Nick Pope
Contributor
The Ukrainian government approved a plan to significantly spur green energy development on Tuesday as its war against Russia continues to drag on, according to Reuters.
Ukrainian officials stated that the development strategy will require about $20 billion in investment to be realized, and will aim to increase the share of the country’s power coming from sources like solar and wind up to 27% by 2030, according to Reuters. Ukrainian energy infrastructure has been hit hard by the ongoing war, and the U.S. government has approved at least $175 billion of assistance to the Ukrainians since Russian forces crossed into Ukrainian territory, according to the Council on Foreign Relations. (RELATED: Pentagon Says $62 Million In Ukraine Weapons Aid Was ‘Lost Or Destroyed’ — But It Doesn’t Know Which)
Specifically, the Ukrainian government is aiming for green energy generation to provide 33% of the power needed for heating and cooling systems, 29% for overall electricity generation and 17% of the power consumed for transportation, according to Reuters. While the government did not disclose what percentage of power demand is currently met by green energy generation, some local media reports have pegged the figure at about 10%.
The war in Ukraine continues to rage nearly two-and-a-half years after it started. Ukrainian forces have broken into Russia’s Kursk region in recent weeks and taken control of Russian territory, showing that the fighting may not wind down any time soon.
The manpower situation for the Ukrainian side has also become an increasingly significant problem, with tens of thousands of soldiers having perished in the war to date. The Ukrainian military has started to send thousands of convicts to the front lines to take up arms in response to its numbers problem.
Russian forces have damaged or otherwise incapacitated approximately half of Ukraine’s energy generation infrastructure with drone attacks and airstrikes over the course of the war, according to Reuters. The country has been forced to rely on solar, wind and nuclear generation, which has caused safety concerns given the potential for the fighting to cause a nuclear incident.
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From the article
“Russian forces have damaged or otherwise incapacitated approximately half of Ukraine’s energy generation infrastructure with drone attacks and airstrikes over the course of the war, according to Reuters. The country has been forced to rely on solar, wind and nuclear generation, which has caused safety concerns given the potential for the fighting to cause a nuclear incident.”
Sounds like a good argument for building more solar and wind.
Solar and wind are as fragile as they are intermittent. This is pure virtue signaling.
“ The country has been forced to rely on solar, wind and nuclear“
That isn’t virtue signalling. Everything else failed.
Yep, the Russians know how to cripple an economy..
Take the RELIABLE fossil fuel supplies of COAL and GAS out of action.
Western countries are doing that to themselves… so stupid !!!
Russia knows that Ukraine cannot do or make anything with just wind and solar.
Russia also knows that it would be silly of them to damage the nuclear plants.
According to the IMF and World Bank, Russian GDP is growing at 4 to 5%/y, despite sanctions.
Exports are up, imports are down, which yields a huge trade surplus
Also, EU companies have moved out and are no longer shipping their profits to the EU
Russia has 18% interest rates to keep growth down.
No wonder, the US/EU would like to take over Russia and break it in pieces to control its resources
I understand that Ukraine has already started a serious effort to “take over” portions of Russia. 😳
History has two relevant operations with regard to the AFU’s attack on Russia – Wacht am Rhein and Citadel. Neither of them was a success for the attacker and were the last throw of the dice on the western and eastern fronts as the equipment lost could never be replaced. In this case it will be the loss of troops that will not be replaced as much as the NATO supplied equipment that has been lost. The UK has no more Challenger 2 tanks to send other than to strip our own army of them. Leopard tanks will also be in short supply. So all this foolhardy expedition that was supposed to capture the Kursk nuclear plant to use as a bargaining chip will do is make it easier for the liberation of the 4 eastern oblasts to be completed – Luhansk is 99% free – and a new fortified line to be built allowing enough space to prevent the Ukraine from shelling the new People’s Republics.
a) Thinking about modern warfare centering on tanks is so WWII-ish! Ukraine receives far more modern defensive and offensive weapons than just tanks, and from nations other than just the UK. Think F-16s, Javelin missiles and MANPADS. Ukraine does remarkable damage to Russian forces on its own just using GPS-enabled small attack drones.
b) Ukraine’s “expedition” (your word) into Russian territory is a brilliant tactical and strategic move . . . it has set fear of war coming into the Motherland into the minds of the common Russian citizen, a very bad development for Putin.
