with wind and solar is that you can never build sufficient capacity to meet peak demand (or even lower demand during Dunkelflaute) with any reliability at reasonable cost. The result is that you are always going to need backup. The more you try to increase the penetration of wind and solar, the greater the volume of curtailment, which drives up the cost.
Incidentally storage remains the economically stupid way to try to provide backup.
You can’t solve the problem with overbuilding because all of your wind is out at the same time. It isn’t true that “the wind is always blowing somewhere”. The evidence is that wind droughts affect very large areas.
Overbuilding also creates the problem of overproduction when the wind does actually blow. How do you deal with all the extra power generated? Those rent seekers will want to be paid not to produce, just as much as they do when they are generating power.
I used the actual observed W&S generation for four years. For the US it did not go to zero (or anywhere near) in that time.
4 years of data. That’s cute.
He actually believes that whatever 4 year segment he has choosen accurately represents what happens in the real world.
The vast majority of sites that have both the required elevation changes and sufficient water already have dams on them.
The idea that the pumped storage and dams are going to make a big difference is something that only someone with no interest in reality could come up with.
“whatever 4 year segment he has choosen”
I used 2019-2022, which are the only full years available. The studies cited by Menton used 1 year.
Not to worry Nick – the battery car crew have it all worked out for you with V2G, the lacklustre solution to silly wind & solar sometimes power
https://climatechangedispatch.com/calif-moves-to-siphon-your-evs-battery-to-power-its-grid/
plug in, go to bed, keep the lights on, get up, oooops battery flat
Average this and average that. You are describing a system that can not quickly (you define quickly) recharge the batteries to full. Just like W&S not being available at times, a point can be met where battery isn’t available.
The story discusses discharging the batteries completely. Not even you can guarantee that sufficient power generation will be available to supply the increase in spring AND charge the batteries in a reasonable length of time.
Costs? Green energy costs money? C’mon man, it’s free energy from the sun and wind! Forget the costs, think of the savings!
Yep, the only thing Free about Wind and Solar is their Fuel Source. The rest is So Expensive it requires subsidizing to remain competitive with costly FF and Nuclear
There is a different perspective on this than it’s impossibly expense.
It is literally physically impossible. There are not enough global lithium and cobalt ore reserves at any cost to come even close to these capacities.
And if you go less energy dense by using Lithium iron phosphate instead of NMC, thereby not needing cobalt, you still run WAY short of lithium.
The numbers are fairly easy to run based on typical EV battery (maybe 60-80kwh) kg composition plus USGS estimates for global P2 (proven plus probable) ore reserves.
I think vanadium flow batteries are not far away.
Yet more vaporware.
Investors will be scrambling to get a share of this opportunity since it’s “not far away”.
What would the regulator ASIC have to say about a prospectus that promised early investors the product is “not far away”?
Vanadium flow batteries were invented in the 1980’s and, although a few companies produce them, they have never been mass-produced for large-scale battery use. Why? Because they are vastly more expensive than lithium ion batteries – you would have to invest far, far more money to get the battery storage needed.
A million Love canals await.
Vanadium flow batteries have been trialed. They do work, albeit expensive. BUT they last less than 5 years, so are not commercial.
Yes and there is all that vanadium lying around unused. All you have to do is bend over to pick it up.
Ben Dover (aka Wiki) says:
From Wiki:
Vanadium is mined mostly in China, South Africa and eastern Russia. In 2022 these three countries mined more than 96% of the 100,000 tons of produced vanadium, with China providing 70%.
“Look, the emperor has no clothes.”
Or is it that the clothes have no emperor?
I think your total dementia is not far away. !
You are already drifting off into la-la-land regularly…
… and it is getting more and more that way.
Trying to Nick and his cohorts to see reality is like trying to teach a pig to sing–it makes you tired and dirty and annoys the pig.
Vanadium is ridiculously rare – only plentiful in comparison to mineable lithium. I’m reading a book about the mining history of Utah – the role of vanadium miners led to uranium mining, in turn supporting nuclear research from the Curies to the Manhattan project to the development of the US nuclear arsenal.
You are making the mistake of the ivory tower academic in failing to understand the real world characteristics and limitations of economically accessible reserves.
Vanadium flow batteries are already here. They were used on King Island until they caught fire. They have been replaced by lead-acid batteries there. They are also in use in the Orkneys for the O2 tidal stream project. They were selected because they were better able to handle the flickering generation from the turbines and the high number of cycles required: in effect they act as large smoothing capcacitors. However, they are much more costly than lithium ion batteries which is why their use remains niche. Also, any serious use of vanadium would rapidly challenge global production and resources. The primary use for vanadium remains in small quantities in steel alloys.
