Posted on 12/18/2021 5:03:08 AM PST by MtnClimber
In the fantasy of wealthy woke environmentalists, the world has recognized that it is on the brink of an existential climate crisis that can only be avoided by rapid elimination of the use of fossil fuels, and the transformation of the world energy economy to be based upon “renewables” like the wind and sun. The generation of electricity will be “decarbonized” by some time in the 2030s, and the world will reach “net zero” carbon emissions by around 2050.
In the real world, anyone with eyes can see that this is not happening. The countries with the large majority of world population (China, India, the remainder of Asia, and Africa) mouth a few platitudes to appease the foolish Western elites, even as they continue to build hundreds of new coal and other fossil fuel facilities. Even the U.S. federal government, under left-wing Democrat control, has had its ambitious “Green New Deal” plans stalled in Congress. Worldwide, fossil fuel usage continues on a steady upward trajectory, pretty much as if the whole decarbonization obsession didn’t exist.
But then there is that handful of very wealthy, small population jurisdictions that have convinced themselves that they can save the planet by eliminating their own fossil fuel use and substituting wind and solar power, even as the rest of the world laughs at them behind their back. Four jurisdictions stand out from the rest, two of them European countries and the other two U.S. states: Germany, the UK, California, and New York. In the aggregate, these four places have population of about 200 million, or about 2.5% or world population. Each of the four has announced draconian targets for net zero carbon emissions by mid-century, with even more stringent interim targets for eliminating carbon emissions from things like electricity generation and home heating.
All these places, despite their wealth and seeming sophistication, are embarking on their ambitious plans without ever having conducted any kind of detailed engineering study of how their new proposed energy systems will work or how much they will cost. Sure, a wind/solar electric grid can function with 100% natural gas backup, if you’re willing to have the ratepayers foot the bill for two overlapping and redundant generation systems when you could have had just one. But “net zero” emissions means no more fossil fuel backup. What’s the plan to keep the grid operating 24/7 when the coal and natural gas are gone?
As these jurisdictions ramp up their wind and solar generation, and gradually eliminate the coal and natural gas, sooner or later one or another of them is highly likely to hit a “wall” — that is, a situation where the electricity system stops functioning, or the price goes through the roof, or both, forcing a drastic alteration or even abandonment of the whole scheme. But which jurisdiction will hit it first, and how will the “wall” emerge?
It’s time for Manhattan Contrarian readers to start placing their bets on this issue. To kick things off, here are a few thoughts from me:
California. I have written several posts highly critical of California’s pie-in-the-sky green energy plans, which include a 2045 “zero carbon” target. For example see here and here. However, California does have a deep secret to help it stave off the possibility of hitting the renewable energy wall: it imports a very high percentage of its power from neighboring states. Some of the imports are fossil fuel based (coal and natural gas from Arizona and Nevada), and some are reliable non-fossil fuel based sources (nuclear from Arizona and hydro from Oregon and Washington).
Here are charts from the California Energy Commission of “total system electric generation” for the state for 2018 and 2020. In 2018 California imported about 32% of its electricity (91,000 GWH out of 285,000 GWH), and in 2020 about 30% (82,000 GWH out of 273,000 GWH). According to data from the EIA, California imports far more electricity from other states than does any other state (although there are a few states that import more on a percentage basis). The ability to import large amounts of electricity from neighboring states means that California has a high degree of insurance against its own energy folly. As long as Arizona, Nevada, Oregon and Washington have some electricity to sell, blackouts can be staved off even though California’s wind and solar generators may be completely quiet. You may say that this is cheating in the game of “zero emissions” electricity, which it is, but don’t count on California’s politicians to level with the voters.
New York. New York’s energy system transformation has been defined by something called the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (Climate Act), passed in 2019. This state website provides a summary of the goals to which this Climate Act has supposedly committed us. The main targets:
85% Reduction in GHG Emissions by 2050
100% Zero-emission Electricity by 2040
70% Renewable Energy by 2030
9,000 MW of Offshore Wind by 2035
3,000 MW of Energy Storage by 2030
6,000 MW of Solar by 2025
Here in New York City, the City Council just this week passed a bill banning natural gas hookups for buildings under seven stories starting in 2024, and for larger buildings starting in 2027. Mayor de Blasio, heading into his last week in office, is expected to sign the bill.
But is there any reality to any of this? My prediction is that, rather than our hitting some kind of wall of a failing energy system or sudden price spikes, these ridiculous targets will just be abandoned and forgotten as they get closer and it becomes obvious that they cannot be achieved. The prototype was a matter involving the natural gas utility in Long Island, National Grid, in 2019. National Grid was running out of natural gas capacity for new customers, particularly in Brooklyn and Queens (parts of New York City that are on Long Island and served by National Grid). National Grid wanted to build a pipeline under New York Harbor to bring in the gas, but Governor Cuomo blocked it on fake environmental grounds (supposedly, threats to water quality). When the existing pipelines hit capacity, National Grid began refusing new natural gas hookups. Within a few weeks, some 3000 people had been refused, and the political blowback began. Facing pressure from actual voters, Cuomo did not relent on the pipeline, but instead threatened to pull NG’s license unless it figured out some other way to bring in the gas. NG began to bring in the gas by truck (much more expensive and dangerous than the pipeline), and as far as I know that is what it continues to do. Here is a New York Times account with more details.
