Posted on 07/06/2015 7:40:46 AM PDT by george76
Bill Gates recently noted that the cost of decarbonization using today’s technology is ‘beyond astronomical.’
On June 30, one day after the Supreme Court struck down the Environmental Protection Agency’s regulation of mercury emissions from power plants, resident Obama committed the United States to the goal of generating 20% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2030. This would nearly triple the amount of wind- and solar-generated electricity on the national grid.
The EPA ran afoul of the law by failing to conduct a cost-benefit analysis before it acted to reduce mercury emissions from coal-power plants. There is no objective cost-benefit analysis that could justify the president’s target for renewable energy.
Recently Bill Gates explained in an interview with the Financial Times why current renewables are dead-end technologies. They are unreliable. Battery storage is inadequate. Wind and solar output depends on the weather. The cost of decarbonization using today’s technology is “beyond astronomical,” Mr. Gates concluded.
Google engineers came to a similar conclusion last year. After seven years of investigation, they found no way to get the cost of renewables competitive with coal. “Unfortunately,” the engineers reported, “most of today’s clean generation sources can’t provide power that is both distributed and dispatchable”—that is, electricity that can be ramped up and down quickly. “Solar panels, for example, can be put on every rooftop, but can’t provide power if the sun isn’t shining.”
...
generating electricity with low-energy density, weather-dependent technology is very inefficient. It requires far more plant and equipment and land to harvest an equivalent amount of power than fossil fuels. And that’s not counting the investment in fossil-fuel capacity to provide on-demand power when the wind isn’t blowing or the sun doesn’t shine.
There is no rational justification for policies favoring renewables
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
Obama is fixing this. Not by lowering the cost of renewables, but by raising the price of coal.
The UK “renewables” subsidies are being curtailed by the new “conservative” government there after exceeding their ~ 3.0 budget by 1.5 billion .. and still not finishing even the beginning of the campaign target.
Australia has cut their subsidies.
Spain found that their “solar” power subsidies were so skewed that people were making more money bu running generators at night to get subsidies from the solar panels (after dark) than they were paying for the diesel fuel.
The EPA ran afoul of the law by failing to conduct a cost-benefit analysis before it acted to reduce mercury emissions from coal-power plants. There is no objective cost-benefit analysis that could justify the president’s target for renewable energy.
Obama sometimes talks about common sense. But liberals lose the common sense when it comes to energy and environmental issues such as this. It seems like common sense to most of us, to do a cost/benefit review of proposed changes such as the EPA regulations here. To enviro extremists, who become hysterical, there is no place for cost/benefit analysis of anything. They get hysterical about ice caps melting and all that, that there is no possible rational discussion about how to proceed.
If he has his way, 0bama will eliminate coal all together so that there will be NO cost comparison whatsoever.
See? Renewable vs. nothing at all.
The good news is that coal is still around, although experiencing much leaner times that in the past. I was afraid that by now he would have killed the industry.
There is no rational justification for policies favoring renewables
That pretty much says it all. Truth is important. Renewables have their place if someone besides taxpayers are paying the freight.
Bill Gates finally threw off his Stupid Cloud.
A Powerpoint foil set is NOT reality.
Nothing rational, no.
But, there are two reasons for renewables.
One is that the leftist elitists don’t want the peasants using any energy.
Two is that the leftist sheeperals derive their self-righteousness from caring about the erf.
How exactly are sunlight and the wind renewed?
Seems that the term should be "unreliable energy."
Hydro-electric is renewed every time it rains and fills a lake behind a dam. Coal plants are renewed every time a new train of coal arrives. Nuclear power plants are renewed every time the rods are replenished. And they are all reliable sources of power.
Unless you are a democrat, in which case you don't need to answer to the laws of physics and thermodynamics. Because "You know better."
Some simple number-crunching on the number of gigawatts and BTU’s that are currently being used, versus those that can be generated by renewable sources, should quickly put this debate to rest.
Yeah, I know. Math is hard!
Wind and Solar are renewed in the same way as hydro. Additional energy from the Sun strikes the earth, creating sunlight and associated weather.
“Yeah, I know. Math is hard!”
That’s why they are dumbing down the schools with Common Core. That way future generations won’t know how to conduct the cost comparison to begin with. Problem solved.
Took them 7 years to come to the obvious conclusion? The state of scientific & technological literacy in this country is appalling. What is worse, the people who should know are too busy currying political favor that they are telling politicians only what they want to hear.
Considering that we are carbon based life forms I believe calling the cost of decarbonization “astronomical” an understatement.
Man made global warming is a theory. An unproven theory. Whenever global warming is mentioned it should be described as Global Warming Theory.
They made Einstein prove his Theory of Relativity. Global Warmists should be made to prove theirs.
An excellent tool for pauperizing and thus eliminating the hated Middle Class, source of so much opposition or just noncooperation with the Utopia Project.
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