OCTOBER 9, 2020 Solar photovoltaic generators receive higher electricity prices than other technologies
In 2019, the average U.S. wholesale price for electricity generated by solar photovoltaic (PV) technology was significantly higher than average wholesale prices for electricity from other technologies. The weighted average wholesale price for solar PV-generated electricity was $83 per megawatthour (MWh) in 2019, more than double the price paid to producers for electricity generated by wind, fossil fuels, or nuclear. The higher average wholesale price for solar PV relative to other technologies is partly driven by geography and timing.
Ramifications of California Governor Newsom’s ban on sale of gas-powered vehicles by 2035
Before sky diving, you need to plan ahead by having a parachute before you jump. California Governor Newsom’s recent suicidal jump onto the EV train has a minimum of eight (8) lack-of-a-plan ramifications from his recent Executive order to ban the sale of gas-powered vehicles by 2035 that will be devastating to the state’s economy and environment:
Gov. Gavin Newsom at Sep 23 press conference announcing “no new gasoline vehicles to be sold in California by 2035”
Energy California Blackouts Highlight Contrast with Texas Energy, Provide Forewarning
Last summer, Texans nearly experienced similar rolling blackouts to what Californians faced just a few weeks ago.
BRAD JOHNSON SEPTEMBER 7, 2020
Driving north from San Antonio to Austin on I-35, a billboard towers over passing traffic broadcasting a simple message: “Don’t California our Texas.” In California’s recent rolling energy grid blackouts, Texans might recognize a warning for its own power supply.
I was born in Connecticut. I was educated in Connecticut. I have never regretted emigrating to Texas nearly 40 years ago…
Connecticut’s offshore wind deals may drive up electricity costs for consumers
ENERGY
MARC E. FITCH SEPTEMBER 14, 2020
As Connecticut lawmakers and Eversource executives battle back and forth over rate increases and Eversource’s response to storm Isaias, offshore wind agreements set in place by Connecticut could potentially drive electricity rates even higher in the future.
You would think that with all the added wind and solar energy in Germany, along with all the conventional power plants on standby, all totaling up to huge unneeded capacity, there would be no need to import any power at all. Well, think again.
Are wind, solar, and batteries the magical solutions to all our energy needs? Or do they come with too high a price? Mark Mills, Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute, analyzes the true cost — both economic and environmental — of so-called green energy.
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), the regulatory body that governs nuclear energy, just approved designs for the country’s first scaled-down, low-cost fission reactor.
The small modular reactor (SMR) build by NuScale Power is the first of its kind in the U.S., Scientific American reports, and experts suggest it could revitalize the country’s dormant nuclear energy industry by providing cleaner energy at a more local scale. But there’s a long way to go before any of these reactors can actually be built.
It’s not climate change that’s racist, but those who use it to block energy development
Climate alarmists now proclaim that climate change is racist, that it affects minorities more than others. What hypocrisy. By this theory, the Sun, our galaxy and their Creator are racist, since they have driven climate change throughout history.
business, globalization and future technology concept – close up of businessman hands with transparent smartphone and earth hologram over blackContinue reading →
A study published in April by the Fielding School of Public Health at the University of California Los Angeles claims residential natural gas causes dangerous indoor and outdoor air pollution, and proposes to eliminate gas from California homes. But the study, Effects of Residential Gas Appliances on Indoor and Outdoor Air Quality and Public Health in California, lacks accuracy and perspective, as discussed in my paper criticizing the study that was published in June. Natural gas is a low-cost, nonpolluting fuel for heating, cooking, industrial use, and generating electricity.
Quote of the Week:“Private corporations and persons that own, operate, control, or manage a line, plant, or system for … the production, generation, transmission, or furnishing of heat, light, water, power, … directly or indirectly to or for the public, and common carriers, are public utilities subject to control by the Legislature.” – Section 3, Article XII Public Utilities, California Constitution, added Nov 5, 1974
Number of the Week: 10% of 27,695 MW Equals Zero
I’m shocked! Shocked! To protect the energy system which provides electric power for most of the state, the California Independent System Operator (CAISO) was forced to create rolling blackouts during unusually hot days this past week. Immediately the chief executive of the state, Governor Gavin Newsom began blaming others for these needed actions, sending a letter to CAISO and the Public Utility Commission. According to the state constitution, the Commission “consists of 5 members appointed by the Governor and approved by the Senate, a majority of the membership concurring, for staggered 6-year terms.” CAISO has no authority over the Commission.
These straightforward calculations are intended to answer the simple question:
“roughly how much would it cost to generate the same amount of power as is produced by the 2016 fleet of United States Weather Dependent Renewables, using conventional generation technologies, (Gas-firing or Nuclear) ? and how do those figures compare ?”.
Accordingly, the post quantifies the scale of the fiscal waste and the burdens on utility bills attributable to the use of USA Weather Dependent Renewables as installed at the end of 2016. It combines the comparative costs of generation technologies, published by the US Energy Information Administration in 2020 with information on the Nameplate rating of installed USA Weather Dependent Renewable installations and their actual productive power output as of 2016. This data on Renewables performance at end 2016 is accessed from USA Energy Information Administration, US EIA.
