100 percent renewable energy: 100 percent possible, 100 percent happening.

From Environment Maine and Rob Sargent come this unbelievably lunacy driven rant about how Wind and solar can take over the total energy needs of our country. It's hard to believe these people really exist. The "facts" he throws around about how polluted our cities are and how the "potential" for utility scale solar especially is so great that we would be able to provide 100 times the energy we now use. Most of that concentrated pollution comes from vehicle exhaust, not power plants. And certain manufacturing processes need fossil fuels to fire their furnaces, that is unless we want to go to a completely manufactureless economy. (I think I just made up a new word.) But at what cost to the environment? At what cost to the pocketbook? At what cost to the stability of our grid?

I read an article recently that making solar panels requires quite a bit of silver. To produce the number of solar panels they propose for 100% coverage, we would need about 4 million metric tonnes of silver. It is estimated that is about 100 times what we currently know even exist in the world today. It would take enough solar panels to cover the entire State of Texas land mass to power the US alone, and transmission would present another grid nightmare and extraordinary cost. We have to consider what our future is to be. Will we bankrupt the country to give us feckless, temporary power or will we provide the needed constant, cheap, reliable energy we need with fossil fuels?

Source Article:    http://environmentmaine.org/blogs/environment-america-blog/ame/100-...

For more reading, there is an article which debunks most of what Mr. Sargent has said in his 100% article. 

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-01-31/destroying-wind-solar-will...

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Comment by Deborah Andrew on July 24, 2017 at 1:23pm

Here's some of the facts those who sell & promote solar insist are either uninformed, flat wrong or cherry picked:  unfortunately, they are thoroughly and well-researched.

SOLAR ARRAYS

 

Note:  Due to the challenge of finding any reliable critical analysis of solar photovoltaics, the major reference source used was “Green Illusions, The Dirty Secrets of Clean Energy and the Future of Environmentalism” by Ozzie Zehner, a scholar and researcher by profession.

 

To quote Zehner:

 

“The sheer magnitude of literature on the subject overwhelms…The various tributes to solar cells could easily fill a library; the critiques would scarcely fill a book bag.

When I searched for critical literature on photovoltaics, Google returned numerous ‘no results found’ errors – an error I’d never seen (or even realized existed) until I began querying for published drawbacks of solar energy….

Few writers dare criticize solar cells…Despite being around for so long [since 1839], solar cells have largely managed to evade criticism.  Nevertheless, there is now more revealing research to draw upon …. from the very government offices, environmentalists, and scientists promoting solar photovoltaics.”

 

1.  Cost - $123 trillion + $694 billion

“…to build a solar array capable of powering the planet with today’s technology (2012)… would cost about $59 trillion; the mining, processing, and manufacturing facilities to build them would cost about $44 trillion; and the batteries to store power for evening use would cost $20 trillion, bringing the total to about $123 trillion plus $694 billion per year for maintenance.”

“Green Illusions, The dirty Secrets of Clean Energy and the Future of Environmentalism”

by Ozzie Zehner - footnote 8, p. 396

 

“If actual installed costs for solar projects in California are any guide, a global solar program would cost roughly $1.4 quadrillion…Mining, smelting processing, shipping and fabricating would yield about 149,100 megatons of CO2”

“Green Illusions, The dirty Secrets of Clean Energy and the Future of Environmentalism”

by Ozzie Zehner - p. 9

 

“…even if solar cells become markedly cheaper, … photovoltaic panels themselves account for less than half the cost of an installed solar system, according to the industry.”

solarvoltaic Industry Statistics: Costs, Solar Energy Costs/Prices,” Solarbuzz, http//www.solarbuz.com

“…cheaper solar photovotaics won’t offset escalating expenditures for insurance, warranty expenses, materials, transportation, labor and other requirements.”

Harris and Moynihan, California Solar Initiative

Footnote 15, p. 357

2.  Environmental Harm

…solar cells…manufacturing process is one of the largest emitters of hexaflourathene (C2F6), nitrogen triflouride (NF3), and sulfur hexafluoride (SF6)

C2F6 is twelve thousand times more potent than CO2, is one hundred percent manufactured by humans, and survives ten thousand years when released into the atmosphere.[1] 

 

NF2 is seventeen thousand times more virulent than CO2, and

 

SF6, the most treacherous greenhouse gas according to the Governmental Panel on Climate Change, is twenty-five thousand times more threatening.[2] 

 

The solar photovoltaic industry is one of the leading and fastest growing emitters of these gases, which are now measurably accumulating within the earth’s atmosphere. 

 

A recent study on NF3 reports that atmospheric concentrations of the gas have been rising at an alarming 11 per cent per year. [3]

 

“Green Illusions, The dirty Secrets of Clean Energy and the Future of Environmentalism”

by Ozzie Zehner - p. 18

3.  Manufacture

  • …sawing silicon wafers releases a dangerous dust as well as large amounts of sodium hydroxide and potassium hydroxide.
  • Crystalline-solar cell processing involves the release of chemicals such as phosphine, arsenic, arsine, trichloroethane, phosperhous oxychloride, ethyl vinyl  acetate, silicon trioxide, stannic chloride, tantalum  pentoxide, lead, hexavalent chromium, and numerous other chemical compounds.
  • Perhaps the most dangerous chemical employed is silane, a highly explosive gas involved in hazardous incidents on a routine basis according to the industry.
  • Even newer thin-film technologies employ numerous toxic substances, including cadmium,…catergorized as an extreme toxin…

“Green Illusions, The dirty Secrets of Clean Energy and the Future of Environmentalism”

by Ozzie Zehner – p. 19

 

4.  Life Span - Solar Cells 25-30 years, Inverters 5-8 years @ $8,000 each

Electrical inverters transform the DC output of solar cells. 

