By Vijay Jayaraj
During his debate with former President Donald Trump, President Joe Biden claimed: “The only existential threat to humanity is climate change.” What if I told you that it is not climate change but climate policies that are the real existential threat to billions across our planet?
The allure of a green utopia masks the harsh realities of providing affordable and reliable electricity. Americans could soon wake up to a dystopian future if the proposed Net Zero and Build Back Better initiatives — both aimed at an illogical proliferation of unreliable renewables and a clamp down on dependable fossil fuels — are implemented.
Nowhere is this better reflected than in remote regions of India where solar panels — believed to provide clean and green energy — ultimately resulted in being used to construct cattle sheds.
The transformation of Dharnai in the state of Bihar into a “solar village” was marked by great enthusiasm and high expectations. Villagers were told the solar micro-grid would provide reliable electricity for agriculture, social activities and daily living. The promise engendered a naïve trust in a technology that has failed repeatedly around the world.
The news of this Greenpeace initiative quickly spread as international news media showcased it as a success story for “renewable” energy in a third world country. CNN International’s “Connect the World” said Dharnai’s micro-grid provided a continuous supply of electricity. For an unaware viewer sitting in, say, rural Kentucky, solar energy would have appeared to be making great strides as a dependable energy source.
But the Dharnai system would end up on the long list of grand solar failures.
“As soon as we got solar power connections, there were also warnings to not use high power electrical appliances like television, refrigerator, motor and others,” said a villager. “These conditions are not there if you use thermal power. Then what is the use of such a power? The solar energy tariff was also higher compared to thermal power.”
A village shopkeeper said: “But after three years, the batteries were exhausted and it was never repaired. … No one uses solar power anymore here.” Hopefully, the solar panels will last longer as shelter for cows.
Eventually, the village was connected to the main grid, which provided fully reliable coal-powered electricity at a third of the price of the solar power.
Dharnai is not an isolated case. Several other large-scale solar projects in rural India have had a similar fate. Writing for the publication Mongabay, Mainsh Kumar said: “Once (grid) electricity reaches unelectrified villages, the infrastructure and funds used in installation of such off-grid plants could prove futile.”
While green nonprofits and the liberal mainstream media have the embarrassment of a ballyhooed solar project being converted to cattle sheds, conventional energy sources like coal continue to power India’s more than 1.3 billion people and the industries their economies depend on.
India saw a record jump in electricity demand this year, partly due to increased use of air conditioning units and other electrical appliances as more of the population achieved the financial wherewithal to afford them. During power shortages, coal often has come to the rescue. India allows its coal plants to increase coal stockpiles and import additional fuel without restrictions.
India will add more than 15 gigawatts in the year ending March 2025 (the most in nine years) and aims to add a total of 90 gigawatts of coal-fired capacity by 2032.
Energy reality is inescapable in a growing economy like India’s, and only sources such as coal, oil and natural gas can meet the demand. Fossil fuels can be counted on to supply the energy necessary for modern life, and “green” sources cannot.
India’s stance is to put economic growth ahead of any climate-based agenda to reduce the use of fossil fuels. This was reaffirmed when the country refused to set an earlier target for its net zero commitment, delaying it until 2070.
The story of Dharnai serves as a cautionary tale for the implementation of renewable energy projects in rural India, where pragmatism is the official choice over pie in the sky.
This commentary was first published at Daily Caller on July 10, 2024.
Vijay Jayaraj is a Research Associate at the CO2 Coalition, Arlington, Virginia. He holds a master’s degree in environmental sciences from the University of East Anglia, U.K., and a postgraduate degree in energy management from Robert Gordon University, U.K.
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Years ago I toured a solar powered off the grid house in Door County, WI. The owner said this power isn’t cheap, and everything that can be powered by something else besides electricity is. That meant gas stove, gas water heater, gas dryer, wood stove for heat and no air conditioning. And required maintenance for the bank of golf cart batteries and back up generator. High power devices like toasters and hair dryers must be used sparingly. I’m pretty sure he had a TV set. This was back in the ’90s that I toured that house. So it can be done, but you have to understand the limitations.
Not recommended for hair drying.
They plan to have 500GW of renewables by 2030…
Excluding solar, it seems.
