As the Paris climate agreement pushes for more and more renewable installments globally, reports of failure of installed renewables, especially wind and solar, are also becoming increasingly common.Nobody wishes for wind and solar to fail. After all, billions of dollars have been invested in them. I, like many others, desire to see renewables strengthen the existing energy infrastructure globally.Sadly, and inevitably, though, the drawbacks and limitations of wind and solar keep resurfacing, no … [Read more...]
Battery Storage—An Infinitesimal Part of Electrical Power
Large-scale storage of electricity is the latest proposed solution to boost the deployment of renewables. Renewable energy advocates, businesses, and state governments plan to use batteries to store electricity to solve the problem of intermittent wind and solar output. But large-scale storage is only an insignificant part of the electrical power industry and doomed to remain so for decades to come.Last month, Senator Susan Collins of Maine introduced a bi-partisan bill named “The Better Energy … [Read more...]
How the Wind Industry Gains by Losing
So you want to make a profit by selling what you produce. What do you do? Sell it for more than it costs you.But that's so old fashioned!Nowadays, you just get into the wind industry. You find state or local policymakers eager to virtue signal by supporting your renewable-, zero-carbon energy tech. And you get them to sign a contract that guarantees you get positive payment for your product even when its market price is negative.Rate- and taxpayers in Georgetown, TX, a small town outside the … [Read more...]
Are Wind Factories a Clear Case of Environmental Injustice?
Not many people can combine downright poetic writing with clear arguments about justice and economics. Radio broadcaster Bob Lonsberry did it today on his blog, "To the Metal Beasts on the Hilltop." Here's the start: Why do you think wind and solar projects in New York invariably end up in the poorest, most rural and politically powerless communities? Seriously. In this day and age, are we going to look the other way as community after community across upstate New York is stuck with … [Read more...]
What Do “Green Jobs” Produce?
Cornwall Alliance advisory board member H. Sterling Burnett published a good piece in the Washington Times recently that rebuts claims about "Green jobs" in two ways. Burnett points out that in response to President Donald Trump's saying one reason to withdraw from the Paris climate accord was that staying in would drive energy prices higher, causing the loss of 6.5 million industrial jobs by 2040, supporters of wind and solar energy claim that job gains in wind and solar energy production … [Read more...]
Can We Get There from Here?
A tourist asks an Irish old-timer, "How do I get to Dublin?" The old-timer responds, "Well, you can't get there from here." That's what came to my mind when I read Michael Kelly's brief paper "A Challenge for Renewable Energies," at the Global Warming Policy Forum. The gist: "In recent years the energy sector has accounted for about 9 per cent of global GDP, with the implication that the return on energy investment [ROEI] in the world economy is, approximately and as an average, about … [Read more...]
I’d Rather Have ROTHR: National Security vs. Wind Energy
Physicist and Cornwall Alliance friend John Droz, Jr., reveals a fascinating story of how the Obama Administration and North Carolina politicians sold out national security for the chance to look Green. The Obama-directed military and North Carolina regulators, aided by the governor and attorney general, approved an extensive industrial wind facility located where it would interfere with the operation of a vital instrument of national security: one of two land-based ROTHR—Relocatable … [Read more...]
India Dances toward Paris
India last week announced its "climate action plan" in preparation for December's climate summit in Paris, and the featured points grabbed the world's attention: 40% increase of "clean [i.e., CO2-free] energy" by 2030; reduced CO2 "emission intensity" by 33% from 2005 levels by 2030; calling for wealth countries of the West to help it meet the costs of these efforts. That last point is the one to be taken most seriously. As for the first two, well, there's lots of smoke and mirrors, but … [Read more...]
For Three Billion People, Coal Looks Pretty Good
Ask a typical college student about “environmentally friendly” energy sources, and the student will usually respond with comments on wind energy, solar energy, or at least “renewable fuels.” Coal would never make the list. But as an economist, I’m always teaching students about trade-offs. There is no energy source that is costless, either financially or in terms of environmental degradation. Wind energy, for example, requires metals that have to be mined, access roads and transmission lines … [Read more...]
