Posted on 12/04/2023 4:17:17 AM PST by MtnClimber
Let me welcome to the small and elite club of critical thinkers on the supposed energy transition a guy named Balázs Fekete. Fekete, with several co-authors, has recently (September 18) succeeded in getting an article published in a journal called Frontiers of Environmental Science, with the title “Storage requirements to mitigate intermittent renewable energy sources: analysis for the US Northeast.” Fekete then followed up by publishing on November 14 at Judith Curry’s Climate, Etc. blog a lengthy post summarizing the article, titled “Net-Zero Targets: Sustainable Future or CO2 Obsession Driven Dead-end?”
As with the previous competent analyses of energy storage requirements needed to back up intermittent renewable generation that have been featured on this blog and in my energy storage Report, there is nothing complicated about the Fekete, et al., analysis. The authors call it “a modified surplus/deficit calculation [as] taught to water engineers to size reservoirs for meeting water demand when the water resources vary.” When there is surplus production you add it to storage, and when there is a deficit you subtract; and then you sum over a year (or two, or ten) to calculate how much storage you need. It’s all basic arithmetic. What could be simpler?
You will not be surprised that the conclusion is “CO2 obsession driven dead-end.”
This subject would seem almost too obvious and trivial to cover on this blog. There is nothing complicated here. Everybody who is involved in any way in the energy transition game, and who has even the lowest level of professional competence, simply must be aware of this subject and of these calculations. And yet I just attended the big New York “Climate Summit,” (aka the Krazy Klimate Konference), featuring all of the powerful politicians and bureaucrats and industry leaders who are in charge of our state’s energy transition, and to a person they have no idea about any of this. And by no idea, I mean none, zero, zilch. One guy even came up to me and accused me of being “rude” for laughing out loud at his astounding ignorance. (The only other possibility was that it was intentional comedy.)
Unsurprisingly, the authors of Fekete, et al., make no claim to being “climate scientists.” Climate scientists as a class are way too smart to stoop to doing basic arithmetic. In the intro to the paper, Fekete identifies himself as a professor at the City University of New York — of Civil Engineering. Second author Mihály Bacskó is a former executive of the Hungarian Power Company. The other two co-authors are meteorologists working at the University of Oklahoma. In other words, the focus here is not on scaring the public with frightening scenarios from the occult voodoo of climate “science,” but rather only on whether the proposed solutions will or will not work.
The particular calculations in Fekete, et al., look at data from twelve states of the northeastern U.S. — New England, plus New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland and West Virginia. Rather than using production data from existing wind and solar facilities, the authors obtained daily wind speed and solar irradiation data for the region. For consumption data, the blog post states that the authors applied an assumption of “constant energy consumption,” after determining that “seasonal variations of energy consumption are relatively small (deviate by only 10-15% of the annual average).” (Perhaps this decision could be criticized, but I doubt that it makes any material difference to the conclusion.)
And the bottom line is:
The storage capacity needed to align power generation from solar or wind is around 25% of the annual energy consumption.
In other words, you need three months worth of storage to try to make this work. Previous studies that I highlighted in my energy storage Report — for example, those of Roger Andrews and Ken Gregory — had calculated storage needs in the range of one to two months. However, those studies only used one year’s worth of data for each calculation, and allowed running the storage balance right down to zero. If you think that it’s too risky to run the storage right down to zero before the balance starts to refill, then three months of storage is a much more reasonable figure. Indeed, it’s still rather conservative.
Fekete, et al., don’t get into the specifics of cost of any possible storage solution. But then, they don’t need to. The potential costs are so enormous as to completely rule out any attempt even to start down this road. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, total U.S. electricity consumption in 2022 was just over 4 trillion kWh. So one-quarter of that would be just over 1 trillion kWh. Just to get an idea of the cost of that much energy storage, this site (Tesla fans) gives a (highly optimistic) cost for Tesla batteries of just over $100 per kWh. So a trillion of those will run you about $100 trillion. That’s four times the entire U.S. economy. Meanwhile, a Tesla-style battery is not remotely up to the job of the energy storage needed to back up wind/solar electricity generation, which would necessarily include the ability to save up power over a year or more and discharge over a year. But then, the economics are so wildly out of line that it’s hardly worth worrying about such technicalities.