According to the IEA India awarded licenses to 87 coal mines between 2020 and 2023 and considered a further 106 in 2023. It is increasing investment in coal to USD 15bn in 2024.
It also has a net zero target of 2070.
Nice to set a target 46 years in the future.
Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.
I plan to be a billionaire next year.
Capacity or output? Or do you still not understand the difference?
I plan to have my book written by 2030. That won’t happen, either. Shame, great piece of fiction pulling together many disparate facts. Too bad I’m a lousy writer.
And given capacity factors, that 500GW will produce around 125-135GW while demand will soar with EV requirements and associated recharging capacity
India plan to dramatically increase their coal consumption. They have just completed a resource survey and arrived at 361Gt.
https://coal.gov.in/en/major-statistics/coal-reserves
At present rate, that will keep them going for 300+years but they will probably end up exceeding 4Gt per year similar to China now. So current known resource gets them to end of this century.
China maintains about a 30 year inventory of coal reserves but resource estimates gets them more than 1000 years. That is a lot of coal to burn through.
Only scammers believe atmospheric CO2 is harmful. It is wonderful news that India and China are returning more of the molecule of life to the atmosphere
And only idiots believe CO2 levels will drop or even stabilize if/when western nations curtail emissions
Reality. She is a harsh and unforgiving bitch.
and she revels in mugging morons 🤬
As long as it’s a Cluster Mugging and gets televised and posted on social media
i guess the economic benefit just wasn’t enough, huh?
The sun is free…all the other stuff is expensive and subject to failure!
Yeah, renewables are like lunches in that regard –
neither are free.
We need to force all the climate protesters to live in an all renewable village and see how long they last. The sad part about these failures is “we told you so”.
There aren’t any “all renewable villages” in reality.
Not so. there are all renewable villages all over the sub-continent (India Pakistan, Bangladesh). They have no electricity and their sole source of energy is cattle. They use oxen for transportation and dried dung patties to burn for cooking and heat.
probably some wood too, occasionally
The trees were chopped down years ago. I was in India before the plague, I saw them making the cow pies.
With zero petrochemical derived products
No plastics
No synthetic Rubber tires
No plastic wire insulation
No make-up
No ink
No synthetics
No fertilizer
No prescriptions
None of the remaining other 6000+ products derived from petrochemicals either
As a funny aside
We want to do away with plastic straws.
Plastic Straws are wrapped in paper
Paper Straws are wrapped in plastic
Move all the alarmists and their sycophants to Neom. Then cut off all outside resource sourcing. They can have their utopia free of us who live in reality.
20 years off the grid on solar power taught us the problem is low efficiency, clouds, night, costs and battery replacement. Other than that….
reminds me of the hippy communes- they were going to live in peace and be groovy- there were several here in Wokeachusetts- of course they all failed sooner or later
Half of Indians use fields as toilets. Many women are attacked and raped going to and from said fields…
“”India’s long, dark and dangerous walk to the toilet””. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-28039513
They need fossil fuelled development.
Since the year 2000 “Solar” electricity production has increased from 7 GWh (0.007 TWh) to 113.4 TWh last year, according to the Energy Institute (ex-BP “Statistical Review of World Energy” dataset.
That’s (just over) 16 thousand times more in a mere 23 years !
“Coal”, on the other hand, could “only” manage a x3.77 multiplier over the same period (~390 TWh to ~1470 TWh).
Zooming in on the bottom-right-hand corner of the attached graph we can clearly see that “Solar” electricity production will overtake “Hydro” to become India’s second-largest source of electricity any year now.
Overtaking “Coal” is just a matter of time !
.
.
.
[ Insert multiple “sarcasm” HTML tags here ]
Another misleading graph (I know it’s not yours) right up there with the faux hokey stick graph. Note that on a quick visual glance it misleadingly looks like “wind” is right up there with coal. Also note on closer inspection that “Wind” is plotted on the right-hand axis and maxes out at about 45 TWh. if it were plotted with all of the others at the scale of the left-hand axis it wouldn’t even show up.
It’s adequate for fooling innumerate Politicians, which is its purpose.
the RH scale is in GW and shows only the installed (nameplate capacity) of wind and solar.
All actual outputs are shown in TWh on the left hand scale. Wind and solar are effectively irrelevant in terms of both absolute output and output growth rate.