Are you a Trekkie?
Why think about obsolete planes? There’s probably a lot more of cream to skim from throwing them at the best air defences around, compared to the less exciting conventional methods of scrapping, but that’s about it.
This particular advertisement campaign is held in contempt by anyone up to speed and their dogs.
MANPAD in this century are kind of “part of landscape”. They exist, everyone assumes some are probably around, for a long while they did not make any groundbreaking news, and very unlikely to do so anytime soon. Why would it not be so?
As Scott Adams used to say, “your hallucination is noted”.
It didn’t fail it was destroyed. Big difference
No difference at all if your concern is with actually using electricity. You have to find something that works for you.
Wind and solar DO NOT WORK for anybody without 100% back up by RELIABLE supplies.
As you say.. they are being “forced” to use them.
Russia knew that disabling COAL and GAS would cause major issues for electricity supply in Ukraine…
…. Just like it does everywhere else.
Yep … If you want to take away a countries ability to “Actually Use Electricity” you take away the generation sources that “Actually Produce Electricity” and don’t bother wasting military resources on those that produce nothing useful
Really? You had something that worked fine until Putin came in and destroyed it
Typical Nick answer
It doesn’t help to cry unfair. That won’t generate electricity. But wind and solar have been their main source that actually does generate, so it is reasonable to seek to expand them.
Everything else Hasn’t “Failed”, it’s been bombed out of existence by Putin leaving Ukraine with only Part Time Power
THe alternative is no power at all.
BUT…it wasn’t a failure on the part of fossil generation or as you stated everything else. Reliable generation didn’t fail, it was attacked. There’s a difference.
Your claim would be the same as … I dropped a bomb on your house so now you’re stuck in a tent because your house failed
Because centralized powerplants are easier to take down.
Because Centralized power plants are the only power plants capable of powering a modern grid reliably
Destroying centralized power transformer and distribution centers— separate from power plants—is a tactic employed by Russia against Ukraine. That “takes out” electricity supplied by wind and solar plants/farms as well as that supplied by fossil fuel plants.
They still have some nuclear.
Wind and solar are all too often “no power at all”.
YOU would live with that situation, because you are an AGW hypocritical stooge.
YOU rely totally on having COAL and GAS always available.
I try to read and understand what you say Nick. But this comment is puerile, undergraduate level.
See above please, Nick
“Sounds like a good argument for NOT building more solar and wind.”
Solar is easily destroyed even by a few bullets.
Wind turbines would be a prime easy target.
But far better to let the Ukrainians suffer with erratic unreliable power. 🙂
Hitting a nacelle should be easy.
A 50 caliber would quite a mess of the internals, I would guess.
cluster bombs would easily wreck havoc in a solar or wind “farm”
But why waste the ordinance there?
Agreed, they only put out some of the time
Disabling a whole wind farm would be far harder than a coal powerplant.
Yep, nearly impossible to strike their DC transmission interconnection point as Russia has no pinpoint precision ordinance…um…😂
I wonder what damage one of the 3ton glide bombs would do to the windmills or solar panels.
Hail storms do quite remarkable things to Solar Subsidy Farms…No Putin required
Wind and solar ‘generation’ are a prime target for weather, whether the Russians attack them as well or not
Maybe targeting computers keep categorizing these as “circus equipment” or something.
‘Sounds like a good argument for building more solar and wind.’
Sounds like corruption. Too bad for the Bidens that they won’t be in position to get a piece of the $20B.
You underestimate them.
Sounds like the most stupid comment made this week.
Yep.
And where would Ukraine get an extra $20B to spend on frivolous virtue signaling unreliable generation when they need Billion$ for the war effort???
US that’s where
We should ship them some coal. Hard to damage.
Nick,
The article from the Daily Caller is misleading. The original article from Reuters states more realistically:
Would you like another straw to grasp onto?
If planned correctly, it makes it harder to take down completely. Like the internet.
