From: Climate Etc.

By: Andy West

Date: November 19, 2020

Cultural Motivations for Wind and Solar Renewables Deployment

“For me the question now is, now that we know that renewables can’t save the planet, are we going to keep letting them destroy it?”. – Michael Schellenberger

Introduction

"There have been many technical analyses of Wind and Solar energy, covering a raft of issues from energy density and efficiency, through subsidies and land usage, to maintenance, grid impacts, intermittency and more. The angle examined here is in no way intended to replace such necessary views, whether they lean to the pessimistic or the optimistic or anywhere in-between. Rather, a complementary view is provided regarding an aspect that such technical analyses cannot address, albeit it often features in the conclusions and questions these analyses raise at the end. Right here at Climate Etc, the first of the excellent analyses by ‘Planning Engineer’ (on his retirement revealed to be Russ Schussler, ex-VP of Transmission Planning at Georgia Transmission Corporations), laudably highlighted the limitation of technical analyses with his very first line: “Power System Planners do not have the expertise or knowledge to say whether or not the benefits of reducing carbon emissions are worth the costs. However they should be respected as experts for obtaining a better understanding of what the implications and costs of such programs are.”...

Cultural Motivations for Wind and Solar Renewables Deployment

Guest Post

From: International Climate Science Coalition (ICSC)

By: Dr. Jay Lehr and Tom Harris

The power disaster unfolding in California will soon occur across the country, if Joe Biden gets his way. The Golden State has been sweeping away the forms of energy that have provided reliable electricity for decades, under the same agenda the former Vice-President is planning for America as a whole.

Power outages are now commonplace in California. Last summer, the state suffered its first rolling blackouts in nearly 20 years. Imagine if this happened in Chicago in the middle of winter.

California’s trouble is explained by officials who now openly admit to an over-reliance on wind and solar power. The governor said there was not enough wind to keep the turbines going, while cloud cover and nightfall restricted solar power. The Los Angeles Times recognized the root of the problem:

“… gas-burning power plants that can fire up when the sun isn’t shining or the wind isn’t blowing have been shutting down in recent years, and California has largely failed to replace them …”

Consequently, the state has fallen thousands of megawatts behind its needs. Governor Gavin Newsom admitted, “we failed to predict and plan for these shortages” and took (nominal) responsibility for the rolling blackouts. Now he wants everyone to conserve power, while the state looks for new sources of energy, most likely fossil fuel-generated power from neighboring states.

All this is happening while California continues its intention to transition to 60% renewable energy by 2030 and 100% “climate-friendly energy” by 2045, as required by state law.

Indeed, in their October 6 open letter to Newsom, the heads of the California’s Energy Commission, Independent System Operator and Public Utilities Commission wrote: “We are unwavering in our commitment to meeting California’s clean energy and climate goals.”

Team Biden plans to go even further, committing to making the entire nation 100% renewable within 15 years. The United States would fall tens of millions of megawatts behind on its electricity needs.

Like the California government, the incoming Biden-Harris administration is acting entirely under the unfounded belief that climate change is a manmade calamity that can be stopped by eliminating fossil fuel use. They are clearly unaware of the Climate Change Reconsidered series of reports of the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC).

These documents summarize thousands of studies from peer-reviewed scientific journals that either refute or cast serious doubt on the climate scare. They conclude that we are not causing a climate crisis.

Yet, in their October 6 report, Preliminary Root Cause Analysis – Mid-August 2020 Heat Storm, the same heads of California’s Energy Commission, Independent System Operator and Public Utilities Commission highlighted the “climate change-induced extreme heat storm across the western United States” as the first cause of the blackout.

In their view, apparently, shutting down coal, gas and nuclear power plants in California and in states from which California imports electricity played only minor roles.

California’s determination to shift to so-called “green” energy – which is actually anything but clean, green, renewable and sustainable – is being echoed by politicians across the nation. The result, especially in states that don’t enjoy California’s mostly benign weather, is going to be that those in the poorest neighborhoods and those on fixed incomes may be forced to choose between heating and eating.

It also means people trying to run their homes, offices, factories, hospitals and schools on intermittent, weather-dependent, much more expensive wind and solar power will have to get used to never knowing when or for how long their electricity will be on or off. Now in California; soon in the entire USA.