My bad. You’re right, I missed that (guess I need to learn how to read graphs too). But as you point out that’s even worse.
Just out of curiosity, Oh Wise One, how can you possibly “know” that the above graph is “not mine” ?
You will, obviously, be able to supply a link (/ reference) to the webpage (/ peer-reviewed scientific paper) that I allegedly “plagiarised” … won’t you ?
.
As “James Snook” noted you managed to miss that my dashed lines were (nominal / nameplate / faceplate) “capacity” numbers, in GW on the right-hand axis.
To be fair, my “first draft” graphs do tend to be “data dense”, and it takes several iterations to strip them down to the “fundamental” issues for each specific case.
In the original graph the “Solar capacity” line is basically zero until 2010, then rises rapidly. It jumps from~69 MW (0.069 GW) to ~569 MW (0.569 GW) in 2011, before rising steadily thereafter to just over 73 GW in 2023.
OK … lets remove the “capacity” numbers, i.e. the dashed lines, to (slightly) reduce the possibility for confusion, and start the graph at 2010 so we can better see how things have evolved for the Indian electricity grid(s) since then.
Also, lets replace the “Total” line with a “Total – Coal” line instead, which allows us to “zoom in” vertically as well (the upper Y-axis limit goes from 2000 [TWh] to 1500, a reduction of 25%) …
The resulting “second draft” graph is attached below.
Note that the “Solar” generation number in 2010 was ~113 GWh (0.113 TWh), which rose to ~113.4 TWh in 2023 … an almost exact 1000-fold increase !
“Coal”, on the other hand, rose from ~643 TWh in 2010 to “only” ~1470 TWh in 2023, a “mere” x2.3 multiple.
Any (constructive !) comments for how either of these graphs could be “improved / simplified / clarified / …” for a third iteration ?
At the time of writing there is a net “minus three” score on the post I’m “Reply”-ing to.
There are zero rebuttals (/ proposed alternatives / links to the “correct” data / …).
This means that at least three people took the time and effort to log in, which must be done before clicking on the “-” (or “+”) buttons .. and then simply logged back out again without further “explanation” …
Have the courage of your convictions, and the courtesy of saying why you found that post so objectionable that you “had to” log in and click in the “-” button, but not so objectionable that you were sufficiently motivated to put in the time and effort required to perform a “thorough debunking”.
.
PS : Exceptionally a “Level 5 : Responding to Tone [ / Posting Style ]” response will be considered, though not necessarily responded to in turn … as long as you provide a concrete example of what the post should have looked like instead.
“Hitchens razor”, however, will definitely be applied to Level 4 (Contradiction without supporting evidence), 6 (Ad Hominem) and 7 (Name Calling / Abuse) responses.
Look….no joke….anyway….the existential threat is Joke Biden…no joke….our long national nightmare is near end…4 months to election anf 6 months till he’s outta here!
Repeat the line.
Source for that quote:
“YOU walk to podium”
They don’t even know the difference between a podium (something you stand on, like when winning an Olympic medal) and a Lectern(something you walk TO in order to give a speech.)
https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/wait-are-you-saying-a-podium-is-the-same-thing-as-a-lectern
Heh. THEY probably do, but, well, you know the thing. Come on, man!
(Source: https://www.axios.com/2024/07/07/biden-staff-events-prepare)
Don’t bet on it… the thieves are still at it.
Trump may switch back to being a Democrat, the head of the party.
He’s changed political parties 6 times already.
They are just a tool for him to get what he wants.
Trump left with one of the worst economic performances since the Great Depression, 1 percent growth and 6 percent unemployment. That’s a big reason why he wasn’t reelected.
Biden shouldn’t run either. The senior Democrats are trying to get him not to run again.
You are an idiot with deep-seated TDS. !
Trump may switch back to being a Democrat, the head of the party.
I’ve said it before – if you believe that, you are delusional.
The top photo does not appear to be the actual site of the Dharnai solar facility, that is here:
25.012836, 84.978479
Looks like about the size you might see on a virtue-seeking western mansion. !
Yes! Die, solar, die!
