From: Climate Etc.

By: Russ Schussler

Date: May 3, 2023

Silence of the Grid Experts

There are many reasons why grid experts within the electric utility industry have not spoken out when unrealistic “green” goals were being developed and promoted over the last 20 years or so. A more open debate during this period might have helped provide a  more realistic foundation for future development.  This posting describes some reasons as to why at the corporate level electric utilities did not speak out more in defense of grid reliability.  Collectively these factors tended to eliminate grid experts from playing any role in the development of policies impacting the grid.

Speaking Out Risked Negative Consequences

Utilities have many stakeholders with varying degrees of power.  Utilities depend on good relations with Public Service Commissions, other regulators, consumers and policy makers. The stereotype of electric utilities as uncaring, selfish, greedy destroyers of the environment tends to make utilities very cautious and careful in critiquing anything perceived as “green”.  The media and press attention from any such statements would likely not be favorable.

Utilities need support to acquire right-of-way, for financing, for cost-recovery and to avoid adverse legislation. Poor press and the associated public disapproval loomed as strong disincentives for speaking out.  Furthermore, as will be discussed later, expressing concerns over emerging reliability issues, could be interpreted by some as implying that perhaps you were not as capable as others appear to be. (continue reading)

Silence of the Grid Experts

Discussions of climate and climate change frequently call to mind several children’s fairy tales and the story of a fairy tale kingdom. This suggests a lack of seriousness in these discussions, though the participants frequently view them as deadly serious.

The first fairy tale that comes to mind is Goldilocks and the Three Bears, in which Goldilocks discovers things in the bears’ dwelling which are “just right”. In climate science, there is discussion of the Goldilocks Principle, which holds that “something must fall within certain margins, as opposed to reaching extremes.” Some discussions regarding climate revolve around the idea that the earth’s climate experienced a Goldilocks period during which “everything was just right”. This period is generally thought to have been after the end of the Little Ice Age and before human activities began to affect the climate. Of course, the earth has numerous regional climates, and it is not likely that all those regional climates were “just right” from the perception of those living in them.

This brings us to a discussion of the fairy tale kingdom of Camelot where, according to the Lerner and Lowe song, “The climate must be perfect all the year”. Some climate discussions advance the position that earth’s climate was “perfect” during some Goldilocks period and that climate should not change from those “perfect” conditions. Some hold that the climate was unchanging for some long period of time (the shaft of a hockey stick) and then began to change rapidly and undesirably (the blade of the hockey stick) as the result of human activities. They hold that the climate should be unchanging and should be returned to the conditions of the Goldilocks period. Those holding that position might be referred to as “climate change defialists’, of simply “climate defialists”.

Climate alarmists appear to have forgotten the lessons of two cautionary fairy tales, Chicken Little and The Boy Who Cried Wolf. Chicken Little was intended to show “the evils of mass hysteria”. Alarmists have resorted to expressions such as “earth on fire” and “the oceans are boiling” and predictions of mass migration of climate change refugees as the result of rising sea levels and near-surface temperatures in an attempt to incite public concern and pressure to stop climate change. While they have succeeded in creating hysterical reactions in some groups, they have been largely unsuccessful in inciting mass hysteria in the general population.

The Boy Who Cried Wolf, on the other hand, warned of the loss of credibility after numerous false claims of danger when the real danger arose. Climate alarmists have made numerous claims of danger from worsening adverse weather events, such as tropical cyclones, heat waves, drought, floods, sea level rise and ocean “acidification”. These claims are frequently not taken seriously because the weather and climate data do not support them and these weather events are not new phenomena.

The final fairy tale which comes to mind is The Emperor’s New Clothes, the story of two swindlers who approach the emperor and “offer to supply him with magnificent clothes that are invisible to those who are stupid or incompetent”. This fairy tale evinces thoughts of magnificent new energy technologies which are reliable and cheap, but cannot be appreciated by those who are “stupid or incompetent”, such as “climate deniers”.

From: Climate Etc.