Inverters last 5- 8 years.

Inverters cost about $8,000 each.

At the end of a solar panel’s usable life, embedded chemicals and compounds can seep into the groundwater supplies if tossed in a landfill, or contaminate air and water ways if incinerated.

If photovoltaic production grows, so will the associated side effects.

“Green Illusions, The dirty Secrets of Clean Energy and the Future of Environmentalism”

by Ozzie Zehner – p. 24

5.  Reduced Efficiency – Many Causes

Atmospheric humidity and haze reflected and dispersed the suns rays

…   dust, which technicians had to scrub off almost daily.

…  soiling routinely cut electrical output of a San Diego site by 20 per cent  during dusty summer

…  soiling effects are “magnified where rainfall is absent in the peak-solar summer months…

Due to wiring characteristics, solar output can drop disproportionately if even tiny fragments of the array are blocked, making it essential tp keep the entire surface clear…

…silicon cells suffer an aging effect that decreases their output by about 1 percent or more a year.

 

“Green Illusions, The dirty Secrets of Clean Energy and the Future of Environmentalism”

by Ozzie Zehner – pp. 20, 21

 

“For weeks now, the 1.1 million solar power systems in Germany have generated almost no electricity.

“To avert power shortages, Germany imports large amounts of electricity generated at nuclear power plants in France and the Czech Republic and powering up an old oil-fired plant in the Austrian city of Graz.”

Tilting at Windmills, Spain’s disastrous attempt to replace fossil fuels with Solar PV, Part 1 http://energyskeptic.com/2015/tilting-at-windmills-spains-solar-pv/

6.  Retaining Civilization As We Know It

 

A minimum EROI of at least 10 is required to maintain civilization as we know it.  (Hall et al. 2008)

In 2014 Lambert and Hall increased the EROI required to 14.

  • If you’ve got an EROI of 1.1:1, you can pump the oil out of the ground and look at it.
  • If you’ve got 1.2:1, you can refine it and look at it.
  • At 1.3:1, you can move it to where you want it and look at it.
  • We looked at the minimum EROI you need to drive a truck, and you need at least 3:1 at the wellhead.
  • Now, if you want to put anything in the truck, like grain, you need to have an EROI of 5:1. And that includes the depreciation for the truck.
  • But if you want to include the depreciation for the truck driver and the oil worker and the farmer, then you’ve got to support the families. And then you need an EROI of 7:1.
  • And if you want education, you need 8:1 or 9:1.
  • And if you want health care, you need 10:1 or 11:1.

Tilting at Windmills, Spain’s disastrous attempt to replace fossil fuels with Solar PV, Part 1 http://energyskeptic.com/2015/tilting-at-windmills-spains-solar-pv/

7.  Financial Fiasco

Because the subsidy was so high, far too many solar PV plants were built quickly — more than the government could afford. 

  • This might not have happened if global banks hadn’t got involved and handed out credit like candy.
  • Even before the financial crash of 2008 the Spanish government began to balk at paying the full subsidies, and after the 2008 crash (which was partly brought on by this over-investment in solar PV), the government began issuing dozens of decrees lowering the subsidies and allowed profit margins.
  • In addition, utilities were allowed to raise their electric rates by up to 20%.
  • The end result … a massive transfer of public wealth to private solar PV investors of about $2.33 billion euros per year,
  • businesses that depended on cheap electricity threatened to leave Spain.

 

Tilting at Windmills, Spain’s disastrous attempt to replace fossil fuels with Solar PV, Part 1 http://energyskeptic.com/2015/tilting-at-windmills-spains-solar-pv/

“Any number of conventional energy strategies promise higher dividends than solar cell investments.”

“Green Illusions, The dirty Secrets of Clean Energy and the Future of Environmentalism”

by Ozzie Zehner – p. 29

 

“There are other ways to capture the sun’s energy besides solar cells….  Buildings can be designed to absorb light through their windows to heat concrete slabs or other thermal masses, which in turn radiate their heat during the night; such building techniques are … passive solar.”

“Green Illusions, The dirty Secrets of Clean Energy and the Future of Environmentalism”

 by Ozzie



[1]  United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, “Radiative Forcing of Climate Change (6.2.3 Hydrocarbons),”  in Climate Change 2012: Working Group I: The Scientific Basis (Geneva: GRID-Arundal, 2003); Richard Coniff, “The Greenhouse Gas That Nobody Knew,” Yale Environment, 360,  November 13, 2008.

[2]  Ray F. Weiss, et al, “Nitrogen Triflouride in the Global Atmosphere,” Geophysical Research Letters  35, no.1.208.21 (2008).

[3]  Weiss et al, “Nitrogen Triflouride in the Global Atmosphere.”

Comment by Penny Gray on July 15, 2017 at 4:26pm

The Amish are waaaay ahead of Environment Maine, plus they understand and appreciate the concept of farming using teams of horses on productive fields in real and meaningful agricultural endeavors, not "farming" in terms of covering the planet with industrial wind turbines and solar panels.  Until groups like this suck it up and start talking about big hydro and nuclear energy, SMR's, they're just full of hot air and wasting all of our time and money.

 

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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