Solving climate crisis will require a total transformation of global energy

Texans once again let down by wind power.
Wind Power Fail: Texas Heatwave Triggers Record Fossil Fuel Demand
Eric Worrall
Echoes of the 2021 Texas ice storm outage – Texans are once again learning the hard way that you can’t count on renewables during extreme weather events. . . .

 

Thanks for the informative snapshot, I do appreciate your effort to inform and educate all in this forum.

The reason I used the term snapshot is because we can argue the variables till the cows are gone while in the other thread where you posted the link to this post has similar snapshots, AKA predictions, and remarkable accuracy. The actual total cost is still TBD, what we have NOW are ESTIMATES based upon current data.

It would be interesting to post your Math above on a website and then track the pricing fluctuations and plug them in and see if the end chart resembles what Mr Seba was showing us?

Bear in mind that in today's dollars going to the moon in 1969 cost around $250 billion while NASA estimates that the next moon program will cost less than $100 billion.

No one is going to be paying TRILLIONS of dollars UPFRONT for a NATIONAL Green Energy Grid.

Your $12 Trillion is going to be spent over the next decade or two which is DOABLE given that is NOWHERE near what taxpayers will be paying.

The BULK of this is going to fall on UTILITIES and they will be spreading the load over 130 MILLION households. That AVERAGES out at around $93k per household but spread over 20 years of monthly payments that would average around $400.

That SCARY $12 Trillion is just a mortgage payment of $400 for 20 years?

The Math works both ways.

Again, not going to quibble over the variables, we BOTH have an understanding of the magnitude of this Paradigm Shift currently in progress.

 

That would be kinda fun to get something like that up and running.

I tend to favor a global effort to go solar. It has all of the drama I'd love to see nerds get some of their own in. I favor a global power ring grid of some sort. I did another calc years ago when I was skeptical of solar power and learned that in just about 3 days time the Earth receives enough radiant power flux from the sun to equal the entire amount of energy consumed by fossil fuels over all the time that it has depended upon them. Dozens if not hundreds of CMOs.

 

We have another 5 billions years of sunlight left so it isn't exactly a scarce resource.

The problem with a global grid is the same one all grids face, infrastructure maintenance.

Hurricane Sandy showed me the advantage of below ground power lines and internet connections. They tend to be more likely to stay up in severe weather conditions. Not going to help in an earthquake but those are less frequent than hurricanes.

Going green is going smart.

 

It is a persistent claim of renewable energy advocates that renewable energy is cheaper than fossil fuel-generated energy or nuclear energy. The claim is false.
A Proposal For Exposing The True Costs Of Getting Electricity From Wind And Sun
March 18, 2023/ Francis Menton

• 
  Every place that tries increasing the percentage of electricity generation that comes from wind and sun then experiences rapidly rising consumer electricity costs.
  
  
• The reasons why this happens are not complicated. Even at relatively low levels of wind and solar penetration, backup fossil fuel or other generation cannot be closed, so consumers must pay for two duplicate generation systems. At higher levels of wind/solar penetration, things like overbuilding, curtailment, and hugely expensive grid-scale energy storage come into play.
  
  
• In my post of February 8, 2023, I asked “Could anybody possibly be stupid enough to believe the line that wind and solar generators can provide reliable electricity to consumers that is cheaper than electricity generated by fossil fuels?”
  
  
• And yet it is an endlessly-repeated mantra of wind/solar advocates that generating electricity from those sources is “cheaper” than generating the same electricity from fossil fuel sources like coal and natural gas.
  
  
• In this post I will make a proposal for a way to definitively expose the falsity of the claims that wind and solar are “cheaper” than fossil fuels for electricity generation.

READ MORE

First, here is a smattering of quotes from various climate advocates (often masquerading as journalists or politicians) making the “wind and solar are cheaper” claim. Note that these are not just some fringe crazies, but rather are prominent media and political voices — including the President of the United States — who you might think would know at least a little of what they are talking about.

• From Bloomberg News, January 30, 2023: “Replacing US Coal Plants With Solar and Wind Is Cheaper Than Running Them. It now ‘unequivocally’ costs less to build new renewable energy projects than to operate existing coal plants, according to a new analysis.”
  
  
• From the World Economic Forum, July 5, 2021: “Renewables are now significantly undercutting fossil fuels as the world’s cheapest source of energy, according to a new report. Of the wind, solar and other renewables that came on stream in 2020, nearly two-thirds – 62% – were cheaper than the cheapest new fossil fuel, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA).”
  
  
• From Utility Dive, February 9, 2023: “Renewables would provide cheaper energy than 99% of US coal plants and catalyze a just energy transition. Investment in lower cost wind and solar resources is an economic opportunity worth up to $589 billion, providing jobs and tax base to coal communities.”
  