By: Russ Schussler

Date: April 17, 2023

Renewable Experts: Undeterred and Unmoved by Failed Ideas

“Green” ideas and their proponents can create problems.  Like the antagonist in Terminator 2, green arguments and proponents don’t go down easily.  With serious challenges, they retreat, hibernate sometimes, morph, transform and come back.  It’s hard to argue with many “green” energy ideas.  They are often huge in scope but severely limited in details.  Focusing on a couple key factors and ignoring  or leaving so much to be worked out later.  Painfully naïve or unaware of so many factors associated with the provision of energy, feedback and often even human behavior.   They see the flaws in current efforts, but are blind to the drawbacks which will necessarily emerge from their proposals.  The offer conjectures with a lot of dots to still be connected. They speak of things that may be possible, without any handle on the probabilities.

Usually, “green” ideas are packaged with threats of doom, promises of superior technology or both.   The media are drawn to both those themes and many policy makers are attracted as well.   Attention is a great thing for new ideas.  The themes of urgency and the scope of change,  gives these ideas more weight and seeming gravitas.  Unfortunately, the needed incentives to dig down and look critically as these ideas are generally lacking. Woefully, those promulgating “green” ideas don’t have much incentive for engaging with their critics or broadening their understandings. They generate the feeling that we need to move forward with the big, new important thing – no time for distractions. (continue reading)

Renewable Experts: Undeterred and Unmoved by Failed Ideas

Numerous potential paths to net zero annual CO2 emissions have been identified and discussed, including:

• Renewables plus storage
• Massively overbuilt renewables and transmission
• Renewables plus Dispatchable Emission-Free Resources (DEFR)

Each of these paths faces massive technological hurdles.

The renewables plus storage path requires short, medium and long duration storage. Short duration storage (~4 hours) is available with lithium batteries, but at very high cost. Medium duration storage (~8-16 hours) is under development, but is not yet commercially available and its cost is unknown. Long duration storage (weeks) is currently available only with pumped hydro, but its availability is very limited and there has been strong resistance to expanding it.

The cost and availability issues with storage have led some to propose a path based on massive overbuilding of renewable generation combined with massive additional transmission capacity. This approach assumes that there would always be excess renewable electricity available somewhere which could be moved to areas with inadequate renewable generation output resulting from adverse weather conditions or equipment failure. Ultimately, this approach would require development of a massively interconnected national grid with the ability to move power multi-directionally over far longer distances than is common today.

The renewables plus DEFR path relies on the availability of generation technology which is as yet undefined, no less developed and commercialized. There is no indication of when this technology would become available, not is there any information regarding its cost.

The US Administration is currently focused on renewables and has only recently placed any focus on storage. The Administration’s approach combines incentives for renewable generation, storage and transmission infrastructure with mandates to terminate operation of fossil-fueled generation. The Administration has also taken steps to progressively deprive the market of access to oil and natural gas, causing their prices to increase. The Administration also provides incentives for electric vehicles, combined with a ban on new fossil-fueled vehicle sales after 2035. There are also incentives for purchase of electric appliances and equipment, which are made more attractive by the increasing prices of oil and natural gas resulting from the Administration’s actions.

The Administration approach involves substantial risks, created primarily by the hard deadlines for elimination of coal generation (2030) and natural gas generation (2035). There is no assurance that sufficient renewable generation, electricity storage and transmission infrastructure will be operational by these hard deadlines to replace this dispatchable capacity, as well as to provide the additional capacity required to meet normal market growth and the approximate tripling of current demand by 2050 resulting from electrification of current fossil fueled end uses.

The Administration, while it has not carefully planned this transition to all-renewable “all-electric everything”, has carefully positioned itself to blame any failure to achieve its goals, as well as electricity price increases and loss of grid reliability on others, since it has established timelines and provided generous incentives.

There has not yet been a comprehensive demonstration of an energy system such as the Administration demands, though there have been several notable failures of partially implemented systems in Germany, UK, California and Texas.

Don’t begin vast programs with half-vast ideas.

