Dumb Energy: A Critique of Wind and Solar Energy (Free Summary of the Book)
The core characteristic of wind and solar is that these are erratic sources of electricity. The supply is randomly intermittent.
The wind and solar promoters demand that the grid be reengineered to become a “smart” grid. The idea is that if the grid is smart enough, that will compensate for the dumb wind and solar energy. That’s what they have in mind. The point of the smart grid is to make the grid more agile, the better to follow the ups and downs of wind and solar.
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Extracting energy from wind and sunlight is a seductive theory. But, the theory is impractical. The installations are too expensive. The power produced is erratic, changing with the comings and goings of the wind and sun. Erratic power saves fuel in fossil fuel plants when it arrives, but it does not displace investment in fossil fuel plants. Those plants must still be present as backup for the erratic power.
The renewable energy industry is financed by government subsidies and sweetheart deals that are hidden from consumers.
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Arguing facts with a believer in renewable energy is often futile. Rarely will a true believer change his mind because he is presented with facts. Fortunately, most people are not true believers, but victims of propaganda. One can plant a seed of doubt in such persons by presenting facts.
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The idea of renewable energy as a reliable, comprehensive solution to future energy needs is an error, resting on these faulty assumptions:
- We will run out of fossil fuels in the foreseeable future.
- Burning fossil fuels is dangerous to health and inevitably creates ugly contamination of the atmosphere.
- Renewable energy is financially competitive.
- Carbon dioxide emissions will create a climate disaster (And wind and solar will help).
These dubious assumptions will be disputed in this book.
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For certain scientific groups, green ideas and global warming alarmism are the geese that lay golden eggs. The golden eggs are not just money, but also prestige. Scientists, particularly climate scientists, benefit from global warming alarmism. They are reluctant, individually or as a group, to express skepticism or to critically examine the theories behind global warming alarmism. Peer pressure to conform is so great, that to contradict the group think is heresy, and likely professional suicide. Global warming has transformed climate scientists, formerly nerdy grinds toiling in an obscure corner of academia, into celebrity scientists. The pull of stardom and money has corrupted the scientific work.
The statements that all climate scientists agree, or that predictions of global warming are absolutely solid – those things are propaganda.
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A fundamental fallacy is that cost is the most important thing to worry about when it comes to the delivery of electricity. Not so, reliability and resilience are far more important, because the cost to the economy of an extended blackout dwarfs the cost of providing electricity. In an extreme case millions of Americans would die from a lengthy grid collapse. If the large transformers are destroyed it would take years to bring the grid back.
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About 30 U.S. states have passed laws requiring that some percentage of their electricity come from “renewable” sources, mainly wind and solar. The main beneficiaries of these laws are not the public—which pays more for electricity—but green energy companies and their investors, that are benefiting at the public’s expense.
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Green ideology has an element of nature worship. It assumes that the Earth is sacred and that the Earth is in danger from man.
From Chapter 1: The Economic Argument
Because wind and solar can’t be counted on, the “rest of the grid” has to be able to stand alone. To be clear: if wind and solar vanished overnight, the grid would get along perfectly well. Adding wind and solar to the grid does not replace any significant part of the existing grid because the existing grid must be ready to step in when wind or solar is generating little electricity.
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An example from Texas illustrates the problem. Texas has a large, 18,000-megawatt, wind generation system, mostly in west Texas. Hour by hour output for 10-days of the Texas wind system is shown in the graph below. Swings in wind power of 30% or 5,000 megawatts in a few hours are not unusual. Those erratic variations in power stress the grid.
The power grid and its equipment were not designed with the expectation of introducing large quantities of erratic power. The political power of the wind and solar proponents forces the issue. The grid operators are adapting the best they can.
According to a year-long, hour by hour record of wind output for the Texas grid, in 2016, wind generation fell to as little as 0.8% of installed capacity. That happened on August 31, 2016 at noon.
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September 1, 2017 California experienced an all-time peak load of a little over 50,000 megawatts, between 4 p.m. and 6 p.m. By 6 p.m. two thirds of solar generation had been lost. By 7 p.m. 90% of solar generation was lost, but demand had only decreased from 50,000 to 48,000 megawatts. By 8 p.m. all the solar generation was lost but demand was still over 46,000 megawatts. The lesson is that solar cannot be counted on when most needed.
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A natural gas generating plant has both fixed and variable costs. The fixed cost includes capital cost amortized over the assumed life of the plant and the fixed costs of operation, such as the staff salaries. The variable cost, mainly fuel, depends on the amount of electricity generated. The cost of fuel is about 2 cents per kWh for efficient plants at current gas prices. The only real economic benefit of wind or solar is saving that 2 cents when wind or solar is working.
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The financing of renewable energy can be massively complicated, involving hundreds of thousands of dollars of legal fees. The lawyer’s job is to make the project seem to be a regular business rather than a tax dodge. The complicated nature of the financing helps hide the true economic situation from the public.
