Posted on 12/25/2022 6:41:34 AM PST by MtnClimber
In a post earlier this week, I celebrated the adoption by New York State of its Scoping Plan that tells us how we are going to accomplish the great transition to 70% “renewable” electricity by 2030 and zero-emissions electricity by 2040. The summary is: “just build a lot of offshore wind turbines and batteries.” Unfortunately, nobody seems to have done the basic arithmetic to see whether the prospective facilities will suffice to supply enough electricity to meet demand at all times. But then, this Scoping Plan is the product of the Important People, and why do the Important People need to trouble themselves with such minutiae? After all, they have a planet to save.
What that prior post did not consider was the likely cost to New York consumers of trying to buy electricity in a future at times when the wind is calm, the sun is dark, and fossil fuels have been suppressed. How high might the cost go when everybody has to bid at the same time for the small amounts of hydro or nuclear that may remain?
It turns out that three members of the Climate Action Council (propounders of the Scoping Plan) dissented from issuance of the Plan. One of those, a guy named Gavin Donohue, is at least partially alert to the consumer cost issue. His statement dissenting from the Scoping Plan can be found here. Among other things, he had this to say on the cost issue:
It is irresponsible to put out a plan to achieve the CLCPA’s goals while at the same time preventing New Yorkers from understanding the impact on their energy bills and the economy. We are in a period when electricity bills are expected to increase by 30-40% and the Plan’s lack of mentioning on how it will impact ratepayers is disappointing and a missed opportunity. The Plan lacks an independent, transparent, unbiased, comprehensive consumer cost impact analysis and quantification of the expense that will ultimately be borne by New York’s residents through increased fees, taxes, and energy bills. For the past two years, I have asked for this cost analysis.
Lack of consideration of potential consumer cost impacts is “disappointing” and a “missed opportunity.” That’s certainly a polite way of putting it. More accurate would be completely incompetent and irresponsible.
Not that it is necessarily straightforward to figure out what these future costs might be. The fundamental problem is that this future fantasy almost-all-renewable system requires some kind of full backup, which may only be called on occasionally, but when called on the need will be desperate and the price could get bid up to unimaginable heights.
How high might those heights be? While it’s impossible to put any definitive limit on it, we can get a very good idea of how the process plays out by looking at what’s going on in Europe right now. In its righteous battle to drive down carbon emissions, Europe has closed most of its coal plants, banned fracking for oil and gas, and otherwise suppressed almost all fossil fuel infrastructure except some pipelines from Russia. Trading Economics gives the most recent price for wholesale natural gas on the European market as 82.97 EUR/MWH. By the way, that’s down from prices over 100 EUR/MWH, and as high as 350 EUR/MWH (briefly) over the last six months. The most recent U.S. price is $5.12 per MMBTU. I come up with a factor of about 3.4 to convert from MMBTU to MWH, and the dollar and euro at close to par, so the comparison is about $17/MWH for the U.S. to $83/MWH for Europe. Europe’s fossil fuel suppression has resulted in a price about 5 times as high as the U.S. price.
And thus there is a consumer energy cost crisis currently raging in Europe — something that you read almost nothing about over here. The solution that the Europeans have come up with is to provide massive subsidies to enable consumers (and also businesses) to pay for their energy bills. A Brussels-based think tank called Brueghel has come out with a chart of the subsidies that the various European countries have agreed to pay (updated to November 29):
Germany, the European champion of the energy transition, is spending over 7% of GDP on these subsidies, and that’s just so far.
So, New York, when the same process plays out for you, are you going to spend the same 7% or so of GDP to shield the consumers from the real prices, or are you going to let the electricity and heat bills go up by a factor of three — or five?
Nobody in New York is going to make any serious effort to try to understand these issues. So we’re just going to have to let the process play out until we hit some kind of energy or price wall. It’s not going to be pretty.
It will be interesting to see how Europe does this Winter.
Right after the first folks die from freezing following the total collapse of our grid, it is the duty of the population to find the politicians who caused this and dispense justice. Hard justice. Cruel justice. Rapid justice. And let us remember that the left loves to have folks pay for things that were done by those who lived before them. Let it be thus for ALL families of the refuse that voted for this crap.