From: The Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF)

By: Ole Humlum

Date: April 2023

The State of the Climate 2022

General summary

This report has its focus on observations, and not on output from numerical models, with a few exceptions (e.g. Figure 38). References and data sources are listed at the end of the report.

Air temperatures

Average air temperatures measured near the planet’s surface (surface air temperatures), or rather their deviation from the average calculated for a chosen reference period, are central to many climate deliberations. However, the significance of any short-term warming or cooling recorded in these datasets should not be overstated. Firstly, focusing on averages tends to hide the fact that we all deal with much larger temperature variations on a daily basis. Secondly, whenever Earth experiences warm El Niño or cold La Niña episodes, major heat exchanges take place between the Pacific Ocean and the atmosphere above, eventually showing up as a signal in the global air temperature. However, these do not reflect similar changes in the total heat content of the atmosphere-ocean system. In fact, the global net changes involved may be small; such heat exchanges may chiefly reflect redistribution of energy between ocean and atmosphere. Evaluating the dynamics of ocean temperatures is therefore equally as important as evaluating changes in surface air temperatures.

Relative to the whole period since 1850/1880, 2022 was warm, but cooler than most years since 2016. A moderate La Niña episode played out during the year, underlining the importance of ocean-atmosphere exchanges.

Many Arctic regions experienced record high air temperatures in 2016, but since then, including in 2022, conditions generally have turned somewhat cooler. The Arctic temperature peak in 2016 may have been affected by ocean heat, released from the Pacific Ocean during the strong 2015–16 El Niño and subsequently transported towards the Arctic. This underscores how Arctic air temperatures may be affected, not only by variations in local conditions, but also by variations playing out in geographically remote regions.

Many diagrams in this report focus on the time from 1979 onwards, reflecting the start of the satellite era, and the advent of a wide range of observations with nearly global coverage, including temperature. These data give a detailed view of temperature changes over time at different altitudes in the atmosphere. Among other phenomena, they reveal that a Stratospheric temperature plateau has prevailed since 1995.

Since 1979, temperatures in the lower Troposphere have increased over both land and oceans, but most clearly over land. The most straightforward explanation for this observation is that much of the warming is caused by solar insolation, but there may well be several supplementary reasons, such as differences in heat capacity and changes in cloud cover and land use.

Oceans

The Argo program has now achieved 19 years of global coverage, growing from a relatively sparse array of 1000 profiling floats in 2004, to more than 3900 in December 2021. Since their inception, these have provided a unique ocean temperature dataset for depths down to 1900 m. The data is currently updated to August 2020. Although the oceans are much deeper than 1900 m, and the dataset is still relatively short, interesting features are now emerging from these observations. (continue reading)

The State of the Climate 2022

The US Department of Energy, Energy Information Administration chart below is arguably accurate but inarguably misleading.

The capacity factors shown for both wind and solar, while they are the actual percentage of rating plate capacity delivered to the grid in 2020, are also approximately equal to the limiting capacity factors of the generators as installed, since the output of both wind and solar generation have priority access to the grid.

The nuclear generation capacity factor shown above is the rating plate capacity of the nuclear generators less an allowance for downtime for maintenance and refueling. Otherwise, nuclear generators typically operate base loaded at rating plate capacity because of their low operating costs.

Geothermal generation provides a constant source of energy as required and is typically dispatched when available, with a downtime allowance of approximately 25% for maintenance and repair.

Hydroelectric generation capacity factor is largely dependent on water availability behind the dams as well as water demand downstream of the dams. A portion of the hydroelectric generation capacity is reliable, while the remainder is “source of opportunity” capacity based on water availability.

Coal and natural gas generators are typically operated in load-following mode, providing the difference between renewable and nuclear generation output and grid demand. They also typically represent the utilities’ capacity reserve margin on peak, available in the event of a failure of the utilities’ largest single generation resource. The capacity factors shown in the chart above are the actual percentage of rating plate capacity delivered to the grid in 2020. However, those generators have real capacity factors of approximately 85% for coal generation and 90% for natural gas combined cycle generation.

