The folly of wind and solar as energy sources

[Anonymous]

Power outages in Texas have shown how dangerous it is to rely on feel good luxury, but intermittent energy sources like wind and solar that cannot ramp up in periods of high demand.



Unreliable Power'

Dan Kish, a Distinguished Senior Fellow with the Institute for Energy Research (IER), told The Epoch Times Wednesday that "there's a lot of CYA going on right now. And the truth is we just don't know exactly what happened because the numbers aren't all in yet. But clearly we lost some production on the fossil energy side and the rest due to the cold."



But Kish claimed there is a fundamental difference between the problems that interfered with Texas power plants burning fossil fuels and those generating power through wind and solar.



"The way renewable energy works is it's inherently intermittent, and therefore it's all like a luxury in essence," Kish said, "except for the people that own it and the people that have to pay for it.



"That's because you're taking a perfectly good system that can respond by ramping up and down, typically, to demand and casting that aside and putting in this stuff that produces energy when it feels like it."



The clean energy facilities require back-up power sources that are typically fossil-fueled to fill in the gaps created by cloudy skies and windless days, Kish said.



Despite its long-standing reputation as the heart of the oil and gas industry, Texas' reliance on wind energy has increased in the past decade to 23 percent of the state's total electricity generation.



In fact, as the Texas Tribune noted in 2010, Texas has long produced more wind energy than any other state. But it's one thing to generate power with windmills and solar panels, it's another to move the power across vast distances to where it's needed.



It was Perry, when he was in the governor's office in Austin, who went along with a $5 billion program to erect transmission lines to move the power from the West Texas windmills and solar panel farms to the big cities across the state.



And before Perry, Kish noted, an early booster of the Texas clean energy industry was former Enron Chief Executive Officer Ken Lay, who invested heavily in the nascent power resource after then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush helped persuade Congress to renew a critical federal tax credit in 1998. Bush's father had signed the legislation that created the tax credit in 1992.



Consequently, as Texas Public Policy Foundation Vice President Chuck DeVore explained earlier this week, "Texas is now experiencing what California deals with on a regular basis — unreliable power."



DeVore said, "Texas has seen a growth of 20,000 megawatts of wind and solar over the same period [the past four to five years] to a total of 34,000 megawatts of installed capacity statewide, though they rarely perform anywhere close to capacity.



"Wind and solar, with state and federal subsidies, have pushed reliable thermal operators out of business or prevented a new generation from being built as operators can't make money off of the market."

https://www.theepochtimes.com/texas-winter-storm-power-outages-prompt-bitter-fight-between-fossil-fuel-clean-energy-advocates_3701130.html?utm_source=morningbriefnoe&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=mb-2021-02-18">https://www.theepochtimes.com/texas-win ... 2021-02-18">https://www.theepochtimes.com/texas-winter-storm-power-outages-prompt-bitter-fight-between-fossil-fuel-clean-energy-advocates_3701130.html?utm_source=morningbriefnoe&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=mb-2021-02-18

[kiebers]

I would say that one of the main issues with the power in Texas is that we are an independent power grid. We have no one to borrow from. Of course they are also going to blame it on not being regulated enough so that we would have something in place to keep the wind mills from freezing up. Now to a degree I can agree with needing some kind of regulations addressing that. There are quite a few wind farms located in Texas that see freezing weather on a fairly regular basis. That part does need to be addressed.

[Anonymous]

We have a lot of wind farms in the SW part of my province..



Suprprisingly, many are owned or at least invested in by oil and gas companies..



They received money from the former provincial government's carbon tax to invest in massive turbines..



They don't operate properly in our cold climate, but they have natural gas to back them up when that happens, and it happens a lot.

[cc]

I lived in that area & in winter often went through the area to ski hills in the mountains (Mainly Fernie)



The winters there are brutal .. and worse, subject to sudden temperature changes .. rapidly melting due to Chinook winds and then sudden refreezing  



While often windy, a bad idea  .. What melts fast also refreezes fast = ice at very low temperatures

[Anonymous]

I lived in that area & in winter often went through the area to ski hills in the mountains (Mainly Fernie)



The winters there are brutal .. and worse, subject to sudden temperature changes .. rapidly melting due to Chinook winds and then sudden refreezing  



While often windy, a bad idea  .. What melts fast also refreezes fast = ice at very low temperatures

It's one of the windier areas in Canada..



There seems to be more windfarms every trip to the Pincher Creek area..



They use so much land to produce minimal amounts of power that still require natural gas in extreme weather.

[Anonymous]

There is no magic or silver bullet when it comes to energ. So called renewable energy, in particular wind and solar, is intermittent. A solar power plant uses 100 times of land as a traditional power plant, while a wind power plant takes up to 1,000 times.

[Anonymous]

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[Anonymous]

Texas policy makers chose profitability and proliferation of unreliable wind turbines without natural gas as capacity backup.

