Panic, Fire, Aim! Or How to Fail at Energy Transition
We're spending trillions to replace reliable baseload power with unreliable wind and solar without even one demonstration project at scale.
In Armageddon: An Introduction to Climate Predictions & Hyperbole, Sarah Saves Receipts (SSR) laid out the climate community’s prognosis for the end of the planet as we know it. Their claims, in their own words, are that mankind is perched on the precipice of “doom”, “catastrophe”, “apocalypse”, and outright “Armageddon”.
SSR is skeptical when every climate prediction is uniformly of biblical proportions right down to being couched in biblical terms. That skepticism grows when we are told the inevitability of their predications is settled beyond debate and can’t be discussed. That those who offer even slightly varied views are discredited and censored is another massive red flag (a subject of future posts). Is SSR wrong to ask if the movement has more in common with religion than actual science?
Well, none of that matters today, because for today’s discussion, count SSR as a believer: Hallelujah, praise Greta, and pass the plan to fight climate change. We’re going to adopt the energy transition plan in full. Climate Armageddon is nigh.
So, what’s the plan to avert climate disaster?
Step 1, Panic! With a Side of Fear.
Step 1 in the plan to save the planet is, apparently, “to panic”, and to do so with a side of fear, as the New York Times reports:
New York Times: Time to Panic
“The planet is getting warmer in catastrophic ways. And fear may be the only thing that saves us.”
Readers hardly need SSR to point out that plans borne of panic and fear generally are not well thought out. However, fear and panic are not the only inputs to the climate transition plan that are hallmarks of bad plans. There is also groupthink. As climate science is “settled”, we can’t even discuss whether the plan is even workable. Then there is the price tag. When only extreme views are considered, we can’t even discuss if we can afford it. Even $200 TRILLION is pitched as a “bargain”:
Bloomberg: $200 Trillion Is Needed to Stop Global Warming. That’s a Bargain.
SSR predicts the plan to address climate change will be as successful as just about any plan hatched out of fear and panic, vetted by groupthink, and launched with no regard for the ultimate cost. In the end, SSR strongly suspects the failure of this plan may be the only thing that turns out to be of biblical proportions.
Receipts are forthcoming.
Step 2, Fire! Disconnect Baseload Power in Favor of Solar and Wind Energy without Even One Demonstration Project
If SSR understands correctly, the plan to save the planet, goes like this:
Remake the electric grid by adding, as fast as possible, intermittent and unreliable solar and wind energy.
As unreliables ramp, then disconnect reliable baseload natural gas and nuclear. The endgame is to have no true legacy baseload power.
We rush in headlong despite never having performed a single demonstration project at any scale, much less at scale to work through problems, to learn the true cost, or perhaps to discover that the plan simply does not work.
In spite of not having tried this once – anywhere -- to see if it works, we will simultaneously increase the draw on power from the grid as follows:
Convert the entire gas-powered transportation fleet to electric vehicles that require massive quantities of power in order to charge.
For good measure, we’ll mandate that all houses be heated and stoves be fired by electric, too.
The idea that intermittent, unreliable sun and wind can replace reliable baseload energy in any society, much less an advanced industrial economy is incomprehensible, at least to SSR. That we will hobble and destabilize the grid while simultaneously adding massive new demand at the same time only increases the probability of failure.
In bits and pieces, the fantasy of wind and solar climate transition is beginning to reveal itself as such, and we touch on it at a high level today. Some issues require more detail and are left to future posts. However, SSR believes it will slowly become more obvious to all as the percentage of power drawn from intermittent energy increases, the instability of the grid becomes more apparent, and costs to consumers noticeably rise.
Not One Single Demonstration Project.
The plan is to disconnect the installed base of baseload fossil fuel power plants (and nuclear, too!). Have run even one complete test? Does it work? We can’t say because we’re untold billions into implementation without performing even one demonstration project at any size, much less at scale. (Remember, we’re panicking.)
SSR argues we need to take a city, county or region, you pick it, and build all the megawatts of solar and wind needed to replace the legacy power sources. Then add enough batteries to back it all up sufficiently for extended periods of little or no sun or wind. Only then can we learn the true cost, work out the bugs, and learn if such a project is feasible at all. SSR does not believe it will pass the test, but we would prove it one way or another by doing, not dreaming.
SSR is hardly the only one to ask these questions, nor the best. We call out the blog Manhattan Contrarian for its excellent work pointing out and analyzing how our panicked plan lacks a demonstration project. We intend to cite and quote him liberally. His climate change work is top notch and backed with reasoned arguments.
Manhattan Contrarian: What Passes For A "Demonstration Project" Among Our Government Geniuses
“…the government “net zero” or “Green New Deal”… promotional sites are full of talk of things they call demonstration projects. So are they responding to my demand? The opposite. All of what they call demonstration projects follow a common approach, which is only to attempt to demonstrate various portions of the full system that would be needed to provide reliable 24/7/365 electricity from predominantly wind and solar generation.”
The plan rests upon batteries to backup wind and solar. But the batteries that exist we can’t afford and the batteries we can afford haven’t been invented.