Of the generation sources shown in the graphic, only wind and solar are not dispatchable. Their availability is dependent upon wind and sun conditions. When they are available, they displace the output of dispatchable generators. However, the capacity of the dispatchable generators must still remain available to meet grid demand during periods of low/no wind and solar availability.

As the fraction of wind and solar generation increases, the percentage utilization of the generating capacity of coal and natural gas generators would decline, to the extent the decline is not offset by increasing grid demand or the permanent closure of these generators as a function of age, operating cost or government edict. Grid demand is expected to increase at a more rapid pace, driven by the Administration’s focus on “all-electric everything”, which would ultimately approximately triple grid demand by 2050.

The assumption is that increasing grid demand would be served by increased wind and solar generation. However, the intermittency of these generators means they would continue to require support during periods of low/no wind and solar availability. This support is now provided primarily by dispatchable fossil-fueled generators, but might also be provided by electricity storage capacity in the form of batteries or pumped storage. These storage resources would have to be in place and operating before the scheduled closure of the remaining coal generating capacity in 2030 and the remaining natural gas generating capacity by 2035.

From: Institute for Energy Research

By: Thomas Whackman

Date: April 2023

Energy Security is National Security

Introduction

Energy security is national security. One cannot exist without the other, and a lack of either can have serious ramifications. For evidence of this, look no further than Europe, where Germany is reeling from the twin blows of ill-conceived domestic energy policies and wholesale energy dependence on its chief geopolitical adversary: Russia.

The German case is but one example of the many pitfalls a nation faces when it fails to secure its energy supply. American policymakers would do well to take this cautionary tale to heart – and soon – as the Biden administration’s plans to force a complete energy transition away from fossil fuels may lead America down the long and painful road of energy dependency.

Due in large part to government intervention, the United States is becoming progressively more reliant on electric vehicles (EVs) and nonnuclear renewable energy sources for its transportation and energy needs. These technologies rely on a large input of rare earth metals and other mined elements, particularly lithium and cobalt, the supply of which is dominated almost entirely by the People’s Republic of China (PRC). These same minerals are also key inputs in the production of many advanced weapons systems, like fighter jets and ballistic missile defenses, that are critical for a robust national defense.

This, along with the current administration’s ongoing war against domestic hydrocarbon production, puts America’s energy security, and its national security, in real jeopardy. It is therefore incumbent to unpack just what energy security means, its relationship to national security, what that means for the United States, and the consequences that can occur when leaders attempt to ignore the fundamental physical realities that create the context in which statecraft resides. (continue reading)

Energy Security is National Security

Consensus: general agreement, the judgement arrived at by most of those concerned, group solidarity in sentiment and belief (Source: Merriam-Webster)

Science: knowledge or a system of knowledge covering general truths or the operation of general laws especially as obtained and tested through scientific method, such knowledge or such a system of knowledge concerned with the physical world and its phenomena, the state of knowing : knowledge as distinguished from ignorance or misunderstanding (Source: Merriam-Webster)

One of the most frequently cited memes regarding climate science is that: “97% of climate experts agree humans are causing global warming.“ This meme originated with skepticalscience.com, but has been repeated in slightly different form by several other sources. Some have even suggested that humans are totally responsible for global warming. This meme clearly meets the definitions of consensus, though it also meets some aspects of science.

Global warming has certainly been occurring since the late 1800s, as measured by near-surface temperature measurements and satellite observations (since 1979), as well as indicated by a variety of paleoclimatic proxies. The paleoclimatic proxies indicate that both global warming and global cooling have occurred numerous times during the past ~4500 years, as shown in the graph below.

The potential for human influence on climate was hardly considered until the 20th century. The various warming and cooling cycles shown in the graph above, prior to the end of the Little Ice Age (LIA), are assumed to be the results of natural climate variations. However, the “scientific consensus” is that humans are causing the global warming since the end of the LIA, and especially since the middle of the 20th century, at least in part. However, there is no scientific evidence that natural variation in the earth’s climate has ceased or even substantially diminished.

