There are lessons to be learned from the experience of countries that have tried to decarbonize their power supply, both from the success and from the failure.
I published a paper last May entitled “Debunking the climate change hoax”. It synthesised the work of many independent scientists, e.g. Professor Will Happer, to conclude that contrary to establishment climate pseudo-science, rising atmospheric CO2 will have negligible impact on the global climate. This means that classifying energy sources by how “green” they are in terms of CO2 emissions is pointless. We should be using the cheapest and most sustainable options, which wind and solar most certainly aren’t. See https://metatron.substack.com/p/debunking-the-climate-change-hoax.
I published a further paper in early January entitled “Climate change and the corruption of science”. It is partly a rework of the previous paper but it includes an analysis of the lack of progress in decarbonising the UK grid. It suggests that attempting to decarbonise using only wind and solar with fossil fuel gas as backup is doomed to fail as there seems to be a fundamental limit which we may already be close to reaching on the level of wind/solar penetration that can be achieved without enforcing regular blackouts. See https://metatron.substack.com/p/climate-change-and-the-corruption.
"a fundamental limit which we may already be close to reaching on the level of wind/solar penetration"
Exactly. Wind and solar were a bad idea to begin with, because as you mention, CO2 impact is negligible and pointless. But now that a saturation point has been reached, any further development would be throwing good money after bad.
I appreciated your analysis of Ontario, Canada's experience with solar and wind. A complete waste of over $50 billion. Ontario's experience is similar to France's when they were forced by EU mandate to install solar and wind on France's low-emission grid. Emissions increased because fast-acting natural gas generation was required to compensate for the substantial intermittencies of solar and wind. The solar plus wind plus gas combination also substantially increased France's electricity costs. (As other commenters noted, batteries are prohibitively expensive at the required scale.) For additional details, please see the GreenNUKE Substack at https://greennuke.substack.com/
Thanks for this. Aussie here. Nuclear’s still outside the Overton window down here unfortunately. But am I correct in thinking that solar isn’t quite as toxic to the grid as wind? Less intermittent and more aligned with the demand curve? Or is this just wishful thinking on my part (we have rooftop solar, like many of my neighbours)?
I couldn't track down a reference, but I believe Ontario pays the gas plants as if they were producing 24 hours a day. Two sources are being paid when the wind blows or the sun shines.
Every day you emit carbon into the atmosphere is a hidden cost that does not go away, its just paid down the road. You are basically advocating to just give up and enjoy the good times now while the future becomes degraded. How old are you jaberwock? That might be motivating some of your bias. Why didn't you mention battery storage?
I think you've misunderstood. Jaberwock is advocating for nuclear power, which produces no emissions, if carbon is what's important to you. Rather than giving up, building nuclear is a new challenge, but in a better direction. It will be longer lasting, completely reliable in any kind of weather, won't kill eagles, migratory birds, whales, or fishing industries, and won't take up millions of acres of good farmland.
Battery storage is a very large additional expense and besides, it only gives a few more hours of power even though bad weather can last for many days.
Yes the "New Right" tend to push this on Joe Rogan and related shows. Nuclear is all fine and dandy but they never seem to answer the follow up question. Can you name any Nuclear project in the west that has been profitable in the last say 20-30 years? Vogtle was years behind schedule, bankrupted a historic company in Toshiba and now that its open will be providing very expensive electricity to its customers to make up for the cost overruns. I am just tired of these cop out "solutions" that do not take context into account. The complaints about eagles, birds, and farmland are all the same excuses the right wing grifters are pushing. Land is not an issue in the US. The continental US can absorb 1 billion people before it starts to feel like European density. There is a lot of dead land that renewables can use. The nuclear industry has been dead in the US for decades and the people who build and in some cases operated those plants have long since retired. Maybe the private sector will save the day. Microsoft is bringing TMI back to life to power their AI ambitions. But its ridiculous to dismiss renewables(solar, wind, battery): a technology that has so many upsides and growth potential that can be realized TODAY. Simpler supply chain, yes it may get wrecked in a disaster but the simplicity allows for quick recovery. The more we become leaders in this tech instead of China, the more we can export to the entire world because they are moving in this same direction. The idea that switching to renewables is some sort of way countries give up growth sounds like hogwash being pushed by oil interests. Everything on this planet we owe to the sun. Even all the fossil fuels. There is nothing without the sun. All that GDP "growth" is literally just repackaging what the sun provides. We are just debating about how many steps we need to take from "input" to "output. So the problem of renewables stalling growth is caused by a technical and policy problem. Technical in that there is a lack of smart design in the legacy grid that allows renewables to better be called when needed across the nation leading to excess being sold for too low of a price. Combine this with a lack of battery storage leads to renewables being blamed for falling short. Its also a policy problem because policy makers consistently apply laws without properly studying the countrywide context. That leads to the technical problems.