My strong bet is that this scenario repeats itself in 2024 when the City Council’s supposed natural gas ban kicks in. Right now the public is only dimly aware of the coming ban, and paying no attention. But natural gas is hugely superior to electricity for home heat, particularly an area like this where winter temperatures regularly go into the 20s and below, a range at which electric heat pumps basically don’t work at all. People building and renovating homes are acutely aware of this difference, and will push back forcefully when told that they can’t have gas.
Similarly, the goals of the Climate Act for enormous numbers of wind turbines and solar arrays are completely unrealistic, and nobody has even started building any meaningful number of them yet. Moreover, the amount of storage proposed is not even stated in relevant units (should be MWH instead of MW), and storage to last the months that would be needed has not even been invented. These targets are so ridiculous that, I predict, we will never even start very far down the road before they are either dropped or just ignored. Sure, we will spend a few tens of billions first, and everybody’s energy bills will go up substantially, but not to a degree that it will be recognized as a crisis.
Germany and UK. So I’m putting my money on one or the other of Germany or the UK to be the first to hit some kind of wall.
-Compared to California, they don’t have any good Plan B when the new wind/solar system doesn’t work. Both have banned fracking for natural gas within their own borders, as have most of their near European neighbors. That leaves Russia as the principal backup supplier, and let’s say that the Russkies are somewhat less reliable than Nevada and Arizona.
-Compared to New York, Germany and the UK have so far actually taken seriously the task of building wind turbines and solar arrays. Germany has gotten its percent of electricity generation from wind and solar up to around 50% for some periods of time (although it fell back to 43% for the first three quarters of 2021 due to lack of wind). Germany’s new coalition government has grand plans to further ramp of the building of wind turbines particularly, while continuing to phase out both nuclear and all fossil fuels, with only Russia to catch them when they fall. In the UK. PM Boris Johnson has become completely obsessed with his “net zero” ambitions, even as low wind has put pressure on limited natural gas supplies and caused prices to spike dramatically.
A prolonged period of unfavorable weather (calm and overcast) could cause a serious energy crunch to hit one or both or Germany or the UK as soon as this winter. Or they could get lucky and go another year or two. But for both of them, a wall is looming.
And we can’t advance the technology for nuclear power generation either. If we develop hydrogen fusion reactors there will be environmentalists screaming that it has to stop for who knows how many reasons.
They predicted that the coastlines would be under 20 feet of water by 2015. I guess we’re going to have to push that out a bit.
Perhaps changing the natural balance in hydrogen isotopes.
Hydrogen has to be produced, which requires energy. Depending how that energy is produced, there may be CO2 production from that. It will be difficult to achieve these goals - unless we make some substantial technical steps forward.
Denmark, the world's most wind-intensive nation, with more than 6,000 turbines generating 19% of its electricity, has yet to close a single fossil-fuel plant.
It requires 50% more coal-generated electricity to cover wind power's unpredictability, and pollution and carbon dioxide emissions have risen (by 36% in 2006 alone).
Flemming Nissen, the head of development at West Danish generating company ELSAM (one of Denmark's largest energy utilities) tells us that "wind turbines do not reduce carbon dioxide emissions."
The German experience is no different. Der Spiegel reports that "Germany's CO2 emissions haven't been reduced by even a single gram," and additional coal-and gas-fired plants have been constructed to ensure reliable delivery.
Texas hit the wall a year ago.
Attach turbines to Guam to capture the rotational energy as it flips over.
coal and natural gas from Arizona and Nevada
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No so fast! Nevada passed some “ green new deal “ too and they are trying (sneakily) to get it implemented in AZ too.
E.G. They shut down 2.25GW Navajo power plant, the major power source in AZ. Just because their Co2 “emission”.
Didn’t Germany have to fire up a bunch of coal plants to meet thier demand this year.
Of course the joke that was the ERCOT / Texas power grid last winter.
BS, had operators winterized their plant equipment, no outages would have been necessary.
Plant management should have been fired for gross incompetence.
Wind and solar can be useful parts of the energy production mix, but 100% renewables is still impossible with current technologies.
If anyone really believed in zero carbon emissions they should be pouring money into battery storage and/or nuclear research.
Massachusetts is in contention here.
However, I love green energy at the individual level, if you have different motivations for why you do it, and if you live in an area that can make it work reasonably well (i.e. solar in the southern half of the U.S.).