There is scientific evidence that certain human activities can influence warming and cooling of the climate, including emissions of so called greenhouse gases (GHGs), emissions of aerosols and land use changes which affect the earth’s albedo. The magnitude of these human activities can be measured with reasonable accuracy, but the effects of these human activities on global temperatures can only be estimated.

There is a less pervasive consensus that CO2 emissions are the primary driver of the recent warming, although there is no scientific proof that is the case. Those who are part of that consensus believe that human CO2 emissions must be radically reduced or eliminated to avoid runaway future warming or some undefined “tipping point” leading to a climate crisis. This has led to a limited but vocal political consensus that global CO2 emissions must be reduced to Net Zero by 2050. This political consensus is not supported by the science, or by the governments of many developing nations.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate change (IPCC) has developed a consensus estimated range of the sensitivity of global warming to atmospheric CO2 concentrations, although it has recently acknowledged that the higher end of the range of sensitivity estimates is less likely to be correct. The IPCC ensemble of climate models projects a broad range of possible future global temperature trajectories, though there is no consensus regarding which, if any, of those models is accurate.

With regard to global warming, the consensus appears to be stronger than the science.

From: Watts Up With That

By: Christopher Monckton of Brenchley

Date: April 3, 2023

The New Pause lengthens to 8 years 9 months

The New Pause has lengthened to 8 years 9 months. The least-squares linear-regression trend on the UAH monthly satellite global-temperature dataset shows no global warming from July 2015 to March 2023. As usual, this site is just about the only place where this continuing failure of global temperatures to do as they are told is reported.

The start and end dates of the New Pause are not cherry-picked. The end date is the present; the start date is the farthest back one can reach and still find a zero trend. It is what it is.

For comparison, here is the entire dataset for 44 years 4 months since December 1978. It shows a less than terrifying long-run warming rate equivalent to 1.3 degrees/century, of which 0.3 K has already occurred since January 2021, leaving just 1 K to go (on the current trend) until 2100, by which time reserves of coal, oil and gas will be largely exhausted. (continue reading)

The New Pause lengthens to 8 years 9 months

anomalous: inconsistent with or deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected

anomalies: deviations from the common rule

Global warming is monitored by estimating successive global average temperature anomalies  (“deviations from the common rule”) from the global average temperature over a historical climatology period. The temperature anomalies calculated by various government and non-government agencies are not directly comparable because the agencies use different climatology reference periods. However, there is general agreement that the global climate has warmed by 1.0+/- 0.2°C over the most recent century. The graph below is a typical presentation of global average temperature increase over time.

Note that the “Y” axis of the graph is truncated to a range of 2°C rather than the full range of temperatures experienced over the earth over the base time period, which range from -89.2°C (-128.6°F) to 56.7°C (134.1°F).

I have previously used Wichita, Kansas to provide an anomalous perspective on global warming (here), (here) and (here). Wichita, Kansas is located very close to the geographic center of the contiguous United States. The annual average temperature in Wichita is approximately 57°F (13.9°C), which is also the current global average near-surface temperature.

The graph below originated on the Powerline blog and has been modified here with the addition of the red and blue bands representing the average diurnal temperature ranges for the peak summer month (July, red) and peak winter month (January, blue) in Wichita. This allows comparison of the global average annual temperature change over the period from 1880 through 2015 (~1.6°F), the orange line on the graph, with the average diurnal and peak seasonal temperature changes in Wichita. (Note that the chart temperature range is from -10°F to +110°F, slightly lower than the -22°F to +114°F record temperature range for Wichita over the same period.)

The local temperature anomaly in Wichita has ranged from approximately +57°F (+31.6°C) to approximately -79°F (-43.8°C) over the base period from 1880 to present. The local diurnal temperature anomaly in Wichita is approximately 20°F (11.1°C), as shown above, for both the peak summer month (July) and the peak winter month (January). The local peak seasonal average temperature anomaly is approximately 50°F (27.7°C).

