Posted on 08/12/2024 5:45:24 AM PDT by MtnClimber
I claim credit for being the first person to demand a demonstration project to show how a zero emissions electrical grid is supposed to work, before trying to build such a thing for our entire population of three hundred million as involuntary guinea pigs.
How could it be that lots of others haven’t been demanding this for years? It’s like everyone has lost their minds. Before climate hysteria set in, the idea of attempting an engineering project as enormous as a zero emissions electrical grid for the United States, or even for one state, without first having a functioning demonstration project, would have been completely unthinkable. But under the powerful sway of the fear of climate armageddon, the need for a demonstration project to prove feasibility never seems to occur to anybody. And thus trillions of dollars are getting spent — wasted — on facilities that anyone with a brain can easily see will never come close to providing a zero emissions grid — although building these facilities will greatly drive up the cost of electricity to consumers.
Let me then welcome an important new voice to the still tiny chorus of those demanding a demonstration project. The new voice is Congresswoman Harriet Hageman of Wyoming. (Ms. Hageman is the woman who took out the former Wyoming Congresswoman, Liz Cheney, in a primary in 2022.). Here is a picture of Ms. Hageman from her website:
Ms. Hageman went public with her demand at a town hall held this past Tuesday, August 6, in Jackson, Wyoming. She proposed that the ultra-liberal town of Boulder, Colorado, step up as the potential guinea pig. Wyoming-based news source WyoFile had the story on August 7, with the headline “Hageman proposes a Boulder, Colorado, fossil-fuel-free experiment.” Excerpt:
[Hageman] proposed a pilot project that would strip Boulder, Colorado, a progressive enclave, of its fossil fuel infrastructure — all to be replaced with windmills and solar panels on the city’s open space. “The pilot project is, you take out all their gas stations,” she said to a crowd of about 70 people in the Teton County Library. “We take away all their internal combustion engines — cars. We take away all of their highways and streets, because that’s all oil-and-gas-produced.” . . . “They’ve been a no-growth city for decades,” Hageman said, “so they have a lot of open space around them. We fill out open space with windmills and solar panels, and we’ll see if we can actually run a city of 100,000 people [with] no fossil fuels whatsoever.”
According to WyoFile, Hageman’s remarks drew a response of “applause and laughter” from the supportive crowd in Jackson. However, the WyoFile reporter took the proposal to a City Councilman in Boulder named Mark Wallach, and asked for comment. Wallach was not amused. Here is Wallach’s reaction:
“One of the things that makes people so leery of politics and politicians is when people make ridiculous suggestions like that,” [Wallach] said in a telephone interview with WyoFile. “Nobody on the Boulder Council suggested we can do without all the fossil fuels at this point,” he said. “We make efforts to do better — to recognize that climate change is real and we do things we can do to combat it.”
Well, Mark, what am I missing? If the good people of Boulder are demanding that the whole country be force-marched to a zero emissions future, why shouldn’t they be willing to step up themselves and show that the goal is feasible to achieve? A simple zero-emissions-grid demonstration project is all that it will take.
And, if I might make a suggestion to Ms. Hageman, there is no need to be punitive about this. The claim of the green energy advocates is that electricity from wind and sun are cheaper than electricity from hydrocarbon fuels, and that electric cars and electric heat will be cheaper and better than the cars and heat we have now. So there is no need to forcibly take away the cars and the gas stations. Just have them build the magical zero-emissions grid and, if they can do it, they will have plenty of electricity to power everything, and the gas-powered cars and gas stations will rapidly fade away.
The problem is that it is not going to be possible to build a zero-emissions grid. However, the people of Boulder clearly think that it is going to be possible, and I am perfectly willing to be proved wrong.
But my confidence that I am right only increases with time. The closest thing that the world has to an attempted demonstration project of a zero emissions grid continues to fail spectacularly. That would be the Gorona del Viento project on El Hierro Island in Spain’s Canary Islands.
I have written about the El Hierro project many times, and will not go into the full background here. Suffice it to say that El Hierro was absolutely intended to be a demonstration of a zero emissions grid. A facility of five large wind turbines and a massive pumped-storage hydro backup facility (Gorona del Viento) was built and opened in 2014. The website of Gorona del Viento continues to proclaim on its opening page: “An island 100% renewable energy.” Hah!
It’s an island of about 10,000 people. Average electricity demand is 4-5 MW, and peak demand is about 7.5 MW. Roger Andrews did an independent analysis of the project for the Energy Matters website back in 2017. They built wind turbines with nameplate capacity of 11.5 MW on a mountainside in the trade-winds zone — about the most favorable wind conditions in the world. The hydro storage facility has a capacity of some 270 MWh, which is about 54 - 68 hours of average usage. (By contrast, New York governor Kathy Hochul has a big storage initiative to spend about $10 billion to build one hour of storage.). Doesn’t it sound like El Hierro has what they need to make this work?
Here are the latest statistics from Gorona del Viento, for the full year 2023. The percent of electricity for the island supplied by the wind/storage system for the full year was 35%. The other 65% came from the backup diesel generator. The best month for the wind/storage system was July, when it supplied 62% of the island’s electricity. But then there was October, when it only supplied 10%.
