Why Wind and Solar Energy Are Doomed to Failure

[Beetlegeuse]

It matters to me because despite the fact that the US Congress spends taxpayer dollars like a drunken sailor on shore leave in Subic Bay, our nation only has a fixed an finite amount of hard currency with which to buy a secure energy future for our nation. And spending a single centime of that money on "renewables" is pissing it away when it could be being spent on something that will genuinely contribute to an energy-secure future.

Why Wind and Solar Energy Are Doomed to Failure

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

Robert’s paper acknowledges that there are multiple reasons why wind and solar energy will never meet America’s energy needs, but focuses on the particular problem of land use:

Of course, other factors, including the incurable intermittency of renewables as well as the massive amounts of materials, including steel, concrete, copper, and rare earth elements, will limit the deployment of wind and solar. But the biggest barrier is the land-use problem. The ferocity and extent of rural land-use conflicts are showing that any attempt to convert the domestic economy to run solely on renewables is destined to fail.

Why is land use such a problem for wind and solar, but not for coal, nuclear or natural gas? Because wind and solar are pathetically low-intensity energy sources, as reflected in this chart from Bryce’s paper:



Because wind and solar produce so little energy per square mile, an enormous amount of land would have to be devoted to panels and turbines if we seriously tried to get all of our present electricity needs from those weak sources:

Miller and Keith determined that “meeting present-day U.S. electricity consumption, for example, would require 12 percent of the continental U.S. land area for wind.” A bit of math reveals what that 12 percent figure means. The land area of the continental U.S. is about 2.9 million square miles, or 7.6 million square kilometers. Twelve percent of that area would be about 350,000 square miles or 912,000 square kilometers. Therefore, merely meeting America’s current electricity needs with wind energy would require a territory more than two times the size of California.

Suffice to say that this just isn’t going to happen.

For one thing, no one places wind farms in Washington, D.C. or midtown Manhattan. Nor are wind projects slated for Long Island, Marin County, or near any valuable suburban developments. It is rural America that bears the burden of many square miles of wind and solar installations.

And it is a burden: apart from the obvious aesthetic issues, Bryce’s paper reviews substantial medical evidence that the noise produced by wind turbines adversely affects human health. And, of course, wind turbines are fatal to wildlife. As a result of such concerns, rural communities across America–hundreds of them–have risen up to oppose wind turbine developments. These efforts have largely been successful.

Germany undertook to mandate wind energy, but its mandates have fallen flat because of public opposition to specific wind projects. The same thing is happening in the U.S. Robert’s paper includes a database of communities that have moved to reject or restrict wind projects. American Experiment will continue to maintain this database, and make it available to towns, townships and counties that are threatened by wind developments. Public opposition promises to bring the Green New Deal to a screeching halt.

When “green” advocates tabulate the costs of wind and solar energy, they generally don’t include the thousands of miles of transmission lines that are required to bring electricity from the rural areas that are stuck with “green” development to the urban areas where the electricity is used. But such transmission lines represent a huge economic and environmental issue:

Connecting lots of wind and solar to the grid also requires appropriating land for transmission projects. According to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, converting the domestic electric grid to run on renewables will require roughly doubling the amount of high-voltage transmission capacity in the U.S. At present, the U.S. has about 240,000 miles of high-voltage transmission. Therefore, renewables conversion means adding enough high-voltage transmission lines to circle the Earth about 10 times.

No problem! says Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. But any attempt to construct 240,000 more miles of high-voltage wires will, like the wind turbines themselves, encounter local opposition that likely will make such an effort impossible.

Please do read Robert’s report in its entirety. Together with research being done by experts like Isaac Orr, it sounds a death knell for “green” energy, which is intermittent, unreliable, low-intensity at best, outrageously expensive, and dependent on vast natural resources that may not exist, or at a minimum would require the greatest explosion of mining, manufacturing and transportation in world history.

So why does the “green dream” persist? In part, because it is inflicted on children from elementary school on. But mostly because there is a great deal of money in it. This chart shows the volume of U.S. tax incentives per unit of energy produced for various energy sources:



“Green” energy holds political sway, which has made a relative handful of people (largely non-Americans and lobbyists) immensely wealthy, while impoverishing utility rate payers and taxpayers–that is to say, the rest of us. This insanity will continue until voters wise up, or–more likely, I am afraid–until the laws of physics, along with land use and raw materials constraints, make it blindingly obvious that the “green dream” is just that. A nightmare.

By that time, an astonishing amount of wealth will have been destroyed.


Source: www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2021/04/why-wind-and-solar-energy-are-doomed-to-failure.php

[Honkey_Kong]

I agree that nuclear energy is the green energy that should be pursued. We haven't built a new nuclear power plant since the 70's and although ours are very safe, there are newer, safer designs that are a lot more efficient and could meet both the electrical needs we have now and the needs we're going to have in the future, when more people own and operate electric vehicles.

I'm not opposed to burning coal or gasoline, but I recognize that the "eco-pricks" are not going to rest until we abandon those (and they happen to control government). So we can either fight a losing battle and refuse to go along or we can right now agree to undertake a massive investment in nuclear power plants and brand new electrical grids that can both meet the demands we anticipate 50 years from now (and leave room for upgrades if we underestimate those future needs) and make it so a little wind in the fall DOESN'T cause the grid to start fires in the California. We're talking trillions of dollars. We can either spend it now or spend many times that in lost productiveness caused by shortages in the future.

[Cuz]

I agree that nuclear energy is the green energy that should be pursued. We haven't built a new nuclear power plant since the 70's and although ours are very safe, there are newer, safer designs that are a lot more efficient and could meet both the electrical needs we have now and the needs we're going to have in the future, when more people own and operate electric vehicles.