Fekete, et al., in a very understated manner, put it this way:
In the absence of energy storage technology that can store several months worth of energy, one has to conclude that all studies suggesting that solar or wind are price competitive with other forms of energy should be retracted.
The Fekete blog post at Climate, Etc. contains two other subjects of interest. One relates to the peer review process. It appears that one of the peer reviewers made a run at getting the paper blocked, without stating the nature of any substantive criticisms:
One of the reviewers stated that “The manuscript contains fundamental errors that cannot be rectified through author revisions” without venturing into any details.
Fekete calls this effort “unscientific, unjust, and unethical,” which is again quite an understatement. Sadly, such conduct is the norm in what goes by the name “climate science” today. Fortunately, in this case, another reviewer was supportive, as was the staff of the journal.
The second subject of further interest in the blog post is that another reviewer criticized the draft paper for alleged “lack of references to the “plethora of work” related to integrating renewables to the current energy systems and transitioning to a sustainable energy future.” The criticism caused the authors to “roll up their sleeves” and go out and review some 360 papers recommended by the critic. Here is a list of what they found:
1. The inter-annual and seasonal variations were rarely studied.
2. The vast majority of the studies were limited to diurnal and minute-by-minute variations.
3. The publications only investigated the use of few hourly storage capacities.
4. The primary sustainability metric was reducing CO2 emissions.
5. Most of the publications were limited to low renewable penetration.
6. No publication attempted to address complete decarbonization.
7. Even the most ambitious “deep decarbonization” scenarios stopped at 25-50% renewable contributions that was considered “high renewable penetration”.
And in summary:
Most of the reviewed papers assumed that solar and wind will be always supplemented by some form of “firm generation capacity”, which is the obfuscated name of using fossil fuels complemented with “carbon capture and sequestration”.
In other words, the orthodox “peer reviewed” scientific literature is almost completely lacking in consideration of the most important, fundamental problem of transitioning to an energy system based on electricity generated by the wind and sun. Well, now there is one competent paper in the mix. They will do their best to ignore it, at least until the whole wind/solar thing has conclusively shown that it can’t work.
Calling John Kerry.
Manhattan Contrarian ping
Duh.
Leftist are supremely good at ignoring reality.
I was just reading another article about that idiot how he joined the “Powering Past Coal Alliance” that will phase out all coal plants. Absolute pristine logic once again coming from a leftist. “We want everyone driving electric cars at the same time we will be producing less electric”
https://www.bostonherald.com/2023/12/03/kerry-us-joining-no-coal-clean-power-pledge/
It is stunning how much gaslighting is part of their platform.
I’ll file this under “You don’t say!”
Having been a consultant and done work with a few energy companies I can tell you just from the numbers that so-called “renewables” are not remotely competitive on price.
The trick Gaia worshipers use to claim otherwise is they attempt to simply not count a whole bunch of the costs. For example, the wind doesn’t blow where you want it to....ie the windiest spot in the US is that corner between North and South Dakota and Minnesota. The largest power consumer BY FAR in that area is Minneapolis. So you’d have to beam that energy down the power lines to get it to Minneapolis.
That means you’d have to build power lines - which are expensive. You’d lose a percentage of the electricity sending it over the power lines. Since the wind blows intermittently, you’d have to have 100% backup capacity by law (ie a coal fired plant on permanent standby). All of these cost are in addition to wind turbines only generating about 30% of baseload capacity on average. So add in the cost of a whole lot of windmills.
By the time you add all those costs in, its a joke to even try to compare this with a nearby coal fired power plant alone.
NY going natural gas free, gee NY in a few years, as soon as you thaw out, let me know how’s that going.......
“Leftist are supremely good at ignoring reality.”
As long as we think that, they win.