How could they be failing so completely with so much excess generation capacity and a huge storage facility that no one in the world can duplicate? You’ll have to ask them. I’m just reporting the statistics they put out themselves.
This is the best that anyone in the world can do, at least so far. Boulder: it’s up to you to show how this can be done!
Boulder, Colorado is the perfect place to try this. Full of leftist true believers.
“I claim credit for being the first person to demand a demonstration project to show how a zero emissions electrical grid is supposed to work”
I remember one case where there is some small island. They tried it, and then someone noted there was still an underground connection to a larger island, that, of course, had real generators.
Pretty funny.
I really don’t care if the space-cadets in boulder try to run their city on fart gas. Just leave me alone and don’t steal money from me to support their wet dream LIB ideas. I hope EVERY LIB nitwit moves their to experience their planned nirvana. By the way...this woman has those LIB nitwit crazy eyes.
Building the airplane while in flight. How come the head of the agency reminds me of Deloris umbridge from HP. Sickly sweet pleasant conversation while sticking the knife into you all the while saying it is in your best interest.
Maybe she can tell us how much Oil/Coal is used to create the Zero Emissions EV batteries ,LOL
They’re always so demanding when they’re no where near zero emission themselves ,LOL
You are remembering correctly. Almost a perfect scenario as far as wind power, they sit smack dab in the trade winds, that blow north around of the equator.
Except when the do not blow robustly enough to turn the wind turbines. Can't manage a pumped storage lake with no power to lift the water.
Another sterling fiasco.
Actually pretty impressive, but like most government sponsored websites, not updated since 2020.
Until you remember that a year has 8,640 hours on average - the difference is made up by costly diesel generators.
(Pssst. There is always nuclear power to generate “Zero-emission” electricity.)
Jeez. How do people with no background or knowledge of anything important suddenly become experts when they are politicians? Just amazing how inflated blowhards succeed. Lie, deceive, cheat, steal, whatever it takes, and screw the peasants. Bring back the guillotine, something the French did right.
Alternatively, the whole thing is a fraud that should be denounced, and Demonicrat Congresscritter Harriet Hageman of Wyoming should undergo an emergency medical cranialanalectomy.
There was an island in Maine I believe that tried it and failed miserably.
I loved the response from the Leftists:
“...One of the things that makes people so leery of politics and politicians is when people make ridiculous suggestions like that,” [Wallach] said in a telephone interview with WyoFile. “Nobody on the Boulder Council suggested we can do without all the fossil fuels at this point,” he said. “We make efforts to do better — to recognize that climate change is real and we do things we can do to combat it...”
Apparently, people like him don't have any problems with mandating all kinds of crazy things like banning ICE vehicles, requiring zero emission standards from their cities, states, and nation, and so on.
All good things, as long as it doesn't impact them in the least.
Thomas Sowell has opined that one of the reasons Leftists generate the most nonsensical legislation and laws there are, is that they escape having to experience the effects of those legislation and laws.
I always see things like this as a step in the right direction.
“Much of the social history of the Western world, over the past three decades, has been a history of replacing what worked with what sounded good” -Thomas Sowell
She is a Republican.
That is not helpful in achieving the real goal....creating shortages to justify rationing everything.
“Demonicrat Congresscritter Harriet Hageman of Wyoming...”
Rep. Hageman is a Republican; she beat Liz Cheney.
“...should undergo an emergency medical cranialanalectomy.”
Rep. Hageman’s call for Boulder, CO to put their money where their mouth is a technique from Alinsky: Force them to live up to their values/rules.
I’ve long advocated the same approach for Congress - they get to be a 10-year pilot project for any laws they wish to impose on us.
No man, Hageman is pretty much a boss. Rino-itis has not infected her (yet).
Iceland comes close with only 4 out of 20,120 gigawatt hours from renewable sources vs fuel. That’s 0.01988071% of the grid that’s hydrocarbon based. If you dig deeper that was for tiny villages off the main grid using diesel generators. So Iceland can be said to be 99.98% renewable
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1192014/iceland-electricity-generation-by-source/
Sweeten also comes close and they use more energy per capita than Americans 13 megawatts vs 11 because they heat with electric in Sweden been there can confirm lots of electric heating. Saunas too glowing electric could that you dump small buckets of water on for glorious steam on a fridge night.
“Sweden is one of the global leaders in decarbonization, with clean energy sources – including hydropower, nuclear, wind, and solar – representing approximately 90 percent of the country’s electricity mix.”
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1013726/share-of-electricity-production-in-sweden-by-source/
France right now in real time is 2% gas 0% oil 0% coal. It’s nearly all renewables nuclear 67%, Hydro 13%, solar 13%,wind 5% they are also exporting 10,000+ megawatts as in they have a surplus and are selling 10,000 megawatts or ten one gigawatt reactors worth.
https://www.rte-france.com/en/eco2mix/power-generation-energy-source
France is the example for the USA since Iceland has a unique location resource of Hydro and geothermal. Sweden is also blessed with lots of rain and huge elevation changes for Hydro. France is fossil fuel poor so they went nuclear in a big way. One standardized design built out state funded en mass and no lawfare allowed by the greens. Just build it and shut up. “This is the way”
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