My reason for putting solar panels onto my roof and a substantial battery bank into my garage are to make it so that at least the energy portion of my monthly budget won't be thrown completely out of whack every time the Dims raise our energy costs (ostensibly to force us to repent from our cow farting ways). This is not a good idea if you're young (read: in the wealth-building stage of your life), if you plan to move in 15 years (before the solar system pays for itself), if you have trees shading your roof, or if you have a shingle roof (needing to be replaced every 10 years while the solar panels have maybe a 25-year warranty).
I don't have those limitations. I used mainly a HELOC (plus only 3% of my wealth, but the solar tax credit refunded back to me went back into my investments) to put solar panels onto my metal roof that has no shade and gets plenty of sun in the south. I got tired of both my natural gas bill and power bill increasing a lot more than a modest 3% inflation rate even though my wife and I didn't increase our energy consumption. My now all-electric house gets about 50% of its power from the solar system. Thus as the Dims make us pay more for power I'll fuss about it only half as much. Even if the Dims quit making energy more expensive and the power rate goes up only a reasonable 3% per year for inflation, my system will still pay for itself in 9 years, even with paying for the interest on the HELOC I used to buy the system. After the HELOC is paid off I'll put the savings I have every month from a lower power bill into a simple investment account and use that money to maintain and upgrade the system.
Will it ever get me completely off-grid? No. To be honest, any upgrade on my system at this point will run into the Law of Diminishing Returns -- upgrades aren't feasible. But if it allows me to have only $300 per month in my budget to power my all-electric two-story home for life (the $300 being the power bill plus the HELOC payment for now, after HELOC is paid off it'll be power bill plus invest the excess so I can use it later for upgrades even though upgrades increase the efficiency a little more) while everybody else has power/natural gas bills increasing geometrically (Obama: under my plan electricity prices will necessarily skyrocket), then it's served its purpose.
Basically, I like green energy from a libertarian standpoint. I hate green energy the way the Dims try to force it onto us to make us bow to their climate apocalypse god and pay a tithe of carbon credits to their climate prophet Algore. I especially hate the bastardization of physics where they expect a one-size-fits-all to work well for everybody regardless of a region's environment or needs. But decentralized green energy (read: done at the individual level) is working well for me.
Well some progress has been made in Texas ... those carpetbagging ‘woke’ ERCOT board members have all been sent packing and the hardening of coal and natural gas generating plants is underway. Their biggest problem was getting coal / natural gas into the plants so generation could happen. They didn’t keep enough fuel close by.
The windmills may be getting heaters as an upgrade. That is good but the number of windmills is still way to high. Some Texas power companies rely on windmills to supply over 30% of the power they sell. That is way too much exposure. Texas should be starting construction on 2-4 nukes way out in the badlands of West Texas where an accident (unlikely) would affect only the wildlife.
—and Commiforia builders are still building solar plants (or trying to) because it’s easier to build in Nevada that at home—
They will produce a lot of signs proclaiming areas to be a green new energy site.
Much like the Osama signs claiming to be infrastructure improvement sites along highways.
And more big green plants will go bankrupt in a matter of months.
An ice storm hit mid-winter, followed by 10 days of near zero nighttime temperatures and two heavy snow storms. When it hit, wind turbines were supplying 40% of Texas' electricity. The ice shut down almost all of them, so backup natural gas generators were turned on. There was insufficient power from them, so federal regulations REQUIRED rolling blackouts. The blackouts shut down some of the compressors providing gas to the generators, so some of them had to be turned off, further reducing the electricity supply. Then the snow storms and freezing weather hit. The roads were blocked by snow, and the communities had no plows to remove it. This shut off delivery trucks for replenishing gas stations and grocery stores. With the rolling blackouts, the grocery stores taped shut the cooler doors, meaning no milk, cheese, orange juice, meats, etc. could be sold. This all lasted for over a week before the snow and ice melted, the roads were opened, and the store shelves replenished.
My plans also would have failed. I have two back-up generators, one for the heat pump, the other for the refrigerator and water well pump. I keep little gasoline for them, since it goes bad in the summer heat. I had about an hour's supply. It could not be replenished, since my 4-weel drive vehicle only could bring me to the closed gasoline stations. It was too cold for my heat pump defrost cycle to keep up, so the outside unit froze into a solid block of ice. I did have sufficient cut wood to supply the fireplace, if necessary.
Fortunately for us, for whatever reason, our electricity was never off. It may have been because we were only 3 miles, or so, from a small hydro power generator. Our electricity never even flickered enough to cause the digital clocks to blink. I left our water trickling, so it never froze. The 70 degree ground water melted the ice blocks from our heat pump with about a half hour of soaking each time it shut down. I also managed to buy the last 15 lb. processed turkey roll at a store 20 miles away. We were "stuck" with barbecued turkey 'steaks' for the week.
I bring this up only to show that the arm chair bureaucrats in Washington DC and state capitols simply have no clue how to solve problems that the free market system easily eliminates.
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