by Russ Schussler (Planning Engineer)
Prequel to “Unravelling the narrative supporting a green energy transition.”
There is a powerful but misleading narrative supporting a green energy transition. A follow up piece will look more broadly at the general narrative supporting a transition to net zero. This prequel will provide some detail on a few components of the energy narrative and how this misleading narrative was established. The green energy narrative works somewhat like a magician’s patter, overemphasizing many things of irrelevance and distracting the audience from the important things going on. Misdirection ensures small truths are misinterpreted and magnified, leading to completely unrealistic hopes and expectations.
Misleading green narratives often start with Academics. As I noted here:
Overwhelmingly the academic articles I read are good. Usually, the authors carefully describe the limitations of their findings and recommendations. Sometimes they hint as to what remains to be worked out. I’m afraid this does not stop individuals, the media, and some policy makers from ignoring the qualifications and limitations inherent in their findings. The situation is worse when they leave it to the reader to ferret out the limitations of their findings. In very rare instances some academics will go beyond what has been demonstrated with exaggerated claims. I don’t know if this is done through ignorance, accident, hubris or for purposes of self-advancement.
For example, there have been many simple studies examining how much energy might be produced by a green resource, or set of green resources, such as wind and solar power. These studies ignore important issues such as deliverability, timing, reliability and costs. Based on simple studies the media, activists and policy makers frequently conclude that such resources can be used near universally on a large scale to provide electric service to consumers effectively, efficiently and economically.
Slightly more sophisticated studies or demonstrations will look at additional factors beyond potential availability of energy. But typically, not enough relevant factors to justify the hope and expectations they engender. Justifying a green energy transition requires that multiple critical factors all be compared in the same assessment. For example, looking at what reliability levels might be achieved without considering potential costs cannot inform policy makers as to the feasibility of such options. Similarly looking at potential costs without considering the reliability impacts of the resources does not provide sufficient guidance either. Millions of incomplete studies looking at various needs divorced from other critical needs when studied, cannot later be combined to provide the big picture needed for a major green transition.
As with the magician’s patter, the spun narrative saying “look here” at isolated “facts” distracts the audience from what is hidden. Mechanisms of narrative control and misdirection support the green energy narrative as well. A magician will make quite a showing that the levitating lady is not supported from below. He will then go on to focus your attention as he shows there is no support from the side. Concluding will show you clearly there is no support from above. But rest assured the whole time she is supported and not floating. The means of support shifts as the magician goes through his patter. In the green energy narrative costs have been demonstrated, environmental impacts have been demonstrated, reliability has been demonstrated, deliverability has been demonstrated and all shown to possibly work, BUT NOT AT THE SAME TIME. In the eyes of many, such demonstrations cumulatively strengthen the green energy narrative. However, the gullible audience will be shocked when wind, solar and batteries are not at all well suited to support electric generation on their own.
The green energy narrative may be losing steam at this point, leaving many to wonder, “why is that movement stalling when this narrative is so compelling?” This piece and the follow up will provide some explanation as to why the narrative is not what it appears to be. This “prequel” posting will now highlight three tricks of the green energy narrative: misleading language, false problem and narrative control.
Misleading Language
It’s often not possible to know what is being claimed for various green alternatives because of vagaries in the language employed. There are crucial differences between installed capacity, effective capacity and firm capacity. However, it’s not uncommon to see references only to similar capacity levels when comparing installed wind capacity to firm hydro capacity. Costs can be referenced as fixed, variable, incremental, sunk, avoidable, O&M, lifetime and more. It’s not uncommon to see comparisons of resources where the type of cost being compare is not specified and even in some cases where resources are compared on using incompatible cost comparisons. There are many misleading uses of language that could be referenced, but perhaps the term “renewable” itself is one of the most misleading bits of language advancing the green agenda.