  
• From the BBC, September 13, 2022: “Switching from fossil fuels to renewable energy could save the world as much as $12tn (£10.2tn) by 2050, an Oxford University study says. The report said it was wrong and pessimistic to claim that moving quickly towards cleaner energy sources was expensive.”
  
  
• From President Biden in the State of the Union address, February 7, 2023: “Look, the Inflation Reduction Act is also the most significant investment ever to tackle the climate crisis. lowering utility bills, creating American jobs, and leading the world to a clean energy future.”

There is a virtually infinite supply of more where those came from. Not a one of those pieces, or hundreds more like them, ever mentions or explains that the “cheap” wind and solar power that they are talking about only includes the costs of an intermittent supply that does not work most of the time and cannot provide reliable and continuous electricity on its own; nor do any of these pieces mention that turning that intermittent supply into something reliable and continuous will entail additional large and unspecified costs.

The problem of exposing the true costs of getting electricity from wind and solar has been complicated by a large error, which is that state governments and utilities have allowed the structure of wholesale electricity markets to be altered to the advantage of the wind and solar generators. In particular, the wholesale electricity markets universally give priority of dispatch to the wind and solar generators, and also allow those generators to bid low prices in a spot market when the wind is blowing or sun shining. These rules have the effect of hiding the cost of covering for the intermittency of the wind and solar generators, and of giving the false impression that the cost of intermittency is not something caused by the addition of wind and solar facilities.

The people who set up this market structure have a fundamental misconception of what the product is that consumers need. Consumers do not want or need electricity that can go on and off from minute to minute. They want and need electricity that is very nearly 100% reliable all the time. The market should be set up to buy only the second product, not the first. . . .

 

Indeed. The Big Lie technique is alive and well and flourishing throughout CO2-climate-narrative nonscience.

 

The lie that is repeatedly exposed when you look at the nations that dived deep into it have much higher power prices.

 

Yet another Conspiracy claptrap content post duly noted above.

The COSTS of Green Energy continue to FALL worldwide and MORE and MORE nations, corporations and individuals do the MATH and realize that giving the Fossil Fuel Cartel the finger is the SMART MOVE because it is CHEAPER in the LONG TERM and in their OWN best interests.

 

Bill Ponton's "Reality Check" On UK Wind Power: The Issue Of Energy Storage
April 03, 2023/ Francis Menton

• 
  Bill Ponton’s new Report, “The Cost of Increasing Wind Power: A Reality Check,” contains a short but pithy section addressing the question of energy storage.
  
  
• Here’s the question to be addressed: If after the first round of overbuilding, adding new wind generation resources adds little useful energy and most of the added generation ends up getting “curtailed,” then why not just add some batteries or other energy storage to the system? Wind energy advocates suggest that some form of batteries can store the excess electricity production until it is needed, and everything will then just balance out in perfect equilibrium.
  
  
• Is there any problem here?
  
  
• Ponton does the simple calculations with his UK 2022 spreadsheet to derive how much storage in GWh will be needed, and what its functional characteristics must be.

READ MORE

 

Same bloke who is just a blogger posting paid for rubbish on an obscure website

A couple of your fellow denialists might bother to read it but I have already determined this guy is about as accurate as an Arkansas weather rope so I certainly am not going to waste my time

 

Your decision to deny the data is of course your own.

 

There is an ENDLESS supply of Conspiracy Bovine Excrement.

If we could find a way to harness the energy put into it that MIGHT help resolve the climate crisis.

 

"Stranded Assets": Who Will Have The Last Laugh?
June 19, 2023/ Francis Menton

• 
  It’s been a persistent drumbeat for many years: Fossil fuels are obsolete, and the facilities that produce them, along with any further facilities that might be built for that purpose, will shortly become worthless.
  
  
• These facilities will be “stranded assets.” And any energy company stupid enough to make further investment in fossil fuel extraction or use will inevitably suffer a total loss.
  
  
• Do you believe that prediction?
  
  
• Those making it are among the aggressive promoters of an energy transition to supposedly superior sources like the wind and sun. The prediction has been widely used in the attempt to bludgeon energy companies into reducing or ending their coal, oil and gas investments.
  
  
• But if fossil fuels were really obsolete, and renewables superior and cheaper, why would such bludgeoning be needed?

READ MORE

 

Yet another resort to absurd and disingenuous name calling to make up for the absence of contrary facts and logic noted above.

It is natural that as a technology improves, its costs decline. I certainly expect that someday, solar power will be cheaper than fossil fuels, and fossil fuels will only be used for niche applications like high-latitude locations, air transport, and rocketry. But that day is still years in the future, and those who claim it has already arrived are either deluded or lying.

