Can weather-dependent power, when coupled with storage, ever be truly reliable?
Dr. Lars Schernikau: Energy Economist, Commodity Trader, Author
Details including the full Blog “Can solar and wind + batteries really provide 24/7/365 electricity?”
are available at www.unpopular-truth.com
A recent report from the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) [1] has attracted significant attention by claiming that solar and wind plus battery storage can now provide reliable round-the-clock 24/7 electricity at costs competitive with conventional power generation.
The conclusion was quickly echoed by major media outlets, splashed across headlines, suggesting that fossil fuels are no longer necessary to supply us with reliable electricity.
The idea is that…if solar panels generate electricity during sunny days, wind turbines generate electricity when the wind blows, and batteries store excess power for later use, then surely the combination can provide electricity whenever it is needed… right?
THIS IS WRONG!
This claim by the IRENA depends more on how we define reliability than on actual hard-core facts.
Generating electricity on average is not the same as delivering electricity at the exact moment it is required.
Our modern world and the economies that make it go round, all depend on electricity being available 24/7/365. Hospitals, factories, airports, silicon smelters, data centres, and households do not operate on annual averages, but rather on demand.
This very important distinction is often overlooked.
We are all aware of how countries such as Germany have spent very large amounts of money and time on expanding solar and wind generation, resulting in some of the highest intermittent energy capacities in the world. Even the average wind and solar generation reaches very high percentage values. Yet for those periods when both solar and wind output fall to very low levels simultaneously, lasting for hours, days or occasionally even weeks, even Germany still requires conventional power generation.
The below figure displays how (in)effective solar plus wind are in Germany every single month during the worst 4 or 12h. Despite a doubling of solar and wind capacity during the past 6 years, the worst hours remain… unserved.
Figure 1: 4h, 12h minimum wind + solar generation in Germany | Sources: Schernikau based on Agora dated updated 11 June 2026
Now , this is where battery storage enters the discussion… as a so called “solution”
Supporters and also IRENA argue that batteries can bridge these gaps by storing surplus electricity during periods of high generation and releasing it when solar and wind output falls, and that would provide 24/7 reliable power? While this sounds like a simple solution, the challenge lies in the scale that is required and the unpopular realities about energy economics and physics.
Providing electricity to an industrial economy through prolonged periods of low solar and wind energy generation, is something entirely different to making use of a battery pack to charge a cell phone.
The amount of storage required rapidly becomes enormous, expensive and not so environmentally friendly as we would like to see.
Batteries themselves bring many additional questions to the table… as they require large quantities of raw materials, significant manufacturing energy, regular replacement and extensive infrastructure.
Additionally, batteries do not return all the electricity used to charge them, with real-world energy losses occurring during every charge-discharge cycle. (Round-trip efficiency – RTE). Over time, they also gradually lose their ability to store energy as their capacity degrades with age and use.
Figure 2: Utility-scale batteries facts | Source: Schernikau
As you can see, the discussion extends far beyond electricity generation alone.
Reliable power systems require much more than energy. They require stability, fault tolerance, voltage control, frequency control, inertia, system strength and the ability to respond instantly to changing demand. Conventional power plants naturally provide these services, where solar and wind systems – I call intermittent “digital power” – require additional technologies and infrastructure in an attempt to replicate them, which so far has not been possible in any grid.
If solar and wind + batteries require substantial overbuilding, large-scale storage, backup systems, expanded transmission networks and additional grid support technologies, shouldn’t these costs and requirements be included when comparing them to conventional generation?
Figure 3: Low energy density | Short operational lifetime | Intermittency
The answer is most relevant because electricity is the foundation of a modern civilisation. It influences the cost of food, transport, manufacturing, healthcare and virtually every aspect of economic activity as we know it.
The debate is therefore not about whether solar panels and wind turbines can generate electricity, they clearly can.
The ultimate question is whether they can provide the level of reliability modern societies require without creating escalating economic, environmental and system costs… they clearly cannot!
This unpopular question deserves some careful examination, so I invite you to read my full blog, in which I explore real-world solar and wind generation data, battery storage limitations, grid reliability requirements, the assumptions behind recent IRENA modelling and the practical realities of building large-scale renewable electricity systems.
Read my blog here and please sign up if you are not yet on the list- Can solar and wind + batteries really provide 24/7/365 electricity?
This article demonstrates how climate alarmists live in a fantasy world all of their own. They think that if they wish for something hard enough, it will happen. Reality is something that happens to other people; it doesn’t apply to them.
The Tinkerbell world.
I think I can, I think I can…
“A recent report from the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) [1] has attracted significant attention by claiming that solar and wind plus battery storage can now provide reliable round-the-clock 24/7 electricity at costs competitive with conventional power generation.”
IRENA is a last entity one should rely on for any realistic numbers regarding energy.
The folks who run that entity are totally biased toward wind, solar, batteries.
BATTERY SYSTEM CAPITAL COSTS, OPERATING COSTS, ENERGY LOSSES, AND AGING
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/battery-system-capital-costs-losses-and-aging
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Utility-scale, battery system pricing usually not made public, but for this system it was.
Neoen, in western Australia, turned on its 219 MW/ 877 MWh Tesla Megapack battery, the largest in western Australia.
Ultimately, a 560 MW/2,240 MWh battery system, $1,100,000,000/2,240,000 kWh = $491/kWh, delivered as AC, late 2024 pricing. Smaller capacity systems cost much more than $500/kWh
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Annual Cost of Megapack Battery Systems; 2023 pricing
Assume 45.3 MW/181.9 MWh; turnkey cost $104.5 million; 104,500,000/181,900 = $574/kWh
Amortize bank loan, 50% of $104.5 million, at 6.5%/y for 15 years, $5.484 million/y
Pay Owner return, 50% of $104.5 million, at 10%/y for 15 years, $6.765 million/y (10% due to high inflation)
Lifetime (Bank + Owner) payments 15 x (5.484 + 6.765) = $183.7 million
Assume battery daily usage, 15 years at 10%; loss factor = 1 / (0.9 *0.9)
Battery lifetime output = 15 y x 365 d/y x 181.9 MWh x 0.1, usage x 1000 kWh/MWh = 99,590,250 kWh to HV grid; 122,950,926 kWh from HV grid; 233,606,676 kWh loss
(Bank + Owner) payments, $183.7 million / 99,590,250 kWh = 184.5 c/kWh
Less 50% subsidies (tax credits, 5-y depreciation, loan interest deduction, etc.) is 92.3c/kWh
Subsidies shift costs from project Owners to ratepayers, taxpayers, government debt.