You’ll eat bugs and be happy!
they promise the jetsons
you get the flintstones
the people will not freeze
the people will warm themselves by the bonfire
Because math is racist, you racist!
Thanks for the recommendation on that book. Our politicians (both parties) and regulatory agencies have purposely created a monopolistic and confusing system because it benefits them (not regular people).
It is shameful. Our current “renewables” are not carbon-neutral but they create a fast moving and chaotic market that creates pressure to “lobby” (aka pay) politicians for favorable legislation and rules. Based on this, a few become wealthy and the consumer typically pays more for energy.
It is not just favorable legislation now. Our congress just spend billions directly on “renewables” and even called it “stimulus”. That money will go to a few people who will in turn give a slice back to politicians. The average person will just pay more for electricity or transportation. Rinse and repeat.
The consumer also has to pay more for energy because the inefficiencies of the system create more wear and tear on both the grid and on more reliable forms of power generation (hydropower, nuclear, hydrocarbon) because the system (designed to run smoothly) is constantly being tweaked up and down to adjust for the erratic nature of renewables.
The politicians will blame all of the problems, tragedies, and sky high cost on the utilities management. And with the support of the MSM and leftist activists, they will distract the public from the disasterous mid-guided policies the politicians enacted, which directly caused the inevitable problems that the utilities warned them about. Unfortunately, most of the “go along to get along” utilities management will agree to accept responsibility to avoid being smeared and cancelled - to save their own careers, or future opportunities in green energy or lobbyist positions.
ALL of the proponents of green new deal should be required to be billed on special green energy rates and required to participate in outages or capacity shortfalls associated with their preferred generation. Make it an opt-in program. For example, if someone demands solar generated electric power from the grid, when the sun goes down, their normal 200 amp service from the grid is restricted to 100 amps or even less. If they’re an avid proponent of renewables, they can make their own investments in battery storage or whatever…. But don’t force all the other customers to pay for or suffer from their personal or political preferences.
“Longtime power industry insider explains in detail how the greed of the “renewables” industry combined with the rank stupidity of politicians and the electorate are poised to collapse the whole thing.”
Given that fighting that stupidity has become a losing proposition, what’s the best way for an individual and family to insulate thenselves from that stupidity?
IOW, how do you go Galt? What’s plan B?
The writer is right. Nothing will change until there are real consequences for the fools who enact green policies. So far they have escaped scot free.
“Germany, the European champion of the energy transition, is spending over 7% of GDP on these subsidies, and that’s just so far.”
This is truly moronic, a Ponzi scheme.
So they take 7% of your money in taxes and then give it back to you in subsidies (minus of course handling fees) . And that’s supposed to help you pay your electric bill.
It’s like taking money from the left pocket and putting it in the right.
Today’s word is ‘Innumeracy’.
It’s like taking money from the left pocket and putting it in the right.
It is, but it’s never a 1 to 1 transfer. The elites get a cut and from that cut they give the politicians a cut. The (deliberate) inefficiency of the system that does not promote the cheapest sources to meet our needs also adds to the overall cost for the consumer.
The only thing that is “green” about all of this is the money they steal from us to pay themselves.
There is obviously a lot of problems with “green energy” on land. Off shore sources would seem to me to present a lot more & much more expensive just to build. There is the situation of off shore to shore power transmission...will it be underwater or above water? There is the problem of obstacles to sea life & fishermen. Winds offshore could be very damaging to wind generators as well. I’m sure other problems will turn up if they haven’t already. It’s better all around to just have reliable & comparatively low cost land based conventional powerplants. They have provably done the job for a long time.
I’m wondering what the elites of NY & CA will do when they have driven out the workers who pick up the garbage, keep the sewers flowing, & all the others that service the state. Soon, no one will be able to afford to live there but the rich.
Maybe the best way to look at “green energy” as a limited backup system (not as a primary system) It probably wouldn’t help a lot in the winter, but might on extremely hot summer days when a lot of extra A/C is called for. In this case,you wouldn’t need a lot of this backup if normal conventional systems were adequate. Of course, you still have to pay for 2 types of electrical power anyway, which is less cost effective in the long run, but not as bad as trying to depend on the “green energy” as he primary source. Of course at that point, then maybe people would realize how expensive it was for the amount of power it provided which is my basic premise anyway.
More chance of success by following California’s plan ... have everyone move out of state.
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