All “renewable” options have a variety of pros and cons. In terms of providing reliable power that supports the grid, hydro power is a great resource. Hydro dams are among the strongest resources on the grid for serving challenging loads but they cannot be conveniently located in most cases. In terms of the environment and ecosystems, hydro raises serious concerns for many. Biomass too, provides good support but it also is plagued by environmental concerns. The availability of geothermal plants, another grid supporting resource, is severely limited and some take issue with them because they emit CO2. Wind, solar and batteries are usually seen as less environmentally challenging. Additionally, many areas can harness some wind and solar more readily than hydro or geothermal energy. Unfortunately, these resources do not readily support the grid.
Different “renewable” resources have vastly differing capabilities. There is vast potential to develop some ‘renewables”. Some “renewables do a great job supporting the grid. Some “renewables” have low energy costs in some areas. Some “renewables” are environmentally sound in some areas. No matter how well individual “renewable” resources might be combined to tick off all the boxes of importance, that doesn’t mean that any combination of “renewable” resources can be found that will work well for any given area. It means little that hydro and geothermal provide excellent support for the grid in an area where you can only add wind and solar. Similarly, just because solar and wind have potential environmental benefits that doesn’t cancel out environmental concerns around hydro in delicate ecosystems.
The green energy transition hopes to obtain high penetration levels of seemingly generic “renewables”. Unfortunately, for most areas, there are no compatible combinations that at any significantly high penetration level that can provide affordable, environmentally responsible energy in a reliable manner. Referring broadly to what “renewables” can and might do, serves to hide this inconvenient truth.
For further information, these positing discuss in more detail the confusion introduced by the term “renewables” and how that serves to unduly bolster the narrative: Time to retire the term ‘renewable energy’ from serious discussion and energy policy directives , Part II and Part 3. These postings concluded with this observation:
The terms renewable and nonrenewable command a lot of undeserved power and influence with the public and policy makers. Rather than educating and informing, they often serve to confuse and misdirect energy policy. More sophisticated understandings around what is clean, green, sustainable, environmentally sound and workable are needed. The renewable/nonrenewable dichotomy is hurting our ability to move forward with potentially valuable workable technologies and giving too big a boost to poorly thought-out boondoggles.
The False Problem – Intermittency is not THE problem for Wind and Solar
It is a fallacy to assume that because part or some of the difficulties associated with a technology can be overcome, that therefore all of the problems associated with a technology can be overcome. Worst case for a “partial solutions fallacy” is when a major problem is hidden by presenting a minor problem as the major stumbling block. Primarily focusing on the minor problem incorrectly implies that there will be smooth sailing once this solvable problem is overcome by hiding the large problem.
To implement a green transition bolstered by heavy wind and solar, all associated problems must be addressed. The major problem associated with wide-scale use of these resources cannot be ignored.
The real problem is that wind, solar and batteries do not readily provide essential reliability services and support the grid. Most of the talk is around addressing intermittency through batteries and other storage approaches. Misdirection here focuses on intermittency, the smaller problem, while ignoring the major problem.
The intermittency of wind and solar certainly produce challenges for a green energy transition. These challenges are likely not insurmountable ones. I have written on the problems of intermittency and how accommodating the impacts of wind and solar will raise costs and lower reliability above projections. These assessments have been proven correct over the intervening years. Yes, intermittency can be addressed through storage and backup, albeit at substantial costs and complexity. The long-term problems associated with wind and solar due to their intermittency could and may likely be made manageable with improved technology and decreasing costs. But such changes will not make wind, solar and batteries comparable to more conventional generating resources, such that they can play a large role in a green energy transition, because the large problem is not intermittency.
Overcoming intermittency though complex and expensive resource additions at best gets us around a molehill which will leave a huge mountain ahead. Where will grid support come from? Wind, solar and batteries provide energy through an electronic inverter. In practice, they lean on and are supported by conventional rotating machines. Essential Reliability Services include the ability to ramp up and down, frequency support, inertia and voltage support. For more details on the real problem see this posting. “Wind and Solar Can’t Support the Grid” describes the situation and contains links to other past postings provide greater detail on the problems.