This graph puts the global annual average temperature anomaly in a very different perspective from the NOAA graph which preceded it. The global annual temperature anomaly over the 140+ year base period is slightly more than 1% of the local peak temperature anomaly in Wichita over the period.

The graph below shows the satellite temperature record for the period 1979- January 2023, relative to the 30-year climatology period 1991-2020, reported by Dr. Roy Spencer of the University of Alabama Huntsville. UAH reports warming of +0.13°C per decade, or approximately 0.57°C since 1979. However, the monthly temperature anomalies over the period have ranged from approximately -0.68°C to +0.70°C, or more than twice the average anomaly.

The monthly satellite lower troposphere temperature anomaly for the contiguous United States varied from +0.88°C to – 0.51°C over calendar year 2022, a range of 1.39°C, or approximately 1.7 times the global annual average temperature anomaly over the 140+ year base period shown in the NOAA graph above.
Against this background, a cumulative temperature anomaly of 1.0 +/- 0.2°C over a 140+ year period does not seem particularly significant, nor does a projected future anomaly increase of 0.5°C-1.0°C.

Electricity demand fluctuates continuously, over a range of 2.5-3 to one. Electric utility operators control the output of numerous generation resources over their acceptable range of operation to match the contemporaneous demand of the grid. Current grid generation resources include nuclear, natural gas, coal, hydroelectric, geothermal, biomass, wind and solar. With the exception of wind and solar, these generation resources are dispatchable, meaning that they can be brought into service, as required, to meet grid demand. Wind and solar availability are controlled by time of day and weather conditions. Regulation typically requires that their output be used whenever available in preference to other resources and that the output of other generating resources be adjusted to accommodate their output.

Electric utilities will continue to require the ability to dispatch generating resources as required to match grid demand as the electricity generating fleet transitions from primarily fossil fueled generation to predominantly intermittent renewable generation. Nuclear generation is typically base loaded, while hydro, geothermal and biomass generation can be modulated to follow load. However, these generation sources would represent less than 10% of the generation required to meet peak demand in the “All-Electric Everything” future beyond 2050. Therefore, wind and solar generation must be rendered dispatchable to maintain grid reliability and stability.

Current US wind generation has capacity factors ranging from approximately 24-46%, with the lower capacity factors in July, August and September. Therefore, 1 GW of dispatchable wind capacity would require up to 4 GW of wind generator rating plate capacity, plus storage capacity of approximately 3 GW to store electricity for use during the periods of low capacity. Additional storage capacity would be required to compensate for daily generation fluctuations around the monthly average. Additional storage capacity would also be required to provide dispatchable output through days of low/no wind generation availability.

Current US solar generation has capacity factors ranging from approximately 17-33%, with lower capacity factors in November, December, January and February. Therefore, 1 GW of dispatchable solar capacity would require up to 6 GW of solar generator rating plate capacity, plus storage capacity of approximately 5 GW to store electricity for use at night and during periods of low capacity. Additional storage capacity would be required to compensate for daily generation fluctuations around the monthly average. Additional storage capacity would also be required to provide dispatchable output through days of low/no solar availability.

The Administration’s goal would result in a grid in which approximately 90% of the electricity generated would be generated by intermittent renewable generation, supplemented by nuclear, hydro geothermal and biomass generation. The rating plate capacity of the intermittent renewable generators would be 4-6 times the expected average capacity and the intermittent renewable generation capacity would require at least equal rating plate storage capacity and perhaps several times that capacity, depending on the number of consecutive days of low/no generation which might be experienced.

Such a system would require a significant factor of safety in its design, since if storage were discharged during a generation outage, recovery would be a long term process.

From: National Review

By: Bjorn Lomborg

Date: March 30, 2023

Life after Climate Change

Better than you think

The global discussion about climate change has become quite hysterical. Some 60 percent of people living in the rich world think it is likely to bring an end to humanity. This is not only untrue; it is also harmful, because fear makes people embrace bad policies and ignore many other urgent challenges facing the world. Consider, for example, how the World Health Organization declared climate change the defining public-health issue of the 21st century in 2014, but perhaps should have been more focused on pandemics, like Covid. Or take the World Economic Forum participants who in January 2020 found the greatest policy risk of the next ten years to be climate-action failure — ignoring the rapid spread of Covid. Or consider how development institutions increasingly focus on helping poor countries with climate-change responses, often at the expense of other things those countries urgently need, such as growth and development, stronger health-care systems, better education, and a more plentiful energy supply.