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Excluded costs/kWh: 1) O&M; 2) system aging, 1.5%/y, 3) loss factor 1 / (0.9*0.9), HV grid-to-HV grid, 4) grid extension/reinforcement to connect battery systems, 5) downtime of parts of the system, 6) decommissioning in year 15, i.e., disassembly, reprocessing, storing at hazardous waste sites. Excluded costs add at least 15 c/kWh
COMMENTS ON CALCULATION
Almost all existing battery systems operate at less than 10%, see top URL, i.e., new systems would operate at about 92.4 + 15 = 107.4 c/kWh. They are used to stabilize the grid, i.e., frequency control and counteracting up/down W/S outputs. If 40% throughput, 23.1 + 15 = 38.1 c/kWh.
That is on top of the cost/kWh of the electricity taken from the HV grid to charge the batteries
Up to 40% could occur by absorbing midday solar peaks and discharging during late-afternoon/early-evening, in sunny California and other such states. The more solar systems, the greater the midday peaks.
See top URL for Megapacks required for a one-day wind lull in New England
40% throughput is close to Tesla’s recommendation of 60% maximum throughput, i.e., not charge above 80% and not discharge below 20%, to perform 24/7/365 service for 15 y, with normal aging.
Owners of battery systems with fires, likely charged above 80% and discharged below 20% to maximize profits.
Tesla’s recommendation was not heeded by the Owners of the Hornsdale Power Reserve in Australia. They excessively charged/discharged the system. After a few years, they added Megapacks to offset rapid aging of the original system, plus they added more Megapacks to increase the rating of the expanded system.
http://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/the-hornsdale-power-reserve-largest-battery-system-in-australia
Regarding any project, Banks and Owners have to be paid, no matter what. I amortized the Bank loan and Owner’s investment
Divide total payments over 15 years by the 15-y throughput to get c/kWh, as shown.
Loss factor = 1 / (0.9 *0.9), from HV grid to 1) step-down transformer, 2) front-end power electronics, 3) into battery, 4) out of battery, 5) back-end power electronics, 6) step-up transformer, to HV grid, i.e., draw about 50 units from HV grid to deliver about 40 units to HV grid. That gets worse with aging.
A lot of people do not like these c/kWh numbers, because they have been misled by self-serving folks, that “battery Nirvana is just around the corner”.
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NOTE: EV battery packs cost about $135/kWh, before it is installed in the car. Such packs are good for 6 to 8 years, used about 2 h/d, at an average speed of 30 mph. Utility battery systems are used 24/7/365 for 15 years
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NOTE: Battery system turnkey capital costs and electricity storage costs likely will be much higher in 2023 and future years, than in 2021 and earlier years, due to: 1) increased inflation rates, 2) increased interest rates, 3) supply chain disruptions, which delay projects and increase costs, 4) increased energy prices, such as of oil, gas, coal, electricity, etc., 5) increased materials prices, such as of tungsten, cobalt, lithium, copper, manganese, etc., 6) increased labor rates.
Correct me if I am wrong. Are all of these systems designed to cover one day price variations? I am guessing that costs would be much higher if they could supply reliably over a week or month or year.
Almost all existing battery systems operate at less than 10%, see top URL, i.e., new systems would operate at about 92.4 + 15 = 107.4 c/kWh.
They are used to stabilize the grid, i.e., frequency control and counteracting up/down W/S outputs.
Batteries with 4 hours of storage can be used to charge midday solar surges and discharge during the peak hours of late afternoon/early evening, when the sun is getting ready to go to sleep until the next day.
Open URL just below the title for more info.
Batteries for storing 3 to 7 days of electricity would be useful during times of Dunkelflaute, but it would be prohibitively expensive to do so, except in the minds of woke liberal arts dipsticks.
I’ve written this before (and took some flak for it) I have solar and battery backup. After one hurricane my development lost electricity for 16 hours, we had it the whole time. On a monthly billing basis it is cheap. I made the decision for this system to make sure the medical equipment for my wife does not lose power. IS IT CHEAP??? NO! I live in Florida and my bills are essentially zero for the year EXCEPT for the fee for remaining hooked to the grid.
What is always ignored in primarily solar is the ongoing costs. I’ve replaced all the inverters on one section for over $3.5k, had to remove some panels to replace a roof over a patio ($2k), then before the final installation I replaced the entire roof at $13k. Then add in occasional panel malfunctions and replacement – about $1k each (done 3 times now) and cleaning the panels d/t pollen, bird crap, residue left after rains etc, that is another $0.8k per year otherwise the panels deteriorate faster. So before you flame me, I agree with the author, at most solar and battery backup can only make sense on an individual basis and from a cost savings standpoint NOT AT ALL. I’ve got over $90k invested to make sure my wife’s medical equipment maintains power. AND, BTW I don’t have the room (lot size, underground gas or place for a tank) to have a propane or other fuel source generator. AND, I never considered doing this as a virtue signal nor do I have ANY belief in AGW.
Your post actually demonstrates how expensive and impractical solar power is for the vast majority of people.
You are 100% correct sir!
Residential Rooftop Solar is a total money pit, even with subsidies.
After 25 years you have a pile of useless junk on your roof that costs a lot of money to get rid of, plus you have to repair your roof.
Been there, done that!
BTW, so are air source heat pumps in cold climates, such as Vermont.
I have three units with six outlets already for 5 years.
Each year I have energy cost saving of about $200, on an investment of $24,000 that lasts about 15 years.
Then I will have to junk the system and repair the damage, because I will not ever replace it.
At one point I acted like a woke idiot, but I finally $wised up
I installed my heat pumps at much lower cost, but I am not in love with them.
Do nothing when you need them most. Very good for heating in June.
I would much rather have a gas connection.
Mine is a whole house system.
The system is very good at COOLING the house in summer,
However, high-efficiency AC units would be less costly to install and operate.
In that case, I would use my existing highly efficient propane heating system in winter.
In the PacifiCorp East balancing area we had in 2023 about $17,000 per rate payer in rate base — I.e. capital investment in generation, transmission, and distribution. We have increased substantially since then with new renewable plants and new transmission — maybe we are at $25,000 now.