When SSR asks people about how this conversion to intermittent power will work when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind isn’t blowing, many respond that we’ll hook these intermittent sources up to giant batteries. Again, never tried at scale. Why has this never been tried? Because batteries affordable enough to be purchased at scale to replace baseload power haven’t been invented and probably won’t.
Like Manhattan Contrarian, Alex Epstein is also a well-reasoned skeptic of climate panic:
Alex Epstein via X (twitter): One day of world energy storage at Elon's best prices it’s $190 trillion. So $190 trillion is twice global GDP
This calculation for battery backup reaches over $400 trillion:
What’s Up With That: The Cost of Net Zero Electrification of the U.S.A.
“The total capital cost of electrification is herein estimated, using 2020 data, at US$433 trillion, or 20 times the U.S.A. 2019 gross domestic product. Overbuilding the solar plus wind capacity by 21% reduces overall costs by 18% by reducing battery storage costs.”
More on this subject from Manhattan Contrarian:
Manhattan Contrarian: The Real World Costs Of Backing Up Weather-Dependent Electricity Generation With Battery Storage
“…what is the strategy for the calm nights, or for the sometimes long periods at the coldest times of the winter when both wind and sun produce near zero electricity for days or even weeks on end?
I had a Report published by the Global Warming Policy Foundation titled “The Energy Storage Conundrum.” That Report discussed several calculations of how much energy storage would be required to get various jurisdictions through a year with only wind and/or solar generation and only batteries for back-up, with fossil fuels excluded from the mix. The number are truly breathtaking: for California and Germany, approximately 25,000 GWh of storage to make it through a year; for the continental U.S., approximately 233,000 GWh of storage to make it through a year. At a wildly optimistic assumption of $100/kWh for storage, this would price out at $2.5 trillion for California or Germany, $23.3 trillion for the U.S. — equal or greater than the entire GDP of the jurisdiction. At more realistic assumptions of $300 - 500/kWh for battery storage, you would be looking at 3 to 5 times GDP for one round of batteries, which would then need replacement every few years.”
Intermittent Solar and Wind Destabilize the Grid
The grid intentionally has excess power supply built into it to deal with high demand situations. As the percentage of power drawn from wind and solar increases, these intermittent power sources slowly claim use of that excess power at times when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow. Removing this buffer leaves the grid increasingly stressed.
To some degree, for each watt of renewable power added, their needs to be legacy power sources to provide 100% backup in some combination of baseload and peak power in the form of natural gas and nuclear. This is a key reason that systems with a high percentage of renewable power are experiencing rising and unusually high power costs. They actually can’t transition.
Institute for Energy Research: Wrecking the U.S. Electric Power Grid
“Because wind and solar power are unpredictable sources, an auxiliary source of power is needed to balance it and most of that balancing power currently comes from natural gas. Many U.S. utilities are expanding their wind and solar capacity but not adding reliable backup facilities, hoping that they can draw on other regions when there is a shortfall. They are also drawing on emergency reserves, using the reserve as the auxiliary to balance their wind and solar projects.
Germany spent hundreds of billions of euros to build wind and solar facilities since 2002, doubling its power generation capacity and boosting the share of renewables in the generation sector to 60 percent from about 10 percent. Despite the capacity increase, its electricity production has remained flat and the promise of lower electricity rates has not materialized. Instead, [Germany] has delivered an increasingly unreliable electric system at a cost to consumers that is higher than virtually every other developed country. Germany is now in the process of de-industrializing and searching out lower cost energy countries to manufacture the products they once proudly did.”
The National Energy Reliability Council (NERC), a consortium of electric utilities, also agrees:
Utility Dive: Batteries aren’t going to do it’: NERC’s Moura calls for gas investment to maintain reliability
Yet, as we destabilize the grid, we are massively ramping power demand.
You want an electric vehicle, SSR wants you to have one. In fact, jam that pup to ludicrous speed! A friend graciously gave us a ride in one and SSR loved it. The problem with EV’s isn’t that they exist, the problem is the mandates to switch to them and the subsidies to people who don’t need subsidies.
EVs create massive demand on the grid just as we are destabilizing it with intermittent and unreliable solar and wind.
Autoblog: Electric-vehicle charging stations could use as much power as a small town by 2035
“A new study from the electricity and gas utility National Grid… suggests that by 2030, the typical passenger plaza along a highway will demand as much power as a sports arena during its busiest times.
By 2035, a larger installation serving both passenger cars and trucks could need to provide 19 megawatts of peak power… roughly what a small town uses. In 2045, that kind of truck stop may require 30 megawatts of capacity, approaching the peak usage of a large industrial plant.”
IEEE Spectrum: Can Power Grids Cope With Millions of EVs?
“…it is not unusual for a 37.5 kilovolt-ampere transformer to support 15 households, as the distribution system was originally designed for each household to draw 2 kilowatts of power. Converting a gas appliance to a heat pump, for example, would draw 4 to 6 kW, while an L2 charger for EVs would be 12 to 14 kW. A cluster of uncoordinated L2 charging could create an excessive peak load that would overload or blow out a transformer…
Tomm Marshall, assistant director of utilities, stated, “There are places even today [in the city [of Palo Alto]] where we can’t even take one more heat pump without having to rebuild the portion of the [electrical distribution] system. Or we can’t even have one EV charger go in.”