Summary
These straightforward calculations are intended to answer the simple question:
“roughly how much would it cost to generate the same amount of power as is produced by the 2016 fleet of United States Weather Dependent Renewables, using conventional generation technologies, (Gas-firing or Nuclear) ? and how do those figures compare ?”.
Accordingly, the post quantifies the scale of the fiscal waste and the burdens on utility bills attributable to the use of USA Weather Dependent Renewables as installed at the end of 2016. It combines the comparative costs of generation technologies, published by the US Energy Information Administration in 2020 with information on the Nameplate rating of installed USA Weather Dependent Renewable installations and their actual productive power output as of 2016. This data on Renewables performance at end 2016 is accessed from USA Energy Information Administration, US EIA.
The name plate value of installed Weather Dependent Renewables in the USA amounted to ~118 Gigawatts producing the equivalent of ~30 Gigawatts in 2016.
According to this costing model, the approximate USA:
capital cost commitment to the current USA Renewables installed is ~210 $billion: of which the excess costs over Gas-firing is ~175$billion and ~30$billion over the costs of Nuclear.
long-term cost commitment of the current USA Renewables generation of ~30Gigawatts installed is ~890$billion: of which the excess costs over Gas-firing is ~750$billion and ~490$billion over the costs of Nuclear power.
These estimates show that using Weather Dependent Renewables in the USA costs ~6 times as much as using Natural Gas for electricity generation and about 1.2 – 2 times as much as Nuclear power.
The benefit of these expenditures for Weather Dependent Renewables is the replacement of about 9% of USA power gross output capacity by “nominally” CO2 neutral technologies. Electrical power generation results in about 1/4 of the total CO2 emissions output from USA.
In 2016 the USA in total emitted ~5,000million tonnes of CO2, ~14.5% of the Global CO2 emissions. Accordingly at ~9% of ~25% of 5,000 million tonnes, the current Renewable expenditures are being made to avert an absolute maximum of ~112 million tonnes of CO2 emissions averted across the USA. This maximum value entirely ignores all the CO2 emissions and energy costs of Weather Dependent Renewables manufacture, installation, etc. Thus the maximum averted CO2 emissions from USA Weather Dependent Renewables are as follows:
of the 2016 USA CO2 emissions ~4,950 million tonnes ~2.2%
of the 2019 Global CO2 emissions ~34,000 million tonnes ~0.3 %
of the 2017 CO2 emissions growth from developing world 446 million tonnes ~25%.
The impact of the poor productivity of Weather Dependent Renewables is shown in these two pie charts, where 29% of the Weather dependent Renewables are ~29% of installed generation but produce ~9% of the power output produced:
So, the question should be asked “does the capital commitment of ~200 billion$ and the probable future expenditures of ~890 billion$ to unreliably replace ~9% of USA power output and to avert ~2.2% of USA CO2 emissions make economic good sense ?”
Comparative Costing Model for Electricity Generation Technologies
The comparative costings are derived from US EIA data released in January 2020.
The values used in this model ignore the “EIA Technological optimism factor” above, which would adversely affect the comparative costs of Offshore wind, (by about 9$billion/Gigawatt: long-term) and to a much less extent Nuclear power. These costs are summarised and translated into $billion/Gigawatt in the table below.
The US EIA table quotes the overnight capital costs of each technology and the above table condenses the total costs of the technology when maintained in operation for 60 years expressed as $billion/Gigawatt. A service period of 60 years is used for these comparisons as it should be close the service life of current generation of Nuclear installations.
Hopefully the comparative data above should realistically avoid the distorting effects of any Government fiscal and subsidy policies supporting Weather Dependent Renewable Energy, whereby it might be claimed that Weather Dependent Renewables can reach cost parity with conventional generation technologies. The promoters of Weather Dependent Renewables always seem to conveniently forget their productivity differentials with conventional dispatchable power generation.
The service life allocated for Renewables used above may well be generous, particularly for Solar Photovoltaics. The production capability of all Renewable technologies has been shown to progressively deteriorate significantly over their service life.
Recent 2020 EIA updates fully account for any cost reductions or underbids for Renewable technology, particularly those for Solar panels. The costs of solar panels themselves may be reducing but this price reduction can only affect about 1/4 of the installation costs, these are mainly made up of the other costs of Solar installations, those ancillary costs remain immutable.
It is hoped therefore that these results give a valid comparative analysis of the true cost effectiveness of Weather Dependent Renewables. It should be noted that unlike microprocessor technologies “Moore’s Law” cannot be applied to Solar Panels. As the Solar energy they collect is dilute and diffuse, in order to be effective, they have to be of large scale, so the progressive miniaturisation of “Moores Law” is irrelevant to Solar PV technology.
These calculations are based on the USA installed Renewables base as of the end of 2016
The cost data used was published by US EIA in January 2020 and should allow for the recent price reductions particularly for Solar PV generation
The US EIA data makes the assumption that universally Solar PV productivity is 11.4% for its entire 2016 data set.
For the time being these calculations ignore all Offshore Wind power which is currently only a minor part of US Weather Dependent Renewable installations
The true costs associated with Weather Dependent Renewables
Only when the costings estimated from the EIA data above are combined with the actual productivity of Weather Dependent Renewables can a true comparative cost be assessed as below. Thus these figures represent the true comparative cost / Gigawatt of the power produced by Weather Dependent Renewables installations.