The green energy narrative is misleading in presenting intermittency as the major problem and implying that as we address this problem, wind and solar become comparable resources to more conventional generating resources. The green energy narrative hides the problems of asynchronous inverter-based generation when it can, and minimizes the concerns around this technology when it can’t.
When forced to confront the fact that inverter-based generation causes problems, the green response is that inverter technology can be made to perform “like” conventional rotating generation. “Like” will not be near good enough in the foreseeable future. As the real problem becomes more apparent, the narrative falls back on misleading language to further hide the real problem.
Narrative Control – Shameless Hucksterism and the Media
The green energy narrative is propelled by stories of success. Often these “successes” are very different from what seemed to be represented. We see great stories of planned projects that should do wonderful things, but they go down the memory hole as they prove not to work out. We see incomplete stories where they talk of power generated but not of associated costs or how much better other alternatives might have been. There is no shortage of examples relating to the green overhype that we could examine. Here is a recent one that I’ve been seeing advanced a lot lately: seven countries now use renewables for 100% of their energy. The narrative uses this story to tell us we can do the green transition. Let’s look a little deeper at what is really going.
Under the Headline that “Seven countries now use renewable energy for 100% of their electricity”, the UN’s Renewable Energy Institute bolstered by fluff, from a Stanford Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering. makes the claim that:
Recent data has shown that in 2022, countries including Albania, Paraguay, Ethiopia & Nepal produced more than 99.7% of the electricity they consumed using geothermal, hydro, solar and wind power marking what scientists say is an “irreversible tipping point” that will see fossil fuels phased out.
An “irreversible tipping point” in “renewable” energy is quite a claim. Before buying into this “irreversible tipping point, let’s take a cursory look at those seven countries.
- Albania – 98% hydro, 2% solar PV.
- Paraguay, – 99+% from hydro dams. They sell excess hydro power to their neighbors.
- Ethiopia – 96% hydro. Rest is mostly wind.
- Nepal – 98.6% hydro 1.4% solar. Non-electric burning of biofuels prevalent.
- Bhutan 100% hydro.
- Iceland 75% hydro 24.5 Geothermal.
- Congo 100% hydro (only 20% of population has access to electricity)
Iceland stands out by being the only nation with geothermal, which make up almost a quarter of their energy supply. This is not surprising as geography greatly limits geothermal opportunities. Albania and Nepal are the only countries with solar making any significant contribution, at around the 2% level. Solar irradiation in these countries ranges from good to high. Ethiopia alone has a significant contribution to electric generation from wind at around 4%. Despite several other countries within this group having excellent potential for wind, they are not taking advantage it. I suspect the advancement of wind in Ethiopia may have more to do with the interest and goals of players in the international community, like France and China, rather than the interests of Ethiopians whose future generations have been saddled by considerable debt to pay for these large foreign sponsored wind projects.
The above headline talks about how these countries get 99.7% of their electricity from geothermal, hydro, solar, and wind power. Without the spin, collectively those countries get close to 99% of their energy from rotating synchronous geothermal and hydro resources and less that 2% of their combined electric energy from wind and solar. The fact that some countries have high amounts of hydro, does not provide evidence that we are approaching a tipping point involving wind and solar. In fact, one could observe that high levels of renewable penetration are associated with low levels of wind and solar.
Let’s focus on the main commonality of hydro power. The base technology is not new and many do not consider large dams to be green. Untapped potential for hydro is largely limited in the developed world. First world countries saw their explosion of hydro dams between the 1930s and 1970s. Reliable power from hydro dams likely will improve lives and economic conditions within these developing countries. But it’s quite a stretch to suggest that their development in third world countries offer any optimism for “renewables” in say California, where they are reverting to older water flow patterns by destroying hydro dams and seeking to replace the energy with expanded wind, solar and batteries.
