The Renewables Delusion

Among the reasons for the war in Ukraine is Western Europe’s decision to rely on renewable energy sources, like sunlight and wind. The great Angela Merkel ought to be held largely accountable for the current debacle. She shut down Germany’s nuclear power plants and its coal burning plants, the better to make her country dependent on Russian gas.

So naturally, the environmental lobby has now decided that the best way to cease depending on Russian energy supplies is to amp up the renewables.

This is incredibly stupid, a sign that some people never learn anything.

Anyway, Francis Menton of the Manhattan Contrarian blog has presented the facts of the matter. (via Maggie’s Farm). I share them with you:

With war raging in Ukraine following Russia’s invasion, there is a renewed concern in many quarters for “energy independence.” Until recently, the sophisticated countries of Europe had thought the whole idea to be passé. They built large numbers of wind turbines and solar arrays, while simultaneously banning fracking for natural gas and shuttering electricity plants that used coal and even those that used no-carbon nuclear. Suddenly, at the very worst possible time, they found themselves completely dependent on Russian gas for heat and reliable electricity. In the U.S. it’s not nearly so bad (yet), but the combination of the Ukraine invasion with the Biden administration’s resumption of Obama’s war on fossil fuels has also left the U.S. vulnerable to an oil and gas price spike on world markets, whose supply side has been artificially reduced by government hostility to production of fossil fuels.

Of course, the Obama-Biden war on fossil fuels has stoked inflation and made America dependent on world markets.

But, the salient point is this. Wind and solar can never give us energy independence:

So permit me to say the blindingly obvious: No amount of incremental wind and solar power can ever provide energy independence. Electricity gets consumed the instant it is generated. Electricity is consumed all the time, and therefore must be generated all the time. Indeed, some of the peak times for electricity consumption occur on winter evenings, when the sun has set, temperatures are very cold, the wind is often completely calm, and the need for energy for light, heat, cooking and more are high. During such times, a combined wind and solar generation system produces zero power. It doesn’t matter if you build a thousand wind turbines and solar panels, or a million, or a billion or a trillion. The output will still be zero.

One problem is winter nights—no sun and no wind mixed with a need for more energy to warm homes:

And calm winter nights are just the most intense piece of the problem. A fully wind/solar generation system, with seemingly plenty of “capacity” to meet peak electricity demand, will also regularly and dramatically underproduce at random critical times throughout a year: for example, on heavily overcast and cold winter days; or on calm and hot summer evenings, when the sun has just set and air conditioning demand is high.

Menton continues:

Since combined wind and solar power facilities regularly produce no power at all when it is most needed, a wind and solar generation system will either be (1) dependent on fossil fuel backup, or (2) dependent on storage for backup, or (3) both. If it is taken as given that the whole idea is to move away from fossil fuel backup, then everything comes down to storage. A fossil-fuel-free system based on wind and solar generation is completely useless without sufficient storage to cover all times of insufficient simultaneous generation.

The debate over renewables is obviously completely mindless. Unfortunately, that does not prevent our political class and our adolescent commentariat from embracing it wholeheartedly.