I'm not opposed to burning coal or gasoline, but I recognize that the "eco-pricks" are not going to rest until we abandon those (and they happen to control government). So we can either fight a losing battle and refuse to go along or we can right now agree to undertake a massive investment in nuclear power plants and brand new electrical grids that can both meet the demands we anticipate 50 years from now (and leave room for upgrades if we underestimate those future needs) and make it so a little wind in the fall DOESN'T cause the grid to start fires in the California. We're talking trillions of dollars. We can either spend it now or spend many times that in lost productiveness caused by shortages in the future.

Yeah, but the eco pricks u mention are gonna bitch about something no matter what. Its in their dna. There’s only one option.

[Beetlegeuse]

Batteries can't do the job greenies think

Exclusive: Brent Smith does the math on what NYC would need for just a few days of backup

Brent Smith By Brent Smith

Published May 14, 2021 at 7:34pm

It seems that one of the major objectives of the Biden administration, and I guess all Democratic politicians, is to dismantle everything that built this nation and made it great, and of course to spend us into oblivion without acknowledging any consequence for their actions.

The one warped initiative that may end up being the most painful is the push to shut off the energy spigot and somehow replace it with fairy dust and unicorn farts.

Yes, I'm talking about the fantasy that green "renewable" energy can replace our current, efficient and abundant fuel sources like coal, oil and gas – and, of course, our cleanest and greenest source of energy, nuclear, which the left will barely acknowledge.

It was a grave concern of various myopic gloom and doomers for decades – the fear that we will reach "peak oil" soon, that discovery and production will decline and eventually just run out. Then what do we do?

The theory has been around since 1956 and "refers to the hypothetical point at which global crude oil production will hit its maximum rate, after which production will start to decline."

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But somehow, we just keep finding massive reserves of that awful oil and gas, and ingenious ways to extract it, so consequently, we hear much less from the "peak oil" crowd. They were merely replaced by other gloom and doomers: the green weenies.

And that leads us to today, where hopes (and promises) abound that green energy can somehow replace all current fuel sources.

And how? Well with wind farms and solar panels. Woke big tech firms like Amazon, Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Apple are all touting their pledge to become 100% renewable in less than a decade. Of course, they all remain attached to the "dirty" power grid because they know that the wind doesn't always blow and the sun doesn't always shine.

But what about battery backup? Doesn't that solve the wind and sun issue?

No – no it doesn't. Not even close. If it were the solution, we'd have "net zero" emissions already. It's been the problem all along for supposed green energy – how to store enough power to maintain electricity when the wind isn't blowing and sun isn't shining.

This was proven in 2018 when Tesla produced the largest battery cluster storage unit for a wind farm in South Australia. As it turns out, according to Sky News Australia, this massive battery storage unit would only be capable of powering the region for an estimated three minutes – off-peak maybe for as much as a whole hour.

Physicist and engineer Mark Mills, senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, explained that it would take Tesla's production plant in Nevada, the world's largest battery manufacturing facility, 500 years to produce enough batteries to power the United States for a single day.

In fact, it is estimated that New York City alone would have to spend $3 trillion on batteries just to store enough energy for a seven-day period. That's twice the metro area's entire GDP.

But do you think this will deter New York leftists? Of course not. Money be damned – results be damned – reality be damned.

David Wojick writes in Townhall that, "New York City will soon be home to the world's biggest industrial-scale battery system. It's designed to back up the city's growing reliance on intermittent 'renewable' electricity [wind farms]. At 400 megawatt-hours (MWh), this cluster of batteries will be more than triple the [aforementioned] 129 MWh world leader in Australia."

However the city will need more than one cluster. A lot more!

Every summer the city is hit with one or more, shall we say still periods, "caused by stagnant high pressure systems called Bermuda highs. These highs often last for a week and because they involve stagnant air masses – and an absence of breezes [no more than 5 mph] – there is no wind power generation."

Wind turbines require about 30 mph sustained winds to operate at full power and a minimum of 10 mph just to turn the blades at all.

So let's do the math – something the leftist green warriors apparently haven't done. Or maybe they have and are still so determined to rid us of planet-killing fossil fuel that they just don't care.

New York City requires about 13,000 MW per hour (MWh) to run the city. If there is little to no wind for seven days, this equates to 168 hours they will need battery power.

13,000 MW times 168 hours equals 2,184,000 MWh.

Remember, the plan is to produce a single, massive 400 MWh battery cluster.

Ugh – more math. 2,184,000 MWh (the power needed for a week long summer doldrum) divided by a single 400 MWh battery cluster = 5,460.

This means that New York will only have to buy an additional 5,459 battery clusters to meet their needs during one Bermuda high week. That's all!

Oh, my bad. I forgot to mention that each 400 MWh battery cluster will cost about $1.5 million per MWh. 400 X $1.5 million = $600 million per cluster times 5,460. And there's the $3 trillion I mentioned earlier.

I'm all for innovation, but batteries are not the answer, nor is sole reliance on wind or solar. However, I doubt we'll have much success convincing the greenies. After all, what's another $3 trillion to them?

Money is no object. Spend it all – Biden will make more!



EDIT:
It bears mention that fusion will be a YUGE leap forward, both in terms of output and safety, and the $$$$ wasted on this piecemeal "green" horseshit would be better spent on fusion research. The biggest problem with fusion is that its promoters have spent decades promising "we're almost there" without producing any visible evidence of progress. But the bottom line is there is no question but that a sustained fusion reactor is possible because a big damn orange one flies across in the sky damn near every day. All we need to figure out is the "how."