Generating Electricity – Let’s Get Real
President Biden has set a goal to slash ‘planet warming’ (meaning the US) greenhouse gas emissions by at least 50% below 2005 levels by 2030, with a goal to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. However, I don’t think that goal is shared by most of his citizens.
Having goals is generally a good thing. But having a goal without a plan to achieve it is empty. I have a goal to be Pope. What’re my chances if I work at it – or do I just pray a lot and hope lightning strikes the College of Cardinals and leaves a majority with the idea of me as the great heir apparent?
Stating a goal to get rid of fossil fuels by a certain short-date is political – not reality. The right solution for the foreseeable future is to use fossil fuels in a wise manner while working on potential ‘green’ alternatives.
The role of electricity in our daily lives is not only huge, but essential to our lives, freedoms, and lifestyles.
In 2020, wind turbines were the source of about 8.4% of total U.S. utility-scale electricity generation. Solar energy provided about 2%.
With the current state of the art for wind and solar, to achieve the 2030 goal would require a chunk of land equal to the state of South Dakota, according to Princeton University estimates. The 2050 goal would require up to four additional South Dakotas to develop enough clean power to run all the electric vehicles, factories, households, businesses, and more.
This Green New Deal stuff is pie in the sky thinking. It would be great, but we’re far from achieving it. Let’s deal with 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. There’s just one problem—it doesn’t exist and there’s no plan in place to reasonably and acceptably achieve it.
Yes, it would be nice to have our cars propelled by green energy. But where we are is those batteries 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 present we don’t have – and can’t get, in a predictable future – the electrical generating capacity to charge the 291 million vehicles on our roads in addition to supplying existing energy demands with wind and solar power. Electric cars make sense if charged with renewable fuels.
Just hoping for 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. And electric cars are heavy and expensive, and maintenance can be costly as well, especially for the brakes.
While coal has gotten a bad name in the US, China, India and Russia continue to build scores of coal-fired electrical generating plants. Why? Because they are the most efficient for bulk power generation – 96% efficient in fact. 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. China, India and Russia have done the relevant cost/benefit calculations and know the technology is not yet there for ‘green’ alternatives. Currently the US and Europe account for an estimated one-third of global, manmade, CO2 emissions while those three account for 54%.
According to known reserves of natural gas in North America, especially its discovery 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 EO limiting natural gas extraction from shale and coupled with its wishful solar-wind thinking, we’re currently facing a near future of rationing electricity. To put us all in electric vehicles would only 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 electricity powered near-future frankly sounds like someone from another planet. Those who live in cold climates (the northern US and Canada) will need fossil fuels for the foreseeable future if they are to remain alive.
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 (that they all fly to) to hand out subjectively generated, CO2 and other emissions reduction targets for different nations – except China, India and Russia.
Comparing weather dependent wind generation and sunshine dependent solar with available, reliable sources 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 perfect.
Oh, if only that were true, based on facts.
For example, 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 those renewables would cost 7-9 times more than natural gas. Those estimates do not include handling the toxic waste when solar panels and windmill blades wear out nor the disposal of spent storage batteries.
Are you willing to pay 7-9 times your monthly electrical bill – assuming you’re allowed to use as much electricity as you do 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 just what the fossil fuel ‘deniers’ want.
At the same time the US has made significant progress in using fossil fuels in a ‘clean’ fashion – and we can breathe the air and see the horizon.
The next time you hear a proponent of eliminating fossil fuel and replacing them with solar and wind, ask them two questions:
- When can it be done successfully and reliably?
- How much will it cost the country’s economy and you and me, personally?
Don’t be surprised when Joe Biden, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Bernie Sanders and Al Gore – and their “congregations” – don’t know those answers – because there aren’t any you and I can live with.
The earth is ever changing – but it is not ending.
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Have a great and prosperous week.
Hug somebody.
References:
https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2021-energy-land-use-economy/
https://ourworldindata.org/co2-emissions
SPIDER Bites
Researchers have found that in addition to our exhales of CO2, mosquitoes are attracted by certain colors we wear. They found mosquitoes are attracted to red, orange, black and cyan and ignore other colors, such as green, purple, blue and white. Something to consider in your summer outdoor wardrobe.
Russia unveiled a new deal with China last week on a new, high volume, natural gas pipeline into China. The two countries agreed to make the deal in Euro’s rather than dollars to diversify away from the dollar. Oops! We’re getting weaker on that front as well.
I wish I could say that President Biden’s dispatch of VP Harris to Europe next week to address the Russia/Ukraine situation with NATO allies gave me confidence. It doesn’t. Are we really on the verge of war with Russia? This is nuts!
Citing President Biden’s executive order 13985 titled “Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government.” the HHS Dept. reported last week it will fund a $30M grants program, using monies appropriated for COVID relief, for smoking kits with pipes for ‘marginalized’ users to more safely smoke crystal methamphetamine, crack cocaine and “any illicit substances.” Let’s see, government is funding drug paraphernalia, including needles. How compassionate! Add the compassion of lower prices for fentanyl and other synthetic opioids due to the increased supply entering this country means addicts don’t have to steal as much every day to support their habits. Brilliant strategy!
I want those who are clear on what the current COVID mandate policy is by the WH. The info (science) is not available to me. Meanwhile, US truckers are planning their own cross-country, protest convoy starting early next month. Working people are pushing back. Homeland Security has been authorized to attempt to quell such a protest. The 1st Amendment is apparently does not exist for certain situations. Scary stuff.
Postmaster General Louis DeJoy defended his plan to replenish 10% of the needed 5,000 vehicle replacements with electric vehicles after a scathing EPA (WH) letter criticized him for not taking advantage of an opportunity to lead on climate change and buy more electric vehicles. Dejoy said the USPS couldn’t afford any major electrification based on its current financial situation.
7.5% – that’s the runaway inflation number for January over a year ago. Electricity costs rose .9% over the previous month and 10.7% for the year as the price of natural gas has surged 22.6%. But we’re just paying the price in saving the world from climate change and we’re all just short of ecstatic about it.