It should be clear and well known to anyone in the energy or renewable arena that there is hardly any wind generation found within these seven countries. But this wind energy trade association headlines the developments in these seven countries anyway. Somehow, they begin a push for more wind power with bolstering from these seven countries. As a transition they then bring in Norway with a hydro/wind mix. (Readers should note – Norway has only around 5% wind. Additionally, when you look at the total grid which Norway is only a part, the percentage of wind declines even further. Serving sub-components of a grid with high levels of inverter-based generation does not support any claims that an entire grid can have a similarly sized portion of inverter-based generation.) The posting then shamelessly mirrors the magician’s patter to go on about “renewables” and their generic capability, as if that were really a thing. Rounding out, they then talk about how much wind is being installed worldwide in completely different countries. It’s all bunched together in a jumble claiming that we are somehow moving together in the right direction to fight climate change, ending with a plea that the wind permitting process should be made easier.
Six developing countries using basic technology over a century old, joined with Iceland to approach targets nearing 100% “renewable” energy. This somehow is a bellwether for increasing wind and solar? It’s not a substantive argument, just a bunch of disjointed information in a jumble. But unfortunately. the quality of green arguments usually doesn’t matter. Much of the public and even policy makers gobble that stuff up despite the lack of rigor underling the arguments. Glowing headlines of advancements are shared all over social media. In the end, although low on meaningful evidence. it all propels the green energy narrative while feeding hope and increasing expectations. Confidence is built and the committed grow more committed.
Conclusion
It is becoming increasingly apparent that wind, solar and batteries when pursued at high penetration levels result in high costs, lower reliability and poorer operational outcomes. Expectations from the green energy narrative and real-world results are not consistent and this gulf will continue to widen as long as policy makers continue to reflexively buy into the green energy narrative. This piece has attempted to illuminate some of the mechanisms that served to produce and sustain the exceedingly and overly high expectations for a green transition. The narrative was built upon these and other various deceptions to provide disinformation and hide the real-world challenges. Such methods continue to be employed with increasing frequency. The follow to this piece up will more systemically examine the components of the green energy narrative and raise many items of critical importance considerations that the green energy narrative ignores.
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Shine enough light and the cockroaches WILL scatter
It only matters if enough people see and understand what is going on.
We don’t want them to scatter… they need to be squashed and obliterated. !
I remain to be convinced that the challenge of intermittency can be solved, not at any realistic cost, or in a way compatible with a modern first-world economy.
For the UK alone, it’s likely we’d need somewhere between 25 – 100 TWh of storage simply to meet current demand, at a cost of perhaps $7.5 – $30 TRILLION, i.e. 3 – 10 times the annual GDP, absent some radical new “Star Trek” technology, that isn’t even on the horizon, and would likely make wind/solar redundant anyway, this is clearly not feasible.
And this is the smaller problem!
Eric,
I agree, intermittency is the hardest hurdle to overcome.
However, inertia and reactive power requirements can be met by synthetic means but inertia particularly, how much power will be required to drive these much touted flywheel devices. I don’t know but feel for them to replace conventional inertia will take a lot of power and very many such devices. Possible, maybe, expensive, certainly and effective, I’m not so sure.
How much overbuild of capcity would be need for a 100% wind and solar grid to ensure that storage be sufficient to provide the power for these flywheels.
Quite a large amount I would say and then at what reliability?
Pie in the sky is my view and then there still willl be intermittency.
“How much overbuild of capacity would we need for a 100% wind and solar grid to ensure that storage be sufficient to provide the power for these flywheels.”
“Rube Goldberg” comes to mind.
The best laid plans of mice and Climate Alarmists often go awry.
New England would need a minimum of 10 TWh of DELIVERABLE electricity from batteries to the HV grid, and a sufficient capacity, MW, of wind and solar systems, supplemented by batteries, as needed, and charging batteries, as needed, to meet 2024 demand 24/7, throughout the year
Tesla recommends not charging to more than 80% full and not discharging to less than 20% full, to achieve normal life of 15 years and normal aging.