In addition, even these comparative figures are underestimates of the true costs of using Weather Dependent Renewables. These results above only account for the cost comparisons for capital and running costs of the generation installations themselves and the actual electrical power generated accounting for the assessed productivity capability of each generating technology.
The costs projected here ignore the ancillary costs inevitably associated with Wind power and Solar Renewables resulting from:
unreliability in terms of both power intermittency and power variability
the non-dispatchablity of Renewables: the wind will not blow and clouds will not clear away to order whenever needed
the poor timing of power generation by Renewables is often unlikely to be coordinated with demand: for example Solar energy is virtually absent in winter even in the Southern USA, 1/9th of the output than in the summer period of lower demand
the long transmission lines from remote, dispersed generators, incurs both power losses in transmission and costly increased maintenance
much additional infrastructure is needed for access
the costs of back up generation is essential but is only used on occasions but has to be wastefully running in spinning reserve nonetheless
any consideration of electrical storage using batteries, which would impose very significant additional costs, were long-term, (only a few days), battery storage even economically feasible
unsynchronised generation with lack of inherent inertia to maintain grid frequency
Weather Dependent Renewables cannot provide a “black start” recovery from a major grid outage
Importantly in addition these cost analyses do not account for:
the inevitable environmental damage and wildlife destruction resulting from Weather Dependent Renewables
the “Carbon footprint” of Weather Dependent Renewable technologies: they may never save as much CO2 during their service life as they are likely to require for their materials sourcing, manufacture, installation, maintenance and eventual demolition. When viewed in the round, all these installation activities are entirely dependent on the use of substantial amounts of fossil fuels both as feedstocks for materials and as fuels.
the Energy Return on Energy Invested: Weather Dependent Renewables may well produce only a minimal excess of Energy during their service life as was needed for their original manufacture and installation. They certainly do not provide the regular massive excess power sufficient to support the multiple needs of a developed society. Accordingly they are parasitic on the use of fossil fuels for their existence.
Comparative Costings for Renewable Generation technologies in USA
The table above gave a capital valuation of the current 2016 USA Weather Dependent Renewables fleet at ~200 $billion with probable ongoing costs of ~890 $billion. Overall in USA this Renewables investment accounts for ~29% of the nameplate generation capacity but only provides ~9% of the actual power contribution. This is approximately twice the cost of providing the same power output with Nuclear power stations and more than 11 times the cost of using Gas-firing for equivalent power generation.
The three tables above show how the different Renewable technologies contribute to the Government mandated excess costs overall in the USA.
US Wind power is the most cost effective Weather Dependent Renewable technology. In general it is just 10% cheaper than Nuclear power in capital spend and is only about 1.6 times as expensive in the long-term. Onshore wind power is only about ~4.5 times more costly in capital and long-term spend than Gas-firing. Solar PV is the least cost effective US Renewable ~3 – ~6 times more costly than Nuclear to install and 16 times more costly than Gas-firing in the long-term. However this cost differential does not account for the problem of Weather Dependent irregular intermittency and non-dipatachability.
These significant excess costs represent the wastage imposed on the American population both via direct taxation by supporting subsidies to Weather Dependent Renewables and then also added to utility bills America wide by the Government mandates imposing Renewables on electricity generation. That wastage amounts to a very regressive tax burden imposed on the poorest in American society. It is leading to ever increasing US-wide “Energy Poverty”.
Comparative Participation of Individual American States
The name plate value of the 2016 USA Weather Dependent Renewable installations reported by EIA is shown below. The principle states involved with Weather Dependent Renewables in the USA (49) and their local commitments amounting in total to ~118GW installed are shown graphically below.
The scale of the commitment to Weather Dependent Renewables by State is shown below:
The comparative take-up of USA Weather Dependent Renewables by individual States in 2020 as measured by Gigawatts of nameplate capacity per million head of population is shown below.
The comparative productivity performance achieved by these principle US States is shown below. It is notable how poor the productivity achieved is even for those Southern states with major commitments to solar power
Cost comparisons to Gas-firing
At ~1.1bn$/ Gigawatt in capital costs and ~3.5bn$/ Gigawatt for the 60-year long-term, the use of natural gas is the most cost effective and efficient means of power generation currently available. It should be noted that Gas-firing produces ~1/2 the CO2 emissions of Coal-firing and ~1/3 the CO2 emissions of Biomass.
These excess costs calculations indicate of the scale additional costs that burden the economies of individual US States according to the US EIA 2020 data and recorded Weather Dependent Renewable productivity figures shown above, these total ~175 bn$ in capital costs.
The long-term excess costs in comparison to the use of Gas-firing amount to ~750 bn$.
Cost comparisons to Nuclear power
At ~7 bn$/ Gigawatt in capital costs and ~16 bn$/ Gigawatt for the 60-year long-term, Nuclear power is an effective and efficient means of consistent power generation with nil CO2 emissions and low land take. In capital cost terms for Name plate value Onshore wind power can be nominally cost competitive, however that comparison is just for total power output which does account the intermittent and variable performance of Renewable Wind power, which make real difficulties for Grid reliability.