Nuclear power was cheap in the early days until it was grossly overregulated after the TMI incident. It can be reasonably priced again with regulatory reform, but that is a political problem, not a technical problem. Robert Hargraves and Jack Devanney have covered this issue well on substack and LinkedIn.
So that is why over 60 nuclear plants are under development throughout the world, of which more than a third are in China? The latest additions to the Chinese nuclear fleet are reported to provide wholesale electricity prices of $0.05-$0.07/kWh, even though that price might be mandated by the CCP to subsidize their manufacturers. While it makes sense to explore ways of providing energy to our civilisation from sources other than coal and gas, wind and solar do not have the energy density, efficiency or reliability to support an advanced industrial civilisation with the current technologies available.
100% renewables or anything close is implausible and economic insanity.
Adding transmission and more storage is going to drive prices nowhere but up. Yes nuclear is expensive but it is extremely reliable and certainly not dead.
Almost every G20 country has announced plans to build more nuclear
At the last COP, they pledged to triple world nuclear output but 2050.
Georgia power bills will only go up a small fraction, on average $35 per month.
I guarantee their kWh costs are less than Germany and the UK.
I published a paper last May entitled “Debunking the climate change hoax”. It synthesised the work of many independent scientists, e.g. Professor Will Happer, to conclude that contrary to establishment climate pseudo-science, rising atmospheric CO2 will have negligible impact on the global climate. This means that classifying energy sources by how “green” they are in terms of CO2 emissions is pointless. We should be using the cheapest and most sustainable options, which wind and solar most certainly aren’t. See https://metatron.substack.com/p/debunking-the-climate-change-hoax.
I published a further paper in early January entitled “Climate change and the corruption of science”. It is partly a rework of the previous paper but it includes an analysis of the lack of progress in decarbonising the UK grid. It suggests that attempting to decarbonise using only wind and solar with fossil fuel gas as backup is doomed to fail as there seems to be a fundamental limit which we may already be close to reaching on the level of wind/solar penetration that can be achieved without enforcing regular blackouts. See https://metatron.substack.com/p/climate-change-and-the-corruption.
Grid-scale battery storage backup is ruled out by being astronomically expensive and technically infeasible, see https://richardlyon.substack.com/p/uk-renewables-trillion-pound-energy.
"a fundamental limit which we may already be close to reaching on the level of wind/solar penetration"
Exactly. Wind and solar were a bad idea to begin with, because as you mention, CO2 impact is negligible and pointless. But now that a saturation point has been reached, any further development would be throwing good money after bad.
See https://alchristie.substack.com/p/solar-and-ev-saturation-point?
In other words ‘Net Stupid’!
I appreciated your analysis of Ontario, Canada's experience with solar and wind. A complete waste of over $50 billion. Ontario's experience is similar to France's when they were forced by EU mandate to install solar and wind on France's low-emission grid. Emissions increased because fast-acting natural gas generation was required to compensate for the substantial intermittencies of solar and wind. The solar plus wind plus gas combination also substantially increased France's electricity costs. (As other commenters noted, batteries are prohibitively expensive at the required scale.) For additional details, please see the GreenNUKE Substack at https://greennuke.substack.com/
China is going hell for leather on renewables and they are not de-industrialising. Your argument is nonsense.
Thanks for this. Aussie here. Nuclear’s still outside the Overton window down here unfortunately. But am I correct in thinking that solar isn’t quite as toxic to the grid as wind? Less intermittent and more aligned with the demand curve? Or is this just wishful thinking on my part (we have rooftop solar, like many of my neighbours)?