Nevertheless I used Hurst’s algorithm for reservoir storage to simulate year 11/22 to 11/23 storage in batteries needed to not run out of power — we needed at least 250 hours of average system demand. I figured the cost of capital investment would rise 8 times to 136,000 per rate payer to accomplish this.
You have $90,000 in your installation and you aren’t required to supply street lighting nor power for commercial and industrial. So, $136,000 per account is not a bad estimate of what would occur for everyone. For me, $136,000 is more than I would spend on electrical power in my lifetime and we haven’t even considered O&M.
My initial figures for my initial investment I calculated at about a 7-8 yr payback. But the system has been altered 4 times since the initial investment.
But now, yes, the $90k is more than I would expect to pay in my lifetime. ;^)
Sorry about your wife.
Curious though, would it have made sense just to have battery or generator backup for the medical equipment?
We already do. At least in the UK. Where the wife would be in a (free at the point of delivery) NHS hospital
Sorry to hear about your wife.
Considering your circumstances, I’m surprised people here pulled you up on your decision.
You seem to have thought through your decision, although some would argue a diesel generator would have been a cheaper option. Your decision and none of us here knows the constraints that brought you to that decision.
I’d like to think that most of us here would support you on this.
My issue with solar and battery backup isn’t individuals making their own decisions based on their needs.
My issue is with the fools who think it’s acceptable to spend huge amounts of other peoples money believing that a bit of solar and a battery at a cost of $$$$$ can power a whole town of x number of people for more than an a couple of hours.
Your, frankly heroic, efforts to help your wife wouldn’t cut it if scaled up to a medium sized hospital.
Kudos to you, Sam
When I ran the numbers for wind and solar I stopped when the cost (resource, mah hours, cash, environmental) of providing reliable renewable energy exceeded even the most expensive nuclear power.
That was over a decade ago. Using engineering and mathematics.
It has taken nearly a generation for that to become obvious to the man in the street using ‘Let’s try it and see what happens’ as the principle.
What’s the point of an education if it simply tells you what no one wants to hear?
Leo, I like your ‘Let’s try it and see what happens’ principle. It brings to mind a neighbor who owns a Jeep Wrangler. His spare tire cover on the back has this message, “Hang On, I Want To Try Something”
Figuring things out for yourself is the only true freedom we have.
Liberty is the making of personal decisions without government (or anyone else) interfering.
I applaud your analysis and solution. You are solving a real (but sad) problem.
My issue is not with people making choices and acting on their own, personal, initiative.
My issue is government mandates where the bureaucracy thinks it is smarter than the individuals it attempts to (economically) enslave.
The world currently uses 29,000 Terawatt Hours of electricity annually. That’s 29 Petawatt Hours (29,000TWh 29,000,000GWh 29,000,000,000MWh) and that is just current usage by currently electrified people. Over 2B people are either energy impoverished or energy starved. Then there’s the sectors that need to become electrified that currently aren’t like transportation and shipping. To electrify transportation, shipping, heating, cooking, etc. Would more than double the 29PWh current annual usage. Then to eliminate energy poverty you would likely add another 22PWh for a total of 80PWh annually.
Solar and Battery? Riiiiight!
Solar and Wind plus battery? Riiiiight!
great points!
dont live in Florida, live in california, be better
For some reason, those who can, are leaving CA as fast as they can.
Apparently not everyone is eager to live in your socialist paradise.
Why doesn’t some data center go into AZ with solar panels and batteries and prove solar is cheaper?
Derg:
For the same reason none of the data center/AI goliaths [Microsoft, Google, Meta, Amazon, Musk’s xAI, etc], who need reliable electricity, have invested in wind/solar energy. It would be a complete waste of time & money.
I’m still waiting for someone to find a even medium sized city that runs only on wind, solar & batteries.
Babcock Ranch in Florida claims to run entirely on solar and batteries. It was a city designed from the ground up to run on solar – it was not an existing city that was retrofitted. I have my doubts about all the claims, but have not found any info that belies the claims.
https://www.ecowatch.com/solar-powered-florida-town-maintains-power-during-hurricane.html
https://kitsonpartners.com/floridas-city-of-the-future-is-first-solar-powered-town-in-america/
https://www.wtsp.com/article/news/regional/florida/florida-solar-city-babcock-ranch/67-7733213f-3680-4fb1-910c-d1890fc09cca
Ask gemini.
Vermaland Data Center, Pinal County, solar plus batteries with natural gas
Meta at the Eleven Mile Solar Center in Mesa but with solar from Pinal County, and natural gas
APS Desert Sun project with natural gas and solar for data centers (APS has a new natural gas pipeline coming to help power exceptional demand ongoing and expected)
So they’re natural gas reliant, which defeats the entire purpose of switching to sunshine, windmills, and unicorn farts.
Yep
Is the solar plus batteries for energy production or just virtue signalling?
They already tried. Now they are queuing up for small modular reactors.
It only takes about 10,000 AA batteries to power an e-car.
Here’s one reason why EVs don’t use AA batteries – CNET
“Orders for new natural gas fired power plants surged to 130GW in 2025, a 25 year high, with US data centre demand a major factor” IEA ‘World Energy Investment 2026’ (May 2026)
Expect that to be replicated around the world – wind solar and batteries no chance!
Okay, add in the 1.2 GW solar and 4 Gwh battery project nw of Flagstaff on Babbitt Ranches private land. Enlight solar just finished fundraising of $2.6 billion for that phased project.
No, the question is why does reliability have to be defined in absolute polar terms without consideration for solar+battery+ccng? You do know that solar and battery costs continue to fall while gas always carries a price risk term in project planning that cannot be completely covered by hedging? I predict the absolutist argument will continue to be frustrated by tech and investment choice in the free market. PhD Energy Econ and investor
Building batteries is insanely expensive. Building battery and ccng is even further into the realm of insanity.
Building wind/solar + batteries + ccng is costly enough to bankrupt entire countries.
Couldn’t we simply plug the nuclear powered vessels of the USN and the RN into our respective grids? I’m not being serious by the way.
It is in fact a more serious proposition than attempting to run on solar charged batteries through a higher latitude winter.
There is one floating nuclear reactor in Russia. For power generation.
And of course many military ships icebreakers and submarines worldwide
I would say it is extremely likely that the following developments will occur in time
Up voted supporting the final bold statement.