These excess costs calculations indicate of the scale additional costs that burden the economies of individual US States according to the US EIA 2020 data and recorded Weather Dependent Renewable productivity figures shown above, overall these total net sum of ~30 bn$ in capital costs. However Solar photovoltaics impose significant capital cost burdens when compared with Nuclear power.
The long-term excess costs in comparison to the use of Nuclear power amount to ~490 bn$.
.
Conclusions
These straightforward calculations show the scale of immediate and long-term costs associated with Weather Dependent Renewables across the USA. They amount to a capital sum in excess of 210 billion$ and a sum approaching ~900 billion$ were they to be maintained for the long-term. This sum achieves about ~9% of the USA gross power production.
The capital costs of replacing the full 30GW of American Renewable generation output with reliable, dispatchable Gas-fired generation would be ~33 billion$ and the whole 600GW USA Generation capability could be replaced by Gas-firing for ~660 billion$. CO2 emissions from Gas-firing are 1/2 those from coal-firing and about 1/3 of those from the burning of Biomass.
The benefit of these expenditures on Weather Dependent Renewables is the replacement of about 9% of USA power output capacity by “nominally” CO2 neutral technologies. Electrical power generation results in about 1/4 of the total CO2 emissions output from the USA.
In 2019 the USA emitted ~4,950 million tonnes of CO2, ~14.5% of the Global CO2 emissions. Accordingly, at ~9% of ~25% of 4,950 million tonnes, the current Renewable expenditures are being made to avert an absolute maximum of ~111 million tonnes of CO2 emissions averted across America. This maximum value ignores all the CO2 and energy costs of Renewables manufacture, installation, etc. Therefore, the maximum averted emissions from USA Weather Dependent Renewables are as follows:
of the 2016 USA CO2 emissions ~4,950 million tonnes ~2.2%
of the 2019 Global CO2 emissions ~34,000 million tonnes ~0.3 %
of the 2017 CO2 emissions growth from developing world 446 million tonnes ~25%
So the question should be asked “does the capital commitment of ~0.2 trillion$ and the probable future expenditures of ~0.9 trillion$ to unreliably replace ~9% of USA power output and to avert ~2.2% of USA CO2 emissions make economic good sense ?”
If the objectives of using Weather Dependent Renewables were not confused with possibly “saving the planet” from the output of the diminishing USA proportion of CO2 emissions, their actual cost, their in-effectiveness and their inherent unreliability, Weather Dependent Renewables would have always been ruled them out of any engineering consideration as means of National scale electricity generation.
The whole annual USA CO2 emissions output will eventually be far surpassed just by the annual growth of CO2 emissions across China and the Developing world.
It is essential to ask the question what is the actual value of these USA government mandated excess expenditures in the Western world to the improvement of the Global environment and for the value of perhaps preventing undetectable temperature increases by the end of the century, especially in a context where the Developing world will be increasing its CO2 emissions to attain it’s further enhancement of living standards over the coming decades.
Trying to reduce CO2 emissions, in the Western world alone, as a means to control a “warming” climate seems even less relevant when the long-term global temperature trend has been downwards for last 3 millennia, as the coming end of our current warm and benign Holocene interglacial epoch approaches.
The whole Weather Dependent Renewable commitment in the USA is an exercise is attempting to control Global temperature by the reduction of Man-made CO2 emissions in a major sector of the Western world. These simple calculations show just how costly effecting even a marginal reduction of Man-made CO2 is bound to be.
However, as opposed to being a dangerous pollutant, by every measure, more atmospheric CO2 is benefitting life on earth by substantially increasing plant growth through fertilisation and increasing drought tolerance. Any fraction of the minor warming we have experienced since the little ice age that is due to Man-made CO2 has also clearly been a direct benefit to agriculture and human comfort.
For additional tables and graphics detailing State by State excess cost calculations and the growth of Weather Dependent Renewables: see
In spite of all the noisy Climate Propaganda of the past 30 years, in Spring 2020 the world was faced with a different but very real economic emergency arising from the political reactions to the COVID-19 pandemic.
That emergency, with the world facing global economic breakdown as well as the death of many elder citizens, should put the futile, self-harming and costly Government mandated attempts to control future climate into stark perspective. This real pandemic emergency and the self-harming reactions to it clearly shows how irrelevant concerns over probably inconsequential “Climate Change” in a distant future truly are.
What would it take to make renewable energy viable, and reduce emissions from industrial processes?
MIT professors Asegun Henry, Ravi Prasher & Arun Majumdar had a series of meetings with Bill Gates in 2018. The result of those meetings is a recently published paper which describes five thermal challenges which must be overcome, to curb industrial CO2 emissions and make renewable energy a viable solution to the world’s energy needs.
MIT’s Asegun Henry on “Grand Thermal Challenges” to Save Humanity From Extinction Due to Climate Change
By JENNIFER CHU, MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY AUGUST 16, 2020
…
Q: What are the five thermal energy challenges you outline in your paper?