[Anonymous]

I don't see Trudeau or Biden taking a breath on wind energy or any Democrat governor. They will double down on risky, unreliable wind and solar. Texas could be the new norm.



When the ice storm cometh

Texas crisis will reshape energy policy-making everywhere as wind-power collapse puts renewables under scrutiny



What's most interesting and important is the energy politics triggered by the polar vortex and its impact on the Texas power grid. Indeed, the Texas power wipeout instantly generated an explosion of hype, conflict and debate that will shape energy policy-making for some time. The key question: What are the risks in renewable power, especially wind?



Over the past week, shares of key renewable corporations have dropped, presumably brought on by reports that a collapse in the Texas wind-power sector was one of the main factors behind the failure of the Texas electricity grid. Among the until-now high-flying wind power firms to take a hit are NextEra Energy Partners, down 10 per cent over the past week. Other renewables in different sectors (Brookfield Renewable Partners down six per cent, Renewable Energy Group down 20 per cent) seemed to be part of a sudden ice storm downdraft that struck just as the sector was hitting a likely over-bought peak.



A few days later after the blackouts spread across Texas, Abbott blamed the grid meltdown and blackouts on the failure of the state's renewable wind power to operate through the storm. Fierce attacks followed. That brought on a round of counter attacks from the media and green activists who, with some accuracy, noted that the Texas power failure was not solely a product of the collapse of wind power.



In reality, the fierce storms and cold locked down other power sources, although it is clear that wind-generated power all but collapsed, with much of the burden taken up by natural gas. In the end, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, much power kept flowing thanks to fossil fuels, nuclear and coal production.



The failure of renewable wind supply was not the sole cause of the Texas blackouts. What were the other causes? Clearly a full review of the state's energy policies is needed to get to the overall political, economic and technological background that created the conditions for massive failure. This is where the real lessons from the Texas ice storm will emerge and where the future of energy policy will be shaped, and not just in the United States.



Renewable advocates are scrambling to the defence of wind and solar, but the Texas case joins others around the world that suggest the great stampede to build wind and solar, fuelled by massive government subsidies and price-fixing regimes, comes with risks.



In Germany, a 2019 McKinsey report on the state of the nation's power grid warned that "Germany has enjoyed a highly secure electricity supply for decades, but the tide is beginning to turn. The German power grid repeatedly faced critical situations in June of this year: significant shortfalls in available power were detected on three separate days. At its peak, the gap between supply and demand reached six gigawatts — equivalent to the output of six major power plants."



The German problems continue. A Foreign Policy magazine commentary last week asked whether Germany is making too much subsidized renewable energy, risking more blackouts and price distortions. The McKinsey report warned of blackouts, continued high prices and of the need to increase electricity imports to offset the inconsistency in renewable power.



The German problem is in part the same one confronting Texas, which includes the same risks that are building in Britain, Australia and Canada, where the push for renewables keeps growing.



In Ontario, the latest renewables movement comes from city governments that are being cajoled by activists into shutting down natural gas plants — of the kind that are keeping Texas supplied with power today — and replacing them with wind and solar plants.



The Texas disaster has given American green activists a new sense of anxious urgency to keep their movement on track. U.S. Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez quickly pounced on the governor of Texas for blaming wind for the grid crisis, claiming it all could have been avoided if her Green New Deal had been adopted. In other words, she argued, more wind power would have saved the state from its wind power collapse.



Two weeks ago, smart money was betting big on renewables as a sure thing, pushing share values to new highs. Now, the ice storm has come and a new policy debate is just beginning.

https://financialpost.com/opinion/terence-corcoran-when-the-ice-storm-cometh">https://financialpost.com/opinion/teren ... orm-cometh">https://financialpost.com/opinion/terence-corcoran-when-the-ice-storm-cometh

[Anonymous]

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[Anonymous]

The race for very finite amounts of rare earth metals if the US would deveolop it's own energy resources instead of chasing wind and solar pipe dreams.



US May Boost Rare Earths Mining to Counter Threat From China



WASHINGTON—The Chinese communist regime has recently signaled that it could leverage its dominance in rare earth minerals, raising alarm bells in the United States. The threat has prompted the Biden administration to take action to reduce U.S. reliance on China for rare earth metals that are used in everything from smartphones to electric vehicles to fighter jets.



In 1992, Chinese paramount leader Deng Xiaoping predicted the importance of rare earths to China's future when he famously said, "The Middle East has oil. China has rare earths."



Today, China is the dominant global supplier of rare earths, a group of 17 chemical elements used in the production of critical components of key technologies, which could easily be used as a weapon against other countries in a trade war or a conflict.



Beijing has already demonstrated that it could use rare earth elements as a retaliatory tactic. In 2010, China abruptly cut off exports of these elements to Japan during a conflict over a fishing boat. And at the height of the U.S.-China trade spat in 2019, Beijing sought to use rare earth exports as a "counter-weapon" against the United States.



