Posted on 02/10/2023 5:30:49 AM PST by MtnClimber
Could anybody possibly be stupid enough to believe the line that wind and solar generators can provide reliable electricity to consumers that is cheaper than electricity generated by fossil fuels? It takes hardly any thought about the matter to realize that wind and solar don’t work when it is calm and dark, as it often is, and particularly so in the winter, when it is also generally cold. Thus a wind/solar electricity system needs full backup, or alternatively storage — things that add to and multiply costs. Surely, our political leaders and top energy gurus are fully aware of these things, and would not try to mislead the public about the cost of electricity from a predominantly wind/solar system.
If you think that, you must have missed the State of the Union Address yesterday. Nor is Presdident Biden alone in peddling the preposterous fantasy of cheap electricity from the wind and sun The internet is filled with seemingly authoritative voices asserting with complete confidence that wind and solar generators are the answer to providing consumers with cheaper electricity.
No amount of pointing to the failed experiments of places like Germany, the UK and California seems to get any traction. We need to demand a working demonstration project of a fully wind/solar system so that the full costs can be shown for all to see.
So there was President Biden last night talking about his great green energy plans.
Look, the Inflation Reduction Act is also the most significant investment ever to tackle the climate crisis. Lowering utility bills, creating American jobs, and leading the world to a clean energy future.
It’s so spectacularly contrary to reality that it doesn’t nearly do it justice to call it just a “lie.” In Germany and the UK, energy transition fantasies have led to electricity bills three times and more the U.S. average, and continuing to increase, and millions of ratepayers thrown into energy poverty. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out why the costs explode. They can build thousands of wind turbines and solar panels, but they can’t get rid of any of the dispatchable power plants because they are all needed for backup. So now they are paying for two duplicative systems. Then they must pay the dispatchable plants enough to cover their capital costs at half time usage. Then they must buy the fossil fuels for backup on spot markets where production has been suppressed by, for example, banning fracking.
But as I said, it’s not just President Biden who is too dumb to figure this out. Consider Mark Z. Jacobson, Professor at Stanford and tireless promoter of his WWS (water, wind and solar) system as the “low cost” way of the future. No amount of debunking of Jacobson’s models can keep him from endlessly repeating the same ridiculous claims. He got another shot just yesterday in the Guardian, headline “We don’t need ‘miracle’ technologies to fix the climate. We have the tools now”:
Wind, water and solar energy is cheap, effective and green. We don’t need experimental or risky energy sources to save our planet.
Jacobson goes on with endless mumbo jumbo about how his fantasy system can deliver electricity at low cost. Excerpt:
When combined with electricity storage, heat storage, cold storage and hydrogen storage; techniques to encourage people to shift the time of their electricity use (demand response); a well-interconnected electrical transmission system; and nifty and efficient electrical appliances, such as heat pumps, induction cooktops, electric vehicles and electric furnaces for industry, WWS can solve the ginormous problems associated with climate change at low cost worldwide.
Is there any such thing as a demonstration project on any scale — small, medium, or large — to vindicate these claims that such a future system would be “low cost”? Absolutely not. I would say that everybody with even half a brain knows that Jacobson is a charlatan. But then we have our President, not to mention the entire federal bureaucracy backed by trillions of dollars of annual taxpayer largesse, buying into his nonsense.
Nobody would be happier than me to see a demonstration project built that showed that wind and solar could provide reliable electricity at low cost. Unfortunately, I know too much about the subject to think that that is likely, or even remotely possible. But at least the rest of us need to demand a demonstration project from the promoters of these fantasies.
Demonstration project? This is a religion. You’ve just got to have faith.
There is no such a thing as a fossil fuel.
Thank you! I’ve been saying that for years. All it takes is a little research and common sense to realize that oil and gas is not “fossil” fuels.
We should call them earth fuels to give them a eco-friendly sounding name.
Excellent idea. Washington DC would be the obvious choice, IMO.
George Michael agrees…oh wait.
Anyhow, it’s absolutely impossible for base and peak demands to be drawn from “green” sources.
My own personal inside take is that utility companies shouldn’t be allowed to be public and traded. “This fiscal quarter” and “our shareholders” causes myopia and damages future conditions.
And pay your Indulgences.
He must be an expert (Jacobson) he uses words like nifty and ginormous.
And have Washington DC be the site for the demonstration project.🤔
Now remember... Math is racist...
Why???
I did a little mathematical study as to weather enough dinosuars could actually exist to create the known oil reserves of the world.
Wrote a little program in EXCEL with various places to input data. At the end it either says “True” or “False”, true being that fossil fuels is possibe, false being no way in hell.
Never got a True yet, no matter how hard I skew the data.
Hell, I had the entire earth covered in lush vegitation, with all land and no water, and after several hundred millions of years, the answer was still false.
I have proven mathematically that there is no such a thing as a fossil fuel.
And that is why math is racist.
So would the state motor vehicle department run the utilities, or maybe the state highway department? If its not private, it’s government. Thats why the utility companies were regulated. They no longer are, in most states, even if there are government functionaries with the name.
Sadly this climate change BS has become a cult religion with an unassailable dogma of man caused climate change. What is needed is a real scientific study that shows this CO2 caused climate change to be a hoax and that there is no global warming nor any impending climate apocalypse. It is now too late as the climate change cult has brainwashed a generation.
Careful, you’ll be accused of being a socialist for thinking that let alone pitting it in writing. Not that I necessarily disagree with you.
Like roads and waterways, some things are too vital to our function to be left int he hands of profit motives. In just one example of this, look at Austin and the no good alternative route to private toll roads. I guess they still have those.
Of course, the profit motive does get things done fast. Amazing to see how fast BW8 NWest in Houston got built compared to what TxDOT did on their own in other sections. That whole NW segment got built faster than any other one part.
I think you have misinterpreted my post.
Every state has a PUC and there’s an agreed upon Tariff with respect to customers and the respective utility.
I work in a utility company.
This is a great idea. In fact, the demonstration system could be extremely simple. For instance, giving nearly the best possible location and system: a single solar home in suburban Phoenix. The only caveat would be that the solar panels must all be located on the property, be used to provide all power, heating/AC, and EV charging, with no absolutely no fossil fuel usage by the homeowner, and absolutely no grid power could be used at any time. There would simply be not enough acreage to place the solar panels and Batteries on the property, not to mention their outlandish cost.
Yep.
and our humble servants would lead the way 100%.
What better way to prove to the right wingers ..their way is the best way?
I’m an electrical distribution engineer and have worked on multiple utility systems.
It’s the same nonsense everywhere, and it will definitely get worse.
For quite some time, the high ranking personnel at said utilities were white males with multiple engineering degrees and decades of experience.
They understood the balance of engineering and monetary issues.
Up and comers have whatever 4 year garbage degrees and are anything but white men making decisions based on current fiscal quarter figures and zero engineering foresight.
An “intelligent and modernized” grid is a more complex grid.
Shanquefa Jenkins with a BS in African American Studies and an SNHU MBA will now be running your utility company. Good luck…
Sorry, I thought you were advocating an end to privately owned utilities. I used to work in the utility regulatory field, myself.
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