A: The first challenge is developing thermal storage systems for the power grid, electric vehicles, and buildings. Take the power grid: There is an international race going on to develop a grid storage system to store excess electricity from renewables so you can use it at a later time. …
The second challenge is decarbonizing industrial processes, which contribute 15 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions. The big actors here are cement, steel, aluminum, and hydrogen. …
The third challenge is solving the cooling problem. Air conditioners and refrigerators have chemicals in them that are very harmful to the environment, 2,000 times more harmful than carbon dioxide on a molar basis. …
The fourth challenge is long-distance transmission of heat. We transmit electricity because it can be transmitted with low loss, and it’s cheap. The question is, can we transmit heat like we transmit electricity? …
The last challenge is variable conductance building envelopes. There are some demonstrations that show it is physically possible to create a thermal material, or a device that will change its conductance, so that when it’s hot, it can block heat from getting through a wall, but when you want it to, you could change its conductance to let the heat in or out. …
Roughly 90% of the world’s energy use today involves generation or manipulation of heat over a wide range of temperatures. Here, we note five key applications of research in thermal energy that could help make significant progress towards mitigating climate change at the necessary scale and urgency.
Here in the United California Socialist Republic, we have an insane bunch of laws about electricity. Number one among them is a “Renewables Mandate” that requires the local utility, Pacific Gas and Electric (PGE) to purchase a huge amount of expensive, unreliable solar, wind, and other renewable energy. So of course, our electricity price increases have far outstripped those of our more sane neighboring states.
(As a side note, under California law large hydroelectric dams are NOT counted as “renewable” under the Mandate … why not? Because if they counted hydro we’d already have met the Mandate … but I digress …)
Recommendations on how to cut back on power usage during Flex Alert
The blistering heat wave is expected to tax the state’s power grid. A Flex Alert has been issued for Friday that asks Californians to reduce power usage from 3 to 10 p.m. KTVU’s Jana Katsuyama with tips on how to cut back
MARTINEZ, Calif. – A blistering heat wave over the next several days is prompting the California Independent System Operator to issue a Flex Alert for Friday, which means residents are being asked to reduce power usage from 3 p.m. to 10 p.m.
California is expected to have record-breaking heat, up to 10-20 degrees above normal in some areas.
A CENTURY from now, maybe sooner, it’s unlikely we’ll be using coal to make electricity. Or not much of it.
Wind and solar are getting cheaper and they are easier to set up than building a power station that runs on heat, be it from coal, wood, rubbish or anything else.
The problem is that we’re not there yet. Solar doesn’t work at night, the output slips in cloudy weather, and turbines stand idle when the wind doesn’t blow. Even hydro has its limits when rainfall is low and dams don’t fill high enough to drive the turbines. Batteries are getting better at storing energy, but we need baseload power – and lots of it – to run a city such as Chicago or Cape Town.
Quote of the Week: “What we observe is not Nature itself but Nature exposed to our methods of questioning.” –Werner Heisenberg, also “We have to remember that what we observe is not nature itself, but nature exposed to our methods of questioning.” – Ludwig Wittgenstein
Number of the Week: Zero (0)
July Summary Part V; General Conclusions: Four weeks ago TWTW reviewed Richard Lindzen’s new paper summarizing what we know with reasonable certainty, what we suspect, and what we know is incorrect about climate change, the greenhouse effect, temperature trends, climate modeling, ocean chemistry, and sea level rise. Key parts included (with additions in boldface):
Child labor, human rights abuses and deaths are routinely ignored by Greens and Democrats
Marathon Petroleum recently announced it will “indefinitely idle” its Martinez Refinery. The decision will remove hundreds of jobs, billions of dollars, and nearly 7 million gallons of gasoline, diesel and other petroleum liquids per day from the energy-hungry California economy. It will also send fuel prices even higher for minority and other poor families that already pay by far the highest gasoline prices in the continental United States: $1.32 more per gallon of regular than in Louisiana and Texas.
California’s green and political interests don’t want drilling or fracking, pipelines, or nuclear, coal or hydroelectric power plants – or mining for the materials needed to manufacture electric cars. They prefer to have that work done somewhere else, and just import the energy, cars and consumer goods.
With the US presidential elections less than 90 days away, US energy policy – which includes government regulations dealing with climate change – has emerged as one of the core issues. This is not only because the Democratic Party, in seeking to unseat incumbent President Trump, has itself elevated energy and climate change policies to its highest priority. Energy is the lifeblood of the modern economy – the “master resource” that affects the production and use of all other resources – and hence US energy policy will affect the livelihood of all Americans. And as the US has emerged as the world’s leading oil and gas producer over the past decade, the energy and climate policies adopted by the next US administration will also profoundly influence global economic and geopolitical affairs.
Do wind turbines and solar farms hold the keys to saving the environment? Michael Shellenberger, founder of Environmental Progress and noted climate activist, used to think so. Now he’s not so sure. He explains why in this important video.
You think those baby unicorns grow on trees? Better think again. “Green” energy, in fact, comes with a very high price tag. as this report from the Manhattan Institute makes clear:
As policymakers have shifted focus from pandemic challenges to economic recovery, infrastructure plans are once more being actively discussed, including those relating to energy. Green energy advocates are doubling down on pressure to continue, or even increase, the use of wind, solar power, and electric cars. Left out of the discussion is any serious consideration of the broad environmental and supply-chain implications of renewable energy.
The Department of Energy reached a settlement Thursday to recover $200 million in taxpayer funds from a loan the Obama administration distributed in 2011 to finance a $1 billion solar power plant that was deemed obsolete before it could officially go online.