I couldn't track down a reference, but I believe Ontario pays the gas plants as if they were producing 24 hours a day. Two sources are being paid when the wind blows or the sun shines.
Spot on.
Stop the liberal lunacy and economic insanity
Thanks for the info about Ontario! It's very interesting.
Every day you emit carbon into the atmosphere is a hidden cost that does not go away, its just paid down the road. You are basically advocating to just give up and enjoy the good times now while the future becomes degraded. How old are you jaberwock? That might be motivating some of your bias. Why didn't you mention battery storage?
I think you've misunderstood. Jaberwock is advocating for nuclear power, which produces no emissions, if carbon is what's important to you. Rather than giving up, building nuclear is a new challenge, but in a better direction. It will be longer lasting, completely reliable in any kind of weather, won't kill eagles, migratory birds, whales, or fishing industries, and won't take up millions of acres of good farmland.
Battery storage is a very large additional expense and besides, it only gives a few more hours of power even though bad weather can last for many days.
Yes the "New Right" tend to push this on Joe Rogan and related shows. Nuclear is all fine and dandy but they never seem to answer the follow up question. Can you name any Nuclear project in the west that has been profitable in the last say 20-30 years? Vogtle was years behind schedule, bankrupted a historic company in Toshiba and now that its open will be providing very expensive electricity to its customers to make up for the cost overruns. I am just tired of these cop out "solutions" that do not take context into account. The complaints about eagles, birds, and farmland are all the same excuses the right wing grifters are pushing. Land is not an issue in the US. The continental US can absorb 1 billion people before it starts to feel like European density. There is a lot of dead land that renewables can use. The nuclear industry has been dead in the US for decades and the people who build and in some cases operated those plants have long since retired. Maybe the private sector will save the day. Microsoft is bringing TMI back to life to power their AI ambitions. But its ridiculous to dismiss renewables(solar, wind, battery): a technology that has so many upsides and growth potential that can be realized TODAY. Simpler supply chain, yes it may get wrecked in a disaster but the simplicity allows for quick recovery. The more we become leaders in this tech instead of China, the more we can export to the entire world because they are moving in this same direction. The idea that switching to renewables is some sort of way countries give up growth sounds like hogwash being pushed by oil interests. Everything on this planet we owe to the sun. Even all the fossil fuels. There is nothing without the sun. All that GDP "growth" is literally just repackaging what the sun provides. We are just debating about how many steps we need to take from "input" to "output. So the problem of renewables stalling growth is caused by a technical and policy problem. Technical in that there is a lack of smart design in the legacy grid that allows renewables to better be called when needed across the nation leading to excess being sold for too low of a price. Combine this with a lack of battery storage leads to renewables being blamed for falling short. Its also a policy problem because policy makers consistently apply laws without properly studying the countrywide context. That leads to the technical problems.
Nuclear power was cheap in the early days until it was grossly overregulated after the TMI incident. It can be reasonably priced again with regulatory reform, but that is a political problem, not a technical problem. Robert Hargraves and Jack Devanney have covered this issue well on substack and LinkedIn.
So that is why over 60 nuclear plants are under development throughout the world, of which more than a third are in China? The latest additions to the Chinese nuclear fleet are reported to provide wholesale electricity prices of $0.05-$0.07/kWh, even though that price might be mandated by the CCP to subsidize their manufacturers. While it makes sense to explore ways of providing energy to our civilisation from sources other than coal and gas, wind and solar do not have the energy density, efficiency or reliability to support an advanced industrial civilisation with the current technologies available.
100% renewables or anything close is implausible and economic insanity.
Adding transmission and more storage is going to drive prices nowhere but up. Yes nuclear is expensive but it is extremely reliable and certainly not dead.
Almost every G20 country has announced plans to build more nuclear
At the last COP, they pledged to triple world nuclear output but 2050.
Georgia power bills will only go up a small fraction, on average $35 per month.
I guarantee their kWh costs are less than Germany and the UK.
Grid scale battery storage is astronomically expensive and technically infeasible. https://richardlyon.substack.com/p/uk-renewables-trillion-pound-energy