The rising electrical demand from EVs is part of the energy transition plan, but unfortunately it is not the only new major source of demand. Data centers are another.
Washington Post: Amid explosive demand, America is running out of power
New York Times: A New Surge in Power Use Is Threatening U.S. Climate Goals
Don’t Say SSR Didn’t Warn You
Warnings of grid instability are hardly unwarranted. From the you-can’t-make-this-stuff-up department: on August 25, 2022, California announced its timeline for banning gasoline cars by 2035, within just a few days they tell people to limit charging their EVs because the grid was stressed.
August 25, 2022:
Six days later, August 31, 2022:
What percentage of California vehicles are EVs? Approximately 4%. Imagine when that percentage hits 20%, 40% or 80%. EV drivers may be stuck at home. Hopefully, the Uber and DoorDash drivers still have autos powered by internal combustion engines.
evstatistics: 4 of Every 100 Vehicles in California Are EVs
California is not alone when it comes to mandating EVs while simultaneously destabilizing the grid with unreliables, and in-turn mandating reduced use of EVs. Count Switzerland in this camp:
Cheap Renewable Energy is Also a Fantasy
Not only is the panic driven plan beginning to reveal itself as an unworkable fantasy from an engineering standpoint, it is also beginning to be revealed that the financial projections behind it were equally fantastical:
Empire Center: New Wind Energy Costs Blow the Doors Off Projections
WSCH-TV Portland: Maine solar incentives could drive up average electricity bill by 12 percent
The American Prospect: After Securing State Contracts, Wind Developers Demand Subsidies and Higher Rates
Wall Street Journal: The Great Northeast Wind Bailout: The politicians are already demanding more green corporate welfare.
“Per multiple state governors: “Offshore wind faces cost increases in orders of magnitude that threaten States’ ability to make purchasing decisions,” they say. “Without federal action, offshore wind deployment in the U.S. is at serious risk of stalling because States’ ratepayers may be unable to absorb these significant new costs alone.”
Utility Dive: As Ørsted, others seek up to 71% hike in clean energy contract prices, NYSERDA warns of rate increases
“Without price increases, the projects may not be viable… On average, offshore wind developers are seeking a 48% increase in their contract prices to $167.25/MWh and a petition from the Alliance for Clean Energy New York asked the PSC to increase onshore wind contract prices by 71% on average to $115.66/MWh and solar prices by 63% to $102.22/MWh…”
North Sweden Business: Sweden's largest wind farm faces bankruptcy
Wall Street Journal: Germany Faces the Green Fiscal Truth The constitutional court rules Berlin will have to fund net zero honestly.
Bloomberg: Renewable Power’s Big Mistake Was a Promise to Always Get Cheaper
Power Utility Executives are Incentivized to Not Tell the Truth
Any electric utility CEO with a brain is well aware there is no way this renewable energy transition can be pulled off as written. But why push back? If they do the environmental mob will ensure they get fired. Someone else will take the job and do what the activists demand and that new person will get the lottery like salary paydays. These jobs pay boocoo bucks. Just take the money. SSR can’t even blame them.
Cha-ching:
Union Leader: Eversource CEO compensation at $13 million
The Guardian: National Grid CEO lands UK6.5m payday:
Step 3. Aim?
We Chase our Tails with Sun Catchers and Windmills, Even Though We Are Aware Nuclear Energy Exists
We’re ripping out the entire electrical grid and replacing it with sun catchers and windmills. We’re spending sums to which we can’t stop adding zeros. We have no demonstration project to show proof of concept at scale. Yet, the entire time we have a proven, reliable and perfectly green source of energy; namely, nuclear. Not only are we not expanding it, we are actually shutting it down:
Just the News: California enviros sue to close last nuclear plant providing 9% of state's power
The state’s shift towards renewable energy has led to energy prices double the national average.
CNN: ‘A new era’: Germany quits nuclear power, closing its final three plants
“Germany’s final three nuclear power plants close their doors on Saturday, marking the end of the country’s nuclear era that has spanned more than six decades.”
When SSR sees headlines of shutting down nuclear, it is hard to view the climate change community as anything other than unserious. Or they think we’re stupid.
It’s not just unserious because the plan to switch to intermittent energy lacks defies logic. It’s not just unserious because the planned spend is mindboggling and comes as our government is going broke. It’s not just unserious because mainstream media isn’t scrutinizing these fantasy plans. It’s most certainly unserious because we are unplugging nuclear, the greatest source of green energy known to man.
If climate change was truly the looming apocalypse they claim, and if they were really serious about addressing it, we’d be building a fleet of nuclear reactors right now. Activists would be gluing themselves to paintings demanding that the yearslong maze of regulatory red tape and siting approvals be cut short. It would cost a great deal, but in the end, we’d know with certainty the goal would be met: the planet would be saved. That’s not what we’re doing. Unbelievably we’re doing the opposite.
Climate change may or may not be the Armageddon they claim, but our plan to fight it is definitely a disaster.