We first need to get rid of the politicians whose answer to everything is more government intervention.
You’ve got a PhD in Energy Economics? And you ask a question like that?
Well since you asked, regardless of your claimed credentials, your question should be answered. You present the gas price risk argument without asking what CAUSES the price risk in the first place. A CCNG plant operating continuously gets continuous supply contracts. If the utility is well run, they have sufficient storage and/or hedging contracts in place to protect themselves from gas shortages and extreme price fluctuations. The CCNG plant on standby doesn’t have that. The plant operator doesn’t know when they will be called upon, for 1% capacity or 100% or something in between and no idea for how long, so no contract for supply. They are 100% exposed to the spot price of NG, and worse, they are exposed to the LOCAL spot price for NG.
So if the wind dies and clouds fill the skies for the few hours solar is effective, the CCNG gets called upon. It doesn’t know for how long, if they need 100% power in the next few seconds or 0%. So they buy on the spot market. If the wind fails over a large areas, and the clouds also are widely spread, then nearby utilities are now competing for the same gas feeds. Price sky rockets.
So Mr PhD in Energy Econ, you are blaming the victim for the crime. It is the volatility of solar and wind that CAUSES price uncertainty in NG. If you shut the wind and solar down and just run the CCNG, it will be safe, stable, and economic with little or no volatility. The attempt to shoehorn a parallel infrastructure in place, resulting in at least doubling capex costs, then operating BOTH intermittently is, frankly, as stupid a way to run a grid as there is.
A point about CCGT is that it is a combination of gas turbine and steam combined. Gas turbines can be stopped and started at will, team turbines cannot, they need to be slowly warmed to operational temperature and also slowly cooled when being shut down.
To operated CCGT as a stand by is stupidity, but we know that stupidity is the commodity politicians possess.
Not as stupid as your simplistic analysis suggests. The overall operational efficiency of a CCGT plant is not a simple or even a two valued thing. Yes they were designed for best efficiency under continuous baseload power output, but they are still efficient ant moderate power outputs and under hot standby/spinning reserve the steam plant is already up to temperature..
However, your point is not totally invalid, as more an more operators are building gas guzzling OCGTs for backup and occasional peak demand use, as the operational costs are offset by cheaper capital costs.
Of course this increases CO2 emissions, but who honestly cares? Certainly not the people promoting renewable energy.
Valid points, but ultimately efficiency doesn’t matter in this scenario. If you’re at 60%, how much higher can you go? The max is 100%. NG pricing on the other hand has no upper limit. If a large geography experiences sharp drop off from wind and solar, those CCGT and OCGT plants can be spun up, but they are exposed to the local spot price for NG. A spike to 10X is not uncommon. That’s where the killer costs are buried, which the green machine tries to blame on NG operators instead of their windmills and solar panel failure which forced the system into buying NG on the spot market.
Having enough ccng to cover the whole system load sitting idle until needed to save the grid isn’t going to be economic imho – might as well ditch the renewables and batteries. Cpmpare the jurisdictions that have a high amount of renewables to those that are free of that. Lowest rates are with the latter.
I’m looking at replacing my solar system for my off-grid living cabin. Yes, solar has fallen since I installed my system 17 years ago. However, solar has started to creep up over the past two years since I started planning. So there is no hard and fast rule that solar and battery costs will continue to fall.
Never is with technology costs. They often follow the classic “bathtub” curve.
It isn’t necessarily the unit cost of a battery, but the sheer number required to ensure an uninterrupted supply for longer than a few minutes for a local population. Do you think that solar could provide sufficient power to keep the London Underground or New York subways running with sufficient backup batteries to keep them operating? Planning applications in the U.K. state that X solar panels could provide power for Y homes with battery backup storage. Then there’s the cost of developing the sites including meeting fire and safety standards. The infrastructure for the current system already exists, although it could do with an overhaul, any new installation would have to be compatible with the existing system otherwise the whole of the network would need to be rebuilt.
If the system can’t do the job, why build it at all?
Baby steps. Baby steps.
The recent drop in battery prices means this will happen. Just takes a little time.
Those are not baby steps. They are giant leaps for mankind. I doubt that any of them will happen in my lifetime.
So far, batteries can’t even get us through the next second.
The problem with batteries is that they have to powered up with solar power. I live in Scotland which is particularly bad for solar power. However, this didn’t stop solar farms being built in Scotland with the aid of gigantic subsidies. The capacity utilisation of these white elephants in Scotland in winter is just 1%. There could never be enough excess solar power in Scotland in winter to power up a single battery.
Which is why I say batteries require Dedicated Capacity to recharge and sufficient dedicated capacity to recharge in 4 hours.
The worst thing you can do to a battery, is let it get hot.
The next worst thing is to keep the battery at 100% charge all the time.
Now combine a hot battery at 100% charge, and it’s no wonder that these load leveling batteries don’t last very long.
Batteries require Dedicated Recharging Capacity (redundant capacity), especially in the case of Solar, as you can’t use solar to recharge batteries if its being used to meet demand between 10am and 2pm. You would also need dedicated wind capacity for the same reason. Then you need Petawatt Hours of Battery storage to be recharged daily because Dunkelflautes Happen (possibly days worth of storage because wind droughts can last weeks). The redundant dedicated Wind and Solar needed to gather energy for storage also needs to be at the capacity of Petawatt Hours as you may only have 1 day between wind droughts to totally recharge your storage.
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Or skip the entire part time energy debacle and PWhs of ultra expensive and potentially explosive battery storage and go with generation that guarantees power availability when demanded…
Like Gas, Coal and Nuclear that are available 24/7/365 at up to a 98% Capacity Factor!
The entire eastern seaboard of Australia was without wind and with very little sun for 5 days straight. Solar, wind and batteries are simply toys to appease the gooey-brained climate zombies and nothing more. They should all be bulldozed into the ground to make way for coal, gas and nuclear power.
Be careful about bulldozing due to the hazardous and poisonous materials involved.
Batteries get us through the solar night?
That solar night is 16-18 hours long with up to 20 hours between possible (though never guaranteed) daytime solar max.
We currently have batteries that completely discharge in Minutes not hours and definitely not 16-20 hours with the capacity to be recharged during the 4 hours of solar availability.
Batteries get us through a dark week?
That dark week would require Petawatt hours of storage and PW of dedicated generation to recharge them in a timely manner.