The settlement between DOE and Tonopah Solar Energy must now be approved by a bankruptcy court, the Las Vegas Review Journal reported.
The DOE provided a $737 million loan to Tonopah in September 2011 for the purposes of financing the $1.1 billion Crescent Dunes Solar Energy Project in Nevada. The agency disbursed funds for the plant in 2011 and 2013 before the project experienced problems requiring improvements, rendering the Crescent Dunes obsolete by 2015, Bloomberg reported in January.
Darlington unit 1 has set a new Canadian and North American nuclear record with 895 consecutive days of unbroken operation. Ontario Power Generation’s (OPG) Candu reactor has now been online since 26 January 2018 without needing to be taken out of service for maintenance or repair.
Ambassador for Energy & Infrastructure, Irvine, California
Higher energy costs for Americans are eminent along with worldwide ecological degradation and human right abuses from mining for wind, solar, and EV materials
The social changes with COVID-19 may have been prelude to life with less fossil fuels. With COVID-19 we have seen extensive self-imposed social adjustments to transportation that are very similar to what will be required to live with less fossil fuels in the future, i.e., with virtually no airlines, cruise ships, or automobiles.
These straightforward calculations are intended to answer the simple question:
“roughly how much would it cost to generate the same amount of power as is produced by the present fleet of EU(28) Weather Dependent Renewables, using conventional generation technologies, (Nuclear or Gas-firing) ? and how do those figures compare ?”.
Accordingly the post quantifies the scale of the fiscal waste and the burdens on utility bills attributable to the use of EU(28) Weather Dependent Renewables as installed at the end of 2019. It combines the comparative costs of generation technologies, published by the US Energy Information Administration in 2020 with information on the Nameplate rating of installed EU(28) Weather Dependent Renewable installations and their actual productive power output as of 2019. This data on Renewables performance at end 2019 is accessed from EurObserv’ER.
Today the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) is launching its Energy Justice project, seeking to highlight how reliable energy access is central to the problems of people and businesses in the developing world, and showing how it must be central to any attempts to change things for the better.
h/t JoNova – as Aussie greens panic about expiring climate policy targets, an effort by Australia’s opposition politicians to appease angry coal union supporters by offering to include a place for coal in a future bipartisan climate deal has upset radical greens.
Labor offers to deal with terrorists in climate wars
In offering bipartisanship on energy, Labor is offering to do a deal with the ‘terrorists’ who have thwarted all forms of climate action for years.
The NSW government has offered support in the form of improved grid infrastructure and streamlined approvals for new wind farm projects in designated renewable energy zones.
Government renewable energy investment program swamped by support
Plans to open up the Central West of NSW to more renewable energy have generated overwhelming investor interest – topping $38 billion, or nine times the government’s available capacity.
The government program is designed to attract investors to build 3000 megawatts of new wind and solar farms worth an estimated $4.4 billion in the state’s first renewable energy zone around Dubbo, but has instead drawn proposals for 27,000MW in so-called 113 registrations of interest, the Berejiklian government said.
I was invited by Charles the Moderator to write an essay with the emphasis on Scottish wind derived electricity.
I’m not a scientist, nor an engineer, in fact barely educated beyond high school, so, whilst you won’t get ‘shorthand’ scientific terms here, you will get something laymen can grasp, hopefully.
And that’s important as, whilst there are a small number of scientists/engineers etc. in the world, the majority of voters are like me, just plain old laymen and the subject of climate change is now political so every voter is vital.
Quote of the Week:“I can live with doubt and uncertainty and not knowing. I think it is much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers that might be wrong. If we will only allow that, as we progress, we remain unsure, we will leave opportunities for alternatives. We will not become enthusiastic for the fact, the knowledge, the absolute truth of the day, but remain always uncertain … In order to make progress, one must leave the door to the unknown ajar.” – Richard Feynman
Dynamics in the Tropics: In 2017, Judith Curry retired from her tenured position as a professor at the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology, where she had been Chair of the department, to focus on her private firm, Climate Forecasts Applications, citing the “craziness” of the field of climate science and the great politization of research funding. She has long recognized that there are major problems in the field, particularly in the dynamics of the atmosphere and the oceans in the tropics. As a climate modeler, she has first-hand knowledge of these problems, yet to be solved.
h/t JoNova – Australia’s increasingly precarious green energy grid is forcing curbs on economic activity, with plans to pay energy intensive businesses to shut down during periods of high demand, to minimise the political risk of voters noticing what a mess their electricity supply is.
Electricity users will get paid to cut energy use under historic new market reform
By Stephen Long Posted Yesterday, updated Yesterday
Electricity consumers will be paid for reducing their power demands under a radical change to the market that will be introduced next year.
Key points:
‘Wholesale demand response’ will come into effect in October 2021, allowing large electricity users to be paid for reducing demand
Big energy generators and retailers had wanted to delay the change, citing the COVID-19 crisis
Some advocacy groups want to extend the scheme to households and small businesses
The shift, which will begin in October 2021, has been adopted by the Australian Energy Market Commission (AEMC) despite opposition from big energy generators and retailers, who were using the COVID-19 crisis to pressure for delaying the rule changes.
The commission has described the change as “an important reform to the NEM (National Electricity Market)”.