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Wind is subsidized by about 5.1 cents per kWh and solar by about 5.6 cents per kWh. That is the difference between the cost and the benefit of fuel saved. If you allocate the subsidy to the task of reducing CO2 emissions, it can be calculatedthat it costs around $140 per metric ton of CO2 emissions avoided by using wind or solar. Avoiding or compensating for a metric ton of CO2 emissions is known as a carbon offset. Carbon offsets are traded, and a carbon offset can be purchased from, for example, carbonfund.org for $10 for a metric ton of CO2 reduction. Wind or solar are not efficient devices for reducing CO2 emissions.
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From Chapter 2: Propaganda and Greenspeaking
The renewable energy industry has excellent public relations. Much press coverage is fawning and yet ignorant. For example, the New York Times ran a February 6, 2018 op-ed: Why a Big Utility Is embracing Wind and Solar. The article claims that wind and solar are replacing coal powered plants. But wind and solar don’t replace anything because the conventional grid has to be in place as backup to the erratic output of wind and solar. If coal plants are closed, they are typically replaced by natural gas plants, not wind and solar.
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The institutions and leaders that disseminate renewable energy propaganda are themselves influenced by smaller groups with more strongly held ideas and opinions. Not every op-ed writer or broadcaster is a fanatic supporter of renewable energy. Like the public, they are influenced by others, individuals more intensely committed to renewable energy.
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Several years ago, I was speaking to a congressman at a fund raiser. I was explaining the case against wind energy and the case against the federal subsidies for wind energy. Another man was quietly listening. After I finished my spiel, I was introduced to the other man who turned out to be a lobbyist for wind energy and a longtime supporter of the congressman. The lesson for me was that it is hard to compete with paid propagandists.
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The many causes espoused by the environmental organizations have one thing in common. They alarm the public and get attention, thereby raising money for the environmental organizations. It doesn’t matter if the science behind the cause is junk science, as long as it is scary.
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The propagandists for wind and solar use fake photography to give the impression that smokestacks of conventional fossil fuel plants are belching toxic black smoke. This outright fakery says a lot about the ethics of the Sierra Club and similar organizations. The picture is an example that appeared on the Sierra Club website. The smokestack is actually belching harmless water vapor. When the water vapor or steam hits the cool air, it condenses into a white cloud. By photographing with the sun behind the smoke stack, the white cloud of water droplets can be made to appear black. It is revealing that, in the photo, there is no “smoke” immediately above the stack before the water vapor has mixed with the cool air sufficiently to condense.
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Maine as Third World Country:
CMP Transmission Rate Skyrockets 19.6% Due to Wind Power
Click here to read how the Maine ratepayer has been sold down the river by the Angus King cabal.
Maine Center For Public Interest Reporting – Three Part Series: A CRITICAL LOOK AT MAINE’S WIND ACT
******** IF LINKS BELOW DON'T WORK, GOOGLE THEM*********
(excerpts) From Part 1 – On Maine’s Wind Law “Once the committee passed the wind energy bill on to the full House and Senate, lawmakers there didn’t even debate it. They passed it unanimously and with no discussion. House Majority Leader Hannah Pingree, a Democrat from North Haven, says legislators probably didn’t know how many turbines would be constructed in Maine if the law’s goals were met." . – Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting, August 2010 https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/wind-power-bandwagon-hits-bumps-in-the-road-3/From Part 2 – On Wind and Oil Yet using wind energy doesn’t lower dependence on imported foreign oil. That’s because the majority of imported oil in Maine is used for heating and transportation. And switching our dependence from foreign oil to Maine-produced electricity isn’t likely to happen very soon, says Bartlett. “Right now, people can’t switch to electric cars and heating – if they did, we’d be in trouble.” So was one of the fundamental premises of the task force false, or at least misleading?" https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/wind-swept-task-force-set-the-rules/From Part 3 – On Wind-Required New Transmission Lines Finally, the building of enormous, high-voltage transmission lines that the regional electricity system operator says are required to move substantial amounts of wind power to markets south of Maine was never even discussed by the task force – an omission that Mills said will come to haunt the state.“If you try to put 2,500 or 3,000 megawatts in northern or eastern Maine – oh, my god, try to build the transmission!” said Mills. “It’s not just the towers, it’s the lines – that’s when I begin to think that the goal is a little farfetched.” https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/flaws-in-bill-like-skating-with-dull-skates/
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Hannah Pingree on the Maine expedited wind law
Hannah Pingree - Director of Maine's Office of Innovation and the Future
"Once the committee passed the wind energy bill on to the full House and Senate, lawmakers there didn’t even debate it. They passed it unanimously and with no discussion. House Majority Leader Hannah Pingree, a Democrat from North Haven, says legislators probably didn’t know how many turbines would be constructed in Maine."
https://pinetreewatch.org/wind-power-bandwagon-hits-bumps-in-the-road-3/
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