“However, they are much more costly than lithium ion batteries which is why their use remains niche”
Yes, but lithium ion batteries used to be hugely expensive too until production was scaled up.
Vanadium is not a rare element. It is about as common as copper, zinc or chromium. It just has had only niche demands to date.
This is not a question of scaling up, which is nominally easy with vanadium batteries – just build bigger electrolyte tanks and make more orange gunge to fill them. The issue of resource access is rather different.
Global production is of the order of just 100,000 tonnes a year, and minable concentrations are not commonplace. There is a considerable cost of extraction and separation from other minerals typically found alongside. The current price is around $25,000/tonne. Increases in demand would result in much higher cost methods of extraction from lower grade sources, such as some heavy tar oils. Every study I’ve seen suggests vanadium is never going to be a mainstream battery mineral. Its prime uses in strengthening alloys are far too important.
Neither is Nuclear Fusion if you believe that hype as well.
They must be New York’s “Dispatchable Energy Sources.”
Does this mean you agree to hold off plans for more W&S until the vanadium flow batteries have been installed and tested?
Nick, I wrote about vanadium flow batteries in essay. Alifornia Dreaming in ebook Blowing Smoke there were several DoE subsidized reasonably scaled attempts in the US. They all failed because unreliable and short cycle life. Not ‘not far away’—very far away if ever.
Lithium reserves worldwide 2010-2022 | Statista
“In 2022, the total estimated reserves of lithium worldwide amounted to 26 million metric tons. This was the largest observed reserve volume over the past decade.”
The graph in the link above says lithium reserves globally have been rising. I don’t know how fast those reserves would be depleted if we phased out fossil fuels with W&S and storage and EVs in place of ICE vehicles by say 2030 or 2040. But considering that fossil fuel and nuclear power plants last a lot longer than lithium-ion batteries do, I won’t place my bets on W&S and EVs.
We pay a dear price for politicians who are not literate enough in science and engineering to know what the heck they are doing with their Net Zero plans.
Lithium batteries are a bit of strawman. Except for weight and size there’s no need. For grid power sodium, iron, and others are fine, plentiful, and much cheaper. None are practical. The whole concept is foolish.
They blithely call up batteries as if they last as long as thermal power plants.
The quantities of critical minerals alone needed to be mined moved and processed indefinitely would be astronomical at astronomical cost and by what — picks shovels and wheelbarrows?
It’s all so absurd, it’s baffling how the insanity has got this far.
As has been said many times before, there is only one honest way to demonstrate the viability of 100% wind and solar power provision, and that is to try running a modest size city that way for just one year without interruptions.
This denies the diversity fairy an opportunity to prevail. As Australia’s Federal Minister Bowen stated “wind is always blowing somewhere and sun is always shining somewhere”
All the government backed modelling done for Australia was based on annual capacity factors. The timing of intermittent generation was not considered. The diversity fairy was going to avoid any gaps in supply.
If you want an example of an isolated system of significant size, then King Island provides a good example:
https://www.hydro.com.au/clean-energy/hybrid-energy-solutions/success-stories/king-island
Annual demand is 12GWh and peak demand is 2.5MW. The system details are here:
https://www.hydro.com.au/docs/default-source/clean-energy/hybrid-energy-solutions/king_island.pdf?sfvrsn=f3ad4828_2
The system is likely economic on a marginal basis. The W&S are averaging 30% CF. Diesel would cost around $2/litre translating to a fuel cost alone of $500/MWh for diesel generation.
One thing for certain is that you could not set up a viable manufacturing industry to produce the W&S collectors on King Island using the energy they produce from W&S. That is the dilemma. The developed world is increasingly dependent on China making stuff using their coal reserves.
Both times I’ve been to King Is for 3-day visits, the wind was also having a 3-day break.
(not my wind though after all that delicious KI cheese)
“King Island mine to be diesel-powered for years using repurposed government grant”
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-04-01/king-island-tungsten-mine-using-grant-for-diesel-generator/102170150
I regularly check to see how King Island is doing. I have to say it has been quite heavily reliant on diesel much of the time. So much so I have wondered whether the wind turbines haven’t been out for maintenance.
Electricity Maps | Live 24/7 CO₂ emissions of electricity consumption
Check out the last year and last month compared with the 6 year history.
I doubt these days that an honest audit could be done.
That report was naive in its calculation. It did not consider the minimum system cost to provide high reliability. The minimum cost system requires overbuild of the energy collection. That depends on cost of the WDGs and batteries as well as the variation in generation..
I have operated an off-grid system for 12 years using LiFePO4 batteries with solar collectors. The solar collectors cost $1000/kW. The battery cost $500/kWh. The lowest cost system to serve the load ended up with battery storage of 48 hours of average demand and CF of the panels averaging 3.8%.
