Electrical Energy Reliability
The role of electricity in our daily lives is not only huge, but essential to our lives, freedoms and lifestyles.
This Green New Deal stuff is pie in the sky thinking. It may be a goal, but we’re far from achieving it. That’s reality, not ideological wishing. “If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.”
Yes, it would be nice to have clean, quiet, cheap electrical energy in bulk supply delivered by the sun and the wind. Everyone agrees that it would be great. You don’t have to be a genius. But there is only one problem—it doesn’t exist.
Yes, it would be nice to have our cars propelled by green energy. But where we are on that spectrum is the batteries in those cars are charged by fossil fuels. We even have people with electric cars carrying a diesel-powered generator in the trunk to charge them – just in case. I’m not saying electric vehicles are bad, I’m just saying at this point in time we don’t have the “green” electrical generating capacity to charge the 291 million vehicles on our roads in addition to supplying existing energy demands.
And to think that by just wishing we had the capacity to charge all those vehicles, plus generating the electricity we currently use for everything else via solar and wind is foolhardy. It’s wishful non-thinking.
While coal has gotten a bad name in the US, China continues to build multiples of coal-fired electrical generating plants. Why? Because they are the most efficient for bulk power generation – 96% efficient. And coal is cheap compared to all other energy sources and with the required scrubbers and other methods to reduce CO2 and other gases, it’s relatively clean. Natural gas is cleaner – a third less CO2 emissions and no sulfur – but it is more expensive than coal and oil.
According to known reserves of natural gas in North America, especially the discovery of it in shale, it is estimated it can supply the electricity needed for the US and Canada for more than a century. But with the current administration’s EOs limiting natural gas extraction from shale and it’s wishful thinking emphasizing solar and wind, we’re currently facing a future of rationing electrical use. To put us all in electric vehicles would exacerbate that rationing.
If the wind always blew and the sun always shined the idea of solar-wind power might make sense. But to assume we can quickly get to an all wind and sun powered future frankly sounds like someone from another planet.
When does reality set in?
Those peddling The Green New Deal and those that would have us dependent on solar-wind electrical generation in this country obviously believe it can be done tomorrow and done cheaply – all while ‘saving the planet.’ Panacea awaits, according to their bible.
But who are the people driving this bent? Noticeably absent are people who know the business while politicians and their lackies are holding high profile, multi-nation, climate change conferences to hand out subjectively generated, CO2 emissions reduction targets for different nations.
Comparing weather dependent wind generation and sunshine dependent solar with sources available, reliable around-the-clock, irrespective of the weather or where the sun sits in the sky, is a game played by intellectual pygmies.
Who are the real “deniers? Answer: those who would sell us solar panels and windmills and convince us all will be well.
Oh, if only that were true, based on facts.
Taking into account the cost of solar-wind electrical generation vs. natural gas, including up front capital requirements, current estimates – published by the US Energy Information Administration in 2020 – are the renewables of sun and wind cost 7-9 times more than natural gas, and 1.2-2 times more than nuclear electrical generation. Those estimates do not include handling the toxic waste when solar panels and windmill blades wear out nor the disposal of spent batteries needed for storage.
Are you willing to pay 7-9 times your monthly electrical bill – assuming you’re allowed to use as much electricity as you use now – to potentially keep the earth from warming another 1-2 degrees over the next century? What would that cost do to our economy? What would it do to you and me? We don’t even want to think about it. And that’s what the fossil fuel ‘deniers’ want.
We can safely assume that China, India and Russia have done the relevant cost/benefit calculations. They are building new, coal-fired plants as well as using other fossil fuels for electricity. Currently the US and Europe account for one-third of global, CO2 emissions (estimated).
At the same time the US has made significant progress in using fossil fuels in a ‘clean’ fashion. We can breathe the air and see the horizon.
The next time you hear a proponent of eliminating fossil fuel and replacing it with solar and wind immediately or on some untenable timeline, suggest they consider this: the only option to achieve a “renewable energy future” is to burn a lot of fossil fuels to help construct that future.
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Have a great and prosperous week.
Hug somebody.
References:
https://ourworldindata.org/co2-emissions
SPIDER Bites
Trivia question of the week: What Is the Most Common Color of Toilet Paper in France? (Answer last week: scurvy)
Rivalry week in college football saw Michigan beat Ohio State (a ‘Holy Day’ in Michigan and Ohio), Florida State over Florida, S. Carolina over Clemson, Alabama besting Auburn, USC beating Notre Dame, Arizona over Arizona State, Oregon lost to Oregon State, Minnesota over Wisconsin.
White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha unveiled the Biden administration’s new “six-week sprint” campaign last week to get Americans vaccinated this holiday season. This latest “sprint” is in the face of the latest numbers showing more people who are vaccinated are dying from COVID than those who have not. Dr. Fauci held a news conference to say the opposite again – that it’s a pandemic of the unvaccinated.
In a surprise move, the board of Disney fired its 2-year CEO, Bob Chapek, and brought back its former CEO, Bob Iger, for a 2-year stint. Although it was not said in it’s news release, there were two factors involved. One, the company just reported disappointing earnings, and two, Chapek’s criticism of Florida’s 2022 Parental Rights in Education law which bans “instruction” about sexual orientation or gender identity in kindergarten through grade 3…” – sparked the ire of legions of Disney fans. Chapek’s public disapproval resulted in the State’s April revocation of a 55-year arrangement that gave Disney special tax status and allowed it to essentially self-govern its 25,000-acre Disney World complex.
Last week before leaving Egypt and the COP27 – this year’s UN climate change conference – President Biden joined the EU and signed us on to a climate reparations program whereby we will pay under-developed and developing countries for our supposed part in bringing about the suffering these countries are and will encounter as a result of climate change. Initially, Biden promised $1B to the UN climate reparations fund. There are no details of the amounts to be paid or exactly who will be paid. Oh, China is exempt from paying any reparations, even though its CO2 emissions are more than the US and the EU combined – because China is considered a developing nation. This whole climate reparations idea is lunatic and outrageous. We will pay for the weather experienced somewhere else even though nobody can show or prove our CO2 emissions caused that latest, severe thunderstorm in the Congo. This is beyond ‘climate change religion,’ it’s madcap!
While President Biden’s student loan forgiveness fiasco is tied up in the courts, he is extending the pause in student loan payments from December to next June. Borrowers haven’t had to pay anything on their loans since March 2020. The interest that would have accrued since then has also been set at -0-. BTW, you, like me, probably didn’t know there’s a “student loan crisis?” And crises are terrible things to waste.