The INSTALLED battery capacity would need to be 100 TWh / (0.6,Tesla factor x aging factor x 0.9, outage factor) = 180 TWh, delivered as AC at battery outlet, at a turnkey cost of about $600/ kWh, delivered as AC at battery outlet, 2024 pricing.
THE ANNUAL ACHIEVABLE THROUGHPUT IN REAL LIFE IS AT MOST 40%
Revised comment
NEW ENGLAND 100% WIND AND SOLAR?
New England would need a minimum of 10 TWh of DELIVERABLE electricity from batteries to the HV grid, and a sufficient capacity, MW, of wind and solar systems to serve demand 24/7/365
.
Batteries would supplement wind and solar, as needed, 24/7/365
Wind and solar would charge excess output into the batteries, 24/7/365
.
Tesla recommends not charging to more than 80% full and not discharging to less than 20% full, to achieve normal life of 15 years and normal aging at 1.5%/y.
.
The INSTALLED battery capacity would need to be at least 10 TWh / (0.6, Tesla factor x aging factor x 0.9, outage factor) = 18.5 TWh, delivered as AC at battery outlet.
.
The turnkey cost would be about $600/installed kWh, delivered as AC at battery outlet, 2024 pricing, or $600/kWh x 18.5 billion kWh = $11,1 billion, about every 15 years.
.
THE ANNUAL ACHIEVABLE THROUGHPUT IN REAL LIFE IS AT MOST 40%
At 40% throughput, the cost of sending electricity through the batteries is about 38 c/kWh, 2024 pricing
.
This is on top of the cost of wind and solar going through the battery.
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/battery-system-capital-costs-losses-and-aging
The reactive power requirements could be partly achieved by sizing the inverter to have a peak MVA capacity several time larger than it’s normal MVA production. The inertia requirements could be met with banks of ultra-capacitors or batteries with high short term power capacity on the DC link side of the inverters. Simulating short circuit behavior of a rotating machine will be a significantly more difficult problem, but is necessary as the protective relays depend on that behavior to detect faults and open the circuit breaker.
N.B. In power systems lingo, a “relay” is more of sensor emitting signal when certain conditions are met as opposed to an electrically controlled switch.
What Russ didn’t touch on was the need for generation to adjust output power to maintain frequency, which in many cases needs to be done at the node where the specific generation is attached to the grid. Related to this is that the output from a wind or solar plant can vary rapidly which then stresses the grid. IMHO, any large scale wind or solar plant should be required to have about 2 hours of energy storage to accommodate frequency support and smooth facility output.
Grid stability could be improved with battery chargers responding to rapid changes in frequency, with the emphasis on reducing power consumption when frequency drops.
Is there available space to accommodate all of these “synthetic” devices coupled with their “renewable” tormentors.
“And this is the smaller problem!”
Let us not forget in these discussions that the bigger “problem” is supposed to be that of rising CO2 in the atmosphere, not reliable affordable energy.
Therefore every project should be evaluated by its effect on this:
One can call it an intermittency problem… because the storage problem can’t be solved or vice versa. It’s not an economically reasonable solution compared to hydro, nuclear, oil and gas which
is capable of constant adjustable output, regardless of weather… making the storage problem obsolete. Batteries, hydrogen, or the syngas dream: storage and safety issues plus huge losses yieldwise. Forget it. These people will be forced to face reality sooner or later.
“These people will be forced to face reality sooner or later.”
That’s right. They will be doing to windmills what they are doing to Ivanpah now: Giving up on them.
To get to Net Zero, Australia has to spend $7-$9 trillion dollars by 2060, according to CRE insurance citing Net Zero Australia. According to Willis and the IPCC, that is cheap, not, to cover Australia’s 19.6 Gt of cumulative emissions or 0.0157º of warming. Even if the CO2 farce was true.
