Reader Jason S writes:
Hey Anthony,
I set my calendar to remind me of this story. It’s been 5 years since Governor Brown made this statement! One for the failed predictions pile!
Thanks again for all you do,
Jason
I’m not sure how to create a list of the “Worst Skeptics” but I assume Anthony Watts is on it as well as Steve Koonin, Richard Lindzen, John Clauser, Alex Epstein, the 1600 or so signatories of the the Clintel Declaration, every conservative pundit, and a whole bunch I can’t think of at the moment.
This will be added to the Failed Predictions Timeline.
Thank you Jason.
Jerry Brown spent his whole political life pushing for what he called “An Era of Limits”, or some boogyman or other was going to get us “soon”. His track record for predicting the future has been poor.
Still waiting for that Carbon Saving high speed rail to Bakersfield and Fresno, my two favorite vacation destinations.
I have not been a “believer” for since about 2000 for obvious reasons, such as:
Most folks say things that only partially cover the offshore situation, which caused major dips in Siemens, Oersted, etc., stock prices at the end of 2020; the smart money got out
All this well before the Ukraine events, which started in February 2022
If governments have extremist goals (disconnected from reality), such as 1) 30,000 MW of offshore by 2030, by the posse of idiots surrounding Biden, plus 2) the 36,000 MW of offshore by 2030, and 40,000 MW by 2040, by the in-disarray, totally-disconnected-from-markets UK government, then you can be sure disaster will be at hand.
It is equivalent to demented bulls in China shops
Those goals were physically unachievable, even if there were abundant, low-cost financing, and low inflation, and low-cost energy, materials, labor, and a robust, smooth-running supply chain, to place in service about 9500 MW of offshore during each of the next 7 years, start 2024 to end 2030, which has never been done before, etc.
During that time, older offshore units will be giving up the ghost/retiring.
One commentator said “renewables are not always reliable”
That shows the types of ignorami driving the bus
WIND AND SOLAR ARE NEVER, EVER RELIABLE
The evidence shows, they will always need the following very costly items:
1) subsidies equivalent to about 50% of project owning and operations cost,
2) plus grid extension/reinforcement,
3) plus a fleet of quick-reacting power plants to counteract the wind/solar, up/down output, on a less than minute-by-minute basis, 24/7/365,
4) plus a fleet of power plants to provide electricity during low-wind/solar periods, and during high-wind/solar periods, when rotors are feathered and locked,
5) plus output curtailment to prevent overloading the grid, i.e., paying owners for not producing what they could have produced
Plus wind and solar could not physically be fed into the grid, without the above-listed 5 items, of which the LCOE is provided for free by taxpayers, ratepayers, or added to government debts to make wind/solar look competitive with fossil fuels
Batteries as an Alternative to Power Plant Fleets to Eliminate Evil Fossil Fuels?
Turnkey capital costs of large scale-battery systems are $575/installed kWh; based on 2023 pricing of Tesla-based systems
With 6.5% money and 10% for owner return on investment, and throughput at 10% of installed capacity, a delivered kWh costs about 91.9 c/kWh, on top of the cost of the electricity fed to the batteries; at 40%, about 23 c/kWh, on top
Excluded costs/kWh: 1) O&M; 2) system aging, 3) system losses from HV grid to HV grid, 3) grid extension/reinforcement to connect the battery systems, 5) downtime of parts of the system, 6) decommissioning in year 15, i.e., disassembly, reprocessing and storing at hazardous waste sites.
THE PHYSICAL AND ECONOMIC INSANITY OF IT ALL HAS BEEN CLEAR TO ENERGY SYSTEMS ANALYSTS SINCE 2000, THE INFAMOUS ENERGIEWENDE START IN GERMANY
US/UK 66,000 MW OF OFFSHORE WIND BY 2030; AN EXPENSIVE FANTASY
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/biden-30-000-mw-of-off…
BATTERY SYSTEM CAPITAL COSTS, OPERATING COSTS, ENERGY LOSSES, AND AGING
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/battery-system-capital…
World’s Largest Offshore Wind System Developer Abandons Two Major US Projects as Wind Bust Continues
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/world-s-largest-offsho…
but he was right – we have gone from mere skeptics to true believers that the so called “renewable” aka intermittent energy is complete nonsense and an economic disaster – we have also learned that the real goal of the green movement is really the destruction of capitalism and western civilization
Governor Moonbeam was a hard guy to classify. Believe it or not he was very much a fiscal conservative and one year California actually had a $5B surplus during his terms. He was anti-immigration saying the state needed to support the poor California people first before bringing in immigrants.
But he also was floating in the clouds on a lot of other issues including the environment and the climate which is where he got his nickname. Overall I would give put him more on the nutcase side of sanity but no where close to Newsom and the others, who really are more chasing the money than the beliefs.
Moonbeam’s gift to California taxpayers . . . the gift that keeps on giving . . . is the high speed rail (HSR) project, what used to be commonly known as the Brown Boondoggle.
Originally proposed, and approved by California voters in 2008, at a cost of $33 billion, the current estimated price tag has risen four-fold to $128 billion to complete the entire system between San Francisco and Los Angeles.
Furthermore, the first construction phase, currently 119 miles of a planned 171 mile segment connecting the towns of Merced and Bakersfield, has been underway since January 2015 but will not have its first full-train test runs until 2028 at the earliest.
— source: https://hsr.ca.gov/high-speed-rail-in-california/central-valley/
So, this project rightfully deserves its scornful title of the “high speed train to nowhere”.
The latest cost estimate to complete just that 171 initial segment is now $35 billion, with a completion date estimate of 2030.
— source: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-03-11/new-cost-estimate-for-high-speed-rail-puts-california-bullet-train-100-billion-in-the-red
— source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_High-Speed_Rail
That’s a phenomenal spend rate of more than $200 million per mile of track, and that’s based on current $ spent to purchase relatively-inexpensive, open land and performing track and overpass/underpass construction on relatively flat terrain involved with the first, simplest phase of construction.
Finally, the California High-Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA) has ceased providing estimates for when the SF-LA HSR system will be complete. But just linearly ratio-ing the estimated first phase progress:
((~500-171) miles/171 miles)*(Dec 2030 – Jan 2015) = 31 years from end-2030, or the year 2062.
Want to guess the impact of inflation on those cost projections, looking some 39 years into the future?
“Even the worst skeptics… “
“the worst”
Words mater.
Yes, climate change is happening, but not because of an increase in CO2, but because of pronounced changes in solar activity. This is a distinct sunspot cycle that has affected climate change many times in history through changes in circulation. Especially in winter, blocking the zonal circulation during weak solar winds is already having visible effects, especially in California. In California, winter this year will be similar to the previous one, with lots of snow in the mountains. Flooding is expected in the lowlands. This is because during times of low solar activity there is a strong blockage of zonal circulation over the western Bering Sea, due to excess ozone in the area.
In my opinion, the chart shows about a two-hundred-year cycle of activity.