No need to take down something, intermittency does the job for you
An air burst nuke could, without damaging buildings or people, effectively take down internet access through the EM Pulse disruption and it’s ability to destroy electronics
Have you run that by the Pentagon or your local war office for their comment on strategic practicality?
A $1000 winged drone, with a range of 200 miles, can easily knock out a $5 million wind turbine.
Ukraine has lots of wind, similar to the Midwest
The EU plans to build thousands of wind turbines in Ukraine, just as in Texas.
Ukraine will send low-cost electricity to the West to pay off debts
After Russia, Hungary, Rumania, and Poland have retaken their historic lands, Ukraine, with less than $10 million people, as a land-locked nation, will be nothing but a kept whore, selling itself to the highest EU bidder.
Who would live in the Eastern part of Ukraine, which is rapidly becoming totally depopulated and devastated?
A well placed Tornado also wreaks havoc on them
Even a strong breeze can be detrimental
What energy source will be used to construct them?
Russia has laid off nuclear plants for PR reasons (How would the rest of the world react to a strike on a nuclear plant?). They’ve gone after other reliable energy sources first. That’s why they’ve left wind and solar alone (for now).
What Mr. Stokes is really saying is: if your electricity supply is intermittent anyway – as in 3rd world-ish, why not just go wind and solar?
I agree.
Great, we give Ukraine $175 Billion and they squander $20 Billion of it on bullshit.
According to the Reuters source
“ Ukraine will need $20 billion in investments to develop its renewable power sector”
It isn’t government spending.
US government spending..
No-one with any financial sanity will go anywhere near this, without a big dip into that trough of money.
Yep, wind & solar make no sense without government subsidies – in Ukraine as well as the rest of the world.
Why would Russia waste its missiles on wind/solar when they can take out the reliable sources of electricity?
Think about energy density. One good missile shot through the side of a coal or gas-fired plant would remove far more generating capacity than dozens of strikes on individual wind turbines.
That’s excellent advice for Ukraine as it pushes further into Russian territory.
All those turbines connect to the transmission lines through a single source. Simply strike their connection point easy as striking a gas generation facility
But again, why waste the ordinance removing a generation source that’s inherently detrimental to modern society?
rd:
Thank you for making my point.
And see Bryan A’s last sentence [below] – he sums it up well, and substituting “money” for “ordinance” for the rest of the world too.
Think about energy density…and availability… Wind and solar take 4 installations to produce nameplate of 1 installation requiring 4 times the space then require twice that to equal a single nuclear reactor…37,000 acres of solar to produce 1100MW that Nuclear can generate on 10 acres
Ukraine is signaling the EU and US to give and loan money so Ukraine can be green,
one green dollar for a windmill, 9 green dollars in Swiss bank accounts
I’ll just invite you to re-read—more importantly, understand—this phrase in the above article’s second paragraph:
“Ukrainian officials stated that the development strategy will require about $20 billion in investment to be realized . . .”
Did anyone in REAL power ever thought that the current incoherent piece by piece “help” of ukraine could ever provide victory or even an efficacious counter offense, or was the goal to do real world testing of weapons and tactics to advance western understanding of eastern fighting capabilities?
War has been a tool for population control also.
Ukraine will hold off the once mighty Russian army until Putin’s regime collapses. They are doing so.
And they will continue to wrong-foot the geriatric Putinist regime, just as they have done this week.
Unless The US Republicans or Chinese Communist Party intervene on Russia’s behalf. The enemies of the West could could combine, and then the frontline of democracy will be in trouble.
What Ukraine is doing now IN Russia was unthinkable not long ago. Slava Ukraine!
China is watching.
China is already trying to distance itself from russia
https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-economy-all-china-banks-refuse-yuan-ruble-transfers-sanctions-2024-8
Are they really? Or is it simply the “Story” China wants presented to the world regardless?
What have you been smoking?
If the Biden regime actually wanted a rapid ukraine victory, they wouldn’t be so shy and wouldn’t care about the silly claims of a discredited russian regime.
The leader of the free world has been jacking up foreign policy decisions for 5 decades.
There is no person qualified to be called “the leader of the free world”. Reference the word “democracy”.
The goal is to stop a dictator from devouring another nation. And, to test weapons. Multi- purpose.