Re: Dharnai
Today, paddy straw is piled up around the project, which is now being used to shelter cattle, according to Mongabay-India. In addition, solar panels are covered in dust and rods supporting the green tech are heavily-rusted.
https://dailycaller.com/2022/05/15/greenpeace-solar-farm-india-cattle-shed-renewable-energy/
Is Dharnai the village where a few weeks after the Greenpeace solar project was installed, the villagers rioted because they wanted “proper electricity”?
Essentially, yes.
At the now defunct project site, the villagers told Mongabay-India that when Nitish Kumar came to inaugurate the project, some people protested against it, demanding grid-connected electricity or asli bijli (‘real’ power) rather than solar energy which they termed as nakli bijli (‘fake’ electricity).
(Source: https://india.mongabay.com/2021/12/solar-power-station-at-bihars-first-solar-village-is-now-a-makeshift-cattle-shed/ )
That’s the one Janice.
Don’t you just love the villagers’ non-ideological, non-agenda driven summation of solar power –
“fake electricity”
It’s like that common observation about what innocent children say –
“from the mouths of babes . . . “
Yes!
Solar in combination with cooking on gas is providing a solution for power shortages for us here in South Africa. Just saying.
https://breadonthewater.co.za/2023/12/01/south-africans-are-kissing-eskom-goodbye/
Solar is GREAT
For running a calculator
For camping
For recharging batteries
For places where the grid isn’t accessible
Solar alone is practically useless as it only produces energy when demand is low 10am-2pm
When no-one needs lighting
When no-one needs to cook
To make the energy available when needed Solar Needs Battery and battery needs greater solar capacity to fully recharge after depletion in the 4 hours solar is available
Or
You do without…
…A/C
…Acceptable lighting levels indoors
…A refer that can store much food
…An electric Range
…An electric heater
…Anything needing Grid Connection to function
As in most developing countries, reliable and inexpensive energy sources take precedence over whatever threats are posed by climate change.
I can guarantee that more coal went into making those solar panels and batteries than they would have reduced in their short operating life.
Solar panels in a dispatchable power network with battery firming need to last at least 200 years to save coal.
More good news. These CAGW clowns need to be called out for the lying cheats that they are.
This was one village. They had no access to electricity until Greenpeace, as an aid project, installed a solar system so they could at least have lighting. That was about ten years ago. They have since gained access to the grid.
It is not the story of India, where solar continues to rapidly increase, as it should:
“The punishment / disappointment will continue until morale improves”
Is that the plan for India’s rural villages, Nick
It was an aid project. Greenpeace is not responsible for electricity supply, but they did what they could when there was no alternative. Who else was helping?
Why did Greenpeace not help to connect Dharnai to the Indian grid? Do the villagers deserve to suffer from à feeble, intermittent power supply?
Did the villagers deserve to suffer from no power at all? Greenpeace did something to help.
Greenpeace absolutely nothing to help the villagers as an intermittent and unreliable electricity supply is utterly worthless. However, I’m sure the action made the Greenpeace people feel good about themselves, which was the aim.
Read my comment again and answer the question, you patronising little ####.
So you would have them suffer from unreliable, unusable, intermittent non-supply.
What a JOKE. !
I guess at least Greenpeace provided them with cattle pens. !
Did the villagers know what they were missing before Greenpeace showed up to “Help”?
I’d wager they were happier pre greenpeace
Premise 1: “Renewable” energy production by solar panel installations is intermittent and unreliable.
Premise 2: India should install solar panels
Conclusion (Nick’s): India should have intermittent and unreliable power generation.
Sunlight is plentiful and free.
like lunches, nothing is free, Nick
So is your imbecility
Dunce doesn’t understand logic, epistemology, metaphysics, and ought/should statements.
✅
Nick Stokes
Reply to
0perator
July 13, 2024 4:42 pm
Harvesting it is damn expensive and real estate hungry while storing it until it’s needed is really cost prohibitive and mineral intensive
But collecting it in any usable form is VERY expensive.
And you are well aware of that fact.
That means you are deliberately being a deceitful, disingenuous a***hole as usual.
Nick, 81,813 MW capacity would produce ~ 24,500 MW of actual delivered power?
On the basis of the estimate that 1 MWh of energy can sustain 1000 homes for one hour, 24.5k homes can get an hour’s electricity from the 81.8MW installed capacity.
But if each home wants to use electricity for say 18 hours a day, does that mean that the 81.8MW capacity only serves 1,364 homes in total with “proper electricity”?
