Posted on 09/23/2024 4:28:24 AM PDT by MtnClimber
“Net Zero” — That’s the two-word slogan that has been adopted as the official goal of every virtuous state or country for decarbonizing its energy system. The “net” part is backhanded recognition that some parts of the energy system (like maybe air travel or steelmaking) may never be fully de-carbonized. Thus some kind of offsets or indulgences may need to be accepted to claim achievement of the goal.
But the “net” thing is not for the easy parts of decarbonization. And by the easy parts, I mean the generation of electricity, and the powering of anything that can be run on electricity or batteries. In electrifiable parts of the energy system, there is to be no tolerance for “net”; only “zero emissions” will do. The official line is that zero emissions electricity is easy and cheap because it can be provided by the wind and sun.
The official line is wrong. As the build-out of these wind and solar generation systems continues to progress, it has become increasingly obvious that there will never be a zero-emissions electricity system powered mainly by wind and sun.
The reason should be obvious to everyone although, for some reason I cannot understand, it is not. The reason is that the intermittency of wind and solar generators means that they require full back-up from some other source. But the back-up source will by hypothesis be woefully underused and idle most of the time so long as most of the electricity comes from wind and sun. No back-up source can possibly be economical under these conditions, and therefore nobody will develop and deploy such a source.
This issue has already arisen in many places, as increasing generation from wind and sun has put natural gas power plants into back-up mode, running half or less of the time.
Now consider how things are supposed to proceed as we move to zero-emissions electricity. First, we build more and more wind and solar facilities. Second, we disallow natural gas or any other hydrocarbon fuel as the back-up. Now the back-up must itself be zero-emissions, and also dispatchable. In New York, our regulators have devised the acronym DEFR (“Dispatchable Emissions-Free Resource”). Several possibilities have been suggested as the DEFR, the main ones being nuclear, hydrogen, and batteries. All possibilities for the DEFR that have been suggested share the characteristic that they don’t exist today at anything close to the scale that will be needed to fully back up an electricity system powered mainly by wind and sun. In other words, somebody will have to make a huge investment in one or more of these things on a grand scale if we are to have an electricity system powered mainly by wind and sun.
Given New York’s political environment, the regulators who have raised the need for the DEFR have generally buried their discussion of the subject deep in lengthy documents. Roger Caiazza, the Pragmatic Environmentalist of New York, has done yeoman’s work in digging up and highlighting these items. Roger has created a “Dispatchable Emissions Free Resource Page” where he has accumulated the key information.
For example, we have the Scoping Plan of the Climate Action Council, which Roger describes as “the ‘official’ Hochul Administration strategy description of the Climate Act transition.” The document is some 800+ pages of text plus appendices. Somehow, Roger made it to page 49 of Appendix G, where he found this quote:
During a week with persistently low solar and wind generation, additional firm zero-carbon resources, beyond the contributions of existing nuclear, imports, and hydro, are needed to avoid a significant shortfall; Figure 34 demonstrates the system needs during this type of week. During the first day of this week, most of the short-duration battery storage is quickly depleted, and there are still several days in which wind and solar are not sufficient to meet demand. A zero-carbon firm resource becomes essential to maintaining system reliability during such instances. In the modeled pathways, the need for a firm zero-carbon resource is met with hydrogen-based resources; ultimately, this system need could be met by a number of different emerging technologies.
Here is the Figure 34 that they mention:
It may be a little hard to read, but the dark gray is what they label the “Zero-Carbon Firm Capacity Need.” The width of that dark gray section gets up to well over 20 GW during the illustrated low wind/sun week. For reference, New York State’s current average electricity usage is well less than 20 GW. Meanwhile, even during this low wind/sun week there are times when this DEFR is not called on at all, and other times when it is called on for only a few GW.
So without saying so in as many words, they are telling us that as part of a predominantly wind/sun system we will need to build DEFRs of capacity equal to or greater than our entire current average electricity usage. But if the electricity system is powered mainly by wind and sun, then by definition the DEFRs are only going to operate a minority of the time. We will have now built an entire fleet of new nuclear power plants capable of fulfilling our entire peak electricity demand. Or maybe it’s an entire fleet of new hydrogen power plants of same capacity, or an entire fleet of grid-scale batteries of same capacity, only to keep them idle most of the time.
These are extremely capital-intensive facilities, which can only hope to be economical if they are operated to as much of their capacity as possible. Instead the proposal is that will be intentionally kept idle most of the time.
Who is going to make the investment in these DEFRs that will be kept mostly idle. Certainly, no private investors will do it without enormous government subsidies.
And if we were to build an entire system of these DEFRs capable of supplying all of our electricity needs to back up worst-case wind/sun lulls, wouldn’t it make far more sense just to leave out the wind and solar generation and go with the DEFRs all the time? Of course it would.
At some point this is going to become too obvious to ignore.
The issue is never the issue. The real issue is the revolution.
Well, Bill Gates has a solution to that.
Eliminate 80% of world population.
Such Insanity!
It is not about the environment, it is not about whether it even works or not, it is all about centralized power and control. It is just the vehicle they are using to do it.
Well, Bill Gates has a solution to that.
Eliminate 80% of world population.