Coherent energy systems are designed with the understanding that portions of the system will be offline from time to time. Power companies compensate for this with reserve power at the ready. However, California has closed its margin for error in response to anti-nuclear and anti-fossil fuel sentiments and climate change concerns. Team Biden intends to do this for the entire United States.

Power outages cannot always be avoided and are more common than one may think. For example, between 2008 and 2017, Illinois had 871 outages, the tenth most by state. Texas had nearly twice as many, giving it the dubious distinction of ranking number two in the list.

But these pale in comparison to California which has the least reliable electrical power system in the nation. It leads in power outages every year. Between 2008 and 2017, it had 4,297 power outages!

The origin of the problem is partly California’s Senate Bill 1368, which in 2006 established the state’s emission standards to reduce greenhouse gases from power plants. Following that year, eleven coal-fired power plants were closed and three were converted to biomass. Only one coal-fired plant remains.

The state also reduced its normal reliance on energy from out of state coal plants.

Yielding to anti-nuclear activists, the state also closed all but one nuclear plant, Diablo Canyon. That plant generates about 18,000 Gigawatt-hours of reliable electricity every year, fully 8.6% of California’s total generation.

But Diablo Canyon will soon be closed too. Not surprisingly, during its construction and operation, anti-nuclear protests were common; nearly two thousand people were arrested for civil disobedience during a two-week period in 1981. In response, in 2016, the California Public Utilities Commission approved a Pacific Gas & Electric Joint Proposal to phase out the state’s remaining nuclear power. That means the operating licenses for Diablo Canyon’s two units will not be renewed when they expire in 2024 and 2025.

Ironically, the Commission did not approve Pacific Gas & Electric’s proposal for resources to replace the station’s output. It does not appear to matter that nuclear reactors produce no greenhouse gas emissions during operation. They are hated by the enviro-radicals who drive California’s energy policy and are steadily putting the state even further behind the 8-ball.

It gets worse. California now requires that all new homes be nearly entirely electric. It wants citizens to switch their natural gas stoves to electric, as part of their global warming initiatives. More than 30 cities have already enacted bans on gas appliances, including San Francisco. The state also hopes to eliminate all gasoline and diesel cars in favor of plug-in electric automobiles.

This means demand for reliable, affordable electricity will rise by leaps and bounds, just as supplies are steadily reduced, and partially replaced by expensive, intermittent, weather-dependent power.

Just as Mr. Biden promises for the nation as a whole, California is sacrificing reliable electrical power as part of its impossible crusade to “stop climate change.” Of course, this will have no impact on our planet’s climate, because (a) climate change is mostly natural and not driven by carbon dioxide, and (b) all those wind turbines, solar panels and backup batteries will be manufactured overseas, mostly in China, using fossil fuels and simply moving the source of ever-increasing greenhouse gas emissions.

However, it will certainly spur sales of candles, flashlights, propane heaters, and natural gas, gasoline and diesel generators.

So, welcome to America’s future under a Biden-Harris-Kerry- AOC Administration. America, the blackouts are coming.

_______________________________________________________

*Ohio-based Dr. Jay Lehr is Senior Policy Advisor to the Ottawa, Canada-based International Climate Science Coalition (ICSC). Tom Harris is Executive Director of ICSC.

The Biden/Harris position on climate change has been shifting (shifty?) as their political campaign has “progressed” toward election day. The Green New Deal is one of the key issues on which the campaign has shifted with regard to climate. The Biden campaign website states: “Biden believes the Green New Deal is a crucial framework for meeting the climate challenges we face.” Senator Harris is a co-sponsor of the Green New Deal in the Senate and has previously supported it on the campaign trail. However, Biden has now stated that he does not support the Green New Deal. Climate change is only one aspect of the Green New Deal, which deals with air travel, high speed rail, building energy efficiency and electric vehicles. Virtually all other aspects of the Green New Deal are reflected in both the 2020 Democrat Party Platform and the Biden Platform.