I could have achieved a higher capacity factor if I had orientated the panels to maximise May solar input because that is a cloudy month at 37S near the southern coast. Solar arrays that are mounted to maximise winter collection becomes an obvious decision.
I did a scoping study to supply the east coast of Australia with solar panels located west of the range and ended up with 33 hours of battery storage and tracking solar panels achieving a CF of 9%.
Assuming 50 hours storage for Germany’s 50GW average, you get storage needed of 2500GWh. For California’s 35GW requires 1750GWh. I do not know how close 50 hours storage would be to the lowest cost system but it would be much more realistic than the numbers written above.
Producing silly numbers to make a case against WDGs and batteries is in the same class as climate scare mongering. The simple fact is that the rush to WDGs is unsustainable. They consume more energy to make and install in a demand driven supply system than they can produce over their relatively short lifespan. It is an illusion that is fast approaching reality. Getting penetration above the natural capacity factor is where the realisation dawns. Germany is at that point. UK is close to it. California also close.
However if cost was the driver, everyone would still be burning coal like China. But religious zealotry is not cost driven.
I am curious – 48 hours of average demand seems low.
Do you not have multi-day rainstorms where this off-grid location is?
Clearly you don’t have a fog season like the San Joaquin valley in California or monsoon in India.
I’m also curious as to how much annual variation in production you have seen in your 12 years of operation.
I remember hearing there is another problem with W &S. If you loose part of the grid it is very difficult if not impossible to restart from renewables and keep the frequence in allowable bounds. The big generators with lots of momentum are needed to make it work.
That is why they have synchronous condensers in grids with high penetration of WDGs. They provide the sub 50Hz inertia.
But another cost not included in W&S when LCOE calculations are carried out.
“Leftist-ized” Cost Of Energy?
If a grid has gone dark for any length of time, synchronous condensers of the momentum type will have spun down to the point where they won’t be useful. Actual capacitors could hold a charge, but if they discharge during the loss of power, they won’t work either. These devices were never designed to “restart” a dead grid.
There is a company that used to make engines for cruise ships. They are now focused on using these engines to provide rotational torque for grids.
I wish I was being sarcastic – this is real.
Can you imagine the state of our planet after mining all that lithium and landfilling old batteries and for what? Some idiotic renewables & battery car fantasy – history will not look back kindly on this particular time – the developed Wests leaders are leaving our children & grand children a wrecked, power bereft, cold, hungry, impoverished and regressed future because some self serving, self entitled half wits put their greed above shared humanity
If storage is cheap then I reckon renewable companies would offer 99.5% availability by installing it themselves or the various market operators (or governments) would insist on them providing 99.5% nameplate availability.
Another problem with ginormous batteries I’ve never seen discussed—how long would it take to establish the initial charge before it could be used, and where would the necessary generation for the initial charge come from.
Plug in 10x the wind and solar most estimates use, then watch it sit doing nothing most of the time.
This is cost-effective?
Can batteries discharge at a sufficient rate to meet peak demand?
It isn’t the initial charge, as it turns out. This can be done by just installing charged or partially charged batteries – especially since lithium type batteries do NOT do well if left fully discharged.
The problem for the Moss Landing giant battery storage turned out to be that the generation and transmission grid around its entire area was not set up to take in enough power, even during off-peak, to recharge the batteries. LOL.
Incredible. Supposedly intelligent, educated people propose this insanity?
Educated in Calathumpian gender studies though.
Build new fossil fuel and nuclear generators and remove all wind and solar from the grid.
YES !
Coal and nuclear for cheap consistent base-load and normal expected demand swings…
Hydro where appropriate and doable.
Gas quick reacting “peakers” to manage the occasional surge in demand.
EV only to be charged from a dedicated wind-solar network paid for by EV owners.
You only have to worry about grid storage when we get to the point where wind and solar can be build faster than they break. Not going to happen.
Family in Califonia get a $900 bill every year because there solar panels do not produce enough electricity.
I lived at 2000′ foot elevation above the tulley fog and marine layer.
There are very few places where solar will pay back the slave coal that produce the panels. I would say none because I have yet to find the systems.
However, they will make
If there was a real climate emergency then masses of nuclear would be the answer to meet all electricity demand including heating instead of methane. Excess nuclear electricity can be used to electrolyse water into hydrogen to replace the use of methane in other appropriate situations. Solar may have a place in sunny warmer climates. This is not the strategy because it’s not a climate emergency. If hydrocarbons were to start to run out nuclear will take off at a massive rate.
Those who object that Mr. Menton assumed only a average demand’s worth of generating capacity may want to check out the trade-offs I calculated a couple of years ago between overbuilding and storage based on Texas wind power.