It argues it will reduce electricity prices for consumers and improve reliability on the network, by allowing demand response to compete with “peaking” electricity generators that typically receive very high prices for supplying additional electricity during times of heavy demand.
…
The rule changes are a major victory for a coalition of community and environment groups that fought for the shift to demand response — the Public Interest Advocacy Centre, the Australia Institute and the Total Environment Centre.
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“Big energy users like factories and farms will be able to earn money by saving energy during heatwaves and at other times when electricity prices are high,” the Australia Institute’s energy lead Dan Cass said.
When you add in the need to increase energy to supply all that additional mining and industry, the upper end of that estimate is likely a runaway equation, in which renewable infrastructure can never catch up with the energy demands of new industry and mining required to build and maintain renewable infrastructure – especially if everything has to shut down and stop producing whenever weather conditions are unfavourable.
An Inverse? Traditionally in Washington, Fridays are a slow news day and during June reporters, and others, would be leaving early for the beach or for other activities. During the Obama Administration, regulatory agencies often would announce expanded regulations on Fridays giving time over the weekend to assess the response.
The Covid-19 lockdown as a blueprint for a permanent economic shutdown to ‘save the Earth’
More than 1.4 million cases of Wuhan Coronavirus and 106,000 deaths in the United States alone have accompanied stay-home lockdowns, businesses bankruptcies, over 40 million unemployed workers, plummeting tax revenues and unprecedented debt. Ongoing rioting, vandalism, arson and looting are compounding problems for many cities and minority communities.
Senator Matt Canavan just ripped into false claims about the international gas market on the ABC Q+A current affairs programme. But Canavan’s call for sanity is largely lost in the wilderness of Australia’s growing energy policy confusion.
Pseudo-green energy will wreak devastation, pretending to prevent exaggerated climate harm
“We had to destroy the village in order to save it.” The infamous Vietnam era quotation may or may not have been uttered by an anonymous US Army major. It may have been misquoted, revised, apocryphal or invented. But it quickly morphed into an anti-war mantra that reflected attitudes of the time.
For Virginians and others forced to travel the path of “clean, green, renewable, sustainable” energy, it will redound in modern politics as “We had to destroy the environment in order to save it.”
Disruptive Wind: The electrical grid operators provide reliable electricity with narrow tolerances. Generally, grid operators plan that power sources can be shut down for maintenance, usually in the spring and the fall. To keep costs down, grid operators desire to have maximum operating capacity in the summer (cooling) and in the winter (heating). According to the EIA’s description of electricity generating capacity:
To ensure a steady supply of electricity to consumers, operators of the electric power system, or grid, call on electric power plants to produce and place the right amount of electricity on the grid at every moment to instantaneously meet and balance electricity demand.
This is not about “Climate Change.” It addresses the issue of whether wind as implemented is an effective replacement for fossil driven power stations. This is about Australia where we are according to the mainstream media in a transition to renewable energy even though after many years, we are far from it. We are closing coal-fired power stations, but the expansion of renewable energy is slow. We are approaching a crisis point. The reality of the Australian situation can be applied worldwide, and this report draws on data and nothing else. This
There are many offhand comments that we should just replace fossil as a source of electricity with renewables. What is the detail and how successful has it been? That is exceedingly difficult information to come by. This so-called transition started in 2000 with the implementation of the Renewable Energy Target.
A strange new device — think of it as a Bizarro World version of solar panels — is capable of generating electricity from darkness.
The gadget, dubbed a “shadow-effect energy generator,” is a solar cell-like material that generates an electrical current when part of it is in the light and the other part isn’t, Science News reports. While the electric current from the proof-of-concept generators is weak for now, it hints at a future in which clean energy generation becomes far more ubiquitous and commonplace.
Closed Spaces
When only part of the generator is illuminated, electrons flow across a gold coating from light to dark areas. Capturing that flow, according to research published in the journal Energy & Environmental Science, generates power twice as effectively as conventional solar cells blanketed by shade.
“We can harvest energy anywhere on Earth, not just open spaces,” National University of Singapore materials scientist Swee Ching Tan told Science News.
First Steps
While these generators can’t solve the energy crisis yet, Science News suggested that it could be used to power wearables like smart watches, which can’t depend on steady or full sunlight.
“A lot of people think that shadows are useless,” Tan told Science News. “Anything can be useful, even shadows.”
New Documentary “Switch On” Combats Energy Poverty
For much of the past two years, Bureau of Economic Geology Director Scott W. Tinker has been traveling the world to film a crucial documentary that illustrates the crisis of energy poverty. Some 2.5 billion people live in some form of energy poverty today. Access to secure energy impacts all other major humanitarian issues, including hunger, shelter, clean water, education, healthcare, human migration, empowerment of women, and more. Those who do not have energy access suffer from energy poverty.
In the May 12th edition of the Reno Gazette-Journal (RGJ), there appeared a description of a newly-approved (by the U.S. Government) solar power facility, near Las Vegas, called Gemini. This would place it not very far from the recently-defunct solar power facility known as Crescent Dunes. The new facility is quite different in operation from Crescent Dunes, relying on huge photovoltaic cells to capture sunlight and turn it into electricity, with backup power batteries to store the electricity for use when the sun isn’t shining. In Crescent Dunes, huge mirrors were focused into a tank of molten salt atop a high tower. The heated salt was pumped down and through a turbine to extract electric power.