Batteries get us through the winter?
Yeah, Right…in your dreams!
I cannot remember when you first appeared on this site. Ten years ago? You were promising that the price of batteries was dropping like a rock back then. How much time is a “little”?
Your problem is that if the batteries were FREE, it still wouldn’t make the grid economical. The amount of wind and solar you’d have to build to keep them charged AND supply the grid would be astronomical.
Even if the solar fairy waved her magic wand and created a complete system with enough wind/solar/battery to provide reliable, year round electric supply.
You would still need to build enough wind/solar/battery to replace between 5 and 10% of the existing units per year, every year.
On the other hand, when you build fossil/nuclear, all you need to worry about is annual maintenance for the next 50 to 60 years.
Even just to get through the night is more than double the amount of hours of backup (usually just 4) quoted in “studies” claiming solar+wind+batteries are ready to go solo on the grid without gas/coal/hydro/nuclear. 4 hrs of battery backup is usually equivalent to natural gas ccgt kw for kw, but again that’s only 4hrs, and you still need about 8x overbuilt wind and solar to power the grid and keep the batteries charged, which should be sized not for 4hrs capacity but 3 to 4 WEEKS to cover periods of low and no generation.
The average duration of BESS in UK is just under 2 hours. NESO’s CP 2030 plan is to increase storage to approximately 3-4 hours
The cost of the battery is 1/3rd the cost of the actual system and that part dropped 10% from last year but everything else tracked inflation. Battery for the 16 hours of low light about the same cost as the solar system, one week 7x cost of solar, for the winter 7×12 weeks, 84 x the cost of solar. No, not a little time, never.
Battery tech continues to improve and Sodium batteries will be a game changer for price. They’re entering production now so in a few years they’ll change your mind.
Batteries STORE energy to make electricity. Plants make electricity from already stored energy. Using fossil fuels means you don’t need to pay for storing the energy. Batteries are just a parasite in the system.
Read some of the responses upthread. If the batteries were FREE it still wouldn’t make wind and solar economical.
Yes; I always say that even if the batteries and solar panels themselves were free, electricians are not going to install them for free. So the cost for installation including engineering, permitting, site preparation, structural, and elecrical would be the “lower bound” on the system cost.
The big cost for initial installation is going to be building the facilities in the first place.
Someone saying it doesn’t make it true.
If energy storage was free then adding intermittent energy supply such as wind and solar would be straightforward. At the moment most homes in most regions of the world could largely be energy self sufficient if their roof was covered in solar PV. That’s already being demonstrated.
Only if you are willing to live a 3rd world lifestyle could you get enough power from a single roof of panels to be energy self sufficient.
I hear they do great through the monsoon season /s
Sodium batteries represent a reduction of charged capacity, so more of them will be needed to match the capacity of lithium.
And none of this works in the cold.
Batteries are electro chemical devices. Chemical reactions slow at cold.
Put on a heater? Ok. What powers the heater? Battery capacity expended on the heaters is not electricity avaiiable for consumers.
Getting hot causes batteries to wear out much more quickly, so you will also need to include the cost of AC.
The sodium batteries CATL are producing have 175 Wh/kg which is as good as many lithium batteries today. They work to -40C which is much better than lithium. They have better chemistry.
According to the press release.
No real world data yet.
How many decades have the renewable advocates been proclaiming that cheaper batteries are just around the corner.
We will have fusion working before these cheap batteries show up.
I’ve been involved with batteries as an SME since the 1970s.
Still waiting for the miracle.
Trafmadore,
battery cost is irrelevant, what matters is the amount of overbuild of renewables capable of keeping that storage sufficiently charged to cover all eventualities, then do it again a few (or less) days later. That capacity of renewables can be roughly calculated by taking the minimum generation level divided into the maximum demand requirement times the longest duration of low renewable generation plus a contingency factor plus losses.
The sheer stupidity of the innumerate Green Mind demonstrated in a nutshell.
We’ve been hearing this for over a decade and it still hasn’t happened.
Even when battery back up does happen, a lot of the facilities have a defect which causes them to self combust. Spreading toxic fumes which are much, much worse for are health than the problem they try to solve.
Working fusion power vs. cheap batteries.
My bet is on fusion.
Baby steps for assembling a battery complex. Massive and giant steps for mining, processing, and building batteries. I am reminded of the quote, “Cure the disease and kill the patient.” — Francis Bacon. You can cure the symptom of intermittency but you kill the purpose of reducing emissions in the meantime.
Can you show us you calculations?
I just bought a battery for $250. Will the price drop to $0.25?
[“Baby steps. Baby steps.“]
The problem is, it’s a blind baby with one leg !!
Doesn’t know where it’s going & keeps falling over.
Nuclear plus solar plus batteries makes a heck of a lot more sense than solar plus wind plus batteries. Nuclear would provide reliable base load generation, solar would take care of demand higher during the day than late night (except for cold climates) and batteries would just need to provide power late afternoon and early evening.
It would be more cost effective to have just nuclear and coal/gas power.
Why not just use nuclear and skip the battery?
Well exactly. There is a place for storage *That is cheaper than another nuclear power station* in filling in the peak demand in a day.
Batteries are however not it.(Pumped) hydro is cheaper.
I am not so sure that pumped hydro will be cheaper, especially in area that don’t have the topography to support pumped hydro.
Xenon and demand curves
Current nuclear plants are not good at load following due to the effects of 135Xe. In other words, nuclear plants like to be run at constant output and batteries would enable the power system to adjust to demand that varies over the day. Adding solar to the nuclear/battery mix would reduce the battery storage as the solar would would take care of the higher demand in the day and leaving the batteries to handle demand in the evening hours until demand drops to the baseload provided by nuclear.
It’s been my experience that very few people have a good understanding on what it takes to run an electric power system.
Yes, Dunning Kruger runs strong here.
Any discussion on the affordability and practicality of using battery storage to reduce the intermittency of wind and solar energy, should include the latest battery develoments that are currently being manufactured.
The one that stands out is, ‘CATL’s TENER Sodium System’. Here are the details.
“Launched in June 2026, this is the world’s first field-validated sodium-ion Battery Energy Storage System (BESS). It features a massive capacity of over 30 megawatt-hours (MWh) per modular block, achieves a historic 15,000-cycle life (equivalent to 25–30 years of continuous use), and operates at extreme temperatures (-20°C to 45°C) without losing severe capacity. CATL expects total sodium-ion shipments to reach 1 gigawatt-hour (GWh) by the end of 2026.”
