Canary Media kicks off the new year with a cheery piece “Lots of demand, too little grid: The state of the US power sector”. Which might sound gloomy to people who don’t have both feet firmly planted in the clouds, since it essentially says we couldn’t deliver all the electricity even if we could generate it which we can’t. But instead to them it’s proof that everything is working in the green energy transition. See, “The cheapest and cleanest way to meet most of this skyrocketing demand is by plugging new solar, wind, and battery projects into the grid.” Oh. Just that? Well, also utilities are spending big on transmission but “far too little of that transmission spending has gone to new long-range, high-voltage transmission lines to connect wind and solar farms in more remote parts of the country to population centers where that power is needed.” If only engineers understood it like journalists and activists. However abracadabra “Utilities, regulators, policymakers, and the country’s most powerful industries are focusing on finding workable solutions to the underlying bottlenecks that have been building up for the past decade.” A plan. You’re right. We’ll need a plan. Uh anybody got one?
The relentless insistence that the power is there just waiting to save us all money is a bit annoying too. Thus Bjorn Lomborg kicked off the new year with an irritable piece about the weird juxtaposition of claims that “green” power is already cheaper than hydrocarbons with the fact that the more nations rely on the former the higher energy bills go. And anyone who grasps the engineering situation knows why:
“The claim that green energy is cheaper relies on bogus math that measures the cost of electricity only when the sun is shining and the wind is blowing. Modern societies need around-the-clock power, requiring backup, often powered by fossil fuels. That means we’re paying for two power systems: renewables and backup. Moreover, as fossil fuels are used less, those power sources need to earn their capital costs back in fewer hours, leading to even more expensive power.”
He goes into details about studies on the real cost of wind and solar. But of course it generally suffices to check your power bill and, in some cases, your tax bill as well to convince you to beg politicians not to save us any more money your way. And if not, he includes a chart of IEA data on various nations, with the average electricity price per KWh on the X axis and “Percent Solar and Wind in Electricity” on the Y axes, that doesn’t leave much to the imagination.
Green zealots, of course, have powerful imaginations. Including, from the same outlet, a blithe insistence that “Geothermal has vast potential to meet the world’s power needs” complete with chart showing it second only to solar in its capacity to fuel delusions. At the risk of seeming unkind, we’re frankly not sure they know reliable energy from a hot rock.
Canary Media does realize that various factors from governments agreeing with them including on their delusions to the rapid growth of power-devouring AI means a huge increase in the demand for electricity. They just don’t see that it could possibly be an issue. In the piece cited at the outset they say silly old utilities may “fall back on the status quo — fossil fuels” but:
“In a world where grid congestion wasn’t a problem, clean power could meet most, if not all, of that near-term growth in demand.”
And we’d all get rich. Inside our heads.
In some scenarios apparently the Carbon Tax composes ~25% of the bills.
Do the staff at Canary Media belive in the Tooth Fairy as well?
They certainly don’t believe in the Truth Fairy
Nice one,Geoffrey!Alan,25% is approx. the proportion of my nat. gas bill that I pay for the hated Carbon Tax.Luckily I have a high-efficiency furnace and have insulated my place to the max.And no way I'm going with an electric furnace or heat pump,ever.I'm wondering if some woke provincial or federal gov't in future will try to ban nat. gas,in the name of moronic virtue signaling?Some new subdivisions don't have nat. gas service.
Geothermal? Not interested in that where I live. I have a friend that had her house built with geothermal heat installed. She has the max insulation and the house is only about 12-15 years old. She was complaining that her heating was struggling to keep up with the single digit temperatures (F) outside. That is “struggling” to keep her home at 64F, which is where she normally keeps it during winter. She wakes up in the morning to a home that is at 58-60F. I told her that I am not experienced in this issue since I have Natural Gas.