If only he and the rest of the Davos crowd would walk the walk and get to the nearest suicide center...well, its at least a start...
New York is counting on using Canadian hydropower.
Of course, Canada might decide to go Greta and uses its own hydropower to do so. The Canadian national government could void the hydropower contracts made in Quebec.
each windmill takes 80 gallons of oil every year.
“Eliminate 80% of world population.”
The spy novels and movies featuring James Bond were marvelous entertainment. Usually, there was some evil billionaire who had grandiose plans to take over the world. A lot of those plans involved killing huge segments of the population. If I recall “Moonraker” involved killing everyone and repopulating with weirdly happy looking gorgeous couples. The thing is the fantastically fast advance of technology and the huge concentration of capital in the hands of a few idiot savant billionaires puts all the tools necessary for such grandiosity into the hands of a few individuals.
It is impossible to legislate safety regulations to restrain people who can buy countries. Earlier this year an economist predicted we’d see the world’s first trillionaire by the end of 2025. I have no problem with people being incredibly rich. Most will invest and do mostly good things that will further jobs and employment. But sometimes they become weird activists like Gates. The Dunning Krugger effect kicks in and they bloviate about saving humanity...apparently by killing off humanity. The fact that Gates has said some threatening sounding things, and he’s invested in biomed makes me feel a bit creepy.
EV batteries could be used to smooth out supply.
If you need to drive 20 miles the next day and 27 miles the following day and your EV has a range of 290 miles, a major part of 243 miles of electricity capacity could run your house.
“If you need to drive 20 miles the next day and 27 miles the following day and your EV has a range of 290 miles, a major part of 243 miles of electricity capacity could run your house.”
Generating electricity is cheaper than storing it.
mark
Bill Gates isn’t the only globalist who wants us dead.
If, at some point in the future, there are a couple of breakthoughs in battery tech, solar and wind could become viable energy sources.
They already are in specific situations.
Battery tech is increasing in incremental fashion. I expect the energy density of current batteries will be doubled in a decade.
Some argue that the real wealth in the world isn’t in the hands of people like Bill Gates. Global wealth - in the trillions (allegedly $454 trillion in 2022), is in the hands of very old bloodlines. These are the people that Gates and other billionaires get their marching orders from - the trillionaire families that own most of the world’s wealth.
“These are the people that Gates and other billionaires get their marching orders from “
I’ve known some wealthy people. They don’t take marching orders from nobody. People who aren’t dependent on a wage job, even if they’re not “wealthy” in the sense of multimillionaires* or billionaires, don’t feel the need to bow to anyone. Think about the egos we’ve witnessed from the public appearances of guys like Gates. Can you see them taking marching orders from anyone?
* I don’t consider someone with a mere million or two to be “wealthy” in the sense that they can just drop everything and jet off to some far away exotic location. They’re just upper middle class. Thank the government for doubling, and then doubling again the money supply. What used to be, say, a half million in savings is now a million and a half, but no net gain in purchasing value. If you don’t think so, price a luxury truck.
***But the back-up source will by hypothesis be woefully underused and idle most of the time so long as most of the electricity comes from wind and sun.***
The back up sources would have to be natural gas or nuke plants as a coal fired plant requires three or four days to start up from a cold start. From a hot start it still requires as long as 8 to12 hours to get it back up to full efficiency.
Then they will be twice as deadly. Because energy resents confinement and wants to be free.
Wind and solar energy are both essentially obsolete technologies. There is a reason why only the very rich or the very adventurous sail across oceans: the wind is unreliable, and at best produces relatively little energy. Nevertheless, liberals have concocted fantasies whereby all of our electricity, or perhaps our entire economy, will be powered by those fickle sources.
There are a number of reasons why this will never happen, but a paper published last week by Center of the American Experiment argues that land use constraints are the most basic reason why wind and solar are inexorably destined to fail. The paper, titled Not In Our Backyard, is authored by internationally recognized energy expert Robert Bryce, producer of the terrific documentary Juice: How Electricity Explains The World and the book A Question of Power: Electricity and the Wealth of Nations....
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2021/04/why-wind-and-solar-energy-are-doomed-to-failure.php
(links to the various resoures cited are available at the original)
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Also telling is they've hijacked another word with a long-established meaning and mis-redefined it for their own nefarious purposes.
"Renewables."
The First Law of Thermodynamics, ΔU = Q - W. Energy can neither be created nor destroyed.
So why does a thing that can be neither created nor destroyed need "renewing?"
The simple answer is, it doesn't. Wackadoodle re-definitions like they've created for "assault weapon" and "gender equality" and "environmental justice" and "renewable energy" are nothing but flag poles to rally the sheeple around.
It's a head-feint. What magicians call "misdirection," a gunshot in the back of the auditorium while Houdini leads the elephant off the stage.
And it's a certain sign you're being hoodwinked.
Nuclear is the only possible source that can provide enough power to run a 21st-Century lifestyle even when you take into consideration population growth and depletion (or compromise) of natural resources.
He is evil. And he is powerful.
His father was involved in Eugenics. Long ago. The propaganda likely affected Bill at an early stage.
He is deep into the Globalist Cabal’s Propaganda and Lies.
He cares not about humanity.
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