Harold the Organic Chemist Says:
CO2 Does Not Cause Warming of Air!
Please go to: http://www.John-Daly.com This is the late John Daly’s website:
“Still Waiting For Greenhouse”. From the home page, scroll down to end and click on
“Station Temperature Data”. On the World Map”, click on “Australia”.
Shown in the chart (See below) is a plot of the average annual temperature in Adelaide from
1857 to 1999 which show there was was cooling trend. In 1900, the concentration of C02 in the air was ca.290 ppmv (0.57 g of CO2/cu. m.) and by 1999 it had increased to ca. 370 ppmv (0.73 g of CO2/cu. m.). The reason there was no increase in Adelaide air temperature is quite simple: There is too little CO2 in the air.
At the MLO in Hawaii, the concentration of CO2 in dry is 425 ppmv for Jan. 2025. One cubic meter of this air contain 0.84 g of CO2, a 14% increase from 1999.
You should check out all the temperature charts for the weather stations which show no warming of air up to 2002. Since CO2 does not cause any warming of air, net zero emission of CO2 is unnecessary.
You should send copies of this comment to your friends and elected politicians.
If you click on the chart, it will expand and become clear. Click on “X” to return to the original small size
Meanwhile Australia is at least leading the way in coal mining for export projects with 16 new, 28 expansion and 2 reopening mines going ahead. That’s 46 projects way ahead of South Africa (14 projects) and Canada (9 projects) the next two highest in the list.
It is just a pity that none of those Australian projects are for developments in Australia.
However worldwide the IEA say there are 95 such coal mining for export projects underway.
IEA ‘Coal 2024 Analysis and Forecast to 2027’ (Dec. 2024)
The article does not establish that electronic inverters don’t work. The whole argument that intermittency is not the major problem rests on that.
I have seen where solar inverters can be rigged to supply vars at night when they (obviously) are not being used for power generation. That does not solve the problem that solar inverters cannot supply vars when they are generating.
Can one inverter be used just for vars – a conductor of the orchestra? I am finding it quite difficult to believe that not being able to fix frequency is a bigger problem than having no power.
Fixing frequency is simply a matter of adjusting power generation to equal demand. With traditional generation, frequency was used to monitor the demand vs generation balance. Dropping frequency means demand exceeds generation, rising frequency means generation exceeds demand.
The point is that renewable generation needs to match demand, not the other way around.
See my response to Ian Reid.
As an electrical engineer who has taken some courses in electric power systems, I can well believe that electronic inverters are not a full replacement for rotating machines. Under fault conditions, currents can be 10 to 20X of steady state magnitudes.
One quick and dirty way of better approximating a rotating machine would be connecting the inverters to the grid through reactors (AKA inductors). This reactance could be provided by air gaps in the core of the transformer connecting the inverter to the grid.
This website has more good articles in one day than Climate Etc. has in a month or two.
I stopped reading Climate Etc. for that reason.
But there is one exception.
The Russel Schussler articles at Climate Etc. are brilliant. I hope to see every one of them at this website. This is the first of at least 12 climate and energy articles I will read today. I already know it will be the best of the day!
We all know wind and solar require 100% atural gas backup to avoid blackouts, And batteries are far too expensive, even when they don’t catch fire.
This article explains why ruinables ruin an electric grid. Explained in an easy to understand way that does not require an electrical engineering degree to interpret.
It’s always refreshing to read an article where the author really knows what he is talking about. It’s longer than the usual article, but when an expert is talking, the longer the article, the more the reader learns.
Thank you for those kind words. Lots of very bright capable people I worked with could do a much better job than I do. But there are not a lot of personal motivations for such individuals to speak out, and in some cases disincentives. As time goes on I kind of feel I’ve said most of what I can say, but encouragement like yours helps me give it enough priority to make some room in my daily routing from time to time.
