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America’s Light Usage Reveals the Insanity of Relying On Weather-Dependent Wind & Solar Energy
Heartland Institute ^ | 03/09/2021 | Ronald Stein

Posted on 03/09/2021 7:49:15 AM PST by SeekAndFind

The U.S.A. Light Usage Map demonstrates that most of America’s population is East of the Mississippi which represents areas most susceptible to erratic weather patterns, such as tornadoes, hurricanes, and ungodly amounts of rain and snow and frigid temperatures extremes, which perpetuate the unreliability of any intermittent electricity attainable from wind and solar.

The northern hemisphere turns on bitter winters – getting wind turbines and solar panels to turn on during one, is another matter. Wind chills below zero from a nor’easter have recently hit much of the country. The push to go Green at any cost would leave America dependent on weather-dependent intermittent electricity from wind turbines and solar panels. This would be an energy disaster.

The wild weather swings around the world have been supported by continuous uninterruptable electricity generation from zero-emission nuclear generation, natural gas-powered generations, and coal-fired power generation.

Interestingly, coal-fired power plants continue to be dominated by China and India for abundant, reliable, and AFFORDABLE electricity. Today, neither China nor India, the two fastest growing sources of GHG emissions, have committed to make reductions by 2030.

Today, a few wealthy countries like German, Australia, Great Britain, and America are wishing to go ‘green’ via wind turbines and solar panels for intermittent electricity. Under ideal weather conditions, these “renewables’ have yet to perform under perfect weather yet alone under severe weather conditions. Freezing Germans, desperate for coal-fired power, are probably having a good, hard think about their obsession with ‘green’ energy.

The same wealthier developed countries that have access to continuous uninterruptible electricity from coal, natural gas, and nuclear, also have access to heating, air conditioning, and insulation that has virtually eliminated weather related deaths. In the last 80 years, climate-related deaths have gone down by a rate of 98%. Globally, the individual risk of dying from weather-related disasters declined by 98 percent from a high of almost 500,000 deaths in 1920 from floods, droughts, storms, wildfires, and extreme temperatures.

The Democratic platform loves California and wants to clone its policies and regulations for the other 49 states. The Democrats should open his eyes to what is going on in California, before cloning it for the other 49 states. To meet its electrification goals of the state, California, with some of the most temperate climate in America professes to be the leader of everything but has become the State that imports more electricity than any other state, through its dysfunctional energy policies, as renewables have proven to be a failure in replacing those reliable generating plants that have been, and are being shuttered.

California has achieved the dubious record of having the least reliable electrical power system in the nation. Between 2008 and 2017, California was the leading U.S. state for individual power outages with almost 4,297 blackouts in the ten-year period, more than 2.5 times as many as its closest rival, Texas. Power outages are now commonplace in California.

As a result of California following the failures of the green energy programs in German and Australia, California’s energy policies of phasing out nuclear and natural gas power plants, and pioneering a system of subsidies for industrial wind and solar have made the state’s electricity and fuel prices among the highest in the nation which have been contributory to the rapid growth of “energy poverty” for most Californians including the 45 percent of the 40 million Californians that represent the Hispanic and African American populations of the state, i.e., 18 million.

In recent years, California continues to downsize its natural gas fleet. At the same time, the states “green” religion remains adamantly against coal, natural gas, nuclear, and hydro power plants. In the near term, California has five more power plants to shutter in the cross hairs – the last nuclear plant at Diablo Canyon and four more natural gas power plants. Renewables in the temperate climate of California have failed to fill the void of the shuttered electricity generation.

To compound the dysfunctionality, ramifications from Governor Newsom’s recent Executive order to ban the sale of gas-powered vehicles by 2035 will be devastating to the state’s economy and environment, as the Governor wants to add more electrical charging demands onto a dysfunctional energy program. The state has already sacrificed reliable electrical power on the altar of the fight against global warming.

Reliance on intermittent electricity from wind and solar, is promoting a reversal of the climate-related fatalities as few other states have the temperate climate as California. The state of California can survive on dysfunctional energy policies as the growing outages are not impacting the public and businesses like they would in other states with much harsher weather inclusive of tornadoes, hurricanes, and ungodly amounts of rain and snow and frigid temperatures extremes, which perpetuate the unreliability of any intermittent electricity from wind and solar.

Yes, getting-off-fossil fuels would reduce those fossil fuel emissions, but it would also drastically impact the lifestyles that we have become accustomed, and would result in reverting to extensive diseases and weather-related deaths, which fossil fuels and electricity from natural gas, nuclear, and coal have virtually eliminated.