Sounds like a significant improvement to me. More details are available at https://www.catl.com/en/news/6861.html
CATL news released are filled with vague references and overlapping technology claims that don’t actually work together. Their claims are generally very exaggerated or very very exaggerated. They made a bunch of hoopla recently about a car battery that could be charged in a few minutes, but they neglected to mention the thick as your arm cables weighing too much for the average person to lift, that required integrated liquid cooling and special handling by trained professionals to deal with 50,000 volts or more. Small little niggly details like that.
Yes, the Sodium batteries are projected to be a fraction of the price of Lithium (perhaps 10% when production is great enough) as well as having excellent cycle life, and better in cold temperatures.
I dont understand the reasoning people on this forum use when they think batteries wont be viable because we need too many whilst somehow accepting the billions of tonnes of ICE cars we’ve produced.
Unlike yourself people here don’t believe in the tooth fairy.
Sodium batteries have been around since forever.
Lead acid car batteries are around $100/kWh.
Lithium batteries are around $300.
Why are we not already using lead acid for grid storage?
You’re out of touch with current technology and consequently you should probably research before posting. Vincent gave you the reference, you should take a look.
Vincent gave the company’s sale briefing.
The technical details are lacking, but the claims are great.
They’re going into production apparently so we’ll know soon enough.
Not even in production yet, but you already know they are successful.
According to Interesting Engineering
So not only are they in Production, they’ve been verified and by the end of this year they ought to have produced about 1GWh worth.
So I haven’t invested anything myself but CATL certainly have.
How much of your own money have you invested so far?
I have my house LFP battery 15kWh for 1100E, including VAT, taxes and DIY box.
That is 1.3 of my daily electricity consumption.
That is around 84$ per 1kWh.
You mean when mining and processing the components can meet the demand? Mining for coal and drilling for NG costs. What does it cost for sodium at the scales needed? What safety requirements are needed since it reacts violently with water? How about environmental impacts such as land use for evaporation ponds?
You need to include the total costs, not just those for actually making the battery.
Approximately nothing by comparison to lithium. Availability is literally worldwide.
Additional availability for constructing a large volume of batteries that can replace existing xcoal and gas?
Salt is typically an unwanted by-product. It’s the by-product of desalination plants for example.
The point is if there is current surplus that can supply the need for sodium batteries. If not, additional supply must be made. That is additional capital and supply chains
Additional supply chains? Some places (like Australia) have vast salt flats. But salt is available everywhere in the world as opposed to expensive and relatively rare lithium.
But salt is not sodium is it?
Salt is Sodium Chloride and the stock for production.
Wiki says
Sodium is now produced commercially through the electrolysis of molten sodium chloride (common salt), based on a process patented in 1924.[64][65] This is done in a Downs cell in which the NaCl is mixed with calcium chloride to lower the melting point below 700 °C.[66] As calcium is less electropositive than sodium, no calcium will be deposited at the cathode.[67] This method is less expensive than the previous Castner process (the electrolysis of sodium hydroxide).[68] If sodium of high purity is required, it can be distilled once or several times.
Projected to be.
In other words, we just have to take the word of those who are promoting these things.
The problem is these same charlatans have been making similar claims about other “break through” technologies while trolling for investors.
The track record for all of them is close enough to zero that the difference doesn’t matter.
How much of your own money have you invested so far?
Been hearing about sodium batteries for a few years now.
It doesn’t take much to confirm but you’d rather just put your ignorance of evidence out there for all to see.
When you post stuff like this, it invalidates everything you post. Its possible and even common for people to make mistakes but your post isn’t that.
June 2026, not even a month ago.
All of these numbers are nothing more than model projections based on lab results.
Let me know what there are a few dozen of these things operating in the real world.
Then let’s wait a few years before we start claiming what the real world performance is going to be.
Until then, all your claims are little more than wishful thinking.
Good article but nothing that hasn’t been said here before many many times.
I got snared into a discussion with a near stranger and was trying to explain these concepts to him. Younger fellow, no real life experience and16 years of educational programming to undo. At some point I got sarcastic and said what we could do is pay the province next door to set up a reverse wind farm to provide wind for our windmills when the wind isn’t blowing here. His reply was to the effect that I’d finally said something sensible. I despair for the future of humanity.
ROFLMAO
A relative once did some back of the envelope figuring vis-a-vis batteries for a data facility and if I recall correctly nuclear was both cheaper and had a longer lifespan. Unless you’re assuming 1-2 hours of battery capacity per day it’s not viable.
For those who go off-grid, different sources recommend battery capacity of 2-8x your daily usage!
For Germany this would mean ~3-12 TWh of battery capacity installed, for America it’d be ~24-94 TWh. Now if a 1 MWh battery costs hundreds of thousands of dollars, and TWh capacity is 1,000 x GWH which is 1,000 x MWh you’re looking at hundreds of billions per TWh, and thus quadrillions of dollars to provide capacity for Germany or America. But that’s cheaper than a nuclear power plant which is unaffordable at a few billion dollars. Oh wait! 🤔
Then you get to start replacing them as soon as you finish installing. But just think of all those “green jobs”.
It will keep firefighters employed!
And hospital staff.
And, and, and…. yes, lots of green jobs. /s
Isn’t there a recent paper that stated for Germany to have reliable power through the dunkenflaute periods it would need 60 million tonnes of batteries?
At 37S within 50km of the coast, a daily demand of 1kWh can be served with 1kW of batteries and 2kWh of storage. That will achieve 99.7% reliability.
The unsubsidised capital outlay for an installed system using my roof is AUD2k. Expected life of 20 years. Taking discount rate of 5% results in average cost of 44c/kWh.
Base load generation in the Latrobe valley were asking 2.3ckWh to make a living before “renewables” hit the grid in volume.
I am certain that I can provide lower cost for my own use than any grid scale “renewable”
The reality is that NONE of it is renewable. None of it is even replaceable. It is a once in a lifetime grandiose shitful waste of money.
The Australia power grid developed to shift electricity from dense energy coal fields to city load centres and industrial centres. It is not suite to transmit electricity from a myriad of feeble, intermittent generators to the load centres.