And most recently, the Chinese regime officials reportedly explored whether curbing the export of rare earth minerals to the United States could cripple its production of F-35 fighter jets.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/us-may-boost-rare-earths-mining-to-counter-threat-from-china_3715572.html?utm_source=newsnoe&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=breaking-2021-03-01-5">https://www.theepochtimes.com/us-may-bo ... 21-03-01-5">https://www.theepochtimes.com/us-may-boost-rare-earths-mining-to-counter-threat-from-china_3715572.html?utm_source=newsnoe&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=breaking-2021-03-01-5

[Anonymous]

And as a reminder, Ontario did not escape. The Liberal `Greenwashing` deception. The $50B `invested` in wind and solar when finally mortgaged out to 2045 will have cost at least $170B. No 50,000 jobs and a tax subsidy of $6B per year keeps the lights on. All going to landfill!

[Anonymous]

And as a reminder, Ontario did not escape. The Liberal `Greenwashing` deception. The $50B `invested` in wind and solar when finally mortgaged out to 2045 will have cost at least $170B. No 50,000 jobs and a tax subsidy of $6B per year keeps the lights on. All going to landfill!

Where are all the green jobs that were promised as companies left Ontario due to high energy prices.

[Anonymous]

Cold hard facts — wind power no substitute for fossil fuels.



https://calgarysun.com/opinion/columnists/guest-opinion-cold-hard-facts-wind-power-no-substitute-for-fossil-fuels?utm_term=Autofeed&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter&fbclid=IwAR0YMVgnmrW9R75QmiHEXlP77N4roW7xmVqRGzChSJGs8LUvdHhdlTE9z1E#Echobox=1615378241">https://calgarysun.com/opinion/columnis ... 1615378241">https://calgarysun.com/opinion/columnists/guest-opinion-cold-hard-facts-wind-power-no-substitute-for-fossil-fuels?utm_term=Autofeed&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter&fbclid=IwAR0YMVgnmrW9R75QmiHEXlP77N4roW7xmVqRGzChSJGs8LUvdHhdlTE9z1E#Echobox=1615378241



Although both sides have merit, the defenders of renewables implicitly admit that wind and solar are not reliable.



The hard numbers from the Texas crisis show Canadians that government support for renewables will leave their own grids more susceptible to blackouts.



To recap, the problem in Texas wasn't that the supply of electricity was disrupted below normal levels, but rather that the demand jumped to record-breaking levels (for winter).



And the grid, hampered by the cold, couldn't rise to meet the challenge.



Consider the first day blackouts were implemented (Feb. 15, 2021).



As reported on the Energy Information Administration (EIA) website, that day the total electricity delivered was 1,161 gigawatt-hours (GWh), a unit of energy representing one billion watt hours. In contrast, exactly one year earlier (Feb. 15, 2020), the Texas grid only delivered 936 GWhs.



Thus, during the first day of the Texas blackouts, the grid supplied 24% more electricity than it did one year earlier on a more typical winter day. The blackouts occurred because demand jumped even more.



We can also look at individual energy sources.



From Feb. 15, 2020, to Feb. 15, 2021, electricity provided by natural gas-fired plants was up 91% while electricity from wind was down 72%.



On Feb. 15, 2020, wind supplied 28% of the electricity while natural gas provided 43%.



A year later, during the first day of the blackouts, wind only supplied 6% of the electricity while natural gas provided 65%.



In light of these statistics, how can anyone blame natural gas for the blackouts?



Because the Electricity Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) had contingency plans assuming wind power would be relatively useless during a severe storm and relied on thermal plants (natural gas, coal and nuclear) to pick up the slack.



At the worst point, the extreme cold knocked 30 GWhs of generation capacity from thermal plants offline (the data are not broken down among sources but natural gas is presumably the leader), which is more than double the estimate ERCOT made for an extreme storm scenario.



In contrast, ERCOT already assumed wind wouldn't provide much electricity in an "extreme low wind scenario" so the wind turbines knocked out by the cold weren't the immediate reason ERCOT's planning failed.



Yet this defence of wind power is hardly reassuring.



If we compare the electricity provided during the first day of the blackouts with the "maximum installed capacity," natural gas came in at 46% compared to 10% for wind.



While U.S. government policies — such as the federal Production Tax Credit (PTC) for wind and the looming possibility of a carbon tax — may have helped encourage the growth of Texas wind capacity at the expense of other sources, they clearly hurt the ability of the grid to supply power during the freeze.



It's true that Canadian wind operators are better prepared for the cold than their Texas counterparts, but wind will always be an intermittent source that relies on non-renewables as backup.



Of course, Canadians want reliable energy during periods of high demand, and the debacle in Texas shows that wind power is no substitute for fossil fuels.



Robert P. Murphy is a senior fellow at the Fraser Institute.

[cc]

What drives some people toward wanting "intermittent" power like those ugly turbines that destroy natural landscapes  or ruined / wasted fields of solar panels?