(please check my numbers, I don’t claim to be expert in the field of utility-scale electricity generation, storage, transmission).
I think you’ve lost a factor of 1000. Australia generates from all sources about 32000 MW average.
OK thanks for checking my numbers Nick.
So how many Indian homes will be supplied with 18 hours a day electricity from 81,813 MW capacity, which for solar equates to (81.3 / 3 = 27.1MW) dispatchable?
Well, roughly the population of Australia, if they used the same amount per capita (which they won’t).
The only way they could use Solar for 18 hours a day is to have sufficient battery storage available to hold 14 hours worth of supply because the sun only produces recoverable “Free Energy” from 10am until 2pm (4 hours a day) and not the 18 hours a day its needed
is that for a whole day at a time, or just for 1 hour?
81,813MW is 81.8GW
yes, thanks Bryan.
My decimals settings clearly need attention.
Let’s just please reduce my question to this basic one –
how many Indian homes will be supplied with 18 hours a day electricity from 81,813 MW solar capacity?
(and let’s for the purpose of numbers assume that the sun is shining directly overhead for 24 hours a day, since that’s what “capacity” claims do)
Given the current Indian population of 1.471B that would be enough to supply electricity to less than 1%
Thanks again Bryan.
So the solar installed capacity “wow!” number that Nick posted is more in the nature of a rounding error in India’s power requirements.
Ayup, about covers it … Quite succinctly too
Bloomberg’s Green Energy Research Teams estimates that the cost of stopping warming by 2050 is $US 200 Trillion, investors want $275 Trillion spent.
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2023-07-05/-200-trillion-is-needed-to-stop-global-warming-that-s-a-bargain
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-09-21/investors-call-for-policy-unleashing-275-trillion-for-net-zero
There are 2 billion families in the world so using the $200 trillion figure that means $100,000 per family.
Around 90 percent of the families in the world can’t afford anything additional so that means the families in the developed world will have to pay $1 million each to stop warming.
Almost all families, even in the developed world, would rather have a degree or two of warming and $1 million extra in the bank.
You could install 100,000,000MW of solar CAPACITY and you would still get zero output after 4pm AND would need vast quantities of Massive Battery Capacity to store that energy until its needed cause…Solar Don’t Supply when Demand is High
LOL.. They had no way of accessing USABLE RELIABLE electricity until they were connected to the grid.
“so they could at least have lighting”
Until the batteries died in 3 years…. then THEY DIDN’T !
You wouldn’t try to exist just on erratic, useless solar, but you expect them to.
You do you HATE the people of Inda so much ??
According to the IEA ‘s ‘World Energy Investment 2024’
India is the world’s second largest coal producer and consumer and could well overtake China to become the largest coal importer because it can’t develop its own coal mines fast enough.
You don’t understand South Australia’s stunning proof of concept-
South Australia’s renewable triumph is stunning proof that Dutton’s nuclear plans are a folly | RenewEconomy
it is remarkable how little is actually known about the achievements of South Australia beyond its borders. Already it is at an annual average of 70 per cent renewables, and by 2027 it intends to be the first in the world to reach 100 per cent net renewables primarily through wind, solar and storage.
…but there’s more you numpties don’t fully understand-
Just to be clear, that does not mean that it will consume only renewables. “Net” means that the amount of power it produces from wind and solar during the year will be equivalent to the amount it consumes. But it will still export and import as needs must.
Yeah that’s the bit about interconnectors to Vic brown coal and the budget overrun interconnector going soon to Hunter black coal while Vic and NSW emulate the proof of concept too.
Diesel.
You didn’t mention S.A.’s fleet of diesel generators.
(cost of them is of course “commercial in confidence”)
A minor detail below the line and they’re just there to facilitate the syncons and smart meters
Not to mention that SA is a tiny demand that doesn’t really produce anything worthwhile except very good wines !
Wind is low at the moment on the NEM, and their battery won’t last more than an hour or so,..
… so I’m guessing the diesel gennies will be starting up as soon as the sun goes down.
Diesel is, of course, totally renewable.
Just order in another tanker load. ! 🙂
LOL.
SA now (6pm) now using more DIESEL (13%) and wind (9%)… GAS (67%)
…. some battery (12%) still going, but it can’t last much longer.