And think of all the money available to be redirected to the needy billionaires and politicians. Yummy!
If it wasn’t the aim then it has certainly been the outcome. Having expensive fancy bits of kit is great until you have a war that lasts far longer than the little dust ups in the Gulf or Afghanistan when they are being fired in huge numbers. A lot of the NATO kit is obsolescent with the new designs yet to arrive – and when I say ‘new’ they are just iterations of designs that go back to the 80s such a Challenger, Leopard and Abrams. The NATO tanks have been of little use as they are too heavy for the terrain as their design was focussed on the East German plains and beyond, not an area where the rasputiza means glutinous mud Spring and Autumn. At over 60 tons they also have a problem with bridges and Soviet era tank transporters designed for 50 tons. As the Russians moved to a grinding WW1 style of battle, NATO artillery pieces have been outranged but again a lot of them are waiting for new designs to replace them. The UK AS90M is to be replaced and self propelled artillery is vital for shoot n scoot where radar shell tracking sees return fire within minutes.
Ever, certainly. Now, depends on which parts of the real power.
Clown News Network, Poor Yorik Times et al? Sure they did, for a while. Being notoriously semi-literate helped. No better than the infamous Reddit Interbrigade, lol.
After their usual phase of self-referential lunacy, reality on the ground supplied enough of large-scale illustrations for Maxim #47 that it filtered even into the most self-important skulls. Then they began hedging the bets. Right now there’s another BS bubble. But whether it’s genuinely delusional or advertisement, who knows. Most likely a mix of both.
But the oligarchy out of limelights? They know the score after the first delusion bubble popped. From that point on, it’s back to what the Orange Revolution state did best: kickbacks and other money washing. They may be somewhat delusional about things like ability to properly rearm NATO if China chooses to not cooperate.
They will put up a windmill or two and then 19 billion will find its way to Swiss or offshore Banks or NGOs.
probably, unfortunately- it seems everything about green energy is fraudulent- everywhere
So let me understand the logic of this decision taken during war time urgency in Ukraine.
The invading forces of Russia have reduced the power generation capacity to such a degree, the nation’s best option is to build some solar and wind turbine sites to secure future energy supply?
Now I would not claim to be a well honed war strategist, but if the existing discrete energy sites have been taken out by military activities. Why does anyone imagine building new energy sites that are a thousand times more vulnerable to war damage is a good option?
The absurdity of this move is beyond my capacity to fathom. Green growth is the last thing I’d be focused on during a war, but there’s their push to be number one digitally. It sounds like they almost want their infrastructure destroyed so they can receive billions to rebuild.
Ukraine needs to buy about $20 billion worth of diesel generators.
Right, the US/EU will manufacture them during the next 5 years.
It is so much quicker for Ukraine to just steal the money and hide it
Most of Ukraine industry is in the East, which Russia will just hand over, so the US/EU can place d/g sets there?
Biden/Harris spent a lot of money on wind turbine subsidies and almost none of them are built, and there is not even a war on!
When Trump comes in, he will freeze all construction and order an environmental study and economic study, and that will take 4 years while he DRILLS BABY DRILLS.
END OF Biden/Harris BS TO MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN
No, distributed generation is far harder to destroy than single big powerplants. Think of the internet as an example of this.
Stupid analogy.
The Internet doesn’t need to be taken down when removing access to the internet is far easier. Computers, cell phones, iPads tend not to work without power to charge them or power to keep the cell tower antennas functioning
Internet cannot work on erratic unreliable electricity, luser.
Just like your inner city ghetto could not function on erratic unreliable electricity.
One central part of the Internet architecture is the DNS root servers systems, and it’s MASSIVELY overbuilt.
We can’t do that for power plants!
Massive over building is what both Wind and Solar would require if replacing reliable sources due to Capacity Factor alone.
Solar works from 10am until 2pm local time. Solar has a capacity factor of 26% in summer and 10% in winter, less at higher latitudes. Solar requires a 400% over build to produce initial nameplate over a 24 hour period.
Example: Topaz Subsidy (Solar) Farm has a nameplate of 550MW but a capacity factor of 26% so would require an over build of 2200MW (4 times) to produce that 550MW. Topaz covers 4700 acres so would require over building on 18,800 acres to produce the initial 550MW nameplate.