Why are you comparing retail installation cost with…not even wholesale cost, but generation cost. You couldn’t be showing more bias in your comparison. The only fair comparison is retail installation cost vs retail cost of the power over the 20 years.
This from the guy who cites press releases as if they were reports from reliable labs.
I didn’t cite it. But I’ve been following the development.
You proclaimed it and provided a link to support your claim.
That’s citing.
And where did I do that Mark?
Just one criticism 24/7/365 is seven years, it’s either 24/365 or 24/7/52. Although it’s somewhat pedantic, it really does annoy me.
“The more pedantic you get the less people will want to talk to you.”
“Fewer people,. Not less…”.
PS WTF ARE COMMENTS ALL IN BOLD FONT THESE DAYS?
24 hours a day
7 days a week
365 days a year
Is what 24/7/365 refers to. How do you get 7 years out of that?
If you want to be pedantic on something, point out leap years…
Concise definitions versus common language/social context derived definitions.
24/7 once inferred always meaning across the full year or multiple years.
Some yahoo added the 365, which was completely unnecessary.
It should either be 24/7 or 24/365.25 (and change).
If clarity is needed, “24 hours per day, 7days per week; year round” would be best.
Oversimplification abounds in all walks of life.
Many 24/7 businesses would still close for major holidays.
Putting up 24/7/365 meant that they would be open on holidays as well.
social/common context derived definition, yes.
Language is what people use.
Academics keep trying to drive a stake in the ground and freeze what language is.
24/7/52 is the number of hours in a year as is 24/365 (366)
24/7/365 is the number of hours in 365/52 years
It isn’t when you understand the history.
24/7 means that it is open all day, all week, but it could be closed for holidays.
adding 365 means the company doesn’t close for holidays.
If you really want to be pedantic, why don’t you complain that they didn’t make it 24/7/365.25?
IRENA is indirectly an intergovernmentalarm of the United Nations. It has about 400 employees and a budget of about $40 million. Funding primarily comes from the United Nations fee schedule, with the US providing 22% and China 15% of the funds. The US is by executive order in the process of withdrawing from IRENA along with other UN organizations tied to energy and climate. Even though the IRENA is funded principally by governments, it actively collaborates with the renewable energy industry, and environmental advocates.
With that said, IRENA, by its very name, is an advocacy organization. So of course, it pontificates about the wonders of ruinable energy. By design, it views energy almost exclusively through the lens of renewables. Nuclear is rarely (if ever) promoted as a core solution. And heaven forbid that they say anything good about fossil fuels, even though FF provide over 80% of the world’s energy and will continue to do so well into the future.
So basically anything that this organization promotes is propaganda, such as the IRENA report referenced in this article, and it cannot be relied upon for rational decision-making or planning.
Amen, brother. Amen.
Here is my take on the subject.
Realities of Fossil Fuels vs. Wind, Solar and Batteries
1. Solar panels, wind turbines and batteries (w/s/b) do not magically appear out of thin air. A lot of fossil fuels are burned to produce them for mining/processing of raw materials in multiple countries around the world (many with little to no environmental controls or labor laws), transport to/from manufacturing facility, coal powered fabrication process mostly in China, site preparation, life cycle maintenance and ultimate decommissioning and disposal – with the disposal component another looming environmental disaster. Each step requires the use of very heavy fossil fuel powered machinery given that neither wind or solar can produce enough energy to power the machinery used to produce them. Wind and solar are 100% dependent on fossil fuels from cradle to grave. They don’t replace fossil fuels, they only increase the need for them. https://manhattan.institute/article/mines-minerals-and-green-energy-a-reality-check
2. Wind turbines and solar panels ONLY generate electricity, but CANNOT make any of the products or transportation fuels that get made from fossil fuels that support:
· Hospitals
· Airports
· Militaries
· Medical equipment
· Telecommunications
· Communications systems
· Space programs
· Appliances
· Electronics
· Sanitation systems (water/sewage treatment)
· Heating and ventilating
· Transportation – vehicles, rail, ocean, and air
· Construction – roads and buildings
3. Fossil fuels are also used to produce synthetic fertilizers which greatly enhance crop production. Oil derivatives are also the basis for over 6000 products used in everyday life. In effect, there is not one thing in our lives that we eat, drink, wear, walk on, use or otherwise consume that is not 100% dependent on fossil fuels. https://www.americaoutloud.news/modern-society-runs-on-refined-oil-products-can-california-keep-ignoring-reality/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
4. Wind turbines and solar panels require orders of magnitude more area than fossil fuel or nuclear power plants. For example, the 1200 MW nameplate Bridge City gas plant in Texas sits on about 26 acres and generates electricity 24×365. The Blevins 270 MW nameplate solar complex sits on 2300 acres (over 3.5 square miles) or 88 times larger than Bridge City with a nameplate capacity less than 1 quarter. To get to the same nameplate capacity, Blevins would be over 15 square miles or 352 times the gas plant. Capacity factors for solar vary by location, but roughly 25% is the maximum capacity factor (in New York state, it is far less). Therefore, for the solar plant to produce the same amount of electricity as the gas plant, 4 times the land area for solar equivalent nameplate is required – or over 60 square miles or 1408 times the land required for the gas plant. And the solar complex still does not generate any electricity from dusk to dawn so another power source is still required. In fact, solar only produces near name plate from 10-2 during the time of the year when the sun is directly overhead on clear cloudless days where the temps don’t exceed 77 degrees. https://robertbryce.substack.com/p/sunblock-the-global-fight-to-save and https://edmhdotme.wpcomstaging.com/a-few-graphs-say-it-all-for-renewables/ and https://energybadboys.substack.com/p/solars-land-use-problem-is-much-worse
Continued below
5. Utility scale lithium-ion batteries require an enormous amount of raw materials and consume an enormous amount of energy to produce. For example, 1-ton utility-scale battery has a storage capacity of around 100 kWh and requires ~ 70 tons of mined and processed raw materials to be manufactured. This is the energy equivalent of about ~40 kg of coal or ~20 litres of oil. That battery would power all of Berlin for about 30 minutes (assuming 2 GW peak power) or all of Germany for just under a minute (at peak power of 80 GW). To produce that battery requires 450 GWh of energy just to be manufactured including the energy required for metals and materials. That’s ~450 times more energy input than its rated storage capacity. Batteries are also not an energy source – they are a storage device that must be charged just like a gas can that needs to be filled. https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/08/20/the-battery-storage-delusion-what-35-million-tons-of-industrial-effort-buys-you/?fbclid=IwY2xjawRpnn9leHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZBAyMjIwMzkxNzg4MjAwODkyAAEeHMU38LwTM8mQRlrJLdDqV90CRWD7akOxhsxc2cY66QDDhIQgQEKHkfxUWpw_aem_bCX9MXNBoCOqLA0tLTRrpQ