 

That is nothing but your usual name calling and ad hominem filth lacking any factual content.

And do you really think the relentless CO2-climate-crisis narrative we are subjected to in the mainstream media isn't paid for? Really??

Where is your evidence that his statements are not accurate -- other than the fact that you disagree with him?

Thought not.

 

Climate Denialism PROJECTION of shortcomings content duly noted above.

Green Energy Renewables PASSED Fossil Fuels way back in 2015.

However no one has expectations that Climate Deniers have any actual contact with REALITY.

https://kurschgroup.com/renewables-have-surpassed-fossil-fuels/

 

It would appear that a major source of "levelized cost of energy" claims is engaged in sleight-of-hand (or outright fraud?) to promote wind and solar power.
Climate Advocacy: Incompetence Versus Intentional Fraud -- Lazard Edition
December 17, 2023/ Francis Menton

• 
  My last post, on December 14, asked readers, when considering climate advocacy journalism and reports promoting wind- or solar-generated energy, to ask themselves whether the author is merely incompetent versus perhaps committing intentional fraud. The post focused on a particular piece that had been published in November in euronews.green, byline Lauren Crosby Medlicott.
  
  
• In that piece, Ms. Medlicott had egregiously cherrypicked some operating data from the Spanish El Hierro Island wind/storage electricity system to make it appear that that system is a success, when in fact it is a disastrous failure. Could this really have been mere incompetence on her part, or was Ms. Medlicott intentionally seeking to deceive her readers?
  
  
• Ms. Medlicott’s piece was so appalling that I was unable just to let it pass. On the other hand, to be honest, Ms. Medlicott is a relatively small fish in the climate advocacy game. Are the larger fish any more honest?
  
  
• . . . . Now, consider the question of whether cost figures in the Lazard Report are the result of rank incompetence versus intentional deception. Could the people at Lazard who produce all these fancy and complex charts and graphs really not know that 4 hour duration batteries cycling once per day are not going to come close to solving the intermittency problems of wind and solar generation? Or do they really know that, and they are just hoping to sell a few hundreds of billions of dollars worth of wind turbines and solar panels before the stupid politicians and investors figure out the scam?

READ MORE

 

Fact are stubborn things.
The Real World Costs Of Backing Up Weather-Dependent Electricity Generation With Battery Storage
August 08, 2023/ Francis Menton

• 
  A recurring question at this blog has been, how do the world’s politicians plan to provide reliable electricity without fossil fuels? Country after country, and state after state, have announced grand plans for what they call “Net Zero” electricity generation, universally accompanied by schemes for massive build-outs of wind and solar generation facilities. But what is the strategy for the calm nights, or for the sometimes long periods at the coldest times of the winter when both wind and sun produce near zero electricity for days or even weeks on end?
  
  
• When pressed, the answer given is generally “batteries” or “storage.” That answer might appear plausible before you start to think about it quantitatively. To introduce some quantitative thinking into the situation, last December I had a Report published by the Global Warming Policy Foundation titled “The Energy Storage Conundrum.”
  
  
• That Report discussed several calculations of how much energy storage would be required to get various jurisdictions through a year with only wind and/or solar generation and only batteries for back-up, with fossil fuels excluded from the mix. The number are truly breathtaking: for California and Germany, approximately 25,000 GWh of storage to make it through a year; for the continental U.S., approximately 233,000 GWh of storage to make it through a year. At a wildly optimistic assumption of $100/kWh for storage, this would price out at $2.5 trillion for California or Germany, $23.3 trillion for the U.S. — equal or greater than the entire GDP of the jurisdiction. At more realistic assumptions of $300 - 500/kWh for battery storage, you would be looking at 3 to 5 times GDP for one round of batteries, which would then need replacement every few years.
  
  
• But even these numbers wildly understate the real world costs of storage that would be needed. Here’s why.

READ MORE

 

my personal experience is, those that try to go solar end up with a toxic waste dump of depleted batteries.

 

Total lack of reason and objectivity noted above.

But somehow still need to be heavily subsidized....

The irony is strong in this one.

Yet when we examine how those numbers were actually concocted, we find they're all fake.

If renewables were cheaper than fossil fuels, they would not have to be so heavily subsidized. The market would ensure that profit-seeking energy providers would use them voluntarily.

The scam goes on....

 

Abject FAILURE to SUBSTANTIATE your BOGUS allegation content above duly noted.

 

If only there were a power grid that runs on shouted insults.

 

Disingenuous garbage duly noted. Jack has already posted chapter and verse on this.

 

The entire NATION could be POWERED by the WASTED bandwidth of CONSPIRACY DENIALISM of Climate REALITY.

 

Chapter and Verse of CONSPIRACY drivel content is nothing more than CLIMATE DENIALISM twaddle on steroids.