The RGJ article (https://www.rgj.com/story/news/2020/05/12/biggest-us-solar-project-approved-nevada-despite-critics/3120319001/ ) describes the proposed and newly-approved facility: “The $1 billion Gemini solar and battery storage project about 30 miles (48 kilometers) northeast of Las Vegas is expected to produce 690 megawatts of electricity — enough to power 260,000 households — and annually offset greenhouse emissions of about 83,000 cars.
It sounds like a news report out of yet another dystopian novel: Mexico is halting grid connection for new solar and wind power projects. In a world rushing to produce clean energy, Mexico has suddenly stood out like a sore thumb. But, as usual, there’s more to the story.
The country’s National Energy Control Center, or Cenace, announced it would suspend grid connections of new solar and wind farms until further notice earlier this week. The motivation behind the decision was the intermittency of solar and wind power generation, which, according to the state-owned power market operator, could compromise Mexico’s energy security in difficult times.
Michael Moore and Driessen agree! Wind, solar and biofuel energy are devastating Planet Earth
Never in my wildest dreams did I envision a day when I’d agree with anything filmmaker Michael Moore said – much less that he would agree with me. But mirabile dictu, his new film, Planet of the Humans, is as devastating an indictment of wind, solar and biofuel energy as anything I have ever written.
The documentary reflects Moore’s willingness to reexamine environmentalist doctrine. It’s soon obvious why more rabid greens tried to have the “dangerous film” banned. Indeed, Films for Action initially caved to the pressure and took Planet off its website, but then put it back up. The film is also on YouTube.
By Chris White, The Daily Caller – Re-Blogged From WUWT
Rev. Jesse Jackson is bucking many of the environmentalists who believe natural gas production perpetuates a world in which climate change is disproportionately hurting black communities.
Jackson is prodding local, state and federal officials in Illinois to okay the construction of a $8.2 million, 30-mile natural-gas pipeline built for a community, Axios noted in a report Monday addressing the reverend’s contrarian position.
The Pembroke, Illinois pipeline would shuttle natural gas into an area of the state that suffers from high energy prices, according to Jackson.
May 12, 2020: 99 years ago this week, people around the world woke up to some unusual headlines.
“Telegraph Service Prostrated, Comet Not to Blame” — declared the Los Angeles Times on May 15, 1921. “Electrical Disturbance is ‘Worst Ever Known’” — reported the Chicago Daily Tribune. “Sunspot credited with Rail Tie-up” — deadpanned the New York Times.
A prototype jet engine can propel itself without using any fossil fuels, potentially paving the way for carbon-neutral air travel.
The device compresses air and ionizes it with microwaves, generating plasma that thrusts it forward, according to research published Tuesday in the journal AIP Advances. That means planes may someday fly using just electricity and the air around them as fuel.
Scaling Up
There’s a long way to go between a proof-of-concept prototype and installing an engine in a real plane. But the prototype was able to launch a one-kilogram steel ball 24 millimeters into the air. That’s the same thrust, proportional to scale, as a conventional jet engine.
“Our results demonstrated that such a jet engine based on microwave air plasma can be a potentially viable alternative to the conventional fossil fuel jet engine,” lead researcher and Wuhan University engineer Jau Tang said in a press release.
Air Jet
Air travel represents a small but not insignificant portion factor of climate change. The New York Timesreported in September that commercial air is responsible for 2.5 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions — though that excludes military jets.
“The motivation of our work is to help solve the global warming problems owing to humans’ use of fossil fuel combustion engines to power machinery, such as cars and airplanes,” Tang said in the release. “There is no need for fossil fuel with our design, and therefore, there is no carbon emission to cause greenhouse effects and global warming.”
The Australian electric power supply is on the edge of a cliff because one more substantial coal-fired power station is scheduled to close in 2023. Then for the first time we will need input from the wind at the evening peak, certainly in very hot and cold weather. If this input is not available there will be blackouts of greater or lesser extent.
The bottom line of this argument is that RE cannot replace conventional power in Australia because at the lowest level of supply of sun and wind they deliver no power. That is the choke point for the grid, like the point where the air supply to our lungs is cut off by choking or drowning. To keep the lights on there must be enough conventional power available to meet 100% of the demand, 24 hours a day/365 days a year.
The restrictions on economic and personal activity imposed to address the spread of the coronavirus are reducing electricity demand in the UK to unusually low levels, increasing the difficulties of operating the system, particularly in the presence of embedded solar and wind generation.
As a result of the restrictions on economic activity and personal movement, designed to reduce the rate of transmission of Covid-19, there are striking anomalies in the British electricity markets. The following chart, drawn by the author from BM Reports data, shows daily electrical energy (GWh) transmitted over the network, and gives evidence of a substantial fall in electricity consumption. Domestic consumption may be rising as a result of the Stay at Home policy, but it is nowhere near offsetting the fall in industrial and commercial consumption.
Figure 1: Daily electrical energy (GWh) transmitted over the British electricity network, from 1st of January to 23rd April 2020 (red line), compared to the historical norm (grey line). Source: Chart by the author, data from BM Reports.