6. The Levelized Cost of Electricity (LCOE) is the most cited metric for comparing w/s/b costs to fossil fuels and nuclear and purports to show that wind and solar are less expensive. However, LCOE ignores natural capacity factors, storage and backup costs, and system integration/infrastructure expenses. A more appropriate measure is FCOE (Full Cost of Electricity) which includes all the invisible infrastructure required to make wind, solar, and batteries “work.” FCOE clearly shows that wind and solar are far more expensive than fossil fuels or nuclear. https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/08/06/why-is-cheap-electricity-so-dmn-expensive/
7. Data shows that wind and solar life spans are far shorter than advertised meaning that they will need to be replaced more frequently or discarded earlier than projected adding to the effective operating and disposal cost. https://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/renewable/wind-turbines-and-solar-panels-are-aging-prematurely/
8. Contrary to the claims re: social costs of carbon, fossil fuels have enabled people to live longer, healthier, more comfortable lives. Infant mortality dropped. Women didn’t die in childbirth at the same rates. Food became more plentiful, clean water more reliable, heat more accessible, and medical care more effective. Nearly every measurable improvement in human well-being since 1850 can be traced back to the power of coal, oil, and natural gas. And no matter how fervently activists try to paint fossil fuels as the villain in their climate morality play, they remain the reason billions are alive and thriving today. https://irrationalfear.substack.com/p/how-fossil-fuels-doubled-human-life?r=kv2ig&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&utm_id=97757_v0_s00_e232_tv2_tp1_a1demoo4qyk3vl&fbclid=IwY2xjawRpnzlleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZBAyMjIwMzkxNzg4MjAwODkyAAEe4E1t_0avKJ45hpsLQPy68BJ9rODii59ASCFxIKW_ZEsygJROjtjSRC2REGY_aem_ih7XgBUNFCMh7yVv5HkHpA
9. Transitioning from fossil fuels to wind, solar and batteries is a physical impossibility and the push to do so will result in serious economic and environmental damage while posing a serious threat to national security. https://manhattan.institute/article/the-energy-transition-delusion and https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/01/27/bright-green-impossibilities/ and https://substack.com/home/post/p-202585357
Those who believe that solar or wind plus storage can fully supply the grid should be challenged as follows.
Please construct a demonstation project where the solar (or wind) plus batteries provide a continuous power output of 10 kW to the grid 24/7/365.
Has anyone done this anywhere?
Has anyone done it for even for one kW continuous power outout? If it cannot be done at small scale, it will never scale up.
I am 99% sure that I know the answer to the above, but it would be an interesting question to pose to the believers.
Why is it that people never include the cost of compacting energy into a battery? Mother Nature has already done the job of compacting energy storage for us. Yet people want to act like the process of compacting energy in batteries is less that using what Mother Nature provides.
Another elephant in the room is renewable equipment’s relatively short lifespan. By the time you build out a city with battery/solar/wind you are ready to start replacing the first units installed. Multiply that by X cities around the world and the manufacturing requirement is astronomical along with the cost and raw materials required. It’s a geometric progression that is not sustainable.
The same thing goes for the short lifespan of the batteries.
Provide power around the clock??? How about power around the calendar?
How much capacity is needed to cover a week, month or year or two?
I have not seen any estimates for that, or the cost.
Time of day price arbitrage systems are just toys.
electrification for the individual homeowner and small business is really just fluff in the big picture. The real problems lie in how far do we allow this penetration of renewables in transportation and the national grid. Truck shipments suffer from insufficient charging resources, built-in idle times, inefficiency from lugging around lots of dead weight and high capital cost. Railroads cannot survive having to live with battery weight somewhere equal to freight weight. The grid starts to have problems with greater than 25% of renewables. A near 100% renewables grid cannot re-start. There is no stable reference to attach to for frequency and phase matching. Never mind the need for full power battery juice to be ready. Not so subtle background problems exist in sourcing huge circuit breakers. Right now India is the US sole supplier, with years of backlog. Further, there is looming sabotage and monopoly squeeze by China, and they are not the friendly neighbor helping us in times of need. And then, there are the huge unmet resource demands, like the limited worldwide raw lithium supply and processing, again, controlled by China. And go find a receptive trash fill for dead solar panels and windmill blades.
Lastly, I have seen a beautiful undulating NC mountainside clad with shiny solar panels, like armor plated. Barf!
Meantime my rooftop solar generated around 18MWh in 4.5 years of service. Today we hit absolute record of 42,2C, before it was 40,3C in 2007. My AC’s are working around the clock, all from batteries.In my latitude, it is not realistic to go 100% off grid. 48N Europe. Too much Dunkelfleute during winter. But 80% is no problem.
In latitudes 42N and lower it would be no problem go for 100%
Hooking a up battery bank to give the illusion that wind and solar can power the grid for any length of time is like hooking up a stack of coin cell batteries to power your drill.
If the drill works at all, it ain’t going to work for long.
None of this would matter if we didn’t passively sit on our backside and allow the government to lie to us and force us to accept the lies of others. Think men having babies, men changing into women, women changing into men, CO2 boiling the planet and so on. It s past time for the lying to stop. Lying and cheating isn’t okay.
I keep on hearing about the cost of batteries coming down as the technology advances and matures. However, I see no direct evidence of this … what I do percieve is the retail cost of batteries is inversely related to the size of the subsidy. Does anybody have a time scaled graphic depicting the ‘raw’ cost of batteries sans subsidy overlain with milestones of commercialised battery advances? That will tell a story.
Has any technology advance actually decreased costs? Thinking of microprocessors, the unit cost of the latest processors are higher than their immediate predecessors.
Generally cost is offset by productivity. Higher cost, higher productivity.
From Our World in Data
This article doesn’t deserve the time of day. It offers no data, no numbers, no analysis, no citations of studies from expert sources, eg utilities. It’s an opinion blog that adds no value to the discussion.