Stepping back from the engineering issues:
The root cause of future grid problems is having new grid specifications planned by politicians. They have “green visions”, not a feasible, affordable engineering plan.
For 17 of my 27 years working in product development, I worked on engineering plans for new autos. Net Zero has no plan. Just a vision and arbitrary completion year. There is no upfront funding secured and no way to estimate the cost or critical path timing.
It’s obvious Net Zero can NOT go according to plan because there is NO plan.
Net Zero is mandates, subsidies and tax credits.
Many are in the Biden Inflation Reductio Act of August 2022.
Trump wants to cancel that law bypassing Congress and ignoring what the courts will say:
Courts will never reverse an IRA law passed by Congress, especially when 99% of the climate “science” is anti-greenhouse gasses. We know it’s just junk science, but judges don’t know that. They won’t ignore the IPCC baloney.
Republicans in Congress can repeal the Inflation Reduction Act, if they act like a team, but Republicans have trouble doing that.
“The root cause of future grid problems is having new grid specifications planned by politicians”
Absolutely!
“Republicans in Congress can repeal the Inflation Reduction Act, if they act like a team, but Republicans have trouble doing that.”
Yes, they do. We’ll see if Trump can change that. Although there is no hope for U.S. Senators Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins or Mitch McConnell. We will just have to replace these three at the next election. They might as well be Democrats for all the help they are to fellow Republicans or to the nation. They don’t seem to understand that when they vote with Democrats they undermine the United States, because that is the goal of Democrats. Instead, these geniuses focus on unsubstantiated rumors of Pete Hegspeth drinking alcohol or sexual dalliance. They miss the BIG PICTURE entirely, and thus they are not suitable representatives for us. Their stupidity puts the whole nation in danger.
“critical path timing” a lost art
From the article: “It is becoming increasingly apparent that wind, solar and batteries when pursued at high penetration levels result in high costs, lower reliability and poorer operational outcomes.”
Exactly.
Wind, Solar and Batteries are a Cancer on Electrical Grids. The more you add to the grids, the more prone to blackouts the grid becomes.
And then there are the increased costs of electricity when Wind and Solar are added to the grid, because in order to make Wind and Solar economically viable, Wind and Solar get put ahead of conventional generation. The conventional generation has to idle while the Wind and Solar produce, and then when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine, the conventional generation has to be fired up, which costs much more than if we had just been depending on conventional generation all along.
The economics are backwards. In a sane world, conventional generation would be the backbone of the grid, and wind and solar would be secondary suppliers, whose output would not be a threat to the grid.
Of course, in a sane world, there wouldn’t be any windmills or solar because they would not be subsidized with taxpayer dollars so would not be economically viable which means they wouldn’t exist in a sane world.
The federal and state subsidies and the state RE mandates on utilities are the crowbars that force the creation of chaotic, inane effects throughout the energy infrastructure, which ends up being very expensive, due to many inefficiencies.
The UK and Germany, both with high wind/solar on their grids, are the prime examples of off the rails energy idiocy
I look forward to further articles on the improper use of words to blinker and confuse the public!
Of course, this problem is not limited to Ruinable Energy systems! Just say the correct magic words, and the largely mesmerized audience will accept almost anything as Gospel!
”Russian collusion” or “stealing your democracy” can turn a narcissistic blowhard into Hitler, when he is merely the last chance for the Western world to reverse the slide into One World Tyranny!
Say the words, “Safe and effective,” and an improperly tested and suspect medical treatment can be required of every citizen, regardless of need!
Say “gender affirming care,” and many people will allow children to be mutilated and chemically altered beyond any chance of a happy or normal life!
Yep, them are some mighty powerful magic incantations!
It amazes that many people fail to recognize a striking viper even when they’re face to face with it.
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/why-do-some-vaccine-injured-people-wake-up-but-others-dont/
Having scrambled up a rocky outcrop in Utah to find myself face to face with a startled rattler, I feel that comment rather deeply!