This would still only produce power from 10am until 2pm far from peak demand so to make that power available at peak times would require massive storage to make the generation available at demand.
Wind is only marginally better with an average capacity factor of 40% but this is because the wind is only in the goldilocks zone 40% of the year. The remainder of the time it’s either blowing too hard or too soft…or not at all
And when that is a best case scenario…
Tis sadly true. Sometimes Solar only provides 5% or less over several concurrent days
And Wind can fall into Australia wide high pressure lulls that can last weeks
It would be tactically infeasible to try to destroy solar panels distributed on multiple home rooftops as opposed to those centralized in a solar “farm”. Yet that investment might be reasonable to offset demand on fossil fuel and nuclear power plants in the Ukraine.
I fail to see any absurdity in that logic.
Roof top solar is going to sustain the Ukraine’s ability to keep fighting?
No, but it well might improve the lives of the innocent civilians that have been otherwise destroyed by the war being waged against the Russian invasion.
What? . . . you think they don’t matter?
Of course they “matter”.
But do you really think the $20 billion will be spent on that?
One of rooftop solar’s major selling component is the ability to sell power back to the electric company (spin your meter backwards) as such, Rooftop solar is designed and built to only function when power is coming from the Grid Distribution System. As a safety net, to prevent throwing electricity back into a faulted system, when the distribution system experiences an outage ALL associated rooftop solar systems in the affected area are automatically shut off and produce nothing…to protect people working on deenergized lines.
Once the grid source goes down rooftop solar shuts down and produces nothing
But that’s exactly why. The more money can be spent, the more money can be washed. It’s not like anyone in right mind expects actual utility from these projects.
Remarkably, a CIA whistleblower has admitted the Biden administration and the CIA took out Nordstream.
When German chancellor Olaf Scholz visited Washington on February 7, 2022, Joe Biden warned that “If Russia invades … there will no longer be a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it.”
800 million cubic meters of gas released. Seems like Biden should be charged with a crime against the climate.
BREAKING REPORT: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky Approved Operation to Blow Up the Russian Gas Nord Stream Pipeline to Europe | The Gateway Pundit | by Jim Hoft
Good thing nobody smoking a cigarette near that 800 million cubic meters of gas.
From your link:
““It was then that we understood that the attack on the pipelines was not a deterrent because as the war went on, we never got the command,” Hersh’s source told him. “We realized that the destruction of the two Russian pipelines was not related to the Ukrainian war but was part of a neocon political agenda”
So does this mean that Biden and the Democrats are neocons?
Democrat and Republican are simply flags of convenience for the neocons. To answer your question, Biden and the Democrats are best described as evil.
For Jim Hoft? Why not ask him?
In the Observable Reality? It does not follow, since they are but a TV show. Like WWE. Both the USA Inner Party and USA Outer Party.
Actors in a movie or talking heads with teleprompter on TV may reflect (promote or or obfuscate) someone else’s political agenda, but when merely performing a role set by others they do not have their own agenda.
That’s hilarious, even compared to the rest of damage control.
Where is the money coming from?
That is a good question, perhaps another question worth asking is, where is the money actually going to? Who will receive the benefit of the $20 billion US dollars?
If the Ukrainians start using Solar-Powered Tanks they will be in real trouble.
Now that’s something our military can learn from – given how the Pentagon is now going green. 🙂
Is it possible Ukraine is pandering to the green blobs loan conditions?
That would be my guess. To get the money, they have to build windmills and solar.
$20 billion could go a long way toward beefing air defenses around reliable energy sources.
Why would a country struggling to defend itself against invasion by an autocratic failed socialist state, prostate itself before the alter of the climate doom religion? From the frying pan to the fire.
There is an odor of Biden coercion about this.
With Biden, that might not be coercion you’re smelling
If that planned $20 billion (assumed to be USD) for “green energy development” is less than 10% of Ukraine’s available discretionary spending budget outside of its defense budget, then I’m OK with that.
If it’s more than 10% of Ukraine’s discretionary budget outside of defense, then the US should reduce it annual money sent to aid Ukraine by that overage amount.