Climate change is a real and man-made phenomenon, and it will have negative impacts overall. That’s a fact, and it is one that we hear a lot. The “catastrophe narrative,” however, is drowning out many other relevant facts about climate change — for example, that 98 percent fewer people are dying from climate-related disasters today than did a century ago, and that net-zero-emission policies are eye-wateringly costly. The following are eight charts that I think more people should see, to understand that the climate-change data are very different from what we hear in the commonplace narrative. (continue reading)

Life after Climate Change

The US Energy Information Administration Annual Energy Outlook 2022 does not reflect the Administration’s Net Zero by 2050 goal, as shown in the graph below. It also does not reflect the Administration’s “All-Electric Everything” by 2050 goal.

The Net Zero goal would require that both coal and natural gas be replaced as electricity generation fuels, coal by 2030 and natural gas by 2035. The “All-Electric Everything” goal would require increasing US electricity generation from approximately 5,400 billion kilowatthours to approximately 17,000 billion kilowatthours, to replace the current end uses of coal, oil and natural gas with renewable generated electricity and possibly some nuclear generated electricity.  A rough approximation of the transition over the period 2021-2050 is shown in the graph below.

The electricity generation in 2050 would average approximately 2 billion kilowatthours per hour, but the peak hourly generation requirement would be approximately 5 billion kilowatthours per hour. The EIA AEO 2022 estimates that the renewable generation in 2050 would be approximately 60% solar and 40% wind, which is a significant shift from the 2021 ratio of 70% wind to 30% solar.

Current utility renewable generation capacities vary seasonally, with wind experiencing a capacity factor range of approximately 24 - 43% and solar a capacity factor range of approximately 18 - 33%. Therefore, based on the EIA projection of a 60% solar, 40% wind share of intermittent renewable generation, the average capacity factor of the solar and wind generator fleet would be approximately 28%. Therefore, generation of 17,000 billion kilowatthours annually would require intermittent renewable generating capacity of approximately 7 billion kilowatts. However, peak hour generation of approximately 5 billion kilowatthours per hour would require approximately 18 billion kilowatts of generation, or a combination of generation and long-duration storage. Storage or generation oversizing would be essential since solar experiences its minimum capacity factor during the winter peak period, while wind experiences its minimum capacity factor during the summer peak.

Solar generating capacity of approximately 11 billion kilowatts at 0.3 kilowatts per panel would require installation of approximately 35 billion solar panels over an area of 17 million acres, or 27,000 square miles. This area is slightly larger than the state of West Virginia. Wind generation capacity of approximately 7 billion kilowatts would require installation of approximately 3 million 2.5 MW onshore wind turbines, or some combination of onshore and offshore wind turbines. The administration has a goal of installing 30 GW of offshore wind capacity by 2030, which would represent approximately 0.4% of the projected 2050 wind generation fleet capacity requirement.

The US currently has approximately 136 GW of solar capacity and 140 GW of wind capacity installed, or approximately 1.5% of the generating capacity required to meet peak demand in the “all-electric everything” scenario. The bulk of this existing capacity has been installed over the past 30 years with the assistance of generous federal and state incentives. Installing the remaining approximately 98.5% of the required capacity over the next 28 years appears to be a daunting task.

From: Climate Change Dispatch

By: Don W. Crockett

Date: March 14, 2023

The Global Warming Doomsday Religion Is A Suicide Pact To Wreck Our Economy

There is no scientific evidence that the minuscule 0.01% increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) since 1780 has had any effect on the Earth’s average temperature.

Nonetheless, in the 1980s, a religious/political movement against man-made or anthropogenic CO2 arose.