One of the key factors in the reduction of US CO2 emissions has been the shift from coal to natural gas for electric power generation. This shift was largely made possible by hydraulic fracturing, which has made natural gas far more available. The Biden/Harris position on fracking has changed from “ban fracking” to “ban fracking on public lands” to “not ban fracking”. Biden has also stated that there would be no more fossil fueled power plants built under his administration. Biden/Harris are committed to eliminating CO2 emissions from power generation by 2035, five years later than the Green New Deal schedule.

Biden has committed to incentivizing installation of 500,000,000 solar modules and 16,000 wind turbines. While these are large numbers, they are relatively trivial in comparison with the numbers needed to replace all existing fossil fueled power generation facilities with intermittent renewable generators and storage systems. Solar and wind currently supply approximately 12% of US electricity. However, this capacity is currently backed up by fossil fueled generation; and, in general, is dispatched first under environmental dispatch orders. Combined solar and wind generation capacity would therefore have to be increased by roughly an order of magnitude to supply approximately all of US electricity consumption, even with continuing fossil fuel backup. Eliminating the fossil fuel backup would require installation of significant additional generating capacity plus long term, high draw storage capacity sufficient to supply power for several days. This storage technology is not currently commercially available.

While a Biden/Harris administration would incentivize solar and wind installations, the majority of the investment required to install these systems would be required to be provided by private sources, such as investor owned electric utilities, other businesses  and homeowners. In the process, the utilities would be forced to abandon existing, functioning fossil fueled generating capacity, at a loss of approximately $4 trillion.

The switch from fossil fueled generation to renewable generation would also strand huge quantities of coal, oil and natural gas, causing a dead weight loss of $50+ trillion, which would be borne by both private owners and the government. These costs are not considered when the Biden asserts that: “The Green New Deal will pay for itself as we move forward.”

From: CFACT

By: Paul Driessen

Date: October 5, 2020

Your Life Under the Green New Deal

"During the cantankerous September 29 presidential “debate,” candidate Joe Biden proclaimed “I am the Democratic Party.” He is in charge, he insisted, and his views will be Democrat policy. Others aren’t so sure – about that, about what his views actually are, or about how far to the left he would be pushed, prodded and pressured by Kamala Harris, AOC, Bernie Sanders, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Antifa mobs, and coastal and blue city governing, academic and technology elites." ...

Your Life Under the Green New Deal

By: Clear Energy Alliance

By: Clear Energy Alliance

From: Master Resource

By: Robert Bradley Jr.

Date: July 20 - July 23, 2020

Memo to Biden

W. S. Jevons (1865) on Wind - Part 1
W. S. Jevons (1865) on Waterpower, Biomass. and Geothermal - Part 2
W. S. Jevons on Coal - Part 3
W. S. Jevons on Energy Efficiency - Part 4

“The first great requisite of motive power is, that it shall be wholly at our command, to be exerted when, and where, and in what degree we desire. The wind, for instance, as a direct motive power, is wholly inapplicable to a system of machine labour, for during a calm season the whole business of the country would be thrown out of gear.”

The most important book written on energy economics was the first: William Stanley Jevons’s The Coal Question (London: Macmillan and Company, 1865, rev. 1866). This classic is available in its entirety on the Internet.

Jevons’s remarkably sophisticated treatment of energy sustainability remains pertinent today. In a real sense, the Biden approach to energy was refuted by the insight of W. S. Jevons more than 150 years ago.

This four-part series will continue this week with Waterpower, Biomass, and Geothermal; Coal; and Energy Efficiency." ...

W. S. Jevons (1865) on Wind - Part 1
W. S. Jevons (1865) on Waterpower, Biomass. and Geothermal - Part 2
W. S. Jevons on Coal - Part 3
W. S. Jevons on Energy Efficiency - Part 4

By: Clear Energy Alliance

By: Clear Energy Alliance

By: Clear Energy Alliance

By: Clear Energy Alliance

From: U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Global Energy Institute

Date: Fall 2016

What If Hydraulic Fracturing Was Banned?

"The U.S. shale energy revolution was not an accident. It was the result of innovation, strategic investment, and old fashioned hard work. More than anything, it was an event made possible by the development, refinement and application of cutting-edge technology – technology developed by engineers, geologists, and other scientists who spent decades trying to “crack the code” of tight oil and gas. These efforts delivered nothing short of an energy renaissance. After years of projections that America’s energy future would grow more dependent on imports, the U.S. energy landscape is now defined by abundance, not scarcity.