“Most of the reviewed papers assumed that solar and wind will be always supplemented by some form of “firm generation capacity”, which is the obfuscated name of using fossil fuels complemented with “carbon capture and sequestration”.”
To morons, the uninitiated, climate idiots, financiers without a clue, and all others falling into the ego trap that somehow God has failed us by creating a self destructing planet, I offer this: The earth has more than demonstrated over a period of many thousands of years it’s ability to sustain life and provide abundantly not only what sustains life but to allow untold progress for a future that offers even more than at present, if we DON’T succumb to idiot environmentalist fear mongering.
That said why should I bend to the will of the few whose thought processes will not allow them to live in relative peace, but continually are harrowed up by fear of the unknown. Their constant bleating about climate issues without a shred of truthful evidence to back up their claims should cause alarm in anyone considering the big picture.
An example might be found in the beginning quote from the article in question. “Firm generation capacity” is a made up word to describe what power generation folks have called Base Load ever since base load was the concept that kept the US power grid alive and well on an hour by hour day by day month by month year by year basis up until around now.
Then, shazam you shut down and level 70 gigawatts of coal fired power generation with another 26 gigawatts still on the chopping block by 2028 and you find yourself using words like firm generation capacity. Words that translate to a thoroughly unreliable power grid.
I could go on, but why?
If we fail to come to our senses with what now stares us in the face including those who’s job it was to produce electricity 24 seven 365 we have already lost the battle and the war.
“We the People” may just have to be included in the groups first mentioned in paragraph number two. What’s it going to take to bring us to our senses? I haven’t even begun to mention the cost related to net zero life, or the carbon sequestration scam that requires the use of money generated by “We the People” to perpetuate the scam, these folks running the scam are a confidente bunch of scammers that think you and I are as stupid as they.
...and if you aren’t familiar with another part of the scam, just look into the future production of sustainable aviation fuel as one more unaffordable part of part of your future. I believe it is safe to say that the majority of the scam is brought to you by the Democrat Party with plenty of RINO’s as willing accomplices.
Eagerly awaiting their ultimate demise before they accomplish the impossible at our expense.
“”Climate scientists as a class are way too smart to stoop to doing basic arithmetic.””
There is definitely one basic arithmetic that most ‘climate scientists’ have mastered. The basic arithmetic of $$$ in their bank accounts. As long as you ‘research’ and publish the Hoax, National Geographic, Scientific American, Smithsonian, and many others will pay you. The magazines named above all used to receive $$ from me. Once they drank the Hoax kool-aid, they were no longer readable. That anthropologist PhD who stated we cannot determine the sex of an excavated skeleton is a prime example of the insanity gripping those........What do we call them? Is someone an idiot for writing or saying words that will garner $$$. I can envision some of them laughing in the privacy of their homes, sometimes in disbelief at their salaries for stating the Hoax.
For the few liberals who will listen, I have explained two basic facts. First, C02 is PLANT FOOD. Next, New York and Chicago were under a mile of ice not so long ago, AND the cold and ice will return. All we can do is adapt.
Grid integration has ALWAYS been an issue.
BTW, drove by a solar farm in NYS recently.
All the panels were snow covered.
Wonder how much power those were generating...
Okay, having read this and the requirement that you need three months of storage capacity is a bit silly. You won’t need all three months during a continuous three month period.
But it does point out that for 25% of the average day you will need storage capacity and for the rest of the day you will need 100% of generating capacity to run your home and business PLUS an excess to recharge your storage system. And wind and solar simply cannot meed the demand nos, much less a demand of 100% plus.
The climate-hoax nazis run from facts at twice the speed of light.
Wow. Another idiot who has no idea how much kilowatt hours it takes to run ONE supercharger station, much less tens thousands at once.
I even had one genius ask me why would so many vehicles be plugged in at once. It was as if he had never been to a gas station and watched the line of cars that pull in to fill up.
Because they were covered in snot should tell you that the power they generate even uncovered isn’t worth the money to sweep the snow off.
There may be a typo there, but I like it.
LOL!
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