Essay by Eric Worrall
h/t M; The Wall Street Journal claims that switching to renewable energy will lower prices or even possibly.
Why would the energy conversion fail?
New report highlights the staggering cost of green ‘delusions’.
Via James Freeman
August 26, 2022 4:50 p.m. ET…
In a new report released next week from the Manhattan Institute, Mark Mills lays out a “dangerous illusion” about a global energy transition that eliminates the use of fossil fuels. Surveying energy markets and public policy around the world, Mr. Mills asks readers to “argues that years of rhetoric and trillions of dollars in transition spending and subsidies have not dramatically changed the energy landscape.“He notes:
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Claims that wind, solar and [electrical vehicles] achieved cost parity with conventional energy sources or non-evidence-based modes of transport. Even before the latest period of rising energy prices, Germany and the UK – both down the grid transition path compared to the US – saw average electricity rate increased by 60% –110% over the past two decades. Similar patterns can also be found in Australia and Canada. It is also evident in US states and regions, where mandates have resulted in grids with higher wind/solar ratios. Overall, the total cost of residential electricity in the United States has increased over the past 20 years. But those rates should have fallen because of the fall in the price of natural gas and coal– two energy sources together provided nearly 70% of electricity during that period. Instead, the rate was pushed higher due to increased spending on infrastructure not needed to transmit electricity from wind/solar, as well as increased costs to maintain lights during wind and solar “droughts” as well. due to the maintenance of conventional power plants always ready for operation (such as having an extra, fully fueled automobile parked and ready to go) in effect by spending on two grids.
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Chairperson Joe Biden unlikely to listen to such an explanation and who knows if he understood it or not. But reality is going nowhere.
Read more: https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-the-energy-transition-will-fail-11661547051
The Wall Street Journal also discussed the cost disparity between storing energy with a battery compared to a bulldozer assembled from a pile of coal.
With the numbers clearly showing that renewables isn’t the kick-starter, why do green advocates continue to claim that the numbers add up?
The answer seems to be blind faith and optimism. The numbers don’t add up right now, but they predict prices will continue to fall, just as prices have fallen over the past decade. From the United Nations;
Falling clean energy costs create opportunity to drive climate action in COVID-19 recovery packages
JUNE 10, 2020 PRESS PRESS ENERGY
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Comprehensive or equalized electricity costs continue to fall for wind and solar, thanks to technological improvements, economies of scale and fierce competition in auctions. The cost for electricity from new solar photovoltaic plants in the second half of 2019 is 83% lower a decade earlier.
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“If governments take advantage Renewable energy price tag is decreasing Putting clean energy at the heart of the COVID-19 economic recovery, Andersen said, they can take a big step towards a healthy natural world, which is the best insurance policy. against a global pandemic.
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On the other hand, these smart people have drawn a nice curve on their graph where they have reduced costs by 83% over the past decade. Some of them expect that the exponential search curve will continue indefinitely, giving us a “reducing price tag for renewables”.
Moore’s Law and Renewable Energy
via Bill Spindle | July 27, 2021
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So far, renewables have benefited from something similar to Moore’s law –– as they grow exponentially and get cheaper, causing faster growth –– a virtuous cycle. Like more grid-scale battery storage online, providing stability for wind and solar power, batteries are also becoming cheaper.
The trend has drawn a wide range of entities to jump in –– from conservative city of Georgetown, Texas supplies 100% of its energy from renewable sources to the tech giant Microsoft Corporation sets a carbon negative target by 2030 using a combination of renewable energy and carbon removal technology.
But the road may not be as smooth as the goals and targets set out. Recently, New York state officials announced a new goal of being carbon neutral by 2050, promising a completely decarbonized electricity system. But soon after, Independent system operator in New York (NYISO), the agency responsible for operating the state’s energy grid, released a statement saying a 70% renewable energy system by 2030 is “very viable” but that getting 100% renewable source will require technology does not exist.
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Read more (registration required): https://www.climateandcapitalmedia.com/moores-law-and-renewable-energy/
One of the first things I learned about statistics is that extrapolation, extending the trendline beyond the data, is risk. You can fit a naive trendline to a rising stock price and extrapolation will tell you any time is a good time to buy. The crash, as it happened, was an unexpected departure from a naive tendency to extrapolate.
However, those promoting renewable energy, rather than waiting for data to catch on, are pushing the whole world to bet the future of all of us on the belief that the cost of renewable technology will “continuously decreasing”, will continue to decline at the same rate as the previous decade.
And if costs don’t go down as planned – there’s always the option of throwing massive amounts of government money into developing “technology that doesn’t exist yet”, David Attenborough’s Renewable Apollo Project.
Imagine a hundred years from now. Future historians are sure to see the global multi-trillion dollar gamble on “technology that does not yet exist,” blind faith in trend lines, as an outbreak of hysteria. series that they would struggle to explain.
Think of the actual Apollo Project. NASA didn’t go straight into building a lunar launch pad, they built prototype after prototype, like Project Mercury. Each prototype is a stepping stone, providing the knowledge you need to take the next step.
Personally, I’d rather wait until “technology that doesn’t exist” is developed, at least at the prototype stage, before betting everything on a green transition that is potentially impossible. .
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