We don’t have to look back very far to see the significance of this technological breakthrough. In July 2003, TIME Magazine carried a feature story entitled, “Why U.S. Is Running Out of Gas,” which boldly predicted that the United States was heading to its “first big energy squeeze since the 1970s.” The magazine claimed further that “the U.S. is finally beginning to run out of domestic oil and easily recoverable natural gas.” A few years later, in 2008, oil was nearly $150 per barrel, and gasoline prices spiked to more than $4 per gallon. Henry Hub natural gas prices were also above $8 per million BTU, or about two and a half times what they are today." ...

What If Hydraulic Fracturing Was Banned?

By: TEDx Talks

From: Watts Up With That?

By: Rud Istvan

Date: November 8 - November 14, 2019

Edison’s Roadmap to Energy Hell

Pathway 2045 – Part 1

Pathway 2045 – Part 2

Pathway 2045 – Part 3

Roadmap 2045 – Part 4

Pathway 2045 – Part 5

Pathway 2045 – Part 6

"California WUWT reader Cal B alerted Charles the Moderator to a new document just published by Edison International, the holding company parent for SoCal Edison, the largest electric utility for southern California. Cal B asked if WUWT posters might like to take it on? In his usual charming fashion, CtM got me (after some initial reluctance) to volunteer today over a lunch overlooking South Florida’s Intercoastal Waterway. The key was his sensible solution to my ‘too big a subject’ objection—break it into parts! ...

"My reasons for agreeing were several.

"First, most of the technical difficulty issues buried in Pathway 2045 I previously covered, albeit at posts over at Judith Curry’s Climate Etc and/or in my ebook Blowing Smoke. So there was not a whole lot of new research required.

"Second, it is stunning that an electric utility could foist such technical and economic nonsense onto its California customers. One presumes it was forced by coming California requirements imposed by Newsom worse than the crazy 2030 requirements to which SoCalEd already crazily responded in 2017.

"Third, as WUWT matures and changes from just the climate science to the climate politics, it is attracting new readers that may not be familiar with long past technical analyses. This is an opportunity to “bundle’” the big ‘Green New Deal’ energy fact picture together again."

Pathway 2045 – Part 1

Pathway 2045 – Part 2

Pathway 2045 – Part 3

Roadmap 2045 – Part 4

Pathway 2045 – Part 5

Pathway 2045 – Part 6

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

                Martin Niemöller

First they came for nuclear and I did not speak out, because it was a competitor.

Then they came for oil and I did not speak out, because it was a competitor.

Then they came for coal and I did not speak out, because it was a competitor.

Then they came for me – and there was no one left to speak for me.

Environmental activists have waged war on the US energy industry in the press and in the courts for decades but lacked the power to inflict major damage. They have since allied themselves with the political left, which has provided them with access to power and funds they lacked previously. This alliance has also enhanced their access to the media, which have provided ample exposure and support for their efforts.

The US nuclear industry has been faced with organized resistance to new power plant siting, resistance to existing power plant life extension programs and demands for premature plant closures. This resistance has been loosely tied to environmental concerns, though not with climate change, because nuclear generation is the only reliable, dispatchable generation technology which emits no CO2 or other “Green House Gasses (GHGs)”.

The alliance with the political left then led to the 2009 US EPA Endangerment Finding regarding motor fuels (oil distillates) and to massive government subsidies for electric vehicles. The Endangerment Finding was based on projected environmental damage estimates produced by unverified climate models, run with uncertain climate sensitivity, forcing and feedback estimates and extreme Representative Concentration Pathways. These models and their uncertain inputs are suitable for generation of scary scenarios, but not as the basis for public policy. This Endangerment Finding is now under review for possible revision or withdrawal.

Success with the Endangerment Finding then led to the EPA Clean Power Plan, intended to require premature closure of existing coal generators and require the application of carbon capture and sequestration technologies, which have not been commercially demonstrated and appear uneconomical, to any new coal generating stations. This Clean Power Plan is being replaced by a far more flexible Affordable Clean Energy Rule.