Greenunistas don’t use science, they use Alinsky’s Rules For Radicals.
There lies a related deception — cost of generation.
Whenever you see a cost of wind or solar power generation given by an advocate you are seeing a lie. I have yet to see an honest and correct assessment. A pure wind or solar grid-level power generation system does not exist. They can and do only exist as part of hybrid systems that combine them with conventional power generation. You have to assess the cost per kwh of the overall system.
Imagine if your electric car required your spouse to follow you down the road in a diesel pickup truck to tow you along during the times when the wind stopped blowing. Would excluding the cost of the pickup truck give you an honest calculation of your operating cost per mile?
Very nice. There was a lot said here. My take away is three fold.
Number one the difference between what many scientific reports actually say and what the mainstream media and activists tell us they say. For the most part the mainstream media and activists are liars. As for the scientists creating these reports if they don’t stand up and publicly say that what the liars are saying is lies then I have no more respect for them than I do for the liars.
Number two I can’t agree more how important language is. The liars are knowingly misusing language. It is really bad. No more climate change or global warming. They mean anthropogenic CO2 and that is exactly what they should be forced to say. No more renewables, they mean wind, solar and batteries and that is exactly what they should be forced to say.
Number three hydro. Hydro is not what they think of as renewable and it should not be included in the figures, My guess is that 99% of the liars would never support the building of new dams. They are advocating for tearing down the ones we have. The only reason they include hydro is if they didn’t everyone would see right off that energy produced by wind and solar is pitiful. A complete waste of time, money and resources.
I propose a 5 mile wide 20 mile long solar facility. Total 100 sq miles(not acres!-sq miles). All plant life to be extinguished on that strip to make sure nothing grows up to damage the solar panels. The soil has to be covered with a sand gravel mixture that will kill anything that tries to sprout. Everyone I have proposed this to has said it’s too much. They could never support that. A few said if that’s what it takes to supply the energy for the state then maybe – just maybe. Then I inform them that for our state we will need 40 more of these 100 sq mile facilities to supply all the present energy needs. About 10% of the land area of the state. (Alternatively fossil fuel uses about 0.03% of the state’s land area.) They say I must be wrong. I say do the math. Talk to an engineer. And if we go all EVs and no gas heat then triple those numbers. 10% goes to 30%.
I believe it was on this web page comments section a few months ago where I did the math.
Today, the world faces another critical energy crossroads, with a heated debate on the role of crude oil, renewables, and nuclear power in driving future growth. The primary Energy Literacy educational points to remember are that crude oil, renewables, and nuclear power do different things:
· Crude oil is virtually useless in its “raw black tar” format, but once it’s put through the refinery processes, human ingenuity has been able to use those manufactured oil derivatives to benefit mankind. The population growth occurred as a result of the more than 6,000 products in today’s society that are based on the oil derivatives manufactured from that black raw crude oil, the same products that did not exist before the 1800’s. These are products that people need and use every day, without even realizing that they come from the refining process. Without oil, we are back in the stone age.
· Renewables like wind and solar generate electricity that is NOT continuous, intermittent, and NOT dispatchable electricity. In addition, renewables CANNOT make any of the more than 6,000 products made from oil.
· Nuclear generates continuous, uninterruptable, dispatchable electricity. In addition, like renewables, nuclear CANNOT make any of the more than 6,000 products made from oil. But it CAN provide reliable, clean electricity and heat used to produce these valuable products made from oil.
· Electricity came about AFTER the discovery of oil. ALL six methods for the generation of electricity from hydro, coal, natural gas, nuclear, wind, and solar are ALL built with the products, components, and equipment that are made from the oil derivatives manufactured from crude oil. Without oil, there would be no electricity!
· Everything that needs electricity to function like iPhones, computers, data centers, and X-Ray machines are all made with petrochemicals manufactured from crude oil. Without fossil fuels, there would be nothing that needs electricity!