It was driven by catastrophic predictions from a gaggle of impenetrable and undecipherable computer climate models operated by the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and quickly metastasized into a worldwide mass movement with all the fervor of a new evangelical religion.

As Eric Hoffer observes in his book, The True Believer, “Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in God, but never without belief in a devil.”

In this new “doomsday” mass movement, millions of people truly believe that man-made CO2 is a modern-day devil that will cause glaciers to melt, seas to rise, and coastlines to submerge. They also believe that mankind can, and must, save the planet from this catastrophe by reducing emissions of the devil CO2 to net zero.

Those who don’t believe are labeled “climate deniers,” a derogatory reference to those who deny that the Nazis perpetrated the Holocaust.

Unfortunately, most politicians in the U.S., Canada, and Europe, as well as the press and heads of many large corporations have blindly joined this Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) religion to stamp out the CO2 devil.

These true believers will not accept any challenge to their deeply held religious beliefs which are supported by nothing more than emanations from the IPCC’s inscrutable climate models. Their minds are closed.

CO2 is a devil that must be vanquished and our country, therefore, must reduce its CO2 emissions to net zero or we will all perish. Most non-believers dare not directly challenge the false claim that man-made C02 is the sole cause of our current warming period. (continue reading)

The Global Warming Doomsday Religion Is A Suicide Pact To Wreck Our Economy

The Biden Administration has set a goal of achieving Net Zero US annual CO2 emissions by 2050. To accomplish this goal, the Administration has decreed that all coal-fired electric generation would cease by 2030; and, that all natural gas fueled electric generation would cease by 2035. The Administration has also decreed that all new vehicles sold in the US after 2035 would be electric vehicles. There is also an effort underway to end the use of natural gas for applications other than electric generation, including virtually all residential, commercial and industrial end uses. Incentives have been put in place for EVs and electric appliances and equipment, as well as for wind and solar generation and electricity storage.

Achieving the Administration’s goals would result in a US energy economy based solely on electricity, generated by a mixture of renewable generation sources including hydro, biomass, geothermal, wind, solar and possibly some nuclear generation.

However, the US Energy Information Administration, an agency of the US Department of Energy, in its Annual energy Outlook 2022 (AEO  2022) projects a very different US energy future, as shown in the graphs below.

EIA projects that US electricity generation will increase by approximately 32% through 2050, or approximately 1% per year. Natural gas electricity generation would increase to approximately 1,800 billion kilowatthours, or by approximately 20%. Coal generation would decrease to approximately 530 billion kilowatt hours. Renewable generation would increase to approximately 2,400 billion kilowatthours, or nearly 500%.

Virtually all the growth in renewable generation would consist of wind and solar. Wind generation would increase from approximately 344 to approximately 750 billion kilowatthours, though its share of generation would decrease from 43% of renewable generation to approximately 31%. Solar generation would increase from approximately 450 billion kilowatthours to approximately 1,200 billion kilowatthours and its share of renewable generation would increase to approximately 51%. EIA projects virtually no growth for geothermal, hydroelectric and biomass generation.

These EIA projections are fundamentally inconsistent with the Administration’s goals of Net Zero CO2 emissions and an all-electric energy economy by 2050. Coal generation decreases, but not to zero. Natural gas generation increases, rather than decreasing to zero. The projected 1% per year growth in US electricity production is consistent with historical electricity demand growth, driven by increasing population and GDP, but not with a major transition to an all-electric energy economy.

EIA’s projections regarding natural gas show an approximate 20% increase in consumption in the Reference case, and approximately 50% in the High Supply case, as shown in the graphs below.

The EIA projections do not contemplate the effects of the Administration’s push for all-electric everything, which would require expansion of electricity generation from the projected 5,400 billion kilowatthours in 2050 to approximately 17,000 billion kilowatthours. Growth of this magnitude would require not only increases in generation, but also massive increases in and expansion of transmission infrastructure and major upgrades to existing distribution infrastructure to accommodate the increases in individual customer demand and consumption.