Environmental activists and state government entities are also resisting coal industry efforts to increase the capacity of US coal export facilities. These facilities could partially offset the loss of domestic markets with export sales to developing nations which are currently unconstrained in expanding their use of coal for power generation. The stated intent is to eventually shut down the US coal industry.

The environmental attacks on nuclear and coal generation, in combination with advanced natural gas combined cycle generating technology and dramatically increased availability and reduced prices of natural gas as the result of hydraulic fracturing has caused the electric utility industry to move towards natural gas as their generating fuel of choice. This shift to natural gas generation has been the primary factor in the impressive US reductions in CO₂ emissions, since natural gas combustion results in half the CO₂ emissions of coal combustion and the combined cycle generators are also approximately twice as efficient as coal generators. Massive subsidies for wind and solar have been far less effective in reducing CO₂ emissions.

Environmental activists have also worked with the political left and the media to prevent or delay construction of new and expanded oil and gas pipeline capacity to connect new and expanded production fields to new and growing markets. The delay or denial of oil pipelines has forced incremental oil supplies to be moved to market by rail, resulting in both higher transportation costs and increased environmental risk. The delay or denial of new natural gas pipelines has impeded the electric generating industry in its efforts to site new natural gas combined cycle generating facilities because of constrained delivery capacity.

More recently, these delivery constraints are also forcing natural gas utilities to halt new customer service connections to protect supplies for existing customers. The State of New York has recently denied necessary permits for two natural gas pipelines, one intended to increase delivery capacity to upstate New York and New England and the other intended to increase delivery capacity to Brooklyn, Queens and Long Island. Both actions have caused the serving natural gas utilities to halt new customer connections. Ironically, the Governor of New York has asked the New York State Public Service Commission to investigate the utility decisions to halt new connections. The New York State ban on hydraulic fracturing has also dramatically constrained in-state natural gas production.

Most historic US natural gas utilities have been acquired by or merged into electric utilities, forming or expanding existing combination utilities, effectively converting inter-company competition to intra-company competition, which ultimately devolves to market allocation for convenience. This is particularly true as constrained pipeline capacity has tightened competition for available pipeline capacity between the utility generating unit and the gas distribution unit. Since generation typically represents 70-80% of combination utility assets, generation typically has priority on available supply.

The electric utility industry has been aggressively marketing and lobbying for an all-electric economy for decades. They have been aided and abetted in these efforts by US Department of Energy Appliance Efficiency Standards and site-based building energy efficiency standards, both of which largely ignore the inefficiencies of the electric power generation, transmission and distribution systems and their higher environmental emissions.

The electric industry has found a new ally in municipal bans on new natural gas connections, imposed in the alleged interest of avoiding increased climate change.  Berkeley, California has imposed such a ban, effective beginning in January 2020. The City of Seattle, Washington is also considering such a ban. Other cities will likely follow suit, particularly in California, Oregon and Washington, at least initially.

These bans, as well as suspensions of new connections as the result of government-imposed supply constraints deprive new residents and commercial businesses of fuel choice for heating, water heating, cooking, laundry drying and other competitive energy end uses. They also prohibit the installation of automatic standby generators, which will become progressively more necessary as reliable, dispatchable generating systems are increasingly replaced by intermittent and non-dispatchable generators, such as wind and solar.

The ultimate intent of the environmental activists and the political left are to move the US toward an all-electric energy supply system, powered by “clean energy” such as wind and solar, supported by battery or other energy storage systems. This approach is questionable from a national security standpoint, since many of the materials required for the construction of the wind and solar generators are controlled by China.

The estimated $30 trillion investment required to achieve this transition and the resulting higher energy costs for the US economy appear to be of little real concern to its advocates. The unsuitability of the resulting energy supply system for process industries, iron and steel production and cement production also appear to be of little concern. One advocate recently suggested that perhaps certain types of production might not be able to be conducted here, even though relocating them to nations with weaker environmental rules would make no difference regarding their contributions to anthropogenic climate change.

The electric utility industry has apparently decided to pursue appeasement of the environmental activists and the political left and, as Winston Churchill suggested, “feed the alligator in the hope that it will eat you last”. The recent fascination of the political left in the US with nationalization of industries suggests that the alligator’s meal might not long be delayed.