With the nor’easter storm that recently hit much of the country, maybe we should learn something about Europe’s experiences with wind and solar during those harsh times when continuous, uninterruptible, reliable electricity is required to maintain the basics of living in extreme climate conditions as chaotic wind and solar collapses are threatening an entire Europe-wide blackout.

The current trends to shutter continued uninterruptible electricity generating plants is revealing the insanity of relying on intermittent electricity generated from weather-dependent wind and solar. While intellectual infants continue to babble about our ‘inevitable transition’, the grown-ups can see the looming and inevitable disaster, with remarkable clarity.

- Ronald Stein is the co-author of the newly released book, “Energy Made Easy,” an internationally published columnist, and a policy advisor for The Heartland Institute


TOPICS: Government; Science; Society; Weather
KEYWORDS: electricity; energy; powergrid; solar; wind

1 posted on 03/09/2021 7:49:15 AM PST by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind

Methinks the best revenge against these clowns is to demand that all Democrat areas be forced to go to all renewables whilst we sane (and STEM proficient) types stay on cheap, reliable energy.

We can then look forward to enjoying watching the b*stards freeze to death in the dark.

Oh, let’s not forget that even the corrupt UN released a statement saying the US has already exceeded the Paris agreement requirements for C02 reduction. Funny, I have not read that in the NYT/Washington Pest. But then again, we’re dealing with folks to whom STEM means the shaft of a plant.


2 posted on 03/09/2021 7:54:12 AM PST by Da Coyote
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To: SeekAndFind

Ron Stein needs an editor. Badly. This article is nearly incoherent, and filled with factual errors e.g. “Nor’Easters” are a New England (and to a lesser extent, Mid-Atlantic) thing. They cannot affect the vast majority of the nation.


3 posted on 03/09/2021 7:56:41 AM PST by Little Pig
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To: SeekAndFind

Let me know when they can run a solar panel manufacturing facility on solar power or a wind turbine manufacturing facility on wind. Then they can call it sustainable.


4 posted on 03/09/2021 8:11:14 AM PST by Pollard (Bunch of curmudgeons)
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To: SeekAndFind; All
Climate Change Made Simple:

The issue with the liberals is never their stated issue.

The issue is always their desire to destroy fossil fueled capitalism and replace it with their big government socialism/communism systems.

Climate change is not about the climate, the weather, the temperature, the environment, the levels of CO2 or saving the planet.

Climate change is about fooling the public into emptying their wallets now under the ruse of keeping the temperature of the earth from rising 1 degree a 100 years from today when no one alive today can challenge their long con game.

And that is not their Inconvenient Truth but their Convenient Lie.

5 posted on 03/09/2021 8:14:50 AM PST by HotHunt
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To: SeekAndFind

Until we store 120 hours of electricity at the solar wind collection infrastructure, solar wind will fail. Cheap batteries within a couple years are coming but not here yet.


6 posted on 03/09/2021 8:17:12 AM PST by cicero2k
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To: SeekAndFind
Freezing sleet will pack those windmills with ice. The weight of the ice will break off the blades just as happens with trees and power lines.
ping
7 posted on 03/09/2021 8:33:01 AM PST by minnesota_bound (I need more money. )
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To: SeekAndFind

Ssssh, don’t tell AOC. P.S. you can’t tell her anything anyway, she knows it all.


8 posted on 03/09/2021 8:36:18 AM PST by VTenigma (The Democrat party is the party of the mathematically challenged )
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To: SeekAndFind

As one who lives off grid on solar with a generator back up I wi truly enjoy watching liberals suffer the consequences of their idiocy. Their victims, not so much. The Texas mess will be nothing.


9 posted on 03/09/2021 10:09:31 AM PST by Organic Panic (Democrats. Memories as short as Joe Biden's eyes.)
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To: SeekAndFind

Not once did the author even mention the move to all electric vehicles and what that would do to the CA power grid.


10 posted on 03/09/2021 10:17:43 AM PST by PIF (They came for me and mine ... now its your turn)
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To: cicero2k

Tesla is already in the game. They are by far the largest manufacturer of high capacity batteries in the USA and also all of north America.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/03/report-tesla-is-secretly-building-a-giant-100-mw-battery-in-texas/%3Famp%3D1&ved=2ahUKEwjtrbGV-6PvAhUHac0KHQYHBhAQr_oDegQIARAB&usg=AOvVaw1PTdYbcFgmSoGzI-ZYWgDs&ampcf=1

They already sell a unit sized for an individual home.

https://www.tesla.com/sites/default/files/pdfs/powerwall/Powerwall%25202_AC_Datasheet_en_northamerica.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwj4g_LX-6PvAhVNXc0KHdpbCZAQFjAPegQICBAC&usg=AOvVaw2SYgvyhZzJjDbpVsModjlJ

Add in some $0.35c kw panels and a $0.50 kw inverters both of which are are currently on my roof so I know for a fact they exist and work well my 15kw system kept the lights and heat in while all my neighbors were dark in the blackout they lost power for 48 hours we had all the power we wanted during the day and at night when the grid was down we have a generac that’s propane& natural gas bifueled the gas grid never went down but the pressure did drop from 11 inches to 4 for a day during the peak as reported by the inlet gas sensor on that generac unit had it gone down the original 500 gal tank would have kicked in we didn’t get a gas line down the street till 5 years ago when atmos brought one for the new development further down the main road. Happy to have both on-site.

Tesla has the lowest cost in $/kWh in the industry and has a path to sub $100

https://www.bloomberg.com/amp/news/articles/2020-12-16/electric-cars-are-about-to-be-as-cheap-as-gas-powered-models

https://www.tesmanian.com/blogs/tesmanian-blog/tesla-long-team-goal-to-achieve-0-50-0-55-per-kwh-cell-pack-level-for-the-long-range-battery-that-will-last-15-years

Tesla is on the path to 3 TERAWATT hours of capacity the new factory in Austin Texas is massive and will generate hundreds of high paying jobs for the area. They new cells are also cobalt free they are Fe,Ni,Mn cathode

https://www.greencarcongress.com/2020/09/20200923-tesla.html

No shortage of Fe,Ni,Mn virtually unlimited amounts just sitting on the seabed in international waters. In the USA Nevada is loaded with nickel as well.

https://www.greencarcongress.com/2021/03/20210305-deepgreen.html

Lithium is also available in Texas in massive amounts which is why Tesla came to.Texas well one of the main reasons. There’s over 100,000 wells in the Midland basin every one of them is a brine production well that happens to be contaminated with oil. The avg produced water to oil rate is 6 to one water to oil in the Permian basin with 100:1 being not that uncommon. One of my Alma mater is commercializing tech to recover massive amounts from those wells brine. I personally have worked as a geochemistry expert and hydro geologist with 3 companies and this tech. I plan, develop and still salt water disposal wells for a living as a PhD level geologist. In 2018 this was “could” as of 2021 it IS boosting supply nondisclosure prohibitions mean I cannot say more than three very large players in Midland are using this tech as we speak to pull lithium out of flow back waters it’s not if but when that go full commercial.

https://news.utexas.edu/2018/02/09/new-lithium-collection-method-could-boost-global-supply/

Go Horns!


11 posted on 03/09/2021 12:11:28 PM PST by JD_UTDallas ("Veni Vidi Vici" )
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To: Organic Panic

Yup I’m in North Texas, we have 15kw up on our south facing roof. We are grid tied with a bifuel 15kw generator primary natural gas with propane back up. This area lost power off and on at first for 12 hours then 48 down then up for 12 then back down for 24 more. My panels made more than enough during the day to run my led lights keep the freezers and fridges all 6 of them (two vertical 20c.f. One hrz 25c.f. Subzeros, and a commercial 7 foot drink fridge in the garage which is heated, one very large French door insideand our 7 foot wine fridge inside running plus the blower for the heat and compressors for the heat pump which worked well even down to single digits it’s ground sourced. We had overcast one of the no power days the others where sunny my panels make 2 to 3 kw even under partial overcast and under full over cast still make ruffy 10% or 1500 watts the generac only kicked in at night we just managed our power use via the smart home set up to shed load of the panels clouded up we only cut the outside freezers once via the Wi-Fi smart outlets never cut the inside fridge or wine fridge and had to.cycle the heat pumps once as well for a few hours as the panels.dropped under the 4kw.needed to run them. We could have let the generac come on but I try to keep the hours down in it so we heated the house to 80+ f while sunny and let the thermal mass keep it above 70 as the panels shaded. At night we ran the genny for two hours went to 85F inside and by morning it was still 70+ inside. Couldn’t be happier with our solar system.


12 posted on 03/09/2021 12:30:29 PM PST by JD_UTDallas ("Veni Vidi Vici" )
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